Tactician Custom Class (4/12/20 - Ashes of Outland)

Introducing Taran Zhu, the Tactician

(Complete card set up to Ashes of Outland)

From the mists of Pandaria comes Taran Zhu, master of the Shado-Pan and expert strategist. Although trained as a monk, his strategies focus on leading and empowering his army to victory. Strength in numbers is his philosophy, as is giving strength to his numbers through minion buffs.

Class Strengths:	Class Weaknesses:
Numbers: Tacticians can use a variety of cards to build a large board. Strength in numbers indeed. Buffs: Through spells and the new Tactic keyword, Tacticians can build their minions up with strength and Taunts for the coming fight. New interactions: Tacticians see the value of their cards and have powers related to card rarity, positioning, and the new Shado-Pan Agent token.	No hero healing or weapons: Tacticians rely on their minions to execute their battle plans. Minimal board clear: Besides a few spells meant for single target removal, the only path to a clear board is through smart trades. Small minions: Tacticians need to stay wary of large board clear spells and be ready to deploy reinforcements when needed.
	New Keyword: Tactic A good Tactician should select his army to match the traits they desire. Minions with "Tactic (X):" will grant bonuses to any minions on the board that fit the tactic. Tactic minions work as an Aura but give permanent buffs instead of temporary, and can focus on stats, Mana cost, Keywords, tribes, or card rarity.
Upgraded Hero Power: Extra Strength The Tactician gains an extra buff from their hero power, but have to utilize proper minion placement to reap the benefits.	Cosmetic Heroes Genn Greymane was available as part of the Witchwood Mega-Bundle, while Lord Taran is Tactician's 1,000 win portrait.

Card Sets:

Basic

The Basic set sets the tone for the class with cards focused on minions, positioning, and Shado-Pan Agents; as well as introducing Tactics and card rarity.

Classic

The classic set expands on the mechanic introduced in Basic, with more Tactic minions and rarity interactions. The Jade Serpent Yu'lon serves as our legendary, providing a build-around where less valuable minions can become strong and prove themselves on the battlefield.

Tokens:

Curse of Naxxramas

Goblins vs. Gnomes

Blackrock Mountain

The Grand Tournament

The League of Explorers

Whispers of the Old Gods

One Night in Karazhan

Mean Streets of Gadgetzan

Journey to Un'Goro

Knights of the Frozen Throne

Kobolds and Catacombs

The Witchwood

The Boomsday Project

Rastakhan's Rumble

Rise of Shadows

Saviors of Uldum

Descent of Dragons

Galakrond's Awakening

Ashes of Outland

Battlegrounds

Solo Content:

Show Spoiler

Icecrown "Your minions abandon you, Tactician! They know my victory is inevitable." In the Tactician's fight against the Lich King, he will steal your minions every turn. Players have to build a board fast and make sure not to give Arthas anything he can take advantage of.
Dungeon Run Taran Zhu is heading into the dungeons! Make your way through the 8 bosses and claim your treasure! Link to Tactician card buckets and starter deck
Rumble Run Let's get ready to RUUUMBLEEEEE! When Rikkar joins the Tacticians and Team Torga, he gets access to three Shrines: Paralyzing Relic will shock opposing minions away from fighting, Torga's Shell will provide a defensive boost, and Torga's Summons will return dead minions to your hand (from both sides). Along with the six Tactician Teammates (which you can find here), Tacticians will show Gurubashi Arena who's boss! Link to Teammate cards, card buckets, and starter decks
Dalaran Heist Tactician Hero (Abby-Ration) "So, 'Abby'. Maloriak tells me you're his brightest aberration yet. That's not saying much coming from someone not much brighter than an aberration, but let's see if you have what it takes." In the Dalaran Heist, Tacticians can control Abby-Ration, an new aberration with dreams of ruling Blackrock (or whatever Nefarian allows her to rule. Maybe she can rule the Grim Guzzler). In addition to the normal Strengthen hero power, Abby has access to two new ones. Summon 10 minions to unlock New Friends, and play 15 spells to unlock Random Rune. Link to card buckets and starter decks
The Dalaran Heist Chapter 6 - Skies of Dalaran "While those bozos put their little plan into action, we need to make sure no reinforcements get through to the city." While the Dalaran portals have been shut down, Nefarian still has to prevent help from flying in. Use a floating island for fending off the intruders but be warned - They aren't that stable. Too many minions on the board will destroy all of them, so avoid building too big of a board (or use it to your advantage and destroy your enemies). Fight against Dalaran heroes and heroes from past adventures to make sure the League of E.V.I.L. can win! Link to adventure guide and boss listings
Fire FEST-E.V.I.L. (Blackrock Crash) Nefarian's going home, and he's NOT happy. Play through the Blackrock Crash as Victor Nefarius and show this loser league how to properly take over Blackrock Mountain! "Hey, you lousy rat! STAY AWAY FROM MY STUFF!" For Round 6, Nefarian has to protect his lab from the other league members who see it as free loot. The other classes fight dragon Nefarian as normal, but Nefarian fights against a variation of the King Togwaggle fight from the Dungeon Run. He no take lab equipment. Link to card buckets and starter deck
Tombs of Terror Chapter 5 - The Pit of Scales "Elise, I've fought a lot of crocolisks in my days. But I ain't never seen a crocolisk flyin' or breathin' fire before!" The Pit of Scales, home of the crocolisks. At least until Obsidus took control and converted it into his personal rookery. Help the League of Explorers defeat the Plague Lord of Scales and restore order to Uldum! This wing's twist summons you an Eternal Drake, a Dragon that give you a Dragon when it dies and passes it's Deathrattle on to it. Use them to your advantage as you take on Obsidus! Link to adventure and boss guide

FAQ:

Q: How does Tactic work exactly?

A: Tactic works as an Aura, but unlike aura effects Tactic enchantments are permanent buffs instead of temporary. It works on both minions already on the board when played and minions played after the Tactic minion is on the board.

When you play a minion with the Tactic keyword, it checks to see if minions on the board fit the criteria specified on itself. If there are any minions that fit, the Tactic minion enchants them. Afterwards, any time your board changes it checks again. If it notices any minions on the board that fit the Tactic and have not been enchanted yet, it enchants them. The enchantments are permanent, so if the Tactic minion is destroyed the minions buffed retain their buffs (unlike a normal Aura effect).

Q: What about "upgraded rarity"?

A: Cards that allow you to upgrade a rarity will give you a card of the next rarity in the ranking (minions transformed into upgraded rarities will stay the same Cost). Think of Evolve, but with rarity instead of Cost. The ranking goes

Basic -> Common -> Rare -> Epic -> Legendary

Legendaries cannot be upgraded. It's like trying to evolve a Mountain Giant: it will be unaffected. And if there are no Legendary spells in Standard, upgraded spells can't go past Epic.

Credits:

Cards made with Hearthcards using the Demon Hunter class skin

Art found on Blizz-Art and Artstation (and occasionally Google Images)

Thanks to sinti, Neoguli, Doomer22, MalcolmReynolds, and Demonxz95 for balance input

Artwork credits can be found in my Imgur albums for each set

Basic, Classic, Adventures, GvG, TGT, Old Gods, Gadgetzan, Un'Goro, KotFT, Kobolds, Witchwood, Boomsday, Rastakhan, Shadows, Uldum, Dragons, Outland,

Changelog:

Thank you for reading, let me know what you think and what I can improve!

Quote From sinti

Looking good overall! Tho one thing looks kinda silly, how is Guardian Monk, a class card, worse than a neutral one from the same set? Sen'jin Shieldmasta. I get this is Basic card, but class cards are generally at least slightly stronger than neutral cards, not reverse power-creeped :)

Because I forgot Shieldmasta existed when I was making that card, :P I'll drop it to 3 Mana to even things out.

While I'm not a fan of Pandaren, I've found your class pretty charming! Can't wait to see more of it.

Bravo!

More cards! Now that we're done with the starter sets, I feel like I can start printing weirder and more powerful cards since they're not evergreen (technically none of these are evergreen since they'll never be playable but you know what I mean). Gear Up in particular gives Tactician a win condition if they can avoid Flamestrike and keep a large board alive long enough. Let me know what you think.

The rest are in the main post!

Neat work.  I especially like how your expansion cards compliment the previous sets.  I'd like to see more cool eastern dragon synergies.  The rarity cards also make for fun deck building challenges!

What I'm not too crazy about currently, is the tactic keyword.  Is it essentially a conditional battlecry?  Seems like you're missing out on tying in with some cool pre-existing synergies by not just being labeled as 'battlecry'

My biggest concern is that there are quite a lot of cards that scream weak for me like Firemaster or Shado-Pan Master. You just got to buff them, because they seem too weak. Some cards are also weird to include imo (like Cleansing Mist), but I guess you plan on adding stronger spells and you prefer them to have these more useless spells as emergency options or to balance out odds of getting certain cards.

Otherwise the class seems fine, but not that flashy and maybe slightly out of place. I do appreciate how you're trying to force players to position minions appropriately, and the rarity thing seems neat, but still not flashy for me. xd

Quote From lukyduk

Neat work.  I especially like how your expansion cards compliment the previous sets.  I'd like to see more cool eastern dragon synergies.  The rarity cards also make for fun deck building challenges!

What I'm not too crazy about currently, is the tactic keyword.  Is it essentially a conditional battlecry?  Seems like you're missing out on tying in with some cool pre-existing synergies by not just being labeled as 'battlecry'

Tactics work as both a Battlecry and an ongoing effect (like Addled Grizzly). As long as you have the Tactic minion on the board and another minion that fits it, the other minion gets a buff. It also means you can chain Tactics together. If you have Hozen Blademaster, Goblin Strategist, and a board with Shado-Pan Agents, the Goblin will give the Agents Taunt, which will trigger the Hozen to give them +3 Health. Suddenly your 1/2s are 1/5 Taunts. You have to plan around them, but they can really help build a strong board (which is critical for Tacticians).

I'm definitely planning more dragons, but I still want to match up with the themes of each expansion.

Quote From Neoguli

My biggest concern is that there are quite a lot of cards that scream weak for me like Firemaster or Shado-Pan Master. You just got to buff them, because they seem too weak. Some cards are also weird to include imo (like Cleansing Mist), but I guess you plan on adding stronger spells and you prefer them to have these more useless spells as emergency options or to balance out odds of getting certain cards.

Otherwise the class seems fine, but not that flashy and maybe slightly out of place. I do appreciate how you're trying to force players to position minions appropriately, and the rarity thing seems neat, but still not flashy for me. xd

Later effects will definitely be flashier, but I didn't want to make the early sets too powerful, more to just show off the flavor of the class and give ideas for what it can do. I was thinking of buffing the Shado-Pan Master though.

First of all, good job on this class design. I really like the ideas you've got going on here, and you've clearly thought about what your class should be in terms of weaknesses and strengths. There are a few potential issues I have seen though, but I can be very nitpicky. So don't pay too much attention to me rambling on about minor details, but I hope it will give you something to think about :P

Let's start with the core mechanics. I like the idea of Tactic, but there are a few instances where I'm not sure what the intended behaviour of it is. I'm assuming it works like an aura effect, meaning that the effect goes away when the minion with Tactic goes away.
First of all, Pandaren General, which gives 1-Attack minions +1/+1. Historically speaking, Hearthstone does not look at the base stats of cards but at their buffed stats, meaning that the +1/+1 buff would mean the 1-Attack minions don't have 1 Attack anymore and should lose the buff. This is also the behaviour I am expecting from Goblin Strategist. When a minion has 2 Health left, it gains Taunt. Whenever it gets healed or damaged, it loses Taunt. But then again, you seem to have disproven that this is the way it works in a previous comment. Therefore I would advise rethinking how the mechanic works exactly, or reprashing certain cards/the tooltip

Regarding the Shado-Pan Agents, this I quite like. It is like the Paladin Silver Hand Recruit synergies, but executed in a different way. However, I think the issue in this lies in the generators. There are only 4 cards that generate, and I would say that 2 (maybe 3) of them are playable. I'll go over them one by one, but I think this is just not enough. Paladin has the Hero Power as a constant generator, which makes up for a lot. I'll go over your generators one by one.
Shado-Pan Trainer; I believe this card is nice for arena, but not viable enough for ladder. The guaranteed 4/6 in stats isn't terrible, accompanied by an end of turn effect, makes it playable in theory. However, I believe that you want to do more than that on turn 5 as a swarming deck. Also, you can't combo anything with the Agent, as it comes into play after you end your turn.
Send in the Troops; Man, this card is strong. It's almost a Force of Nature, but for only 3 mana! So much tempo. I don't think it's overpowered, but I'd play this card in almost any deck.
Huojin Taskmaster; Again, strong card. Casual 5 Mana 6/7, of which 4 Attack is protected by 4 Health in Taunts. Again, not overpowered, but strong nonetheless.
Finally, Reinforcements; I really don't like this card :/. Let's compare this to Shadowform. The first time you cast it, this is arguably a downgrade of your Hero Power, while Shadowform arguably gives you an upgrade. Dealing 2 damage to a minion is such a strong HP that you don't want to change it to a slightly better Paladin HP. The second time you draw/cast it, at least Shadowform gives you another slight upgrade. All this will do is refresh your HP, for 3 mana and a card! Reinforcements should be a (2) Cost card at most, like Dinomancy.

Now I'll go through the sets and comment on any outliers, starting with Basic.
Wide Defense is an interesting card, but horrendously weak compared to Sunfury Protector. Sure, you can't usually target the two outside with her, but she does the job done of protecting something you want to protect just as well. My advice, add "Draw a card." to it.
Windstrike is a card I am indifferent on. I get the idea of it being your classic 2 mana deal 3 card like Frostbolt, Lightning Bolt (/Rockbiter Weapon), Darkbomb, Wrath, Penance. The problem is that your Hero Power already does so much of that. Would you really want to pay a card for 1 extra damage? Normally I would say no. However, this is one of the few cards that directly deals damage to a minion. So perhaps you would run this as removal, but I'm very skeptical.
Then there's Stock Up. I get that you want to introduce the concept of rarity in the Basic Set. However, if I recall correctly, every Basic class card is contained in a version of a Basic deck of that class with only other Basic cards. So I would advise swapping this with Epic Treasure. Also, tutoring in the evergreen set is dangerous and limits design space. It could be fine in this case, as Rare cards rarely break the game, but it its worth mentioning.

So far so good, let's see what Classic has in store. Well, I really like all Classic cards. They all seem to have the right balane for Classic. The most questionable card would be Earthmaster if you ask me, because it requires 3 friendly Taunt minions to become a Fen Creeper. I think you can bump it down to 4 Mana.
There is one card that doesn't fit in in my opinion, and that is Pandaren Collector. According to you, Tactic "will grant bonusses to any minions on the board that fit the tactic." So does that mean that it triggers on itself? Does it trigger on minions that are already on the board? Compared to an aura effect of Give +1/+1, the effect Draw a Card just makes very little sense to me. I may be alone in this, but it really triggers me, and I think it could confuse other/new people as well.

Curse of Naxxramas. Man, I love Strength of Spirits. Such a cool card, I just wish it was real. It makes so much sense, especially for a class that goes wide. My compliments

Then GvG, not much to say about this set. I would like you to clarify if Smasher Droid hits a random enemy, or both enemies when it is played opposite of two enemy minions. Also, with reluctance I will say that Gear Up could be bumped down a Mana. It is just as powerful as Bloodlust, as both will be used as finishers.

Finally, Blackrock Mountain. Again, good job, these cards are well designed. Nothing else to say about them.

I hope these comments will help you with making the best class you can. Really excited to see what else you can come up with, as you've done a great job so far. Keep up the good work!

Wow Doomer, that is more in-depth analysis of the class than I ever expected to see, and I'm definitely taking some of your suggestions. Tactic isn't an aura effect but an effect like Addled Grizzly, but with the benefit of affecting minions already on the board when you play it. I'll update the tooltip to try and clarify this. And to answer your question about the Smasher Droid, if there are two opposite minions it targets one at random.

And here are some balance updates based on Doomer and Neoguli's advice

-Stock Up and Epic Treasure! are switching places do to the lack of Rare cards to draw in the Basic set.

-Shado-Pan Master goes down to 7 Mana and its effect now gives +2 Attack instead of +1.

-Pandaren Collector's effect now reads "After you play a Rare card, draw a card". The same effect, but more readable and helps to define Tactic as specific to minion enchantments.

-Reinforcements goes down to 2 Mana and now gives the summoned Shado-Pan Agent Taunt.

-Earthmaster goes down to 4 Mana with an edit for clarity in its Battlecry.

This is really creative, nice work.

More cards! I knew I wanted to include Chen Stormstout in TGT since it would be hard to justify him in later sets, so I was trying to think of an appropriate power for him. Since he's a Brewmaster, I thought it would be fun if he brought brews from around Azeroth to the Tournament (I'm sure Refreshment Vendor would approve). It fit the theme of TGT and it allowed for more minion-buffing spells as well as a Tactician variation on Potions, so I think it worked really well. But let me know what you think! The LoE set also introduces rarity upgrading, which I hope to expand on in later sets.

More in the main post!

More cards! Old Gods was an interesting set to build, since it turns out that Pandaria has shadow monsters spawned from Y'Shaarj. Naturally I had to use those in this set. And since Tacticians like to play a lot of cheap minions, it makes sense that I should introduce some cards that take advantage of them dying. Karazhan was very easy to come up with, since the Chess game and Dorothee were both influences on the Tactician's focus on minion positioning. Now on to Gadgetzan (three guesses for which gang we'll join).

More in the main post!

Theme-wise, this class could join either Jade Lotus or Grimestreet. I place my bet on Grimestreet because hand buffs would probably feel something that matches Tactician's identity of palnning ahead. But I wouldn't mind seeing Jade Golems in this class seeing it is based on Pandarens.

More cards! I considered joining the Goons, but in the end I figured it would be weird if the Pandaren class wasn't involved with the one time Pandarens have been a focus in a Hearthstone expansion. Jade Monk is meant to be a powerful Tactic that can easily net players a bunch of Golems if they play it right. I also thought it'd be cool if there were cards that gave you limited use of the other gang's abilities, since a Tactician would want to use his enemies strengths against them. Now it's on to Un'Goro! The Tactician's quest is gonna be epic...

More in the main post!

man, that hero power is ridiculous! hunters are able to deal 2 damage for 2. but that is only to face, yours is only to minions, but dealing damage to face is not equal to dealing damage to minions. that is why cards like Mind Blast and Sinister Strike deal so much damage for their mana cost.

I know hero powers are very hard to design (when I made my custom class that was the hardest part). What might be more balanced and thematic is if maybe you had some kind of temporary minion buff, maybe something like "give a friendly minion +1 health" or "give a friendly minion +1 attack this turn only".

With each day, I can already see some potential for cool decks. Zhang is one of cards that might be very slow, but it has some nice upside that scales the longer this game goes. We could fix his problems with him being too slow by just including Master Oakheart. Also great with N'Zoth and Da Undatakah (in Wild).

My apologies if you're amused that my favorite cards in Hearthstone are N'Zoth and Da Undatakah haha

Quote From MalcolmReynolds

man, that hero power is ridiculous! hunters are able to deal 2 damage for 2. but that is only to face, yours is only to minions, but dealing damage to face is not equal to dealing damage to minions. that is why cards like Mind Blast and Sinister Strike deal so much damage for their mana cost.

I know hero powers are very hard to design (when I made my custom class that was the hardest part). What might be more balanced and thematic is if maybe you had some kind of temporary minion buff, maybe something like "give a friendly minion +1 health" or "give a friendly minion +1 attack this turn only".

I was going to debate this, but looking at other 2 Damage spells I've realized that this is actually pretty good value and you're probably right. The problem with your suggestions though is that they're pretty much just worse versions of Priest and Mage hero powers. I'm thinking I'll change it to give a minion +1/+1, since it's decent but definitely not as valuable as the original hero power.

Quote From Neoguli

With each day, I can already see some potential for cool decks. Zhang is one of cards that might be very slow, but it has some nice upside that scales the longer this game goes. We could fix his problems with him being too slow by just including Master Oakheart. Also great with N'Zoth and Da Undatakah (in Wild).

My apologies if you're amused that my favorite cards in Hearthstone are N'Zoth and Da Undatakah haha

Zhang is very slow, but if you have enough Jade power when you play him getting 30/30 worth of stats on the board is always a good thing. My idea with Jade Tactician is that its slower and harder to play than the other Jade classes, but if you play it right you can get a lot of Jade in a short amount of time (you can also synergize Jade Monk with the Tri-Class Jade cards since they're all 3 Health).

More cards! For Un'Goro, I wanted to focus more on rarity interactions since I hadn't really done much with it. The idea with focusing on Epic cards is that with Ancient Magic, you can transform Epics into Legendaries. It's more random than Evolve and other Mana-focused transformations, but could be much more powerful. Next up is Frozen Throne. What does a Pandaren Death Knight look like? Wait and see...

More in the main post!