Hello everybody and welcome back to another Fan Community Spotlight. Normally I'd tell some sort of corny joke here, but instead, I'm just going to tell you right now which project I'm looking at. So which project am I looking at? A witch class. More specifically, a witch doctor class. Which type of witch would go into being a doctor is beyond me, but this class was made by Neoguli, who has been featured in this series 6 times before, all on consecutive installments in which we went through an entire Core set rework which had no witches to speak of.

Witch doctors exist in World of Warcraft which serves as the basis for this class. A brief description of them is that they essentially function as a cross between Shaman and Priest, but explaining Warcraft stuff is not my forte, which is why you shouldn't ask me to explain Warcraft stuff. Got it? Got it! As far as expansion progress, this class has been updated up to Rise of Shadows which believe it or not, was already 2 years ago. It however was updated to include a Core set which also comes with spell schools for all the spells in the set.

As a Witch Doctor, your hero is Sen'jin which is not the same thing as Sen'jin Shieldmasta (at least, I don't think so). He was the father of Vol'jin and the former leader of the Darkspear Tribe. I'd tell you more, but that's not exactly my job.

Your Hero Power is Juju Healing, which restores 1 Health to anything and gives it +1 Attack for the turn. This is actually a fairly common idea for a Hero Power which is often found on Monk classes, but it's a really good go-to Hero Power. As class creators will tell you, the Hero Power is arguably the biggest hurdle when it comes to conceptualizing a class. Upgraded, it becomes Juju Rejuvenation which doubles the healing and Attack gain of whatever you target with it.

The class also contains a new keyword, Link. When 2 minions are Linked, all damage, healing and other effects that one of those minions takes is also applied to the other.

If you were tired of me making those which jokes, you'll be happy to know that we are at the end of the introductory stage of the article in which I pass the spotlight onto the person I'm interviewing to talk about their project. Witchy, witchy, witch witch witch. Now it's time for Neoguli to take it away.

Give us an overview of the class. What does it do good at? Where does it falter? Which cards give us the best first view of the class?

Neoguli: "Witch Doctor is a class that excels immensely on the board full of minions, aka where there is most interaction with your opponent. Some of its tools to reign supreme over any board include tons of minion-based removal, buffs and, most importantly, the class' special keyword - Link. It chains at least two minions to share damage, healing and other enchantments between each other. Ever wanted to kill two minions with one attack of a Poisonous minion? Link those two minions and voila!"

What initially gave you the idea to make a Witch Doctor class?

Neoguli: "Since the class is over three years old, I find it rather hard to exactly pinpoint the origination of the class' idea, but it must've coincided with me starting to use Pinterest more extensively, as I started to create my first folder of saved art on that site, and I found myself saving a lot of Voodoo-related fantasy art, including some from the Diablo franchise.

On the contrary, I was probably starting to make the class more so because of me randomly seeing the Class Creator tool on the Hearthcards's main page, and I immediately went to save its page. But again, I can't exactly pinpoint my source of inspiration, because I could make so many excuses with my lack of memory.

...yeah, just a spark of brilliance came to me."

Where does the Link mechanic come from?

Neoguli: "Link felt natural with how Voodoo conjures multiple people. It also made my class stand out, because aside from thematic purposes, it gives the player possibilities of creating cool situations. Again, I can't exactly say why I added that mechanic as part of my class, it's been too long ago for me to give an honest answer, I'm not willing to make up reasons that make no sense just for the sake of explanation."

What got you motivated to work on the class again?

Neoguli: "Honestly? I just randomly looked back at my class and realised it's been 3 years since its inception, looking back at some comments on it. This also coincided with the reveal of the new Core Set formula, thus I decided to give one to my beloved creation.

The class would otherwise be left in rot with the last cards being ones from Rise of Shadows. Even though it's an unfortunate state, I realised I lacked abilities to find suiting art and ideas to create that many cards, but it gave me a lesson for future classes. My next class, Monk, only had cards for Basic and Classic sets, and then I created a few cards based on April Gods (is that how they were called?) - Xuen, Yu'Lon, Niuzao and Chi-Ji. Not going for expansions gave me creative freedom to showcase a few more ideas for a class, and that followed suit for my newest class - Archivist, but that one was created ahead of Darkmmon Faire, so after we knew how Blizzard wanted to introduce new classes."

Are there any other cards you wish to point out for any reason?

Neoguli: "I'd probably highlight Hir'eek, who was long done before the current one was created. I tried to make him stay true to events in WoW surrounding him, and quests that the players had to do along the way, and one of them was with Gargoyles. I can't recall what it exactly had to do with them, but I'm happy with how I implemented that into the card. It stays true to its WoW story while providing something unique for the class, which is an Alexstrasza-esque effect to deal a huge chunk of damage.

Same could be said about some other loa I created, like Hethiss.

Witch Doctor's Death Knight could also deserve an honorable mention for how laughably broken it actually is in a neutral game state. Yes, you pay 9 mana for a continuous effect that may not help you come back, especially against wide boards and as a class with limited survivability, but once you can actually get a lead, you can spam 4 damage to your opponent's face with your passive effect and summon two 2/1 minions every turn. Basically only Mage DK can shut you down, maybe Hunter DK sometimes. KotFT overall reintroduced face damage to the class in form of DK and Har'koa, another loa who became the win condition for a Freeze archetype. I said reintroduced, because the original basic set has face damage in it."

Do you have anything behind the scenes you want to share with us, or perhaps a sneak peak of what's next to come?

Neoguli: "In terms of custom Hearthstone content, I don't think so, but I may try to become a content creator overall. Just for different titles, mainly League of Legends and Legends of Runeterra, maybe TFT too. At this point I will occasionally do custom cards, nothing of what would be labeled as a bigger project."

Do you have anything else you want to share with us?

Neoguli: "I want to give huge consolidations towards you guys who keep the site active. You are wholesome, capable of creating a website that connects people from different card games and provides great news from a few of them. You also have ease in adding cards to the database, being one of few sites where you can use reveal cards before most sites do, especially in LoR deckbuilder. Thanks again!

And maybe shoutout to the YouTube channel Asian Boss and its social media app Mogao. Excellent channel detailing news from across Asia, and an app with room for creativity in creating your posts, which happens to be mostly centered around Asia for connections with Asian Boss itself, but people share content there from across the world. ;@"

And that was the final question, which means that we're at the end of the article which means it's also time to advertise the fact that you can click the banner below to see the entire Witch Doctor class as this is only a tiny fragment of the class. If you're interested, which you might be, then be sure to check it out and let us know what you think in the comments, and I'll see you in the next one (which is in one week and won't be about witches).