Hello everybody and welcome to another Fan Community Spotlight. This week, we're talking about love. More specifically, a Hearthstone set that uses love as a central theme. This is a set called Love is in the Air created by Shatterstar1998 appearing for the third time on the Spotlight. This is a set that was posted on Valentine's Day, so why exactly am I writing an article about it on the tail end of February as opposed to closer to the actual holiday? And the simple answer to that question is that other installments got scheduled. The previous installment was the WCDC Season 4 Recap which I needed to get up earlier than usual to fit into the last Card Design Conversation.

There are two keywords to highlight here, those being a returning one and an entirely new one. Magnetic returns from The Boomsday Project, and Devote is an entirely new mechanic in which cards with the mechanic will have you choose a character when played and will trigger a bonus effect whenever that character gets damaged.

Love is something that exists in several different forms, which is something you'll likely notice as you look at the cards in the set. Each class is themed after a certain form of love. The many ways this love exists is represented in the set with a collection of "Love" cards which are uncollectable 1-Cost spells with a special effect. Now let's toss the spotlight over to Shatterstar to talk about exactly how this expansion came to be.

What exactly is this set about? What is the inspiration for the set theme?

Shatterstar: "Love is in the Air, as the name suggest, is about Love and the complexity as well as diverse way of expressing them. Each class will have a kind of love they will focus on that will be informed by their Legendaries and their respective Class Love cards - a token that can be generated by Neutral and class cards"

Where does the Devote mechanic come from? What inspired you to bring back Magnetic?

Shatterstar: "The Devote mechanic came from an a very early from the expansion creation. It was created specifically to invoke the theme of Love being selfless and know no boundaries (as a Devote card can Devote to anything, from friendly minion and hero to even enemies!). Magnetic was chosen to bring back as the keyword just make perfect sense for a Mech / Mechagnome themed set for Warrior. I originally want to do even more with the Magnetic in the Neutral set but ultimately going against it because the other classes can't make use of it anyway."

What ended up being the easiest or hardest classes to design for in the set?

Shatterstar: "The two classes ended up the hardest to design for are Demon Hunter and Mage. Demon Hunter because the class's addition was not expected for my set (it was designed a long time ago) and thus I have to scrap quite a few number of cards to make room for the design space the class now occupy. Mage is difficult since the class was supposedly to be the "Devote" class (which you can see that their Legendary literally being a Devote minion) that now has to be shuffled around to make room for Demon Hunter. The new theme ended up suiting them well but I still mourn for what could have been. Mage ended up only having their Legendaries remain, with a lot of the cards being replaced by Elemental support."

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

Shatterstar: "One of the first card that can be said to inspire the entire expansion is the card Starcrossed Lovers. I really want to put it in another expansion I made because I really love both the art and the effect, but I can't fit it in the space allowed since it was a competition. So I just put it in the back burner. And then I made another love based card. Then another. Then another. And boom the expansion was born."

Do you have anything behind the scenes you want to share with us?

Shatterstar: "The expansion was originally a Class called the Lovebringer. A lot of the mechanic (most notably the Keyword) was carried over from that concept. The class concept was scrapped because of just not having enough idea to repeat itself over and over again for a class."

Did you love what you saw of the set? If you did, then you be may happy to know that you can check out the entire set by clicking the banner below. See you all in the next one.