Guide to Making Druid Cards

Welcome to the Guide to Making Druid Cards. Each class has different design philosophies for the way their cards are designed, and these philosophies are going to be important to know in order to design realistic and balanced cards for each class. This guide will go over Druid.

Druids are all about nature. They seek balance and to protect their flora and fauna. Druid can be compared to Green in Magic: The Gathering both mechanically and flavorfully, although unlike Green, Druids in WoW do not seem to be above modifying the courses of nature for their own benefit.

The power of nature is a very flexible tool able to accomplish multiple different purposes. Druid are able to imbue themselves or others with the forces of nature as seen on cards like Mark of the Wild or Mark of Nature. As Druids are all about life, they can also use this power to heal through cards like Healing Touch. They can also use this as an offensive tool through cards like Wrath or Naturalize. This sense of flexibility and balance in nature is also representative of the Choose One mechanic.

Naturalize similarly appears to depict Druid "recycling" the essence of one's life and using it for a new purpose. This can also be seen on cards like Mulch and Soul of the Forest.

Innervate and Nourish appear to depict a Druid imbuing themselves with nature to give them their magic essence (gaining a Mana Crystal). They are also known to accelerate the growth of other plants through cards like Wild Growth (similarly represented as "growing" a Mana Crystal).

Their main tribe of choice is Beasts, from both natural beasts (i.e, Enchanted Raven or Mounted Raptor) to druids who have the ability to shapeshift into them (i.e, Druid of the Claw or Druid of the Flame). In the context of Hearthstone at least, any type of animal appears to be fair game for a Druid game, whether natural or shapeshifted into. Unlike in Hunter, Druid does not appear to use tamed beast companions and instead is able to harmonize with the wildlife.

Although not a tribe by game design, Druids also have an affinity for Treants, bringing trees to life with the power of cards like Force of Nature and Landscaping.

Although this is not represented very much past Basic and Classic, Druids also have the ability to use the power of the moon as seen in cards like Moonfire, Starfire, or Starfall.

Whilst Druids are usually a harmonious class by nature (no pun intended), they do have a more violent and aggressive side. Similar to the shapeshifting Druid minions, the player themselves appear to have this same ability. This can be seen on the Druid Hero Power, Shapeshift. Swipe similar appears to depict the Druid (yourself) turning into an animal and using its claws to strike the opponent down. Savage Roar appears to depict you turning into an animal and roaring, which appears to pump extra adrenaline into both you and your minions.

As these colors tend to be associated with nature, green and brown are colors that are frequently seen on Druid cards. The druid card border is fittingly, a shade of brown. Blue and purple also sometimes appear as well.

Attacking With Your Hero

Just like Malfurion's brother who represents the Demon Hunter class, Malfurion himself similarly also has a knack for using his face to attack his enemies. However, Druid does not get access to any of their own weapons, with Twig of the World Tree being the obvious exception. Attack on the hero is obviously a base mechanic when you look at the class's Hero Power, Shapeshift. In terms of cards, Pounce, Claw, Feral Rage, Gnash, Moontouched Amulet, Bite, and Savage Combatant are representative of this aspect of Druid.

Some cards are also made to support this type of play. Savagery, which is frequently hailed as one of the worst cards in the entire game, is an example of using your hero's Attack to some supporting benefit by dealing damage. Secure the Deck is a sidequest that supports this mechanic too, by adding 3 copies of Claw to your hand after your hero attacks twice. Spirit of the Raptor gives you a source of drawing cards when you kill an enemy minions using your hero. Savage Striker has the same effect as Savagery, but placed on a 2/3 body for only 1 more mana. Gonk, the Raptor gives some potentially repeatability to your attacks, which has enabled a famous meme strategy of summoning several copies of Gonk and then using several bonus attacks to repeatedly attack your opponent.

Choose One

Choose One is a keyword exclusively found on Druid cards. Choose One cards offer two different options (except Wardruid Loti which offers four) for the player to pick from, allowing for a lot of flexibility in play as it essentially allows one card to act as two different cards depending on the situation. Choose One cards are very plentiful and exist in every set, however many Classic examples include Power of the Wild, Wrath, Keeper of the Grove, Druid of the Claw, Nourish, and Cenarius, among others.

Druid of the Claw also exists as part of an occasionally recurring mechanical cycle of Druid minions that offer two choices of Beasts to shift into. Other such cards which use this mechanic include Druid of the Saber, Druid of the Swarm, Druid of the Flame, Druid of the Scythe, and Shellshifter.

Additionally, Worthy Expedition is a Druid card that allows you to Discover a Choose One card. The utility of Choose One cards can also be expanded with cards like Fandral Staghelm or Ossirian Tear (from Untapped Potential) to combine both options into one card. Keeper Stalladris also allows you to get more cards added to your hand when you cast spells with Choose One by giving you the choice cards.

Armor

Although all classes in the game can generate Armor through some way, Druid is one of two classes in the game that utilizes it as a primary mechanic for the class. Many cards that give your hero Attack and even the Hero Power will also grant Druid some armor as a way to absorb some of the damage used for going face, or it can be a more permanent part of the Health total by attacking face.

Some other such cards used to generate Armor include Earthen Scales, which is used as part of a combo deck to gain thousands of Armor. Branching Paths is a flexible card in which gaining 6 Armor is one of the options, Oaken Summons gains 6 Armor in addition to summoning a minion from your deck that costs 4 or less, or Ultimate Infestation which gives you 5 Armor in addition to several strong effects lumped into one card.

You can even use the Armor in other ways. Lesser Jasper Spellstone upgrades by gaining Armor, and Ironwood Golem comes with a downside that it can't attack unless you have 3 or more Armor.

Beasts

Beast is the tribe that appears the most often in Druid, as well as the only tribe that Druid really has any support for (except for Dragons in DoD, which every class received). Some Druid cards that interact with Beasts include Mark of Y'Shaarj, Shan'do Wildclaw, Witching Hour, Predatory Instincts, Wildwalker, Virmen Sensei, Menagerie Warden, and Stampeding Roar. Several Druid minions are just generally Beasts even if the tribe isn't used for supporting Beast Druid decks.

Swarming

Druids have the ability so summon several minions at once and buffing them. Some cards that can summon a lot of minions include Gibberling quickly summons several copies of itself as you cast spells, Living Roots can summon two 1/1 Saplings or deal 2 damage, Dreamway Guardians which summons two 1/2 Druid with Lifesteal, Wispering Woods and Glowfly Swarm which utilize your hand, Ixlid, Fungal Lord which allow you to swarm quickly with any minions you play, Spreading Plague (one of the most infamous cards in the game) which summons several 1/5 Taunt minions, and The Forest's Aid which summons five Treants and allows you to do this again.

To compliment this style of swarming, Druid also has a number of cards that buff a lot of minions. Mark of the Lotus and Power of the Wild can both give all your minions +1/+1, Addled Grizzly gives all minions you summon while you control it +1/+1, Soul of the Forest gives everything you control a Deathrattle to summon a 2/2 Treant, Tending Tauren can allow you to swarm or buff your swarm, Wisps of the Old Gods can be used to give your board a +2/+2 buff, Gift of the Wild can also give a +2/+2 buff to your board as well as giving them Taunt, and Cenarius can give a +2/+2 buff to your board or summon two 2/2 Treants with Taunt.

Treants

This is almost a subset to swarming as most Treant synergy cards encourage a swarming style of gameplay as well as the fact that many associated cards summon multiple Treants. However, Treants have their own specific synergy and thematics akin to Silver Hand Recruits in Paladin.

Some cards that summon Treants include [Hearthstone Card (Treenforcments) Not Found], Landscaping, Garden Gnome, Force of Nature, Living Mana, Tending Tauren, The Forest's Aid, or Cenarius.

As of The Boomsday Project, Druid also has cards which support Treant archetypes. Such examples of this include Dendrologist, Treespeaker, Goru the Mightree, and Mulchmuncher.

Ramp

Druid have the ability to ramp, giving them more Mana Crystals. These crystals can be temporary like on Innervate, Lightning Bloom, Floop's Glorious Gloop, or Darnassus Aspirant. Or they can be permanent like on Wild Growth, Astral Communion, Overgrowth, or Nourish.

Healing

A fairly unusual aspect of Druid is that it has the ability to heal and gain Armor, whereas other classes can only either do one or the other, or neither. Such examples of cards that can heal include Crystal Power, Healing Touch, Groundskeeper, or Overflow.

Healing is also support by cards like Lifeweaver, Crystal Stag, and Lucentbark.

Card Draw

Druids are good at drawing cards.  They actually have some of the largest draw cards in the game, Overflow and Ultimate Infestation, which both draw 5 cards. Fungal Fortunes and Juicy Psychmelon also draw more cards that most draw cards of their cost.

Some more tame examples of drawing cards include Rising Winds, Wrath, Faire Arborist, or Ferocious Howl, among others.

Taunt

Out of every class in the game, Druid has the most Taunt cards in terms of minions with Taunt or cards that support it or grant it to minions. Taunt Druid is specifically supported through Strongshell Scavenger and Hadronox.

Board Clears

Despite their strength in multi-minion buffs, Druids falter in the category of dealing with wide boards. Druid's ability to clear boards is typically very weak and few in numbers. Its small existence in the class serves as a stabilizer and to keep the class from being bottom of the barrel. Druid has access to Swipe and Starfall in the Core Set, of which the latter is usually never played unless the two options can be combined. Fatespinner exists in Knights of the Frozen Throne, although this comes with a downside of being delayed which almost always means that these cards won't see play as any AoE (buffing or damaging) is something that you would rather do right away. Poison Seeds exists as the only way for the class to destroy multiple minions, although they come back as 2/2 Treants.

Hard Removal

One of Druid's most apparent weaknesses is its lack of hard removal. Druid would originally have some occasional hard removal with a downside as seen on Naturalize, Mulch, or Recycle. This practice however is no longer used, and when you make Druid cards, hard removal should generally be avoided altogether. Instead, Druids must rely on simply brute strength or damage spells to get remove threats.