With Blizzard introducing the Initiate Set as an alternative to making 200 cards (Naxx to present) any time you want to try making a new class, I decided to give it another shot.
Meet Scanlan Mellowridge, Gnomish Bard extraordinaire. Well traveled and with many adventures under his belt, he prefers the slower pace of his local tavern these days, where he entertains the patrons with songs and tales of his past exploits. But make no mistake, if there's trouble, he has more than a few aces up his silk sleeve.
Bard in fantasy settings is a nimble, versatile support class, and I wanted to capture that with the hero power costing 1 rather than 2. The Bard can always sneak in a small word of encouragement in the middle of combat, whether to themselves or an ally.
But the Hero Power is much more than a small heal. Every time you use it, you generate a Note (up to a maximum of 3) that are displayed on the Hero Power button similarly to Silas' and Kael'Thas' abilities in Battlegrounds. Notes enable the class' keyword: Melodic
With some cards requiring 1 Note, while others 2 or 3, there's always an interesting decision to be made on whether to use a Melodic card now, hold off to play a more powerful one later, or plan out your turns so you can accumulate more in the interim.
The class has multiple ways to cheaply draw cards to maintain a nimble, versatile playstyle, while also excelling in stat manipulation (buffs, handbuffs and debuffs), once again drawing on the Bard's identity as a support class. And when you've been around as much as Scanlan has, you hear things, and no one understands the power of information better than the Bard, giving the class access to powerful 1 mana Secrets and related synergy cards.
To balance things out, the class has access only to limited amount of healing beyond its Hero Power, and very few ways to deal damage directly from hand. It also has no hard removal or area of effect damage spells in its arsenal.
Unlike Demon Hunter, that had a 20 card Initiate set and got 15 cards per Year of the Phoenix expansion, I decided on a 30 card Initiate set (mostly because Secrets and Secret synergies take up so much space), which will probably allow me to get away with giving Bard the normal 10 cards per expansion, before picking some of the Initiate set to become part of next year's Core.
To see all 30 cards: Click here: http://www.hearthcards.net/setsandclasses/#6574-Bard
Looking forward to your feedback.
