Fanmade Hearthstone Cards, Part 2: Return to Naxxramas

 A while back I did a little dump of a bunch of custom fanmade Hearthstone cards! This time around, I just wanted to focus specifically on a single expansion's adventure mode and adapt everything there into a potentially playable card. So I'm going to start off with Curse of Naxxramas, the first adventure mode, and we're going to try and be as exhaustive as we can! 

Again, a bit of note-keeping: I'm giving every single card a tribe tag, because I did this Great Tribe Tag Revision for all the existing cards -- other than the 'canon' tribes, none of them will receive too much help and most of the cards revolving around them will be mostly for flavour, sort of in the way that Pirates and Dragons started off. 

Also, in my head, I'm assuming that you just get this card from adventure modes or duels or completing heroic mode or something, so I while I made an attempt, I prioritized flavour over balancing how many cards are in this new additional set. Without further ado...

Noth the Plaguebringer is a boss that summons skeletons when you kill minions. I guess this is the style of synergy that I want to bring with some of these 'non-canon' tribes. Noth's effects will still happen regardless of the minions that die, but if Undead creatures are around you get an extra bit of boost to the ghoul he brings back. (He brings back Ghouls)

Gothik the Harvester is kind of overtuned, I think, and there are ways to abuse him, but he basically just expedites you getting Deathrattle cards from your deck. It's kind of random and I don't think even Deathrattle-synergy decks will run all Deathrattle cards. Maybe the text could be modified to Deathrattle minions costing less than 4 or something, but... eh. 

I really think they dropped the ball in Knights of the Frozen Throne by not making a dedicated Death Knight class like they did for Demon Hunter. I'm still going to make any legendary that's explicitly a Death Knight with the cooler-looking Death Knight border, but they're meant to be neutral, I guess, since all classes get to be Death Knights. 

Razuvious is honestly kind of forgettable of a boss in Hearthstone. I basically adapted his Runeblade as a double-damage weapon that he equips. 

Mark of the Four Horsemen doesn't have a rarity gem, and it's supposed to be added to the pool of Death Knight cards that you can get from Knights of the Frozen Throne, like from Lich King or Arfus or whatever. In lieu of a proper Death Knight class, I suppose these sort of cards that are added to the pool do have a precedent in the Lackeys. Anyway, in addition to the existing Baron Rivendare, the other three Horsemen are collectible.

They could all just simply be Death Knights, but that's no fun! Sir Zeliek is explicitly a paladin so powerful his faith persists in death. So he's a Paladin legendary that's so powerful in the Light that he keeps healing you even as you beat the enemy to death. All the Horsemen are 4-mana minions, by the way. 

Thane Korth'azz is a Warrior because he's a dwarf warlord or something. Again, not a whole ton to say here, he just casts fireballs in his card art so he just launches fireballs at all the other minions other than him. 

Lady Blaumeux, I think, casts protective spells on the other Horsemen in their WoW fight? She gets to be a Priest, then, and she gest her Curse of Naxxramas boss card effect, except it extends to both the hero and other Horsemen cards, which will only really come in play when you highroll with Mark of the Four Horsemen. None of the Four Horsemen really buff eqach other and whatnot because they're in different classes, so I thought that at least one of them should do it. 

Does Hearthstone not like Darion Mograine or something? His card art gets reduced to the very underwhelming Unrelenting Rider in Naxx, then he becomes a token in Frozen Throne. This one is still a neutral card (like Lich King), I just like the fancy Death Knight borders. Probably should be a Knights of the Frozen Throne card, but I like the battlecry/deathrattle combo here. He adds some tempo as a battlecry, and shuffles in a potential late-game value card at the end that's good for most classes. For Illidan, he shuffles a randomly selected one out of the nine KOTFT cards. (I thought about doing a Cursed Ashbringer thing, but nah)

Patchwerk is a big boy. His original Naxx boss fight has him destroy a random enemy minion with his hateful strike hero power. This one is a bit different, he's an expensive taunt that deals damage whenever someone tries to hit him. Patchwerk smash! 

I originally had Grobbulus immediately summon Stalagg and Feugen, but that really doesn't work well flavour-wise. Since he's got huge injections, I ended up playing with him being a Defender of Argus style buff, but adds the Poisonous tag onto minions. 

So instead it's Gluth that gets to interact with Feugen and Stalagg! Or, well, just Feugen. I thought about making the deathrattle summon both Feugen and Stalagg, but that's just too powerful and abusable; especially since I wanted to keep the deathrattle of destroying all weak minions. Gluth eats them! Also, he summons Feugen because he canonically gets fed by Feugen. Not much else to say here, I think I tried to do too much in this card. 

My favourite WCIII NPC, Sapphiron! Blue dragons tended to be Mage legendaries, so yeah, why not? Sapphiron has typical 9-mana 8/8 big dragon stats, and her battlecry is basically a polymorph effect with a bit of a bonus. Since a simple battlecry isn't going to make her legendary-worthy, I added the Spell Damage bit. The Frozen Champion is a minion that can't attack, but it will constantly freeze the minions next to it -- something that can be trivial depending on your deck composition. 

Web Wrap, based on Maexxna's hero power, is a Rogue secret! Basically it causes the 'Freeze' effect to be applied on a minion, except since it's supposed to be webbing and not ice, the flavour is a little bit different. I initially had it just be Freezing Trap like Hunter's, but it felt kind of lame that it's just a repeat of the same thing in another class. 

Another Rogue card, Necrotic Poison is sort of similar to Goblin Prank from Boomsday, but it's a delayed death while also making your minion into a Poisonous removal tool. I debated between 3 or 4 mana. Making your minion die is also probably going to be beneficial with all these Naxx cards. 

Artwork from Noth's Plague; name borrowed from a Shadow Priest ability in WoW. It's not the most practical card, granted, but it's basically sustained AoE over multiple turns. I originally had it a bit cheaper but decided it's probably a bit too unfair for zoo decks. Not really sure about the cost, honestly. 

Mindpocalypse always sounds like a Priest spell, but its effect is more like a Druid's. I wanted to keep the Priest card and the symmetrical effect, so I swapped the mana ramp for a Thoughtsteal effect. 

Card art from Eruption, and the name from the spell of a Warlock's pet imp, Felbolt is a cheaper Shadow Bolt that will also damage one of your minions. If you have no minions it's just a cheaper Shadow Bolt, and if you have... maybe it's an egg and you're happy doing that. 

Art from Unholy Shadow, and its original WOW TCG card is the Urn of Lost Memories, which is the one I turned into a Warlock weapon. Basically somewhat similar in one of the Mage or Warlock weapons in K&C, although this one loses durability with each Discarded card you regain. Sort of like Sphere of Sapience. Maybe too slow for Discard Warlock decks, though, again, I'm just here for the flavour. 

Mind Control Crystal is actually a Healthstone. So here, have a Healthstone that restores health, but in typical Warlock fashion, you lose something -- a card, in this case. 

No, Understudy's not a Death Knight yet, he's still learning! Death Knights are basically like, a weird mixture of Paladin, Warrior and Warlock, so Razuvious's Understudy here is kind of a bit of a value deathrattle card for warrior. Probably a bit too weak, but oh well. 

Demon Hunter, obviously, wasn't around during the time of Curse of Naxxramas. I can't really think of anything in Naxx that flavour-wise fit Demon Hunter too, so I put in a generic 'generate cards from this set' spell card for Demon Hunter, using this trailer image. 

Locust Plague, based on Locust Plague, is a sort-of different version of Starfall. Not particularly powerful, it's sort of a 'filler' card for this one. Originally I had envisioned this to be basically summoning a bunch of 1/1 Rushers, but I forgot Swarm of Locusts exists.

I knew that I wanted the Enrage card to be basically the now-removed Enrage keyword, but on a hero. It's a bit tricky balancing this around Heroic Strike. Alternatively I had it be 3 mana, 1 damage and 5 attack, but I went for bigger numbers. 

Technically probably shouldn't be a Naxx card, but I did borrow the artwork for Maim (a WOW feral druid ability, natch) from Jaws in the Gluth fight. Not much to say here, it's either a higher temporary buff or a less-mana-effective permanent minion buff.

Originally this was just "summon Feugen and Stalagg", because the artwork was from Supercharge in the Thaddius fight. I decided to just make it a Shaman AoE spell, though. It's basically slightly-more-powerful Lightning Storm on all enemies, including the hero, and you get an additional lightning spell to boot -- it's basically spells like Forked Lightning, Crackle, Lightning Storm, Stormstrike, etc. 

I know dual-class cards aren't around in Curse of Naxxramas, but I really couldn't decide on making this a Paladin or Warrior card, so I said 'fuck it why not both'. Borrowing the card art from Spectral Rider and its name from the WOW-TCG card it's originally based on, this is my attempt at a debilitating-deathrattle weapon. It's probably a lot stronger as a weapon because you can choose to simply not attack with the final charge... but also a lot riskier because maybe you just get a 6 damage off, then your opponent plays an Ooze and deals 10 damage to you and breaks your 6/4 weapon. 

I originally had like three different Spore cards for Druid, but ended up trimming it into just this one. Deathbloom is a damage dealing spell that's overpriced, but also gives the minion the deathrattle of summoning a Spore. The Spores from Curse of Naxxramas are a bit too powerful, and I was trying to figure out how to give the enemy Spores that die and buff your own field... but the idea of a permanent Spore that buffs your side of the field is also tempting. So yeah. I also thought that the Spell Damage aura is a neat twist of WoW Loatheb's anti-healing aura. 

Borrowing card art from Unrelenting Warrior (and his name from a Naxx mob), I like the idea that after this Death Knight dude dies, the undead powers that brought him to life is so powerful that it infuses his weapons and turns them into monsters. Otherwise, not much to this one. 

Baron Rivendare's Runeblade basically has a watered-down version of his own double-Deathrattle effect. Nothing much otherwise, it's a bit of an expensive weapon. 

Spawn of Loatheb has a self-destructing Doomsayer-style effect that casts a mini-Loatheb effect. Probably impractical, but I find it pretty fun. Art from Sporeburst.

Soul Weaver (art from Spectral Warrior) is an interesting one. It's one of those 'huge stats, drawback in deathrattle' cards, but in this case the deathrattle is a delayed Overload! I'm not sure if I made the card too powerful since the Overload is delayed, but since your opponent can dictate when the Overload happens, I think it's okay. The name's borrowed from yet another Naxx mob. 

Didn't want to adapt all the 'Unrelenting' cards in Gothik the same way, but Unrelenting Acolyte and Haunting Acolyte (Trainees in the original Naxx) are more or less adapted faithfully, up to the zero attack of the debilitating ghost. 

Bile Retcher borrows its art from the Abomination in Searing Totem and Hateful Strike's art. Its name is also from a Naxx mob. Not much to say here, it's just an Abomination that spits out goop on anyone that comes near. 

Another Poisonous-support card in Mutating Injection. Not much to say here, it's just a buff and gives them the ability to summon little Slime buddies when they die. 

Did you remember that Warcraft III Liches used to buff their minions? I do. Borrowing art from Frost Blast is Frost Armor here, which I did feel to be a bit expensive. It could be 3 or 4 mana, I feel, but I just like the flavour of this one. 

Mr. Bigglesworth! KITTY! It's a deathrattle, but if your enemy kills the kitty you will piss off all the Kel'thuzads in your deck and they will jump to your hand. The cost is obviously overpriced, but he's just a meme legendary. 

And finally we end this with another Kel'thuzad reprint, with the artwork of his boss variant. A controlled one that is a lot slower, summons only one minion at a time, but you can control who you get! I had debated on having him be a hero card with that effect as a hero power, but then they went and released an actual collectible Kel'thuzad alternate hero. Whoops! So you get this one. Not sure about the balance, since it's arguably a power-creep on Cartina Muerte, but... eh. It's Kel'Thuzad. He's supposed to be badass.