Tinking Tribal: First Broken concepts

Hi there! Today I'm uploading my first concept for the Broken tribe. Like I’ve said in a previous article: It's very difficult to find enough (and fitting) art of Broken Draenei. But.. if we cheat a little bit here and there (I hope you don't notice it :P) we might be able to pull it off. 

The idea I had revolved around Akama. He's known for his chain lightning spell and calling in elemental wolves. I noticed how all current Hearthstone cards with lightning on them; (Lightning Storm, Lightning Bolt & Forked Lightning) and the Feral Spirit card, all have overload. So it would be perfect for Akama to revolve around that ability. 

I wanted to recreate the Rebound mechanic from MTG but it would not fit the small Hearthstone cards.  That’s when I tried this set up for Akama. It might be a little bit overboard (I mean overpowered with that), but for now it's okay. The other Broken should revolve around this same mechanic. Most of these spells deal "small" amounts of damage against multiple enemies. However, I didn't knew eny better ability atm than to make them stronger against weakened enemies. I might change that if I know something better.

Then there is the last card in this concept set. Deathsworn Soulseeker makes ALL Broken minions 2 mana cheaper. It's probably broken as hell... I know. But it seemed nice in combination with the Overload cost. So yeah. I think the current set-up is really BROKEN. hahaha :D It might give these cards a second look in the near future. 
Please leave comments. Tell me how overpowered they are. Do you have any good alternatives? 

Thinking Tribal: Blood Eleves

In World of Warcraft, I mostly play as an Orc or Blood Elf. I really like these races. Orcs are well represented in Hearthstone. However, Blood Elves seem to be less present in the current game. As always, I start this article with summing up all the minions that belong to this tribe / race. I got the following list:

Secretkeeper | Neutral | 1 Mana | Buffed by Secrets.
Mana Addict | Neutral | 2 Mana | Buffed by Spells.  

Doomsayer | Neutral | 2 Mana | Destroy ALL minions.
Sunfury Protector | Neutral | 2 Mana | Adjacent get Taunt.

Blood Knight | Neutral | 3 Mana | Absorb Devine Shield.

Spellbreaker | Neutral | 4 Mana | Silence minion.

Silvermoon Guardian | Neutral | 4 Mana | Devine Shield.

If you look at these minions, you may notice they revolve around three things. Playing spells, playing secrets (which are spells) and devine shield (which you get from minions or.. you guessed it, from spells) Another thing you notice rather quick is that the Blood Elves lack a leader at the moment. There are no racial legendaries. Finally, you might notice that none of the Bood Elves has a strong body to start with. They all need something to work. Either spells or Devine Shield.

Since there is no leader and the 5 mana slot isn't used for this race, I started thinking. According to Wowwiki, Lor'themar Theron is the current leader. So I wanted to implement him into the game. Blood Elves are a strong magic wielding race. So I felt the ability had to do something with magic and spells.

Besides all this, I want to create minions that are resilient to those high mana-costing Legendaries that are so popular. It seems everyone plays Ragnaros these days. (and why not...) But I wanted something to resist him. something that doesn't die from his magical ability. And then it came to me. Why not add a very special Faerie Dragon. Faerie Dragon can't be targeted by spells. What would happen if you slightly change this ability. So that he CAN be targeted, but that those spells don't effect it. This could definitely chance play. And this is how I created the Lor'themar Theron card your seeïng here. 
His 5/4 body makes him a decent minion that's not to overpowering. If it would have been 4/5, he would have replaced the Yeti, which we don't want. So players are able to kill this with decent creatures, however ability's don't work on him. Making him able to survive a Ragnaros, but die against an Ysera. And for those who didn't noticed the combo: Doomsayer + Lor'themar Theron.

I really like this card and absolutely love the artwork. It would be awesome to play with this card. What do you think?  

Thinking Tribal: Undead

If you know me well enough, you might know I love tribal decks or theme decks. That's why I've been playing this Gnome tribal deck for the past days. Not because it's so strong, but because it's really fun. In my Thinking Tribal articles, I'd like to brainstorm about playing certain tribal / theme decks. This time I’m thinking about the Undead.

Undead are a interesting race to think about. The amount of undead minions is a bit scarce, but they all seem to have a great synergy amongst each other. Just like the Draenei revolve around healing, Undead revolve around dealing damage to themselves or killing themselves. The list below shows all undead minions that are in the current Version of Hearthstone (and from which I know they are undead). Btw I count the Acolyte of Pain as a undead minion. That's because the Acolyte of Pain minions in WoW and the Acolytes in Warcraft 3 are equally undead, even though this art clearly shows a human.

Bloodmage Thalnos | Neutral | 2 Mana | Spellpwr & Deathrattle draw.
Crazed Alchemist | Neutral | 2 Mana | Swap the attack with defense.
Wild Pyromancer | Neutral | 2 Mana | When castspell, deal 1 dmg to all.
Acolyte of Pain| Neutral | 3 Mana | When damaged, draw a card.
Flesheating Ghoul | Neutral | 3 Mana | When damaged, +1/+0Cult Master | Neutral | 4 Mana | when other friendly minion dies, draw card.
Abomination | Neutral | 5 Mana | Deathrattle deal 2 dmg to all. 
The Black Knight | Neutral | 6 Mana | Battlecry destroy minion with taunt.
Sylvanas Windrunner | Neutral | 6 Mana | Deathrattle: Mind Control a minion.
Kidnapper | Rogue | 6 Mana | Combo return minion to hand.

When we put the undead into two piles, you get the following:
Seeders: Wild Pyromancer & Abomination.
Leechers: Bloodmage Thalnos, Acolyte of Pain, Flesheating Ghoul, Cult Master & Sylvanas Windrunner.

You can add some more "Seeders" like Hellfire, if you play Warlock or Windfury if you play Warrior. Warlock is really flavorful for undead, but it seems that the Warrior class brings more dirty tricks to the table. Allowing you to play an Commanding Shout, Battle Rage or even Brawl (if you have Sylvanas Windrunner on the Battlefield). Yes warrior brings some really dirty tricks to the undead. So what I would like for Hearthstone is to add some Undead flavor to this warrior class.

There are alot of cheap 2 - 3 manacost Undead out there and the 5 -6 spots are taken by some nasty Legendaries. Adding any undead would mean it should fit either the one mana or four mana slot. After some tinkering, I came up with the following concept: 

Don't mind the dull name. I didn't know how to name him because he's not modelled after an actual in-game NPC The idea behind the Overseer is that he can get two attack by having damaged minions by his side. You can achieve this ofcourse by using all those AoE spells.

I hope you liked this article and the Undercity Overseer. Let me hear what you think about it in the comments.

Thinking Tribal: Draenei

If you know me well enough, my might know I love tribal decks or theme decks. That's why I've been playing this Gnome tribal deck for the past days. Not because it's so strong, but because it's really fun. In my Thinking Tribal articles, I'd like to brainstorm about playing certain tribal / theme decks. This time I’m thinking about Draenei.

In my opinion Draenei seem unrepresented by Hearthstone. Yes they are in a lot of Spells, but for a tribal deck you need minions as well. And those seem to be very scarce. The minions below are the Draenei I’m aware of in Hearthstone:

Prophet Velen | Priest | 7 Mana | Doubles heal and damage spells.
Windspeaker | Shaman | 4 Mana | Give a minion Windfury.
Defender of Argus | Neutral | 4 Mana | Give adjacent minions Taunt.
Aldor Peacekeeper | Paladin | 3 Mana | Reduce a minions attack to 1.
Shieldbearer | Neutral | 1 Mana | 0/4 Taunt
Lightwarden | Priest | 1 Mana | I something is healed +2/+0
Auchenai Soulpriest Priest |  5 Mana | Heal becomes damage.

Looking at these cards, it's easy to notice that Priest has the most and rarest Draenei minions. That doesn’t say too much of course, but they all seem to have synergy with each other as well. All revolve around health, healing and taunt. Which is a great combination, because you can heal those taunt creatures while your Lightwarden is cowering behind them.

There is however one problem if you want to play Draenei only. There are no draenei for the 2, 3 and 6 mana slot. This might not look that problematic, but if you think about it... Why would you play Defender of Argus if you don't want to give anything Taunt. It has no use to give Shieldbearer taunt and you don't want your Lightwarden to have it. Therefor a strong 2 or 3 drop is missing.

Aldor Peacekeeper would be perfect for the job, however he's only playable by Paladin decks. Besides that, the 3 drop shouldn't be an rare, epic or legendary card, since this holy tribe seems to be rare. 

Earthen Ring Farseer is perfect. He heals minions, is a wreckingball combined with the Soulpriests and has e decent body to use for Taunt. However, he's still an Orc and not a Draenei. So why isn't there a card similar to that? This brought me to the following card. 

Aldor Champion is similar to Misha. They both cost 3 mana and give you a 4/4 body. However, you only get a chance of drawing Misha with the Animal Companion, but you will always get this minion. But it doesn't have Misha's taunt ability and comes with the downside of giving our opponent 3 health. But is that really a downside? If you combine this with the Soulpriest or with the Defender of Argus, I think you have a decent card for your Draenei deck. 
I hope you liked this article and the Aldor Champion. Let me hear what you think about it in the comments.