Year of The Banshee
For this challenge I wanted to work more in expansion design by designing another full year of Hearthstone expansions. After making my "Year of The Raptor" I couldn't wait to dive back into Hearthstone design. This year focuses on a year long journey starting at sea as we follow each class on a quest that leads them to the remains of Y'Shaarj and then N'Zoth who are both wreaking havoc on Azeroth. The first expansion in the year of the Banshee is Tales of Shining Seas, the second expansion is Mysts of The Taken Vale, and the last expansion of the year is Nightmares of The Emerald Dream. In total I designed 627 cards for this design challenge with 209 cards per expansion including the mini-set since I also accounted for the Monk and Evoker classes. I really enjoyed this challenge and I can't wait to do more!
Notice
All card art used is AI generated and Hearthcards.net was utilized to help mock up designs. The following designs are mine alone. I acknowledge some designs might need some tweaking and balance testing depending on the game state Hearthstone is in. I did my best to test out a majority of my cards with paper print outs and Innkeeper battles.
Core Set
The Year of The Banshee core set brings the keyword Invoke back and modifies it slightly. Invoke cards now in deck building prompt the player to select the Invoke target which can be the starting hero or a hero card. The core set adds the new minion type known as the Faceless. Faceless minions care about having copies of cards in your deck. This year also focuses on card and deck manipulation.
The Year of The Banshee core set adds a new mode to Arena known as "Gladiator." Players choose between 3 classes and open Gladiator Packs, pick a card from the pack, and repeat until they have drafted 40 cards. From there players build a deck and Sideboard 10 cards. Players may modify their deck with any of the Sideboard cards between games. Entry to this mode is free, but if players want to add the cards they opened to their collection they can either win all 8 games or buy them using Gold or Runestones.
Tales of Shining Seas
Plot
Set sail as each class has their own part of the ocean they explore. Each captain is on a mission for treasure and is upgrading their cards with gems from the past.
Tales of Shining Seas
Mechanics
Each class gets a Legendary Captain leading the journey and a Legendary Quest.
The keyword Dredge returns for this expansion!
Slotted Cards are introduced. Slotted cards have 1-3 slots where they can have Gems placed into them during deck building that alter the card. When slotted cards are generated they have random Gems in them. There is a Gem of each expansion similar to how the Transfer Student works by gaining an effect. For example, Knights of The Frozen Throne has the Ice Gem which grants the keyword Lifesteal when slotted into a card. Some Gems do not work on Spells or Weapons.
Each class gets a Map card. They function similarly to Elise Starseeker's Map to the Golden Monkey, but with different rewards that are shuffled into the deck.
Tales of Shining Seas
Keywords
Cards with the keyword Barter display X cards from a pool unique to each class and the player can choose to trade a card in their hand for one of the options. This keyword would be used similarly to how Discover appears in Spells and Battlecries.
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Minions with the keyword Travel can be moved around on your side of the board once per turn to trigger an effect.
Tales of Shining Seas
Design Direction
Barter was a very interesting keyword to design. I wanted to capture the idea of traversing the oceans and running into interesting people. This led me to looking into the concept of trading for supplies. Barter created a shop like experience in Hearthstone and it felt like a cousin to Discover and Excavate. At first I played around with a gold mechanic like Battlegrounds, but I quickly moved away from it due to complexity. From there I looked at the idea of trading cards from hand for exotic options. In testing it felt very skill testing and fun to go shopping for cool cards you wouldn't see otherwise like Excavate.
Travel originally came to me when I was designing my custom expansion of "Wanders of Alterac" 6 years ago. When looking over my older projects for inspiration I found that it fit very well with exploring the high seas and traveling around the world. With Travel I wanted to promote minion placement and have cards that like to move around the board. This hasn't been done before in Hearthstone and it added a whole new dimension to board based strategies in paper tests.
Mini-Set Maelstrom Madness
The captains gather in the center of the massive Maelstrom fighting each other for loot and glory. Each class gets 2 dual class cards.
Mysts of the Taken Vale
Plot
Y'Shaarj has returned!!! His corrupting Sha are wreaking havoc as his sights are on reclaiming the Eternal Vale through the help of his Mantid and Taken armies. Will the Vale let the Taken prevail?
Mysts of the Taken Vale
Mechanics
Each class will get a Legendary Hero Card and a Legendary Taken Minion.
Mantids enter the game as the newest minion type. Mantids are all about swarms and care about having multiple copies of cards in your hand.
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Mysts of the Taken Vale
Keywords
Minions with the keyword Taken add an upgraded Taken version to your hand when they die.
Cards with the keyword Consume destroy a card in your deck to do an effect.
Cards with the keyword Flourish add an effect to the next card of the same type you play.
Mysts of the Taken Vale
Design Direction
The Keywords Taken was designed along side Nightmares of the Emerald Dream's Eternal keyword. They were made to act as opposites and give a good vs evil feeling when playing them as Mysts of the Taken Vale led into Nightmares of the Emerald Dream. 6 Years ago I designed the keywords for a custom expansion I called "Terror at Orgrimmar." Back then Taken and Eternal were in the same expansion and worked very similarly to how the Prime minions from "Ashes of Outland" wound up functioning funny enough. Given that I wanted to revisit these mechanics and update them to have new identity for this expansion. I changed Taken to add an upgraded version to your hand when they die (Like you are taking them back). Then I made the keyword Eternal spell only and made it always shuffle back into your deck when it is played (Like it lives on in your deck). While confirming the expansion order for the Standard cycle I decided to keep "Terror at Orgrimmar" and make it the mini-set to better focus on the theme of the Vale and plot progression.
I designed the keywords Consume and Flourish to showcase battle between the inhabitants of the vale vs Y'Shaarg and his Mantid Army. Consume fit the identity of destruction for a reward which worked well with the Faceless and Mantid minion types. Flourish instead promoted card types working together. In play tests both mechanics felt very at home in Hearthstone and allowed for very intuitive and fun card designs. Consume originally was designed to always destroy a random card that cost less than the one played to act as an inverse to the Corrupt keyword. However, that limited designs and led to the mechanic feeling weird to work around. Flourish originally started pie in the sky with the concept of chaining cards together to achieve mana reduction. This however felt a bit too forced and I explored more into comboing cards together which led to the final design of growing cards through adding effects.
Mini-Set
Terror at Orgrimmar
Y'Shaarj's attacks on the Vale lead him and the classes to the city of Orgrimmar as he tries to reclaim his heart which is corrupting the city.
Nightmares of The Emerald Dream
Plot
N'Zoth has invaded the Emerald Dream and is turning it into a Nightmare. He has twisted the Wild Gods as well as each class. Will the Champions be enough to prevail?
Nightmares of The Emerald Dream
Mechanics
Each class gets a Legendary Flip Wild God and a Legendary Champion.
An additional 10 Dream and 10 Nightmare cards will be added to the expansion. These cards will be a subset of Neutral cards any class can add to their deck. Dream cards add health equal to their mana cost to your hero when played. Nightmare cards deal damage equal to their mana cost to the enemy hero when played. These cards will also launch early with the free expansion legendary.
Nightmares of The Emerald Dream
Keywords
Cards with the keyword Flip can be dragged over your deck to pay 1 Mana in order to flip them over to their other side in hand. Flip cards have a banner in the top right similar to Tradeable which has two twisting arrows around a rectangle.
Spells with the keyword Eternal shuffle back into your deck after being played.
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Minions with the keyword Champion appear in a portal above your deck once you reach Mana crystals equal to their cost. Champions can be played from the portal during your turn. If you have more than 1 Champion in your deck they are ordered in the portal based on their Mana cost with lower cost Champions being first in line.
Nightmares of The Emerald Dream
Design Direction
I designed the Flip keyword to allow for more decision making and use cases for cards. In testing it felt very fun and made it feel like there were a lot more options in deck building. 6 years ago for I originally designed Flip as "Split" for a custom expansion about N'Zoth corrupting the naga called "The Split of Nazjatar." Split worked functionally the same as Flip, but it didn't require mana to change it to the other side. Years after I created Split, Tradeable and Forge were added to the game and flipping a card for 1 mana made a lot of sense and avoided the design issue of it resembling Choose One too much. I really liked the mechanic of flipping a card over to use it's other side and I felt that revisiting it during another N'Zoth themed expansion made a lot of sense. My previous custom expansion with Nazjatar even helped me come up with the mini-set for "Nightmares of The Emerald Dream."
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The Keyword Champion is a legendary specific keyword and came from some ideation and testing I did with "Bounties" with my "Mechanic, Gimmick, and Class" design challenge. Bounties are mana crystal timed events players fight for rewards. With Champions I wanted to explore the idea of timed draws to simulate a deck leader style of play. In paper tests this mechanic felt surprisingly more skill testing and resulted in a lot of deck building and skillful plays. Archetypes could exist around Champions due to their guaranteed draw and both players could plan around them.
Mini-Set
Awakened Abyss
About N'Zoth reaching into the oceans of Azeroth from the Emerald Dream and corrupting the Sunken City.
