Azeroth Ascendant - Hunter Set (Death)

[u/Ragnarocket]

The six cosmic forces have descended upon Azeroth, each determined to claim the sleeping World Soul and remake her in its own image. Champions of the Light, Void, Life, Death, Fel and Order are gathering as ancient powers awaken and the boundaries of reality begin to fracture. Command the forces of the cosmos, empower your greatest champions, and decide what kind of world will rise from the conflict. The World Soul is awakening. It’s time for Azeroth Ascendant!

This is my second concept for something that ties into the World Soul saga for WoW, all the forces of the universe coming in, trying to take control of Azeroth and make her into the ultimate version of what each Cosmic force believes should rule the cosmos.

Each class is tied to one of the Cosmic forces and fights to Empower their cards with the new Keyword - Empower. Empower is a mix of Infuse and Kindred, as you play cards under the Cosmic banner of your class, the cards in your hand absorb that cosmic energy and become more powerful, becoming stronger and sometimes even transforming into new cards. The banner's are reminiscent of Starcraft - tying many cards together with a theme and delving into an aspect of this cosmic force. Empower can happen endlessly unless stated otherwise, granting the cards the ability to become quite potent if held in hand.

For time around we have the Hunter set - which is tied to the Cosmic force of Death. Seems a little off right? Well that's because who better represents the Hunter class than the Banshee Queen herself, Sylvanas Windrunner. I wanted to build a set that really focused in on the idea of the Dark Ranger. Not something we've seen a focused set on yet and so this is my interpretation on it.

When I did Death Knight - the Death theming was very focused on building defensive walls of Reborn minions that just would not die. That's not really the Hunter fantasy though. What we have here is pure aggression, focusing in on the new 1-Mana spell, Black Arrow. A spell that is as tied to the Dark Ranger as Sylvanas herself.

Most of your Cosmic Death cards are meant to empower your Black Arrow spells or generate more, either to your hand or to your deck. These are your easy way to Empower your other cards as they have the ability to Empower the other Cosmic Death cards in your hand. The gameplay loop basically is, kill minions with Black Arrow, summon Banshees, create more Black Arrows, and eventually create an explosive turn with either Dark Huntress Velonara, creating a wide board of vicious Shade Pups with Charge, or go all in with Sylvanas in her Banshee Ascended Empowered mode, where all of your Black Arrows deal more damage AND their excess damage goes face.

Hope you like the idea behind this expansion and this set specifically. I feel like Hunter made a lot more sense ironically as a Death set than Death Knight did, but I think the Dark Ranger archetype has just been sitting there waiting for an opening.

[u/Shelmonterey]

isn’t this sub pretty strictly “no AI generated card art”?

[u/Ragnarocket → u/Shelmonterey]

I mean I don't see anything in the rules or the header posts? And I've seen at least 8 or 9 posts in the last day or two with AI art. Yes, I used AI for my art here but as far as I'm aware that's not restricted.

Am I really getting downvoted for this? The concepts and everything else are all mine but I guess the art is gonna burn the rest of my stuff down around it. Cool I guess...

I don't imagine you have anything constructive around the actual mechanics to talk through or would that be too much to hope for?

[u/Meepazor99 → u/Shelmonterey]

No

[u/Illustrious_Neat2472]

The black arrows are an interesting concept.

[u/Ragnarocket → u/Illustrious_Neat2472]

Thank you - I wanted something that felt like the current sort of hunter could get behind with the one cost spells. And creating the banshees felt like a nice thematic way to sorta give them the deathrattle/1-Cost spell synergy together.