Archaeologist Class

Introducing... the newest member of the League of Explorers... Izzy Jameson !

Izzy Jameson is the greatest explorer of Azeroth! Well, she will be, anyway. First, Izzy has to go on an adventure, to prove her worth. She first finds her calling, travels from the great Un'Goro jungle to the chilly Northrend wastes, from the deep Kobold-infested catacombs to the eerie Witchwood, just south of Gilneas. Finally, Izzy explores the Netherstorm with her greatest idol: Reno Jackson, and busts up a moneymaking scheme lead by the decieving Nokano.

Keyword Showcase: Decay

Decay is the class keyword of Archaeologist, representing the antiquity of their antiques. Decay is shown mostly on weapons as a way to make effects that last over time, but in KoFT, it's shown on Decaying Armor, a new type of Armor that is lost one by one each turn. Also, Decay also deals damage so Scavenger Crab's effect would trigger because of Decay. Some examples are shown below:

Decay cards would look dusty as shown above, and like Aluneth, the lightning icon would glow and the weapon, minion, or Armor would lose 1 Durability.

Alternate Heroes

Archaeologist Playstyles

Izzy Jameson knows many ways to outwit her opponent. She uses powerful, ancient artifacts to slowly beat you down, could recruit ancient temple golems to beat you down, or can utilize the scraps of Armor she finds along the way. Some of Archaeologist 's main playstyles are these:

• Passive Weapon Beatdown: These high power weapons can be cycled through so Izzy always has an artifact up her sleeve. These weapons grant long-lasting benefits.
• Killer Control: Every Indiana Jones movie features a main nemesis, but none are as iconic as the boulder. Izzy Jameson has a few tricks up her sleeve, many of them controlling the enemy.
• Discover the Way: It would be wrong to have the League's standout keyword not also be a main keyword of Archaeologist. From the Quest to Nokano, Archaeologist prominently features Discover as one of the ways to play.
• Armornipulate: An archaeologist would be nothing without ransacking ancient temples for everything inside! This includes everything, like random shields along the way, or an entire mine. Additionally, Archaeologist also can take advantage from "selling" off her Armor, gaining benefits from minions that need it.
• Dig, dig, dig: In The Boomsday Project, Archaeologist popularizes a unique type of synergy. Although, yes, Rogue does also have shuffle, Archaeologist gains more even value, preferring Midrange rather than combo.

Showcase Cards

Basic

Challenge Created Cards

Final Note

I'd like to thank maxlot, teknician, Skarlon, Bazil, link, Shatterstar, Cheese, Grand Inquisitor, krowski, and anybody else I missed who helped with Archaeologist on Hearthpwn or Discord. Thank you for taking the time to look at my class.

That’s pretty cool :)

id love to play that

really wish blizzard would introduce more classes to the game or specializations in some way. Like I’d love to have a card that I put in my deck that makes me a sub rogue and have more stealth cards that only that spec gets access to and doesn’t get access to cards other specs have idk. Maybe change the hero power in some way too. 

Would be cool and there is a lot of potential for stuff like this in the game so would love for blizzard to take some risks with i

I strongly dislike the idea of a keyword that does different things on different cards. IMO that fundamentally contradicts the purpose of a keyword, which is to provide a shorthand reference to a single consistent action. Health, armor or weapon charges are somewhat analogous, but they're not the same thing, and a mechanic that tries to treat them as such will run into a lot of problems.

I see what you're trying to do; the design reminds me a lot of the now-abandoned Fading/vanishing mechanics in Magic the Gathering. And I suppose that could be one way to address the issue I raised above: add a unified "time counter" for the mechanic that counts turns similarly to how Quests, The Darkness, etc. keep track of their various triggers. However, this would significantly reduce the design space of the mechanic because you can no longer buff weapons, heal minions, gain armor, etc. to manipulate the decay effect. Not only that, as in Magic, having strong-but-temporary cards is hard to balance and will leave a lot of players unsatisfied.

Honestly though, the main reason I dislike this mechanic *as a keyword* is that the game would become a nightmare of end-of-turn triggers (Ever had your board cleared by a poisonous missile launcher? Now imagine that every turn. D:). I'm fine with having a few minions like this, and I certainly appreciate having a negative trigger like self-damage interact with other effects that EG spawn minions or whatever, but I think any more than a couple of such minions in a set would make the game horrible to play, in terms of interactivity, complexity and time wasted staring at the game play itself.

If you look at the card sets being printed today, you'll notice that they have 2-3 minions with end of turn triggers per release. That seems very deliberate. There's a lot of design space to be explored there but boy does it come with unfortunate baggage.

Are you planning on updating this to Shadows/Uldum?

man, this class looks awesome. some cards may not be the best balanced. but mostly all the cards look very well balanced and well themed. good job.