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Faction Concept: The Volcanus Chasm

#1

The Volcanus Chasm

Hello, everyone. This is my third faction concept. I only have the Generals and faction keywords down for now, and if people like this enough I will start making the cards. Feedback and suggestions are welcome as usual.

Lore & Visuals

The Volcanus Chasm dwells in deep, underground rifts of molten lava and scorching iron. They spend most of their lives in deep slumber, waking only a few times in a decade. Legend has it that the awakening of the fiercest Volcanus warriors lead to some of the most devastating volcanic eruptions Mythron has ever seen. As a fire-themed faction, the color scheme will consist of mainly orange with hints of grey and yellow.

Generals

Calderia Ironforge

Bloodbound Spell: Molten Surface
Equip a Firehammer to your General.

Firehammer
1 mana Artifact token
Your General gains +1 Attack.

Design Explanation

Calderia will be the artifact General, with a unique BBS that equips an artifact. Although the Firehammer has a simple effect, it will take part in more complex strategies, with faction keywords that support Artifacts and cards that directly interact with the Firehammer specifically.

Ignatius Flamethrone

Bloodbound Spell: Scorching Vigor
Summon a 2/1 Hellhound on a space nearby your General.

Hellhound
2 mana 2/1 Fiend token
Dormant: Deal 1 damage to both Generals.

Design Explanation

The Hellhound introduces an exciting new faction mechanic: Dormant, which is a special ability that activates at the end of turn if the minion has not moved or attacked that turn. The Hellhound also has a tribe and explores the mechanic of General self-harm.

Core Mechanics

Dormant & Eruption

Dormant and Eruption are faction keywords. Dormant effects activate at the end of your turn if the minion has not moved or attacked that turn. On the other hand, Eruption effects activate at the end of turn if the minion has both moved and attacked that turn.

Smelting Furnace

Smelting Furnace is a faction tile. If your General is on the tile, it repairs all equipped artifacts by 1 durability at the end of your turn.

Blacksmith

Blacksmith is a faction mechanic. When a minion with Blacksmith is summoned, it will break an equipped artifact with the lowest cost to activate a powerful ability.

Fiends & Warlords

Fiends and Warlords are faction tribes. Fiends focus on the strategy of harming your General for powerful effects in return, while Warlords gain abilities depending on how low your General’s Health is. Lore-wise, Warlords are stronger versions of Fiends and like to lead them in battle.

Core Set

Overview

These are the cards that define the core mechanics of the faction. Whether it be wielding powerful minions that harness the power of a volcano, breaking and equipping artifacts forged from the fires of hell, or setting your General on fire, the dwellers of Volcanus Chasm delivers a fiery punch.

Basic Cards

Kindle Usurper
2 mana 2/2
Blacksmith: Gain +1/+1 and equip a Firehammer to your General.

Volcanic Imp
2 mana 3/2 Fiend
Opening Gambit: Deal 2 damage to your General or the enemy General.

Blazing Enforcer
3 mana 2/4
Eruption: Fully heal this minion and deal 1 damage to your General.

Incandescence
1 mana spell
Turn the space under your General into a Smelting Furnace. Draw a card.

Searing Fervor
3 mana spell
Destroy an equipped artifact with the lowest cost to destroy an enemy minion.

Heat Haze
1 mana spell
At the end of your turn, draw a card for each time your General has taken damage this turn.

Fiery Cauldron
3 mana spell
Give all minions with Dormant or Erupt in your action bar and deck +1/+1.

Sweltering Visor
2 mana artifact
Whenever your General takes damage, deal 1 damage to all enemies.

Common Cards

Magma Slasher
2 mana 4/1
Erupt: Deal 4 damage to the enemy General.

Nova Apprentice
3 mana 3/4
Blacksmith: If a Firehammer was destroyed, equip a Greater Firehammer to your General.

Greater Firehammer

Greater Firehammer
2 mana artifact token
Your General gains +2 Attack. When this artifact breaks, equip a Firehammer to your General.

Crater Colossus
4 mana 5/5 Fiend
Opening Gambit: Deal 3 damage to your General.

Firestorm Cardinal
5 mana 3/7 Warlord
Opening Gambit: If your General has 10 Health or less, give this minion +1/+1 and Rush.

Burning Crevasse
2 mana spell
Draw an artifact from your deck and deal 1 damage to both Generals.

Conflagration
3 mana spell
Give a friendly minion +2/+4. If the minion has Dormant or Erupt, draw a card at the end of turn.

Scalding Strike
3 mana spell
Deal 3 damage to an enemy minion for each equipped Firehammer.

Dragon’s Breath
5 mana spell
Deal 5 damage to an enemy minion. If your General has taken damage two or more times this turn, deal 5 damage to all enemy minions instead.

Rare cards

Lavamancer
2 mana 1/4
Dormant: Put a Firehammer into your action bar.

Mantle Behemoth
6 mana 10/10 Fiend
Opening Gambit: Deal 5 damage to your General.

Brimstone Guardian
7 mana 4/8 Warlord
Opening Gambit: If your General has 10 Health or less, give all friendly Fiends, “Takes no damage this turn.”

Scarlet Matriarch
4 mana 3/6 Warlord
Erupt: If your General has 15 or less Health, equip a Ruby Carapace to your General.

Ruby Carapace

Ruby Carapace
All minions that are not a Fiend or a Warlord has -1 Attack.

Flaming Rampage
3 mana spell
Give your General +5 Attack this turn and deal 3 damage to your General at the end of turn.

Heatstroke
2 mana spell
Give all minions in your action bar, “Opening Gambit: Turn a random nearby space into a Smelting Furnace.

Boiling Blood
4 mana spell
All Dormant and Erupt effects activate twice at the end of this turn.

Epic cards

Ironclad Welder
6 mana 2/8
Provoke. Your artifacts have, “Your General gains +1 Attack.”

Crimson Revenant
8 mana 6/5 Warlord
Dormant: If your General has 10 or less Health, all Fiends you summon next turn gain Rush and Frenzy.

Pandemonium
2 mana spell
All your minions are now both Fiends and Warlords. Draw a card.

Hellborn Arsenal
9 mana spell
Equip 3 random artifacts from your deck to your General.

Engulfing Spitfire
6 mana spell
Give all friendly minions with Erupt +1 Attack and Ranged this turn. They cannot attack the enemy General this turn.

Phoenix Warblade
2 mana artifact
Your General gains +2 Attack. When this artifact breaks, summon a 3/3 Firebird with Flying nearby.

Firebird

Firebird
3 mana 3/3 token
Flying.

Legendary cards

Hellflame Emperor
8 mana 8/12 Warlord
Opening Gambit: If your General has 10 Health or less, summon all friendly Fiends destroyed this game on nearby spaces.

Vulcan Metallurgist
7 mana 3/10
Opening Gambit: Destroy all equipped artifacts and equip an Infernal Alloy to your General with the combined effects of all destroyed artifacts.

Infernal Alloy

Infernal Alloy
7 mana artifact token

Salamander Slayer
6 mana 5/5
Celerity. Each time this minion destroys an enemy minion, summon a Blaster Whelp on a nearby space.

Blaster Whelp

Blaster Whelp
2 mana 2/2 Fiend token
Dying Wish: Deal 2 damage to both Generals.

Grandmaster Vesuvius
8 mana 9/10
Dormant: Equip a Promethean Core to your General. Erupt: Equip a Armageddon Heart to your General.

Promethean Core

Promethean Core
8 mana artifact token
Your General gains +2 Attack. Whenever your General takes damage, deal that much damage to the enemy General.

Armageddon Heart

Armageddon Heart
8 mana artifact token
Your General gains Frenzy. Whenever your General attacks, give all friendly minions +2/+2 and Frenzy.

Bloodlust Parade
7 mana Spell
Destroy all friendly Smelting Furnaces to deal 1 damage to an enemy minion for each Smelting Furnaces destroyed. If you destroyed 8 or more, summon a Sanguine Tyrant.

Sanguine Tyrant

Sanguine Tyrant
5 mana 4/8 token
Provoke. At the end of each turn, turn the space underneath your General into a Smelting Furnace.

Scathefire Peak
6 mana spell
Deal 4 damage to all enemies nearby a friendly minion with Dormant.

Vermillion Halberd
6 mana artifact
Your General gains +4 Attack. At the end of each turn, destroy an equipped artifact with the lowest cost to equip a random artifact that costs 1 more.

Denizens of Shim’Zar

The Battle Pets of the Volcanus Chasm make great companions both in the workshop and the battlefield. They enjoy taking swims in pools of boiling lava and devouring pieces of volcanic debris. Continued support for all archetypes.

Common Cards

Fyr
2 mana 2/3 Battle Pet
Blacksmith: Gain +Attack equal to the cost of the artifact destroyed.

Obsidian Brawler
3 mana 2/6
Erupt: May move an additional space next turn.

Smoldering Anvil
2 mana spell
At the end of this turn, equip all friendly artifacts that were destroyed by friendly minions with Blacksmith this turn.

Extinguish
1 mana spell
Destroy a friendly Smelting Forge to repair all equipped artifacts by 1 durability. Draw a card.

13 Likes
#2

And Skorn is now exclusive to them.

2 Likes
#3

And so is Flameblood Warlock. The meta is fixed!

3 Likes
#4

Anyways, i liked the idea of a general with the easiest/most consistent access to artifacts and possibly playaround the fact. Extra credits in the heavily magmatic context you’re placing here as i love playing Ornn in League.

Looking at keywords interacting with it, besides the obvious “if you have a Firehammer” and spells/creatures that also equip one if not using her but still wishing to play around it… I see space for some nice ways to indirectly target it more generically.

Immediately came to my head the following idea for a keyword they’d use a lot but should be common among all factions, let us see what you’d take on it:

Reforge: destroy your lowest-costed equiped Artifact. If you do, then.

Metagame-wise this comes with the idea no other Volcanus artifact should cost less than 2 so Firehammers are the preferential target, but i can easily see them quickly turning one weapon into other with a slag-covered flourish or breaking them for extra effects.

2 Likes
#5

You’ve made my favorite faction concepts on this forum so I’ll gladly support you extending this one a bit more.

3 Likes
#6

This is actually a really good idea. Blacksmith is a boring idea anyways, so I think I can swap it out for this one. Mind if I use it?

Thanks! :sirpenti:

2 Likes
#7

I’m dropping ideas here for people to take.

2 Likes
#8

Speaking of dropping…:wink:

3 Likes
#9

Your ideas are amazing, as usual (I have always wanted a “Tap” effect like Dormant in Duelyst), but I just wanted to point out that “Chasm” is not a good name for a group of people.

3 Likes
#10

interesting stuff as always, your keywords are interesting, kinda thought id be pretty cool for the third general (if you ever got around to it) to have have something utilising both the dormant and eruption like

bbs: your general this turn has Dormant:the enemy general equips an (insert artifact here), and Eruption:add (insert artifact here) to your hand.

look forward to how you build upon what you currently have. :>

2 Likes
#11

The walking volcano
4 mana
0/5
Dormant: permanently double the damage this minion’s eruption deals.
Eruption: deal 2 damage to all enemies

Grandmaster Noi
5 mana 5/6 provoke
Opening gambit: for the rest of the game whenever you equip an artifact all of your minions equip a copy of that artifact

Reason for this: the faction tile is meant to be able to be spread and be more effective the more of them you have, but the current one only works for the general, therefore more than 1 isnt as useful.
Grandmaster noi makes every minion have individual copies of your artifacts so they can repair theirs on the faction tiles as well.

Noi is forge in Hawaiian

3 Likes
#12

That doesn’t make sense. Minions can’t have artifacts. There is nowhere to display them and they all mention your General.

That is not true. More than one is very useful if you want to be able to move and still repair your artifacts.

1 Like
#13

Thats why you can add just the effects, then have a small three dots between stat numbers for visibility. Think stuff like halo bulwark giving everything forcefield, all that really matters is knowing the effect.

1 Like
#14

Thats obvious, that is why I said AS useful. You can only use one tile at a time.

Exhuming sand- can make multiple dervishes at a time

Grow tiles- can make multiple minions grow

Lyonar tiles- can heal your general and minions

Shadow creep- can damage multiple minions or their general

This faction tile- can only repair your generals artifact one at a time.

Healyonar players have such a powerful tile they can sit on it and dont need to move in many situations because of it, sure it is nice to be able to move, but its also powerful because even while you sit on one tile it also affects other minions.

1 Like
#15

True, true. That doesn’t change the fact that minions can’t equip Artifacts, though.

1 Like
#16

*Scary black man riding on very old azurite with a relic piece of armor and a glowing flag in the background*

4 Likes
#17

Thanks! As for the name, I tried other alternatives, but none exuded that fire/volcano theme. I’ll keep looking for better names to use.

Nice idea! I already have a Dormant General, so maybe this ability will be a better fit on a legendary minion.

Cool card, and it makes sense thematically too. I think it’ll be cooler if it dealt damage to all enemies, like a real volcano. Anyways, thanks for the idea!

I tried to address this issue by giving the tile additional effects, but I felt like that would make it too strong. The solution I have settled on for now is to print cards similar to Obliterate that benefit from the existence of the tiles alone, rather than what they do. Thanks for the idea though. It would be great if I can find a way minions can equip artifacts without things getting too awkward in terms of UI and code.

2 Likes
#18

How does this sound:
Forger’s Apprentice
2pp 2/2
Opening Gambit: Equip Firehammer to your general.
If there is an allied equiped Firehammer, this becomes Blacksmith: Gain +1/+1

2 Likes
#19

Looks good. The wording sounds a little awkward though.

1 Like
#20

I would really appreciate any and all criticism, seriously tear them apart, I wannna get really good at this these are the first cards I have ever designed and I want to know if there too op or too weak. I hope the format and everything is good, and feel free to use any of these if you like them, just remember your old friend Rook when u do :wink:

Kindle Kin

2 mana
(Fiend/ Warlord/idk)
1/2
Epic

Dormant: gain +1/+1
Eruption: summon a Kindle Kin on a random nearby space

My idea with Kindlekin was to make a card like lava flowing. As it moves it expands and as it engulfs things it does more damage to them. I think making it a 1/2 allows for it to bulk up to a stickier 2/3 immediately after you play it. And if left unchecked it can dominate a board.

Partial Hermit

3 mana
Fiend
1/4
Rare

Whenever a minion is summoned by ANY player
Deal 1 damage to BOTH generals
Whenever a minion dies restore 1 health to your general

I couldn’t think of a good name to convey the idea, but it’s supposed to be like people are trespassing on the Hermit’s land and the generals pay for it since they are responsible. However, when things die the hermit is satisfied and partial to your general so he makes up for it by healing you. I also wanted his ability to be nice for zyx combos as well as combo with kindlekin, And maybe make locust more viable.

Fiendish Wisdom

2 mana
Rare

Deal 2 damage to your general
Both players draw a card for each time your general took damage this turn

As a big fan of Starhorn and draw based decks, I felt like this wouldn’t be a bad draw option for this faction. The initial damage allows you to get at least one card off of it. And easy ramp into however many cards you can get as well as some mill potential on your opponent.

Ash-Borne Savior

6 mana
Warlord
4/7
Legendary

Provoke
Dormant: restore half your generals health rounded down
Opening Gambit: ALL enemies have: “Eruption: deal 2 damage to your general”, until the start of your next turn.

I had a hard time coming up with an idea for an affect based on your generals health, and felt like the dormant ability for this card has as few words as I could use. I also wanted it to be a tempo I think I’m using that word right stopper with out completely holding the enemy general captive. I also don’t believe it would be op or stop the enemy from winning a game, if it was close enough to end the game you would be dead before Eruption could even trigger.

Burning Path Circlet

Artifact
4 mana
Epic/Legendary

Your general has Forcefield, whenever ANYTHING moves for any reason it takes 2 damage

A nice game of the floor is Lava duelyst style. Now whether or not that’s broken is up to you guys.

4 Likes