Hearthstone
The Perfect Match - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Submitted 2 years, 2 months ago by
ShadowsOfSense
Competition Theme: The Perfect Match
Some Hearthstone cards really only start to shine when they receive a little help - so let's start pairing them up!
- You must create a card which has a strong synergy with an existing, unplayed Standard card
- "Unplayed" is a bit vague, but use your best judgement about what cards are seeing play at the moment
- You must include the existing card in your submission
- We need to know who we're matching up! Just submit it as you would a second custom card.
Kommutator has asked us to lift up some underused cards this week, so find them their perfect partner!
As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.
Competition Phases
Here are the phases of this card design competition
- Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Feb 14 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Feb 19 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
- Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Feb 19 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Feb 20 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
- Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Feb 20 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Feb 21 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
- Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.
Discussion Thread Rules
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Competition Theme: The Perfect Match
Some Hearthstone cards really only start to shine when they receive a little help - so let's start pairing them up!
Kommutator has asked us to lift up some underused cards this week, so find them their perfect partner!
As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.
Competition Phases
Here are the phases of this card design competition
Discussion Thread Rules
No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.
Welcome to the site!
I originally was looking to match with Druid of the Plains, but most "Druid of the (X)" cards do not see play as it is. Plus, why not pair it with the Shaman, who shares the transformation theme? This could then include cards like Bogstrok Clacker, as well as Mutate, Muckmorpher, and Explosive Evolution (all three would still be in Standard for a bit after Miracle Grower came out). Muckmorpher saw play, but the others didn't as much.
I'm willing to nerf the effect to +2/+1 or whatever, but focused transformations are low enough in quantity that I feel she can get away with it. Remember that Revolve, Boggspine Knuckles, etc. will transform her as well, losing you the opportunity to buff. This Evolve Shaman deck would need to be built differently.
It must be enraging to these guys that they never see any play, so let's help them out a little bit. I'm sure all of us would think that it'd pretty cool for a dedicated Rager deck to actually be pretty good.
Side note: The card is meant for Onyxia's Lair, but the watermark for the mini-set doesn't exist in HearthCards yet. Come on Dnikko, where are you?
My initial ideas are supporting Discardlock and Shufflelock. Discarding large cards already has some love with the combo of Nightshade Matron and Hand of Gul'dan, but small discard has historically not worked out as well (Shriek, Reckless Diretroll). Attempting to synergize with the new Core version of Lakkari Felhound, Void Wisp will almost always be the cheapest card in your hand at 0-mana but will mitigate losing card advantage.
Ambitious Acolyte looks to support Warlocks recent affinity for shuffle mechanics such as Soul Fragments and Fel Rifts. The two cards primarily in mind are Seeds of Destruction and Envoy Rustwix, which offer very powerful cards to draw.
I don't actually play constructed, so this will be hard for me.
This is meant to synergize with Magister Dawngrasp (which I don't know how viable it is after being buffed), but it can also be used with upgraded Hero Powers, Shadowform, Wildfire or basically all current Mage and Priest Hero cards.
Alright, so Im not always super aware of whats used in Ladder right now, so please let me know if any of the below cards don't really fit the criteria of the competition due to what they are meant to synergize with.
So I had three ideas so far.
This one is meant to synergize with Troll Centurion. Its currently Warrior, but I thought it might be a good Paladin card as well. Quite wordy, but I couldn't figure out any way to reduce the wording further than it already is without it sounding awkward or simply being unclear about the full effect.
This one's meant to synergize with Glacier Racer. My favorite of the three I've thought up. Nice and simple. Also, the Freeze does also break under normal Freeze's one turn wait conditions if you didn't play any further cards.
And this one is meant to synergize with Showstopper. Probably my least favorite of these three cards.
Please let me know what you think.
Not much activity this week. Some feedback:
Sorry, I don't have nothing to add here.
I'm not a fan of Void Wisp, because cards that are not meant to be played feel a bit artificial to me, if that makes any sense. I'd probably buff its Health to 2 if you decide to go with it, since this "weakness" would be less apparent that way.
Chill Out is a pretty interesting twist of the Freeze mechanic, while also not being too complex. That said, I'd probably rise its Cost to 2, since most of the time, you won't mind playing it last (this is also the reason I prefer The Perfect Challenge, this is basically a cheaper Frost Nova most of the time).
Schreeching Nightworm is also my least favorite of the bunch. It's also not very clear what happens after you Silence it many times.
Wow, this competition IS moving slowly. Here's my own feedback.
I appreciate the idea of The Perfect Challenge, though I am with Wailor on the textbox being too packed for my tastes. Cost should also be capitalized.
Chill Out has quite a few issues. Namely the fact that the downside can be completely negated by just playing it as the final card on your turn effectively making it a 1-mana Frost Nova. But also suppose you're in Fatigue and not many cards left in hand, and you can also use this as a way to permanently Freeze your opponent's board. A niche situation, but one to consider nonetheless. Logically, it is also a bit weird that you're trying to support a card that didn't exist yet as this is a Scholomance card and [Hearthstone Card (Glacial Racer) Not Found] is from the Darkmoon Races.
Screeching Nightworm is a quirky idea for Silence Priest, but it's very weird.
Quick Feedback:
AeroJulwin - I think I like the -2/+5 as well, like Wailor said. -1/+4 doesn't feel like much of a difference, to me.
SkeithDE - I think The Perfect Challenge should be a Paladin card, like Wailor said. Chill Out is too good in a Mage combo deck that doesn't care about playing a card: Freeze the enemy out and just stall for a few rounds. Screeching Nightmare is too niche, in my opinion. I like TPC the most.
Wailor - I love when a dual-class card has dramatically different results between them; cool card :) My favorite so far.
BloodMefist - I like Ambitious Acolyte. It feels Rogue-y, but so what? Not like different classes can't have similar cards.
Demonxz95 - You know my feelings on this :P
Since it's a dual-class card, I do think you should make sure to include a match for both classes in your submission.
A bit nitpicky, but you've played this game is more commonly used for recent cards. Charged Call being the exception for probably spacing reasons.
Void Wisp, on the other hand, is far more specific in its synergy. It does work with other Discard effects, but has far more value when you can guarantee that the Void Wisp is the card that will be Discarded. I do agree it could do with 2 Health to be a little more playable as well.
I don't think Chill Out having to be played last adds a lot to the card. A Core Set Frost Nova would also do the same job.
Screeching Nightworm doesn't have the best synergy, because Showstopper needs to survive a turn first.
Based on your feedback, Wailor, Demon, and linkblade, I've made a new version of The Perfect Challenge, this time as a Paladin card. I reformatted the wording to reduce the amount of text and make it as low ambiguity as possible, and decided that it wasn't too important to keep it as "minion you play this turn" part since it copies the value from the time of casting anyways. Also fixed Cost being not capitalized.
I see what you mean about name-dropping Mutate, Muckmorpher, etc., but it's supposed to be paired it with Druid of the Plains from Forged in the Barrens. The Shaman cards are technically a coincidence after the fact, because they share the theme of transformation; I thought of the Druid first and realized the dual potential afterwards. I can always submit it alongside Druid of the Plains + Bogstrok Clacker.
I agree with Demon's criticism about my card being a bit too weak, so I tried to improve it a little bit by reducing its Cost (and thus making it easier to combo)
Do you prefer this or the previous 3 Mana 3/4?
HP mage + this+ Reckless Apprentice = GéGé :d
Also not a fan of reusing the art of Wildfire Elemental, tho art from uncollectible cards isnt strictly forbidden, it has been used by Blizz as well on occasion.
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I would maybe cut the difference and make it a 2/2/3 or a 2/2/2? At 1-Mana it might be too good; as Sinti noted, Reckless Apprentice combos in particular would be quite the machine gun effect on the enemy's face.
That looks much better :)
Bit late to the party but here's my idea. It's a more powerful, but more tricky to use Shadowstep. Rogue has a lot of card draw so it is possible to pull it off in the same turn but that uses up the 2 mana you save using this over Shadowstep.
I'll boop you
@linkblade91: I would remove the Rush. Otherwise this card is just way too powerful with Unstable Evolution.
Apart from that I like the idea a lot. Would love to see transformation synergy cards for shaman and druid. I find that a very flavorful theme.
My bad, I didn't remember that card existed. I guess it could still be argued it wouldn't work with that card, just like Spirit of the Dragonhawk. I mean, both the Spirit and my card work by casting the HP again after it is used on a minion (the only thing that changes is the new target), so it makes sense that this is what prevents both of them from working with Reckless Apprentice.
Totally agree about the artwork, I'll use a different one if I still go with this.
Good luck everyone with the voting and the finals!
Welp, another instance of me starting in "1st place" only to fall far when the actual finalist voting began. Didn't even get a single 5 :/ Not to sound like a Salty Sally, but it's pretty frustrating.
Anyway, congrats to BloodMefist on winning our final comp of the Season! We'll be back soon-ish: hopefully we'll have better news this time around about updating our systems and coming back better than ever :) Demon should have his WCDC Recap up soon as well. Until then keep creating, and perhaps share it on our forums!
Wow, that went by fast. To think I've already been here for more than a whole season. Congrats, BloodMefist!
About that, with a little more experience under my belt, I feel like there might be a few too many finalist spots. I believe last season there was a 'possible improvements'-thread, so this might be a bit prematurely, but I think removing two or three spots might do some good. Here's why:
1. It's not uncommon for the finalists to be equal/more than half of the participants, so it isn't very special to actually make it to the finals. (It's not a major point, but it had to be included.)
2. When your card makes the finals, your vote doesn't count anymore, even if you already know you won't make the top-three. Not being able to both win or decide who does kind of sucks. (This is an instance I've had a few times.)
3. This last one goes both ways. Those who reach the finals clearly have some good ideas and their vote is valuable for the other finalists. Point 1 only strengthens this; the limited amount of voters clearly matters when looking at the difference between regular voting and finalist results (like in your instance).
Just a little something to think/discuss about. Would like to hear everyone's thoughts. Feel free to quote this post to a new thread if needed.
I must admit that I was the one person who gave your card a 1-star in the finals (and one of the two who rated it that way during the initial voting period) and the reason I voted it 1 star was because it was a pre-FitB card that required spell schools to function. Pre-FitB cards that require spell schools to function are one of those designs that I always rate 1 star regardless of how well the card is designed in other areas, because in my mind, it renders the effect non-functional for its time. If the card existed in Scholomance, it would basically be a vanilla 4 mana 3/3 since it's trying to use something that didn't exist in the game at the time. I've always been very passionate about the QA/QC of custom card designs in general and I've always viewed attention to details like this to be very important.
In my mind, this reasoning for voting a card 1 star seems entirely justified, but I know that not everyone views these details with the same level of important that I do. It is true that some people will attempt to game the system in their favor by voting other people's cards lower than they normally would and this is unfortunately something that can't be fixed entirely. A reality though is that some people just have different voting metrics than others. I mentioned before about the watermark and the effect is something I consider into scoring a lot, but I know that there are a lot of people who seem to not care about this detail at all (after all, you did end up making the finals). If you disagree with me and think this penalty for an incorrect watermark is too harsh, then that's completely fine and I understand why you would think that.
A thing to note is that you should try to participate in the Discussion Topic. Really, I think everyone who takes part in these competitions should do that since it's always better to have more people active in those threads and it increases the productivity of them tenfold. There, you would've likely had someone tell you (probably me) about the watermark problem and it could've been corrected to get a better score. While card designing skill is obviously a big part of these competitions, there is of course a degree of luck involved as well. Above all else, it's important to just try to have fun with these competitions. Even if you don't end up winning them, just merely taking part in them will do wonders to improving your card making abilities, especially for your own purposes.
I second the reduction of finalist spots proposal. There shouldn't be a fixed number of spots but a percentage of the initial number of participants.
Almost all competitions lately have been getting around 12 entries, and 8 finalist spots. That's... just eliminating the bottom 4. It's too little, the "finalist" stage feels more like "semi finals". I'd argue to keep it to 25% of initial entries, to really make it about the top brass since that's what the finalist stage is about.
Or, we could ditch the finalist stage entirely. I'm not sure why it exists honestly, the number of voters is always so so much lower than the initial 2 stages. It only lasts 1 day and so many of would be voters forget, dont know about it, are locked out of it as pointed above, or dont care enough to vote another time if their entries didnt make it.
I'll boop you
I agree with all of the above.
Sorry for not participating much in the last few competitions... life got in the way and I felt a little burnt out of ideas. Did my best to cast my votes though so there's that. Thanks again to Shadows and everybody else who was part of organizing the competitions, you're doing an amazing job!
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
I don't exactly think it's relevant to my proposal, but it's a concern nonetheless. And I think this answers Basil's question about why there is a finalist vote to begin with. Finalists not being able to vote also prevents them from downvoting their competition. So you might be able to sneak into the finals this way, but it won't increase your chances of winning.
I looked into the last few transparency reports and found a good example. In Make Your Own Luck, you submitted Arcane Power and it got five 1's. Admittedly, one of those was from me. That's because it's a major downgrade from Kirin Tor Tricaster and doesn't bring anything new to the table besides being a spell. It was a good idea, but a second set of eyes could have easily pointed out that Kirin Tor Tricaster already exists. Which is why I think you should follow Demon's advise and try the feedback threads.
Also, getting 1's sucks and there will always be a few unjust ones. This might sound stupid, but try not to focus on the negatives too much, because that will get frustrating. I personally only really check the averages.
I think, for me, the ideal number of finalists would be about 4 or 5, but I agree setting a percentage is also a good idea. Granted it comes with a set minimum of 3 spots. 25-30% sounds good.
No, not really. Of course downvoting your competition is a problem and risk, but there is no real way to combat that maybe outside a mod manually checking the votes to see if anyone was unfair.
My gripe with finalist stage is, again, abysmal number of votes compared to the main voting stage. This comp we had 17-34 votes per card in the main stage, and only 12 in finalists. In Make your own Luck it was 23-38 to 14. In Goons of Galakeond we had 15-37 votes to 14-17 in finals. Trend is consistent, about half of people who are interested in this thing dont partake in the most important moment of the comp. That makes finalist votes be much more biased due to a low number of votes.
A trend to notice when seeing the reports is also that the top finishers in the voting phase is almost always those with fewer votes received. It shows that as more people vote, the "fairer" your card is judged and more it drags towards 2.5 ish score. While top of the scoreboard is those with fewer votes, but if those fewer votes they have higher score ones. Basically, post late and hope the few people that see it like it a lot.
The only reason for the finalist stage that I can see is to avoid last minute posts and this luck I explained. But instead of a finalist stage we could just extend the voting only stage to 1 more day.
My proposal which i believe is most fair is to not allow voting at all in the submission stage! Instead 5 days we submit and they are hidden, then 2 days for voting where all are revealed at the same time. Perhaps post it on the main Hearthstone news page when that happens to attract more people into this thing, because let's be honest here, it's just the same 15ish guys over and over. A bit of publicity wouldn't hurt. And I don't believe the argument that "people dont wanna see custom content" is good, as we have a post comp summary where we announce the winner!
I'll boop you
This would indeed prevent the people who submitted early from getting lower averages because they got too many votes. I guess the petty reason I dislike this idea is because I like being able to vote as the week goes by and make adjustments at the end, rather than having to rate 15+ cards all at once.
Also, as far as removing the finalist phase goes, I am certainly against. Making it to the finals shows that you excelled that week. It becomes very discouraging when first place is the only one who gets the spotlight.
It's been a busy week, so I'm pretty late to the party heh
I just wanted to add that the current system was designed when the number of participants was much higher, hence the 8 finalists thing. I liked the solution of having around 25% of participants reach the finals, but I would cap it to min 3 and max 8.
@doingtheobvious I get this comps can get very frustrating and of course you're free to go if you feel the negatives outweigh the positives.
However, I wanted to let you know I don't think your designs are bad. I mean, your entry this week was quite neat, and the only thing holding it back was the minor detail of its watermark. This is something you have to pay attention to, but it's not a flaw intrinsic to your design, it's something accessory.
As I said, you're the one who has to decide if you want to leave, but I believe your perception of what people think about your cards isn't very accurate.