Hearthstone
Keyword Katastrophe - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Submitted 1 year, 3 months ago by
Demonxz95
Competition Theme: Keyword Katastrophe
Bold flavors. Fortune favors the bold. To boldly go where no one has gone before. Do you see what we're gettin' at?
- You must create a card that contains only keywords in its text box.
- You can use periods and commas, of course, but no other words!
It's a catastrophe! R's kitchen is covered in cards crafted to contain a concoction of keywords. Somebody ought to clean this up!
As always, we 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, Jan 16 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Jan 21 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
- Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jan 21 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Jan 22 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
- Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jan 22 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Jan 23 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
- Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.
Discussion Thread Rules
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Competition Theme: Keyword Katastrophe
Bold flavors. Fortune favors the bold. To boldly go where no one has gone before. Do you see what we're gettin' at?
It's a catastrophe! R's kitchen is covered in cards crafted to contain a concoction of keywords. Somebody ought to clean this up!
As always, we 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.
I'm pretty sure I made the prompt post, so it's weird that it shows Demon. Anyway, Demon and I were debating whether or not one could pull off a Colossal in this comp, so I made one :) I don't think I'm gonna submit this, unless people are sufficiently amused to warrant it lol.
I can concur that Link did in fact organize the competition and not me, so I don't know what's up with that.
"But Demon, you always tell us not to use two different expansion-specific keywords on the same card". Yes, I realize that, but please lower your pitchforks and let me explain. This competition is quite limited, so liberties need to be taken. In a sea of what will likely result in a lot of Legendaries bloated with many keywords, a simple and elegant design like Moltenclaw Raptor may appreciated by the group. Additionally, since Death Knight brought back Reborn, there is some precedence for returning keywords. That doesn't mean that you can still just put any keywords on any one card willy-nilly, but it does mean that I guess there's some rules about returning keywords that we have to fine-tune. I will be willing to be a bit more lenient about this, especially in this competition, where options are few, but there are still rules about this that I will point out where I see fit.
Windlord Thunderaan is a simple one. Super-Windfury is the stage in-between Windfury and Mega-Windfury. Basically, it can attack 3 times per turn. Making a new keyword might set a bad precedence for future competitions, which is something that we all seemed to agree with, but since it's a deritivie of an existing keyword, I figured "fuck it", I'll try it anyway and see how you guys feel. This is basically the same thing as "Double Divine Shield" which some people try, or even "[school] Spell Damage +[Y]" which actually exists.
So, uh. That was a long description for design over cards which have two lines of text. *insert nervous face here*
Are numbers allowed? For instance, for keywords like Overload or Manathirst.
Unrelated to this question, here's my card:
Calia Menethil is Arthas' young sister and a particular type of Undead: instead of being resurrected with dark magic, she did it using her faith in the Light. I don't remember much else about her, but I'll make sure to read her Wiki page if I end up submitting her.
Edit: Inspired by Demon's ideas, here's Living Typhoon. Not sure about the right way to balance it, though.
It's not very exciting. Is this too simple even for this comp?
Last week I caught the caboose, so the simplicity of this competition is appreciated! I've got two cute ideas for this week.
Nutty Buddy is my favorite; he feels on flavor for Shaman around GvG, next to Totem Golem, Flamewreathed Faceless, and others. Maybe he could be a 3-3 with Overload (3)?
Inlet Scavenger fills out the assorted Murlocs that fell around Voyage to the Sunken City - I remember wanting a vanilla 1-mana Murloc to work with Azsharan Scroll, Anchored Totem, Amalgam of the Deep, et cetera.
To Wailor's question about Overload and Manathirst numbers, surely they must be alright, since the Spell Damage numbers are acceptable? That said, I don't know why one is bolded in-game and the other isn't. Typical Hearthstone.
Early Feedback
Al'Akir the Sweetlord is fantastic. I see why you don't want to submit him, because of the flavor and Aero's well-founded comment, but… the variety of Spell Damage is on point with Shaman's current flavor. Uncannily so.
Re: Wailor's Typhoon, a mechanical question - will back-to-back Dredges invalidate the first card Dredged or place it second in your deck? If it's the latter, I love the flavor of it, a whirling typhoon dragging flotsam from the depths. It seems like a solid card that would feel good to play and set you up for better things. Calia is an interesting card lore-wise. I could see an Undead Death Knight using her, maybe, but if she were a good card I think she'd be a frustratingly ubiquitous card, a la Zilliax. The Typhoon is more purposeful.
Demon's Moltenclaw is a crunchy, useful card. For the Windlord, while I don't mind the added Keyword, I think it creates unnecessary confusion and the card runs the same issue of Wailor's Calia - a neutral legendary good enough to see play in most decks feels bad. The specificity of the Moltenclaw is more enjoyable. That's just how I feel, though!
I don't know what you mean, Aero, any card that costs 0 gets the ole blood pumping. There are only six minions that cost 0, and only one has text - Target Dummy! I instantly had to check whether Rogue has any Arcane spells. Just one, and it doesn't deal damage :c But Druid or Mage would probably LOVE your card, given the right circumstances. What those circumstances are… I don't know, and the difficulty of knowing whether it'd be a dud or a massive combo-enabler might affect the votes you get, much as I love the card's simplicity.
Better call Thrall!
From my submission:
"Cheap Naga to boost some of Fel Warlock's spells.
Felfire in the Hole suddenly deals at minimum 4, Full Blown Evil can deal up to 27 damage split cause it's repeatable (on turn 10) and Demonic Assault actually does good damage.
Not only that, but it's a 1 1/3 Dredger with the Naga Tribe, so it's way more versatile than an ONLY Fel Warlock type of card."
Yes, certainly, if they're a part of the keyword.
@ Me0203 "Re: Wailor's Typhoon, a mechanical question - will back-to-back Dredges invalidate the first card Dredged or place it second in your deck?"
Dredge places the card on top of your deck, and does not shuffle it. Dredging again should leave the deck alone and place the second card on top of the first one.
What about this? It's not Al'Akir anymore, but Su-Gar, Confection Lord!
"Fire Lifesteal" is what it sounds like: Your Fire spells have Lifesteal. While technically a new keyword combination, I'd argue it's no different than Bru'kan saying "Nature Spell Damage +3" instead of "Your Nature spells have Spell Damage +3" despite being the first card ever to do that.
Early Feedback:
machadogps - Seems really strong. Blizzard tells us Dredge is a vanilla effect that can afford a conditional bonus next to it on a class card - Trench Surveyor says so - while Spell Damage usually comes with more cost. I could perhaps see it on a more expensive minion, but on a 1-drop Common? Would push Fel Warlock for sure lol
Me0203 - I like Nutty Buddy - Mech Shaman could've used more love - although two Nuttys (Nutties?) really early could get ugly. I don't see the need for Inlet Scavenger and Tuskarrrr Trawler to exist at the same time.
AeroJulwin - It costs 0, so at some point during its existence it will cause chaos lol. Requires you to accumulate more pieces in hand to pop off with Vexallus Mage, for example, so there is that. It might be okay if AoEs aren't printed, which has held true for a while. Ironically, the Hunter might use this the most with its new Arcane stuff.
Wailor - I don't know when she'll be printed, or what she'll entail, but I feel Calia can afford to be more than a keyword-soup card. Living Typhoon is cool, though, so I'd go with that one.
Demonxz95 - The Raptor is a neat callback to two older keywords. It might be simple, but I like that one more.
What I've done. I came up with this theme, but I didn't prepare the idea for the card in advance. :D
Is it allowed to use the manathrist keyword like "Manathrist (X): Keyword." without "gain" word?
This was a hard prompt. Here's a spell focused druid card with a lot going on which i hope work how i wanted it to work. You can choose Echo and you get a second copy of it in hand but it doesn't have it as default. You can choose echo to get several copies for the Spellburst. You can chose Spell damage for either nature or arcane for some otk. With 3 copies assuming you chose Echo once, you only get +5 spell damage total in a chosen spell school at max so Same as original Malygos. Restricted to 1 spell school, but you have 3 Adapted bodies in the wake.
Now i realize it should be a legendary most likely.
Art credit: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/XnGGa
I'll boop you
I'll finally go with Living Typhoon, as people seemed to prefer it over Calia unanimously.
I'm still not sure about balance, though. It seems very weak right now, but giving it stat points seems too much. Maybe a 4/4 statline is okay? It would help to trigger Overkill and I don't want to go for Honorable Kill because it doesn't fit the flavor as much.
Feedback:
If you go for Thunderaan, I'd make it simply use Mega-Windfury and maybe make it cost 6 (you can also give it +1 Health if you do this). Also, maybe it should be a Shaman card?
With this change, I'd prefer Thunderaan, but if you're not comfortable using Mega-Windfury, Raptor is also good (even if I'm a bit triggered to see a Raptor that doesn't use the 3/2 statline lol).
I'd recommend either reducing its Spell Damage to 1 or making it a Mage card, as this class doesn't have too many Arcane spells that can go face.
I'd say it needs the word "Gain". Maybe Choose One is debatable, but even then I'm inclined to say it needs the word.
If it is allowed, however, I really enjoy its concept, but I'd do a couple things to improve it:
Is fel damage +2 really that strong in current warlock? Look, at first glace it looks absolutely broken, but if you see the pool, it's not actually that good.
I would personally like to submit Bonedragon Ritual, but I doubt that including a keyword that needs only one bit of non-bold text would qualify, which leaves me with Chronax as probably my best bet to stand out among the competition.
"Truth is in the shadows, waiting to be revealed by the light. But light only disperses the shadow." - Me
"If other people shared traits of those considered naive, the world would've become a better place." - Also me
It's unfortunate that Galakrond falls through the cracks on this prompt, but ultimately Yes, a card Invoking Galakrond would get you in trouble :(
@machadogps
Fel Damage +2 on a 1-drop with premium stats (and the Dredge) is a lot in my opinion. You'd also have to consider that, if such a card existed, Fel Warlock probably wouldn't see much additional help: with such a strong cheap card waiting in the wings, how much more could they push the archetype without going overboard?
I think it's a cool card, don't get me wrong; I just think +1 would have been safer.
@R
Going to leave this feedback thread here. Speaking of feedback:
Super simple is just sort of the name of the game in this competition.
At 0 mana for Spell Damage +1, it will definitely see play at some point. Mage in particular would definitely like this with Arcane Bolts and Vexallus.
I do agree that the Fel Spell Damage is not as overpowered as it looks like it should be, although it does limit the design of cheap Fel spells for Warlock pretty significantly.
Little future note here: The best way to use the Discussion Topic is to post your card(s) here first to get relevant feedback and then submit your entry when you're happy with the card in its current form.
I appreciate the attempt at what you're trying to do, and Echo and Choose are both keywords that would work well together.
But I feel like the text is bloated too heavily with a lot of bold words and it's actually sort of hard to read. I think you should try something a bit simpler.
Chronax is an elegant use of the prompt, but I feel like it might actually be quite powerful since you can stack your first draw with no cost.
Dragonbone Ritual is unfortunately not valid due to the use of the word "Galakrond".
Everybody, you've got 24 hours left to submit.
Submissions are closed; good luck to everyone in the voting!
Well, i can confirm the voting bug is very real, as it happened again. This week i did not vote on any cards pre-voting stage. I went there 15 min before writing this comment and voted on the slideshow one by one from 0 voted cards to "You've seen all the submissions" message. And when i went to check the "My voting page" where it shows all entries in one list, 4 of them were new. Not shown to me on the slideshow page.
I'll boop you
I've been unable to replicate any issues with this - same with link.
For the next week, I recommend using a browser with no addons and seeing if that makes a difference. We haven't changed any underlying code for the system for over a year and this is the first time we're hearing about this happening.
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If you need another case like this to confirm it, it happened to me too. Some cards were skipped during the voting. Its was on mobile browser, so I don't have any addons.
Maybe it's been like this for over a year and i just now noticed. I'm on firefox and only have 2 addons: the youtube dislike button and kaspersky internet antivirus.
I'll boop you
Good luck to the finalists!
Super busy week at work again so I wasn't able to participate in the discussion here. All the more glad to see all my favorites in the finals though. Good luck everybody!
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
Congrats to Me0203!
It was definitely a very good card.
Thanks, y'all! I really didn't expect that, next to the likes of the other cards in the lineup. What a pleasant surprise.
May all of your buddies be nutty.
Better call Thrall!
Congrats to Me0203!
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
Congrats!
(I finally understood Nutty Buddy was a triple pun lol)