This is really cool! Custom battlegrounds are fun.
How do spells work:
Are the spells listed available to buy in the shop? Confused on how Azshara would get spells otherwise.
Do spells (and their minions) rotate like other minion types? I feel they'd have to for the minion counts to make sense.
Balance:
I really like the design of casting random spells but then you have immune to damage minions.
A lot of the gold/tripled minions have their effects changed, rather than just "doubled" - this is interesting and I wonder if this is something Blizzard will experiment with more. Might make balance hard
In the early game, you are praying not to get Revenge or Breath of the Infinite unless you have some of these immune to spell damage minions (which might be the point).
In the lategame, spells seem very highrolly (which isn't necessarily any different than current BGs!) - you are basically hoping for Deadly Shot, Consume Magic, or Betrayal, the rest won't make much of a difference against a huge Saurolisk, Goldgrubber, Salty Looter, etc.
Excuse my incoherent rambling, most opinons only came while writing:
Looks interesting, but I really don't know how to evaluate these cards. But: I do not see a spell based build from the start, just transitioning later into one- except for Medievh and Nielas Aran there is no guaranted method to cast spells. The come-back mechanic of Crazed Mage would be great in Battlegrounds, keeping the game surprising.
I really like that your updated cards have unique effects, that are strictly better than just doubling numbers. (Small caveat: why do you use Magnificent Inventor instead of Wee Spellstopper? This card would also protect key minions from Ragnaros' and Nefarians Hero powers).
Queen Ashara seems way to weak. In a good case, you may have three spells at the beginning of your turn - with even odds that they benefit from spelldamage. Most boards later in the game won't die to the first ~11 damage due to divine shields, huge stats and generated tokens, but yours just might, since there is no possibility for you to grow your minions. But with 3 random spells there is a 57%+ chance for one symmetric effect, which is probably more deadly for you than for your opponent. The strong spells are those, that are not as dependant on spell damage, like Betrayal, Consume Magic and Deadly Shot- just those that won't get better by her hero power. I'd therefore suggest changing it to 2 Mana, and getting set back to 1 Spelldamage after each use.
Aegwynn+Mage Hunter: . To make spells viable, a 6 star card seems to expensive. Mage Hunter is the only card hard countered by Aegwynn, and that is an imbalance- to block a fringe strategy you only need a single 4star card-and to counter this countering, you need a 6 star card! Mage Hunter is to influential, winning you the game against any spell players-similar to Zapp Slywick,while less universal, it is also cheaper, and a lot of players will keep one in hand for the confrontation.
To the spellpool: It seems mostly fine, but Blessing of the ancients is really bad here - spells are costly to cast,they are worth at least a 2star minion., you could change it for a modified Desperate Measures, - secrets are already in battlegrounds0,- or a Soul of the Forest, or even Radiance- coming back is a theme of those mages, isn't it?
Also, I'd like to see the 5star cards which are not displayed here.
I think it'd be far more interesting if Spells were just added to your hand, and then you could decide when to cast them and they'd cast at the start of the next combat. Alternatively, you could do something like make cards generate a 1 Coin Spell that reads "Discover a Spell. Cast it at the start of the next combat." That way you could have "When you cast a Spell" cards and still have how spellls work make intuitive sense. That way players could control the randomness and even save up Spells for hard matchups. Right now, there are simply not enough cards that generate Spells and not enough cards that get a payoff from it. If you had cards like 'After you cast a Spell, deal 1 damage to all enemies" then I could see a reason to go for a Spell based strategy. Also, you printed far too many spell-hate cards. I think something simple like "After your opponent casts a Spell, give this +2/+2" could be a lot more balanced and not immediately shut down an already underpowered mechanic.
https://imgur.com/gallery/p8dzAnz
My Custom Death Knight Class
This is really cool! Custom battlegrounds are fun.
How do spells work:
Balance:
Excuse my incoherent rambling, most opinons only came while writing:
Looks interesting, but I really don't know how to evaluate these cards. But: I do not see a spell based build from the start, just transitioning later into one- except for Medievh and Nielas Aran there is no guaranted method to cast spells. The come-back mechanic of Crazed Mage would be great in Battlegrounds, keeping the game surprising.
I really like that your updated cards have unique effects, that are strictly better than just doubling numbers. (Small caveat: why do you use Magnificent Inventor instead of Wee Spellstopper? This card would also protect key minions from Ragnaros' and Nefarians Hero powers).
Queen Ashara seems way to weak. In a good case, you may have three spells at the beginning of your turn - with even odds that they benefit from spelldamage. Most boards later in the game won't die to the first ~11 damage due to divine shields, huge stats and generated tokens, but yours just might, since there is no possibility for you to grow your minions. But with 3 random spells there is a 57%+ chance for one symmetric effect, which is probably more deadly for you than for your opponent. The strong spells are those, that are not as dependant on spell damage, like Betrayal, Consume Magic and Deadly Shot- just those that won't get better by her hero power. I'd therefore suggest changing it to 2 Mana, and getting set back to 1 Spelldamage after each use.
Aegwynn+Mage Hunter: . To make spells viable, a 6 star card seems to expensive. Mage Hunter is the only card hard countered by Aegwynn, and that is an imbalance- to block a fringe strategy you only need a single 4star card-and to counter this countering, you need a 6 star card! Mage Hunter is to influential, winning you the game against any spell players-similar to Zapp Slywick,while less universal, it is also cheaper, and a lot of players will keep one in hand for the confrontation.
To the spellpool: It seems mostly fine, but Blessing of the ancients is really bad here - spells are costly to cast,they are worth at least a 2star minion., you could change it for a modified Desperate Measures, - secrets are already in battlegrounds0,- or a Soul of the Forest, or even Radiance- coming back is a theme of those mages, isn't it?
Also, I'd like to see the 5star cards which are not displayed here.
I think it'd be far more interesting if Spells were just added to your hand, and then you could decide when to cast them and they'd cast at the start of the next combat. Alternatively, you could do something like make cards generate a 1 Coin Spell that reads "Discover a Spell. Cast it at the start of the next combat." That way you could have "When you cast a Spell" cards and still have how spellls work make intuitive sense. That way players could control the randomness and even save up Spells for hard matchups. Right now, there are simply not enough cards that generate Spells and not enough cards that get a payoff from it. If you had cards like 'After you cast a Spell, deal 1 damage to all enemies" then I could see a reason to go for a Spell based strategy. Also, you printed far too many spell-hate cards. I think something simple like "After your opponent casts a Spell, give this +2/+2" could be a lot more balanced and not immediately shut down an already underpowered mechanic.