Thought this could be a fun little thread where we all share the deck (or decks) we're playing in the final week of the Year of the Phoenix. Personally, I'm giving my favourite deck over the last two years a farewell tour. My Big Paladin has been getting more and more great big minions such as Scrapyard Colossus, Plagued Protodrake and Runaway Blackwing in the Year of the Phoenix but some key cards are rotating in a week's time, like Colossus of the Moon and Duel!. Who knows? The deck may be able to survive rotation, but just in case it doesn't, I want to give it one last go this week.
I've got another custom battlegrounds tribe today, Ogres! When it comes to these guys, size matters, a lot. The mechanic that the Ogre tribe revolve around is Overkill. This all stemmed from a little joke I made when making an Overkill card for Rastakhan's Rumble that depicted an Ogre "More like Ogre-kill", yes I am aware that's a terrible joke.
I never particularly felt that the Overkill mechanic fit the Trolls that well, it needed to belong to someone a little bigger and beefier, like these guys. This Ogre set contains three new heroes and 15 new minions. I hope you enjoy my set, provided in the Google Slides presentation below (I dunno why I do it there, I just think it looks good). Any feedback would be really appreciated, be that on balance, flavour or anything else.
Thank you, that's what I was aiming for with this. Now that the actual Core Set has been fully revealed, it's got me hyped for some archetypes hopefully coming this year. I'm particularly excited about the Silver Hand Recruit stuff coming in Paladin (hence why I put some in my set).
See, this is a tricky thing. I have had similar problems when reading cards that are in the actual game in terms of what effect is temporary and what effect is permanent. When designing this, it became apparent that I was going to struggle to fit the card text on to less than four lines. The intention of this card is that the Stealth is only until your next turn, but the +1 Attack buff is permanent. If I made a distinction between this on the card, then I might've gone to five lines of text which I personally think looks quite ugly.
Thank you for the feedback, I hope this clears this up for you.
I understand what you mean about there being no realistic way to play around it. When designing it, I considered it to be like a Rogue version of Snipe. Patient Stab is quite bad against token summon decks like Druid and Paladin but much better against tempo, on-curve decks. I do personally think it's balanced but I do understand the criticism.
As for a nerf to Zilliax, I feel the only thing I would personally want to do to the card is remove the Magnetic effect, just leaving it as a survivability tool in the midgame, but that takes away so much of the flavour of the card, and I never really felt like it was broken when it was Standard before; really powerful but not broken.
I started this small project a while ago (around September or October can't really remember), but abandoned it because my early concepts were way too complicated. I came back to it after creating my Core Set the other day and really streamlined the mechanics down to what they are now. I'm not completely sure about balance but I am very happy with the flavour and mechanics. Any feedback would be much appreciated, especially from the Battlegrounds crowd as this is my first foray into designing cards for that particular game mode.
Okay, so this definitely isn't a new idea but I'm on leave of absence and I got bored so I thought I'd make this. Literally took me one day so there's probably a mistake somewhere and I am happy to discuss any changes you guys think about in the comments of the thread. Some of this is inspired by discussions I had with some of you in the comments of the Core Set predictions article yesterday, thank you for your thoughts, they were really helpful!
Just a note, there are 45 Neutrals split up as 20C, 8R, 7E and 10L. Each of the ten classes has 19 cards split up as 10B, 3C, 3R, 2E and 1L. In total, this comes to 235 cards which is the amount the actual core set is due to have. This is in no way intended to be a prediction of the actual core set. This is because I don't actually like Shadowform, and there are other Hall of Fame cards I would like to see return which it has been confirmed, won't be the case.
This is more a case of what I would personally like to see in the core set. The set is almost entirely comprised of current basic and classic cards as well as rotated cards. The only cards I have created myself are 2 Rogue Secrets and 1 Rogue Secret synergy card. I have done this primarily because I couldn't be arsed making a load of new cards but also because the old sets seem to have most of what I would like to see anyway.
Anyway, without further ado, here is my custom core set. Enjoy!
Now Val'anyr brings up another potential point. Do you think Team 5 would want to exclusively use Legendary minions for the core set? Assuming they only do 1 Legendary per class, having a spell or weapon as the Legendary may remove the character aspect from the core set, despite having cool and unique designs.
For instance, one of the Legendary spells from the Boomsday Project could be awesome or obviously a Legendary weapon from Kobolds & Catacombs. I feel like they would go exclusively for legendary minions but who knows?
Yeah tbh I was stuck between Shaku and Xaril. I totally forgot about them changing the burgle mechanic so I think you're right when you say Shaku is outdated. Xaril might have just clinched it for me then. My thinking for Bolvar was just me wanting more Divine Shield synergy in standard, but not obscene amounts (possible inclusion of Rallying Blade or Selfless Hero?).
My thinking behind Darius was that I feel the Rush keyword needs more representation in the core set and Darius is possibly the simplest Legendary that could convey the mechanic. We'll have to see on the day though.
You make a very good point actually about the synergy problems with the Year of the Phoenix cards, didn't think about it like that. I still think it would be a missed opportunity if they didn't include secrets though, so maybe the route of creating new less problematic secrets could be the way to go?
An idea could be something like: After a friendly minion dies, add 2 Coins to your hand. Or something along the lines of that.
Great analysis, I like some of the choices you've got for what should come back in particular Fandral Staghelm and Arcane Blast. One of my predictions is that Secrets will be made part of the core set for Rogue. They should bring back Cheat Death and maybe Evasion to give it a solid grounding, possibly creating a couple more new secrets in the process. A couple of Secret synergies wouldn't go amiss either, not on the power level of Greyheart Sage or Shadowjeweler Hanar but similar.
My other predictions I want to share are with regards to the class legendaries I think will be present in the core set.
One thing I always try and check is the presentation of the text box. I try and avoid having orphans (a single number or word on a line). It sounds pointless but honestly there are some cards that have really damn cool effects and art, but the text box is just so off-putting to look at. I'm gonna take heed on these lessons though, try and become a better card designer.
Very interesting theme for this one, especially with the banning of Druid cards. Thought I'd go for the most adorable Demon Hunter, Sklibb!
*Screams in Combo Deck*
Hi guys,
Thought this could be a fun little thread where we all share the deck (or decks) we're playing in the final week of the Year of the Phoenix. Personally, I'm giving my favourite deck over the last two years a farewell tour. My Big Paladin has been getting more and more great big minions such as Scrapyard Colossus, Plagued Protodrake and Runaway Blackwing in the Year of the Phoenix but some key cards are rotating in a week's time, like Colossus of the Moon and Duel!. Who knows? The deck may be able to survive rotation, but just in case it doesn't, I want to give it one last go this week.
Well I'm sure Rogues are gonna have a lot of fun next expansion. Everyone else, not so much😂😂
At least it's not Muff Runetotem lol
Well this triggers my ptsd
Hello there!
I've got another custom battlegrounds tribe today, Ogres! When it comes to these guys, size matters, a lot. The mechanic that the Ogre tribe revolve around is Overkill. This all stemmed from a little joke I made when making an Overkill card for Rastakhan's Rumble that depicted an Ogre "More like Ogre-kill", yes I am aware that's a terrible joke.
I never particularly felt that the Overkill mechanic fit the Trolls that well, it needed to belong to someone a little bigger and beefier, like these guys. This Ogre set contains three new heroes and 15 new minions. I hope you enjoy my set, provided in the Google Slides presentation below (I dunno why I do it there, I just think it looks good). Any feedback would be really appreciated, be that on balance, flavour or anything else.
Thank you!
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1FJ_2y3EB8zf92YwDzO1AJObYKhgpYoR0uT5C_kMdP9g/edit?usp=sharing
Thank you, that's what I was aiming for with this. Now that the actual Core Set has been fully revealed, it's got me hyped for some archetypes hopefully coming this year. I'm particularly excited about the Silver Hand Recruit stuff coming in Paladin (hence why I put some in my set).
See, this is a tricky thing. I have had similar problems when reading cards that are in the actual game in terms of what effect is temporary and what effect is permanent. When designing this, it became apparent that I was going to struggle to fit the card text on to less than four lines. The intention of this card is that the Stealth is only until your next turn, but the +1 Attack buff is permanent. If I made a distinction between this on the card, then I might've gone to five lines of text which I personally think looks quite ugly.
Thank you for the feedback, I hope this clears this up for you.
I understand what you mean about there being no realistic way to play around it. When designing it, I considered it to be like a Rogue version of Snipe. Patient Stab is quite bad against token summon decks like Druid and Paladin but much better against tempo, on-curve decks. I do personally think it's balanced but I do understand the criticism.
As for a nerf to Zilliax, I feel the only thing I would personally want to do to the card is remove the Magnetic effect, just leaving it as a survivability tool in the midgame, but that takes away so much of the flavour of the card, and I never really felt like it was broken when it was Standard before; really powerful but not broken.
Thank you for the feedback though, appreciate it.
This is my concept for a Battlegrounds-exclusive tribe: Treants.
All the stuff is featured in this Google Docs Presentation:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12B0VTqK3lDhB2n8PTtO4NtudFyNUU2eqZZ5tNZOwb2Y/edit?usp=sharing
I started this small project a while ago (around September or October can't really remember), but abandoned it because my early concepts were way too complicated. I came back to it after creating my Core Set the other day and really streamlined the mechanics down to what they are now. I'm not completely sure about balance but I am very happy with the flavour and mechanics. Any feedback would be much appreciated, especially from the Battlegrounds crowd as this is my first foray into designing cards for that particular game mode.
Okay, so this definitely isn't a new idea but I'm on leave of absence and I got bored so I thought I'd make this. Literally took me one day so there's probably a mistake somewhere and I am happy to discuss any changes you guys think about in the comments of the thread. Some of this is inspired by discussions I had with some of you in the comments of the Core Set predictions article yesterday, thank you for your thoughts, they were really helpful!
Just a note, there are 45 Neutrals split up as 20C, 8R, 7E and 10L. Each of the ten classes has 19 cards split up as 10B, 3C, 3R, 2E and 1L. In total, this comes to 235 cards which is the amount the actual core set is due to have. This is in no way intended to be a prediction of the actual core set. This is because I don't actually like Shadowform, and there are other Hall of Fame cards I would like to see return which it has been confirmed, won't be the case.
This is more a case of what I would personally like to see in the core set. The set is almost entirely comprised of current basic and classic cards as well as rotated cards. The only cards I have created myself are 2 Rogue Secrets and 1 Rogue Secret synergy card. I have done this primarily because I couldn't be arsed making a load of new cards but also because the old sets seem to have most of what I would like to see anyway.
Anyway, without further ado, here is my custom core set. Enjoy!
http://www.hearthcards.net/setsandclasses/#6546-My-Core%20Set%202021
Now Val'anyr brings up another potential point. Do you think Team 5 would want to exclusively use Legendary minions for the core set? Assuming they only do 1 Legendary per class, having a spell or weapon as the Legendary may remove the character aspect from the core set, despite having cool and unique designs.
For instance, one of the Legendary spells from the Boomsday Project could be awesome or obviously a Legendary weapon from Kobolds & Catacombs. I feel like they would go exclusively for legendary minions but who knows?
Yeah tbh I was stuck between Shaku and Xaril. I totally forgot about them changing the burgle mechanic so I think you're right when you say Shaku is outdated. Xaril might have just clinched it for me then. My thinking for Bolvar was just me wanting more Divine Shield synergy in standard, but not obscene amounts (possible inclusion of Rallying Blade or Selfless Hero?).
My thinking behind Darius was that I feel the Rush keyword needs more representation in the core set and Darius is possibly the simplest Legendary that could convey the mechanic. We'll have to see on the day though.
You make a very good point actually about the synergy problems with the Year of the Phoenix cards, didn't think about it like that. I still think it would be a missed opportunity if they didn't include secrets though, so maybe the route of creating new less problematic secrets could be the way to go?
An idea could be something like: After a friendly minion dies, add 2 Coins to your hand. Or something along the lines of that.
Great analysis, I like some of the choices you've got for what should come back in particular Fandral Staghelm and Arcane Blast. One of my predictions is that Secrets will be made part of the core set for Rogue. They should bring back Cheat Death and maybe Evasion to give it a solid grounding, possibly creating a couple more new secrets in the process. A couple of Secret synergies wouldn't go amiss either, not on the power level of Greyheart Sage or Shadowjeweler Hanar but similar.
My other predictions I want to share are with regards to the class legendaries I think will be present in the core set.
Demon Hunter: Nethrandamus
Druid: Fandral Staghelm
Hunter: King Krush
Mage: Kalecgos
Paladin: Bolvar, Fireblood
Priest: Lyra the Sunshard
Rogue: Shaku, the Collector
Shaman: Kalimos, Primal Lord
Warlock: Mal'Ganis
Warrior: Darius Crowley
We'll see how right or wrong I am tomorrow I guess!
For the name alone I want to see Bonk Droid. Excited to see the expansion, loved your other ones.
Interesting that there's no mention of Gul'dan in the order. Wonder if he'll be kept to the very end of the release order?
One thing I always try and check is the presentation of the text box. I try and avoid having orphans (a single number or word on a line). It sounds pointless but honestly there are some cards that have really damn cool effects and art, but the text box is just so off-putting to look at. I'm gonna take heed on these lessons though, try and become a better card designer.
Honestly, just pray dude.