MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago
Submitted my card after changing some things, the feedback was useful! Mainly, swapped my artwork for the one Wailor suggested (I like yours better as well!) and made the Beast-eating a more feel-good moment by reducing the cost of the card to 2 mana and by making it so that the Dragon gains Rush as well. To compensate, the buff is now +2/+2 instead of +2/+3. The wording was changed to "The next dragon you play eats it to gain..." so that it's clearer that the Beast needs to be alive for the buffs to be granted.
I feel like I don't have much to add when it comes to feedback to others, so I'll just say a few things:
Show Spoiler
Anchorm4n: I actually really enjoy the idea behind this card's effect (though I agree it pushes its luck a bit when it comes to the rules) but I feel like you are going to need to find a really good artwork to sell the card, which is always quite difficult. That's why I think, for custom cards, a top-down approach where you start from the artwork and then think of the effect is pretty much always better.
Wailor: I like this effect and I've quite enjoyed the addition of the Murloc package to various Reno Warlock decks. With that said, I think you could actually push this a bit more considering the deckbuilding cost. I feel like this could be pushed to 4 mana, maybe at the cost of a stat point somewhere. Not many ways you can break Demons by cheating them out on turn 4, anyway. Warlocks have been doing it since Naxxramas!
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago
Hello! Happy everyone is enjoying the theme.
This is my entry for this week's competition. I've always been fond of Descent of Dragon's Dragon Hunter, and would really like to see it again in the future. This is my attempt at combining Dragons and Beasts in Hunter!
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago
Hello everyone! I'm happy to see that custom card competitions are back.
This is my initial design for this special competition:
The idea behind Sai Shadestorm is to allow a possible 3-Frost archetype to play a slower gameplan, more focused on generating value with Discover and copy effects. While this is certainly a strong effect, I think the downside of losing access to your weapons, an important asset of Death Knights, makes for an interesting tradeoff.
It also allows for some interesting deckbuilding choices. Do you automatically discard the idea of playing weapons? The card can come down on turn 5 at the earliest, so could you maybe play a few early game weapons until you get to that turn? Just something interesting to think about.
Having such a downside on the card text also allows "protection" from other Death Knight decks, such as something like 3-Blood, from finding ways to discover this card and abusing it, as they would have to suffer the major downside anyway.
Finally, I think it works very well thematically (A powerful Frost Death Knight encasing you in ice to protect you) and it's a nice progression/evolution of my Lord Marrogwar, the design I proposed for the Death Knight competition we had last season, back when we hadn't seen the class yet!
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago
Happy new year everyone! I'll share a couple of my favorite Hearthstone moments from this year:
The first one was a day during Sunken City when I hit Legend in both Standard and Wild in the same month, which I had never done before as a primary Wild player. I didn't really plan to do it, I just remember falling in love with Control Shaman during the first months of the year and playing it until it was nerfed. In that period I also played Beast Druid in Wild, one of my favorite decks of all time.
One highlight of the year was surely publishing my custom expansion on the fan community forum. I was also very hyped the day the Death Knight assets got leaked, revealing that the final expansion of the year would contain a new class (despite the fact that I was rooting for Monks!)
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 7 months ago
Couldn't really land on a version of the last card that I liked, just couldn't incorporate the feedback as I wanted to. So, new card. I'll probably submit this. Very cheap cost for the effect but it's pretty hard to activate if your opponent knows about it. Also resisted the urge to add the text Draw a card.
Show Spoiler
Demon - Super simple designs this time around! They're both pretty cool, wouldn't really know which one to submit. The satyr is slightly more safe as an effect, the Cartomancer is more breakable but slightly more exciting.
R - Cool effect, always happy to see unspent mana effects on Druid. I don't think the card needs to be legendary if you don't want to, but I'm pretty sure it has to be a refresh effect, considering how many cards can become back breaking if Druid cheats them out one or two turns in advance.
Linkblade - Great card! I think the one-turn buffer is a great idea to balance it. The effect can be abused pretty hard by Rogue (it doesn't matter if he can't copy itself, the Rogue can just keep a single Shadowstep in the copied hand) but I feel like this is one of those cards that you'd have to playtest to be sure. Maybe it could work.
Basil - Not sure about this? You found a way to break it yourself, so not sure how this could possibly work. Chaining Time Loops would break the card, especially considering how easy it is for Mages to find extra copies of it.
Wailor - Simple and effective design, I like it. I gave it a great score :)
AeroJulwin - The last version of Theora you posted is surely my favorite card of this week! The idea to have a timebender cancel out a particularly bad turn feels great in flavor. The effect is also different enough from other cards to warrant the existence of this legendary: not quite a Reno (you rarely take all the damage in a single turn), can be used with armor (which Mage has a bit of) and can recast secrets, which is cool. My only criticism of the card is the fact that if this were to be actually printed in the game, you'd have to ban it in Wild, as there's no way you could ever balance this around cards like Potion of Illusion, Luna's Pocket Galaxy + Barista Lynchen or Zola the Gorgon… That's a ton of Ice Blocks!
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 7 months ago
My initial proposal for this week. I quite like the concept of last turn being a rehearsal before the actual play, with the play being represented by the turn in which you cast this card and do something cool with it. Shaman because it has some cool end-of-turn effects (Totems!) and is, more broadly, the repeat this effect class (or at least, that's how they feel to me).
I'll post some feedback when I feel like it, maybe when there's more cards. Sad to see the season ending, hopefully the wait for the next one isn't too long, I was starting to enjoy this weekly brain exercise. :(
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 7 months ago
Appreciate the help with the wording! I've been playing some Runeterra lately and I got it mixed up. (And I agree with you Demon, LoR wording sucks.)
I don't think Taunt is necessary, there's already some things you can do with the card that make it very powerful. There's a lot of hidden power in the card!
For example, spending all your mana when the card is at one HP to still gets three 1/1 Bees, effectively making it a 3 mana 6/11 in the perfect circumastances. Didn't think much about "when a minion dies" effects as Druid doesn't have many of them; the real reasons for the bees was to discount the big Druid beasts. Beast Druid was one of my most played decks when it was strong in Wild and you'd often use BEEEES!!! on your own 1 Health minions to get an early Knight of the Wild or Frostsaber Matriarch.
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 7 months ago
My proposal for this week. Honestly very proud of this design. This is my final design unless some textual inconsitency pops up that I might have missed.
Some quick feedback:
Show Spoiler
Linkblade - Massive Macaw is cool, I dig the design. I'd say go for that one. I personally despise designs like Izzy and I think they will never be printed as they just pose way too many problems. From the moment an effect like this is printed the design space for expensive spells in any class will be forever restricted because every class can have every spell, they can allow classes to work around inteded weaknesses (imagine giving, for example, a Standard Ramp Druid access to powerful board clears such as Whirlpool or Twisting Nether), they can create silly and overpowered combos (you've suddenly given every single class access to Potion of Illusion), they would complicate the UI during deckbuilding (something Hearthstone really cares about, rightfully).
Wailor - I'd go with the Murloc. Having an incentive to put spells in Murloc decks is a concept I'm fond of, especially considering how minion-heavy Murloc decks usually are, and Silver Hand Commander is probably too strong as is, especially at an odd mana cost.
Demonxz & AeroJulvin - Good designs! I'd personally go for the second wording on Yogg though, so that it's consistent with other similar effects. The text also doesn't visually look any worse, so there's no reason not to.
R - Incorporating weapons is a cool idea, but the card is most likely quite overpowered at 4 mana. The amount of value and stats you could get on turn 4 or even turn 3 with coin is just absurd. This should be at least 5 mana. And even then, it would be quite an insane card.
Adam - I'd go with Arcaneburst Dawngrasp.Relic Chest is fundamentally broken: if it's supposed to upgrade after each played Relic then it's both extremely overpowered at 3 Mana (this would be, like, a 7-8 Mana effect) and the wording is incorrect. If it's not supposed to upgrade after each use, then it shouldn't be called a Relic. The other two cards are okay-ish but have incorrect wording/spelling mistakes in them.
Just want to request, is it possible to make an additional post for clarity where the expansion's cards are organized in a clear way? I understand you organized them by flavor but the way the cards were ordered doesn't have a consistent pattern (such as rarity, class or name in alphabetical order) so it's hard to wrap one's head around. (I dunno, I think it's just me.)
The cards are already ordered consistently by class, they are just divided in two since each class has two different archetypes. I've also added neutrals to each relevant package to help viewers notice interesting synergies they might otherwise miss. Still, reordering them won't cost me much time, so sure. This is the expansion sorted by class and rarity:
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 8 months ago
Alright, alright. No Colossal minions. :(
New design uses the idea of self-freezing as a way to preserve both minions and heroes in the ice, allowing them to be more resistant to enemy threats. Four mana 2/6 statline because I feel like people prefer slightly underpowered designs but I feel like it could be pushed to 2/7.
Don't feel super at ease with this week's competition so I'll forgo feedback on other designs. I enjoy most of them, though. Interested to see if anyone gets anywhere close to the real designs we'll see soon enough!
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 8 months ago
My initial proposal for this week. Very interesting challenge, but I feel like it's hard to come up with a good design until we know which strengths, weaknesses and playstyles the new class will have. Would be fun to do this challenge again in December :)
I'm using Colossal because I've had a fun idea for a card, there's not that many other design reasons for this particular choice. I like the idea of having a card Frozen until a condition is met. The idea here being that the opponent has to kill the two Bone Spikes if he wants to attack either your hero or your other minions but, if he does, he will also have to clear Lord Marrowgar in the same turn unless he wants to get smacked for quite a lot of damage (as he will thaw out that turn, becoming able to attack during yours).
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 8 months ago
Another Squeamlish design, this one more focused on the initial idea of Healing Druid. This allows a fully healed minion to get extra Health when healed, hopefully improving the lackluster Healing Druid cards and allowing some experimentation with old and underperforming neutral minions.
Aggressively statted for 4 Mana but Healing Druid needs a big push and this card still requires synergy, so this feels more than fair to me.
Some quick feedback:
Show Spoiler
Wailor - I like the new Deathmetal Encorer much more! It's a simple card but does its thing well. Well done!
Arkasaur- Very interesting concepts! You should absolutely go with Premeditate in my opinion. I'll give you some conflicting feedback: I think Wailor's off when he says that the card should be a minion. As a spell it can sit in your hand and do nothing, sure, but as a minion there's no way it wouldn't be busted. Rogue has waaaay too many ways to bounce minions. On a cheap minion, they could bounce it a bunch of times and get insane value as early as turn 3-4, on a mid to late game minion it would be a worthless effect (Shuffle Rogue wants to win in the early to midgame). Gloomblade is unprintable. If this card existed, Rogue would have a Wild OTK that you can pull off on turn 3 with a lucky hand, probably on turn 4-5 on average using Academic Espionage and a Preparation or two.
Linkblade - I really like the concept of a weapon allowing your board to essentially get Windfury. Very very hard to judge how good the card would be without playtesting it but I think at 4 Mana it would probably be absolutely busted. Also a very scary weapon in the same class that has access to Inara Stormcrash on the following turn.
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 8 months ago
For my initial design this week, I propose Squeamlish, the clumsy Druid from Rise of Shadows.
The aim of this card is to push the Healing Druid archetype that was only really tried in Rise of Shadows. To make the card more interesting and open up brand new Druid strategies, Squeamlish doesn't just double the amount of Health restored by cards such as Crystal Power or Healing Touch but she also doubles the amount of Health given by cards, making some underplayed cards such as Mark of the Wild and Mark of Nature a viable choice for some decks.
Just a small note: be careful about the competition requirements! They specifically mention that the archetype you choose must not have been supported for more than two expansions.
This would, for example, disqualify both of Adam's first proposals (both Holy Paladin and Taunt Warrior have been pushed for countless expansions) and the unfortunately already submitted card for Murloc Paladin, another archetype that's been supported for quite a number of expansions by now.
Hey Wailor, thanks for the very kind comment! I actually haven't made that many custom cards before, just a few mini projects every now and then over the years. This is actually my first time doing an entire set!
Ghost Ship is supposed to become a passive effect in the turns in which you trigger it. So you'd have 2 turns where every Pirate you play and every Shadow spell you cast would deal 2 damage to a random enemy!
I agree with some of the things you are saying. I'm obviously not saying we should pretend entire classes don't exist in the game or that we should justify blatantly overpowered designs. I've never thought that should be the case and that's just pushing my argument to its logical extreme.
I agree with you on the fact that you can't print a single Secret for a class that doesn't have any others. Obviously that would be terrible as the card would be non-functional and fundamentally broken.
But the rest of your post has not convinced me in the slightest that I'm wrong when it comes to my idea that creators should be allowed to break some rules. I think you are stating your opinion in a way that's trying to be objective, when clearly it's a matter of personal preference. As long as the card is functional, I really don't see any reason why Infuse couldn't be in a previous set or why a card made for a modern set couldn't utilize a previous keyword. Take one of your examples. Sure, before Forged in the Barrens we didn't have Spell Schools. But now we do and we know the Spell Schools of previously released spells. Take Rogue's set from Journey to Un'Goro: looking at it now, we can see that every spell they received except the Quest is a Nature spell. Would designing a Rogue card that interacts with Nature spells in that set be that bad? It's fine if you think so, I'm not judging your opinion on the matter. I just disagree.
When I said that creators should be able to break some rules, I meant minor ones. Take, for example, Full-Blown Evil, printed in Fractured in Alterac Valley. If that were a custom card, I'd see literally no reason not to use Echo instead of "Repeatable this turn." I understand why the developers don't do it and I agree with them. But the thing is, this is a custom card forum with (supposedly) highly engaged players that have access to the entire card database. Confusing new players is not an issue. In my opinion, if that card were to be a cusotm card, I think there would be no reason why it should have Repeatable thisturn instead of Echo.
Again, it's fine if you feel like penalizing cards that don't submit to your personal standards, I'm just saying that's something that you are deciding to do, not something that's in the rules or that's objective in any way, shape or form. There's not a standard when it comes to scores, unless a forum member has specifically created a post where they describe in detail how they assign votes, so in the end I don't think this is such a big deal. Just as you penalize participants that break these rules, I could easily give them extra points because in my eyes they are being original. It's just a matter of personal taste.
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 8 months ago
Alright, this is my final design and the card I'll be submitting. There shouldn't be any mistakes or inconsistencies in the text. I'll explain the idea behind this design directly in the voting page.
I'm a bit surprised to see how strong the pushback was on the idea of making a card using a newer mechanic for an older set. I'll play by the (unspoken) rule but I think it's a really silly reason to deduct points from a design. If anything, since these are custom cards that will most likely never make it in the actual game, we could really use the extra freedom the developers wish they had when it comes to bringing back old keywords, mechanics, etc.
Anyway, and consider this a minor spoiler -- if Shadows allows me, at least for next week everyone will be encouraged to break this silly rule :)
MoondreamerChild of the Night 41030 PostsJoined 03/16/2021
Posted 1 year, 8 months ago
First proposal for this week's competition:
Since this week's prompt specifically mentions that the Infuse card doesn't have to be from Murder at Castle Nathria, I tried to imagine what an Infuse card would look like in an older Hearthstone expansion. The idea for a vacuum cleaner card became this GvG concept. Other than the flavor feeling very much on point to me, I think this would be a pretty cool card to have in the game as some Spare Parts have some interesting effects. Some classes that care about generating cards that didn't start in their decks might also consider this card.
Might not be my final submission. I have another idea but I need to find some fitting flavor for the effect I have in mind.
Some feedback:
Show Spoiler
Demon –PartyGreeter feels much more convincing to me than Spectral Spirit, for sure. My only doubt when it comes to your design comes from the text being maybe a bit unclear: when the game checks if I can afford to play the minions, does it check if I have the mana for one of them or both?
Say I have 4 mana and play this. Does it draw a 1-Cost minion or two? If two, why? I only have the mana to afford one. If two, that's fine, but it would be something a player has to learn, which is meh. Maybe this kind of effect would be more fitting on a lower cost minion?
Linkblade – Not much to say here. Out of the three options, I prefer the second Well Fed. The first one has a cooler effect but until stacking Divine Shields are introduced in the game, the only way you could realistically make a similar effect would be on a Legendary card.
Wailor – Of the three designs, I personally prefer Redeemer of Sins. Vampiric Awakening is absolutely unprintable at that Mana cost (Lesser Diamond Spellstone and Mass Resurrection were run in Wild Big Priest not that long ago, look at the Mana difference).
Lysa Sinsong is also priced pretty agressively. Not sure if she'd be overpowered (I don't love the idea of giving Zoo decks a 4 Mana Mind Control) but at the same time, Infuse (5) is a decently difficult ask. Overall I like it, but it's hard to evaluate.
If I correctly think how colossal works, then the main problem with this card is that after Nash awakes from dormant, he will summon the location again.
Ah yeah, you're right. Probably should have waited a bit before submitting. I'll keep it in mind for the next competition.
The problem would be pretty easy to solve, I think. Just change the Location's durability to 2 and Nash's text to "Deathrattle or when I go Dormant: Destroy the friendly Nash's Burrow with the highest Durability" -- though it would be a bit less elegant. A shame :(
Submitted my card after changing some things, the feedback was useful! Mainly, swapped my artwork for the one Wailor suggested (I like yours better as well!) and made the Beast-eating a more feel-good moment by reducing the cost of the card to 2 mana and by making it so that the Dragon gains Rush as well. To compensate, the buff is now +2/+2 instead of +2/+3. The wording was changed to "The next dragon you play eats it to gain..." so that it's clearer that the Beast needs to be alive for the buffs to be granted.
I feel like I don't have much to add when it comes to feedback to others, so I'll just say a few things:
Anchorm4n: I actually really enjoy the idea behind this card's effect (though I agree it pushes its luck a bit when it comes to the rules) but I feel like you are going to need to find a really good artwork to sell the card, which is always quite difficult. That's why I think, for custom cards, a top-down approach where you start from the artwork and then think of the effect is pretty much always better.
Wailor: I like this effect and I've quite enjoyed the addition of the Murloc package to various Reno Warlock decks. With that said, I think you could actually push this a bit more considering the deckbuilding cost. I feel like this could be pushed to 4 mana, maybe at the cost of a stat point somewhere. Not many ways you can break Demons by cheating them out on turn 4, anyway. Warlocks have been doing it since Naxxramas!
Hello! Happy everyone is enjoying the theme.
This is my entry for this week's competition. I've always been fond of Descent of Dragon's Dragon Hunter, and would really like to see it again in the future. This is my attempt at combining Dragons and Beasts in Hunter!
Hello everyone! I'm happy to see that custom card competitions are back.
This is my initial design for this special competition:
The idea behind Sai Shadestorm is to allow a possible 3-Frost archetype to play a slower gameplan, more focused on generating value with Discover and copy effects. While this is certainly a strong effect, I think the downside of losing access to your weapons, an important asset of Death Knights, makes for an interesting tradeoff.
It also allows for some interesting deckbuilding choices. Do you automatically discard the idea of playing weapons? The card can come down on turn 5 at the earliest, so could you maybe play a few early game weapons until you get to that turn? Just something interesting to think about.
Having such a downside on the card text also allows "protection" from other Death Knight decks, such as something like 3-Blood, from finding ways to discover this card and abusing it, as they would have to suffer the major downside anyway.
Finally, I think it works very well thematically (A powerful Frost Death Knight encasing you in ice to protect you) and it's a nice progression/evolution of my Lord Marrogwar, the design I proposed for the Death Knight competition we had last season, back when we hadn't seen the class yet!
Happy new year everyone! I'll share a couple of my favorite Hearthstone moments from this year:
The first one was a day during Sunken City when I hit Legend in both Standard and Wild in the same month, which I had never done before as a primary Wild player. I didn't really plan to do it, I just remember falling in love with Control Shaman during the first months of the year and playing it until it was nerfed. In that period I also played Beast Druid in Wild, one of my favorite decks of all time.
One highlight of the year was surely publishing my custom expansion on the fan community forum. I was also very hyped the day the Death Knight assets got leaked, revealing that the final expansion of the year would contain a new class (despite the fact that I was rooting for Monks!)
Couldn't really land on a version of the last card that I liked, just couldn't incorporate the feedback as I wanted to. So, new card. I'll probably submit this. Very cheap cost for the effect but it's pretty hard to activate if your opponent knows about it. Also resisted the urge to add the text Draw a card.
Demon - Super simple designs this time around! They're both pretty cool, wouldn't really know which one to submit. The satyr is slightly more safe as an effect, the Cartomancer is more breakable but slightly more exciting.
R - Cool effect, always happy to see unspent mana effects on Druid. I don't think the card needs to be legendary if you don't want to, but I'm pretty sure it has to be a refresh effect, considering how many cards can become back breaking if Druid cheats them out one or two turns in advance.
Linkblade - Great card! I think the one-turn buffer is a great idea to balance it. The effect can be abused pretty hard by Rogue (it doesn't matter if he can't copy itself, the Rogue can just keep a single Shadowstep in the copied hand) but I feel like this is one of those cards that you'd have to playtest to be sure. Maybe it could work.
Basil - Not sure about this? You found a way to break it yourself, so not sure how this could possibly work. Chaining Time Loops would break the card, especially considering how easy it is for Mages to find extra copies of it.
Wailor - Simple and effective design, I like it. I gave it a great score :)
AeroJulwin - The last version of Theora you posted is surely my favorite card of this week! The idea to have a timebender cancel out a particularly bad turn feels great in flavor. The effect is also different enough from other cards to warrant the existence of this legendary: not quite a Reno (you rarely take all the damage in a single turn), can be used with armor (which Mage has a bit of) and can recast secrets, which is cool. My only criticism of the card is the fact that if this were to be actually printed in the game, you'd have to ban it in Wild, as there's no way you could ever balance this around cards like Potion of Illusion, Luna's Pocket Galaxy + Barista Lynchen or Zola the Gorgon… That's a ton of Ice Blocks!
My initial proposal for this week. I quite like the concept of last turn being a rehearsal before the actual play, with the play being represented by the turn in which you cast this card and do something cool with it. Shaman because it has some cool end-of-turn effects (Totems!) and is, more broadly, the repeat this effect class (or at least, that's how they feel to me).
I'll post some feedback when I feel like it, maybe when there's more cards. Sad to see the season ending, hopefully the wait for the next one isn't too long, I was starting to enjoy this weekly brain exercise. :(
Thanks for the votes, and thank you linkblade for the kind words, I appreciate them :)
Appreciate the help with the wording! I've been playing some Runeterra lately and I got it mixed up. (And I agree with you Demon, LoR wording sucks.)
I don't think Taunt is necessary, there's already some things you can do with the card that make it very powerful. There's a lot of hidden power in the card!
For example, spending all your mana when the card is at one HP to still gets three 1/1 Bees, effectively making it a 3 mana 6/11 in the perfect circumastances. Didn't think much about "when a minion dies" effects as Druid doesn't have many of them; the real reasons for the bees was to discount the big Druid beasts. Beast Druid was one of my most played decks when it was strong in Wild and you'd often use BEEEES!!! on your own 1 Health minions to get an early Knight of the Wild or Frostsaber Matriarch.
My proposal for this week. Honestly very proud of this design. This is my final design unless some textual inconsitency pops up that I might have missed.
Some quick feedback:
Linkblade - Massive Macaw is cool, I dig the design. I'd say go for that one. I personally despise designs like Izzy and I think they will never be printed as they just pose way too many problems. From the moment an effect like this is printed the design space for expensive spells in any class will be forever restricted because every class can have every spell, they can allow classes to work around inteded weaknesses (imagine giving, for example, a Standard Ramp Druid access to powerful board clears such as Whirlpool or Twisting Nether), they can create silly and overpowered combos (you've suddenly given every single class access to Potion of Illusion), they would complicate the UI during deckbuilding (something Hearthstone really cares about, rightfully).
Wailor - I'd go with the Murloc. Having an incentive to put spells in Murloc decks is a concept I'm fond of, especially considering how minion-heavy Murloc decks usually are, and Silver Hand Commander is probably too strong as is, especially at an odd mana cost.
Demonxz & AeroJulvin - Good designs! I'd personally go for the second wording on Yogg though, so that it's consistent with other similar effects. The text also doesn't visually look any worse, so there's no reason not to.
R - Incorporating weapons is a cool idea, but the card is most likely quite overpowered at 4 mana. The amount of value and stats you could get on turn 4 or even turn 3 with coin is just absurd. This should be at least 5 mana. And even then, it would be quite an insane card.
Adam - I'd go with Arcaneburst Dawngrasp. Relic Chest is fundamentally broken: if it's supposed to upgrade after each played Relic then it's both extremely overpowered at 3 Mana (this would be, like, a 7-8 Mana effect) and the wording is incorrect. If it's not supposed to upgrade after each use, then it shouldn't be called a Relic. The other two cards are okay-ish but have incorrect wording/spelling mistakes in them.
The cards are already ordered consistently by class, they are just divided in two since each class has two different archetypes. I've also added neutrals to each relevant package to help viewers notice interesting synergies they might otherwise miss. Still, reordering them won't cost me much time, so sure. This is the expansion sorted by class and rarity:
Alright, alright. No Colossal minions. :(
New design uses the idea of self-freezing as a way to preserve both minions and heroes in the ice, allowing them to be more resistant to enemy threats. Four mana 2/6 statline because I feel like people prefer slightly underpowered designs but I feel like it could be pushed to 2/7.
Don't feel super at ease with this week's competition so I'll forgo feedback on other designs. I enjoy most of them, though. Interested to see if anyone gets anywhere close to the real designs we'll see soon enough!
My initial proposal for this week. Very interesting challenge, but I feel like it's hard to come up with a good design until we know which strengths, weaknesses and playstyles the new class will have. Would be fun to do this challenge again in December :)
I'm using Colossal because I've had a fun idea for a card, there's not that many other design reasons for this particular choice. I like the idea of having a card Frozen until a condition is met. The idea here being that the opponent has to kill the two Bone Spikes if he wants to attack either your hero or your other minions but, if he does, he will also have to clear Lord Marrowgar in the same turn unless he wants to get smacked for quite a lot of damage (as he will thaw out that turn, becoming able to attack during yours).
Loving everyone's ideas so far!
Another Squeamlish design, this one more focused on the initial idea of Healing Druid. This allows a fully healed minion to get extra Health when healed, hopefully improving the lackluster Healing Druid cards and allowing some experimentation with old and underperforming neutral minions.
Aggressively statted for 4 Mana but Healing Druid needs a big push and this card still requires synergy, so this feels more than fair to me.
Some quick feedback:
Wailor - I like the new Deathmetal Encorer much more! It's a simple card but does its thing well. Well done!
Arkasaur - Very interesting concepts! You should absolutely go with Premeditate in my opinion. I'll give you some conflicting feedback: I think Wailor's off when he says that the card should be a minion. As a spell it can sit in your hand and do nothing, sure, but as a minion there's no way it wouldn't be busted. Rogue has waaaay too many ways to bounce minions. On a cheap minion, they could bounce it a bunch of times and get insane value as early as turn 3-4, on a mid to late game minion it would be a worthless effect (Shuffle Rogue wants to win in the early to midgame). Gloomblade is unprintable. If this card existed, Rogue would have a Wild OTK that you can pull off on turn 3 with a lucky hand, probably on turn 4-5 on average using Academic Espionage and a Preparation or two.
Linkblade - I really like the concept of a weapon allowing your board to essentially get Windfury. Very very hard to judge how good the card would be without playtesting it but I think at 4 Mana it would probably be absolutely busted. Also a very scary weapon in the same class that has access to Inara Stormcrash on the following turn.
For my initial design this week, I propose Squeamlish, the clumsy Druid from Rise of Shadows.
The aim of this card is to push the Healing Druid archetype that was only really tried in Rise of Shadows. To make the card more interesting and open up brand new Druid strategies, Squeamlish doesn't just double the amount of Health restored by cards such as Crystal Power or Healing Touch but she also doubles the amount of Health given by cards, making some underplayed cards such as Mark of the Wild and Mark of Nature a viable choice for some decks.
Just a small note: be careful about the competition requirements! They specifically mention that the archetype you choose must not have been supported for more than two expansions.
This would, for example, disqualify both of Adam's first proposals (both Holy Paladin and Taunt Warrior have been pushed for countless expansions) and the unfortunately already submitted card for Murloc Paladin, another archetype that's been supported for quite a number of expansions by now.
Hey Wailor, thanks for the very kind comment! I actually haven't made that many custom cards before, just a few mini projects every now and then over the years. This is actually my first time doing an entire set!
Ghost Ship is supposed to become a passive effect in the turns in which you trigger it. So you'd have 2 turns where every Pirate you play and every Shadow spell you cast would deal 2 damage to a random enemy!
I agree with some of the things you are saying. I'm obviously not saying we should pretend entire classes don't exist in the game or that we should justify blatantly overpowered designs. I've never thought that should be the case and that's just pushing my argument to its logical extreme.
I agree with you on the fact that you can't print a single Secret for a class that doesn't have any others. Obviously that would be terrible as the card would be non-functional and fundamentally broken.
But the rest of your post has not convinced me in the slightest that I'm wrong when it comes to my idea that creators should be allowed to break some rules. I think you are stating your opinion in a way that's trying to be objective, when clearly it's a matter of personal preference. As long as the card is functional, I really don't see any reason why Infuse couldn't be in a previous set or why a card made for a modern set couldn't utilize a previous keyword. Take one of your examples. Sure, before Forged in the Barrens we didn't have Spell Schools. But now we do and we know the Spell Schools of previously released spells. Take Rogue's set from Journey to Un'Goro: looking at it now, we can see that every spell they received except the Quest is a Nature spell. Would designing a Rogue card that interacts with Nature spells in that set be that bad? It's fine if you think so, I'm not judging your opinion on the matter. I just disagree.
When I said that creators should be able to break some rules, I meant minor ones. Take, for example, Full-Blown Evil, printed in Fractured in Alterac Valley. If that were a custom card, I'd see literally no reason not to use Echo instead of "Repeatable this turn." I understand why the developers don't do it and I agree with them. But the thing is, this is a custom card forum with (supposedly) highly engaged players that have access to the entire card database. Confusing new players is not an issue. In my opinion, if that card were to be a cusotm card, I think there would be no reason why it should have Repeatable this turn instead of Echo.
Again, it's fine if you feel like penalizing cards that don't submit to your personal standards, I'm just saying that's something that you are deciding to do, not something that's in the rules or that's objective in any way, shape or form. There's not a standard when it comes to scores, unless a forum member has specifically created a post where they describe in detail how they assign votes, so in the end I don't think this is such a big deal. Just as you penalize participants that break these rules, I could easily give them extra points because in my eyes they are being original. It's just a matter of personal taste.
Alright, this is my final design and the card I'll be submitting. There shouldn't be any mistakes or inconsistencies in the text. I'll explain the idea behind this design directly in the voting page.
I'm a bit surprised to see how strong the pushback was on the idea of making a card using a newer mechanic for an older set. I'll play by the (unspoken) rule but I think it's a really silly reason to deduct points from a design. If anything, since these are custom cards that will most likely never make it in the actual game, we could really use the extra freedom the developers wish they had when it comes to bringing back old keywords, mechanics, etc.
Anyway, and consider this a minor spoiler -- if Shadows allows me, at least for next week everyone will be encouraged to break this silly rule :)
First proposal for this week's competition:
Since this week's prompt specifically mentions that the Infuse card doesn't have to be from Murder at Castle Nathria, I tried to imagine what an Infuse card would look like in an older Hearthstone expansion. The idea for a vacuum cleaner card became this GvG concept. Other than the flavor feeling very much on point to me, I think this would be a pretty cool card to have in the game as some Spare Parts have some interesting effects. Some classes that care about generating cards that didn't start in their decks might also consider this card.
Might not be my final submission. I have another idea but I need to find some fitting flavor for the effect I have in mind.
Some feedback:
Demon – Party Greeter feels much more convincing to me than Spectral Spirit, for sure. My only doubt when it comes to your design comes from the text being maybe a bit unclear: when the game checks if I can afford to play the minions, does it check if I have the mana for one of them or both?
Say I have 4 mana and play this. Does it draw a 1-Cost minion or two? If two, why? I only have the mana to afford one. If two, that's fine, but it would be something a player has to learn, which is meh. Maybe this kind of effect would be more fitting on a lower cost minion?
Linkblade – Not much to say here. Out of the three options, I prefer the second Well Fed. The first one has a cooler effect but until stacking Divine Shields are introduced in the game, the only way you could realistically make a similar effect would be on a Legendary card.
Wailor – Of the three designs, I personally prefer Redeemer of Sins. Vampiric Awakening is absolutely unprintable at that Mana cost (Lesser Diamond Spellstone and Mass Resurrection were run in Wild Big Priest not that long ago, look at the Mana difference).
Lysa Sinsong is also priced pretty agressively. Not sure if she'd be overpowered (I don't love the idea of giving Zoo decks a 4 Mana Mind Control) but at the same time, Infuse (5) is a decently difficult ask. Overall I like it, but it's hard to evaluate.
Thanks! Did not expect that, especially considering the fact that the card was a bit flawed. Still, I'm happy the idea caught on!
Good luck to everyone else for the next competition! :)
Ah yeah, you're right. Probably should have waited a bit before submitting. I'll keep it in mind for the next competition.
The problem would be pretty easy to solve, I think. Just change the Location's durability to 2 and Nash's text to "Deathrattle or when I go Dormant: Destroy the friendly Nash's Burrow with the highest Durability" -- though it would be a bit less elegant. A shame :(