Hearthpwn

This Week's Finalists

Restrictions:

• Like Bolvar Fordragon or Knight of the Wild, your card must do something while in your hand.
• Alternatively, like Curse of Rafaam, your card may produce a token card that does something while in either your or your opponent's hand.
• Your card should do this only while in your hand. Cards like Mountain Giant and Twilight Drake have effects that can vary depending on the size of your hand, but this is independent of whether or not they are in your hand to start with. Similarly, Molten Giant's mana cost can change while it is in your hand, but the effect which does so is independent of it being in your hand.
• This competition has a unique token card limit of 1.

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We have whittled down ~240 valid entries to just 20 of the community's favorites. 
Check out all the finalists below and vote in our poll (vote for as many or as few as you like) to help decide the winner and be sure to check back after the poll finishes for the announcement of the winner and the start of a new theme!

NOTE: Cards with a black border have additional material, like explanations or unique tokens, located in a spoiler at the bottom of the finalist gallery. They are listed in order of position in the final poll.

by Asylum_Rhapsody
by Sinthuja
by knifelheim
by 17thShard
by Jazio
by MarioToast
by Hejiahua
by zartgruen
by havox112
by Lathy
by Hereharehere
by nurgling13
by HS_XxShrekxX
Ambush!
by Adamaxes
by MrZillot
by affekopp111
by shlazar
by Elyxie
by TheBeaverKing
by Nothingsjim

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 Magatha Grimtotem

Sealed Ogre

Booby Trap

Blind

Shadow Priestess

Wanted Poster

@nurgling13: I really like your card btw. It is not that hard to pull it off and has decent stats (compare it to Feugen 5 mana 4/7).  Some cards are just too much: you should have a motivation to play a card and not just get the (awesome, sometimes overpowered) effect while holding it. Example: Silas Darkmoon -> the effect is awesome, but would you ever play a 7 mana 3/6 when almost every 1-mana-spell is better than the average hero power? Sure, there is the randomness, but you are not forced to use that heropower-spell if you don't like it.

Some cards are just overpowered: Venture Co. Spider -> Handlock plays a t4 Mountain Giant and has no real problem with it. If you have this card you can play it whenever you draw it and only if you have it in your starting hand it really hurts you. Even then it is not much worse than a Handlock playing a t4 Mountain Giant without doing anything before that play.

Another card, that I really like is Druid of Myna. Simple idea, but it allows awesome combos with certain cards if you build a deck around it (Discover theme, Echoing Ooze). It could even use one more health and would not be too overpowered.

The wanted poster is interesting (would be my third place): if you kill two enemy minions on the turn you play the poster, you get your mana back and with every additional minion you even gain mana (not even considering the tempo-loss when your enemy has to waste 2 mana). My problem with this card: it does not fit the Warcraft-theme. But we don't know how future expansions will look like ;) .

Quote from Asylum_Rhapsody >>

Quote from nurgling13 >>

One mistake a lot of people made this week was creating cards that affect the battlefield while you hold them. Unless the effect is strictly negative for you, this is not a good design. You can simply hold the card in your hand forever and never lose its effect. Worse, your opponent can't even see the card to know how exactly you are gaining the effect in most cases people made. This kind of non-interactive card is not what belongs in Hearthstone. Thankfully, people didn't vote many of these cards into the finals. 

The worst offender here is Champion of Azeroth. While you hold it, you basically just win all jousts, and there isn't anything your opponent can do about it.

If I may, I felt justified in my design of Champion of Azeroth because... well, Joust sucks. And all that Champion of Azeroth does is make Joust cards slightly more comparable to "If you're holding a Dragon" cards. With "If you're holding a Dragon" cards, your opponents also can't do anything about them. They can't even see those, unlike Champion of Azeroth, which gets revealed. And those Dragons are usually themselves useful cards, unlike Champion of Azeroth. We're not talking about giving benefit to a cards that are already fine for reasons your opponent will never see. We're talking about giving benefit to cards that are normally bad for their cost by design unless you're willing to hold onto a card that's going to be dead in your hand for the whole game.

Mario Toast's Furious Defender is in my top 10 of ''most apt mechanic'' cards I've seen in these comps - Just on the money.

Elyxia's Grounding Totem is great in the same way Earth Shield is; great grasp of what the possibilities the rules presented. It's under powered, imo, but perfect on theme.

Nurgling's Elite Guard is very solid, and I'm glad you went for the 4/7. I do think the Taunt makes it a bit too strong as getting a 1 drop is so vital but it's highly effective design.

Sintujaa's Hasty Orge is a clever addition to consider for those who ashamedly aggro their way through the ladder :D (JK)) It's got a real nice Hearthstone feel to it.

 knifelheim's Krickthiir the Gatewatcher has a great Legendary aura about it, with some good lovin for the DR Rogue.

The other's have all got their merits too! real interestin results!

Quote from nurgling13 >>

Also, I'm not sure I understand Hasty Ogre. It seems like the effect is a pure downside, but it's only a 4 mana 4/4? When the effects triggers, does it get played for 4 mana, or the mana cost of the spell you just cast?

Quote from Buettel >>

@nurgling13: I really like your card btw. It is not that hard to pull it off and has decent stats (compare it to Feugen 5 mana 4/7).  Some cards are just too much: you should have a motivation to play a card and not just get the (awesome, sometimes overpowered) effect while holding it. Example: Silas Darkmoon -> the effect is awesome, but would you ever play a 7 mana 3/6 when almost every 1-mana-spell is better than the average hero power? Sure, there is the randomness, but you are not forced to use that heropower-spell if you don't like it.

Some cards are just overpowered: Venture Co. Spider -> Handlock plays a t4 Mountain Giant and has no real problem with it. If you have this card you can play it whenever you draw it and only if you have it in your starting hand it really hurts you. Even then it is not much worse than a Handlock playing a t4 Mountain Giant without doing anything before that play.

Another card, that I really like is Druid of Myna. Simple idea, but it allows awesome combos with certain cards if you build a deck around it (Discover theme, Echoing Ooze). It could even use one more health and would not be too overpowered.

The wanted poster is interesting (would be my third place): if you kill two enemy minions on the turn you play the poster, you get your mana back and with every additional minion you even gain mana (not even considering the tempo-loss when your enemy has to waste 2 mana). My problem with this card: it does not fit the Warcraft-theme. But we don't know how future expansions will look like ;) .

Quote from ForPonies11 >>

 

Venture Co. Spider is a strictly better Fel Reaver which is only played for fast damage at the cost of eventually ending with no cards. There is no real draw back you just play him as soon as possible. 4 mana 8/8.

Quote from ForPonies11 >>

Champion of Azeroth makes for guaranteed jousts (which are strong but not played because unreliable) : 2x Gadgetzan Jouster, 2x Armored Warhorse, The Skeleton Knight.

 

Hasty Ogre is super op. If you play aggro Rogue playing second with The Coin you are almost guaranted to play on first turn a 4/4 for 0 or 1 mana.

 

Krik'thir while not directly OP allow you to play more easily the effect of an Unearthed Raptor on a Sylvanas Windrunner in that you can play them separately. That's 4 sylvanas in a deck already.

 

Varian Wrynn + 2x Druid of Mynad.

 

Venture Co. Spider is a strictly better Fel Reaver which is only played for fast damage at the cost of eventually ending with no cards. There is no real draw back you just play him as soon as possible. 4 mana 8/8.

I admit, I really like the idea behind Champion of Azeroth where you can play a card short in order to guarantee that your Joust effects activate, but I have to agree that it's rather problematic that the opponent can't use their own Joust cards while you hold this. Since basically all the Joust cards are fairly bad without their abilities, I feel that Champion of Azeroth punishes opponents who use Joust cards much too severely for what is more or less an incidental benefit in addition to Champion of Azeroth's main objective. You gain this benefit "for free" since you're using Champion of Azeroth to synergize with your own cards regardless of what the opponent has. It basically disables a whole keyword for the opponent while you hold it and there's nothing they can do about it, and to me, that's as bad as if it said something like "Enemy minions lose Taunt while this is in your hand". Not good for the game imo. Moreover, while this is intended to make Joust cards better, it could even have the opposite effect, since if it actually made Joust cards good, then people could just tech in a copy of this in a deck with no Joust effects just to disable the enemy Joust cards. It just shouldn't be able to do that imo.

If Champion of Azeroth were phrased in such a way that it only triggers for your Joust effects, then I think it would easily be the best entry, and I might vote for it anyway because of that, and because I'm not entirely sure that disabling enemy keywords was intentional, but I just want to express that while I love the idea of the card, I don't think the execution is done properly, but the concept has the potential to be quite an awesome card.

Quote from nurgling13 >>

Quote from Hereharehere >>

Quote from ForPonies11 >>

Champion of Azeroth makes for guaranteed jousts (which are strong but not played because unreliable) : 2x Gadgetzan Jouster, 2x Armored Warhorse, The Skeleton Knight.

 

Hasty Ogre is super op. If you play aggro Rogue playing second with The Coin you are almost guaranted to play on first turn a 4/4 for 0 or 1 mana.

 

Krik'thir while not directly OP allow you to play more easily the effect of an Unearthed Raptor on a Sylvanas Windrunner in that you can play them separately. That's 4 sylvanas in a deck already.

 

Varian Wrynn + 2x Druid of Mynad.

 

Venture Co. Spider is a strictly better Fel Reaver which is only played for fast damage at the cost of eventually ending with no cards. There is no real draw back you just play him as soon as possible. 4 mana 8/8.

 A} Champ of Azeroth - But having a 9 mana 7/7 on T1 is no advantage, or a deck playing aggro (charge) with this won't work. It's a control card only, that mostly benefits in Control vs control.

What about the fact that Champion of Azeroth affects your opponent's minions, in addition to your own? If they play a Joust minion while you have this in your hand, they can't win their own Joust, and they have no way to stop the effect, because they can't affect things in your hand. Irregardless of balance, even, this is the kind of frustrating effect that shouldn't be in Hearthstone. If you get this on T1, and your opponent has a number of Joust minions in their deck, you just nullified every single one of those for the rest of the game. Yeah, Joust minions are bad, but that just isn't fair.