Whispers of the Old Bards A Special Edition Card Design Competition
Hello, Fan Creation Forum! We're taking a little break from our normal Weekly Card Design Competition to honor The Bard, the winner of our "Worlds Beyond Warcraft" Class Creation Competition from earlier this year. With the release of the new Whispers of the Old Gods expansion, we figured what better way than to offer this maestro of musical melodies a much-needed descent into madness?
Competition-Specific Restrictions:
Your card must be a Bard class card. To see the existing Bard class cards, click on the Hero Portrait for Lindsey Starling above.
Your card must use the Bard class's card border. In Hearthcards.net, you can find this by clicking "Custom Classes" (directly to the right of "2. Choose a Class") and selecting "Bard by McF4rtson" on the left.
Your card must be a Whispers of the Old Gods card. In Hearthcards.net, you can mark your card with the Tentacle emblem watermark by looking to the right of the "Card Text" section and clicking on "Swirl, Vanilla Set" to bring up a drop-down menu where you can then click on "Old Gods, New Expansion".
Remember that, although HearthCards is awesome, you MUST host your card somewhere other than Hearthcards. Save it and upload it toImgur, Photobucket, or some other similar site. HearthCards has a limited server space and will purge cards after a few days, and nobody wants your card disappearing part-way through the finals. We understand that there are some HearthCards memberships that will allow you to save your card there for longer (and you should totally get one of those just for general fan creation purposes, by the way), but we don't know who has those memberships and we can't tell from the URLs.
Please remember that You may not delete ANY posts you make in this Submission Topic, not even accidental ones, such as by double-posting or by accidentally posting something here that you meant for the Discussion Topic. If you do accidentally post more than once, inform any of the Fan Creation Forum moderators via PM, and we will handle it.
As a reminder, here are what some Bard class cards look like. Again, though, if you're going to enter the competition, please click on the above hero portrait for Lindsey Starling to be linked to the full collection.
And here are some design insights from the Bard's creator:
Let me start by saying that I intend to put one or more of the cards from this competition into my Bard class's WoG set. As such, I want to say a few words to show how Bard fits into the themes of WoG.
At first glance, Bard is definitely a contrast with WoG. Bard is well known for having happy, light-hearted, positive-attitude cards, while WoG is the exact opposite. Rather than shying away from this difference, I recommend you embrace it, and take advantage of this opportunity to showcase the darker side of Bard.
Next, think about what Bard is going to be losing in standard. Of course, the reason standard exists is to rotate out old playstyles and bring in new ones, rather than coming up with exact replacements of the cards that were lost. However, Bard does lose two cards that are more than just central to their playstyle, rather, they're absolutely necessary for Bard to work at all. They are:
The two main playstyles of Bard, namely Melody Bard and Token Bard, rely heavily on these cards. Without Magic Mic, Melody decks don't have any good way to speed up their gameplay. Without white noise, Bard lacks an efficient token generator.
As such, I think cards with some sort of effects like these should be replicated. Something to help speed up melody effects by letting them activate on the turn played, whether that's adding copies of debut spells to your hand or not, and some efficient spell that summons tokens.
Now let's talk about C'thun. Again, this may seem like an aspect of WoG that doesn't fit with Bard - tokens and flooding the board doesn't usually go with dropping a slow, huge minion. But look at cards like Usher of Souls and Hooded Acolyte - Blizzard is willing to make C'thun cards that work with pretty much every style of gameplay (except for pure aggo). What I'm saying is, C'thun Bard could very much be a thing.
That's about all I have to say. Good luck, and do me proud!
General Competition Rules
These are the rules that remain consistent from competition to competition. Read them thoroughly, even if you've entered one of our competitions before. (Some of you still make mistakes like deleting posts or hosting your entry images on HearthCards.)
First, these are the rules about Posting:
You are allowed to submit only one entry. An entry consists of only one collectible card, plus any necessary additional material or commentary (explained below).
You are allowed to post in this Submission Topic only once, only to submit your one entry.
You may not delete ANY posts you make in this Submission Topic, not even accidental ones you may make over your one allowed, such as by double-posting or by accidentally posting something here that you meant for the Discussion Topic. If you do accidentally post more than once, inform any of the Fan Creation Forum moderators via PM, and we will handle it.
Speaking of the Discussion Topic, that is where any discussion of this competition should go. This thread is for submissions only. If you want to discuss your card or ask questions about the competition rules or process, you can find a link to the Discussion Topic at the top of this thread. Plenty of folks there will be happy to help you out.
Once you have submitted your one entry, you are allowed to make only minor changes to it. Minor changes are things like correcting typos or making balance changes that do not alter the spirit of your entry as determined by we the moderators. If you want to make any changes and have any doubts as to their legality, ask us first.
These are the rules about your Submission:
Accompanying the image of your card, you may offer some minimal additional commentary to explain its design, balance, and/or other qualities. Flavor text is also welcome.
You may not submit any Gold cards. (It's just a cheap attention grab tactic that makes it unnecessarily difficult to determine what class your card is for.)
Your entry must be a card of your own creation. We've been doing this for a while, so if you blatantly rip off somebody else's idea, we will know.
Fun and even humorous entries are perfectly allowed, but "troll" entries will be disqualified. If you're worried that your card may be misinterpreted as a troll card, contact a moderator before you submit.
TIP: Though not a rule exactly, we highly recommend that you insert your images using this icon on the bar above the post text editor: . Just click that button and put in the URL of your image. Cards that are uploaded and attached to your post are not disallowed, but in our experience they will not do nearly as well, so this is for your own benefit more than anything.
Finally, know that manipulating votes in any way is strictly forbidden. Any violators will receive an official warning, and will be banned from this and all future HearthPwn Card Design Competitions.
Competition Process
Most phases of this competition have a longer time frame than usual. There are also a couple of other minor process changes from the usual, so it would be prudent for everybody to review this.
Entry Phase and Early Voting (Starts Now! Ends 20:00 UTC 3/May/2016) It is during this Phase that you may submit entries to the Submission Topic. You may also, of course, feel free to give early up-votes to any submissions that you like! Voting Phase (Starts 20:00 UTC 3/May/2016, Ends 20:00 UTC 4/May/2016) During this Phase, the Submission Topic will be locked, so no more entries may be submitted. Instead, use this time to browse the submissions and up-vote your favorites! Final Phase (Starts 21:00 UTC 4/May/2016, Ends 21:00 UTC 5/May/2016) During this Phase, the Discussion Topic will also be locked, and a new Poll Topic will go up. Discussion will be allowed to continue in the Poll Topic, and it will also include all the qualifying finalists and poll to decide the winner of the competition!
How do we determine the qualifying finalists? First, we'll pull up-vote data from each submission using the formula detailed below:
(ab) / (c) = x
Where, a = The total number of submissions on the same page as the submission. b = The total number of up-votes that the submission received. c = The total number of up-votes on the same page as the submission. x = The submission's final score.
The formula basically measures which cards stood out the most, with the necessary assumption that each page is about equal in overall submission quality. It will be the entries that receive the highest final scores that move on to the Final Phase.
The bottom line is that, although entries on the earlier pages of the Submission Topic are much more visible and thus receive many more up-votes than entries on later pages, you don't actually have to rush to get your entry in as soon as possible because the up-votes end up being weighted by what page your entry ends up on in order to determine its final score.
If you would like to take a look at how Finalist Polls are normally conducted, CLICK HERE to check out the Finalist Poll for our Weekly Card Design Competition #39. As you can see, finalist cards are ordered by their score using the above formula.
If you are a frequent competitor, please note the following:
Because of the unique nature of this competition, we cannot predetermine or even estimate the number of finalists.
For this competition, the top-voted card on each page of the Submission Topic is not guaranteed to move on to the Final Phase.
The final poll for this competition will be hidden until its conclusion.
Rewards
Bragging rights are always awesome, but as usual, we do offer a couple of HearthPwn site rewards to competition winners: Their card forever immortalized in our Winners' Gallery! A unique Avatar Border & "Card Design Champion" Title, as depicted below!
(Note: As this week's competition is not part of the normal competition cycle, winners will not have the ability to help us choose any future competition themes, as would normally be the case for a standard Weekly Card Design Competition.)
Making N'Zoth Bard a thing? From a history standpoint, this is a tribute to Chuck Schuldiner, founder of the band Death, and one of the pioneers of death metal (thanks, Wikipedia!).
From a balance perspective, your opponent has a decent chance of taking him out, but if you protect him, you have the possibility of coin -> Sylvanas or a number of other powerful plays. It all depends on your situation and deck, though, which (in my opinion) keeps him interesting.
Today in my free brawl pack I got Barongeddon, then I had a cup of fresh green tea. As a result of that, I think Priest is OP because my keyboard is not a mechanical one. I hope Blizzard will address this issue.
A useful card for zoo decks as it provides a cheap minion and two spells to prevent the enemy from using his board clears at a crucial time. Sleep song stacks with itself, so casting both cards at the same time will result in a 10 mana increase in spell costs. Due to the somewhat cheap availability of spells this card provides, it can also find a place in Yogg-saron or any deck that revolves around cheap spells. Also, its deathrattle effect allows it to be resummoned by N'zoth, so Ny'alotha Sleepsinger may be useful in N'zoth zoo decks.
Reading through the lore and abilities of a Bard, I kept picturing a wandering hero among musical wood nymphs and other forest dwelling mystical creatures. That is what inspired this spell and its minions (in addition to Animal Companion, of course).
I decided to play more off the support theme of a Bard than it's musical theme. I think these Spirit Companions would boost the versatility and balance of any Bard deck, and even fit into the control style play that Bards utilize. I also love that you could play beasts or dragons to add a tribe synergy to your deck if desired.
The idea is that you worship your normal god to start with and they bless you y buffing your minion. But if you Worship C'Thun instead he will take a more violent approach and kill a minion.
This is a re-skinned Icky Tentacle, similar to how there are three versions of the Slime token for the different cards that use it in different classes: Slime, Slime and Slime.
Nameless Piper is inspired by this Lovecraft quote:
...the ancient legends of Ultimate Chaos, at whose center sprawls the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a demonic flute held in nameless paws.
- The Haunter of the Dark
As the Nameless Piper plays its otherwordly instrument, the strange melodies call the corruption of the Old Gods forth, seeping into the battlefield. Fortunately for you, this is manifested in the form of a bunch of 1/1 Tentacles you can whack your opponent with. This card fits both the Bard theme and the Whispers of the Old God theme perfectly, I think. And don't you love that art? In terms of gameplay, it fits the token Bard archetype. You put this down on turn 1, and if your opponent doesn't kill it, just start pumping tokens out every turn. Bard also doesn't appear to have a 1 mana 1/3 yet, so this creates a good opener for them.
A deck about melody's and music, why not E.T.C? And as Whispers of the old Gods have counterparts and changes of normality, why not bring heavy metal to the Bard? The card itself is basically a reverse Lock and Load for Hunter, whereas instead of playing the card then gaining random spells, E.T.C. Encore relies on the amount of spells your opponent has played the turn before. The spells include Rogues do it, I am Murloc, and Power of the Horde.
A great card against spell heavy decks, and provides a decent amount of card draw. Should be great fun, easy to use, and can have the potential to help from sticky situations.
This is the Submission Topic. The Discussion Topic is here.
Whispers of the Old Bards
A Special Edition Card Design Competition
Hello, Fan Creation Forum! We're taking a little break from our normal Weekly Card Design Competition to honor The Bard, the winner of our "Worlds Beyond Warcraft" Class Creation Competition from earlier this year. With the release of the new Whispers of the Old Gods expansion, we figured what better way than to offer this maestro of musical melodies a much-needed descent into madness?
Competition-Specific Restrictions:
As a reminder, here are what some Bard class cards look like. Again, though, if you're going to enter the competition, please click on the above hero portrait for Lindsey Starling to be linked to the full collection.
And here are some design insights from the Bard's creator:
General Competition Rules
These are the rules that remain consistent from competition to competition. Read them thoroughly, even if you've entered one of our competitions before. (Some of you still make mistakes like deleting posts or hosting your entry images on HearthCards.)
First, these are the rules about Posting:
These are the rules about your Submission:
TIP: Though not a rule exactly, we highly recommend that you insert your images using this icon on the bar above the post text editor: . Just click that button and put in the URL of your image. Cards that are uploaded and attached to your post are not disallowed, but in our experience they will not do nearly as well, so this is for your own benefit more than anything.
Finally, know that manipulating votes in any way is strictly forbidden. Any violators will receive an official warning, and will be banned from this and all future HearthPwn Card Design Competitions.
Competition Process
Most phases of this competition have a longer time frame than usual. There are also a couple of other minor process changes from the usual, so it would be prudent for everybody to review this.
Entry Phase and Early Voting (Starts Now! Ends 20:00 UTC 3/May/2016)
It is during this Phase that you may submit entries to the Submission Topic. You may also, of course, feel free to give early up-votes to any submissions that you like!
Voting Phase (Starts 20:00 UTC 3/May/2016, Ends 20:00 UTC 4/May/2016)
During this Phase, the Submission Topic will be locked, so no more entries may be submitted. Instead, use this time to browse the submissions and up-vote your favorites!
Final Phase (Starts 21:00 UTC 4/May/2016, Ends 21:00 UTC 5/May/2016)
During this Phase, the Discussion Topic will also be locked, and a new Poll Topic will go up. Discussion will be allowed to continue in the Poll Topic, and it will also include all the qualifying finalists and poll to decide the winner of the competition!
How do we determine the qualifying finalists? First, we'll pull up-vote data from each submission using the formula detailed below:
(ab) / (c) = x
Where,
a = The total number of submissions on the same page as the submission.
b = The total number of up-votes that the submission received.
c = The total number of up-votes on the same page as the submission.
x = The submission's final score.
The formula basically measures which cards stood out the most, with the necessary assumption that each page is about equal in overall submission quality. It will be the entries that receive the highest final scores that move on to the Final Phase.
The bottom line is that, although entries on the earlier pages of the Submission Topic are much more visible and thus receive many more up-votes than entries on later pages, you don't actually have to rush to get your entry in as soon as possible because the up-votes end up being weighted by what page your entry ends up on in order to determine its final score.
If you would like to take a look at how Finalist Polls are normally conducted, CLICK HERE to check out the Finalist Poll for our Weekly Card Design Competition #39. As you can see, finalist cards are ordered by their score using the above formula.
If you are a frequent competitor, please note the following:
Rewards
Bragging rights are always awesome, but as usual, we do offer a couple of HearthPwn site rewards to competition winners:
Their card forever immortalized in our Winners' Gallery!
A unique Avatar Border & "Card Design Champion" Title, as depicted below!
(Note: As this week's competition is not part of the normal competition cycle, winners will not have the ability to help us choose any future competition themes, as would normally be the case for a standard Weekly Card Design Competition.)
Best of Luck!
A servant of C'Thun is any card that interacts with C'Thun, such as: Twin Emperor Vek'lor, Beckoner of Evil, etc.
"quz wsxed crafvtg byhn jmikolp?" ~zsxefvh
A sinister whisper draws your peaceful minions to the dark side and allures them to attack.
Check here for my new cards!Pokemon HS class!All the Pokemon as HS cards!
Making N'Zoth Bard a thing? From a history standpoint, this is a tribute to Chuck Schuldiner, founder of the band Death, and one of the pioneers of death metal (thanks, Wikipedia!).
From a balance perspective, your opponent has a decent chance of taking him out, but if you protect him, you have the possibility of coin -> Sylvanas or a number of other powerful plays. It all depends on your situation and deck, though, which (in my opinion) keeps him interesting.
#gNOmeferatu
A useful card for zoo decks as it provides a cheap minion and two spells to prevent the enemy from using his board clears at a crucial time. Sleep song stacks with itself, so casting both cards at the same time will result in a 10 mana increase in spell costs. Due to the somewhat cheap availability of spells this card provides, it can also find a place in Yogg-saron or any deck that revolves around cheap spells. Also, its deathrattle effect allows it to be resummoned by N'zoth, so Ny'alotha Sleepsinger may be useful in N'zoth zoo decks.
Flavor text: The only thing he likes beating more than drums is faces.
Reading through the lore and abilities of a Bard, I kept picturing a wandering hero among musical wood nymphs and other forest dwelling mystical creatures. That is what inspired this spell and its minions (in addition to Animal Companion, of course).
I decided to play more off the support theme of a Bard than it's musical theme. I think these Spirit Companions would boost the versatility and balance of any Bard deck, and even fit into the control style play that Bards utilize. I also love that you could play beasts or dragons to add a tribe synergy to your deck if desired.
Edit: Resized images.
Flavor: This bard is so awful that ALL minions will flee from the board to escape his terrible songs!
Balance: Slow effect, can't be hidden behind a taunt. Powerful however but can be very hard to get it to trigger its effect.
[Reduced its Health by 1]
Here's my idea to help with Token Bard. Good luck all!
Token minion in the Spoiler:
The idea is that you worship your normal god to start with and they bless you y buffing your minion. But if you Worship C'Thun instead he will take a more violent approach and kill a minion.
Weapon. Yes.
"YOU FACE JARAXXUS, EREDAR LORD OF THE BURNING LEGION!"
This is a re-skinned Icky Tentacle, similar to how there are three versions of the Slime token for the different cards that use it in different classes: Slime, Slime and Slime.
Nameless Piper is inspired by this Lovecraft quote:
As the Nameless Piper plays its otherwordly instrument, the strange melodies call the corruption of the Old Gods forth, seeping into the battlefield. Fortunately for you, this is manifested in the form of a bunch of 1/1 Tentacles you can whack your opponent with. This card fits both the Bard theme and the Whispers of the Old God theme perfectly, I think. And don't you love that art? In terms of gameplay, it fits the token Bard archetype. You put this down on turn 1, and if your opponent doesn't kill it, just start pumping tokens out every turn. Bard also doesn't appear to have a 1 mana 1/3 yet, so this creates a good opener for them.
Come Play Make the Keyword!!!
Check out my Worgen Class in the Class Competition
A deck about melody's and music, why not E.T.C? And as Whispers of the old Gods have counterparts and changes of normality, why not bring heavy metal to the Bard? The card itself is basically a reverse Lock and Load for Hunter, whereas instead of playing the card then gaining random spells, E.T.C. Encore relies on the amount of spells your opponent has played the turn before. The spells include Rogues do it, I am Murloc, and Power of the Horde.
A great card against spell heavy decks, and provides a decent amount of card draw. Should be great fun, easy to use, and can have the potential to help from sticky situations.
My card: http://imgur.com/NmPcu8O
All my custom cards (not competition related): http://yetifudge.imgur.com/
My Channel: https://www.youtube.com/UCOIxKuiDwiHDJeTg6zgAQNw - a gaming channel aimed to entertain.
HGS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCeph-g9O81YJL_5WK-SC2A - a gaming channel in which a group of individuals provide content of a selection of games.
Let's make murloc bard viable!
------>
"Darkshire is a jolly place. It has nice guards, a cool fountain, a cult of the old gods, crazed worgens, undeads, ghosts...."