Hearthpwn

(Return of) The Thunder King

This is my submission for the adventure competition. I chose Throne of Thunder because I had made a rudimentary version of this adventure a really long time ago (around the time of The Grand Tournament I think) and I finally have an excuse to finish it. It’s been a very long time since I have done any card creation, so hopefully I won’t be too rusty about balance and such. I also have never played WoW, so I hope my lore research is accurate. One other thing to note is generally I think the adventures in actual Hearthstone are too easy, and I would prefer with I had to work more to kill bosses and earn my cards. Thus, the difficulty level of this adventure’s normal mode is somewhat harder than usual (not too much though), although heroic difficulty is the same.

Storyline:

After years of slumber, the land of Pandaria is facing the reawakening of an old enemy. Lei-Shen the Thunder King, an ambitious Mogu lord, has begun a new conquest hoping to dominate the once-prosperous lands below. Once a holy site for the Mogu of old, Thundering Mountain was captured by Lei-Shen and his followers. Lei-Shen, corrupted by his lust for power, killed the Titanic Watcher Ra-Den who guarded the mountain, seizing his claim to the Throne of Thunder, and in the process gaining power over the elemental forces of wind and storm. Previously dead, Lei-Shen has now found an unlikely ally -- the Zandalari trolls -- who have resurrected him and may hold the key to reestablishing him as the despot of Pandaria. Taran Zhu, the Pandaren leader of the Shado-Pan Assault, has recruited you to help stop Lei-Shen in his conquest, ultimately defeating Lei-Shen himself once and for all.

Mechanics Theme:

This expansion, in terms of mechanics, will have two themes. First, the mechanic of enrage will be explored much more fully than in current Hearthstone (example: Zandalari Dinomancer, see below). Not only is this mechanic underdeveloped, but it also fits the character of the violent Mogu and Troll races. In addition, the idea of dual-sided effects will be explored. These mechanics are basically buffs which can be cast on both allies and enemies, which have a positive effect and negative effect which are approximately equal in balance. Alternatively, these mechanics could be effects that could be helpful or harmful depending on other conditions (example: Soul Extractor, see below).

The Big Bad Boss: Lei-Shen, the Thunder King

The board starts with seven conduits filling Lei-Shen’s board. Lei-Shen’s starting hero power “empowers” a conduit, which will create a powerful ongoing effect, which will last for 3 turns. Afterwards, Lei-Shen will have to choose a new conduit. You can kill the conduits, preventing Lei-Shen from utilizing their effects, but this will make room for Lei-Shen to play his powerful (OP) minions. I’m not sure about all the conduit effects, but here are some examples:

In addition, when Lei-Shen goes down to 20 health or below, he will "supercharge" the conduits.  Because Lei-Shen has no starting armor to hint at this health threshold, the player won't know what will happen until it is too late. Supercharging makes all of the existing conduits immune for a turn, and Lei-Shen gains a lot of armor -- 2 per living conduit, and 1 per conduit destroyed previously. This happens again at 10 health, but this time Lei-Shen gains 1 armor per living conduit and 2 armor per conduit destroyed. The armor totals will be significantly more in heroic mode.

Lei-Shen also has multiple unique cards in his deck that interact with his conduits:

The Bonus Big Bad Boss: Ra-Den

The titanforged creation who ruled over Thundering Mountain before Lei-Shen, Ra-Den, will be represented as a legendary, but there will also be a bonus heroic only fight.

Sample Cards:

Explanations:

So The Thunder King is almost done, except I still haven't sorted out what to do for the legendary. I want to do the first wing's legendary, Gara'jal, to get it over with for next week. Here's two more ideas for him:

•  Battlecry: For the rest of the game, whenever you take fatal damage, discard a 7+ cost minion from your deck and counter the damage.
  • A different take on Gara'jal's character. Instead of empowering your hero, he has the ability to resurrect your hero from near-death (like he did for Lei-Shen). Basically, when you would die, a random 7+ cost minion in your deck gets discarded and you don't take the damage. This can occur unlimited times per turn, but once you run out of these minions, you can be easily killed as this effect does not actually restore any health.
•  Battlecry: Choose a minion costing 3 or less; its battlecry becomes your hero power.
  • In my idea for the Gara'jal fight, he can empower his legendary minions (other troll council members, similar to the Baron Rivendare fight), converting them into the hero and making Gara'jal a minion until the duration ends. This legendary is a version of that for your own hero, in which one of your minions "becomes" your new hero. There are, unfortunately, a few cards that could drastically affect the balance of this minion. Because of Darnassus Aspirant, Gara'jal would have to cost a lot so ramp couldn't get out of hand. Also, C'thun cards like Disciple of C'thun could be problematic for balance -- not sure what to do here, there might just be some sort of interaction were Gara'jal tells you something about serving the Loa and not the Old Gods and then choosing a different minion.

Thanks for the feedback on The Thunder King!

So I've decided to go back to the drawing board for Gara'jal, cause he's probably just an OP version of Alexstrasza. Also, I'll probably just make the Dinomancer a 2/5. The main card I'm not sure what to do with is the Soul Extractor. I think a lot of people misinterpreted how it works, which was my fault for unclear wording (not sure how to fix it). What it is supposed to do is change any minion's stats into a new statline based on your health, so full health is a 3/0 (i.e. it dies), 15 health would be a 1/5, and 5 health would be a 0/5. The minion's card text is unchanged. It doesn't work with armor, because it would still just consider you at full health. Although it is fairly complicated, I like this design -- I don't want to flavor to change much, but it might need some simplification.

I have a few ideas for Gara'jal, with a similar flavor but less OP and Alex-esque:

• While Gara'jal is alive, targeted hero takes double damage but reflects all damage back to its source. For example, if you have this effect an a yeti attacks you, you will take 8 damage but the yeti dies. This also works for spells, so if you get fireballed, you and your opponent will take 12 damage. This isn't for the rest of the game, it only lasts while Gara'jal is alive (or until the end of your next turn?) This could also be an ongoing effect for both heroes.
• Similarly, whenever one hero takes damage, the other hero takes an equal amount as well. Basically an ongoing Eye For An Eye effect for both heroes.
• While Gara'jal is alive, all sources of damage you deal are amplified by (some amount). Deathrattle: deal all excess amplified damage to your hero.

I think I like the second idea the most, but what are your thoughts?

Also, here's some feedback for other adventures:

Cirque du Soul: I definitely like both the mechanics theme and the circus/carnival influence. It might be a little similar to TGT at times because of the festival-based theme, but it's probably distinct enough. The boss fight, especially the second phase, is very interesting, but I think the Ringmaster's hero power might get out of hand, depending on what you choose to put in his deck. Don't necessarily change it, just warning about how variant his power level is depending on his deck. Otherwise, I really like this fight.

1. Three Card Monty: Seems fine, but the effect seems like it might be better on a rare or epic.
2. Coconut Shy: I really like this one. I feel like more people would probably play this to deny your opponent of potential minion spots than to deal a little damage, but that's fine. Only real criticism is the art -- I doubt there is proper fantasy art for this, but it looks kind of un-fitting.
3. Lion Tamer:  Balanced, ok as a filler card. Again, I don't really like the art though; it's fine except for the blank white background.

SI: 007:  Great theme/story. The theme on its own its decent, but you have implemented it amazingly, especially with the card pack opening thing. As for Dr. Juggler, I would imagine he uses a ton of GvG cards, which seems kind of awkward with the advent of Standard. Also, what does Doom Juggler do by throwing a Boom Bot at someone? I'm assuming that means a random player gets a Boom Bot, but it is a little unclear. Also, does the Doomsday Machine do all of the evil things at once, or something like one per turn? I think the hacking/disabling feature would be much more significant if the machine did everything. Also, this means the fight gets easier as it progresses, because the machine has less abilities. I don't really like how that works, because it makes more sense for the difficulty to increase. In general, I'm not a huge fan of the fight, although with some adjustment or clarification I think it could be good. Also, no mechanics theme? It's ok if you don't have one, but I was a bit surprised there wasn't one in the description.

1. Weapon of Class: Balanced, nice flavor, although still definitely a filler card. Seems good though.
2. Lordaeron Sleeper: This is really cool, seriously one of the most interesting designs on a sample card I have seen yet. I might make it a 2/2, but otherwise it's great.
3. Dr. Juggler: Again, very interesting. I really like how well the character flavor and card design work together. It's also flashy enough to make a good final legendary, but still has real game potential. One question though: can you choose the same Evil Plan more than once? If so would the effect stack? It could be pretty interesting/OP if you could (multiple Voltrons?)

(Return of) The Thunder King 

This is my submission for the adventure competition. I chose Throne of Thunder because I had made a rudimentary version of this adventure a really long time ago (around the time of The Grand Tournament I think) and I finally have an excuse to finish it. It’s been a very long time since I have done any card creation, so hopefully I won’t be too rusty about balance and such. I also have never played WoW, so I hope my lore research is accurate. One other thing to note is generally I think the adventures in actual Hearthstone are too easy, and I would prefer with I had to work more to kill bosses and earn my cards. Thus, the difficulty level of this adventure’s normal mode is somewhat harder than usual (not too much though), although heroic difficulty is the same.

Storyline:

After years of slumber, the land of Pandaria is facing the reawakening of an old enemy. Lei-Shen the Thunder King, an ambitious Mogu lord, has begun a new conquest hoping to dominate the once-prosperous lands below. Once a holy site for the Mogu of old, Thundering Mountain was later captured by Lei-Shen and his followers. Lei-Shen, corrupted by his lust for power, killed the Titanic Watcher Ra-Den who guarded the mountain, seizing his claim to the Throne of Thunder, and in the process gaining power of the elemental forces of wind and storm. Previously dead, Lei-Shen has now found an unlikely ally -- the Zandalari trolls -- who have resurrected him and may hold the key to reestablishing him as the despot of Pandaria. Taran Zhu, the Pandaren leader of the Shado-Pan Assault, has recruited you to help stop Lei-Shen in his conquest, ultimately defeating Lei-Shen himself once and for all.

Mechanics Theme: 

The theme of this expansion, in terms of mechanic, will have two themes. First, the mechanic of enrage will be explored much more fully than in current Hearthstone. Not only is this mechanic underdeveloped, but it also fits the character of the violent Mogu and Troll races. In addition, the idea of dual-sided effects will be explored. These mechanics are basically buffs which can be cast on both allies and enemies, which have a positive effect and negative effect which are approximately equal in balance. For example, the legendary Gara’jal (see sample cards) can upgrade either hero’s hero power, but deals damage to the target hero at the end of their turn.

The Big Bad Boss: Lei-Shen, the Thunder King 

The board starts with seven conduits filling Lei-Shen’s board. Lei-Shen’s starting hero power “empowers” a conduit, which will create a powerful ongoing effect, which will last for 3 turns (although Lei-Shen will most likely have cards in his deck that can extend this time). Afterwards, Lei-Shen will have to choose a new conduit. You can kill the conduits, preventing Lei-Shen from utilizing their effects, but this will make room for Lei-Shen to play his powerful minions. I’m not sure about all the conduit effects, but here are some examples:

I realize the power levels here aren’t equal, but they are just to give an idea of how this would work.

In addition, I am thinking at a certain health threshold Lei-Shen could “supercharge” the conduits, rendering them immune and gaining more armor depending on how many conduits still alive.

The Bonus Big Bad Boss: Ra-Den

The titan forged creation who ruled over Thundering Mountain before Lei-Shen, Ra-Den, will be represented as a legendary, but there will also be a bonus heroic only fight.

Sample Cards:

...

...

I already posted a question about this a while ago, but I basically answered it on my own. So here's the rough draft of the post.

Hello! So I'm doing a Throne of Thunder adventure, and I'm almost done with the Phase 1 component, but I'm not sure which cards to showcase. I've narrowed in down to three plus the legendary.

So, that being said, I think the main problem is showcasing cards crucial to the theme vs. cards that are just interesting. The adventure has two themes, dual-sided effects (Gara'jal, kind of Soul Extractor) and Enrage (Dinomancer). However, I feel like Mists of Perception is a more interesting card, and plus it is the only spell of the group. Show which of the non-legendaries should I not showcase?

EDIT: It's worth noting the Gara'jal upgrades are different than Justicar ones. The Gara'jal effects are meant to leave the damage unaffected, so it remains an independent side effect. If they were Justicar upgrades, warrior and warlock would be completely unaffected.

There is an equal chance to summon the minion and each of the four totems, so there is a 20% chance each Hero Power use to get the 2-drop.

Quote from Protar >>

Team Longshore's Cards:

Karathress token spells:

 Tuskarr Fisherman should be an epic but other than that all good to go.

I'm Handlock, my opponent is priest. I'm at fatigue, but he still has a few cards left. He plays the golden monkey, so I think I'm screwed. However, I don't concede because I still have one Molten Giant in hand, so I might be able to get some trades and deal some damage to him. The first two legendaries he played were Cho and another really cheap and bad legendary which I forgot, so I decided to go face. Two turns later, he's at 2 health from the giant attacking, and I'm at three health. He topdecks flame leviathan, and thus loses.

I'm down for this.

Quote from nurgling13 >>

Quote from Sneaky_Raptor >>

Liked the idea behind Qiraji Devotee but then looked at the stats. So if I run this in a deck without C'thun I just get a 4 mana 5/8?!

Also, for the C'thun cards, but especially for the Devotee, what happens if you have more than one C'thun? 

Quote from Sneaky_Raptor >>

Liked the idea behind Qiraji Devotee but then looked at the stats. So if I run this in a deck without C'thun I just get a 4 mana 5/8?!

I did too... but I don't have a thread outside of the class creation comp.