So i thought a lot about discard warlock and how blizzard could make this weird archtype work. A lot people again and again suggest a mechanic where you can choose the cards, which get discarded. This i think will never happen, because of quite obvious UI problems, especially if two cards get discarded. So discard will always be random and can therefore hardly be a good basis for a consistent and competitive deck, right?
well... i think there are ways to make it work. I thought about cards that get prioritized for discard or cards that can't be discarded, to get some control over the RNG. But both don't feel right, the former even more so, than the latter. But what if you could just fill your hand with cheap trash, so that all your other cards have a better chance of not getting discarded. So i came up with this:
I think it should be balanced, fits warlocks class identity, has discard and demon synergy. Even in zoo decks with cards like Knife Juggler or any other card synergizes with summoning a lot small minions, it's absolutely ok, because there is Forbidden Ritual already. The few cards that synergize with a big hand size also seem to be absolutely reasonable combos and far from OP (5 mana Mountain Giant, 6 mana 4/10 Azure Drake). This card would of course go in a different direction than the Dinomancer, which asks for big minions to be discarded. But i think these different directions would make deckbuilding for the discard archtype really interesting and even allow for flexible gameplans (imagine only one of this maybe to protect a strong hand from being discarded and still have the option to discard this spell itself and go for a strong dinomancer). Yeah anyway, i think a card like this would be perfect for warlock (oh and did i mention Sacrificial Pact Synergy? ;) ). I'm really looking forward to feedback from you guys though.
Next idea is something that goes in a similar direction as the dinomancer, as it gives you the value of discarded cards back:
The basic idea is simple and i'm certainly not the first one who had it: Discover a discarded card. I had plenty of ideas to go about this. It could be a spell, a minion, even a legendary. Instead of Discover it could just put a random discarded card in your hand. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it, but it should be balanced. Comparison with Drakonid Operative or with strong 6-drop minions clearly makes this seem a bit weak, but the strong part is the mana discount. A nice gimmick for mirror matches and games where your opponent plays Deathwing (or copys one of your discard cards) is that the discover pool of this card includes your opponents discarded cards as well.
Next ideas are just some basic demos with some discard synergy. Not too strong, but may be nice to have in certain discard decks:
This guy reminds a little of Silverware Golem, but there are some differences. The temposwing it provides when discarded, is smaller than Silverware Golems, but at least the small minions are demons. And while this discard effect seems a bit gimmicky and surely not crazy powerful, the minion is also just a decent body for 4 mana, for the Dinomancer and for any kind of demon synergy.
Originally i combined his effect with the Big Brood Imp ones, but it seemed to be to much and these simpler effects fit Blizzards design philosophy much better i guess. This big dude doesn't seem to special, but it could open up some possibilities for other discard style decks. In the early game you would not really mind discarding him and in the late game he is just a big pile of stats. He would be a nice discard for the dinomancer and in a cycle-heavy deck, he can save you a few turns of fatigue damage (if you're lucky ;) ).
Yup, that's it guys. I hope some of you like the ideas. Feel free to post feedback, critique or improvements. :)
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"Knowledge, or verbal facility, is no proof that you know what you're talking about." -Terence Mckenna
I like the idea of helping discard work, but I'd say a major problem with the mechanic is that it needs a total overhaul.
First of all, key cards are too easily discarded, which can sabotage your whole match. You've addressed that to some degree here, but I'd say there is another thing we could do: rework the discard RNG. I have a quest warlock that I play in casual and in friendly matches for fun, and I could bet (and win that bet) that 9/10 times, the only cards I'll discard are Deathwing, Jaraxxus, Siphon Soul, and Twisting Nether. There needs to be a reworking of that RNG if this is going to work, or discard will die.
Another way to counteract illogical discards is making more minions that benefit from discarding either immune to or recycled by the mechanic (much like that very interesting Core Infernal you have up there). If your power cards have no resistance to being discarded, the deck and the mechanic become less of a choice of strategy and more of "I want a Casino deck that can gamble away my ability to impact the game."
Last point is this: the value of minions that discard need to be reworked. The concept of "sacrifice for power" is lost when there is greater value in more consistent decks like the largely uninteractive pirate warrior or aggro druid. The value of a 2-cost 4/3 minion is lost when it will be cleared and faced against two more minions that still remain on the opponent's board. These minions need to be reworked to be more aggressive. Their design is outdated in the face of hyper aggro, jade Druid, and RNG control decks (control priest, control mage). Why play Doomcaller when Leeroy is 1 more attack for the same cost, no discard, and clearly defined as a charge for face card? Yes, bigger body and blah blah blah but it's still lacking. Most discard minions can be replaced by higher value minions that don't sabotage your hand and push for health loss card draw.
I think discard has potential, but as of now, there are too many consistent decks that put discard warlocks to shame far more often than not. I'm glad there are players who aren't giving up on the mechanic, and that you're offering interesting ideas that could be implemented pretty soon if not fairly soon (depending on what might need reworking).
I'm sure you'll get trolls on here and salty sages who have the answer to everything, so good luck with this post, and best of luck in your Hearthstone games!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Rage quitting: the best way to ensure your opponent knows they beat a giant baby.
I like the idea of helping discard work, but I'd say a major problem with the mechanic is that it needs a total overhaul.
First of all, key cards are too easily discarded, which can sabotage your whole match. You've addressed that to some degree here, but I'd say there is another thing we could do: rework the discard RNG. I have a quest warlock that I play in casual and in friendly matches for fun, and I could bet (and win that bet) that 9/10 times, the only cards I'll discard are Deathwing, Jaraxxus, Siphon Soul, and Twisting Nether. There needs to be a reworking of that RNG if this is going to work, or discard will die.
But a total overhaul of the mechanic won't happen. That's what i was trying to say and that's why i made these cards with (what i feel is) Blizzards design philosophy in mind. Also, i'm pretty sure the discard RNG does not favor any cards over others, although it might feel like that. I think Blizzard wants discard to be like this and it will always be possible, that the effect hits your strong cards. But i think that it is possible to change the feeling of these "bad discards" from "oh sh*t, i discarded my win condition, now i can only concede" to "oh, i discarded Jaraxxus, now i have to go for plan b. i can get Jaraxxus from a Dinomancer and taunt it up or i may discover a Jaraxxus and even have it discounted". Or before discarding your Jaraxxus you might think "I have Jaraxxus in my hand, but i need to play Doomguard now. As i luckily have two more mana, i can fill my hand with imps now, to significantly lower the chance of discarding the Jaxx."
I just think the foundation for the discard mechanic is set and it's highly unlikely that Blizzard will ever change it. But if they bring the right kind of synergy, it might make for some of the most interesting decks in the game, that require crucial decisionmaking and flexible strategies to handle the RNG.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Knowledge, or verbal facility, is no proof that you know what you're talking about." -Terence Mckenna
I like the idea of helping discard work, but I'd say a major problem with the mechanic is that it needs a total overhaul.
First of all, key cards are too easily discarded, which can sabotage your whole match. You've addressed that to some degree here, but I'd say there is another thing we could do: rework the discard RNG. I have a quest warlock that I play in casual and in friendly matches for fun, and I could bet (and win that bet) that 9/10 times, the only cards I'll discard are Deathwing, Jaraxxus, Siphon Soul, and Twisting Nether. There needs to be a reworking of that RNG if this is going to work, or discard will die.
But a total overhaul of the mechanic won't happen. That's what i was trying to say and that's why i made these cards with (what i feel is) Blizzards design philosophy in mind. Also, i'm pretty sure the discard RNG does not favor any cards over others, although it might feel like that. I think Blizzard wants discard to be like this and it will always be possible, that the effect hits your strong cards. But i think that it is possible to change the feeling of these "bad discards" from "oh sh*t, i discarded my win condition, now i can only concede" to "oh, i discarded Jaraxxus, now i have to go for plan b. i can get Jaraxxus from a Dinomancer and taunt it up or i may discover a Jaraxxus and even have it discounted". Or before discarding your Jaraxxus you might think "I have Jaraxxus in my hand, but i need to play Doomguard now. As i luckily have two more mana, i can fill my hand with imps now, to significantly lower the chance of discarding the Jaxx."
I just think the foundation for the discard mechanic is set and it's highly unlikely that Blizzard will ever change it. But if they bring the right kind of synergy, it might make for some of the most interesting decks in the game, that require crucial decisionmaking and flexible strategies to handle the RNG.
I do think your most effective card is Demonic Possession. It's cheap and helps counteract the odds of discarding out your useful cards, as well as the one-off chance that you have Demon buff cards and need a quick 3/3 or 4/4 on the board, or even synergy with Darkshire Councilman.
As far as Blizzard overhauling discard, I doubt they will but I do think it would not only improve the mechanic as it stands now, but would benefit even more from the cards you crated here. Blizzard has an unfortunate history of choosing one problem and ignoring the others (i.e. - Jade Idol + Gadgetzan Auctioneer, or just Pirate Warrior as a whole archetype] oppressing control) for as long as possible, usually relying on expansions to rectify problems they deem non game breaking. I don't pretend to have some great insight that the developers and designers don't have, but when your mechanic that you're building around a class becomes increasingly outclassed, it's time to make a bigger move than trying to band-aid the mechanic with cards that don't address it's biggest problems (which you've largely done without overhauling discard!).
I do have a question about Core Infernal: why 9-cost and 8/8 for an undiscardable minion? Is it the balance of body (8/8) and cost that justifies each other in conjunction with what is essentially immunity to the negative effects of discard while still benefitting from it?
So i thought a lot about discard warlock and how blizzard could make this weird archtype work. A lot people again and again suggest a mechanic where you can choose the cards, which get discarded. This i think will never happen, because of quite obvious UI problems, especially if two cards get discarded. So discard will always be random and can therefore hardly be a good basis for a consistent and competitive deck, right?
well... i think there are ways to make it work.
I thought about cards that get prioritized for discard or cards that can't be discarded, to get some control over the RNG. But both don't feel right, the former even more so, than the latter. But what if you could just fill your hand with cheap trash, so that all your other cards have a better chance of not getting discarded. So i came up with this:
I think it should be balanced, fits warlocks class identity, has discard and demon synergy. Even in zoo decks with cards like Knife Juggler or any other card synergizes with summoning a lot small minions, it's absolutely ok, because there is Forbidden Ritual already. The few cards that synergize with a big hand size also seem to be absolutely reasonable combos and far from OP (5 mana Mountain Giant, 6 mana 4/10 Azure Drake).
This card would of course go in a different direction than the Dinomancer, which asks for big minions to be discarded. But i think these different directions would make deckbuilding for the discard archtype really interesting and even allow for flexible gameplans (imagine only one of this maybe to protect a strong hand from being discarded and still have the option to discard this spell itself and go for a strong dinomancer).
Yeah anyway, i think a card like this would be perfect for warlock (oh and did i mention Sacrificial Pact Synergy? ;) ). I'm really looking forward to feedback from you guys though.
Next idea is something that goes in a similar direction as the dinomancer, as it gives you the value of discarded cards back:
The basic idea is simple and i'm certainly not the first one who had it: Discover a discarded card. I had plenty of ideas to go about this. It could be a spell, a minion, even a legendary. Instead of Discover it could just put a random discarded card in your hand. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it, but it should be balanced. Comparison with Drakonid Operative or with strong 6-drop minions clearly makes this seem a bit weak, but the strong part is the mana discount. A nice gimmick for mirror matches and games where your opponent plays Deathwing (or copys one of your discard cards) is that the discover pool of this card includes your opponents discarded cards as well.
Next ideas are just some basic demos with some discard synergy. Not too strong, but may be nice to have in certain discard decks:
This guy reminds a little of Silverware Golem, but there are some differences. The temposwing it provides when discarded, is smaller than Silverware Golems, but at least the small minions are demons. And while this discard effect seems a bit gimmicky and surely not crazy powerful, the minion is also just a decent body for 4 mana, for the Dinomancer and for any kind of demon synergy.
Originally i combined his effect with the Big Brood Imp ones, but it seemed to be to much and these simpler effects fit Blizzards design philosophy much better i guess. This big dude doesn't seem to special, but it could open up some possibilities for other discard style decks. In the early game you would not really mind discarding him and in the late game he is just a big pile of stats. He would be a nice discard for the dinomancer and in a cycle-heavy deck, he can save you a few turns of fatigue damage (if you're lucky ;) ).
Yup, that's it guys. I hope some of you like the ideas. Feel free to post feedback, critique or improvements. :)
"Knowledge, or verbal facility, is no proof that you know what you're talking about." -Terence Mckenna
I like the idea of helping discard work, but I'd say a major problem with the mechanic is that it needs a total overhaul.
First of all, key cards are too easily discarded, which can sabotage your whole match. You've addressed that to some degree here, but I'd say there is another thing we could do: rework the discard RNG. I have a quest warlock that I play in casual and in friendly matches for fun, and I could bet (and win that bet) that 9/10 times, the only cards I'll discard are Deathwing, Jaraxxus, Siphon Soul, and Twisting Nether. There needs to be a reworking of that RNG if this is going to work, or discard will die.
Another way to counteract illogical discards is making more minions that benefit from discarding either immune to or recycled by the mechanic (much like that very interesting Core Infernal you have up there). If your power cards have no resistance to being discarded, the deck and the mechanic become less of a choice of strategy and more of "I want a Casino deck that can gamble away my ability to impact the game."
Last point is this: the value of minions that discard need to be reworked. The concept of "sacrifice for power" is lost when there is greater value in more consistent decks like the largely uninteractive pirate warrior or aggro druid. The value of a 2-cost 4/3 minion is lost when it will be cleared and faced against two more minions that still remain on the opponent's board. These minions need to be reworked to be more aggressive. Their design is outdated in the face of hyper aggro, jade Druid, and RNG control decks (control priest, control mage). Why play Doomcaller when Leeroy is 1 more attack for the same cost, no discard, and clearly defined as a charge for face card? Yes, bigger body and blah blah blah but it's still lacking. Most discard minions can be replaced by higher value minions that don't sabotage your hand and push for health loss card draw.
I think discard has potential, but as of now, there are too many consistent decks that put discard warlocks to shame far more often than not. I'm glad there are players who aren't giving up on the mechanic, and that you're offering interesting ideas that could be implemented pretty soon if not fairly soon (depending on what might need reworking).
I'm sure you'll get trolls on here and salty sages who have the answer to everything, so good luck with this post, and best of luck in your Hearthstone games!
Rage quitting: the best way to ensure your opponent knows they beat a giant baby.
But i think that it is possible to change the feeling of these "bad discards" from "oh sh*t, i discarded my win condition, now i can only concede" to "oh, i discarded Jaraxxus, now i have to go for plan b. i can get Jaraxxus from a Dinomancer and taunt it up or i may discover a Jaraxxus and even have it discounted". Or before discarding your Jaraxxus you might think "I have Jaraxxus in my hand, but i need to play Doomguard now. As i luckily have two more mana, i can fill my hand with imps now, to significantly lower the chance of discarding the Jaxx."
"Knowledge, or verbal facility, is no proof that you know what you're talking about." -Terence Mckenna
Rage quitting: the best way to ensure your opponent knows they beat a giant baby.