Although I do like the concept, and I am not sure about the rules of the competition, I gotta ask, the first picture, as in the picture of Kvothe looking at The University...your name wouldn´t be Marc Simonetti right? Cause that´s his picture...
None of the art is mine, I get it from google images/deviant art... did I break a copyright law or something? Is there any way that I'm supposed to give credit?
I feel like the easiest UI choice for Melody would be a button on your side of the board labeled "Melody" that appears when you try to attack that you can drag the arrow to in the same way as an attack instead of dragging it to a target. Also, your art choices are great.
The main image of "The Bard" is actually a representation of Imre and The University from the fantasy book series Kingkiller Chronicles. The character there is Kvothe and is kinda of a bard, but not entirely. I just wanted to comment this to give credit to the writer (Patrick Rothfuss) behind such work and I hope that the author of the post recognize him. At the same time, I wonder who made the artwork...still, amazing class.
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DIE INSECT! LIVE INSECT! DIE INSECT! LIVE INSECT! ...
Unbelievable work. This obviously took huge effort to make something great. The whole concept and theme of the class and the fact that you had a really cool idea of how it would work in different archetypes is commendable. The cards all fit around the central theme well and it comes out feeling really complete. Brilliant!
In light of WoG coming out, I'm revisiting this class. I plan to first rework some old cards in an update and then add in the WoG set.
The cards targeted for changes:
Spirit Dancer: Likely will become 1 mana 2/1: At the end of your turn, add an Echo to your hand.
Double Time: Will probably receive a full rework.
Tavern Minstrel: Is now a murloc, name and art will be reused elsewhere.
Rockstar: Will likely become 3 mana 2/4 - Whenever you activate a melody, deal 2 damage to a random enemy. This might be OP, but it's certainly more interesting than the current version so we'll see how it goes.
Song of Imagination: Will be reduced to (4) mana.
Bloodsail Shantyman: Will be fully reworked, to a weapon-focused card.
Wailing Mountain: Full rework.
Limelight: Might now draw a card, since Double time has been removed, the only remaining melody-doubler should be stronger.
So, since you put so much work into this, I thought I might give my fully detailed opinion on the class. Mechanics
I’ll be up front; I don’t like how overused the Melody keyword is on minions. The Bard has 22 Minions (up to LoE), of which 14 of them either have or relate to the Melody Keyword (including the reworks of Rockstar, Bloodsail Shantyman and the addition of Grand Organist). This would be fine if Melody didn’t have such a limited design space on minions. Excluding situations where you have Debut to support, a minion with Melody is automatically in the same position as a card like Scaled Nightmare or Nat Pagle; its effect only matters if its survives to see your next turn. This means that most Melody minions have a very similar feel despite the variety of effects. Most of them fall into either ‘I’m going to ramp up a bunch of minions/buffs if I reach my next turn!’ minions (Tavern Minstrel/Murloc Tidesinger, Star of the Show, Electric Guitarist, Halfling Bard, Otto Tune, Wailing Mountain, Mr Popular) or ‘I have an alternative way of a attacking!’ minions (Kindlewood Violinist, Grand Organist, Blacksoul Minstrel). Of the two remaining Melody minions, Elderwood Bard fills a similar ‘kill it or lose’ against Aggro and is basically a vanilla 3/5 against many control decks. IMO Angelcaller is the only Melody minion that has a legitimately difficult choice between attacking and playing its melody.
You ‘counter’ basically every card mentioned there with ‘kill it on the turn it’s played’. This means the Bard has to A. Have board control to take advantage of its minions and B. Either exhaust their opponent’s removal/board clears or hope they don’t have any. None of these cards are bad in and of themselves, but I feel like many of them are redundant in their effects.
On weapons, it’s a different story. I really like Melody as a mechanic for weapons, since there’s far more levers you can pull to affect the power of the effect and you can actually rely on them to provide versatility.
Outside the Melody mechanic (which is actually somewhat similar to certain totems like the Mana Tide Totem), the Bard shares a lot in common with the Shaman in that it does a little bit of everything with a focus on minions and weak board clears, right down to Orchestra being Al’Akir the Windlord split into four guys. Not so much that I’d ‘mark it down’ so to speak, but enough that you can draw a lot of parallels (Hex v Low Note, Windfury v Original Double Time, Vitality Totem v Elderwood Bard, etc).
Thematics
Probably the strongest thing the Bard has going for it is the ties to its themes, though there’s a couple of inconsistencies. Far and away the most well demonstrated point is the Bard as a leader; there’s plenty of cards that encourage the Bard player to build a board and buff the troops (which is very typical of a Bard from an RPG perspective). As one might come to expect from a Bard, there’s plenty of ‘party’ wide buffs that improve stats, provide protection, etc. This isn’t exactly new for Hearthstone; such things are also part of the identities for the Druid, Shaman and Paladin, though the Bard does so in different ways.
There’s also a well demonstrated theme of the Bard being the ‘jack of all trades’, though, continuing from the Mechanics section, it somewhat overlaps with the Shaman in this regard. It should also perhaps be noted that whilst the Bard’s mechanics follow this well, with the class dipping into a little bit of every neutral mechanic, I feel like the leadership theme and the way Melody works pulls the Bard too far towards a faster aggro/mid-range archetype, since most of the class’s cards only work if you have board control (with the exception of potential stupid combo decks that try to kill the enemy by playing seven minions (possibly utilising Onyxia)-> Double Choir/Song of Passion with Spell Power to instantly kill the enemy in the same vein as Freeze Mage).
On the other hand, I don’t think you delivered as well on the ‘peaceful’ aspect of the Bard. While yes, Melody requires you to avoid attacking, the effect of many Melodies are typically either ‘make guys for fighting/my guys better at fighting’ or ‘deal damage’ (excluding the aforementioned examples of Angelcaller & Elderwood Bard). High note and Low note are pretty good for ‘violence-free removal’, but Bard also has two of (potentially) the most powerful burst damage spells in the game with Choir and Song of Passion. In addition, the Bard is still a weapon class; one that has a weapon available with its hero power. Assuming one takes both damaging spells/abilities and weapons into account, I’d argue that the Bard is a far more ‘violent’ class than Priest or Paladin.
I also think there may have been a missed opportunity to include spells that have effects that last multiple turns to represent continuous songs, but that’s just me.
When I have time, I’ll go over the individual cards more in detail. Work has been derailing my attempts at writing this.
This is amazing, well done! You really deserved to win, very elegantly designed and huge flavor!
Would be nice in a tavern brawl
I feel like the easiest UI choice for Melody would be a button on your side of the board labeled "Melody" that appears when you try to attack that you can drag the arrow to in the same way as an attack instead of dragging it to a target. Also, your art choices are great.
I'm just wondering why Spirit Dancer doesn't add an Echo to your hand instead. Echo seems like enough of a spirit in the art...
But I may be wrong, in any case it's nice flavor
N'zoth Hunter
Malygod Hunter
Really beautiful concept, and execution, congratulations.
I like the design, but the class looks pretty OP.
I loved the art and I love Lindsey Sterling :)
Wants to play Captain Cookie Druid because why not?
Thats prety gay, give us Illidan with nagas or some original shit...
The main image of "The Bard" is actually a representation of Imre and The University from the fantasy book series Kingkiller Chronicles. The character there is Kvothe and is kinda of a bard, but not entirely. I just wanted to comment this to give credit to the writer (Patrick Rothfuss) behind such work and I hope that the author of the post recognize him. At the same time, I wonder who made the artwork...still, amazing class.
DIE INSECT! LIVE INSECT! DIE INSECT! LIVE INSECT! ...
The Name of the Wind <3
Unbelievable work. This obviously took huge effort to make something great. The whole concept and theme of the class and the fact that you had a really cool idea of how it would work in different archetypes is commendable. The cards all fit around the central theme well and it comes out feeling really complete. Brilliant!
Bravissimo!
Wow, what an incredible job creating such a magnificent class!
Thanks for the good read :)
"The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."
~ Thomas Paine
In light of WoG coming out, I'm revisiting this class. I plan to first rework some old cards in an update and then add in the WoG set.
The cards targeted for changes:
Spirit Dancer: Likely will become 1 mana 2/1: At the end of your turn, add an Echo to your hand.
Double Time: Will probably receive a full rework.
Tavern Minstrel: Is now a murloc, name and art will be reused elsewhere.
Rockstar: Will likely become 3 mana 2/4 - Whenever you activate a melody, deal 2 damage to a random enemy. This might be OP, but it's certainly more interesting than the current version so we'll see how it goes.
Song of Imagination: Will be reduced to (4) mana.
Bloodsail Shantyman: Will be fully reworked, to a weapon-focused card.
Wailing Mountain: Full rework.
Limelight: Might now draw a card, since Double time has been removed, the only remaining melody-doubler should be stronger.
This looks great; I love that the hero is "Lindsey Starling" ;)
Here is what the reworked and new cards are shaping up to be! These are in early development, and will undergo large changes before being finalized.
So, since you put so much work into this, I thought I might give my fully detailed opinion on the class.
Mechanics
I’ll be up front; I don’t like how overused the Melody keyword is on minions. The Bard has 22 Minions (up to LoE), of which 14 of them either have or relate to the Melody Keyword (including the reworks of Rockstar, Bloodsail Shantyman and the addition of Grand Organist). This would be fine if Melody didn’t have such a limited design space on minions. Excluding situations where you have Debut to support, a minion with Melody is automatically in the same position as a card like Scaled Nightmare or Nat Pagle; its effect only matters if its survives to see your next turn. This means that most Melody minions have a very similar feel despite the variety of effects. Most of them fall into either ‘I’m going to ramp up a bunch of minions/buffs if I reach my next turn!’ minions (Tavern Minstrel/Murloc Tidesinger, Star of the Show, Electric Guitarist, Halfling Bard, Otto Tune, Wailing Mountain, Mr Popular) or ‘I have an alternative way of a attacking!’ minions (Kindlewood Violinist, Grand Organist, Blacksoul Minstrel). Of the two remaining Melody minions, Elderwood Bard fills a similar ‘kill it or lose’ against Aggro and is basically a vanilla 3/5 against many control decks. IMO Angelcaller is the only Melody minion that has a legitimately difficult choice between attacking and playing its melody.
You ‘counter’ basically every card mentioned there with ‘kill it on the turn it’s played’. This means the Bard has to A. Have board control to take advantage of its minions and B. Either exhaust their opponent’s removal/board clears or hope they don’t have any. None of these cards are bad in and of themselves, but I feel like many of them are redundant in their effects.
On weapons, it’s a different story. I really like Melody as a mechanic for weapons, since there’s far more levers you can pull to affect the power of the effect and you can actually rely on them to provide versatility.
Outside the Melody mechanic (which is actually somewhat similar to certain totems like the Mana Tide Totem), the Bard shares a lot in common with the Shaman in that it does a little bit of everything with a focus on minions and weak board clears, right down to Orchestra being Al’Akir the Windlord split into four guys. Not so much that I’d ‘mark it down’ so to speak, but enough that you can draw a lot of parallels (Hex v Low Note, Windfury v Original Double Time, Vitality Totem v Elderwood Bard, etc).
Thematics
Probably the strongest thing the Bard has going for it is the ties to its themes, though there’s a couple of inconsistencies. Far and away the most well demonstrated point is the Bard as a leader; there’s plenty of cards that encourage the Bard player to build a board and buff the troops (which is very typical of a Bard from an RPG perspective). As one might come to expect from a Bard, there’s plenty of ‘party’ wide buffs that improve stats, provide protection, etc. This isn’t exactly new for Hearthstone; such things are also part of the identities for the Druid, Shaman and Paladin, though the Bard does so in different ways.
There’s also a well demonstrated theme of the Bard being the ‘jack of all trades’, though, continuing from the Mechanics section, it somewhat overlaps with the Shaman in this regard. It should also perhaps be noted that whilst the Bard’s mechanics follow this well, with the class dipping into a little bit of every neutral mechanic, I feel like the leadership theme and the way Melody works pulls the Bard too far towards a faster aggro/mid-range archetype, since most of the class’s cards only work if you have board control (with the exception of potential stupid combo decks that try to kill the enemy by playing seven minions (possibly utilising Onyxia)-> Double Choir/Song of Passion with Spell Power to instantly kill the enemy in the same vein as Freeze Mage).
On the other hand, I don’t think you delivered as well on the ‘peaceful’ aspect of the Bard. While yes, Melody requires you to avoid attacking, the effect of many Melodies are typically either ‘make guys for fighting/my guys better at fighting’ or ‘deal damage’ (excluding the aforementioned examples of Angelcaller & Elderwood Bard). High note and Low note are pretty good for ‘violence-free removal’, but Bard also has two of (potentially) the most powerful burst damage spells in the game with Choir and Song of Passion. In addition, the Bard is still a weapon class; one that has a weapon available with its hero power. Assuming one takes both damaging spells/abilities and weapons into account, I’d argue that the Bard is a far more ‘violent’ class than Priest or Paladin.
I also think there may have been a missed opportunity to include spells that have effects that last multiple turns to represent continuous songs, but that’s just me.
When I have time, I’ll go over the individual cards more in detail. Work has been derailing my attempts at writing this.
The Tactician Class (LOE Complete!)
This is awesome, would love to see this stuff in the game