Hearthpwn

This Week's Finalists

Restrictions:

• Your card ​must​ be a ​Legendary Spell​ or a ​Legendary Weapon. That is, a Spell card or a Weapon card of Legendary rarity. There is at least one existing example (Ashbringer), but your card will be different because it will be ​collectible, an independent card that you can actually put in your deck. Consider that there should a flavor and/or balance reason for your card to be Legendary.
  ​Balance-wise, Legendary-worthy effects are typically ones that aren't necessarily overpowered on their own but rather could prove overpowered or otherwise problematic overall if one deck were normally allowed multiple copies. A great example of this might be C'Thun.
  Flavor-wise, Legendary cards should be ones that represent unique elements. For a Legendary Weapon, that means a weapon that is specific or one-of-a-kind in the lore (the existence of Doomhammer and Gorehowl as merely Epic in the game already is something we're going to have to overlook). For a Legendary Spell, however, you may have to leave behind your conceptualization of "spells" as magical incantations, like Fireball, Mind Control, or Hex, as there's hardly such a thing as a unique magical incantation. Spells in Hearthstone have a much broader definition than that, though, that includes Items (Explosive Trap, Bouncing Blade, Deadly Poison), Attacks (Snipe, Slam, Bash), Tactics (Gang Up, Feign Death), Events (Brawl, Solemn Vigil), Concepts (Equality, Humility), and More (Lock and Load, Eye for an Eye, Beneath the Grounds). Consider that specific historical events, one-of-a-kind artifacts, and unique cities or other locations can all make for thematically appropriate Legendary Spells.

We have whittled down ~190 valid entries to just 19 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 kasa1234567
by ShadowSpectreX
by nobravery
Tauren Warrior
by Thorwaller
by Ligiertheexalted
by Steengroeve
by cruelsage
by Papamiah
by Ambidex999
by EleventhHS
by CheeseEatingEtc.
by thepowrofcheese
by Asylum_Rhapsody
by Tyranastraszz
by yebaba
by Chromanticore
by Demonic_Tutor_Etc.
(Wild Card)
by Beldak
(Wild Card)
by oogahound
(Wild Card)

Crafty's Pole

One Final Service

It's High Noon

Lightfuras, Fury of Light

The Ancient Prophecy

Wow, 3 wild cards, that's huge. 

The Ancient Prophecy captures what a Legendary spell should be perfectly. Probably too hard to trigger, but it is a pretty powerful effect. The Vault of Lights is also another good Legendary spell. It's a unique location with a powerful ongoing effect, both of which justify allowing only 1 in your deck. I also voted for Wirt's Leg, because it is the epitome of Blizzard self-referential humor. And, I mean, it wouldn't make sense to teleport to the Cow Level twice in one game, would it?

There are some cards that I think have major issues. First, High Noon is overtly just from Overwatch. It's called Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft for a reason. Second, Cipher of Damnation is a terrible idea. Destroying your opponent's Hero Power, like discarding their cards or destroying their mana crystals, is something that should never and will never happen in Hearthstone. 

Also, as yebaba said, some of the cards just aren't Legendary. Unholy Poison, Extra-ordinary, Steal their Power, Gem of Augmentation, and Holy Talisman are not Legendary subjects in any way. There's nothing unique about these things. And the effects of Unholy Poison and Steal their Power are not particularly Legendary, either. This is an issue with Craft'y Pole, too. There isn't anything really special about it. It isn't particularly powerful or unique, and the cards it gives you aren't particularly powerful or unique. I mean, there are Legendary minions that do similar things (like with Dream cards), but being similar to a Legendary minion doesn't really justify making an entirely new class of weapons that have not been in the game yet. It really has to go beyond that. 

Quote from Telefonkabel >>

@yebaba
i can sign that all.
There are some unlegendary cards in the final, but less than i have expected.
No card from the first page made it here, really remarkable! I feel sorry for the #1 there "Promise of Power" - i haven't felt salty to loose vs that interesting card.
I don't understand why the controversial classic-pack-card isn't here - cause of plagiarism, or cause of repeatedly submission of that design, or cause of unsporting manners of the designer, or really cause of the formula?
The card itself is within the rules, as far as i can see, and it's not a real troll entry either.

hf all

Quote from nurgling13 >>

Quote from Telefonkabel >>

@yebaba
i can sign that all.
There are some unlegendary cards in the final, but less than i have expected.
No card from the first page made it here, really remarkable! I feel sorry for the #1 there "Promise of Power" - i haven't felt salty to loose vs that interesting card.
I don't understand why the controversial classic-pack-card isn't here - cause of plagiarism, or cause of repeatedly submission of that design, or cause of unsporting manners of the designer, or really cause of the formula?
The card itself is within the rules, as far as i can see, and it's not a real troll entry either.

hf all

 I am also dissapointed. Promise of Power was actually my favorite submission and I was ready to promote it here.

Quote from yebaba >>

Some of these spells don't really deserve to be legendary (Unholy Poison, Steal their power, Extra-ordinary etc.)

 

Controversial entries hardly ever get removed for only one reason. We're generally lenient and willing to let a lot of stuff slide, so usually a combination of reasons is required. The classic pack was not allowed through because, although there were certainly many entries that failed to thematically justify themselves as Legendary, it was easily the most blatant offender, AND it was a concept that we have seen practically identically in multiple past competitions, AND it generated too much negativity from all sides in the discussion topic. This combination of factors led to our agreeing that it was just too trollish to be allowed to advance.

If anybody would like to discuss the matter further, then feel free to see me and/or the other moderators personal messages. Because the card did not make it through, further discussion here may be considered off topic and dealt with as such. You have been warned. Please, we would like to avoid further unnecessary negativity this competition.

Quote from Telefonkabel >>

Thanks guys, I am quite salty about it tbh. I had such high hopes this week.. Doesn't really make sense that cards that didn't even meet this weeks criteria got priority over mine. I tried msging asylum about it but I haven't gotten a response, I don't think I'll be making any more submissions after this

That's the wrong spirit. People like what people like, and we design "for" a game for people. Blizzard can't design what people don't like either, ehm, well, ok they do sometimes... :P
Don't feel salty, your card won page 1! But no formula is perfekt, and there were too many other good cards on page 1 for that formula. I promised a better overall formula at some time, one that would be easy for the mods, too, i haven't forgotten about that ;)
But there is nothing wrong with this formula either, there are simply some flaws that could result in such a result.
Keep up your good work and thx for the battle for page 1 ;)

I think we should maybe revisit the rule about the top entry from each page automatically making it into the Final, because we have had a number of weeks where nothing from page 1 makes it in. This either indicates that Page 1 entries aren't as good (there is an argument for that, since people spent less time on them generally) or voting patterns make it harder to advance from this page (maybe the kind of people who only vote on Page 1 and then stop tend to vote for many things, decreasing all scores on that page). Probably it's a combination of both.

The reason the rule was dropped was we were often getting pages with little voter participation, and it didn't make sense to allow someone with 3 votes to advance. It's just not enough to justify it compared to other pages. I think we could solve both problems with a rule like this: If the top card on each page has at least X votes, it is guaranteed into the finals. Maybe also this rule is automatically suspended if there are more than Y pages of submissions, because it also hurt the competition when you had to guarantee 20+ submissions because there were that many pages. We could debate what X and Y should be to be fair. Maybe like X=10 and Y=15. 

I like The Ancient Prophecy most. I often don't like cards with tokens, but this one is great!