Greeting, Hearthpwn Fan Creation Forum! Season 5 of our Weekly Card Design Competitions will begin next week, and it will be kicking off with our third Class Creation Competition, entitled "Asylum's Gauntlet". Not too self-aggrandizing, is it? Well, there are two reasons that my name is in the title.
First, this will be the last competition that I will be running as a Hearthpwn moderator. As some of you know, I've been here for over a year and a half, and during that time I've presided over three seasons of the Weekly Card Design Competition, as well as two Class Creation Competitions and one Adventure Creation Competition. I've loved every minute of it, but unfortunately, because of other important life priorities I now have like work and grad school, I've not been able to devote as much time as I'd like to my duties here and also haven't even been able to play Hearthstone itself as much. Still, I like doing this too much to just bow out quietly, so while I'm going to have less and less to do with the Weekly Card Design Competitions, this Class Creation Competition is a bit of a last hurrah.
Second, this competition will be conducted very differently from our first two Class Creation Competitions. During the first one, it was pretty much anything goes, and it took us a while to settle on the "Worlds Beyond Warcraft" theme that set the second one apart from the original. But if we're going to make the Class Creation Competitions (and Adventure Creation Competitions?) at all sustainable, as something we can do many more times to come without just getting repeat entries, we need a model for that. To that end, I've taken a few pages from our Weekly Card Design Competitions:
Every progressive phase of this competition will contain 3 challenges. They'll be formatted similarly to our weekly competitions, and they may be either thematic or mechanical. Most importantly, nobody but me will know what the individual phase challenges will be until we reach those phases, so you can't get get too attached to your plans too far in advance. If this goes well, then future Class Creation Competitions may use a similar format, with different moderators hosting different assortments of challenges that will make every competition inherently unique.
These are not the challenges for Phase I, but just to give you some examples, I might say things like... [1]"Femme Fatale" - The Hero character representing your class must be female. Examples: Alleria Windrunner, Jaina Proudmoore, Valeera Sanguinar, etc. [2]"The Best Defense..." - Your Hero Power must either deal damage directly or allow your Hero to attack and deal damage. Examples: Dagger Mastery, Steady Shot, Life Tap, etc. [3]"Humblebrag" - One of your three example cards must be a Legendary minion, but it may not use any original keywords. Examples: Aviana, Hallazeal the Ascended, Trade Prince Gallywix, etc.
For Phases I and II of the competition, the challenges will be pretty easy, like these. By the time we reach Phases V and VI, however, I plan on making them more difficult. To double check that nothing I want to do is TOO horrible, Shadows has volunteered to give me second opinions. That also, of course, means that Shadows cannot compete, as knowing the challenges in advance would be an unfair advantage. Other Hearthpwn moderators are allowed to compete as usual, since they don't know what's coming up any more than you do.
Below, you'll find an outline of the competition, including all of the rules, full submission topic drafts, and a tentative schedule. Please use this week to give me your thoughts on the rules, the new competition format, the timetable we've set up, and so on. I'm incredibly excited to get started, and I hope that you all enjoy the challenges I have in store!
PHASE V: League of Explorers + Whispers of the Old Gods Preview: 22/February - 23/February Submission: 23/February - 2/March Poll: 2/March - 3/March
PHASE VI: One Night in Karazhan + Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Submission: 3/March - 14/March Poll: 14/March - 17/March
NOTE: All stages of the competition begin and end at 20:00 UTC. ALSO NOTE: I know that a couple of these submissions windows might see tight, especially because the secret challenges make it difficult to plan ahead. That being the case, this timetable is subject to change at my discretion, even after the competition begins, if it seems like too many folks are struggling.
* During Preview stages, both a Submission Topic and a Discussion Topic will go up, but the Submission Topic will be locked until the end of the Preview stage. The Submission Topic will reveal the Phase's unique challenges, so take this time to discuss them, ask for clarifications, and so on. * During Submission stages, Submission Topics will be unlocked and (remaining) participants may submit their entries. During Phases I-II, you may also use this time to go ahead and up-vote submissions that you like. * During Up-Voting stages for Phases I-II, Submission Topics will be locked. Use this time to up-vote submissions that you like. Note that advancement during these Phases depends entirely on up-votes. * During Polling stages for Phases III-VI, Submission Topics will be locked, and all eligible remaining participants will have their submission material included in a separate Poll Topic to determine advancement. Phases III-IV include two Poll Topics because I anticipate we will have enough participants remaining that we will not be able to fit everybody in one Poll Topic. Note that up-votes in the Submission Topics are irrelevant to advancement during these Phases.
How will eliminations be done, and how many competitors will advance from each phase to the next?
I'm glad you asked! We will be taking a equal proportion of competitors from each Phase of the competition to the next, and we will be ending with exactly four finalists. That being the case and their being five total eliminations before the final round, that proportion can be found by solving for x: [# of valid Phase I entries] * x^5 = 4 The higher the number of valid Phase I entries, the lower that proportion becomes. Just so you have an idea, the proportion hits 50% when we hit 128 entries, which is likely, but it only hits 33.3% when we hit 972 entries, which is less likely.
As mentioned above, advancement to Phases II and III will be determined by up-votes only. However, these up-votes are weighted using a formula identical to the process used by our Weekly Card Design Competitions: (ab) / (c) = x (Where a is the total number of up-votes that your submission received, b is the total number of valid submissions on the same page as your submission, c is the total number of up-votes on valid submissions on the same page as your submission, and x is your submission's final weighted up-vote score.) Why bother with this formula rather than just taking each submissions up-votes directly? Because earlier pages simply get a lot more views that later pages do, and we do not want rushed, early submissions to have an advantage over later submissions that took more time to get their entries just right. The formula basically measures which submissions stood out the most, with the necessary assumption that each page is about equal in overall submission quality. 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.
As mentioned above, advancement to Phases IV, V, and VI will be determined by polls. These polls will be multi-choice, meaning that voters can vote for every entry that they like. Whenever we have to split a Phase's poll into two to make it more manageable for voters, advancement will be determined by looking at each class's final percentage scores, not by looking at the direct number of votes they received, since we can't guarantee that the same number of voters will vote each day. Poll results will always be hidden until the poll has concluded, and for polls split in two, this does also mean that the results of the first poll will not be revealed until the second poll has concluded as well.
The winner of Phase VI, and thus the entire competition, will be determined by a poll much like the ones before, except that it will be single-choice, requiring voters to pick their single favorite class, and will have a much longer polling phase than usual to give us plenty of opportunity for promotion and such.
In the event of a tie during Phases I-IV for the last possible advancing position, all entries involved in the tie will be allowed to advance; the more the merrier, I say. We will absolutely not have more than four finalists, however, and so in the event of a tie during Phase V, the three Fan Creation Forum moderators (that is, myself, ShadowsOfSense, and PupleMD) will vote to break the tie. In the event of a tie during Phase VI to determine the competition's winner, the title will simply be shared unless both finalists request and agree to a tie-breaking round.
But wait, there's more! During Phases I-IV of the Competition, each Fan Creation Forum moderator (that is, myself, ShadowsOfSense, and PupleMD) will have a Wild Card, which we may (though are not required to) use to advance to the next Phase any one entry that we feel was initially overlooked or under-appreciated, regardless of its performance with voters. No entry may be awarded a Wild Card more than once, and it should also go without saying that, while some moderators are allowed to participate in the competitions, they are never allowed to benefit from Wild Cards. Wild Cards are our way of spicing things up a bit, but please don't ask to be given one or be upset if you aren't given one. These are just supposed to be fun.
GENERAL RULES
* The Submission Topic is for submissions only. If you want to discuss your entry, another entry, ask questions about the competition rules or process, or anything else, 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. * You are allowed only one submission, consisting of the materials specified by each competition phase. These materials must, of course, be of your own creation. If you'd like, you may collaborate with another user on a single submission, but this must be specified during Phase I. * You may make only minor edits to your entry once you have submitted 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. * You may not delete any posts you make in this topic. No, not even if you post here by mistake or accidentally double-post or something. Deleted posts screw with the system we use to help us calculate up-vote scores, so don't do that. If you to post here by mistake or accidentally double-post or something, simply edit your post to just say "REMOVED" and leave it at that. * You may not create your own topics on this forum for competition-related material. If everybody goes off and creates their own topics for specific discussion of their entries, this board will be flooded with nothing but, and so competition material must remain restricted to official competition topics. If you want to enter the competition with a class that you already have a topic about on this forum, then your topic will be locked in the interest of fairness to the other competitors. Not deleted, just locked, and it can be unlocked after your entry gets knocked out of the competition. You also may not reference or link to your topic in official competition topics.
* You must host your card somewhere other than Hearthcards. We encourage you to create your entry material using Hearthcards.net, but please remember that, although HearthCards is awesome, it has a limited server space and will purge cards after a few days, and nobody wants your cards disappearing part-way through the competition. After you create it, save and upload it to Imgur, Photobucket, or some other similar site. 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. * You may not submit any Gold cards or animated cards, nor may you include any images in your post other than the requested submission materials, like banners or borders. We get it, everybody wants their entry to stand out, but our pages are going to be heavy enough as it is without everybody heading their submissions with animated banners. * You must insert your images into your post using this icon on the bar above the post text editor: . Just click that button and put in the URL of your image. We realize that it's also possible to upload and attach images to your post. Don't do that, though. We know from experience that, because those images are much smaller and require more work to view, entries that enter their images that way just don't do as well, so this is for your own good. * Format your entry concisely by sizing your cards appropriately and placing them beside one another rather than in a column or completely separate. The first example below is acceptable while the second is not. Entries that unnecessarily inflate the size of the submission topic and make it more difficult to get through will be disqualified. Adjust cards to a width of 250, and you should be able to get three in a row.
Hey, look! Some cards!
Soul of the Forest: Look at how nice this is. Hammer of Twilight: All neat, organized, and concise. Twilight Summoner: What a great post.
Wait, what are you doing?
Seriously, please don't.
This is painful. Why are you doing this?
You are a monster.
* "Troll" entries will be disqualified. Fun and even humorous entries are perfectly allowed (this is Hearthstone after all), but if you're worried that your entry may be misinterpreted as a troll entry, contact a moderator before you submit.
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.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
PHASE I: The Concept
Before you get to creating dozens of cards for your class, we want to hear your proposals. Here are the requirements for your Phase I Entry:
THE CLASS'S NAME Obviously, you have to tell everybody the name of your new Class.
Your may not submit a Death Knight, Monk, or Demon Hunter. I know, I know, those are the three classes in WoW that haven't made it to Hearthstone, so they're the most logical places to go, right? Well that's actually the problem. These three classes have already been created and speculated about dozens of times over by countless people already, from popular streamers to many different members of this forum. We want to breed new creativity with this competition.
A HERO PORTRAIT Your class must be represented by a specific Hero, and that Hero should have a name.
Your Hero's starting/maximum Health must be 30, just like every existing hero. If it's not included explicitly on your Hero Portrait, it will be assumed.
A HERO POWER Every Hero needs their own unique Hero Power, and so does yours.
Like existing playable Hero Powers, yours must cost (2).
If your Hero Power produces unique tokens, you may not present more than four (4).
EXAMPLE CARDS We do not want to see your Class's entire collection, just enough for us to get a good idea of its concept.
You are allowed up to three (3) example cards. What kinds of cards? That's entirely up to you and what you believe would best showcase what makes your Class unique. You might decide to show off a Basic card that would find its home in any deck your class could make, or you might decide to showcase a card that plays a major role in one of your Class's win conditions, or you might decide to show us an example of a card that uses a new Class-exclusive keyword. Tell us a little something about these cards and how they fit into the grand scheme of things.
Your example cards may not produce any unique token elements. The only exception to this would be if the only unique token cards they produce are one that are already produced by your Hero Power.
Your example cards are not required to show up in any future Phases as part of your final product. They are just examples and may be modified or even abandoned entirely as the competition progresses.
KEYWORD Your class is not required to have a unique keyword, but if it does, then you should tell us about it.
You can generate a keyword tooltip definition image here on Hearthcards. Just remember to host the image elsewhere, like any other.
Your class may not use the Choose One, Combo, or Overload keywords during this or any other phase.
EXPLANATION Tell us a little bit about all of the above. Remember, the point of having different Classes in Hearthstone is that each of them plays differently, so consider telling us how your Hero Power and Example cards lend to or exemplify your class's unique features. You can also let us know, is your class more focused on aggressive, control, or combo decks? Does it place particular focus on minions, spells, or weapons? Is it fairly straightforward or does it have multiple different viable deck archetypes? Does it have a unique win condition? You can even tell us a little bit about where your Class's concept came from.
PHASE II: The Basics
In this Phase, you will each construct your class's Basic Set. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase II Entry:
CLASS, HERO, AND HERO POWER There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
Note that it is okay if you've decided to make some minor alteration to your Hero Power since Phase I.
EXAMPLE BASIC CARDS We do not want to see your Class's entire Basic Set out in the open.
You are allowed up to three (3) example Basic cards out in the open. You may, below these cards, give brief explanations of them, why you decided to showcase them, how they exemplify what makes your class unique, and so on.
As these are Basic cards, they should have no expansion watermark and no rarity gem.
If your example cards produce any unique token cards, those must be put behind a spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.).
There are many keywords that do not appear on any existing Basic Card, and they may not appear on any of your Basic Cards either: Counter, Deathrattle, Discover, Enrage, Immune, Inspire, Secret, Silence, Spare Parts, and Stealth. In addition, there are many general mechanics that did not appear either, so you must avoid expansion-specific mechanics like Joust and C'Thun synergy, and so on. Other such mechanics like Mech and Dragon synergy aren't disallowed per se shouldn't be used unless your class is specifically themed around Mechs or Dragons.
Just as Choose One, Combo, and Overload do not appear on any Basic cards, neither may any of your class's unique keywords appear on any of its Basic cards.
REMAINING BASIC SET The remaining seven (7) cards of your class's Basic Set must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
PHASE III: The Classics
In this Phase, you will each construct your class's Classic Set. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase III Entry:
CLASS, HERO, AND HERO POWER There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
EXAMPLE CLASSIC CARDS We do not want to see your Class's entire Classic Set out in the open.
You are allowed up to four (4) example Classic cards out in the open. You may, below these cards, give brief explanations of them, why you decided to showcase them, how they exemplify what makes your class unique, and so on.
As these are Classic cards, they should have the Classic watermark, and you should include 6 Common cards, 5 Rare cards, 3 Epic cards, and 1 Legendary minion.
If your example cards produce any unique token cards, those must be put behind a spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.).
There are many keywords that do not appear on any existing Classic Card, and they may not appear on any of your Basic Cards either: Discover, Inspire, and Spare Parts. In addition, there are many general mechanics that did not appear either, so you must avoid expansion-specific mechanics like Joust and C'Thun synergy, and so on. Other such mechanics like Mech and Dragon synergy aren't disallowed per se shouldn't be used unless your class is specifically themed around Mechs or Dragons.
REMAINING CLASSIC SET The remaining eleven (11) cards of your class's Basic Set must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
BASIC SET You should include your completed Basic Set from Phase II behind a Spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.) either before or after your Classic Set material. It is fine if these cards have undergone some minor modification since the end of Phase II, but thy must still adhere to all of Phase II's requirements.
PHASE IV: Blackrock Mountain and The Grant Tournament
By having your class's Classic Set approved of, you've shown that you can make a completely functional class. But functional isn't good enough. Your class must also have room to grow beyond that. For this phase, you'll be proving that it can by giving your class Blackrock Mountain and Grand Tournament cards. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase IV Entry:
CLASS, HERO, AND HERO POWER There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
EXAMPLE BRM & TGT CARDS We do not want to see your Class's entire BRM and TGT Sets out in the open.
You are allowed up to four (4) example cards out in the open. You may, below these cards, give brief explanations of them, why you decided to showcase them, how they exemplify what makes your class unique, and so on.
For this phase, you should have 1 Common card and 1 Rare card with the Blackrock Mountain watermark. These may not have Inspire, Joust, Discover, C'Thun synergy, etc., as those mechanics did not exist until later expansions.
You should also have 3 Common cards, 3 Rare cards, and 2 Epic cards with the Grand Tournament watermark. These may not have Discover, C'Thun synergy, etc., as those mechanics did not exist until later expansions.
You must also have 1 upgraded Justicar Trueheart version of your Hero Power. If you wish, you may substitute your upgraded Hero Power for one of your example cards this phase.
"No Grand Tournament Legendary minion?" you may be wondering? Actually, because Hunters broke the mold by having two TGT Legendary minions, we're going to let you break the mold too. If you wish, instead of 1 standard Legendary minion, you can have a pair of Legendaries, a Legendary Spell or Weapon, or even no Legendary card at all, with maybe an extra card of another rarity in its stead. Don't go crazy and have like a dozen Legendary cards, but feel free to try something new and different, and we'll do our best to discuss and accommodate it fairly.
If your example cards produce any unique token cards, those must be put behind a spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.).
REMAINING BRM & TGT CARDS The remaining cards of your class's BRM and TGT Sets must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
BASIC AND CLASSIC SETS You should include your completed Basic and Classic Sets from Phases II and III behind a Spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.) either before or after your Phase IV material. It is fine if these cards have undergone some minor modification, but they must still adhere to all of their original Phase requirements.
PHASE V: League of Explorers and Whispers of the Old Gods
Congratulations on being a semi-finalist! With positively received Blackrock Mountain and Grand Tournament sets, you've proven that your class's concept and mechanics have room for expansion. Now, there's only one last thing to do: narrow down the best of the best. For this phase, you'll be giving your class League of Explorers and Whispers of the Old Gods cards. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase V Entry:
CLASS, HERO, AND HERO POWER There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
EXAMPLE LOE & WOTOG CARDS We do not want to see your Class's entire LoE and WotOG Sets out in the open.
You are allowed up to four (4) example cards out in the open. You may, below these cards, give brief explanations of them, why you decided to showcase them, how they exemplify what makes your class unique, and so on.
For this phase, you should have 2 Common cards and 1 Rare card with the League of Explorers watermark. These may not have C'Thun synergy, tri-class cards, or other mechanics that did not exist until later expansions.
You should also have 3 Common cards, 3 Rare cards, 2 Epic cards, and 1 Legendary minion with the Whispers of the Old Gods watermark. These may not have tri-class cards or other mechanics that did not exist until later expansions.
If your example cards produce any unique token cards, those must be put behind a spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.).
REMAINING LOE & WOTOG CARDS The remaining eight (8) cards of your class's LoE and WotOG Sets must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
BASIC, CLASSIC, BRM, and TGT SETS You should include your completed Basic, Classic, BRM, and TGT Sets from Phases II-IV behind a Spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.) either before or after your Phase V material. It is fine if these cards have undergone some minor modification, but they must still adhere to all of their original Phase requirements.
PHASE VI: One Night in Karazhan and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan
Here we are, finalists! In the last phase of our competition, you'll be giving us your class's One Night in Karazhan and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan sets, as well as constructing your own custom Finale Topics:
FINALE TOPIC There will be no Submission Topic for the competition Finale. Instead, you will create your own Finalist Topics. All that you have to do is create a normal topic here on the Fan Creation Forum and title it as such: [Class Competition Finalist] TURTLE (Replace TURTLE with your own class's name, of course.) Then, bring it to our attention, and we'll link to it from this topic. That's it. How you format and present your final product is entirely up to you. You've put in a lot of work to come this far, so you've earned the right to show us your completed original Class however you think is best.
ONIK & MSOG CARDS In addition to including the required material from all previous phases, you must add the following:
2 Common cards and 1 Rare card with the One Night in Karazhan watermark. These may not have tri-class cards, or other mechanics that did not exist until later expansions.
3 Common cards, 3 Rare cards, 2 Epic cards, and 1 Legendary minion with the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan watermark.
In addition, you must create and name your own new Gadgetzan crime family, consisting of your class and two other classes from any of our current or previous Class Creation Competition finalists. So, in addition to your three fellow finalists, that includes previous winners the Bard, Merchant, and Twilight's Hammer, as well as previous finalists the Agent, Nightmare, Pokemon Trainer, Demon Hunter, and Lich. You will then create 3 tri-class cards for this new crime family: 1 Common minion, 1 Rare minion, and 1 Legendary minion. Like the existing crime families, your family's Rare minion should just have the card text "Battlecry: Discover a ______, ______, or ______ card.". To be clear, your family should have its own distinct mechanical gimmick and should not be defined by hand-buffing cards like the Grimy Goons, Jade Golems like the Jade Lotus, or potions or singleton-style decks like the Kabal. Fortunately, you do not need to make any class-specific cards for the other two classes you select to be in your class's crime family.
EXAMPLE CARDS These don't need to be part of your Finale Topic, but by the end of the Submission Phase, you should send me 8 example cards from your completed collection, preferably via PM, to be included in the Final Poll Topic. The Final Poll topic will look very similar to this one from our first CCC, except that no token cards will be included.
REWARDS
In addition to truly epic bragging rights, ALL finalists will receive a special Forum Title and Avatar Border, similar to those given to winners of our forum's Weekly Card Design Competitions, as shown below:
Furthermore, the winning contestant will have a Season 5 competition themed around their winning class!
ARCHIVES
Want to see how things went during our first two Class Creation Competitions? Want to see what the winners and other finalists did during each phase? Then check out the links below! Note, however, that some competition rules, especially formatting rules, may have been different for past competition.
Can't wait to see what you have in store for us! Would be fun, after finally playing WoW and experiencing it's lore to try to create a new class from scratch :D Let's see how wacky it can get!
I'm super-glad that we'll have requirements to work from, since I find it almost impossible to design cards without some sort of starting point XD. Looking forward to see what those requirements are.
Question: Am I, completely hypothetically, allowed to create another 'Bard' or 'Agent' class (or whatever that has won already, really), with a different hero power/mechanics?
I am assuming this will be exclusive warcraft-themed.
As someone totally unfamiliar with the lore, is it okay if I just create fantasy/ medieval-genre stuff that is loosely tied to WoW? It'd suck to get called out for, say, matching one piece of artwork with a thematically incorrect card text. Like, what if I named a card with Tyrande's picture on it "High Elf Queen/ Princess" or something.
Whispers of the Old Gods is *very* difficult to make cards for, art-wise. Should we just scrounge up whatever we can for that expansion?
It's not has hard as you might think! Expanding your searches to Lovecraftian art, or even just horror art in general, can get you plenty of good stuff. Also, looking up Illithid or Mind Flayer art from D&D can pass perfectly well for Faceless. Plus, it's not like every minions from your WotOG set has to be dripping with tentacles. Just take a look at how many actual WotOG minions look perfectly "normal", even those with C'Thun synergy and such.
Can you give an example of what the challenges might be for something other than the first week, cuz I'm having a hard time picturing it.
Sure! Just off of the top of my head, for Phase II, I could say some stuff like...
[1]The Soul of Wit - None of the cards in your Basic set may have more than three normal lines of card text... Okay, fine, I'll let you have one single card that breaks this rule, but (A) it cannot be one of your example cards and, (B) in return, you must also have a completely vanilla weapon or minion. Vanilla, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, means having zero card text, like Enchanted Raven or Fiery War Axe. [2]Separated at Birth - It's always kind of bugged a lot of people that Arcane Shot and Holy Smite are completely mechanically identical. What bugs me, though, is that they're the only examples of such a thing. Let's fix that. One of your class's Basic cards must be mechanically identical to an existing Basic class card. This does not need to be one of your example cards. [3]Glimpse into the Wild - This competition is Standard-only just for practical reasons, but Wild should still be assumed to exist. As an additional fourth example card, you must show us any card from your class that would have been from its Curse of Naxxramas or Goblins vs Gnomes sets. Hey, since this card isn't Basic, this could even be your opportunity to use some of the keywords normally banned for this phase, including your unique class-specific keyword if you have one!
(Note: These are just examples. I already have the Phase II challenges decided, and these are not them.)
Question: Am I, completely hypothetically, allowed to create another 'Bard' or 'Agent' class (or whatever that has won already, really), with a different hero power/mechanics?
Sure. We've done this a couple of times now, so many of the most basic general class concepts have already been done. Hell, I think during the first CCC we had a couple of Lich classes. As long as it is mechanically distinct and is similar in theme only, you should be fine.
I am assuming this will be exclusive warcraft-themed.
As someone totally unfamiliar with the lore, is it okay if I just create fantasy/ medieval-genre stuff that is loosely tied to WoW? It'd suck to get called out for, say, matching one piece of artwork with a thematically incorrect card text. Like, what if I named a card with Tyrande's picture on it "High Elf Queen/ Princess" or something.
You'll be fine. To be honest, I'm not the most heavily steeped in Warcraft lore myself. Even for my Seer class below, I started with my concept first and then looked up if I could find a couple of psychic Warcraft characters that I could use for my Hero and Legendary minions. Beyond that, of the winners of our first CCC had the hero character "Jeeve Stobes", who is not a real Warcraft character, and Hearthstone itself has been creating plenty of original characters, so you'll have no trouble as long as it reasonably fits. Plus, there are already existing cards that use art of named Warcraft characters, like how Shattered Sun Cleric uses art for Lady Liadrin, so such a "mistake" wouldn't be outlandish enough to be detrimental, I don't think.
Seems interesting, I might try make something for this even though I lack warcraft lore knowledge. A general fantasy theme that could exist in the Warcraft universe with some characters or things from Warcraft is acceptable, right?
First, this will be the last competition that I will be running as a Hearthpwn moderator. As some of you know, I've been here for over a year and a half, and during that time I've presided over three seasons of the Weekly Card Design Competition, as well as two Class Creation Competitions and one Adventure Creation Competition. I've loved every minute of it, but unfortunately, because of other important life priorities I now have like work and grad school, I've not been able to devote as much time as I'd like to my duties here and also haven't even been able to play Hearthstone itself as much. Still, I like doing this too much to just bow out quietly, so while I'm going to have less and less to do with the Weekly Card Design Competitions, this Class Creation Competition is a bit of a last hurrah.
Will you at least still be around in the forums as a moderator, just not hosting the big competitions? Either way you will be greatly missed!
I like the idea of adding requirements. This will make it easier to assess other's submissions based on how well thy incorporate those requirements into their cards. I'm also wondering what / if the theme will be this year. I've got a couple ideas for classes, some original and some new takes on more common ideas, and I'm excited to try them out for this contest!
Whoa ho ho... Well this sure is interesting. I've got a few concepts I can put in for this, so that's exciting! But I do gotta say you'll be missed Asylum. You've been a really chill member of this community for a long time and you've been crushing it with these contests. It's been good under you, so thanks for your time!
Will you at least still be around in the forums as a moderator, just not hosting the big competitions?
The current plan is for me to step down as a moderator entirely, though I hope to still find the time to be around and maybe keep competing in some WCDCs in the future.
But the only thing I hate a bit is the Challenges, might be card mechanics or so, I don´t wanna too much dependant on the artwork.
There will be a variety of challenges. Some mechanically-based, some meta-game-based, some thematically-based, and some artwork-based. Again though, at least for the first couple of Phases, most of the challenges should be broad enough that they're not too difficult to accommodate and don't restrict too much mechanical or thematic design space. AND, I do plan on opening discussion topics with personal thoughts on how some challenges might be tackled if I think some folks might have trouble.
For example, if "The Best Defense..." mentioned above were a real challenge, I might open the discussion topic recommending folks think about using the Druid and Rogue hero powers as bases, giving your Hero +1 Attack this turn and something else minor other than Armor (the Demon Hunter from CCC#1 did this) or a 1/1 weapon with some minor effect (the Bard from CCC#2 did this); alternatively, as the Warlock Hero Power example shows, you can take the damage as a penalty to have a stronger hero power effect. It might be more difficult to come up with something as simple as the Mage or Hunter hero powers, but even that's not impossible if you, say, incorporate randomness or some other detriment or penalty or condition into the power (the Lich from CCC#1 sort of did this). And that's not all! If your Hero Power produces various tokens, it's acceptable for only one to need to meet the requirement (the Nightmare from CCC#2 did this, as does my own Seer class in my sig!).
The same applies to thematic challenges. If I think there's one that might be particularly troublesome, I'll point you towards some resources. For example, if during the WotOG phase I were to demand that one of your minions be a Faceless of some sort, I might point folks towards how to find art of various tentacle-faced humanoids, including maybe some D&D page that have art of Illithids and Mind Flayers or Lovecraftian art databases on Pinterest that might have fitting Cthulhu-inspired monsters.
I'm never going to hold anybody's hand and make their cards for them, but I'm also, at least for the first couple of phases before we have our bearings on how well this works, not going to just throw folks in the deep end without any idea or direction on how to accomplish something that I worry might be difficult.
At least this is my current thinking, and you're welcome to give me feedback on this before we begin. If y'all don't like guidance and prefer the challenge of me just defining the challenge and leaving it at that, I can do that too.
But the only thing I hate a bit is the Challenges, might be card mechanics or so, I don´t wanna too much dependant on the artwork.
There will be a variety of challenges. Some mechanically-based, some meta-game-based, some thematically-based, and some artwork-based. Again though, at least for the first couple of Phases, most of the challenges should be broad enough that they're not too difficult to accommodate and don't restrict too much mechanical or thematic design space. AND, I do plan on opening discussion topics with personal thoughts on how some challenges might be tackled if I think some folks might have trouble.
For example, if "The Best Defense..." mentioned above were a real challenge, I might open the discussion topic recommending folks think about using the Druid and Rogue hero powers as bases, giving your Hero +1 Attack this turn and something else minor other than Armor (the Demon Hunter from CCC#1 did this) or a 1/1 weapon with some minor effect (the Bard from CCC#2 did this); alternatively, as the Warlock Hero Power example shows, you can take the damage as a penalty to have a stronger hero power effect. It might be more difficult to come up with something as simple as the Mage or Hunter hero powers, but even that's not impossible if you, say, incorporate randomness or some other detriment or penalty or condition into the power (the Lich from CCC#1 sort of did this). And that's not all! If your Hero Power produces various tokens, it's acceptable for only one to need to meet the requirement (the Nightmare from CCC#2 did this, as does my own Seer class in my sig!).
The same applies to thematic challenges. If I think there's one that might be particularly troublesome, I'll point you towards some resources. For example, if during the WotOG phase I were to demand that one of your minions be a Faceless of some sort, I might point folks towards how to find art of various tentacle-faced humanoids, including maybe some D&D page that have art of Illithids and Mind Flayers or Lovecraftian art databases on Pinterest that might have fitting Cthulhu-inspired monsters.
I'm never going to hold anybody's hand and make their cards for them, but I'm also, at least for the first couple of phases before we have our bearings on how well this works, not going to just throw folks in the deep end without any idea or direction on how to accomplish something that I worry might be difficult.
At least this is my current thinking, and you're welcome to give me feedback on this before we begin. If y'all don't like guidance and prefer the challenge of me just defining the challenge and leaving it at that, I can do that too.
I am really a creator without limits, I wanna be free, however, I am just saying though, that I don´t wanna those HARD challenges, seriously, I find harder the Femme Fatalle one lmao, I am not kidding, but I believe that a bit of a challenge doesn´t says too much to me! Although I already started working before this thread was started, and thanks for the help that you are gonna bring (well, sometimes when its required though). But, just my thoughts, I can take almost any challenge that isn´t artwork themed (Srsly that Femme Challenge though) however, thematically, I am highly viable and creative, but, I am worried about the type and/or difficulty of the challenges that are gonna bring...
Whispers of the Old Gods is *very* difficult to make cards for, art-wise. Should we just scrounge up whatever we can for that expansion?
It's not has hard as you might think! Expanding your searches to Lovecraftian art, or even just horror art in general, can get you plenty of good stuff. Also, looking up Illithid or Mind Flayer art from D&D can pass perfectly well for Faceless. Plus, it's not like every minions from your WotOG set has to be dripping with tentacles. Just take a look at how many actual WotOG minions look perfectly "normal", even those with C'Thun synergy and such.
I guess it's a problem with a just few certain classes. For example, I once entertained the idea of bringing all of my older custom classes up to speed, so I did a quick search for WOTOG-like Worgens, and got literally nothing.
Whispers of the Old Gods is *very* difficult to make cards for, art-wise. Should we just scrounge up whatever we can for that expansion?
It's not has hard as you might think! Expanding your searches to Lovecraftian art, or even just horror art in general, can get you plenty of good stuff. Also, looking up Illithid or Mind Flayer art from D&D can pass perfectly well for Faceless. Plus, it's not like every minions from your WotOG set has to be dripping with tentacles. Just take a look at how many actual WotOG minions look perfectly "normal", even those with C'Thun synergy and such.
I guess it's a problem with a just few certain classes. For example, I once entertained the idea of bringing all of my older custom classes up to speed, so I did a quick search for WOTOG-like Worgens, and got literally nothing.
Well, I think some of these could work for WOTOG-like Worgens:
should the hero and the cards be from warcraft only ?
I belive that as Ayslum said, you should need to introduce the hero to the lore of WoW, or something like that, watch his last comment, in the 1st thing he says it.
I think that the cards to be in the lore of WoW aren´t required, as long as the theme fits, its all fine.
So if the challenges are weekly, will we still have only the week to design? Generally in these comps I take the earlier stipulations and try to build an entire class in about two weeks, usually because I have the first few weeks off at the start if these comps. If we're required to meet specific requirements on a week by week basis, it may become particularly diffucult to keep up. I, like many, am looking at class finals (but like school classes, sorry about the pun there) starting as early as late January. I don't disagree that is great to prevent regurgitated classes but I don't think the challenges should define the way we build the class. I know that's kind of the antithesis of your argument but past the first the week I'm not sure how much these challenges can be kept up with on a week by week basis. But, still excited for it!
One minor clarification - Hearthstone already skirts lore with a big ol' pokey stick to provide distance, so when it comes to femme fatale or similar concepts, how much is it a skin and how much of it shouod define our class? With a class like Highbourne (I'm using unreleased concepts of mine for examples), there's a huge lore shift if you start with the hero as Azshara than as Xavius ya get me. But in the other end of the scale, we have something like Berserker or Swarmlord, where the lore's a complete sausagefest. For these you could use related art to create a new character (I ended up using Sand Queen Zagara art from HotS to get anywhere on the female front.) but that puts you farther from lore.
I guess what I've been asking this whole time is how integral are these challenges to are classbuilding? If they can be built around for a time they're a bit less what you're wanting but guve us a bit more creative leeway. I'll stop babbling though, I'm still very ready to do this dance one more time.
I don't disagree that is great to prevent regurgitated classes but I don't think the challenges should define the way we build the class.
Wow, I completely agree with the bolded part, and I actually watched before the class competitions, and I agree, challenges shouldn´t change the full way the we build our class, especially if its already built or we are already planifying it, its a good point to take in mind, challenges should be things like Mechanics, Spells, etc, not artworkists as I say, but I think those challenges should start at week 2 and not 1, when we already have a main concept of our hero.
Also, you made me reminder of the Adventure Competition, they had to add more time I think for the submissions in a phase.
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Asylum's Gauntlet
(banner coming soon!)
Greeting, Hearthpwn Fan Creation Forum! Season 5 of our Weekly Card Design Competitions will begin next week, and it will be kicking off with our third Class Creation Competition, entitled "Asylum's Gauntlet". Not too self-aggrandizing, is it? Well, there are two reasons that my name is in the title.
First, this will be the last competition that I will be running as a Hearthpwn moderator. As some of you know, I've been here for over a year and a half, and during that time I've presided over three seasons of the Weekly Card Design Competition, as well as two Class Creation Competitions and one Adventure Creation Competition. I've loved every minute of it, but unfortunately, because of other important life priorities I now have like work and grad school, I've not been able to devote as much time as I'd like to my duties here and also haven't even been able to play Hearthstone itself as much. Still, I like doing this too much to just bow out quietly, so while I'm going to have less and less to do with the Weekly Card Design Competitions, this Class Creation Competition is a bit of a last hurrah.
Second, this competition will be conducted very differently from our first two Class Creation Competitions. During the first one, it was pretty much anything goes, and it took us a while to settle on the "Worlds Beyond Warcraft" theme that set the second one apart from the original. But if we're going to make the Class Creation Competitions (and Adventure Creation Competitions?) at all sustainable, as something we can do many more times to come without just getting repeat entries, we need a model for that. To that end, I've taken a few pages from our Weekly Card Design Competitions:
Every progressive phase of this competition will contain 3 challenges. They'll be formatted similarly to our weekly competitions, and they may be either thematic or mechanical. Most importantly, nobody but me will know what the individual phase challenges will be until we reach those phases, so you can't get get too attached to your plans too far in advance. If this goes well, then future Class Creation Competitions may use a similar format, with different moderators hosting different assortments of challenges that will make every competition inherently unique.
These are not the challenges for Phase I, but just to give you some examples, I might say things like...
[1] "Femme Fatale" - The Hero character representing your class must be female. Examples: Alleria Windrunner, Jaina Proudmoore, Valeera Sanguinar, etc.
[2] "The Best Defense..." - Your Hero Power must either deal damage directly or allow your Hero to attack and deal damage. Examples: Dagger Mastery, Steady Shot, Life Tap, etc.
[3] "Humblebrag" - One of your three example cards must be a Legendary minion, but it may not use any original keywords. Examples: Aviana, Hallazeal the Ascended, Trade Prince Gallywix, etc.
For Phases I and II of the competition, the challenges will be pretty easy, like these. By the time we reach Phases V and VI, however, I plan on making them more difficult. To double check that nothing I want to do is TOO horrible, Shadows has volunteered to give me second opinions. That also, of course, means that Shadows cannot compete, as knowing the challenges in advance would be an unfair advantage. Other Hearthpwn moderators are allowed to compete as usual, since they don't know what's coming up any more than you do.
Below, you'll find an outline of the competition, including all of the rules, full submission topic drafts, and a tentative schedule. Please use this week to give me your thoughts on the rules, the new competition format, the timetable we've set up, and so on. I'm incredibly excited to get started, and I hope that you all enjoy the challenges I have in store!
COMPETITION SCHEDULE AND PROCESS
PHASE I: CONCEPT
Preview: 2/January - 3/January
Submission: 3/January - 16/January
Up-Voting: 16/January - 17/January
PHASE II: BASIC SET
Preview: 17/January - 18/January
Submission: 18/January - 25/January
Up-Voting: 25/January - 26/January
PHASE III: CLASSIC SET
Preview: 26/January - 27/January
Submission: 27/January - 7/February
Poll #1: 7/February - 8/February
Poll #2: 8/February - 9/February
PHASE IV: Blackrock Mountain + The Grand Tournament
Preview: 9/February - 10/February
Submission: 10/February - 20/February
Poll #1: 20/February - 21/February
Poll #2: 21/February - 22/February
PHASE V: League of Explorers + Whispers of the Old Gods
Preview: 22/February - 23/February
Submission: 23/February - 2/March
Poll: 2/March - 3/March
PHASE VI: One Night in Karazhan + Mean Streets of Gadgetzan
Submission: 3/March - 14/March
Poll: 14/March - 17/March
NOTE: All stages of the competition begin and end at 20:00 UTC.
ALSO NOTE: I know that a couple of these submissions windows might see tight, especially because the secret challenges make it difficult to plan ahead. That being the case, this timetable is subject to change at my discretion, even after the competition begins, if it seems like too many folks are struggling.
* During Preview stages, both a Submission Topic and a Discussion Topic will go up, but the Submission Topic will be locked until the end of the Preview stage. The Submission Topic will reveal the Phase's unique challenges, so take this time to discuss them, ask for clarifications, and so on.
* During Submission stages, Submission Topics will be unlocked and (remaining) participants may submit their entries. During Phases I-II, you may also use this time to go ahead and up-vote submissions that you like.
* During Up-Voting stages for Phases I-II, Submission Topics will be locked. Use this time to up-vote submissions that you like. Note that advancement during these Phases depends entirely on up-votes.
* During Polling stages for Phases III-VI, Submission Topics will be locked, and all eligible remaining participants will have their submission material included in a separate Poll Topic to determine advancement. Phases III-IV include two Poll Topics because I anticipate we will have enough participants remaining that we will not be able to fit everybody in one Poll Topic. Note that up-votes in the Submission Topics are irrelevant to advancement during these Phases.
How will eliminations be done, and how many competitors will advance from each phase to the next?
I'm glad you asked! We will be taking a equal proportion of competitors from each Phase of the competition to the next, and we will be ending with exactly four finalists. That being the case and their being five total eliminations before the final round, that proportion can be found by solving for x:
[# of valid Phase I entries] * x^5 = 4
The higher the number of valid Phase I entries, the lower that proportion becomes. Just so you have an idea, the proportion hits 50% when we hit 128 entries, which is likely, but it only hits 33.3% when we hit 972 entries, which is less likely.
As mentioned above, advancement to Phases II and III will be determined by up-votes only. However, these up-votes are weighted using a formula identical to the process used by our Weekly Card Design Competitions:
(ab) / (c) = x
(Where a is the total number of up-votes that your submission received, b is the total number of valid submissions on the same page as your submission, c is the total number of up-votes on valid submissions on the same page as your submission, and x is your submission's final weighted up-vote score.)
Why bother with this formula rather than just taking each submissions up-votes directly? Because earlier pages simply get a lot more views that later pages do, and we do not want rushed, early submissions to have an advantage over later submissions that took more time to get their entries just right. The formula basically measures which submissions stood out the most, with the necessary assumption that each page is about equal in overall submission quality.
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.
As mentioned above, advancement to Phases IV, V, and VI will be determined by polls. These polls will be multi-choice, meaning that voters can vote for every entry that they like. Whenever we have to split a Phase's poll into two to make it more manageable for voters, advancement will be determined by looking at each class's final percentage scores, not by looking at the direct number of votes they received, since we can't guarantee that the same number of voters will vote each day. Poll results will always be hidden until the poll has concluded, and for polls split in two, this does also mean that the results of the first poll will not be revealed until the second poll has concluded as well.
The winner of Phase VI, and thus the entire competition, will be determined by a poll much like the ones before, except that it will be single-choice, requiring voters to pick their single favorite class, and will have a much longer polling phase than usual to give us plenty of opportunity for promotion and such.
In the event of a tie during Phases I-IV for the last possible advancing position, all entries involved in the tie will be allowed to advance; the more the merrier, I say. We will absolutely not have more than four finalists, however, and so in the event of a tie during Phase V, the three Fan Creation Forum moderators (that is, myself, ShadowsOfSense, and PupleMD) will vote to break the tie. In the event of a tie during Phase VI to determine the competition's winner, the title will simply be shared unless both finalists request and agree to a tie-breaking round.
But wait, there's more! During Phases I-IV of the Competition, each Fan Creation Forum moderator (that is, myself, ShadowsOfSense, and PupleMD) will have a Wild Card, which we may (though are not required to) use to advance to the next Phase any one entry that we feel was initially overlooked or under-appreciated, regardless of its performance with voters. No entry may be awarded a Wild Card more than once, and it should also go without saying that, while some moderators are allowed to participate in the competitions, they are never allowed to benefit from Wild Cards. Wild Cards are our way of spicing things up a bit, but please don't ask to be given one or be upset if you aren't given one. These are just supposed to be fun.
GENERAL RULES
* The Submission Topic is for submissions only. If you want to discuss your entry, another entry, ask questions about the competition rules or process, or anything else, 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.
* You are allowed only one submission, consisting of the materials specified by each competition phase. These materials must, of course, be of your own creation. If you'd like, you may collaborate with another user on a single submission, but this must be specified during Phase I.
* You may make only minor edits to your entry once you have submitted 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.
* You may not delete any posts you make in this topic. No, not even if you post here by mistake or accidentally double-post or something. Deleted posts screw with the system we use to help us calculate up-vote scores, so don't do that. If you to post here by mistake or accidentally double-post or something, simply edit your post to just say "REMOVED" and leave it at that.
* You may not create your own topics on this forum for competition-related material. If everybody goes off and creates their own topics for specific discussion of their entries, this board will be flooded with nothing but, and so competition material must remain restricted to official competition topics. If you want to enter the competition with a class that you already have a topic about on this forum, then your topic will be locked in the interest of fairness to the other competitors. Not deleted, just locked, and it can be unlocked after your entry gets knocked out of the competition. You also may not reference or link to your topic in official competition topics.
* You must host your card somewhere other than Hearthcards. We encourage you to create your entry material using Hearthcards.net, but please remember that, although HearthCards is awesome, it has a limited server space and will purge cards after a few days, and nobody wants your cards disappearing part-way through the competition. After you create it, save and upload it to Imgur, Photobucket, or some other similar site. 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.
* You may not submit any Gold cards or animated cards, nor may you include any images in your post other than the requested submission materials, like banners or borders. We get it, everybody wants their entry to stand out, but our pages are going to be heavy enough as it is without everybody heading their submissions with animated banners.
* You must insert your images into your post using this icon on the bar above the post text editor: . Just click that button and put in the URL of your image. We realize that it's also possible to upload and attach images to your post. Don't do that, though. We know from experience that, because those images are much smaller and require more work to view, entries that enter their images that way just don't do as well, so this is for your own good.
* Format your entry concisely by sizing your cards appropriately and placing them beside one another rather than in a column or completely separate. The first example below is acceptable while the second is not. Entries that unnecessarily inflate the size of the submission topic and make it more difficult to get through will be disqualified. Adjust cards to a width of 250, and you should be able to get three in a row.
Hey, look! Some cards!
Soul of the Forest: Look at how nice this is.
Hammer of Twilight: All neat, organized, and concise.
Twilight Summoner: What a great post.
Wait, what are you doing?
Seriously, please don't.
This is painful. Why are you doing this?
You are a monster.
* "Troll" entries will be disqualified. Fun and even humorous entries are perfectly allowed (this is Hearthstone after all), but if you're worried that your entry may be misinterpreted as a troll entry, contact a moderator before you submit.
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.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
PHASE I: The Concept
Before you get to creating dozens of cards for your class, we want to hear your proposals. Here are the requirements for your Phase I Entry:
Obviously, you have to tell everybody the name of your new Class.
Your class must be represented by a specific Hero, and that Hero should have a name.
Every Hero needs their own unique Hero Power, and so does yours.
We do not want to see your Class's entire collection, just enough for us to get a good idea of its concept.
Your class is not required to have a unique keyword, but if it does, then you should tell us about it.
Tell us a little bit about all of the above. Remember, the point of having different Classes in Hearthstone is that each of them plays differently, so consider telling us how your Hero Power and Example cards lend to or exemplify your class's unique features. You can also let us know, is your class more focused on aggressive, control, or combo decks? Does it place particular focus on minions, spells, or weapons? Is it fairly straightforward or does it have multiple different viable deck archetypes? Does it have a unique win condition? You can even tell us a little bit about where your Class's concept came from.
PHASE II: The Basics
In this Phase, you will each construct your class's Basic Set. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase II Entry:
There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
We do not want to see your Class's entire Basic Set out in the open.
The remaining seven (7) cards of your class's Basic Set must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
PHASE III: The Classics
In this Phase, you will each construct your class's Classic Set. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase III Entry:
There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
We do not want to see your Class's entire Classic Set out in the open.
The remaining eleven (11) cards of your class's Basic Set must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
You should include your completed Basic Set from Phase II behind a Spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.) either before or after your Classic Set material. It is fine if these cards have undergone some minor modification since the end of Phase II, but thy must still adhere to all of Phase II's requirements.
PHASE IV: Blackrock Mountain and The Grant Tournament
By having your class's Classic Set approved of, you've shown that you can make a completely functional class. But functional isn't good enough. Your class must also have room to grow beyond that. For this phase, you'll be proving that it can by giving your class Blackrock Mountain and Grand Tournament cards. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase IV Entry:
There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
We do not want to see your Class's entire BRM and TGT Sets out in the open.
The remaining cards of your class's BRM and TGT Sets must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
You should include your completed Basic and Classic Sets from Phases II and III behind a Spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.) either before or after your Phase IV material. It is fine if these cards have undergone some minor modification, but they must still adhere to all of their original Phase requirements.
PHASE V: League of Explorers and Whispers of the Old Gods
Congratulations on being a semi-finalist! With positively received Blackrock Mountain and Grand Tournament sets, you've proven that your class's concept and mechanics have room for expansion. Now, there's only one last thing to do: narrow down the best of the best. For this phase, you'll be giving your class League of Explorers and Whispers of the Old Gods cards. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase V Entry:
There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
We do not want to see your Class's entire LoE and WotOG Sets out in the open.
The remaining eight (8) cards of your class's LoE and WotOG Sets must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
You should include your completed Basic, Classic, BRM, and TGT Sets from Phases II-IV behind a Spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.) either before or after your Phase V material. It is fine if these cards have undergone some minor modification, but they must still adhere to all of their original Phase requirements.
PHASE VI: One Night in Karazhan and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan
Here we are, finalists! In the last phase of our competition, you'll be giving us your class's One Night in Karazhan and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan sets, as well as constructing your own custom Finale Topics:
There will be no Submission Topic for the competition Finale. Instead, you will create your own Finalist Topics. All that you have to do is create a normal topic here on the Fan Creation Forum and title it as such:
[Class Competition Finalist] TURTLE
(Replace TURTLE with your own class's name, of course.)
Then, bring it to our attention, and we'll link to it from this topic. That's it. How you format and present your final product is entirely up to you. You've put in a lot of work to come this far, so you've earned the right to show us your completed original Class however you think is best.
In addition to including the required material from all previous phases, you must add the following:
These don't need to be part of your Finale Topic, but by the end of the Submission Phase, you should send me 8 example cards from your completed collection, preferably via PM, to be included in the Final Poll Topic. The Final Poll topic will look very similar to this one from our first CCC, except that no token cards will be included.
REWARDS
In addition to truly epic bragging rights, ALL finalists will receive a special Forum Title and Avatar Border, similar to those given to winners of our forum's Weekly Card Design Competitions, as shown below:
Furthermore, the winning contestant will have a Season 5 competition themed around their winning class!
ARCHIVES
Want to see how things went during our first two Class Creation Competitions? Want to see what the winners and other finalists did during each phase? Then check out the links below! Note, however, that some competition rules, especially formatting rules, may have been different for past competition.
Class Creation Competition #1
Phase I Submission (Merchant, Twilight's Hammer, Demon Hunter, Lich), Phase I Discussion
Phase II Submission (Merchant, Twilight's Hammer, Demon Hunter, Lich), Phase II Discussion, Phase II Poll
Phase III Submission (Merchant, Twilight's Hammer, Demon Hunter, Lich), Phase III Discussion, Phase III Poll
Phase IV Discussion (Merchant, Twilight's Hammer, Demon Hunter, Lich), Phase IV Poll
Class Creation Competition #2 - Worlds Beyond Warcraft
Phase I Submission (Bard, Agent, Nightmare, Pokemon Trainer), Phase I Discussion
Phase II Submission (Bard, Agent, Nightmare, Pokemon Trainer), Phase II Discussion
Phase III Submission (Bard, Agent, Nightmare, Pokemon Trainer), Phase III Discussion, Phase III Polls (1 & 2)
Phase IV Submission (Bard, Agent, Nightmare, Pokemon Trainer), Phase IV Discussion, Phase IV Poll
Phase V Discussion (Bard, Agent, Nightmare, Pokemon Trainer), Phase V Poll
Whispers of the Old Gods is *very* difficult to make cards for, art-wise. Should we just scrounge up whatever we can for that expansion?
Can you give an example of what the challenges might be for something other than the first week, cuz I'm having a hard time picturing it.
Come Play Make the Keyword!!!
Check out my Worgen Class in the Class Competition
Swan Song Competition FeelsBadMan.
Can't wait to see what you have in store for us! Would be fun, after finally playing WoW and experiencing it's lore to try to create a new class from scratch :D Let's see how wacky it can get!
Hypeeeee~
I'm super-glad that we'll have requirements to work from, since I find it almost impossible to design cards without some sort of starting point XD. Looking forward to see what those requirements are.
Question: Am I, completely hypothetically, allowed to create another 'Bard' or 'Agent' class (or whatever that has won already, really), with a different hero power/mechanics?
Why Rogue is my favourite class:
My submission for this week's card design competition.
I am assuming this will be exclusive warcraft-themed.
As someone totally unfamiliar with the lore, is it okay if I just create fantasy/ medieval-genre stuff that is loosely tied to WoW? It'd suck to get called out for, say, matching one piece of artwork with a thematically incorrect card text. Like, what if I named a card with Tyrande's picture on it "High Elf Queen/ Princess" or something.
[2] Separated at Birth - It's always kind of bugged a lot of people that Arcane Shot and Holy Smite are completely mechanically identical. What bugs me, though, is that they're the only examples of such a thing. Let's fix that. One of your class's Basic cards must be mechanically identical to an existing Basic class card. This does not need to be one of your example cards.
[3] Glimpse into the Wild - This competition is Standard-only just for practical reasons, but Wild should still be assumed to exist. As an additional fourth example card, you must show us any card from your class that would have been from its Curse of Naxxramas or Goblins vs Gnomes sets. Hey, since this card isn't Basic, this could even be your opportunity to use some of the keywords normally banned for this phase, including your unique class-specific keyword if you have one!
Seems interesting, I might try make something for this even though I lack warcraft lore knowledge. A general fantasy theme that could exist in the Warcraft universe with some characters or things from Warcraft is acceptable, right?
RedneckBudha
Hype!!! Seems that the concept I am working in may be usefull though, XP.
Has been a long time, and it has been to make myself (In indirect way tho) I believe.
And I also lack of WoW knowledge, nothing of lore, just creating cards, concepts, etc, but this seems a good time to show them off.
PD: But the only thing I hate a bit is the Challenges, might be card mechanics or so, I don´t wanna too much dependant on the artwork.
The joke is you.
I like the idea of adding requirements. This will make it easier to assess other's submissions based on how well thy incorporate those requirements into their cards. I'm also wondering what / if the theme will be this year. I've got a couple ideas for classes, some original and some new takes on more common ideas, and I'm excited to try them out for this contest!
Currently working on the Tinker! K&C and WW / JUG and KotFT / Classic / Basic / Introduction
My Previous Classes: Apothecary (unfinished) / Chronomancer / Death Knight (old)
My Previous Expansions: Hallow's End
Whoa ho ho... Well this sure is interesting. I've got a few concepts I can put in for this, so that's exciting! But I do gotta say you'll be missed Asylum. You've been a really chill member of this community for a long time and you've been crushing it with these contests. It's been good under you, so thanks for your time!
seriously, I find harder the Femme Fatalle one lmao, I am not kidding, but I believe that a bit of a challenge doesn´t says too much to me!Although I already started working before this thread was started, and thanks for the help that you are gonna bring (well, sometimes when its required though). But, just my thoughts, I can take almost any challenge that isn´t artwork themed(Srsly that Femme Challenge though)however, thematically, I am highly viable and creative, but, I am worried about the type and/or difficulty of the challenges that are gonna bring...The joke is you.
should the hero and the cards be from warcraft only ?
The joke is you.
So if the challenges are weekly, will we still have only the week to design? Generally in these comps I take the earlier stipulations and try to build an entire class in about two weeks, usually because I have the first few weeks off at the start if these comps. If we're required to meet specific requirements on a week by week basis, it may become particularly diffucult to keep up. I, like many, am looking at class finals (but like school classes, sorry about the pun there) starting as early as late January. I don't disagree that is great to prevent regurgitated classes but I don't think the challenges should define the way we build the class. I know that's kind of the antithesis of your argument but past the first the week I'm not sure how much these challenges can be kept up with on a week by week basis. But, still excited for it!
One minor clarification - Hearthstone already skirts lore with a big ol' pokey stick to provide distance, so when it comes to femme fatale or similar concepts, how much is it a skin and how much of it shouod define our class? With a class like Highbourne (I'm using unreleased concepts of mine for examples), there's a huge lore shift if you start with the hero as Azshara than as Xavius ya get me. But in the other end of the scale, we have something like Berserker or Swarmlord, where the lore's a complete sausagefest. For these you could use related art to create a new character (I ended up using Sand Queen Zagara art from HotS to get anywhere on the female front.) but that puts you farther from lore.
I guess what I've been asking this whole time is how integral are these challenges to are classbuilding? If they can be built around for a time they're a bit less what you're wanting but guve us a bit more creative leeway. I'll stop babbling though, I'm still very ready to do this dance one more time.
The joke is you.