Hearthpwn

Less than half an hour left! Get those last-minute votes in...

Results are now public! We have 4 finalists, and the Finale Phase Discussion will be up momentarily. =D

Turkeybag! No!

Y'all, seriously, ever since I woke up this morning, nobravery's Alchemist, the Cult Leader, the Flame Wielder, and Dryad have been neck-and-neck swapping placements back and forth. o_o

Congrats to all of our semi-finalists who didn't make it, I love you so much! T_T

Quote from Winterburn >>

My favorites (the ones I voted for)

1) the chronomancer : holy shit it looks so crazy fun !! It's like the dream class for a combo lover !! It's like a mixture of mill rogue and miracle rogue with a very coherent time mage theme. This class really appeals to me.

2) The cultist : A real cool and dark twist on the grindy class. You can only sty alive for so long against the cult ! I really like that you went with a cult theme rather then a boring zombie one. Any project for a Blood Queen Lana'thel card ? She was one of my favorite wow bosses, and I think she fits well in your thematic.

3) The worgen : Cool and cohesive midrangey class. It's like midrange hunter merged with tempo rogue but much more fun and with a ton of interesting skill testing cards. A very versatile and skill based class. The hero power mechanic forces a lot of planning and foresight. I just love the hero power. It goes so well with a midrangey weapon class. Also worgens are badass obviously.

My evaluation of other classes (in no particular order)

- Alchemist (Turkeybag) : Ultimatly it seems like how priest should have been if it was designed better and had a potions/alchemy theme. I love Elixir of Luck in particular. I personally wasn't excited too much by this class even tho it is very well created and coherent. I guess I see it too much as a priest improvement rather then a completly new class.

- Dryad : I like the theme of filling the opponent's hand with garbage but I feel this class is a too convoluted and goes into too many directions (beasts, secrets, poison, dragons, hand filling etc). I would have prefered a focus on less themes. It just feels like a jack of all trades but lacks the coherency of worgen which makes it less appealing to me. Also weapons and worgens are cool, ugly swamp creatures are not really :s Working more within warcraft 3 night elves theme and focusing the mechanics more would have pushed this class into my favorites.

- Alchemist (nobravery) : There are a few gems like Telekinesis and deck manipulation is welcome. But ultimatly I feel this class is too rng dependent and better for creating highlights then for actual gameplay. The creatures didn't appeal to me. Only the deck manipulation and some spells did. I would have liked a legendary that allows to win the game when you are out of cards and must draw (see the mtg card http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=230788 to allow a reliable wincon to aim at when milling yourself). Imo the cult makes the "filling your deck with cantrips" theme with much more success and coherence.

- The King : I hate the promote mechanic and the class doesn't appeal to me at all. I don't find anything fun in this class.

- The flamewielder : Cmon dude don't you think that illidan deserved more then becoming a magma rager factory ? Much meme, not much fun. The rest of the cards make me think of some fantasy dungeon adventure setting. Is that the magma rager themed bastard child of face hunter and tempo rogue ? Also so much randomness, like seriously just why ???

- The racer : I just can't wrap my mind around the link betwen gnomes in race cars and summoning huge minions. There are some cool anti aggro cards but ultimatly I wasn't convinced by the hero power. I think the chronomancer's hero power and theme is better.

Quote from Winterburn >>

Btw how often do you make these competitions and how can we participae for the next one ? Or is it a one time thing ?

Quote from Winterburn >>

Balance is overrated, we need fun, variety, innovative mechanics, coherent design ^^

And I have a racist bone vs gnomes anyway :D

Best races : High Elf, Blood Elf, Night Elf (night elves are worse since they became peaceful and cooperative in WoW but I still put them here in memory of their fierce Warcraft III legacy)

Pretty good races :  Human, Worgen, Orc, Naga

Peons : Dwarf, Tauren, Troll, Drenai, Pandas, Forsaken (I mean Sylvanas and the OP racial were the only reasons to play them in WoW)

Untermensch : Gobelins, Gnomes, Furbolg, Gnoll, Kobold, Murloc etc

Quote from thepowrofcheese >>

A couple comments on Turkeybag's review.

First, I assumed many people would be making anti-Secret cards and cards that increased opponenet's cards cost and wanted to try something different from the start. Both of those  ideas received mostly positive feedback from the beginning. As I said in my submission post, Prolong Indefinitely is intended as almost hard removal for midrange minions. It's meant to take out a scary 4, 5, or 6-drop without fear of it coming back anytime soon. It's very weak against powerful, costly minions, which is good, because the class has a bunch of other removal tools as is. The class has few direct damage spells to prevent cheap combos with Malygos, as the hero power could make such combos very broken.

For Fatesplitter, I wanted to use Duplicate because copying minions is a class theme. There is a precedent for your main complaint as well! Ball of Spiders is a standard card that summons Webspinner from Naxx, a Wild card. It can only be run in a C'Thun deck, the class has no C'Thun buffer, and feedback has said that it's stats as a (5) 5/5 would be fine. So thank you for your feedback, I knew these cards would be controversial, but I stand by my designs.

Quote from Hurien >>

Congratulations to the finalists!

I voted for Chronomancer and Cultist, but I liked many of these. I think both of these achieved a great state in terms of flavor, design and balance. However, my absolute favorite was the Cultist. It took a totally new direction with its keyword from the start, changing the way decks are built from the start in a way only comparable to a reverse Reno Jackson. It explored the shuffling mechanics in a way similar to what I intended to do, and in general it felt like its own class more than the others (to me at least).

To @The_Odinson and its Racer, I just want to say that even though I love some of the concepts, mechanics and in general a fair bit of your class, I think you tied yourself up a bit too much. Part of the fun and wonky nature of Hearthstone is built on the seemingly improbable, all-too-powerful combinations of cards, and even the luck and RNG that surround it. You probably were the best balancer, one of the best designers and overall a really great competitor, helping with everything and being always ahead. However, in my opinion, the flashier bits of Hearthstone that really draw the audience (and me!) to a class were missing a bit. I think that if you hadn't self-restrained yourself so much, you would have won. And not necessarily forgoing balance for it! There are no Fandral Staghelm, Call of the Wild or Confessor Paletress in your class. In conclusion, if classes were a diet, yours was the most nutritious and healthy, but it ended up being a bit less tasty than some of the others. I'll keep watching for your creations, though!

I also want to say that I have a small gripe with the current favorite, the Worgen, and that is that a worgen is not a class. A worgen can be a druid or a hunter, a rogue or a warrior. I didn't notice in the early faces, but this really bugs me. This small detail makes me look at the class in a worse way to start, but I guess it doesn't matter that much seeing how things are going right now.

Cheers to all, and I hope to see many of these classes completed someday!

SO CLOSE!

Thanks everyone who votes.

Pit that @maxlot did not make it to the final. I like their class.

Quote from Hurien >>

I also want to say that I have a small gripe with the current favorite, the Worgen, and that is that a worgen is not a class. A worgen can be a druid or a hunter, a rogue or a warrior. I didn't notice in the early faces, but this really bugs me. This small detail makes me look at the class in a worse way to start, but I guess it doesn't matter that much seeing how things are going right now.

Also, and if I'm out of line for doing this, you can delete it, but I've created a thread for those that aren't still in the competition, or anyone else for that matter that wants help with class development. The thread is Here. No one here is obliged to come and help us, especially until this competition is over, but I know there will be others like myself from outside the competition that might find it helpful to have a place to find discussion for our ideas without messing up the flow of the competition.

Again the thread is HERE.