Sanction and Stormwind Deposit are two really well flavored and really cool effect. Nothing I've seen before. Voting for both of you. Well done everyone!
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Check out my submission for this weeks card design competition; or my other fan creations! Nullius in verba
From the Void: Pretty average, runs the risk of being crazy with Clutchmother Zavas, but at the same time, seems it be a strange combination of discards aggro and discovers value.
Howling Pride Leader: Very hard to play. Bad stats at the risk of minimum value (hitting a 1 drop). Could create huge swings if buffed and hits a big beast.
Sally Whitemane: Near unplayable, goes against general priest or paladin play-style which is where this card would see play. Forces a series of bad turns of holding onto cards for a mediocre reward.
Bargain Hunter: Will give you 2 mana discount at best and attached to a very bad body that is barely worth 1 mana at the moment. I believe their to many situational hunter spells that would be worthless to make this card see play.
Gift of Nature: A very powerful card simply because you choose to reduce it after you draw, making the card completely risk free. Auto include in any druid deck, even better in aggro.
Fortune Teller: Crazy powerful cycle, but sadly on a very bad body and a huge lose of tempo. No real place in rogue for this.
Moonwell: A card with a massive risk too play as it could get destroy the turn in it played with no value lost by your opponent. Really bad draw in the late game and also risks getting no value on neutral cards that are important for Druids.
Wrymrest Knight: A really good body with no drawbacks apart from no instant value and not being a dragon itself. Sadly most decks are only running one dragon and that is an 8 mana Primordial Drake so good luck.
Sanction: This is an extremely risky card that will hardly ever work. Even destroying a low mana card could cost you as your opponent pulls a big threat or combo a few turns early. Paladin has better removal with Aldor and Equality.
Stormwind Deposit: Interesting but unplayable, 8 mana, many cards basically discarded will get you killed. And no impact on the board makes in unplayable.
Mana Soaker: Far too random. Could hit a Deathwing on turn 1 and win you the game, could hit Fire Fly on turn 15 and make you lose the topdeck war. Can't see it fitting in any existing deck.
Forbidden Dreaming: So this is the card you play when you have nothing else good or you want to waste a turn for future value. Comes at a large risk as you will have to wait a turn to see the value of this card and in the current meta I believe this is too slow.
Desperate Defender: Straight up unplayable, stalls a turn or two at the cost of giving away the game against any tempo or combo decks.
Back to Work: A really interesting late game card but apart from Vilespine Slayer, no other rogue cards have huge enough effects to warrant a 3 mana cost. Would require a well crafted deck but combo decks aren't doing amazing at the moment apart from rogues extremely value quest deck and mage you are the queens of staling the game. In summary, could make a combo deck but that deck won't be that good.
General Tao: A very odd effect based on the idea of repairing weapons for value but sadly there is very few weapons that would be worth that value and with a massive amount of weapon removal be used at the moment Warrior would have a hard time fitting this card.
Arcane Opportunist: Only really fits in Quest Mage which is a very difficult to fit any cards into as it is a very tight decklist like most freeze mages. Has good value opportunities with the Tome but apart from that there isn't enough support for this.
Gnomish Explorer: A very limited card as most decks only run 1 or 2 discover cards. The bad stats combined with a card that is unplayable on it's own means this card would have a very hard time seeing play.
Scrap Recycle: Not amazing as there is currently no Mech support in Standard. Could see cool implication in an old style Wild Mech deck, apart from that not amazing.
Door to Door Priest: The problem with this card is Priest is forced to put low cost cards in it's deck to function. This card becomes a bland 2/3 with psycho taunt if your opponent has the option to reduce a Power Word: Shield or Shadow Visions. This card would require a very well crafted deck to work.
Forgotten Scrolls: Can't evaluate unless I know if you can target minion in your hand or not.
Disaggree please discus, just some thoughts from me.
I am currently voting for Back to Work and Door to Door Priest for their deckbuilding ideas and unique taking of the prompt. An extra vote for Forbidden Dreaming for cool flavour.
Well i wasn't that excited about this theme but as it turns out, this week's final is fairly interesting. There are a lot of entries up here that did something really interesting with the discount mechanic - there are about one or two things that bug me about almost all of them though. Here's what caught my eye:
Desperate Defender: Phew. I can totally see where this card is coming from but it definately feels more wanted than needed. The downside of this isn't a real downside - aggro decks mostly win by overrunning you before you can stabilize and lose by eventually runnig out of steam. You as the aggro player don't gain anything from getting your deck-resources discounted (they are already quite cheap), if it means leaving up a big enemy wall and giving your opponent a bunch of time to find his answers. As a neutral this is way too strong and would be an auto-include against any aggro while ruining your day, if played against anything other than aggro. I'm all for anti-aggro-tools but i don't think this is how it should be done.
Stormwind Depot: This is sad and funny at the same time: i really like the depot-idea but this card completely nullifies the value it creates x) Emptying your hand for 8 puts you in immediate topdeck-mode while you already have 8 mana available - at that point it's completely irrelevant, whether your topdeck costs 0 or 8. This would need a much lower cost to actually work and alsoallow you to play some stuff before reshuffling the rest.
Bargain Hunter: I already explained my "problem" with this in the discussion topic: Why isn't this a Rogue card? It seems so much more fitting. I like the mechanic but the art, the effect - most parts of the card just keep screaming "Rogue" to me.
Door to Door Priest: The idea of getting a powerful discount on one of your cards but letting your opponent do the choosing is a very sweet one and i recognize that kind of mechanic from games like MtG. However i feel like this type of player interaction just doesn't fit the style of Hearthstone quite as well (...yet?). The fact, that you're effectively stealing time form your opponent on a possibly very important decision doesn't feel right to me. I also feel like the art doesn't really fit the card and - it actually kinda unsettles me D:
Gnomish Explorer: As soon as i saw this, i was quite sure it would make it to the finals. I think this is a kind of design that simply appeals to a lot of people: It's simple, it's fair and it meets the requirements. I'm not sure if it's enough to make it into my top three or win the whole competition though. It's by no means bad but it isn't particularly exciting either. I feel like there's not much to talk about here.
Howling Pride Leader: I think this could end up in a similar spot as Dispatch Kodo: It's interesting and i would like to play around with it but i doubt it would actually be meta-good. Anyways, the flavor of it is just delicious. The lion/tiger/feline-thing in the artwork just looks so fittingly sad and the artwork itself is just faboulous.
Sanction: Again i feel like the "much needed hard removal for Paladin" is more wanted by a lot of people than needed. Historically Paladin has always had different ways to dispose of enemy threats and i think this also doesn't entirely fit Paladin's playstyle. Also, if you look at the current meta, the class definately doesn't "need" hard removal right now. It's pretty high tier with both an aggro and a control list - i'd say Pally is doing quite well at the moment :D However i am seriously digging the unique mechanic on this one. This is player interaction done right - "Hearthstone-style", if you want to call it that. I think if the class was more fitting, this card would be perfect.
From the Void: I actually have nothing to complain about on this. Something like a Primordial Glyph for Warlocks (seems like i wasn't the only one to take that for inspiration). The power level seems a little lower but it's enough for Discolock and might just finally be a card that makes the Warlock quest at least somewhat viable. Also a very clean and simple design. I really like it, period.
Also my card, Gift of the Ancients: This is one of my main motivations for making it to the finals - you get the chance of people actually discussing your card. Personally i think the card is definately strong but not broken. I believe both possible effects are of a mediocre power level - one is a cheaper and therefore maybe slightly better Far Sight which was almost never played; the other one can end up being a draw for 1, but you need to have or draw into something that does actually profit of that one extra mana. I think only the opportunity to choose between the two makes this card strong and viable. However, i do agree that it would probably be better if the choice had to be made before drawing and i actually thought about that at one point. It would have made the wording way clunkier though and i thought it should be okay anyway, so i went with the cleaner design. Doesn't really seem like the best decision anymore. Also that typo that Livienna pointed out earlier ("it's" instead of "its") is seriously upsetting me. I really don't understand how i could miss that until now.
Look at that beautiful wall of text i've created again. I'm not sure about my top three just yet but there are some serious contestants. Let's see how this turns out :)
Cards I like: From the Void - Nice balance, much needed to help Warlock quest (the card with a deathrattle that summons discarded minions ALWAYS gives me a 2/2 clutchmother zavas! Ugh.) Desperate Defender - This card is great vs aggro, suicide against mid-and control. I like cards that force hard choices. Gnomish Explorer - Simple and elegant.
Cards I don't care for: Gift of the Ancients - I think pure cycle cards are bad for the game. It's essentially a 1-mana "you can play with one less card in your deck." There's a reason there has never been a 1-mana draw a card spell and why novice engineer was nerfed. Auctioneer does not need more enablers. Sanction - Don't get me wrong, I really like the idea of the card, it just shouldn't be a Paladin card because hard removal has never been a Paladin thing. This card (maybe with different name/art) would have been a perfect Mulch replacement for Druid, since Druid does have a theme of hard removal that benefits the opponent in some way (see also Naturalize). Alas...
If you do have time to argue for balance, why not playtest the card with paper and pencil?
It's kind of pointless to argue without any literal proof. It's just like shouting slogans at each other.
I'm home now so I have gone through a few decks to see what the average cost reduction for the card would roughly be by just calculating the cost of the average card in deck. This is imperfect because generaly you keep lower cost cards in the mulligan and also spend them sooner. And then there is The Coin.
Quest Warrior - 2,97 mana Midrange Hunter - 2,8 mana Control Priest - 3,17 mana
Even if we bump this up to 4-5 mana it has the following disadvantages to similar cards: a) you can't keep it in the mulligan which you generally want for ramp so the usage is postponed to later turns where it is less impactfull b) It's not a spell, so no Gadgetzan Auctioneer cycle c) You don't have the control to chose the target and plan ahead as with cards like Preparation
But this isn't going to convince anyone because "muh Deathwing". If someone doesn't like the card, fine, say it, don't vote. Not liking RNG is understandable. But "imagine the situation..."-reviews and insults are not productive discussion.
I love the Door-to-Door Priest. I also voted for Bargain Hunter, Sanction, and a couple of others, but imo the Priest is the one that knocked it out of the park.
This week was really hard. Not only were the cards hard to balance, but coming up with original ideas was tricky due to there being no keyword for "reduce this card by X", so you had very little space to work with when I came to card text. My favorites are.
From the void: Simple, elegant, flavorful, and strong. Fantastic design overall.
Moonwell: I like the overall power level of this card. Druid is my favorite class, and I love combo Druid, so I'm a little biased here. It's very balanced in my eyes, since the effect is not gurenteed, and it's a horrible top deck. Also changes how you might build a Druid deck. My favorite card this week.
Mana Soaker: I LOVE that it's an elemental, and how it got around the card text issue I mentioned earlier. That said, it's ability to instantly swing games based on pure RNG. But I cannot deny how much I love the concept!
You also practically pay the Mana Soaker since he becomes just an overpriced 1/1, so you still pay 2 cards. You usually don't have many high priced cards in your oppening hand and then draw a specific card from your deck in the first few turns. The posibility of hiting something like the war axe is why I made the card. But that doesn't make it any different than Innervate, it's not a tempo dream really. Nerubian Prophet is one card that you just keep in your oppoening hand and it works of itself. Look I give up. If you don't like it, don't vote for it, but I think that evaluating a card like this is how we end up with failed card reviews before every expansion.
How can you NOT SEE how broken the card is? I don't understand how you can ignore the quadrillion instances where this card is anywhere from TWO to FIVE INNERVATES at once, WITHOUT PLAYING THEM or drawing them. It's not "2 cards", you DO NOT NEED TO PLAY THIS CARD. You simply keep it in your hands. It's basically a 0 mana spell "Set a random card in your hand to 0". It's actually a bonus that you still get a 1/1 on top - as crappy as it might be. THE only downside this card has, is that you "waste a draw". That's it, but EVERY single card in the game has that downside. Seriously, how do you NOT see that? It's a ZERO risk, potentially Turn 1 instant win HIGH REWARD. Like I said, to make the card balanced (and much more interesting) you would have needed to limit it to minions and swap the stats too. Even then 0 mana would probably be too strong.
"Failed card review" my ass. You simply lack even a shallow understanding of the game or are ignorant on purpose and get defense about your creation.
You're the angriest person I've ever seen, besides this guy.
Overall, this weeks finalists were better than expected! The preliminary voting process seems to have weeded out the most broken and superfluous cards. I've got some criticisms of the finalists, but overall I think they've done a good job with a difficult challenge. This week's competition was particularly difficult because of Balance and Text Space. To make an interesting well designed effect with a discount, you don't have much room left for clever design. Because of that, I think some of this weeks best cards are the simplest ones.
From the Void by ihascorm: Like others have said, this is an elegant and simple design. It expect something like this will be printed eventually, though I'd put my bets on a 1 mana version.
Howling Pride Leader by HitSlender: Certainly a believable design, but also the kind of card that probably wouldn't see play. If Midrange Hunter isn't running Nerubian Prophet, i doubt they run this. Like most handbuff effects, it's too slow and too imprecise. Still, not OP and believable.
Sally Whitemane by Kresarian: I question this being neutral, if only because it would likely only see play in Priest, Shaman, Paladin. But I suppose other Neutral cards are more niche. It's not blowing my mind, but it's not broken, so I'd consider it a decent design. Can't say I'd be excited to open it in a pack though, but a believable "bad" legendary.
Bargain Hunter by FallenPiano: While this might be a Hunter card purely for the reason of making a pun, it's good choice to limit it to Hunter which has mostly cheap spells anyway. I wouldn't want this in Mage. I'm not convinced of the Mana, Attack or Health choices though. Could use refinement, probably to something slightly more expensive and with a more even attack/health split.
Gift of the Ancients by MrUncreative: I don't think this should be a Choose One card, the mana refresh seems unneeded. Also, it's much more in line with Shaman cards like Far Sight than any druid card. Too much potential for Malygos Druids if you ask me. I think this should go back to the drawing board, the idea can be salvaged into something better.
Fortune Teller by Broeck1: This just feels broken. Miracle Rogues would get much too consistent.
Moonwell by Co_Ga: Similar to Fortune Teller and Gift of the Ancients, this has too much potential in an existing combo deck, Malygos Druid. Druid seems like a poor choice for discount effects, given that it prefers Mana Ramp as an acceleration mechanic and already has Innervate. Decent flavor though, I'd like a Moonwell card to accompany Sunwell, but this isn't it.
Wyrmrest Knight by Dxiled: Why isn't it a Dragon? I'm also not into a joust effect that is so specific. You'll win this on account of most decks not having a Dragon, at least since Azure Drake rotated. Feels like a poorly designed version of Dragon Consort
Sanction by nurgling13: I like this effect a lot. I don't know if Paladin is the right place, maybe Priest or Druid? But it seems like an amazing card for Arena play, without being totally busted.
Stormwind Deposit by Enselt: So... Miracle Priest? Combined with Lyra the Sunshard or Shadow Visions and Gadgetzan Auctioneer you've probably have a decent chance for infinite cycle. Because of Lyra, I actually think this is a card you don't put into your deck and just consider yourself lucky when you get a random one. This card needs a lot of playtest to determine whether it's total garbage or game breaking, I can't tell really.
Mana Soaker by Sneaky_Raptor: This card should be more like Bright-Eyed Scout or Naga Sea Witch, that is it should cost 5 mana and have better stats. Probably broken otherwise, assuming the rng goes right.
Forbidden Dreaming by Dracossack: What is a 20 mana Kun the Forgotten King turn not enough or something? Totally broken.
Desperate Defender by Dat_boi_Eow: Yikes! This is really bad, I can't imagine playing this. I realize it's trying to be a Deathlord or Dirty Rat, but those cards only fit into slow decks. With this kind of drawback, you can't afford to play slow.
Back to Work! by Lathy: I like the flavor, I've actually had this image saved for some time but couldn't find a use for it. Still, this is busted, even without the Knife Juggler or Questing Adventurer and Youthful Brewmaster shenanigans. This combined with Vanish is such an amazing tempo swing, I'd think this card needs to cost at least 6 or 7 mana to come close to being balanced, but It's probably easier to balance by limiting it to a single bounced minion, just a more extreme version of Shadowstep. I'd pay 5 mana at least for a Shadow Step that reduced the cost to zero.
General Tao by LittleOgreHearthstone: Not a bad idea, but the stat and mana line could be refined. A three cost reduction shouldn't go onto a full stat minion like this. Without the reduction it'd be balanced. With the reduction, I'd take down the stats a bit. Still, these are easily resolved balance problems that would get ironed out in playtesting.
Arcane Opportunist by Rhadan: This seems like a poorly designed version of Ethereal Peddler. Mage doesn't need this kind of effect, and I dislike the idea of a card that is aimed so cleary at buffing a quest. Making the mage quest better through new cards would be fine, but those cards need to stand alone.
Gnomish Explorer by Toble: I like this, even though it is pretty bad. Discover mininos and spells are essentially already kind of weak cards that get value through card generation. I can't imagine running this in anything except maybe a Reno/Highlander deck, but even that is iffy. Still, this is a believable "bad" card. I'd make it a common though, and you missed an opportunity for a sweet Un'goro theme- it should totally be one of Elise's Junior Explorers.
Scrap Recycle by malthe3520: I like this alot! I think the flavor could be extended by making it "If a Mech died this turn" instead of controlling a Mech. That'd also make it more flavorful and distinct from Gorillabot A-3. I don't see why it's a Shaman card though. It's an interesting enough effect to be neutral, maybe a "Recycle Bot" minion or something, or possibly a Rogue spell? There is room to improve this card, it's got potential.
Door to Door Priest by HenryXLII: This is a cool idea, I like making your opponent chose things at the start of their turn, but this probably isn't the way to go about it. Having to pick a discount for your opponent is going to feel bad, even if you make the right choice. At the very least, it should be a battlecry so it only happens once. Though a delayed battlecry is kind of weird, the only one I can really think of is Dragon Consort? Points for originality, but I think this would be seen as a fundamentally negative experience for your opponent. I'd rather see it as a drawback for your own deck, similar to Venture Co. Mercenary, an overstatted minion that gives your opponent a benefit.
Forgotten Scrolls by ShadowsOfSense: Mill Rogue anyone? Having played with Gang Up quite a bit, I think this is probably a broken effect in Wild. In standard I can't imagine it being very useful, is it just for making those Flame Elemental tokens cheaper?
My votes: From the Void, Bargain Hunter, Sanction, Stormwind Deposit, General Tao, Gnomish Explorer, Scrap Recycle
Door to Door Priest by HenryXLII: At the very least, it should be a battlecry so it only happens once. Though a delayed battlecry is kind of weird, the only one I can really think of is Dragon Consort?
Lots of great finalists this week. My votes went to...
From the Void - Could be the missing ingredient for discard lock. I think the art, title and flavor are superb.
Moonwell - I want to play this card. I want to Innervate it out on turn 1.
Sanction - Paladin has a lot of niche spells so I love this card's flavor. Its drawback is so nicely balanced that I don't think it would be overpowered considering how much removal control Paladins tend to run.
General Tao - This game needs more Pandaren. I like that it contributes towards Warrior quest, and I think it would be interesting if control Warriors could reset Gorehowl.
Honorable Mentions go to..
Bargain Hunter - I wanted to vote for this card. I love puns and the silly art, and its effect, but I think this card could've been a 2/1 and it still would've been very strong, maybe it should've cost 4 mana. If it were run in a deck with primarily 4+ cost minions it would be a huge tempo swing. It's kind of a power creeped Ram Wrangler.
Mana Soaker - I was intrigued by this card's effect and I almost voted for it. But then I started to compare it to Counterfeit Coin and thought it was a little on the broken side. They're both a 0 cost card, but the few things that make it worse is that it's not a spell to fuel other card effects, and that its a dead card if you draw it after your mulligan. Perhaps it should've been a higher mana cost with relative stats.
Arcane Opportunist - I like this card's flavor, but its effect is so niche, I think it's a little under its under budgeted in stats, or it should reduce spell costs by (2). I think I would've liked it more it as a 3 mana 4/3.
Howling Pride Leader - I almost voted for this card, but Hunter is always forced into such a tempo oriented play style, I don't think that a 4 mana 2/4 would be viable even if it is a Beast and could be buffed for greater impact. Frothing Berserker doesn't live past the turn its played lots of the time and it costs 3 mana.
Thanks for voting on my general tao!! You basically described the whole idea behind the card. contribute to the quest and bringing a gorehowl back to your hand, lol!!!
Sanction and Stormwind Deposit are two really well flavored and really cool effect. Nothing I've seen before.
Voting for both of you. Well done everyone!
Check out my submission for this weeks card design competition; or my other fan creations! Nullius in verba
General Review balance review!
From the Void: Pretty average, runs the risk of being crazy with Clutchmother Zavas, but at the same time, seems it be a strange combination of discards aggro and discovers value.
Howling Pride Leader: Very hard to play. Bad stats at the risk of minimum value (hitting a 1 drop). Could create huge swings if buffed and hits a big beast.
Sally Whitemane: Near unplayable, goes against general priest or paladin play-style which is where this card would see play. Forces a series of bad turns of holding onto cards for a mediocre reward.
Bargain Hunter: Will give you 2 mana discount at best and attached to a very bad body that is barely worth 1 mana at the moment. I believe their to many situational hunter spells that would be worthless to make this card see play.
Gift of Nature: A very powerful card simply because you choose to reduce it after you draw, making the card completely risk free. Auto include in any druid deck, even better in aggro.
Fortune Teller: Crazy powerful cycle, but sadly on a very bad body and a huge lose of tempo. No real place in rogue for this.
Moonwell: A card with a massive risk too play as it could get destroy the turn in it played with no value lost by your opponent. Really bad draw in the late game and also risks getting no value on neutral cards that are important for Druids.
Wrymrest Knight: A really good body with no drawbacks apart from no instant value and not being a dragon itself. Sadly most decks are only running one dragon and that is an 8 mana Primordial Drake so good luck.
Sanction: This is an extremely risky card that will hardly ever work. Even destroying a low mana card could cost you as your opponent pulls a big threat or combo a few turns early. Paladin has better removal with Aldor and Equality.
Stormwind Deposit: Interesting but unplayable, 8 mana, many cards basically discarded will get you killed. And no impact on the board makes in unplayable.
Mana Soaker: Far too random. Could hit a Deathwing on turn 1 and win you the game, could hit Fire Fly on turn 15 and make you lose the topdeck war. Can't see it fitting in any existing deck.
Forbidden Dreaming: So this is the card you play when you have nothing else good or you want to waste a turn for future value. Comes at a large risk as you will have to wait a turn to see the value of this card and in the current meta I believe this is too slow.
Desperate Defender: Straight up unplayable, stalls a turn or two at the cost of giving away the game against any tempo or combo decks.
Back to Work: A really interesting late game card but apart from Vilespine Slayer, no other rogue cards have huge enough effects to warrant a 3 mana cost. Would require a well crafted deck but combo decks aren't doing amazing at the moment apart from rogues extremely value quest deck and mage you are the queens of staling the game. In summary, could make a combo deck but that deck won't be that good.
General Tao: A very odd effect based on the idea of repairing weapons for value but sadly there is very few weapons that would be worth that value and with a massive amount of weapon removal be used at the moment Warrior would have a hard time fitting this card.
Arcane Opportunist: Only really fits in Quest Mage which is a very difficult to fit any cards into as it is a very tight decklist like most freeze mages. Has good value opportunities with the Tome but apart from that there isn't enough support for this.
Gnomish Explorer: A very limited card as most decks only run 1 or 2 discover cards. The bad stats combined with a card that is unplayable on it's own means this card would have a very hard time seeing play.
Scrap Recycle: Not amazing as there is currently no Mech support in Standard. Could see cool implication in an old style Wild Mech deck, apart from that not amazing.
Door to Door Priest: The problem with this card is Priest is forced to put low cost cards in it's deck to function. This card becomes a bland 2/3 with psycho taunt if your opponent has the option to reduce a Power Word: Shield or Shadow Visions. This card would require a very well crafted deck to work.
Forgotten Scrolls: Can't evaluate unless I know if you can target minion in your hand or not.
Disaggree please discus, just some thoughts from me.
I am currently voting for Back to Work and Door to Door Priest for their deckbuilding ideas and unique taking of the prompt. An extra vote for Forbidden Dreaming for cool flavour.
Well i wasn't that excited about this theme but as it turns out, this week's final is fairly interesting. There are a lot of entries up here that did something really interesting with the discount mechanic - there are about one or two things that bug me about almost all of them though. Here's what caught my eye:
Desperate Defender: Phew. I can totally see where this card is coming from but it definately feels more wanted than needed. The downside of this isn't a real downside - aggro decks mostly win by overrunning you before you can stabilize and lose by eventually runnig out of steam. You as the aggro player don't gain anything from getting your deck-resources discounted (they are already quite cheap), if it means leaving up a big enemy wall and giving your opponent a bunch of time to find his answers. As a neutral this is way too strong and would be an auto-include against any aggro while ruining your day, if played against anything other than aggro. I'm all for anti-aggro-tools but i don't think this is how it should be done.
Stormwind Depot: This is sad and funny at the same time: i really like the depot-idea but this card completely nullifies the value it creates x) Emptying your hand for 8 puts you in immediate topdeck-mode while you already have 8 mana available - at that point it's completely irrelevant, whether your topdeck costs 0 or 8. This would need a much lower cost to actually work and alsoallow you to play some stuff before reshuffling the rest.
Bargain Hunter: I already explained my "problem" with this in the discussion topic: Why isn't this a Rogue card? It seems so much more fitting. I like the mechanic but the art, the effect - most parts of the card just keep screaming "Rogue" to me.
Door to Door Priest: The idea of getting a powerful discount on one of your cards but letting your opponent do the choosing is a very sweet one and i recognize that kind of mechanic from games like MtG. However i feel like this type of player interaction just doesn't fit the style of Hearthstone quite as well (...yet?). The fact, that you're effectively stealing time form your opponent on a possibly very important decision doesn't feel right to me. I also feel like the art doesn't really fit the card and - it actually kinda unsettles me D:
Gnomish Explorer: As soon as i saw this, i was quite sure it would make it to the finals. I think this is a kind of design that simply appeals to a lot of people: It's simple, it's fair and it meets the requirements. I'm not sure if it's enough to make it into my top three or win the whole competition though. It's by no means bad but it isn't particularly exciting either. I feel like there's not much to talk about here.
Howling Pride Leader: I think this could end up in a similar spot as Dispatch Kodo: It's interesting and i would like to play around with it but i doubt it would actually be meta-good. Anyways, the flavor of it is just delicious. The lion/tiger/feline-thing in the artwork just looks so fittingly sad and the artwork itself is just faboulous.
Sanction: Again i feel like the "much needed hard removal for Paladin" is more wanted by a lot of people than needed. Historically Paladin has always had different ways to dispose of enemy threats and i think this also doesn't entirely fit Paladin's playstyle. Also, if you look at the current meta, the class definately doesn't "need" hard removal right now. It's pretty high tier with both an aggro and a control list - i'd say Pally is doing quite well at the moment :D However i am seriously digging the unique mechanic on this one. This is player interaction done right - "Hearthstone-style", if you want to call it that. I think if the class was more fitting, this card would be perfect.
From the Void: I actually have nothing to complain about on this. Something like a Primordial Glyph for Warlocks (seems like i wasn't the only one to take that for inspiration). The power level seems a little lower but it's enough for Discolock and might just finally be a card that makes the Warlock quest at least somewhat viable. Also a very clean and simple design. I really like it, period.
Also my card, Gift of the Ancients: This is one of my main motivations for making it to the finals - you get the chance of people actually discussing your card. Personally i think the card is definately strong but not broken. I believe both possible effects are of a mediocre power level - one is a cheaper and therefore maybe slightly better Far Sight which was almost never played; the other one can end up being a draw for 1, but you need to have or draw into something that does actually profit of that one extra mana. I think only the opportunity to choose between the two makes this card strong and viable.
However, i do agree that it would probably be better if the choice had to be made before drawing and i actually thought about that at one point. It would have made the wording way clunkier though and i thought it should be okay anyway, so i went with the cleaner design. Doesn't really seem like the best decision anymore. Also that typo that Livienna pointed out earlier ("it's" instead of "its") is seriously upsetting me. I really don't understand how i could miss that until now.
Look at that beautiful wall of text i've created again. I'm not sure about my top three just yet but there are some serious contestants. Let's see how this turns out :)
SoonTM
Midrange Hunter - 2,8 mana
Control Priest - 3,17 mana
a) you can't keep it in the mulligan which you generally want for ramp so the usage is postponed to later turns where it is less impactfull
b) It's not a spell, so no Gadgetzan Auctioneer cycle
c) You don't have the control to chose the target and plan ahead as with cards like Preparation
Bargain Hunter got my vote. :)
I love the Door-to-Door Priest. I also voted for Bargain Hunter, Sanction, and a couple of others, but imo the Priest is the one that knocked it out of the park.
This week was really hard. Not only were the cards hard to balance, but coming up with original ideas was tricky due to there being no keyword for "reduce this card by X", so you had very little space to work with when I came to card text. My favorites are.
From the void: Simple, elegant, flavorful, and strong. Fantastic design overall.
Moonwell: I like the overall power level of this card. Druid is my favorite class, and I love combo Druid, so I'm a little biased here. It's very balanced in my eyes, since the effect is not gurenteed, and it's a horrible top deck. Also changes how you might build a Druid deck. My favorite card this week.
Mana Soaker: I LOVE that it's an elemental, and how it got around the card text issue I mentioned earlier. That said, it's ability to instantly swing games based on pure RNG. But I cannot deny how much I love the concept!
"Science isn't about why! Its about why not!"
Hate to be that guy, but Back to Work! should read: "Minions that return to your hand this turn cost (0)" (there shouldn't be an "s" after "cost")
Custom cards :
CLASSES : Alchemist (CCC#5 | Phase V) | Chef (CCC#4)
EXPANSIONS : Year of the Scorpion (Year Comp)
Overall, this weeks finalists were better than expected! The preliminary voting process seems to have weeded out the most broken and superfluous cards. I've got some criticisms of the finalists, but overall I think they've done a good job with a difficult challenge. This week's competition was particularly difficult because of Balance and Text Space. To make an interesting well designed effect with a discount, you don't have much room left for clever design. Because of that, I think some of this weeks best cards are the simplest ones.
My votes: From the Void, Bargain Hunter, Sanction, Stormwind Deposit, General Tao, Gnomish Explorer, Scrap Recycle
@ Soulbattle: thanks for the feedback.
@ ZardozSpeaks: you are right it needs some re-balancing. First Idea was a 4/6 not a 5/6. It might work best with curator stats and cost.
*anxiously awaiting poll results/next discussion thread*
"The Slayer" custom class
"The Great Thaw" expansion competition finalist
Vote for my card in the WDC 6.03: Prof. Putricide! Check out the Fan Creations FAQ!
Asylum, we need you baaaaaaaaaaaaack!
(This is a joke, the mods are doing are terrific job with these competitions)
Oh my lord, have we ever had a margin of victory this high? O.O
Congrats to ihascorm!
I got a vote that wasn't from myself :D that deserves a yay!
Congratulations to the winner!
Congrats to ihascorm!
Looks like a pretty close one. Cough. :D
SoonTM