Hello everybody! This topic is for discussion of the "Expanding Horizons" Expansion Creation Competition. One of the awesome things about our Fan Creation Forum Competition is that it gets us all talking about what makes a card or a class balanced, fun, realistic, interesting, unique, innovative, exciting, and more. However, to make sure that everything runs smoothly, we need to reserve the Submission Topic for submissions only. Everything else goes here. What is everything else, you might ask?
Rules or Process. Do you have a question about the competition's process? Do you need clarification about one of the entry requirements? Are you not sure whether your entry adhered to the rules? Ask here!
Feedback or Ideas. Do you have some ideas you'd like to run by others before settling on one? Do you need help balancing or wording your idea? Do you need help finding art that will fit your cards? Or do you just want feedback from the community on your entry? You're in the right place! Remember, although you are allowed to make minor tweaks to your entry after you've submitted it, you're only allowed one submission per competition, so make sure that you've settled on your idea for sure beforehand.
Discussion! Do you have thoughts on other people's ideas? Are there directions you don't like that you're seeing too many people take? Or directions you'd like to see more people take? Would you like to help others and contribute to a greater community understanding of Hearthstone design and balance? This is where you want to be!
All of that said, please refrain from the following:
Posting TONS of Ideas. We understand that some of you might have a ton of potential ideas you'd like to share. However, this thread is going to become an absolute mess if everybody is posting a dozen different ideas. Please post not more than 3 distinct ideas at a time, to keep the thread generally orderly and legible.
Advertising Your Entry. Please don't pop in here just to advertise your entry only to never be heard from again. This includes only asking short, generic, or insincere questions like "Thoughts?" or "Do you think this is balanced?". Yes, getting feedback on your idea is one of the purposes of this topic, but we're not just here for other people to help you. We're here for you all to help each other. 12 hours after this competition begins, there should be plenty of other posts here for you to give specific feedback or for you to comment on a trend. If you post your ideas for feedback after this time and do not also offer some form of substantial commentary, critique, or praise of others' work, you may find your post deleted.
Plagiarism. Many people post their ideas here before finalizing them in the submission topic. Directly plagiarizing those ideas to post in the submission topic yourself is absolutely not acceptable.
So, without further ado, have fun and get creating!
Sweet made it to round 2. Also, that link to the submission thread, it's still directing to the hidden 'staff work area' forum.
What staff work area forum? =P Thanks for the catch. It doesn't actually affect the link as far as I know, it'll take you to the right place, but whatever.
Sweet made it to round 2. Also, that link to the submission thread, it's still directing to the hidden 'staff work area' forum.
What staff work area forum? =P Thanks for the catch. It doesn't actually affect the link as far as I know, it'll take you to the right place, but whatever.
No, it takes you to a 'this area is forbidden' page. But you changed the link and now it works.
Sweet made it to round 2. Also, that link to the submission thread, it's still directing to the hidden 'staff work area' forum.
What staff work area forum? =P Thanks for the catch. It doesn't actually affect the link as far as I know, it'll take you to the right place, but whatever.
No, it takes you to a 'this area is forbidden' page. But you changed the link and now it works.
Huh, the more you know. We just get redirected to the right place. Well, fixed now :D
I've already come up with an idea for one of the neutral legendaries.
Anachronos is very similar to Arch-Thief Rafaam. When you play Anachronos, he will present you with three dragons to pick from. Eranikus, Azuregos, and Vaelastrasz. These three dragons were entrusted with the safe keeping of the shards of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, which was used to open the gates of Ahn'Qiraj.
I want them to have something in common with the leaders of their respected dragonflights, Ysera, Malygos, and Alexstrasza.
I've already come up with an idea for one of the neutral legendaries.
Anachronos is very similar to Arch-Thief Rafaam. When you play Anachronos, he will present you with three dragons to pick from. Eranikus, Azuregos, and Vaelastrasz. These three dragons were entrusted with the safe keeping of the shards of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, which was used to open the gates of Ahn'Qiraj.
I want them to have something in common with the leaders of their respected dragonflights, Ysera, Malygos, and Alexstrasza.
I like the card flavor, but it is really bad. The 8-drop has really weak stats and all the Keepers are pretty ordinary, Vaelastrasz is the best one and it is almost the same as North Sea Kraken, a common card. That's OK, I've made bad cards intentionally, as an expansion does have bad cards.
Alright, rules don't say i'm not allowed to introduce a new keyword so here it goes:
What are your thoughts? Should i just stick with 1 keyword
I don't like the name "Cursed". Lots of minions would have to receive such keyword, such as Water Elemental, and Water Elly doesn't seem to be the kind of guy that curses stuff. I am struggling with the wording of a card, can some literate help me? xD Well, I've made Murky. His battlecry creates the Blue Murloc Egg. If Murky dies, the egg is supposed to resurrect him and then the egg is supposed to go away. Is that clear, can anyone help me with a clearer text if this one is not clear enough?
I've already come up with an idea for one of the neutral legendaries.
Anachronos is very similar to Arch-Thief Rafaam. When you play Anachronos, he will present you with three dragons to pick from. Eranikus, Azuregos, and Vaelastrasz. These three dragons were entrusted with the safe keeping of the shards of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, which was used to open the gates of Ahn'Qiraj.
I want them to have something in common with the leaders of their respected dragonflights, Ysera, Malygos, and Alexstrasza.
I like it, but I can't exactly tell how good it is. It seems to me that Vaelastrasz is the best one by quite a bit. For Azuregos, you'd probably just run Malygos instead and Eranikus doesn't really look too great when you realize Tyrantus is a thing. I mean, I guess they're all dragons so that's one thing
I should also point out that your expansion banner uses the EXACT SAME artwork that mine does:
I might suggest everyone condense down their last entry into a spoiler to post with their new stuff. It'll help with the feedback. Strip out some of the text for a barebones overview. A reference version, not a proposal version.
Designing for the Neutral set implies a lot your class design is finished. Though, we're always free to revise stuff from the previous Phases right? While the competition wants us to take this incrementally, I think it's high time we all start developing a rough outline sketch of the set in it's entirety. Is everyone assuming the 84 card set is 'complete' or still just a teaser and meat for the full 120+?
Also, only 4 neutral legendaries! But I have so many sweeeet dragons to design... wait wait... WHAT IF THE ENTIRE SET WAS LEGENDARY. Also, renaming my set 'The Revenge of Nat Pagle'
Wohoo! I got through! Congratulations to everybody!
I want to jumpstart the discussion presenting some of the neutral cards I have already designed. However, I made a change that I don't know if it breaks the competition's rules. If I presented a neutral card as an epic in the previous phase, can I ower its rarity to rare for this one? I came up with a really strong concept that fits perfectly as an epic, but it is also a dragon and I don't want to clutter the rarity with the same tribe. Without further ado, my neutrals so far:
Keyword:
Chained Broodmother is based on the enslavement of Alexstrasza and later Karynaku by Zuluhed. He used the powers of the Demon Soul and his own to chained this powerful dragons, and force them to breed to create mounts for his Dragonmaw orcs. While this broodmother is "chained", she can't attack and will lay eggs, but once released with a silence effect she will no longer breed.
Doom Lord Kazzak is the commander of the Burning Legion's forces in Outland. As such, he leads his minions and oversees the battle, granting powerful boons to its troops. Meant as a situational card and a powerful Krul the Unshackled combo, he will otherwise be not very useful unless cheated out with Giant Anaconda, Barnes or Ancestor's Call.
Lantresor of the Blade is a half-breed, born of a draenei and orc pair, that fought its to end up becoming a very powerful blademaster and the leader of a mainly ogre clan. As such, he fights with reckless abandon, damaging everything that stands in his way but injuring himself too. As seen in this video: https://youtu.be/RX4r-kQUgYY ; if Lantresor attacks a 1-Health minion, the Whirlwind effect will trigger and kill the minion before the attack ends, and he will be able to attack again. This encourages strategy and careful thinking when using this card!
If anyone would like to, I would love a review of my Phase 1 submission, accessible from my signature! I would review theirs if they want to, obviously. Good luck to everyone :)
I've already come up with an idea for one of the neutral legendaries.
Anachronos is very similar to Arch-Thief Rafaam. When you play Anachronos, he will present you with three dragons to pick from. Eranikus, Azuregos, and Vaelastrasz. These three dragons were entrusted with the safe keeping of the shards of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, which was used to open the gates of Ahn'Qiraj.
I want them to have something in common with the leaders of their respected dragonflights, Ysera, Malygos, and Alexstrasza.
I like the card flavor, but it is really bad. The 8-drop has really weak stats and all the Keepers are pretty ordinary, Vaelastrasz is the best one and it is almost the same as North Sea Kraken, a common card. That's OK, I've made bad cards intentionally, as an expansion does have bad cards.
Alright, rules don't say i'm not allowed to introduce a new keyword so here it goes:
What are your thoughts? Should i just stick with 1 keyword
I don't like the name "Cursed". Lots of minions would have to receive such keyword, such as Water Elemental, and Water Elly doesn't seem to be the kind of guy that curses stuff. I am struggling with the wording of a card, can some literate help me? xD Well, I've made Murky. His battlecry creates the Blue Murloc Egg. If Murky dies, the egg is supposed to resurrect him and then the egg is supposed to go away. Is that clear, can anyone help me with a clearer text if this one is not clear enough?
Edit: My expansion also has Eranikus, hehe.
Sounds good to me. Maybe the Egg's text should say: "When Murky is destroyed, replace this minion with Murky". What do you think?
I am...flabbergasted! Flabbergasted, and completely honoured! Thanks to everyone who helped me make it into the second round!
With my expansion, there were a few mechanics that I touched upon briefly, that I suppose I should focus in on with this next round's showcase cards. Of the broad theme of "minion based board control," there are four branches: Swift (damage dealt before damage dealt to it), Rush (Charge without the face hit on the first turn), Healing (not showcased, but a returning element), and the Whitewings (a unique card that breaks the 2 card maximum).
I'm thinking of showcasing the Whitewings in this next round, since they're the most unique, but, outside of a spell card or two in the classes, they're pretty much all spoken for in the Neutral cards, so they might not be the most representative of the expansion as a whole.
Right then, I'll give some feedback when I can, but for now, here's the 21 Neutral cards I've already designed. I've split them by rarity for now. Feel free to be as harsh as you want on any of them, if you don't like a design just say that, I have plenty more ideas to work with. Other than that, the usual balance help would be much appreciated.
A quick recap of my two new keywords in the spoiler below.
Echo is pretty self-explanatory - the counterpart to Reno decks, this mechanic encourages including duplicates to gain bonus effects, or even entirely different ones.
Revert is a little more complicated. When a transformation is removed, the minion returns to what it began as - Shifter Zerus becomes a 1/1 again, Druid of the Claw becomes an un-Taunted 4/4. We will presume this would be tracked correctly. Enchantments are those little pieces of text that show under a card when its been buffed or debuffed - the +1/+1 from Shattered Sun Cleric, the reduction to 1 Attack by Humility, they all have names and they would all be removed. I'm also going to include Silence as an Enchantment, because I want to, and I think this is a perfect way of introducing 'un-Silencing' without breaking things. This wouldn't restore Health, but if your minion's damaged Health was above its starting Health, then it'll Revert to full Health, because that's how it works when an Aura is removed or an effect Silenced. Get all that? It's much simpler in practice, I promise.
8 Commons
5 Rares
4 Epics
4 Legendaries
A few of my own queries:
Too much Echo? I feel like I may have went overboard for just 21 cards. If it was a full expansion I'd probably need more, but as is I'm worried I may be pushing out cooler designs.
Too little Dragons? Basically the same query. A few select classes - Warrior, Paladin and Warlock - have more Dragons in them as a sort of focus, but is this enough for neutrals?
This is the Discussion Topic. The Submission Topic is here.
(Please read the Submission Topic first.)
The people moving on to Phase II are...
Hello everybody! This topic is for discussion of the "Expanding Horizons" Expansion Creation Competition. One of the awesome things about our Fan Creation Forum Competition is that it gets us all talking about what makes a card or a class balanced, fun, realistic, interesting, unique, innovative, exciting, and more. However, to make sure that everything runs smoothly, we need to reserve the Submission Topic for submissions only. Everything else goes here. What is everything else, you might ask?
All of that said, please refrain from the following:
So, without further ado, have fun and get creating!
Sweet made it to round 2. Also, that link to the submission thread, it's still directing to the hidden 'staff work area' forum.
OwO I actually made it.
I thought I was screwed for sure XD
Why Rogue is my favourite class:
My submission for this week's card design competition.
You should definitely post the picture of allowed participants here as well.
You can find me here! Good luck everyone!
Wow! 6th!
Thanks to everyone who voted for my expansion. However this phase will be very diffrent so good luck to everyone already!
You can find me here! Good luck everyone!
I've already come up with an idea for one of the neutral legendaries.
Anachronos is very similar to Arch-Thief Rafaam. When you play Anachronos, he will present you with three dragons to pick from. Eranikus, Azuregos, and Vaelastrasz. These three dragons were entrusted with the safe keeping of the shards of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, which was used to open the gates of Ahn'Qiraj.
I want them to have something in common with the leaders of their respected dragonflights, Ysera, Malygos, and Alexstrasza.
Alright, rules don't say i'm not allowed to introduce a new keyword so here it goes:
What are your thoughts? Should i just stick with 1 keyword?
I don't like the name "Cursed". Lots of minions would have to receive such keyword, such as Water Elemental, and Water Elly doesn't seem to be the kind of guy that curses stuff.
I am struggling with the wording of a card, can some literate help me? xD
Well, I've made Murky. His battlecry creates the Blue Murloc Egg. If Murky dies, the egg is supposed to resurrect him and then the egg is supposed to go away. Is that clear, can anyone help me with a clearer text if this one is not clear enough?
Click the image to go to my custom Time Traveler class.
To all those who didn't make it (including me)
Mod Working Reaaaaally Hardly
I might suggest everyone condense down their last entry into a spoiler to post with their new stuff. It'll help with the feedback. Strip out some of the text for a barebones overview. A reference version, not a proposal version.
Designing for the Neutral set implies a lot your class design is finished. Though, we're always free to revise stuff from the previous Phases right? While the competition wants us to take this incrementally, I think it's high time we all start developing a rough outline sketch of the set in it's entirety. Is everyone assuming the 84 card set is 'complete' or still just a teaser and meat for the full 120+?
Also, only 4 neutral legendaries! But I have so many sweeeet dragons to design... wait wait... WHAT IF THE ENTIRE SET WAS LEGENDARY. Also, renaming my set 'The Revenge of Nat Pagle'
Got here by the skins of our teeth, now is the time for all of us overshadowed entries to show what our expansions are really made of!
Good luck everyone lol
Wohoo! I got through! Congratulations to everybody!
I want to jumpstart the discussion presenting some of the neutral cards I have already designed. However, I made a change that I don't know if it breaks the competition's rules. If I presented a neutral card as an epic in the previous phase, can I ower its rarity to rare for this one? I came up with a really strong concept that fits perfectly as an epic, but it is also a dragon and I don't want to clutter the rarity with the same tribe. Without further ado, my neutrals so far:
Keyword:
If anyone would like to, I would love a review of my Phase 1 submission, accessible from my signature! I would review theirs if they want to, obviously. Good luck to everyone :)
Oh! @Giz4Gamer, I forgot to mention. Tokens do not have rarity. Even if they are generated by legendary cards, they will have no gem.
@Vilegloom, maybe something like that. But I want it to happen only next turn. I don't want someone to use Murky to attack twice in the same turn
I am...flabbergasted! Flabbergasted, and completely honoured! Thanks to everyone who helped me make it into the second round!
With my expansion, there were a few mechanics that I touched upon briefly, that I suppose I should focus in on with this next round's showcase cards. Of the broad theme of "minion based board control," there are four branches: Swift (damage dealt before damage dealt to it), Rush (Charge without the face hit on the first turn), Healing (not showcased, but a returning element), and the Whitewings (a unique card that breaks the 2 card maximum).
I'm thinking of showcasing the Whitewings in this next round, since they're the most unique, but, outside of a spell card or two in the classes, they're pretty much all spoken for in the Neutral cards, so they might not be the most representative of the expansion as a whole.
Right then, I'll give some feedback when I can, but for now, here's the 21 Neutral cards I've already designed. I've split them by rarity for now. Feel free to be as harsh as you want on any of them, if you don't like a design just say that, I have plenty more ideas to work with. Other than that, the usual balance help would be much appreciated.
A quick recap of my two new keywords in the spoiler below.
8 Commons
5 Rares
4 Epics
4 Legendaries
A few of my own queries:
Too much Echo? I feel like I may have went overboard for just 21 cards. If it was a full expansion I'd probably need more, but as is I'm worried I may be pushing out cooler designs.
Too little Dragons? Basically the same query. A few select classes - Warrior, Paladin and Warlock - have more Dragons in them as a sort of focus, but is this enough for neutrals?
You can find me here! Good luck everyone!