Hearthpwn

Quote from maxlot >>

Quote from Muddler >>

Hi everyone!

I'd also like to share a few ideas in advance about my class:

The Merchant

 

First of all, I had the feeling that something like this is still missing in the depicted "professions" we've seen so far.
To achieve the desired flavor for this new class I wanted to find some ways to interact with coins (as this would be kind of natural for a merchant).

I know, on first glimpse the heropower might seem stupid, but I've been thinking a lot about the resulting mechanic and I just like the effect as a class-identity:

The merchant is not a fighter. He isn't able to wield real magic either, so his abilities and spells are always connected to buying and selling stuff. But his money (the coins) grant him more flexibility to afford expensive minions and spells.
His coin-mechanic is a bit like the opposite of the shaman's overload. Instead of borrowing mana from the upcoming rounds, the merchant can save up his mana to do costier stuff in the next round.
Additionally some merchant-class-cards grant effects for coins being "payed" the same round.
Being able to spend 5 Mana in Round 3 is surely a bit reminiscent of Druid, but I still think it's different enough to be interesting. And of course you will block your hand with too many coins, so you have to plan thoughtfully...

A new keyword I'd like to introduce is TRADE. (Though it is of course used in another informal sense, I still think it's the best single-word for the desired effect.)
The meaning is pretty straightforward:

"Trade": "Taking something and adding it to your hand while putting something else in-place instead".
It doesn't necesseraliy mean taking something from your opponent (though that would be the usual case).
I thought trading is far more interesting and easier to balance than any simple steal-mechanic.

Just a few cards to get the idea across:

 

 

 

Would be happy about any feedback!

 I'll be honest, there's a lot of work that needs to be done here. I like the idea of a merchant class, and the flavour is certainly very good. Additionally, the ideas are also pretty good, with cards like the Season Sale and Buff Box being quite interesting.

To start off with, the hero power isn't good. Aside from formatting issues, two coins is probably too much. We've actually already had a merchant who won one of the previous competitions, and if I remember right, he gave you a coin for his hero power. I think you should either only go with one coin, or come up with something else entirely. The correct way to word that would be "Add a Coin to your hand." The coin has a capital C and there is no bolding. Also, Sell Mana doesn't sound like a very interesting hero power name, come up with something that sounds like the merchant stocking up money, earning through trading, etc. Invest might be a nice name for it.

As for the actual cards themselves, I'm seeing a lot of tech cards. Fake Upgrade, for example, aside from the non-impactful sounding name, is a bad card. The issue is, when you build a deck, you expect every card in that deck to do something, and that's important to remember when you make tech cards. If the player decides he's had enough of those irritating warriors and paladins and their scary big swords and axes and decide to include this, but suddenly face off against a mage or a priest... Then they have a card that does nothing, it's just dead. Compare to Acidic Swamp Ooze and Gluttonous Ooze. Even if you fight against a class without weapons, they still work as just a 3/2 or a 3/3. Finally, the basic set is a set in which the foundation of the class lays, avoid printing heavy tech cards for it regardless. It's where you should be putting your basic fireballs and consecrations, complicated stuff comes later in classic.

Next, avoid permanent attack reductions. This is probably one of the more balanced permanent attack reductions I've seen, as you can't really lock down a board with a pair of cards like that. But, in case you feel like printing more, just don't, because a minion with 0 attack in a deck that doesn't have a way of buffing it or killing it themselves... Is just a waste of a board slot for them. Getting a big number of minions like that on the board will allow it to be locked down, severely limiting your opponents ability to play minions, and to play the game.

The Fluffy Furry Coat is better than the Fake Upgrade, it's a rare, tech cards are fine there. But if your opponent isn't running enchantments, this doesn't do anything. Technically you could use it on your own minions enchantments to transfer them over to another minion, but a deck would have to be running a deck like that to run this, else they run the already explained risk of having a fully dead card. Again, you want to avoid this.

Also, the buff box and season sale have no backgrounds, making them look out of place, while the art in Fake Upgrade and Sell Mana is already used in Hearthstone. Replace those pieces of artwork and there'll be less to complain about.

Throwing ideas out there. Yes Chronomancers are overused, but I really wanted to play with a drawing hero power. Any thoughts on balance? I thought Scrying didn't impact the board enough so I made a draw hero power that discourages aggro play. You can still use it to dig for answers, but if you plan on answering this turn well it's going to be very expensive.

Quote from Demonxz95 >>

Quote from elbowleech >>

Throwing ideas out there. Yes Chronomancers are overused, but I really wanted to play with a drawing hero power. Any thoughts on balance? I thought Scrying didn't impact the board enough so I made a draw hero power that discourages aggro play. You can still use it to dig for answers, but if you plan on answering this turn well it's going to be very expensive.

"Yes Chronomancers are overused"

"I thought Scrying didn't impact the board enough"

You probably don't want to see my class then, where both are themes of the class.

Comparing it to Life Tap, you're trading 2 damage for spending even more mana. In the early game this is a lot better than Life Tap where you might not even be able to play the card anyway and here you don't take 2 damage, but it is worse as you go on. Playing this last is perfectly fine if you can afford it unlike Life Tap where you should tap first if you can afford it (but if you misplay and don't, you'd probably tap anyway). Most of the cards you make with this become unplayable that turn, so I guess maybe it's balanced. Life Tap is considered a very strong Hero Power though. I'd say this is probably about par with Life Tap, though specifically it's better early game and worse late game. All Hero Powers also have "Hero Power" in bold at the top of the text so you should add that there.

Welcome to the place by the way.

 

hey, guys, this is the first class competition i participate in and i could use some help with the card border, specifically if there is a website that can mate it easier to make it (i'm having problems with the pattern around the border); also, is there a way that can make it easier for me to write the name and text of the card?

@TrickyB3ast wow, i also wanted to make a class like yours in terms of theme; still, i was thinking of making mine more mech focused and my keyword is extremely different from your, so i might just go ahead and make it anyway.

Would it be weird to make an Archeologist class based on the secondary wow profession - Archeology? Iv been reading upon that and it seems like it could be an interesting area to tackle :)

Quote from Demonxz95 >>

Quote from NiRaSt >>

hey, guys, this is the first class competition i participate in and i could use some help with the card border, specifically if there is a website that can mate it easier to make it (i'm having problems with the pattern around the border); also, is there a way that can make it easier for me to write the name and text of the card?

@TrickyB3ast wow, i also wanted to make a class like yours in terms of theme; still, i was thinking of making mine more mech focused and my keyword is extremely different from your, so i might just go ahead and make it anyway.

Use http://hearthcards.net/

 

Quote from Demonxz95 >>

Quote from NiRaSt >>

Quote from Demonxz95 >>

Quote from NiRaSt >>

hey, guys, this is the first class competition i participate in and i could use some help with the card border, specifically if there is a website that can mate it easier to make it (i'm having problems with the pattern around the border); also, is there a way that can make it easier for me to write the name and text of the card?

@TrickyB3ast wow, i also wanted to make a class like yours in terms of theme; still, i was thinking of making mine more mech focused and my keyword is extremely different from your, so i might just go ahead and make it anyway.

Use http://hearthcards.net/

 

 any way i can upload my card designs there?

You make your card designs there, then when you save them, download them into your computer or copy the URL and upload it to an image sharing website such as Tinypic or Imgur (Hearthcards only saves the images you make for a few days. Image sharing sites normally don't have this problem) and then you should be able to post the images here. Making cards is super easy to do and you should get familiar with the system pretty quickly.

 

I would highly recommend using Hearthcards. It provides you with the normal template and a few extra features to boot.

Edit: Looks like you're having trouble with the Class border. I would recommend using an existing one.

Quote from Loyalist >>

 

Edit: Looks like you're having trouble with the Class border. I would recommend using an existing one.

How angry would this card make players, if it was an actual card?:D Oh the cries of uselessness :D But it would be meant as a synergy for Yogg decks as an investment towards his battlecry :) Mby it should be 1 mana :D