Hearthpwn

This Week's Finalists

Competition-Specific Restrictions:

• You must make a Warlock card from The Boomsday Project with mathematical flavor.
  
• In The Boomsday Project, each class is connected to a specific science: the Druid has Biology, the Mage has Astromony, etc. Originally, the Warlock was going to have Mathematics as its special thing, so we're bringing it back!

We have whittled down ~30 valid submissions to just 8 of the community's favorites. 
Check out all the finalists below and vote in our poll (vote for as many or as few as you like) to help decide the winner and be sure to check back after the poll finishes for the announcement of the winner and the start of a new theme!

by  nobravery
by  Wailor
by  Thezzy
by  DittoLander

by  GerVez0512
by  CheeseEtc
by  LittleOgre
by  xOwleyex

Final poll? Was there a heads up on voting? Oh well, gonna go with Calculated Strike.

Paradox is clunky and doesn't accomplish much more than just "discover a card" (plus it's not a paradox), Divide and Conquer is neat but "rounding" might not be a good idea for HS, Calculated Strike is really cool but it's too strong for Warlock which shouldn't have access to strong single-target removal, Automorphism is cool but might be too unclear for new players, The Calculator is really cute but "lethal" shouldn't be referenced in card text, Divide By Zero is waaaaaaaay too strong in fatigue-style Control Warlock decks, Pyrothagoras infuriates me because a 5-7-7 triangle isn't a right triangle which is what Pythagorean's Theorem is used for (plus you could use the Auto-attack keyword), Alter of Greater is really cool, if a bit weak. As such, I'll be voting for Alter of Greater, since it's not overpowered, clunky, or poorly designed. 

GL to all!

Paradox is a paradox. It can discover itself if it cannot discover itself. 

Congrats to all finalists! All cards here are really cool, we almost remade Boomsday's Warlock in an interesting way! May the best card win! 

Why do I have this weird feeling that Calculated Strike may be turned into an actual card?

Divide by Zero is OP in Mecha'thun decks.

I vote for calculated strike.

Divide by Zero is just another Mecha'thun enabler. In fact, you don't even need to wait for fatigue.

Pythagoras is really cool, but I would have liked it more if his stats were actually a Pythagorean triple (3 numbers that make a right-angled triangle, like 3, 4 and 5 or 6, 8 and 10, etc).

The Calculator is kinda funny, but I would highly doubt that ever getting printed because the game then needs to 'calculate' every single situation currently possible to find lethal. Also, it's kinda uninteractive to play against, because if there was some super complicated lethal scenario, I don't want to die because my opponent happened to play this card. I would gladly take a loss to some extremely obscure lethal than just by playing this card out of suspicion.

Altar of Greater is very clever, it punishes aggro decks that have granular damage like Odd Pally, and rewards appropriate order of attacking. 

Still, well done to all finalists, because I know that I could never be in a spot like this.

My vote is for paradox, just because it is sich a nice wink to mathematics.

Even though technically it is not a paradox as it is an actually contradictory statement and a paradox is a statement that at first seems contradictory but turns out not to be.

Wow, have not been in the final poll for a while. Have not thought of making my stats (Pyrothagoras) fit my theme. A missed opportunity. Anyway, good luck all!!

Quote from wooder >>

 

Turn 5  play The Calculator  and Renounce Darkness on hand.

Other card become Stargazer Luna and 20+ Arcane Missiles

Do i have lethal?

Also  Witchwood Piper Spreading Madness etc....

Well, i think Calculator should only count lethal based on information that you have in hand and battlefield. (Also ignoring random and unknown effects like Secrets.)

P.S. I guess your Renounce Darkness example is not so good, since he either gets changed by Renounce Darkness or will lose his battlecry.

Altar of Greater wins for me. Interesting mathematical possibilities for both players to consider. The others are either too clunky, IMO, or overpowered.

Quote from KingSevault >>

but "rounding" might not be a good idea for HS,

Void Contract

A lot of the terms on these cards are confusing and/or clunky. Calculated Strike is the only one that is very clear.

Could the calculator be used if your holding yogg,as there is always possiblity of lethal, or what if you tapped into lethal. The definition of what is lethal is up for debate 

Quote from Livesage >>

It's disappointing how cards get voted into the finals purely on the strength of a clever gimmick, when they are simply not well thought through (or at least not adequately explained) or won't work in practice.

Take The Calculator for example - what does "When you have lethal" mean? If your opponent has Ice Block up, then you don't actually have lethal (unless you have a "Destroy the enemy Hero" effect ready to go), yet the card creator's post in the Submission Thread suggests that the card will let you bypass secrets. And what about random effects (like holding Crackle when your opponent has 4 Health)? It's bad card design to reference a fuzzy concept that does not have a clear definition.

Paradox is another card that - by design - doesn't even work mechanically. The whole point of the card is that it is unknown whether Paradox can Discover itself. It's like creating a card that says "Set your hero's health to 0 and 100". It's clever for the sake of being clever without satisfying the basic requirement of functioning as a card that could be included in the game.

Voting for Automorphism and Altar of Greater.

 

 

 What makes a good card is subjective. Some people like cards that would be good in the game, some people just like a clever gimmick. Case in point - Nozdormu is an objectively terrible card, yet it is a favourite of many.

One advantage that we have over Blizzard is that we can dream up cards that would be nice, but would never really work in the game. People are free to vote for those concepts as a sign of agreement with the designer that they, too, would love a card like that to exist, even if both parties know it is impossible. That is why I voted for The Calculator, among others.

At any rate, there are many things in HS that would not make sense or would create unwieldy feedback loops if left to follow through to their logical conclusion, mostly caused by the extremely simple nature of HS card text. Most of the time, there is an implied intention, and some part of the operations order stops it, or if needed there is code associated with the card that bends its text slightly to stop the game from destroying itself. I for one understand that there is bound to be slight discrepancies between the fantasy of the card and/or its card text and the literal effect in game and that this is unavoidable.