Hey guys, this is your bog-standard Discussion Topic for our "Trials and Errors" Class Creation competition Phase V; the place to let your ideas run free. Share what's on your mind for your class and help each other to make the best cards you can, as is tradition! In the post below, you will find the standard format for submissions.
Some people like having the requirements here too, so here they are in a spoiler.
PHASE V: Kobolds & Catacombs + The Witchwood
Congratulations on being a semi-finalist! With positively received Whispers of the Old Gods and One Night in Karazhan sets, you've proven that your class's concept and mechanics have room for expansion. Now, there's only one last thing to do: narrow down the best of the best. For this phase, you'll be giving your class Kobolds & Catacombs and The Witchwood cards. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase V Entry:
CLASS, HERO, AND HERO POWER There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
EXAMPLE KnC & WW CARDS We do not want to see your Class's entire KnC and WW Sets out in the open.
You are allowed up to five (5) example cards out in the open. You may, below these cards, give brief explanations of them, why you decided to showcase them, how they exemplify what makes your class unique, and so on.
3 Common cards, 3 Rare cards, 2 Epic cards, and 1 Legendary minion, and 1 Legendary Weapon with the Kobolds and Catacombs watermark. These may not have Echo, Rush, or other mechanics that did not exist until later expansions.
One of your non-Legendary cards must be a card with the Spellstone mechanic.
You should also have 3 Common cards, 3 Rare cards, 2 Epic cards, and 2 Legendary cards with the Witchwood watermark. These may not have Magnetic , Overkill , or other mechanics that did not exist until later expansions.
You should also include an upgraded Hero Power for Baku the Mooneater to give you.
If your example cards produce any unique token cards, those must be put behind a spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.).
REMAINING KnC & WW CARDS The remaining cards of your class's KnC and WW Sets must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
BASIC, CLASSIC, JUG, and KFT SETS As before, include a link to each of the previous phases in at the end of your Submission.
FORMATTING The standard template which your submission must follow can be found here (or by navigating to the second post in the Discussion Topic, if that link doesn't work).
Back at it again with the Keyword conundrum. Only Mage doesn't make use of any of these keywords, so you should have no problem slotting at least one instance of them into your class - many classes use them a fair amount, in fact!
Take a load off and relax - stop worrying about finding the perfect art for your cards and let the game do it for you! Many of the bosses from Dungeon Run and Monster Hunt use the art of existing cards as their basis - so we're asking you to do the reverse!
You don't have to make a Legendary minion, but if you do, you should use the same or similar name as the appropriate Dungeon Run or Monster Hunt boss.
More inter-expansion synergy! Your Legendary Weapon should define an aspect of your class, so it shouldn't be difficult to create a card which benefits it or benefits from it. We'll be pretty lenient about this anyway - after all, who can say what Shaman spells help or hinder the Runespear?
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 this competition is light on mechanical restrictions and that you probably 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. Any more than that and we'll have to delete your post.
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!
Exactly the same as the previous template, you should include your Hero, Hero Power and any tokens here first. Note that you now have an upgraded Hero Power to show here as well, thanks to Baku the Mooneater! Look at me, so original.
This might also be where you want to detail your class's strengths and weaknesses. If you don't wish to do that, include that after the keyword section. Any format for that is fine - list, proper paragraph, whatever - but make sure it is out in the open, not behind a spoiler.
Optional Keyword Section
For those of you with keywords, describe them here. If you need to use some tokens to illustrate what's going on, please do so in a spoiler.
Example Cards
Same as before, simple format for showing your cards off. Below these cards you can give a little description of them, explain how they benefit your class etc etc. I think it'd look nice in a bullet point format, but you can do whatever you want so long as it isn't too lengthy.
None of your cards are required to be out in the open this time.
Make sure you tell us why one of your cards meets Challenge #3, however!
Any tokens produced by these cards would go in a spoiler at the end of this section, with or without their own commentary.
Remaining Cards
Kobolds & Catacombs
The Witchwood
Ooh, mandatory spoiler now. This is much more flexible. You can simply throw the remaining ten cards in here with no commentary; you can give them a little blurb if you want; you can put all twenty cards in here if you find that easier (which is what I've done). Just make sure you only have twenty cards total! That'd be an unfortunate way to get disqualified.
Previous Phases
Include a link to your Phase I, Phase II, Phase III and Phase IV posts here.
I have done very little for this Phase on the pessimistic assumption that I would not make it, so alas I cannot jump right out and stun CheeseEtc with my completion percentage like before. The one thing I wanted to post, however, was my Legendary weapon, because I'm wondering what people will think of such an archetype (based on what you've seen/know of my Lich class):
Archetype: Exploding Tokens, summoning a bunch of little skeletons or whatever before you equip this and shit hits the fan. Combined with the healing cards from my previous Mammoth expansions, the simultaneous damage isn't as much of a concern as long as your Health total is higher than theirs. I liken it to the Monster Hunt boss fight against Groddo the Bogwarden. Does that sound fun and/or reasonably balanced?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Behold, foolish interlopers! I am commanding this mortal to spread the will of the Scourge throughout the interwebs, encouraging you to seek out me, Archlich Kel'Thuzad! Now coming to you as the tenth class of Hearthstone!
I am a finalist in this Class Creation Competition, so if you could give it a look I would be greatly appreciative <3
Congrats to everyone who made it to the next round!
@linkblade91 I like it. It promotes a specific kind of aggressive token deck that wants to be sacrificed. It feels powerful but not OP.
I also am lacking cards for the next 2 expansions. Just some broad strokes of themes for the Tinker to explore. But I do have my weapon, if not the art. Most Tinker weapon’s have “whenever your hero attacks”, so this weapon is all of them at once. It fits well with my classes themes of building up crazy contraptions, since every swing might up its Attack, damage a random enemy, add tokens to your hand, and more!
Don't get me wrong, I like link's class for sure, but I really can't justify it to myself that it has twice as many votes as Pircival's Archaeologist, which is my opinion very competitive with Lich in terms of design and flavour. I'm also surprised by some of the other front-runners coming up this phase. I suppose the lessons to draw from this are:
• I'm completely out of touch • The Hearthpwn community is completely out of touch and has no idea what's good and what's not (RIP krowski and McF4rtson) • Making a class with an idolized HS/WoW character might well be the deciding factor in these competitions
@ linkblade: obviously you could see how the poll was turning out before it ended, but I'll take you at your word lol.
As for the weapon, you might as well make it a 0/3. That's an aura effect. On a legendary weapon. Why does it have attack? I'd go for a triggered effect, but I wouldn't go this route.
Don't get me wrong, I like link's class for sure, but I really can't justify it to myself that it has twice as many votes as Pircival's Archaeologist, which is my opinion very competitive with Lich in terms of design and flavour. I'm also surprised by some of the other front-runners coming up this phase. I suppose the lessons to draw from this are:
• I'm completely out of touch • The Hearthpwn community is completely out of touch and has no idea what's good and what's not (RIP krowski and McF4rtson) • Making a class with an idolized HS/WoW character might well be the deciding factor in these competitions
@ linkblade: obviously you could see how the poll was turning out before it ended, but I'll take you at your word lol.
As for the weapon, you might as well make it a 0/3. That's an aura effect. On a legendary weapon. Why does it have attack? I'd go for a triggered effect, but I wouldn't go this route.
A. I'm sorry you feel that way: it is not and never was my intention to ride the coattails of an established character to victory. If enough people feel slighted by this potential unfairness, I'll drop out. I don't want to do well based on nostalgia; I want to win because people genuinely like my class. I had an idea for the gameplay, and I connected it to a character I thought made thematic sense. I don't like making up a random character for a game like this; Blizzard would not have done it, so I did not either.
B. After I created the thread/poll, I stopped looking at it. My pessimism is more deeply-rooted than that.
C. The weapon has an Attack value so you can bail out of the aura effect if things go south. Otherwise you would be locked in forever even if you're losing, which could be tantamount to assisted-suicide.
Behold, foolish interlopers! I am commanding this mortal to spread the will of the Scourge throughout the interwebs, encouraging you to seek out me, Archlich Kel'Thuzad! Now coming to you as the tenth class of Hearthstone!
I am a finalist in this Class Creation Competition, so if you could give it a look I would be greatly appreciative <3
Congrats to everyone who made it to the next round!
@linkblade91 I like it. It promotes a specific kind of aggressive token deck that wants to be sacrificed. It feels powerful but not OP.
I also am lacking cards for the next 2 expansions. Just some broad strokes of themes for the Tinker to explore. But I do have my weapon, if not the art. Most Tinker weapon’s have “whenever your hero attacks”, so this weapon is all of them at once. It fits well with my classes themes of building up crazy contraptions, since every swing might up its Attack, damage a random enemy, add tokens to your hand, and more!
Oh drat, I had basically already planned that for my class, being that it's primary focus for KnC would be weapons. The purposes are different I suppose, because this mostly works with end of turn Decay triggers.
Don't get me wrong, I like link's class for sure, but I really can't justify it to myself that it has twice as many votes as Pircival's Archaeologist, which is my opinion very competitive with Lich in terms of design and flavour. I'm also surprised by some of the other front-runners coming up this phase. I suppose the lessons to draw from this are:
• I'm completely out of touch • The Hearthpwn community is completely out of touch and has no idea what's good and what's not (RIP krowski and McF4rtson) • Making a class with an idolized HS/WoW character might well be the deciding factor in these competitions
@ linkblade: obviously you could see how the poll was turning out before it ended, but I'll take you at your word lol.
As for the weapon, you might as well make it a 0/3. That's an aura effect. On a legendary weapon. Why does it have attack? I'd go for a triggered effect, but I wouldn't go this route.
A. I'm sorry you feel that way; it is not and never was my intention to ride the coattails of an established character to victory. If enough people feel slighted by this potential unfairness, I'll drop out. I don't want to do well based on nostalgia; I want to win because people genuinely like my class. I had an idea for the gameplay, and I connected it to a character I thought made thematic sense.
B. After I created the thread/poll, I stopped looking at it. My pessimism is more deeply-rooted than that.
C. The weapon has an Attack value so you can bail out of the aura effect if things go south. Otherwise you would be locked in forever even if you're losing, which could be tantamount to assisted-suicide.
Don't beat yourself up Link. I honestly think your card set is mile ahead of the rest of the competitors in the second poll. The rest of the competitors IMHO is just not really inspiring or broke new design space, as well as not clearly well thought-out for the third expansion compare to you.
Although one pleasant surprise is how many people voted for Bloodburner, I've always it was an underrated class in the first few rounds.
I had some time and had some design space I need opinions on for both of my expansions, represented by my four Legendaries:
Kobold and Catacomb set will be split into two: One will have an aggressive Secret synergy (represent by the Legendary weapon Dark Matter), inspired by the Trap Room encounter. The second will be Dragons cards / synergy that will also generate Dream cards (represented by Ysondre) represent the Astromancer defeating the Dragon of Nightmare.
Astromancer in Witchwood will similarly split into 2 parts: One is a token playstyle that will also utilize the swap health and attack mechanic of the Worgen cards (Swift Messenger) and Rush while the other half will be a control grinder playstyle where a lot of the cards will have Echo that Miriam will then shuffle back to your deck.
Also need opinion on which one should be the Upgraded Hero Power:
The second one is better against mid-range / control decks and the first one is better against Aggressive decks (especially hard counter Odd-Paladin)
Don't get me wrong, I like link's class for sure, but I really can't justify it to myself that it has twice as many votes as Pircival's Archaeologist, which is my opinion very competitive with Lich in terms of design and flavour. I'm also surprised by some of the other front-runners coming up this phase. I suppose the lessons to draw from this are:
• I'm completely out of touch • The Hearthpwn community is completely out of touch and has no idea what's good and what's not (RIP krowski and McF4rtson) • Making a class with an idolized HS/WoW character might well be the deciding factor in these competitions
@ linkblade: obviously you could see how the poll was turning out before it ended, but I'll take you at your word lol.
As for the weapon, you might as well make it a 0/3. That's an aura effect. On a legendary weapon. Why does it have attack? I'd go for a triggered effect, but I wouldn't go this route.
I think point #3 is important, but not the only one, since McF4rtson would've made it otherwise. As for points #1 and #2, they can be boiled down to "everyone has an opinion".
For instance, I'm not surprised the Lich was rated so high, since linkblade did a superb job at combining the flavor of his class in both expansions (not hard to do in KFT but incredibly well done in JUG). Then again, the Tinker was also excellent in this regard and he barely made it.
There are also some classes which, IMO, were excellent in previous sets, but had a lot of wasted potential in these expansions. And yet, they were rated highly.
Finally, I was very satisfied with my JUG set and... Well, I'm kaput now xD
As they say, opinions are like butts. Everyone has one and everyone thinks others' smell.
Wow that's...thanks so much everyone. I never expected to do so well here. @Shatterstar, thank you for thinking that way. I hope i can keep the momentum.
Link, i'm sorry to say this but i kinda agree having Kel'Thuzad boosted your class. Maybe not by a lot but some people definately voted you just for that. I don't want you to drop out because i do like your cards. Do you think you could change your hero to just a generic lich? That would solve the nostalgia bias and let you continue participating.
On that subject, for future big comps, i think it would be a good idea to ban popular characters from being base heroes. Guys like Ragnaros, Kael'thas and so on, just for everything to be fair.
I, for one, like Linkblade's class. It is interesting without being overly complicated. The only thing I don't like about it is the art. I think having KT as a hero may have helped but not that much.
On the other hand I'm sad Blood Mage didn't make it. Having two separate polls is an issue IMO. I really doubt the HUGE difference in total votes between the two polls can be explained by the classes from the second poll being objectively worse.
Apart from that, I was bored at work and I somehow almost finished my sets despite not even being certain to make it (and oh boy that was close). Cherry on the cake, they already complete the challenges. I will post everything later.
Link, i'm sorry to say this but i kinda agree having Kel'Thuzad boosted your class. Maybe not by a lot but some people definately voted you just for that. I don't want you to drop out because i do like your cards. Do you think you could change your hero to just a generic lich? That would solve the nostalgia bias and let you continue participating.
On that subject, for future big comps, i think it would be a good idea to ban popular characters from being base heroes. Guys like Ragnaros, Kael'thas and so on, just for everything to be fair.
I'm not changing the hero to a generic persona, for the same reason I personally think we should be encouraging the usage of established characters: I want to create a believable product. Blizzard created Hearthstone with the intent to be more-or-less faithful to Warcraft, and used prominent characters from the story as their class representatives. If we are pretending that Blizzard is the one behind our classes, we should be doing the same thing. Morgl the Oracle is an original character, but he's not the base Shaman hero; they would have been inundated with remarks like "who is this murloc wtf blizzard where's thrall". It doesn't make sense to me that 9/10 classes would use a "real" person from Warcraft, while the last one is made up.
If a ban needs to be established in the future, then...fine: I'll follow the rules and create an original character next time. But I don't agree with that philosophy at all, not if we're trying to be faithful to Hearthstone and Warcraft at large. I chose Kel'Thuzad so I could remain connected to Warcraft, just as I research and repurpose existing characters and items for my Legendary cards.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Behold, foolish interlopers! I am commanding this mortal to spread the will of the Scourge throughout the interwebs, encouraging you to seek out me, Archlich Kel'Thuzad! Now coming to you as the tenth class of Hearthstone!
I am a finalist in this Class Creation Competition, so if you could give it a look I would be greatly appreciative <3
Wailor brought up a good point: If it's just because of an established character, the Blood Mage would also have made it. Clearly people voted for the Lich because of the card quality. And we all know I've been one of the class's biggest critic since the very beginning.
Kobold and Catacomb set will be split into two: One will have an aggressive Secret synergy (represent by the Legendary weapon Dark Matter), inspired by the Trap Room encounter. The second will be Dragons cards / synergy that will also generate Dream cards (represented by Ysondre) represent the Astromancer defeating the Dragon of Nightmare. The Portal is permanent, meaning that any Nightmare you generate later will also be affected.
One card I am worry about is Dreamcaller. Is turn 2 too soon to have a Dream card in your hand? Should I bump it to 3-4 mana? Another one is Dragon of Nightmare. Is he too sticky for his effect? Should I drop the Divine Shield?
Astromancer in Witchwood will similarly split into 2 parts: One is a token playstyle that will also utilize the swap health and attack mechanic of the Worgen cards (Swift Messenger) and Rush while the other half will be a control grinder playstyle where a lot of the cards will have Echo that Miriam will then shuffle back to your deck.
Stargaze is created for Challenge #3. I had plans for it in later expansion, but circumstances forced me.
A. I'm sorry you feel that way: it is not and never was my intention to ride the coattails of an established character to victory. If enough people feel slighted by this potential unfairness, I'll drop out. I don't want to do well based on nostalgia; I want to win because people genuinely like my class. I had an idea for the gameplay, and I connected it to a character I thought made thematic sense. I don't like making up a random character for a game like this; Blizzard would not have done it, so I did not either.
B. After I created the thread/poll, I stopped looking at it. My pessimism is more deeply-rooted than that.
C. The weapon has an Attack value so you can bail out of the aura effect if things go south. Otherwise you would be locked in forever even if you're losing, which could be tantamount to assisted-suicide.
I don't mean to demand anything of you – you're only a competitor after all, as are we all. I feel like there's a slight influence given we've just gone through the Rise of Shadows reveal, and all the other villains have returned (except Nefarian and Rag). The 'atmosphere' in the community might have made people look at Lich more – but of course that's just speculation.
I agree that using a lore-based character is preferable, and that lends credibility to the class. However, there's something to be said for the fact that Kel'Thuzad is in actuality a collectible card (despite any disclaimers like "This class would be released before Naxx so it wouldn't count"). Essentially, there are no original heroes that are collectible cards, and you even have to try hard to find a new hero portrait that has a collectible behind it (Medivh was supposedly different from his Kharazhan version, Madam Lazul is as far as I know the only example – well, and now Khadgar). If I were to make a tinkerer class (which I sort of did but very poorly) and made the hero Tinkmaster Overspark instead of the obscure gnome I did use, I guarantee that there would be more interest in it.
So I don't fault you for any of that, really. I apologize, because I worded that pretty strongly, and it was quite combative. Secondarily I have issues with how far ahead your submission was ahead of everyone else in poll #2 (literally double!) – but that's not up to me, that's up to the voters.
Shatter's comment that yours was "miles ahead" doesn't really ring true to me, but that's just an opinion as well.
In the interest of changing the subject, I should mention that we are cool with people reusing their Lesser Spellstone art for all three iterations. We know that finding three pieces of similar art can be problematic; it won't look as good, obviously, but it will at least be workable.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Behold, foolish interlopers! I am commanding this mortal to spread the will of the Scourge throughout the interwebs, encouraging you to seek out me, Archlich Kel'Thuzad! Now coming to you as the tenth class of Hearthstone!
I am a finalist in this Class Creation Competition, so if you could give it a look I would be greatly appreciative <3
I don't care that I lost, I've lost most of my interest in card-making anyways. I'm running on fumes.
I have no opinion on anything about heroes used. One can say KT is in Hearthstone unlike Kael'thas, which panders more to the HS community, or one can say Kael'Thas is fresher, brings a familiar face into HS. It can go either way and frankly, I don't mind which way it swings.
That being said, some people should really make an effort to voice their opinions in a less... biting manner.
This is the Discussion Topic. The Submission Topic is here.
(Please Read the Submission Topic first.)
Hey guys, this is your bog-standard Discussion Topic for our "Trials and Errors" Class Creation competition Phase V; the place to let your ideas run free. Share what's on your mind for your class and help each other to make the best cards you can, as is tradition! In the post below, you will find the standard format for submissions.
Some people like having the requirements here too, so here they are in a spoiler.
PHASE V: Kobolds & Catacombs + The Witchwood
Congratulations on being a semi-finalist! With positively received Whispers of the Old Gods and One Night in Karazhan sets, you've proven that your class's concept and mechanics have room for expansion. Now, there's only one last thing to do: narrow down the best of the best. For this phase, you'll be giving your class Kobolds & Catacombs and The Witchwood cards. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase V Entry:
There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
We do not want to see your Class's entire KnC and WW Sets out in the open.
The remaining cards of your class's KnC and WW Sets must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
As before, include a link to each of the previous phases in at the end of your Submission.
The standard template which your submission must follow can be found here (or by navigating to the second post in the Discussion Topic, if that link doesn't work).
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!
You can find me here! Good luck everyone!
SUBMISSION TEMPLATE
THE EXPERIMENTER
Exactly the same as the previous template, you should include your Hero, Hero Power and any tokens here first. Note that you now have an upgraded Hero Power to show here as well, thanks to Baku the Mooneater! Look at me, so original.
This might also be where you want to detail your class's strengths and weaknesses. If you don't wish to do that, include that after the keyword section. Any format for that is fine - list, proper paragraph, whatever - but make sure it is out in the open, not behind a spoiler.
Optional Keyword Section
For those of you with keywords, describe them here. If you need to use some tokens to illustrate what's going on, please do so in a spoiler.
Example Cards
Same as before, simple format for showing your cards off. Below these cards you can give a little description of them, explain how they benefit your class etc etc. I think it'd look nice in a bullet point format, but you can do whatever you want so long as it isn't too lengthy.
Any tokens produced by these cards would go in a spoiler at the end of this section, with or without their own commentary.
Remaining Cards
Kobolds & Catacombs
The Witchwood
Ooh, mandatory spoiler now. This is much more flexible. You can simply throw the remaining ten cards in here with no commentary; you can give them a little blurb if you want; you can put all twenty cards in here if you find that easier (which is what I've done). Just make sure you only have twenty cards total! That'd be an unfortunate way to get disqualified.
Previous Phases
Include a link to your Phase I, Phase II, Phase III and Phase IV posts here.
You can find me here! Good luck everyone!
I have done very little for this Phase on the pessimistic assumption that I would not make it, so alas I cannot jump right out and stun CheeseEtc with my completion percentage like before. The one thing I wanted to post, however, was my Legendary weapon, because I'm wondering what people will think of such an archetype (based on what you've seen/know of my Lich class):
Archetype: Exploding Tokens, summoning a bunch of little skeletons or whatever before you equip this and shit hits the fan. Combined with the healing cards from my previous Mammoth expansions, the simultaneous damage isn't as much of a concern as long as your Health total is higher than theirs. I liken it to the Monster Hunt boss fight against Groddo the Bogwarden. Does that sound fun and/or reasonably balanced?
Behold, foolish interlopers! I am commanding this mortal to spread the will of the Scourge throughout the interwebs, encouraging you to seek out me, Archlich Kel'Thuzad! Now coming to you as the tenth class of Hearthstone!
I am a finalist in this Class Creation Competition, so if you could give it a look I would be greatly appreciative <3
Congrats to everyone who made it to the next round!
@linkblade91 I like it. It promotes a specific kind of aggressive token deck that wants to be sacrificed. It feels powerful but not OP.
I also am lacking cards for the next 2 expansions. Just some broad strokes of themes for the Tinker to explore. But I do have my weapon, if not the art. Most Tinker weapon’s have “whenever your hero attacks”, so this weapon is all of them at once. It fits well with my classes themes of building up crazy contraptions, since every swing might up its Attack, damage a random enemy, add tokens to your hand, and more!
Currently working on the Tinker! K&C and WW / JUG and KotFT / Classic / Basic / Introduction
My Previous Classes: Apothecary (unfinished) / Chronomancer / Death Knight (old)
My Previous Expansions: Hallow's End
I have to say I'm extremely surprised by poll #2.
Don't get me wrong, I like link's class for sure, but I really can't justify it to myself that it has twice as many votes as Pircival's Archaeologist, which is my opinion very competitive with Lich in terms of design and flavour. I'm also surprised by some of the other front-runners coming up this phase. I suppose the lessons to draw from this are:
• I'm completely out of touch
• The Hearthpwn community is completely out of touch and has no idea what's good and what's not (RIP krowski and McF4rtson)
• Making a class with an idolized HS/WoW character might well be the deciding factor in these competitions
@ linkblade: obviously you could see how the poll was turning out before it ended, but I'll take you at your word lol.
As for the weapon, you might as well make it a 0/3. That's an aura effect. On a legendary weapon. Why does it have attack? I'd go for a triggered effect, but I wouldn't go this route.
please consider voting for my custom class in the fan creations competition :]
• TRIALS IN AUCHINDOUN - A Custom Hearthstone Adventure (4th Wing!) • New and Interesting Hearthstone Mechanics (by me!) •
A. I'm sorry you feel that way: it is not and never was my intention to ride the coattails of an established character to victory. If enough people feel slighted by this potential unfairness, I'll drop out. I don't want to do well based on nostalgia; I want to win because people genuinely like my class. I had an idea for the gameplay, and I connected it to a character I thought made thematic sense. I don't like making up a random character for a game like this; Blizzard would not have done it, so I did not either.
B. After I created the thread/poll, I stopped looking at it. My pessimism is more deeply-rooted than that.
C. The weapon has an Attack value so you can bail out of the aura effect if things go south. Otherwise you would be locked in forever even if you're losing, which could be tantamount to assisted-suicide.
Behold, foolish interlopers! I am commanding this mortal to spread the will of the Scourge throughout the interwebs, encouraging you to seek out me, Archlich Kel'Thuzad! Now coming to you as the tenth class of Hearthstone!
I am a finalist in this Class Creation Competition, so if you could give it a look I would be greatly appreciative <3
Oh drat, I had basically already planned that for my class, being that it's primary focus for KnC would be weapons. The purposes are different I suppose, because this mostly works with end of turn Decay triggers.
Don't beat yourself up Link. I honestly think your card set is mile ahead of the rest of the competitors in the second poll. The rest of the competitors IMHO is just not really inspiring or broke new design space, as well as not clearly well thought-out for the third expansion compare to you.
Although one pleasant surprise is how many people voted for Bloodburner, I've always it was an underrated class in the first few rounds.
I had some time and had some design space I need opinions on for both of my expansions, represented by my four Legendaries:
Darkspawn, Nightmare
Kobold and Catacomb set will be split into two: One will have an aggressive Secret synergy (represent by the Legendary weapon Dark Matter), inspired by the Trap Room encounter. The second will be Dragons cards / synergy that will also generate Dream cards (represented by Ysondre) represent the Astromancer defeating the Dragon of Nightmare.
Astromancer in Witchwood will similarly split into 2 parts: One is a token playstyle that will also utilize the swap health and attack mechanic of the Worgen cards (Swift Messenger) and Rush while the other half will be a control grinder playstyle where a lot of the cards will have Echo that Miriam will then shuffle back to your deck.
Also need opinion on which one should be the Upgraded Hero Power:
The second one is better against mid-range / control decks and the first one is better against Aggressive decks (especially hard counter Odd-Paladin)
Click here to visit my Timestream Tracking Finalist Year of the Dragon in collaboration with Demonxz95
Class Creation Finalist: The Astromancer
Best cards vote by community:
Well, since I'm here, I might as well show off my sets so far:
KnC
(upgrades: last two cards, last three cards)
Witchwood
The full set can be found here. Some images, unfortunately, didn't display.
Oh, dang, I didn't make it :( Retrospectively, I think my showcased cards were pretty dull :X
Congrats to everyone who passed!
I think point #3 is important, but not the only one, since McF4rtson would've made it otherwise. As for points #1 and #2, they can be boiled down to "everyone has an opinion".
For instance, I'm not surprised the Lich was rated so high, since linkblade did a superb job at combining the flavor of his class in both expansions (not hard to do in KFT but incredibly well done in JUG). Then again, the Tinker was also excellent in this regard and he barely made it.
There are also some classes which, IMO, were excellent in previous sets, but had a lot of wasted potential in these expansions. And yet, they were rated highly.
Finally, I was very satisfied with my JUG set and... Well, I'm kaput now xD
As they say, opinions are like butts. Everyone has one and everyone thinks others' smell.
Wow that's...thanks so much everyone. I never expected to do so well here. @Shatterstar, thank you for thinking that way. I hope i can keep the momentum.
Link, i'm sorry to say this but i kinda agree having Kel'Thuzad boosted your class. Maybe not by a lot but some people definately voted you just for that. I don't want you to drop out because i do like your cards. Do you think you could change your hero to just a generic lich? That would solve the nostalgia bias and let you continue participating.
On that subject, for future big comps, i think it would be a good idea to ban popular characters from being base heroes. Guys like Ragnaros, Kael'thas and so on, just for everything to be fair.
I, for one, like Linkblade's class. It is interesting without being overly complicated. The only thing I don't like about it is the art. I think having KT as a hero may have helped but not that much.
On the other hand I'm sad Blood Mage didn't make it. Having two separate polls is an issue IMO. I really doubt the HUGE difference in total votes between the two polls can be explained by the classes from the second poll being objectively worse.
Apart from that, I was bored at work and I somehow almost finished my sets despite not even being certain to make it (and oh boy that was close). Cherry on the cake, they already complete the challenges. I will post everything later.
Custom cards :
CLASSES : Alchemist (CCC#5 | Phase V) | Chef (CCC#4)
EXPANSIONS : Year of the Scorpion (Year Comp)
I'm not changing the hero to a generic persona, for the same reason I personally think we should be encouraging the usage of established characters: I want to create a believable product. Blizzard created Hearthstone with the intent to be more-or-less faithful to Warcraft, and used prominent characters from the story as their class representatives. If we are pretending that Blizzard is the one behind our classes, we should be doing the same thing. Morgl the Oracle is an original character, but he's not the base Shaman hero; they would have been inundated with remarks like "who is this murloc wtf blizzard where's thrall". It doesn't make sense to me that 9/10 classes would use a "real" person from Warcraft, while the last one is made up.
If a ban needs to be established in the future, then...fine: I'll follow the rules and create an original character next time. But I don't agree with that philosophy at all, not if we're trying to be faithful to Hearthstone and Warcraft at large. I chose Kel'Thuzad so I could remain connected to Warcraft, just as I research and repurpose existing characters and items for my Legendary cards.
Behold, foolish interlopers! I am commanding this mortal to spread the will of the Scourge throughout the interwebs, encouraging you to seek out me, Archlich Kel'Thuzad! Now coming to you as the tenth class of Hearthstone!
I am a finalist in this Class Creation Competition, so if you could give it a look I would be greatly appreciative <3
Wailor brought up a good point: If it's just because of an established character, the Blood Mage would also have made it. Clearly people voted for the Lich because of the card quality. And we all know I've been one of the class's biggest critic since the very beginning.
I somehow ended up made a lot of progress:
Darkspawn, Nightmare
Kobold and Catacomb set will be split into two: One will have an aggressive Secret synergy (represent by the Legendary weapon Dark Matter), inspired by the Trap Room encounter. The second will be Dragons cards / synergy that will also generate Dream cards (represented by Ysondre) represent the Astromancer defeating the Dragon of Nightmare. The Portal is permanent, meaning that any Nightmare you generate later will also be affected.
One card I am worry about is Dreamcaller. Is turn 2 too soon to have a Dream card in your hand? Should I bump it to 3-4 mana? Another one is Dragon of Nightmare. Is he too sticky for his effect? Should I drop the Divine Shield?
Astromancer in Witchwood will similarly split into 2 parts: One is a token playstyle that will also utilize the swap health and attack mechanic of the Worgen cards (Swift Messenger) and Rush while the other half will be a control grinder playstyle where a lot of the cards will have Echo that Miriam will then shuffle back to your deck.
Stargaze is created for Challenge #3. I had plans for it in later expansion, but circumstances forced me.
Upgraded Hero Power:
Click here to visit my Timestream Tracking Finalist Year of the Dragon in collaboration with Demonxz95
Class Creation Finalist: The Astromancer
Best cards vote by community:
You should really put your cards behind spoilers. It's cluttering the page.
Custom cards :
CLASSES : Alchemist (CCC#5 | Phase V) | Chef (CCC#4)
EXPANSIONS : Year of the Scorpion (Year Comp)
I don't mean to demand anything of you – you're only a competitor after all, as are we all. I feel like there's a slight influence given we've just gone through the Rise of Shadows reveal, and all the other villains have returned (except Nefarian and Rag). The 'atmosphere' in the community might have made people look at Lich more – but of course that's just speculation.
I agree that using a lore-based character is preferable, and that lends credibility to the class. However, there's something to be said for the fact that Kel'Thuzad is in actuality a collectible card (despite any disclaimers like "This class would be released before Naxx so it wouldn't count"). Essentially, there are no original heroes that are collectible cards, and you even have to try hard to find a new hero portrait that has a collectible behind it (Medivh was supposedly different from his Kharazhan version, Madam Lazul is as far as I know the only example – well, and now Khadgar). If I were to make a tinkerer class (which I sort of did but very poorly) and made the hero Tinkmaster Overspark instead of the obscure gnome I did use, I guarantee that there would be more interest in it.
So I don't fault you for any of that, really. I apologize, because I worded that pretty strongly, and it was quite combative. Secondarily I have issues with how far ahead your submission was ahead of everyone else in poll #2 (literally double!) – but that's not up to me, that's up to the voters.
Shatter's comment that yours was "miles ahead" doesn't really ring true to me, but that's just an opinion as well.
please consider voting for my custom class in the fan creations competition :]
• TRIALS IN AUCHINDOUN - A Custom Hearthstone Adventure (4th Wing!) • New and Interesting Hearthstone Mechanics (by me!) •
In the interest of changing the subject, I should mention that we are cool with people reusing their Lesser Spellstone art for all three iterations. We know that finding three pieces of similar art can be problematic; it won't look as good, obviously, but it will at least be workable.
Behold, foolish interlopers! I am commanding this mortal to spread the will of the Scourge throughout the interwebs, encouraging you to seek out me, Archlich Kel'Thuzad! Now coming to you as the tenth class of Hearthstone!
I am a finalist in this Class Creation Competition, so if you could give it a look I would be greatly appreciative <3
I'd like to know if this applies to me.
I always try to be nice and all, but it's very easy to sound like a jerk on the Internet.