The Custom Class Competition is back for its sixth iteration! We welcome any newcomers as well as old hands who've run through this grueling gauntlet of card creation before.
The good news is, said gauntlet is much smaller this time around. With the release of Demon Hunter, Blizzard has shown us how they release a custom class midway in the game's lifespan. Therefore, we will simulate this as close as possible. Take the time to read the rules or procedures below.
This is the Discussion Thread! Ask for feedback, return the favour, ask questions, etc. here.
All contestants will create one custom class, following the layout of Demon Hunter.
There will be a total of 45 cards, down from 65+ cards from previous competitions.
All contestants will select a past expansion to simulate their class releasing, like how Demon Hunter was released during Ashes of Outland.
The contest will run for 4 weeks.
Week One: 10 Basic cards.
Week Two: 10 "Initiate" cards.
Week Three: The other 10 "Initiate" cards.
Week Four: 15 expansion cards.
"Initiate" means the supplemental 20 cards Blizzard printed for Demon Hunter. Yours do not have to be named Initiate set.
Five contestants will be cut, the decision being made through votes and a weighted score.
Challenge
Something interesting the Initiate set does is that it brought back the spellstone mechanic on a minion. Therefore:
At least one card (minion, spell, or weapon) must bring back an older mechanic, but not an expansion-exclusive keyword (such as Adapt or Twinspell), that was created before your class's release expansion.
What this means is, at this point in time, you will now have to lock in at which expansion your class will enter the game of Hearthstone.
For example, let's say you did a Boomsday Project expansion. You could do a jousting card, or maybe an empty hand card, or maybe a 10-mana card. But you can't do a Stealth for 1 turn card, as that came in a later expansion.
Submission Format
You must adhere to the following rules or risk disqualification:
Unless otherwise stated, you are allowed three cards to showcase. All other cards must be hidden in a spoiler.
You may include flavour texts. For the showcase cards, their texts do not need to be spoilered.
You may include a single banner at the top of your submission post. It may not be overly fancy. This is entirely subjective and the moderators have the right to remove a banner they feel is too fancy and, therefore, gives an inherent advantage over other posts.
Golden cards are not allowed, nor are huge images that feature your cards with a background.
If you choose to include other images other than a banner, they must be hidden behind a spoiler.
F.A.Q.
How is the Initiate set split in half?
There are 8 commons, 6 rares, 4 epics, and 2 legionaries. That makes splitting the Initiate set in half rather easy.
For Week Two, contestants will create 4 commons, 3 rares, 2 epics, and 1 legendary.
What expansions can I choose from?
You may select from any expansion except Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. This is due to the nature of tri-class cards.
Uh oh spaghettios, class cycles.
As I briefly touched upon in a reply in the preliminary thread, when the fourth week rolls around and you have to choose an expansion to slot your class into, you must have at least one all-class cycle.All-class, in this context, means both a cycle shared between all 9 classes, and a cycle that the League of EVIL classes or Explorers classes share.
While, at first, it seems to make sense that your custom class should adhere to all all-class cycles in a given expansion, Demon Hunter did not have a Prime legendary. However, it is recommended that you include all all-class cycles in your custom class. Some all-class cycles hinge on other cycles within the expansion. Use common sense when choosing which cycles to use and to not use. (ex. You do not have a Loa, but instead choose to have a Loa shrine)
To clarify, here are the all-class cycles you may choose from:
GvG: A class mech.
TGT: There is no theme shared between all classes.
WOTOG: There is no theme shared between all classes.
RR: Legendary Loa, thematically supporting legendary minion, Loa Spirit card with a 0/3 statline
RoS: EITHER One Lackey generation card + One Scheme spell OR Two Twinspells
Furthermore, each of the EVIL members have a "callback" to the expansions they were first introduced in. However, you do not need to do this as your custom class is being introduced and has nothing to callback.
SoU: EITHER A Plague spell OR A singleton legendary, a Quest that changes your Hero Power as a reward.
DoD: EITHER Galakrond + a Galakrond support card OR a Dragon Explorer minion + Two Sidequests, a Legendary Dragon.
AoO: There is no theme shared between all classes.
9/10 classes have a Prime legendary, 9/10 classes have a Dormant minion.
What about card cycles not shared between all nine classes, like Omega cards, or Aspirant cards?
You may pick and choose from those.
What about Hero Cards like Hagatha, Dr. Boom?
After much thought, I have decided to, for now, disallow Hero Cards in your expansion set unless it is a Galakrond hero. While I am aware Warlock came with Jaraxxus in their Classic set, I feel as though a new class receiving a massive power spike in the form of a Hero Card while other classes did not in that expansion will create an even worse problem DH did upon arrival.
Can I rename the "Initiate" set to whatever I want?
Yes.
What watermarks do I use?
For the "Initiate" set, you can use whatever watermark you think makes the most sense.
Do I have to follow the rarity distribution of the Demon Hunter Initiate set?
Yes.
You may not introduce a Legendary spell or Hero in the Initiate set as there are none in the current Demon Hunter example we've been given.
Do I need to adhere to Warcraft lore?
The short answer: no.
The long answer: Try your best to do so. Even if your Hero is not a character found in Warcraft, you can still achieve a general feel of Warcraftiness by using in-game place names and references. Put in the work and use some elbow grease. Do your research on WoWwiki.
Do I need class-exclusive keyword?
No.
Competition Process
Week Two: June 18th - June 25th. There will then be a pause between the 25th and the commencement of Week Three, in order to set up a final voting period for Week Two.
Okay let's beggin ! I'm planning on tying my class to Journey to Un'goro (which is still absent form the list of expansions in the FAQ...) an since MSoG won't be a part of the competition, I decided to give it some love with a hand buff card. I'm also introducing a new keyword ! I made 10 cards with that keyword, trying to explore it as much as possible. I might split them across the 2 parts of what I decided to call the Pioneer Set or group them all in the same submission.
The Primalist:
So my new keyword : Channel ! I designed it to explore tribal synergies and emulate the flavor of family in my class.
So it might not be exactly clear what I mean. Let me elaborate. Cards with Channel have a targetted effect when you play them. If you target a minion with a tribe (Beast, Murloc, Elemental, etc), then the effect will target all minions with the same tribe. The targets must be in the same zone of the game so if the first target is a minion on the board, it will only target other minions on the board and if the first target is a card in your deck it will only target other cards in you deck. Spells and weapons don't have tribes and so do many minions so they would be the only target. Heroes mostly don't have a tribe either but Lord Jaraxxus is an interesting precedent... Let me show you the cards :
As you can see, I couldn't decide between using it alone or with a colon. The thing is, I don't want minion's attacks to be affected by the keyword which the colon helps disambiguate but I find it a bit more elegant without it... What do you like best ?
I tried to explore as many effects as I could think of and I quite like how it turned out. I'm a bit worried that the class might not have a clear identity but tribal synergies are such core to the whole that it might be alright.
Also here are other cards for the Pioneer set, I'm still deciding which should go into this week's submission. These ones aren't as polished as I tried to focus on the keyword but I'll try to come up with more designs to round up the set.
Good luck to everyone this round! Interesting challenge, although I have to be honest that I needed to double check the Initiate set to see which minion had the Spellstone mechanic (poor overshadowed Nethrandamus).
The Engineer's introductory set will be The Journeyman Set as it's the second level of Engineering recipes in WoW (was initially going to call this The Apprentice set but....yeah).
The class's unique keyword is Surge:
Surge represents the Engineer harnessing the normally wasted energy from overpowering foes and putting it to good use. Hopefully that's clear/immediately grokkable; If you see or think of any unclear interactions let me know. Original thought was to have it randomly split among all enemies (including the enemy hero), but that ended up limiting my design space since excessive excess could be immediately game ending.
I'm envisioning this having come out during The Boomsday Project (really my only science-y options were TBT or Goblins v. Gnomes haha)
The Journeyman cards I have so far:
Goblin Tinkerer was my homage to the tri-class Discover cards of MSoG, I've always had a soft spot for ways to shake up the Discover presentation.
I have creator commentary/discussion to go along with these but I kind of want to get immediate reactions first without tipping the feedback.
Submission wise, I think I'll split them up into Surge and Spell Damage buckets, with the first week being the more Surge and "attack random enemy" focused cards (ending with Octavian Gearlegs) and the second week being Bilgewhizzle's time to shine. Figure Surge should go first since it's the newest/flashiest.
I have a small question before I start making the cards, just to avoid isuues like the last time. Can I include secrets and Stealth cards in my initiate set?
I have a small question before I start making the cards, just to avoid isuues like the last time. Can I include secrets and Stealth cards in my initiate set?
Yes, the 'Initiate' is like the Classic set so everything (barring set specific keywords) is on the table. And based on DH's Initiate set Discover and Rush are core (as opposed to set specific) mechanics, so even though its not present in the original 9 classes Classic cards we can include it here.
Okay let's beggin ! I'm planning on tying my class to Journey to Un'goro (which is still absent form the list of expansions in the FAQ...) an since MSoG won't be a part of the competition, I decided to give it some love with a hand buff card. I'm also introducing a new keyword ! I made 10 cards with that keyword, trying to explore it as much as possible. I might split them across the 2 parts of what I decided to call the Pioneer Set or group them all in the same submission.
The Primalist:
So my new keyword : Channel ! I designed it to explore tribal synergies and emulate the flavor of family in my class.
So it might not be exactly clear what I mean. Let me elaborate. Cards with Channel have a targetted effect when you play them. If you target a minion with a tribe (Beast, Murloc, Elemental, etc), then the effect will target all minions with the same tribe. The targets must be in the same zone of the game so if the first target is a minion on the board, it will only target other minions on the board and if the first target is a card in your deck it will only target other cards in you deck. Spells and weapons don't have tribes and so do many minions so they would be the only target. Heroes mostly don't have a tribe either but Lord Jaraxxus is an interesting precedent... Let me show you the cards :
As you can see, I couldn't decide between using it alone or with a colon. The thing is, I don't want minion's attacks to be affected by the keyword which the colon helps disambiguate but I find it a bit more elegant without it... What do you like best ?
I tried to explore as many effects as I could think of and I quite like how it turned out. I'm a bit worried that the class might not have a clear identity but tribal synergies are such core to the whole that it might be alright.
Hmm, this is tricky. On the one hand, I intuitively get the intention of the keyword, but in practice the actual mechanics can be headscratching, as your uncertainty about whether to include the colon indicates. The only thing I'm really sure of is that I think you should take 'target' out of the tooltip description, because if you're including random effects ("give a random minion in hand +1/+1", "attack a random enemy") then those by definition aren't targeted.
Might need to ask others more rules literate than me if this hotfix makes sense, but I would suggest making it a more reactive/follow through keyword. So for Dining Dino, instead of "Channel: Deal 2 damage" (which makes it unclear if the normal attacks also hit all minions of the same tribe) it would be "Battlecry: Deal 2 damage, then Channel," with Channel being described as something like "If this affected a minion with a tribe, it also affects all other minions of that tribe."
Question: Do we have to do anything expansion related yet? From my understanding that only comes to play in the last stage of the comp. In my case for Rastakhan's Rumble, i don't have to make a Loat/Spirit until Week 4, right?
Hey guys! Before going on with the set, I'd like to know if you guys think this keyword is understandable enough.
Here's a couple of test cards with the keyword:
Can you easily understand what they do? I understand them just fine but maybe I'm biased since I made them. Thanks for the help!
I really like the idea, and the word "Bloom" fits the effecy perfectly. I just hope you don't overuse it, because usually it's really though to keep a speciffic number of cards in hand.
Just to make some of the answers given by your fellow contestants official:
Yes, class-specific keyword is optional.
Yes, you may use any non-expansion locked keyword in your "Initiate" set.
Furthermore:
I will put this in the Submission Topic, but you *must* declare which expansion your class will be entering the game in, as well as what the old mechanic you brought back is.
I did say you could use any watermark you wish, but I recommend against using the Classic watermark. If you've already done so, that is fine, but this is my recommendation.
Hey ! I reworked my tooltip a bit to make it more clear :
The simplest way of explaining it is this cards : Waste Warden. I think I'll use the colon just like with Choose One to show that it's a one-time effect and the minion's attacks aren't affected. The thing is, since this keyword needs to be related to a effect with a target (even if it's choosen randomly) I would have to give all minions with it an additional effect (probably a Battlecry) and that can quickly make cards wordy. Also I realize that I use the word "Tribe" quite a lot instead of "Minion type" which seems to be the convention (although their are only 2 cards with that wording) I hope nobody minds.
@Sideltem
Surge is a very interesting keyword and your cards with it are cool. I really like Brainstorm ! Octavian Gearlegs seems very powerful, I think Rush would be a better choice over Charge, especially since your class already has a lot of burst damage. Dual Sheller is a problem since it's a (way) better Arcanite Reaper, which is already a powerful weapon. I think you should either tune the attack down to 4 or bump the cost up to 6.
The Spell Damage stuff is kinda worring. You give out a lot of cheap Spell Damage in a class with many burst options and with a Hero Power that generates damaging spells. That sounds like a recipe for broken combos. With nothing on board, you can already play 2x Tech Tuner andChief Bigewhizzle to get to Spell Damage +4 for 5 Mana. Then, you can play Rapid Volley for a targeted 11 damage and still have 2 mana left to play Vents (6 randomly split damage each) for a total of 23 damage form hand. With proper set up, you could even play 5 Vents for total of 30 damage randomly split. Now let's keep in mind that any Spell Damage already present on your side (Arcane Carbin for instance and the 4 damage of the weapon) would be 2 more damage for each (so up to 10) and the fact that Nether Grenade let's you eliminate any big minion that would mess up your randomly split damage. I hope you see where this madness is going.
To resolve these problems, I think you need to dramatically increase the cost of Chief Bilgewhizzle to at the very least 5 mana (He can so easily be a 3 mana Malygos...) and overall make Spell Damage cost a lot more. I haven't mentioned Fun with Portals yet but it also seems incredibly cheap and powerful in a class with this much Spell Damage and it would make such combos very easy to pull off. 3 Mana seems like a minimum. And please, never ever give this class cost reduction or any kind of Mana cheating.
Attacking a random enemy is cool and fits the class. It might be a bit too good with Phlogiston Ranger in play...
Target lock is great but I think it would make more sense if you reversed the Mana cost. "6 mana : Deal 1( damage to a minion. Cost (5) less if the target was damaged this turn." Seems like a different take on Execute but I wonder how it interacts with Divine Shield.
@Noah_McGrath
Fresh Blood is a flexible keyword that works well with youy class' Hero Power. I think you should try to use it more, maybe on spells as well as minions. It also ties well into the HP synergy cards.
You said you would drop this in Rastakan's Rumble but with the Dragon synegies, Blackrock Mountain or Descent of Dragons seem more fitting to me. Speaking of, shouldn't Firemind be a dragon ? Also Vulcanos is cool but seems like a weaker Zzeraku the Warped. Maybe you could have him add a hih cost dragon to your hand or reduce the dragon's cost.
I'm not sure to understand Blood Rage correctly... Can the minion still attack the enemy hero ? It also seems like a 5 Mana complete board clear in many cases. Maybe use Hulking Overfiend's wording to make it more clear. I'm also on the fence with Flame Sweep as it can easily whip the board and leave your opponent at a low Health total since your class has so much self damage. Specificaly, one could play Flame Barrier then Flame Sweep then Kolarra Healer for a huge swing turn.
@Anatomy_of_Time
Bloom is cool although I think with the amount of hand size manipulation baked into your class, you could get away with only having specific hand sizes. The (8+) is fine but not very elegant imo and Hearthstone keywords rarely use numbers. That being said, @McF4rtson had great succes with a similar keyword for the Sea Witch class in a previous competition so I recommend you check that out if you haven't already.
The cards themselves are intersting tho Riverbound Axe seems odd without any weapon hand buff to go with it.
Here's a first round of feedback. I'd like to hear more on Channel and the cards with the key word, as I really need that to work if I don't want to start off basicaly from scratch.
Ninja releases in Rise of Shadows. Haven't decided on an old mechanic yet.
So from these few cards, I'm trying to set up various playstyles for Ninja. Tempo (with copying cards support), bursts of play with very cheap cards + value generation, and then a combo-based win condition.
I would like to ask: is it too difficult to keep track of how many times Nyn'jah has been played?
Your keyword is cool and you class does offer the tools to make it work but I'm not sure of the way the numbers work. Does Reprise (2) trigger on the second or the third time you play the card ? Can Reprise (1) exist ? Maybe you could stream line it as "A bonus effect if you've already played this card".
For Nyn'jah, I'm not a fan of using the same keyword multiple times on a card. It's a bit confusing... First, I'd give it Rush as the base Keyword so it can be reactive even the fist time. Then, I think you can either group the additional keywords in one Reprise effect or add a count of how many times it was played kinda like Jan'alai.
I like your Kunai generation, I think you could have a fun discard mechanic that deals more damage with each Kunai. Equalizing Palm Arts is great with your Hero Power. Be Water should have a cost, probably 0 or 1 ? It's also not clear if it transforms only once at the start of your turn or if it changes throughout the turn. Fluttering Breeze is a cool combo enabler and I'd move to see it animated in the game !
Greetings. I will be presenting you with the Apprentice set for the Witch class.
The Witch class will be using the Saviors of Uldum expansion. The first 10 cards of the Apprentice set I will be revealing today focus on more familiar synergy with some more control cards. The deck variants I am looking to push forward at the end of the 20 Apprentice cards is a Deathrattle/Familiar and Control Witch.
Keyword
This keyword can make for some interesting plays and synergies with certain cards.
My biggest concern is how Channel affects *all* characters. What if you have the same minion types are your opponent? Is this interaction intended?
Pationate > Passionate
Dining Dino: Not a concern, but it shows how bad Waste Warden is.
Goldscaled Direhorn doesn't need the "Attack a random enemy". It's stats do not really support that. It'd have to be Attack-heavy rather than Health-heavy.
As for replying to your feedback for me, Be Water does not need a mana cost. Shifting Scroll. Reprise (2): Means having played it 2 or more times. I'll consider what you said about having it just being played at least once, and not having a number at all. Honestly might end up doing that, it'd make my class much more simpler.
I don't see your old mechanic, or have you not decided on it yet?
I don't really see any issues that jump out at me. Vulcanos is a bit on the weak side, compared to Zzeraku. I'd also say Second Flame is a little on the weak side since you don't really gain much from refreshing your Hero Power. It ends up being 6 mana, deal 4 damage, take 4 damage, draw a card.
You do not have to do anything expansion related. All you need to do is declare which one you want and the old mechanic you've used, which you've already done.
Eliana seems a little weak, honestly. Cards like these tend to be cheap. However, the design you use basically forces this card to *not* be cheap, so you're in a bit of a dilemma with her here.
If I am to be honest and blunt, I don't really like how you use Bloom 0 to take the place of an old mechanic. It kind of goes against the intent of the challenge. While it does fulfill the requirement, this is my view.
In response to your feedback, I don't really know what you mean by:
...if you are going to make a bunch of Reprise keywords, make it so that you can't activate them all. I think the best way to make the keyword fun is to have the player actually have to choose which Reprise effect he'll activate based on the situation. If you can activate every Reprise effect in your deck, you might as well call it Battlecry.
Ok, thanks again for all the feedback guys! Glad that Surge seems to be a success. Big immediate changes are as follows:
Originally designed Octavian as this class's Grommash Hellscream, but Rush does just make more sense. Steamwheedle was just me being dumb and not crosschecking names, won't be my first time making that mistake I'm guessing.
Chief Bilgewhizzle was me trying to make a simple but flashy Legendary effect, but I think it's too much to balance with the rest of the class. I toyed around with some other numbers to see if I could make it work, but I feel like it's too much hassle when it would warp available design space if done wrong.
Mechano-Lord Capacitus is my replacement. In lieu of a simple (but OP) effect, it's a quirky build around. The Wish is from the Dungeon Run treasures. It's obviously a hugely massive effect if you get it off, but the necessary game long buildup and fact that the opponent has a turn's notice to get ready is hopefully enough of a downside to make up for the payoff. I'd also think this would satisfy the 'past mechanic' challenge?
As for the feedback on other specific cards:
Dual Sheller - I acknowledge this is a strictly better Arcanite Reaper, but I'm operating under the assumption that non-Basic weapons can be strictly better than Basic weapons of the same cost. For instance, Fiery War Axe v. Eaglehorn Bow.
Target Lock - I admit the wording is janky, but I'm not sure if switching the costs (so it costs 6 but can get a reduction) would work. Specifically, if you only had 2 mana wouldn't the game not let you choose the spell and target a minion because you didn't have enough for the base Cost? With my wording it would allow you to choose it and target, but then would render invalid if you picked an undamaged target. Unlike something like Crush this mana reduction is target, not board state, specific. Note that if my understanding of the game code is off, and that you'd be able to select and target with a (6) cost spell on turn 2, I'll switch over to the cleaner wording.
Burly Beating - It is intended to be a finisher card, albeit one that you have to set up properly. Essentially, the card allows you to use your minions normal attacks as you wish, and then unleash another round of attacks. The ideal would be to clear out the enemy minions with spells, which allows you to effectively give your board of minions Windfury for the turn (they attack face once, then get forced to attack again with the spell). If there are minions it becomes more of a RNG where you use your initial attacks as you want and then hope the random attacks hit the right targets in the right sequence, but I actually like the feel of Mass Hysteria so mileage may vary.
Phlogiston Ranger - I might be missing something with the OP v. Midrange concern? Since the Immune boost only covers the attack the enemy is still able to use their turn to hit your minions.
Thanks again for the feedback. And now my comments:
@Noah_McGrath
Mostly agree with everyone else's comments, it's a well designed hero power and set of cards. Vulcanus can be powered up some (I like the previously mentioned idea to reduce the cost of the dragon added to your hand), and while I'm jealous I didn't think of Flame Sweep's text myself I'm also not sure how it'd play. It definitely feels very swingy, and I'm sure would lead to some fun streams.
So I'm clear, would this be functionally identical to how The Caverns Below triggers off cards with the same name (so the second copy of Overt Operative you play in a game has its Reprise triggered), or is the intention that Reprise cares about each specific card (so that you have to bounce or otherwise replay each of your Overt Operatives to give them Charge)? Based on Be Water I'm guessing it's the former, but just wanted to make sure. Fluttering Breeze is fun already (mostly for reminding me of fun Slay the Spire deck builds). I'm a little hesitant about always on Immune (a while back I made a thread feeling out what would happen with permanently Immune minions and the responses made me realize it could get crazy) but finding the legendary and playing it four times might be enough of a hurdle to justify it.
@Anatomy_of_Time
Once again, really glad we went down such divergent paths even with similar hero powers haha! Of these I really like Ancient Sporecrown, and especially liked that you cracked the 'one off Spell Damage +2' effect with Untapped Energy. My personal hangup is that I don't tend to like effects that require an empty hand, but the ones you have here seem balanced and Incoming Drought at least lets you plan ahead. For Eliana I'd say go with the (5) cost 3/5 version. I get the hesitance with the increased burst potential, but it also requires a lot of turns of set up and works against the lower Bloom effects.
@SoupCake
Is the intention of Blood Pact that it will only trigger once, or that it gives the minion a sort of "every time this takes damage" effect? I assume the latter, but the wording of the tooltip makes it seem like a two step/one off process (cast spell on minion, it takes damage and triggers, Blood Pact gone). If it is the latter, why is it a spell only effect and not a minion keyword? That is, why is it something you always have to spend a card to give to a minion, rather than potentially something a minion can have automatically.
Plague Lord Sik is great, an awesome and flavorful Legendary. Some of the cards feel a bit OP though. Witchslayer needs to have that direct damage number dialed down or maybe made minion only, but as is it would be on par with something like Ragnaros! Bleed is less glaring, but you've effectively made a straightforward "Deal 4 damage to a minion for (2)" when that vanilla effect costs (3). Bad Omen is a great effect, but also one of those things where you have to balance between doubling up on a game breaking Deathrattle or whiffing.
Sorry if the feedback wasn't too clear. What I meant to say is that I think it would be more fun if you had to choose which Reprise effects to activate. So, being careful with how many bounce / copy effects you print - If you make a deck with, let's say, 12 Reprise effects (higher than Reprise 2), you shouldn't have enough bounce / copy effects to activate every single one of them. By having the player decide which Reprise minion he should copy / bounce instead of being able to just activate every single Reprise effect you give him more agency and make his choices more meaningful. I hope this time I was clear enough, tell me if I didn't explain myself well enough. (I'm not a native english speaker)
Oh, ok, I see. The original intent was actually to have almost all of them at Reprise 2. In fact, with Klipce weighing in, I may just have Reprise simply be "If you've played this card before, do something", so they are all only need to be played once before. Copying is therefore a bonus.
Thanks for your suggestions. Just to clarify, Blood Pact can trigger more than once. I should have made that clear. I'll have Blood Pact on minions in the next 10, I wanted to do it on spells for now.
Changes:
I'd like to hear feedback about this change. I realize now that the wording is a bit hard to read on the first card so I changed up the design to make it trigger Blood Pact for some more combos.
No idea what I was thinking when making it deal 8 damage. I tuned down the power a bit to make it less powerful.
Thanks a lot @Anatomy_of_Time and @McF4rtson for your feedback. I agree that Channel effects are more fun when they target your stuff so I'm cutting Dining Dino, Goldscaled Direhorn and Exterminate as well as changing the effect of Channel to only target friendly characters. I'm planning on a Lord Jaraxxus type legendary for my expansion hence the word "character". Transfiguration is meant to encourage cross-tribe synergies and I'll add a few cards with the same idea because I don't want Primalist decks to all be focused on just one tribe.
Here are the cards I changed or made :
Transfiguration might be a bit too powerful, I'm not sure. Changing the tribe is meant as a downside but also an opportunity for new synergies to arise. Windblown Apexis can reliably be a 5/5 tho with support you might be able to go beyond that. It's intended to be good because I want to encourage decks with multiple tribes and keep in mind that Winfury minions like Windfury Harpy tend to be mediocre. Zandalari Explosion will first summon a minion from your hand (and all other minions with the same tribe) and then on from your deck (and all other minions with the same tribe, which might be different) up to 7 minions on the board. This way you can reliably fill the board like Anyfin Can Happen but you need to think about your setup. I want it to feel like a poweful effect but I don't want Dragon synergies to be too good in Primalist decks. Summoning 7 dragons from you hand or deck might be very powerful but spending 10 mana on stats is always risky so hopefully that's balanced.
Rest of Part 1 of the Pioneer Set :
Passionate Saurok is my homage to Don Han'Cho and MSoG's hand buff mechanic. I also made Primordial Scalepriest to resemble Menagerie Magician and ONiK's menagerie theme. They aren't exactly the same in terms of wording but I feel like it's close enough. Still, I can go back and change a card if it's necessary.
Savage Lightning is a bit wierd so I'd like to elaborate. At face value, it's a cheap transformation spell that can either be cast on an enemy minion to negate it's effect and trade it or on a friendly minion for removal. With Channel added to the mix, you can turn you whole board into Raptor or, if you choose the right target, transform an enemy minion AND make a bunch of Raptors to trade into the rest of your opponent's board. The Primalist also has a few tribe manipulation tools (remember Murlocification from the Basic set) that can help to set this up. That's a lot of depth baked into one card so maybe I should switch it's rarity with Transfiguration. What do you think ?
I like this current set, it shows the agressive side of the class with many interesting tribe synergies. I think that with this week focused on cross-tribal synergies and Channel which can work with any tribe, I'll print a few tribe-specific synergy cards (like Caring Golem) in the next batch as well as more control cards unrelated to tribe. I don't want the class to feel like you have to play a tribe deck.
I kind of have a strange feeling on some of your cards. Channel as a whole seems to encourage monotribe decks. Imagine how crazy some of these are in raw murloc or even mech decks, for instance, or Zandalari Explosion in an expensive elemental/dragon deck.
In my opinion, Windblown Apexis could use a buff, either to 2/6, wich would make it harder to kill before you can take advantage of the tribal buffs, or to 3/5, to match it with Grook Fu Master, thus making it easier to meet conditions to make this minion strong in cross tribals. I like the idea of shrinking Menagerie Magician, even if collides with Zoobot. Also, I love the Savage Lightning, it works on so many levels and in combination with your other cards, it's pretty much my favorite card from the whole class.
The Custom Class Competition is back for its sixth iteration! We welcome any newcomers as well as old hands who've run through this grueling gauntlet of card creation before.
The good news is, said gauntlet is much smaller this time around. With the release of Demon Hunter, Blizzard has shown us how they release a custom class midway in the game's lifespan. Therefore, we will simulate this as close as possible. Take the time to read the rules or procedures below.
This is the Discussion Thread! Ask for feedback, return the favour, ask questions, etc. here.
Do NOT post your submission here.
The Submission Thread is here.
Overview
Challenge
Submission Format
F.A.Q.
Competition Process
Okay let's beggin ! I'm planning on tying my class to Journey to Un'goro (which is still absent form the list of expansions in the FAQ...) an since MSoG won't be a part of the competition, I decided to give it some love with a hand buff card. I'm also introducing a new keyword ! I made 10 cards with that keyword, trying to explore it as much as possible. I might split them across the 2 parts of what I decided to call the Pioneer Set or group them all in the same submission.
The Primalist:
So my new keyword : Channel ! I designed it to explore tribal synergies and emulate the flavor of family in my class.
So it might not be exactly clear what I mean. Let me elaborate. Cards with Channel have a targetted effect when you play them. If you target a minion with a tribe (Beast, Murloc, Elemental, etc), then the effect will target all minions with the same tribe. The targets must be in the same zone of the game so if the first target is a minion on the board, it will only target other minions on the board and if the first target is a card in your deck it will only target other cards in you deck. Spells and weapons don't have tribes and so do many minions so they would be the only target. Heroes mostly don't have a tribe either but Lord Jaraxxus is an interesting precedent... Let me show you the cards :
As you can see, I couldn't decide between using it alone or with a colon. The thing is, I don't want minion's attacks to be affected by the keyword which the colon helps disambiguate but I find it a bit more elegant without it... What do you like best ?
I tried to explore as many effects as I could think of and I quite like how it turned out. I'm a bit worried that the class might not have a clear identity but tribal synergies are such core to the whole that it might be alright.
Also here are other cards for the Pioneer set, I'm still deciding which should go into this week's submission. These ones aren't as polished as I tried to focus on the keyword but I'll try to come up with more designs to round up the set.
What do you think ?
Good luck to everyone this round! Interesting challenge, although I have to be honest that I needed to double check the Initiate set to see which minion had the Spellstone mechanic (poor overshadowed Nethrandamus).
The Engineer's introductory set will be The Journeyman Set as it's the second level of Engineering recipes in WoW (was initially going to call this The Apprentice set but....yeah).
The class's unique keyword is Surge:
Surge represents the Engineer harnessing the normally wasted energy from overpowering foes and putting it to good use. Hopefully that's clear/immediately grokkable; If you see or think of any unclear interactions let me know. Original thought was to have it randomly split among all enemies (including the enemy hero), but that ended up limiting my design space since excessive excess could be immediately game ending.
I'm envisioning this having come out during The Boomsday Project (really my only science-y options were TBT or Goblins v. Gnomes haha)
The Journeyman cards I have so far:
Goblin Tinkerer was my homage to the tri-class Discover cards of MSoG, I've always had a soft spot for ways to shake up the Discover presentation.
I have creator commentary/discussion to go along with these but I kind of want to get immediate reactions first without tipping the feedback.
Submission wise, I think I'll split them up into Surge and Spell Damage buckets, with the first week being the more Surge and "attack random enemy" focused cards (ending with Octavian Gearlegs) and the second week being Bilgewhizzle's time to shine. Figure Surge should go first since it's the newest/flashiest.
I have a small question before I start making the cards, just to avoid isuues like the last time. Can I include secrets and Stealth cards in my initiate set?
Yes, the 'Initiate' is like the Classic set so everything (barring set specific keywords) is on the table. And based on DH's Initiate set Discover and Rush are core (as opposed to set specific) mechanics, so even though its not present in the original 9 classes Classic cards we can include it here.
Hmm, this is tricky. On the one hand, I intuitively get the intention of the keyword, but in practice the actual mechanics can be headscratching, as your uncertainty about whether to include the colon indicates. The only thing I'm really sure of is that I think you should take 'target' out of the tooltip description, because if you're including random effects ("give a random minion in hand +1/+1", "attack a random enemy") then those by definition aren't targeted.
Might need to ask others more rules literate than me if this hotfix makes sense, but I would suggest making it a more reactive/follow through keyword. So for Dining Dino, instead of "Channel: Deal 2 damage" (which makes it unclear if the normal attacks also hit all minions of the same tribe) it would be "Battlecry: Deal 2 damage, then Channel," with Channel being described as something like "If this affected a minion with a tribe, it also affects all other minions of that tribe."
Bloodburner Apprentice Set 1
For old mechanic: the 'cast this again' thing from WotFT (see Defile, Spreading Plague, Roll the Bones)
Question: Do we have to do anything expansion related yet? From my understanding that only comes to play in the last stage of the comp. In my case for Rastakhan's Rumble, i don't have to make a Loat/Spirit until Week 4, right?
PSA: Please note which old mechanic you guys use on one of your cards. I don't want to guess, and then subsequently guess wrong.
I really like the idea, and the word "Bloom" fits the effecy perfectly. I just hope you don't overuse it, because usually it's really though to keep a speciffic number of cards in hand.
For clarification, our new classes don't NEED to have a new keyword, right? I got unsure, because all classes shown here have one xD
Just to make some of the answers given by your fellow contestants official:
Furthermore:
Hey ! I reworked my tooltip a bit to make it more clear :
The simplest way of explaining it is this cards : Waste Warden. I think I'll use the colon just like with Choose One to show that it's a one-time effect and the minion's attacks aren't affected. The thing is, since this keyword needs to be related to a effect with a target (even if it's choosen randomly) I would have to give all minions with it an additional effect (probably a Battlecry) and that can quickly make cards wordy. Also I realize that I use the word "Tribe" quite a lot instead of "Minion type" which seems to be the convention (although their are only 2 cards with that wording) I hope nobody minds.
@Sideltem
Surge is a very interesting keyword and your cards with it are cool. I really like Brainstorm ! Octavian Gearlegs seems very powerful, I think Rush would be a better choice over Charge, especially since your class already has a lot of burst damage. Dual Sheller is a problem since it's a (way) better Arcanite Reaper, which is already a powerful weapon. I think you should either tune the attack down to 4 or bump the cost up to 6.
The Spell Damage stuff is kinda worring. You give out a lot of cheap Spell Damage in a class with many burst options and with a Hero Power that generates damaging spells. That sounds like a recipe for broken combos. With nothing on board, you can already play 2x Tech Tuner andChief Bigewhizzle to get to Spell Damage +4 for 5 Mana. Then, you can play Rapid Volley for a targeted 11 damage and still have 2 mana left to play Vents (6 randomly split damage each) for a total of 23 damage form hand. With proper set up, you could even play 5 Vents for total of 30 damage randomly split. Now let's keep in mind that any Spell Damage already present on your side (Arcane Carbin for instance and the 4 damage of the weapon) would be 2 more damage for each (so up to 10) and the fact that Nether Grenade let's you eliminate any big minion that would mess up your randomly split damage. I hope you see where this madness is going.
To resolve these problems, I think you need to dramatically increase the cost of Chief Bilgewhizzle to at the very least 5 mana (He can so easily be a 3 mana Malygos...) and overall make Spell Damage cost a lot more. I haven't mentioned Fun with Portals yet but it also seems incredibly cheap and powerful in a class with this much Spell Damage and it would make such combos very easy to pull off. 3 Mana seems like a minimum. And please, never ever give this class cost reduction or any kind of Mana cheating.
Attacking a random enemy is cool and fits the class. It might be a bit too good with Phlogiston Ranger in play...
Target lock is great but I think it would make more sense if you reversed the Mana cost. "6 mana : Deal 1( damage to a minion. Cost (5) less if the target was damaged this turn." Seems like a different take on Execute but I wonder how it interacts with Divine Shield.
@Noah_McGrath
Fresh Blood is a flexible keyword that works well with youy class' Hero Power. I think you should try to use it more, maybe on spells as well as minions. It also ties well into the HP synergy cards.
You said you would drop this in Rastakan's Rumble but with the Dragon synegies, Blackrock Mountain or Descent of Dragons seem more fitting to me. Speaking of, shouldn't Firemind be a dragon ? Also Vulcanos is cool but seems like a weaker Zzeraku the Warped. Maybe you could have him add a hih cost dragon to your hand or reduce the dragon's cost.
I'm not sure to understand Blood Rage correctly... Can the minion still attack the enemy hero ? It also seems like a 5 Mana complete board clear in many cases. Maybe use Hulking Overfiend's wording to make it more clear. I'm also on the fence with Flame Sweep as it can easily whip the board and leave your opponent at a low Health total since your class has so much self damage. Specificaly, one could play Flame Barrier then Flame Sweep then Kolarra Healer for a huge swing turn.
@Anatomy_of_Time
Bloom is cool although I think with the amount of hand size manipulation baked into your class, you could get away with only having specific hand sizes. The (8+) is fine but not very elegant imo and Hearthstone keywords rarely use numbers. That being said, @McF4rtson had great succes with a similar keyword for the Sea Witch class in a previous competition so I recommend you check that out if you haven't already.
The cards themselves are intersting tho Riverbound Axe seems odd without any weapon hand buff to go with it.
Here's a first round of feedback. I'd like to hear more on Channel and the cards with the key word, as I really need that to work if I don't want to start off basicaly from scratch.
Quick peek of what I'm working on:
Ninja releases in Rise of Shadows. Haven't decided on an old mechanic yet.
So from these few cards, I'm trying to set up various playstyles for Ninja. Tempo (with copying cards support), bursts of play with very cheap cards + value generation, and then a combo-based win condition.
I would like to ask: is it too difficult to keep track of how many times Nyn'jah has been played?
I will post feedback for others later.
@McF4rtson
Your keyword is cool and you class does offer the tools to make it work but I'm not sure of the way the numbers work. Does Reprise (2) trigger on the second or the third time you play the card ? Can Reprise (1) exist ? Maybe you could stream line it as "A bonus effect if you've already played this card".
For Nyn'jah, I'm not a fan of using the same keyword multiple times on a card. It's a bit confusing... First, I'd give it Rush as the base Keyword so it can be reactive even the fist time. Then, I think you can either group the additional keywords in one Reprise effect or add a count of how many times it was played kinda like Jan'alai.
I like your Kunai generation, I think you could have a fun discard mechanic that deals more damage with each Kunai. Equalizing Palm Arts is great with your Hero Power. Be Water should have a cost, probably 0 or 1 ? It's also not clear if it transforms only once at the start of your turn or if it changes throughout the turn. Fluttering Breeze is a cool combo enabler and I'd move to see it animated in the game !
Greetings. I will be presenting you with the Apprentice set for the Witch class.
The Witch class will be using the Saviors of Uldum expansion. The first 10 cards of the Apprentice set I will be revealing today focus on more familiar synergy with some more control cards. The deck variants I am looking to push forward at the end of the 20 Apprentice cards is a Deathrattle/Familiar and Control Witch.
Keyword
This keyword can make for some interesting plays and synergies with certain cards.
Cards
Challenge Card
Tokens
Hoping for some feedback! Thanks.
Alright, from the top:
I don't really see any issues that jump out at me. Vulcanos is a bit on the weak side, compared to Zzeraku. I'd also say Second Flame is a little on the weak side since you don't really gain much from refreshing your Hero Power. It ends up being 6 mana, deal 4 damage, take 4 damage, draw a card.
You do not have to do anything expansion related. All you need to do is declare which one you want and the old mechanic you've used, which you've already done.
Ok, thanks again for all the feedback guys! Glad that Surge seems to be a success. Big immediate changes are as follows:
Originally designed Octavian as this class's Grommash Hellscream, but Rush does just make more sense. Steamwheedle was just me being dumb and not crosschecking names, won't be my first time making that mistake I'm guessing.
Chief Bilgewhizzle was me trying to make a simple but flashy Legendary effect, but I think it's too much to balance with the rest of the class. I toyed around with some other numbers to see if I could make it work, but I feel like it's too much hassle when it would warp available design space if done wrong.
Mechano-Lord Capacitus is my replacement. In lieu of a simple (but OP) effect, it's a quirky build around. The Wish is from the Dungeon Run treasures. It's obviously a hugely massive effect if you get it off, but the necessary game long buildup and fact that the opponent has a turn's notice to get ready is hopefully enough of a downside to make up for the payoff. I'd also think this would satisfy the 'past mechanic' challenge?
As for the feedback on other specific cards:
Dual Sheller - I acknowledge this is a strictly better Arcanite Reaper, but I'm operating under the assumption that non-Basic weapons can be strictly better than Basic weapons of the same cost. For instance, Fiery War Axe v. Eaglehorn Bow.
Target Lock - I admit the wording is janky, but I'm not sure if switching the costs (so it costs 6 but can get a reduction) would work. Specifically, if you only had 2 mana wouldn't the game not let you choose the spell and target a minion because you didn't have enough for the base Cost? With my wording it would allow you to choose it and target, but then would render invalid if you picked an undamaged target. Unlike something like Crush this mana reduction is target, not board state, specific. Note that if my understanding of the game code is off, and that you'd be able to select and target with a (6) cost spell on turn 2, I'll switch over to the cleaner wording.
Burly Beating - It is intended to be a finisher card, albeit one that you have to set up properly. Essentially, the card allows you to use your minions normal attacks as you wish, and then unleash another round of attacks. The ideal would be to clear out the enemy minions with spells, which allows you to effectively give your board of minions Windfury for the turn (they attack face once, then get forced to attack again with the spell). If there are minions it becomes more of a RNG where you use your initial attacks as you want and then hope the random attacks hit the right targets in the right sequence, but I actually like the feel of Mass Hysteria so mileage may vary.
Phlogiston Ranger - I might be missing something with the OP v. Midrange concern? Since the Immune boost only covers the attack the enemy is still able to use their turn to hit your minions.
Thanks again for the feedback. And now my comments:
@Noah_McGrath
Mostly agree with everyone else's comments, it's a well designed hero power and set of cards. Vulcanus can be powered up some (I like the previously mentioned idea to reduce the cost of the dragon added to your hand), and while I'm jealous I didn't think of Flame Sweep's text myself I'm also not sure how it'd play. It definitely feels very swingy, and I'm sure would lead to some fun streams.
@McF4rtson
So I'm clear, would this be functionally identical to how The Caverns Below triggers off cards with the same name (so the second copy of Overt Operative you play in a game has its Reprise triggered), or is the intention that Reprise cares about each specific card (so that you have to bounce or otherwise replay each of your Overt Operatives to give them Charge)? Based on Be Water I'm guessing it's the former, but just wanted to make sure. Fluttering Breeze is fun already (mostly for reminding me of fun Slay the Spire deck builds). I'm a little hesitant about always on Immune (a while back I made a thread feeling out what would happen with permanently Immune minions and the responses made me realize it could get crazy) but finding the legendary and playing it four times might be enough of a hurdle to justify it.
@Anatomy_of_Time
Once again, really glad we went down such divergent paths even with similar hero powers haha! Of these I really like Ancient Sporecrown, and especially liked that you cracked the 'one off Spell Damage +2' effect with Untapped Energy. My personal hangup is that I don't tend to like effects that require an empty hand, but the ones you have here seem balanced and Incoming Drought at least lets you plan ahead. For Eliana I'd say go with the (5) cost 3/5 version. I get the hesitance with the increased burst potential, but it also requires a lot of turns of set up and works against the lower Bloom effects.
@SoupCake
Is the intention of Blood Pact that it will only trigger once, or that it gives the minion a sort of "every time this takes damage" effect? I assume the latter, but the wording of the tooltip makes it seem like a two step/one off process (cast spell on minion, it takes damage and triggers, Blood Pact gone). If it is the latter, why is it a spell only effect and not a minion keyword? That is, why is it something you always have to spend a card to give to a minion, rather than potentially something a minion can have automatically.
Plague Lord Sik is great, an awesome and flavorful Legendary. Some of the cards feel a bit OP though. Witchslayer needs to have that direct damage number dialed down or maybe made minion only, but as is it would be on par with something like Ragnaros! Bleed is less glaring, but you've effectively made a straightforward "Deal 4 damage to a minion for (2)" when that vanilla effect costs (3). Bad Omen is a great effect, but also one of those things where you have to balance between doubling up on a game breaking Deathrattle or whiffing.
Oh, ok, I see. The original intent was actually to have almost all of them at Reprise 2. In fact, with Klipce weighing in, I may just have Reprise simply be "If you've played this card before, do something", so they are all only need to be played once before. Copying is therefore a bonus.
@SideItem
Thanks for your suggestions. Just to clarify, Blood Pact can trigger more than once. I should have made that clear. I'll have Blood Pact on minions in the next 10, I wanted to do it on spells for now.
Changes:
I'd like to hear feedback about this change. I realize now that the wording is a bit hard to read on the first card so I changed up the design to make it trigger Blood Pact for some more combos.
No idea what I was thinking when making it deal 8 damage. I tuned down the power a bit to make it less powerful.
Thanks a lot @Anatomy_of_Time and @McF4rtson for your feedback. I agree that Channel effects are more fun when they target your stuff so I'm cutting Dining Dino, Goldscaled Direhorn and Exterminate as well as changing the effect of Channel to only target friendly characters. I'm planning on a Lord Jaraxxus type legendary for my expansion hence the word "character". Transfiguration is meant to encourage cross-tribe synergies and I'll add a few cards with the same idea because I don't want Primalist decks to all be focused on just one tribe.
Here are the cards I changed or made :
Transfiguration might be a bit too powerful, I'm not sure. Changing the tribe is meant as a downside but also an opportunity for new synergies to arise. Windblown Apexis can reliably be a 5/5 tho with support you might be able to go beyond that. It's intended to be good because I want to encourage decks with multiple tribes and keep in mind that Winfury minions like Windfury Harpy tend to be mediocre. Zandalari Explosion will first summon a minion from your hand (and all other minions with the same tribe) and then on from your deck (and all other minions with the same tribe, which might be different) up to 7 minions on the board. This way you can reliably fill the board like Anyfin Can Happen but you need to think about your setup. I want it to feel like a poweful effect but I don't want Dragon synergies to be too good in Primalist decks. Summoning 7 dragons from you hand or deck might be very powerful but spending 10 mana on stats is always risky so hopefully that's balanced.
Rest of Part 1 of the Pioneer Set :
Passionate Saurok is my homage to Don Han'Cho and MSoG's hand buff mechanic. I also made Primordial Scalepriest to resemble Menagerie Magician and ONiK's menagerie theme. They aren't exactly the same in terms of wording but I feel like it's close enough. Still, I can go back and change a card if it's necessary.
Savage Lightning is a bit wierd so I'd like to elaborate. At face value, it's a cheap transformation spell that can either be cast on an enemy minion to negate it's effect and trade it or on a friendly minion for removal. With Channel added to the mix, you can turn you whole board into Raptor or, if you choose the right target, transform an enemy minion AND make a bunch of Raptors to trade into the rest of your opponent's board. The Primalist also has a few tribe manipulation tools (remember Murlocification from the Basic set) that can help to set this up. That's a lot of depth baked into one card so maybe I should switch it's rarity with Transfiguration. What do you think ?
I like this current set, it shows the agressive side of the class with many interesting tribe synergies. I think that with this week focused on cross-tribal synergies and Channel which can work with any tribe, I'll print a few tribe-specific synergy cards (like Caring Golem) in the next batch as well as more control cards unrelated to tribe. I don't want the class to feel like you have to play a tribe deck.
@Klipce
I kind of have a strange feeling on some of your cards. Channel as a whole seems to encourage monotribe decks. Imagine how crazy some of these are in raw murloc or even mech decks, for instance, or Zandalari Explosion in an expensive elemental/dragon deck.
In my opinion, Windblown Apexis could use a buff, either to 2/6, wich would make it harder to kill before you can take advantage of the tribal buffs, or to 3/5, to match it with Grook Fu Master, thus making it easier to meet conditions to make this minion strong in cross tribals. I like the idea of shrinking Menagerie Magician, even if collides with Zoobot. Also, I love the Savage Lightning, it works on so many levels and in combination with your other cards, it's pretty much my favorite card from the whole class.
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