Hearthpwn

So, after taking suggestions into consideration, I've decided to rework the set in order to see if it gets better. Also fixed typos.

Let's see how it went:

Explaining my changes:

Book Worm: I wasn't really sure about how to balance Tertiary Character, and I needed a secret synergistic drop. This early drop is aimed towards helping get a board countering the natural tempo losses of playing secrets.

Living Knowledge: Made it less swingy, more reliable. Comparison with Flame Ward I think is somewhat fair, as this might kill less but is far more dangerous to opponents face and small boards. If needed, might get rid of the +1/+1.

Darkflame Tome: Made it more expensive to make Malygos shenanigans harder. Still want this to play it as a viable strategy so far.

Heroic Squire: Hope this gets the spirit of the Challenge better. Also, still benefits tempo, but in a different way. Easiest one is to hold Book Keepers till turn 7 Netherlight Scrollkeeper + Heroic Sidekick+books.

Light Reading: Made it narrative dependant so you have to squeeze more profit from this to make it worth.

Monstrous Codex: It was in an awkward position with Darkflame Tome and The End both existing. Changed it to fulfill a cleave.

Abyssal Loremaster: Also possible challenge material. Helps ramping combo cards, and highlights the increased cost narrative plays, wich will be one of the main Uldum themes.

Climax: Made it target enemies only to make it not backfire on you. Although I lowered the damage, you can stick spell damage minions like Nightborne Archivist from the basic set now, thus enhancing the face damage as well.

The merchant: Freshman set part 2

 "Hey, you're still here! This means you liked the things I've showed you, huh? Well well, here you have a few more resources! Keep my... err, our empire growing with the following assets!"

"Let's start with my finest invention, a card that will let our profit sinergies skyrocket at a tremendous speed! This goblin has found the definitive way to avoid the rules! With his aid we can have as many mana as we want! And best of all? He doesn't use our keyword, so in case he gets arrested they can't get any evidence of our shameless corruption!"

"Even if youcan't abuse your mana like that, you can obtain astronomical benefits with profit! Play the following cards while you've got profit mana to gain advantage against your enemies!"

"Of course, we still have some more ricks under our sleeve! Card draw, card generation and mana generation!"

"Oh, and remember end of turn effects? Here you have some more sinergies with them! Recruit bankers, accountants and other money guys to suck the blood of your opponents!"

"Don't think that we forgot the big guys! This week, the freaks show brings octosari's finantial adviser and none other than my old boss, the ol' Maldy! Poor guy thinks he can regain what's legitimately his just because he's my 'partner'! So adorable!"

Thoughts on those? I'm kinda busy but if someone has feedback I'll try to remake some of the cards!

@MvonTzeskagrad

I think you need more cost reduction/ cost change cards to make narrative work. Right now I think that only 3 or 4 cards change costs, so activating narrative can be tricky (probably I'm missing something in which case I apologize). The rest of the cards are cool (specially abyssal loremaster and climax!), not sure if living knowledge is too OP, I think that the most similar card is Bear Trap but it costs one mana less, so maybe making them 2/2 is too much.

Thanks for your opinions. I say it kinda is intentioned you have limited cost reduction cards, because of Malygos[card]. I want Malygos Narrator to be a thing, but can't be oppressive either. However, it's also true that not all narrative cards fit together in the same archetypes, imo... and as they are mostly cheap, Netherlight really does some wonderful work there. Later, in Uldum, I'm thinking on printing cards focused on the increased cost of the narrative, as well as some other stuff. However, I think I'm gonna cut the buff on Living Knowledge, since Force of Nature is already 5 mana.

 

I have kind of doubts on your set... profit was suppoused to allow you to have more than 10 mana? If so... how does Tax Evader work -btw, nice name ^^-?

I have the feeling Hot Blooded Mercenary should start with 1 attack, since it is pretty much dead on the road, and is almost impossible someone would play this on turn 1 except for having Gold Savings in mulligan. On the other hand Golden Eye Sniper is nuts, even if requiring build up imo...

btw, perhaps you should rephrase them, because as they look like I get the feeling these cards should have the keyword. I'd suggest something like"if you have more mana crystals than you should" or something.

Maldy is amazing imo... it's a curious way to make a Big Merchant, possibly can be abused, but don't really mind if so, it's great.

Coaatless Manipulator... to start I'll say you literally managed to find the best card art I could think of -possibly-. However I get the feeling its way too opressive. I know it pretends to encourage face as counter to this, and this as counter to control/combo... but shall it be this massive a deathrattle? Octosari had it, but for no mana and on your face.

I know this is a bit too much to think of this late in the run, but still wanted to give opinions.

@MvonTzeskagrad

These look good, great job!

Book Worm can be a 3/2 or 2/3.  Arcane Flakmage shows that "When you play a Secret" effects don't require a stat reduction, especially for 3 mana secrets.  I get that there's a potential to snowball and fill the board if you manage to play two or more secrets in a turn (1 Book Worm becoming 2 becoming 4), but that either requires an 8 mana three card combo to get two secrets and 4 minions, or a series of lucky turns/cot reductions.

Heroic Sidekick should be like Magic Carpet and refer to '0-Cost' rather than 'spend (0)'.  The 0-Cost wording would still trigger on minions which had their cost reduced, and might make for cleaner wording/less lines.

Light Reading you may want to copy the Combo text from Headcrack, although I guess functionally end of turn is equal to start of next turn.

Just wanted to say I like Netherlight Scrollkeeper as a simple but class specific card and the reworked Climax.

@whatTheHeck

I agree with the suggestion to reword the "if you got profit" effects.  My main hangup is that Profit the keyword does nothing on the turn you use it, but gives you more mana later.  So does "If you got profit last turn" mean that you played a Profit card last turn, or does it mean that you played a Profit card two turns ago and got extra mana (the lower case profit) last turn?  If the intention is the former, then a simple change would be "If you played a Profit card last turn."

Capital Injection is a good card, although from looking back at your Basic/Part 1 I think you only have two cards with end of turn effects. 

Coatless Manipulator is too cheap. Its an undercosted 8/8 with essentially two upsides, since only the most aggro of decks (or a Bloom (0) focused Nymph) want to surprise draw 8 cards. Pretty sure there are Wild meme Warlocks giving opponents Octosari with Treachery to force them to overdraw, and Coatless Manipulator doesn't even make you jump through any hoops on top of giving you a giant body.  Draw 3, maybe Draw 4, for the opponent would be an actual downside. Or maybe giving the opponent extra mana?

Speculate and Trade Prince Maldy are both great.  

Quote from McF4rtson >>

I've locked the thread and will posting the voting thread tomorrow morning.

 Did we ever find out the keyword you thought would have a rough time with the challenge?  That was a dangling plot thread this phase haha.