Hey all, I figured I might try my hand at making some HS cards for fun and I figured I'd take the opportunity to draw from my other fave CCG for inspiration. As such, I'm going to do a bunch of MTG Planeswakers as Hero Classes for HS!
Here's my first attempt, Mind Sculptor represented by Jace Beleren. His effect's balance has been questioned a lot and I suppose I'm not entirely sure if it is, as it feels stronger against control and fairly weak against aggro so....I don't know (and never will ;) ) I really think it's on the weaker side as it has zero board impact and less of an immediate impact on the game than Warlock and takes longer to win than Hunter's so I'm not sure. *****NOTE: The card artwork is NOT mine. They are ported from Magic cards.
Jace's hero class is "Mind Sculptor" - he is a mind/memory mage that represents blue magic in MTG. Jace is primarily known for drawing cards/manipulating your deck to optimize draws and milling the opponent. I originally had this Hero Power as the top card, but ironically many people on Reddit thought this power was far too OP removing the 'next' card from the game. I really think it's actually pretty weak in all but the grindiest of control matchups and combo decks but it's a 'feels bad, man' effect when the next card they'd draw is what they want and it poofs. It's really designed as a combo initiator and in some ways a counter deck to hardcore control/combo. I made the effect bottom of deck to see if that changed people's 'feels bad, man' opinion of the card as it'd help make people realize it's largely a do-nothing ability. Included is his Justicar upgraded power.
Basic and Expert Minions:
Non-Collectible Minions:
I created the keyword Illusion to signify "When this minion becomes the target of a spell or Battlecry , destroy it." - It's taken from the similar drawback mechanic in MTG for illusions which as soon as it becomes targeted by a spell or ability, it sacrifices itself. Battlecry felt the most analogous to "ability" as "Hero Power" would just make Jace trash versus Priest and Mage (and Liliana, Garruk, and Gideon of my creations) but super strong versus everyone else.
A lot of the basic/expert set either tie directly to the mill synergy or represent prominent blue creatures from MTG lore - most either have a great stat line to mana cost ratio but a drawback in Illusion or a powerful Battlecry but weak statline to mana ratio. This is often the case for blue creatures in MTG.
The Spells:
Spells:
I tweaked a few of the spells, namely Omniscience and Archive Trap, from my first go-around. Omniscience no longer makes a turn 10 a possible "Spew up to 16 mana's worth of minions" as it no longer reduces to (0) cost and Archive is no longer a static 5 card mill so it can be played around. I made it "card" now as opposed to "spell" to make it potentially easier to play around for some decks and harder for others.
I took a lot of tempo elements from other classes like Cast Away being something of a cross between Freezing Trap and Sap but with the combined mana of the two. A lot of other cards are tweaked versions of Mage like spells/secrets as Mage would likely be Blue/Red if she were a Magic Card - I focused on the more "blue" aspects of her with plays on cards like Mirror Entity, Arcane Intellect, Unstable Portal and Counterspell (arguably the most blue spell ever made). I also gave the mill driven Jace a combo piece.
Naxxramas Cards:
It seemed like a Deathrattle card was the appropriate choice so I tried to think of a blue creature that had an interesting death mechanic - in MTG you could sacrifice the Spiketail Drakeling at any time to counter a spell; the opponent was given the option to pay additional mana to cancel this effect. I didn't want to make this a totally abusive tempo play so I made it a 2/2 for 3 and only (1) mana instead of the original's (2).
Goblins versus Gnomes Expansion:
Minions:
Blue is also known for having a lot of Artifact Creatures, which ties really well into "Mech" synergy/concept (see my Ugin). I focused here on only Artifact based creatures and effects that required blue mana in their cost (as opposed to the more standard colorless mana for artifacts) and only blue mana (sorry Esper). Tezzeret competes with Dr. Boom for a 7 slot spot and is arguably potentially more value driven than even Dr. 7, but at 5/5 for 7, unless you've designed your deck to exploit his Battlecry AND haven't drawn your intended target by the time you play him you might get far less value. Sharding Sphinx was a little too hard to port as is to HS and probably thankfully as it'd be like Grim Patron on speed so I gave it the feels of the original but with a more appropriate HS spin. Similarly Master of Etherium isn't a static X/X which makes him rather poor if you hit him off Tezz as he's just a 2/2 Stormwind Champion for your mechs, but he could be the foundation for a more aggressive mech deck. Inkwell is toned down to fit more Boulderfist Ogre stat line balance but at rare he gets Faerie Dragon immunity to reflect MTG's "Hexproof". Steelclad is a great statline to mana ratio but obviously a pretty big potential drawback. Faerie Mechanist is similar to Mad Scientist or Webspinner but it balances with the drawback of both (it takes it from your deck rather than generating a free card and you still have to cast it for full value) - it also represents a bit of potentially bad synergy with Tezz.
Spells:
Compare to Solemn Vigil - another GvG class card. Given all the other options for Jace in card draw this is likely not where he wants to be but a fair direct port from MTG and potentially stronger card draw for an aggro Mech Jace.
Non-Collectible:
Blackrock Mountain Cards:
Phantasmal Dragon felt like a super appropriate addition for the BRM Jace rare. Phantasmal Bear is possibly a little too strong as it's going to get under most effects but a card like Abusive Sergeant is still going to kill it.
The Grand Tournament Cards:
Minions:
Teferi joining in TGT to rival Mysterious Challenger feels suitable. As one of the most blue creatures (and now Planeswalker himself) in MTG history he needed to be represented but his effect of not allowing opponent to cast on your turn and you being able to play anything on opponent's turn ported extraordinarily poorly outside of secrets. I decided since TGT brought us Christmas Trees and what not his first static would be potentially useful versus some decks, and as a +1 mana Yeti with Acolyte effect he'd still be useful in other matchups. Snapcaster's still got a lot of the same feels (albeit randomized and not 'this turn only' but also not able to ETB on opponent's turn) and will likely offer up a lot of value. Frost Titant has a totally decent stat line for mana cost and has a similar ability to his MTG version but the randomization (note it says character which means even a sole minion has a 50/0 to dodge it) will help keep its power in check. Merfolk Jouster brings back some more mill synergy with the Joust mechanic. Stormcrow almost said "10 Mana: Joust and if you win you win the game" for the LuLz but I opted to instead try and make it a little balanced despite how OP the original is ;). Conjured Jouster takes the joust mechanic and mixes it with Illusion drawback. Basically if you win the joust he's a 3 mana 4/4 but if you lose he's got the Illusion tag.
Spells:
It took me all the way to TGT to make Cryptic Command, what? Anyway I tried to put a lot of its feels into a card with none if its individual options being busted for its cost but the versatility making up for it's often +2 mana cost (or +1 if you compare the first option to Frost Nova). Make Unreal and Sensory Deprivation just felt like flavorful "removal" for a blue mage without it being counter/bounce based.
Next up- the core red Walker - Chandra Nalaar, the Firebrand!
Red is often associate with a few things - direct damage and chaos. I considered making her ability 2 damage to an enemy, 1 to your hero, but I think this is actually a bit more balanced and fitting for the chaos of red magic.
Minions:
Jaya Ballard was Magic's "prototype" for the Planeswalker series of cards. Her MTG card deals with using mana and discarding a card to activate 3 different but powerful effects. I wanted to keep a bit of that flavor by giving her a powerful Battlecry reminiscent but toned down for HS of her "ultimate" but give her the demon drawback to reflect her original flavor as well as balance her a bit.
Our Epic minion is the reverse of Molten Giant. Given Chandra decks would tend towards trying to race your opponent down, this gives her an option for a strong mid-later game finisher. With that being said, it's possible you never get to cast him in a game.
Our rare minions are the Prophetic Dragon Mage, the Spirit of the Flame, and Chandra's Phoenix.
Dragon mage helps promote the aggressive feel of red magic by rewarding you going face early with him. He represents a bit more of a "must kill" than even Knife Juggler but you won't necessarily be able to guarantee the added value off of him the turn you play him.
The Spirit is a bit less aggressive and represents a threat to our own board which might be comprised of several X/2 bodies. She is a representation of the volatility of fire magic (akin to Wild Pyromancer) burning all other characters on being cast and attack.
Chandra's Phoenix gives Chandra a bit of a combo card. A threat that needs to be answered or it can take over the game once it triggers a few times but one that takes more effort (and mana) than Patron or Dreadsteed.
Our commons represent a bit of the potential burst damage of red magic and some of its aggressive nature further. The Hellhound can find a home in aggressive variants of Chandra decks as a 2/1 vanilla for 1 being acceptable, but with the upside of potentially swinging for much more. The fiend continues to grow in damage potential just from playing but at 2/3 body base for 3 mana he's behind the curve without help. On the first trigger he becomes a 4/3 which is now established as fairly good/okay for 3 mana. Obviously he can grow fast though and is a threat that needs to be answered.
Our class basic minions are rounded out by another minion akin to the Hellhound and/or Mana Addict in the firebird and a modified Fire Elemental. Fixed the Ember Efreet.
SPELLS:
I could see this being a 10 mana spell or perhaps toned down but whatever, 10 to EVERYTHING just feels like the kind of epic spell a fully powered Chandra would unleash. In MTG the card Worldfire just removes everything (i.e. remove everything from play, discard all hands, remove all graveyards from play) and sets both plays life to 1. This spell could easily lead to a number of draw games but I think it'd be potentially a fun card.
I edited these cards and honestly I'm not sure how the "triggers" time in HS as Blizz has been a little awkward about that kind of stuff (see Blizzard mixed with deathrattle or Grim Patron) but the idea is Scorched Earth is the only "collectible" of the three cards. You can draw it and hold it like any other card. Once you cast it, at the end of your turn you get a Raging Fire. You need to cast it the following turn as a cheaper Consecration or it poofs. If you do cast it, you also get a Contained Fire. The Contained Fire similarly must be cast the following turn, but it costs zero so unless you are facing down a Patron or something you can just fire it off for value.
Continuing our chaotic and direct damage themes, we have our basic spells. Chains of Fire is the same net damage and cost as Fireball but with the "upside" of hitting 1-3 enemies but with the downside of having little to no control over the effect (unless there are no enemy minions, in which case it's a direct comparison to Fireball the enemy's face). Combust is most comparable to Flame Cannon and/or Dark Bomb in power/drawback/cost. The fact that it can hit the opponent's face is *not* a strict upgrade to cannon as there are many times cannon is looking to remove that lone minion in play. This might backfire and go face. Given dark bomb is 3 damage for 2 but targeted the randomness of the effect is worth the +1 damage in power.
CONCLUSION:
Chandra would likely be an aggressively minded hero class but with diverse ways to deal damage and boardwipe, even at the cost of her own life points and minions in some instances, I could see being able to make a control red mage as you can in MTG even though red loves chaotic aggression.
Next up the nature loving, swole as Hell, Apex Predator himself: Garruk Wildspeaker!
Garruk loving all things huge and beastly would likely use his primal magic to buff up his minions. He is a hunter of all things but finds companionship in the biggest, baddest beasts in the wilderness.
MINIONS:
Garruk is definitely a "Might Makes Right" kind of guy and I tried to exemplify that with minions that either pump other minions or minions who are themselves just high value stats for their mana investment. While Yeva, Craterhoof, and Thragtusk are all actual MTG I drew inspiration from, the rest tend towards the ideals of a green mage in MTG. Yeva's abilities in MTG are not transferable to HS as they deal with being able to play minions at any time (i.e. your opponent's turn and other phases HS does not have). I figured she seems like a giving elf so I decided to give her a battlecry that pumps your board, and extra pumps your beasts. Thragtusk, although with a bit of a tongue in cheek re-name, is almost a direct port to HS as I thought he'd actually be pretty well balanced as is. Craterhoof is similar but his anthem is scaled back a bit and there's really no need for Trample in HS.
The Bellowing Behemoth just felt like the kind of card a green mage would play - just a big, dumb vanilla minion with stats ahead of the curve that would not be available to other colors of magic. I figured the +1 mana but minus negative effect would be somewhat comparable to Fel Reaver.
The Elvish Blade Dancer is just an idea for a minion I'm a little surprised isn't already in the game in some form. She's a 4/4 for 4, so behind the curve when it comes to trade bait, but she's swinging turn 5 as a 5/5 and threatens to just keep getting stronger.
The Elvish Naturalist is a bit of a twist on Harrison Jones which made me wonder if a 3 mana common was a push for the ability, but I figured he's likely just becoming a spider tank with Acidic Ooze battlecry when the opponent has a weapon and is a really crummy 2/3 for 3 otherwise.
The Elvish Tracker would likely be tracking beasts so I made him a sort of standard vanilla with flavorful upside.
The Feral Bushrager is a spider tank a lot of the time and ahead of the curve when you meet his condition. I compared him to Tinkertown Technician when I made him where Tinkertown is better with the condition met as you get the spare part but Bushrager is better if you don't meet the condition.
Non-Collectible "Beast":
SPELLS:
Garruk likely wouldn't be casting a whole lot of spells the way we'd think of spells, but being sort of a cross between Rexar and Malfurion I figured I might try to blend a bit of that.
Secrets:
I figured it wouldn't be classic green without the most classic of green spells: Giant Growth. Even though Giant Growth is one of the most common cards ever printed given it's huge number of re-prints, I thought it'd be appropriate as an epic spell here given its potential impact, but I thought it felt analogous to the original card.
I got a little more creative with the other two. Lore of the Wilds felt like the PERFECT combo of Druid and Hunter and would fit right into a green magic player as well as they love to ramp and tend to "hate" spells. Lurking Predator was a bit of a flavor attempt of a pouncing predator on some fallen prey. It may be a little weaker than Bear Trap but I think it could be playable.
Other Spells:
I tried to stay true to Green type spells from MTG that might be portable to HS. Beast Within was one of the more direct ports as I think the original card is pretty elegantly designed and might even work better in HS. It's a low cost "Destroy a minion" effect but it's not as easy as that...the controller gets a Beast out of it. This might be a way to deal with that pesky Ysera or, alternatively, turn some damaged minion or weaker minion it a 3/3. How about Sylvanas Windrunner ? Steal their guy and get a beast out of it.
Stampede I wanted to play off of Bloodlust and Savage Roar a bit. I figured the addition of Charge to Savage Roar was likely worth +3 mana cost and it makes it harder to combo off, but you still might have 2x 2 drops or a 3-4 drop on turn 10 when you cast it for some added surprise value. That Brushrager turns into an added Fireball worth of damage for example. This card should be basic, not common.
I edited Into the Wilds so it's no longer a worse version of the already unplayable Call Pet (oops). Still not great, but maybe it'd find a niche.
CONCLUSION:
As someone who tends to shy away from green in MTG I actually had a lot of fun with Garruk and found a lot of his likely arsenal to be more supported by HS than Jace or Chandra who rely heavily on non-creature win-conditions. Hope you enjoy!
As a Planeswalker known for using his Veil fueled power to corrupt other Planeswalkers (i.e. Garruk) and having a generally negative impact on the planes she walks to, Corrupt felt like the flavor route for her. I was a bit leery again with the -1/-1 as being a bit too powerful, but I compared it to both Paladin and Mage hero abilities. You get roughly a 1/1 worth of juice for your hero ability as seen by Uther, so -1/-1 felt somewhat equal. I still wasn't sure, but where Jaina can basically 0/-1 any minions but also has the ability to go face I figured the -1/0 component of Corrupt wouldn't be too OP.
MINIONS:
So I think I went a little overboard with Liliana, but I tend to think trade-off or mutually destructive effects are pretty fun. HS already has Warlock, and honestly some of these could easily be in Gul'Dan's arsenal but I figured I'd try and make Liliana a bit more ambitious in terms of her ceiling when compared to Gul'Dan. She's looking for HUGE effects but much later in the game and still at a cost, whereas Gul'Dan seems fine trading cards and life points for just more mana efficient minions and effects.
Griselbrand is a bit of a controversial pick as Liliana's legendary as....well...she hates him. He's one of the three Demon Lords who gave her unimaginable power but took her soul in the process. She basically wrought havoc on an entire plane to set Griselbrand free from a prison he was trapped in simply to destroy him. In any event, he is arguably the premier example of a black magician's legendary creature in the MTG world. I replaced his arguably more broken activated ability to cash in 7 life for 7 cards at will for a Battlecry. He retains his lifelink ability, but he's far more vulnerable in HS than in MTG and that 7 life at turn 9 might be a little too high a cost to even deal with this devil. EDIT: Tried to fix language so his static ability doesn't also heal you 7 off battlecry.
Corpse King is a re-invented Grave Titan. He'd be far too broken anywhere near his MTG form so I figured I'd make him a bit of a scaled back cross between Dr. Boom and Savannah Highmane. He's probably a little too strong as is right now as he sort of represents 13/13 in A/H for 8 mana but compared to other 8's I'm not sure he's too far off the mark. EDIT: I see there's a typo in Deathrattle but the imgur account is published so I can't edit it right now.
The Dracolich is an attempt to make the gargoyle idea a bit more playable. He's a 5/5 for 6 but your opponent needs to deal with him on the same turn or like any good dracolich, he'll regenerate.
The Fallen Angel represents a step back in A/H for mana but with a very threatening ability.
Insatiable Horror is also a step back in A/H to mana ratio, but if you can keep her from being isolated she can routinely pick off enemy minions. By doing it at the start of your turn, this is a balance choice. This means the opponent can a) kill her before she ever triggers, or, b) set up the board in a way in which she eats herself to minimal/no upside. EDIT: In re-reading is, I'm pretty sure I'd have to make it "At the beginning of your turn, destroy a friendly minion and a random enemy minion" - as the engine doesn't let you select two targets.
In the commons Blood Cultist is a fairly sorry 2/2 for 2 but she seeks to help restore some of that health you've lost through your dark arts by channeling back to you life force generated by the deaths of other minions. Dark Magician (might need a tweak down in power) represents a 3/2 for 3 that can sac other minions (like maybe the Devoted Cultist or other minions hurting you) to throw a Soulburn at something - if he's played solo he's just a 3-mana Soulburn as he must sac himself. This takes away some of his versatility and is an effort to balance it. Dreadknight is more of a Warlock card probably but he's a 4/4 for 3 but with a potentially huge drawback or one you can potentially use to your advantage if you want to clear some of your stuff. In many cases he will be a 4/4 for 3 with Flame Imp drawback. The Demonic Watchman obviously is very strong A/H and with taunt for his mana cost, but with a pretty steep drawback of draining you 2 life every turn.
At basic minions, we have the slower Necropolis Beacon which in a more controlled board state might generate huge value but in other cases may just be "3 mana: Gain 5 armor". It'll also produce potential fodder for other cards in Liliana's arsenal such as the Dark Magician. Devoted Cultist is just dying to sacrifice herself to your cause. I tried to make her fairly poor stats for 3 mana and also put her behind the mana ramp curve of Druid to not take away from him too much. Plague Spewer is a fair 3/3 for 3 with a reciprocal deathrattle that you need to play to your benefit for.
Non-Collectible Zombie minion:
SPELLS:
Again, probably a little overboard here but...yeah....
Zombie Apocalypse is likely unplayable as your opponent gets the first crack with the total 14 attack power of the zombies, but it's more of a fun flavor card.
Demonic Bargain is probably at the power level to be epic I suppose. I also think in hindsight 5 cards might be too much for 5 life - either up the damage or reduce to 4 cards, but I was sort of using Nourish as my inspiration as I see Lili as a cross between druid and warlock here.
Demonic Dominance was again my way of "upping" everything of Warlock to a bigger effect at a bigger cost. It's a Flamestrike for 1 less mana, but has the chance to hit much of your own board and not harming an opposing Liliana/Warlock.
Raise Dead is the offensive version of Resurrect that felt right up Liliana's alley as a Necromancer.
Dark Ritual is a stronger Innervate but at a cost to your life total. I felt like Liliana needed a representation of this classic MTG card though as it's so classically black but would be broken without a drawback. I could just make it 1 mana: Gain 3 to match the original but then it's functionally Innervate.
Doomblade having taken over one of the quintessential "black spells" of MTG had to be represented but "2 mana: Destroy a minion" felt a little too nuts so I upped its cost and gave it a fairly steep drawback.
CONCLUSION:
This is probably my favorite Planeswalker set I've made so far. I always kind of liked Good Effect Bad Drawback kind of cards so I liked doing this. Hope you enjoy, and as always comments encouraged!
Now we come to the white Walker: Gideon Jura, the Hieromancer!
This really should have been Ajani Goldmane, but I started to make him and I thought he'd be waaaaayyyyy too similar to Priest. Also, sorry about the color palate being blue - it was the closest I could find to white and/or gold trim (there was no white).
I actually kind of think Gideon's Hero Power is kind of neat in its application in HS when compared to it's original form in MTG. In MTG the effect is often used as a kill spell effect with forcing a smaller creature to run into a bigger blocker. Damage doesn't remain passed the end of the turn so a big dumb blocker can pick off tons of stuff. That wouldn't work here as blocking isn't a thing so I had to tweak it so it didn't say "Must attack Gideon" because Taunt is different than blocking. This would have the impact of essentially Freezing a minion if you had a Taunt minion in play (or they'd have to kill your taunt with other means first).
MINIONS:
First off, while I introduced Angel tribal, there's no synergies there. I guess it's just the MTG player in me that wants *everything* to have a tribal type.
Avacyn is the lore-counterpoint to Griselbrand (Liliana's legend above) and truly an entire plane's hope against the darkness. In keeping with my efforts to keep some of the cards more true to MTG form, Avacyn grants immunity to friendly minions. I toned the effect way back though, as in MTG it is a STATIC effect whereby your board just becomes permanently immune. That's offset by your inability to attack creatures directly and the need to leave creatures back to block. In reality this is likely just too strong for HS but I'd like to playtest with a card like this before I make that conclusion (something that obviously won't happen).
Captain of the Legion started out as a 4/4 with 2 1/1 tokens for 5. I then kind of thought for an epic 6/6 for 5 over three weak bodies as a little too crummy. I then added the third token and realized she was now essentially a 7/7 for 5. I dropped her attack to 3 so she's now representative of 6/7 in stats for 5 which is only 1 mana less than Boulderfist Ogre but more vulnerable to things like Consecration and Hellfire. Also, you're basically trading +2 mana +3/4 minion - 1/4 weapon when compared to [card]Muster For Battle[card].
Herald of Victory is a flexible souped up version of Dark Iron Dwarf. As I type this I realize she is mission "another" as a restriction on her ability so she can't just land as a 4/7 for 4 or a discounted Salty Dog.
Angel of Serenity is one of the ways Gideon, who likely is taking a lot of punishment thanks to his Hero Power, can get some life back. She's a Yeti who'll likely be a bane to agro decks as if they can't kill her on their next turn she represents you gaining 6 health back before they get a second crack at her. She gains health FAST as it's EACH turn, BUT it's reciprocal - the way White magicians like things. Balanced.
Gallant Knight represents a bit of a must answer but is slow and not going to blow anyone's mind. A different twist on similar existing mechanics.
Legion Guardsman is similar to some of the new dragon priest cards but typically a little easier to trigger but scaled back in power to represent his common rarity. Also, as it's not a battlecry he can lose the effect.
Serra Angel is probably white's iconic card so she had to be in here. Unfortunately, "Flying" and "Vigilance" don't mean *anything* in Hearthstone. I decided to make her sort of this pure soldier that can receive blessings but can't be dealt with through silence or spells. EDIT: There's a typo here. It should read "Can't be the target of enemy spells or Hero Power."
The Elegant Swordsman might not be worded properly, but it's my attempt at "First Strike" in HS. Basically if he swings at a minion with 3 or less life, he takes no damage as they die before they hit him. I wanted to balance it a bit so I made it only on attacks so he can get traded for regularly by opponent.
Grand Abolisher is just a card I play in Modern but I didn't think his effect would port well - it'd either be too weak like Secrets don't trigger, or too strong like "opponent can't cast spells" - so I just made him an inverse of Dragon Faerie - probably a strong arena card at least.
Non-Collectible Cards:
SPELLS:
So I started out with another bang on spells: Armageddon. I don't know if this effect is stronger or weaker in MTG but it's likely fairly broken just like in MTG. The idea would be you'd need to get ahead on board by turn 9+ and then cast this and ride it out. Obviously stronger against other control decks that are relying on a high end curve as they'll recover more slowly than agro, which this would probably not be your first choice to cast again.
Next we have War Preparations - I reasoned 6 mana 7/7 across 7 bodies is pretty strong but you'd need to have an empty board for that. If you have 2-3 minions you're only talking about 4-5 1/1s for 6 which is kind of 'good not great' and if you have 4+ minions this is an awful Muster. Compare to Onyxia and realize for +3 mana you're getting an 8/8 with the package.
Purify the Wicked is probably too weak as it is as it's too niche. This was with Liliana being in the meta in addition to Gul'Dan though.
Hieromancer's Blessing is again one of those "White wants to equalize the playing field" type notions. Compared to Unleash the Hounds I think it might be worse generally but with higher upside.
WEAPONS:
The first class I've done weapons for! Only Garruk seems like the type who'd normally use a weapon (I mean dude rolls around with a massive halberd) - but green is kind of anti-artifact which is what weapons feel like to me. As such Gideon gets this distinction.
As I'm typing this, these BOTH could probably use a -1 durability balancing. My initial thought for the Sural was for it to be an "until end of next turn" type effect, but I thought dealing 2 damage for a 5 mana weapon to momentarily stun them seemed awful. It was 2/5 then and I downgraded the durability -1 to try and fix the problem, but given this could potentially freeze some decks largely out by leaving them with a board of up to 4 worthless minions seems kind of broken. In any event I guess I'd make it a 2/3 with the same effect and the idea is it'd bind the minion.
The Shield is a concept I really like and am somewhat proud of. It's basically giving your hero Divine Shield x Durability. This pairs wonderfully with Gideon's Hero Power as you can make some huge monster swing at you and just bounce off a durability. Maybe 0/4 is fine as there are 4 Hero Powers (5 if we count Chandra) that can easily remove durability as any damage will remove a durability. You'd ideally want to play this later game versus control so their little board dinks like Zombie Chow don't chew it up.
CONCLUSION:
I'd see Gideon being more of a control class looking to find synergies between his hero ability, taunters, cards like the shield and Angel of Serenity, and get themselves in a position where some finisher like Avacyn or Armageddon might just put the game out of reach.
For my final Walker in a while we have the colorless Ugin, the Spirit Dragon!
Admittedly I was at a loss for what kind of Hero Power to give Ugin. Manifesting is kind of his thing but simply pumping out 2/2s for 2 is pretty busted compared to like....anything else in the game. I was going to give it mimic the Manifest mechanic a bit where you get a 2/2 at the cost of the top card of your library but that still felt awkward. Given manifest can sometimes hose you I figured I'd give it a random element to try and balance it.
Minions:
Soooo....I couldn't really decide on Ugin's Legend so I made both. Karn the Silver Golem was the *other* colorless PW I considered , but since Karn has an actual Legendary MTG card I figured Ugin could be the hero and Karn could be the legend. Karn was known in his creature form to swap around the power and toughness of creatures, so I figured he could do the same for minions' Attack and Health - he's basically a more vulnerable version of the Naxxaramas construct encounters.
But what would "colorless magic" and Ugin be without Eldrazi? And if you're going to make an Eldrazi, why not make the most absurd one. Emrakul is clearly a HUGE threat that can rather easily win the game solo....but it's going to likely need to after getting to turn 10+ and vaporizing all your mana crystals. Being invulnerable to spells makes it harder to kill but it's still an obvious BGH target or going to require your opponent to commit to throwing everything at it. Once they do they should sail to victory as they're likekly at 10 mana and you're at 1...
Wurmcoil Engine is a marquee artifact creature in MTG. Since there aren't many colorless creatures that aren't artifact creatures and artifact creatures seem kind of mech like I decided to go in on mech synergy. A 6/6 for 7 isn't great obviously, but it represents a possibly 12/12 A/H with deathrattle and upside on the tokens that popped out. I made the balance decision to give the deathtouch and lifelink effects only to the tokens as giving them to the 6/6 seemed super busted.
Lodestone Golem seemed like a pretty fair direct port though I'm noticing now I think I inflated his health to 4 from 3. It's probably for the best as it's a 5/4 for 4 here which is like "okay" but for an epic I gave it a pseudo Mana Wrath effect with upside.
Next we have the card I probably had the most fun with: Morph! In MTG there's a mechanic that let's you play certain creatures facedown for (3) colorless mana. It's a 2/2. At any time you can pay whatever its morph cost is to flip it up. I opted for this rare to have some of that flavor as a 2/2 for 3 which is pretty vulnerable to attack or just silence, but if it survives you have a chance at one memorable morph creature from each of MTG's 5-colors. White is the Exalted Angel, Red is Akroma Angel of Wrath, Green is the Hooded Hydra, Black is Liege of the Pit, and blue is the Scornful Egotist! Obviously *most* of these are very powerful but it should be noted only Akroma can swing on the turn she "flips". Akroma Hydra and Exalted all are pretty clearly powerful for that initial 3 mana investment, while Liege *can be* but could just eat itself or something else you want to keep and the Scornful Egotist is a way to sort of balance the card beyond just keeping a 2/2 alive for a turn. I also opted to makle Egotist an "illusion" to nerf Jace's Conjure Illusion.
Next up is Etched Champion for the mech synergy and represent MTG's "metalcraft". He's pretty self explanatory - you want him with other minions then he can turn into a bit of a Darkbomb every turn.
Bottle Gnomes seemed like a pretty sweet port to HS mechanics and gives some early game survivability versus aggressive decks.
Myr Enforcer represents MTG's Affinity mechanic by being a pretty bad 5/5 for 7 vanilla but if you have 2 mechs out he's an "okay" 5/5 for 5 - any more and you'll have a very efficient 5/5 beater. It should be noted extra synergy with Mechwarper making him immediately cost -2.
Vault Skirge is likely unplayable but he's sort of like Wisp but with higher potential upside as a Mech with lifelink but immediate downside with a self-ping. Designed to fir with other cards like Enforcer, Champion, and the Arcbound Ravager.
After that we have Myr Battlesphere sort of represented by the Battleball. Behind mana to vanilla stat curve ratio but helps with mech synergies as he can spit out mechs and likely a decent 6 drop for arena.
Finally, any mtg artifact deck player's favorite card, Arcbound Ravager. I obviously had to dramatically change his effects as they are non-portable to HS but I thought this deathrattle effect captured it to some extent.
Weapons:
I decided in keeping with artifact theme I'd add in some weapons for Ugin (even though I think he'd prefer his claws and crazy ghostfire). First up is the baddest weapon ever: Batterskull. This probably doesn't do it justice but I think it *sort of* captured the card without being absolutely broken in HS. I'll skip my rare for a second and talk about Mortarpod because it's very similar in concept to Batterskull as reprsentations of "Living Weapon" with a bit of the effect of the original card turned to HS utility.
Now to Basalt Monolith: I really wanted a way to represent colorless mana ramp to port over and I kind of struggled, but then I got this kind of fun idea why not make it 3 mana on layaway in the form of a bad weapon? Obviously equipping and bashing an X/1 for pseudo 0 mana is a valid play with it, but it's more designed to wait until you need that 3 mana boost and then you smack something for 1.
Spells:
The spells were the toughest part of Ugin as there aren't many great colorless "Spells" in MTG.
I gave him a slightly weaker version of Darkbomb for balance sake as his sort of throwback marquee spell (back before Ugin was a thing and was some mysterious entity known for invisible, colorless fire).
I gave him Tanglewire in secret form. Even though this doesn't *really* capture tanglewire's use in MTG where you're often locking down mana not just creatures, I figured this kind of reflects someone who already has board presence getting wired.
All is Dust is basically the biggest "Colorless" 'spell' I could think of from MTG but I couldn't accurately represent "Destroy all non-colorless permanents" in HS- the closest I came was destroy all non-mechs but I figured that'd have to also be like 10 mana as it'd be broken as Hell versus non-mech decks.
Trinisphere is probably the most broken card of the set if the enemy ever pulls it off. I started with 2 cards and realized that was insane. Still, the potential to cast like a turn 5 Emrakul seemed too much so I boosted it's degree of difficulty to pull off.
Conclusion:
Phew, that was a lot of cards! I realizes I need to go back and edit some and balance out numbers to make an "actual" set for each but I'll put that off for now.
Hope everyone enjoyed the series so far though, and thanks again to all who commented and/or up vote it!
Why are all those minions Illusions? All of the Hunter minions aren't beasts. Also why did you create that race at all when you don't have any synergies? And what is the purpose of Drifting Apparition?
Why are all those minions Illusions? All of the Hunter minions aren't beasts. Also why did you create that race at all when you don't have any synergies? And what is the purpose of Drifting Apparition?
It's a fair question, and the honest answer is I'd be doing it with an eye towards expanding it further. The key reason I made so many of them Illusion-type was because I made Conjure Illusion pretty early on and if it only hit the few that are more thematically "illusions" i.e. they disappear when you target them, I may as well not have Conjure Illusions as a card.
The point of Drifting Apparition is it can be a win condition if I expanded out an made more hard control measures. Basically, the idea behind it is it can't interact with minions in anyway outside of battle cries which kill it. It just pings face for 3 every turn until someone pings it with something. It may need some commas to make it clear it can attack, just not attack enemy minions.
Cool ideas, but are all Jace decks in MtG mill decks? You have tons of "discard the top card from your opponent's deck" in here.
Even if, I don't think there should be a pure mill class in Hearthstone. Standard MtG has what, 60 card decks with up to 4 copies of one card each? Hearthstone has 30 cards with a maximum of 2 copies. Mill both copies of a key card in some decks, and it's GG.
Even worse, where MtG has tons of options to defend against that or counter it, most Hearthstone decks are pretty helpless against milling. Their only option is to kill the enemy hero before it gets too bad. And I really don't want to see a meta that starts to tech against milling.
Cool ideas, but are all Jace decks in MtG mill decks? You have tons of "discard the top card from your opponent's deck" in here.
Even if, I don't think there should be a pure mill class in Hearthstone. Standard MtG has what, 60 card decks with up to 4 copies of one card each? Hearthstone has 30 cards with a maximum of 2 copies. Mill both copies of a key card in some decks, and it's GG.
Even worse, where MtG has tons of options to defend against that or counter it, most Hearthstone decks are pretty helpless against milling. Their only option is to kill the enemy hero before it gets too bad. And I really don't want to see a meta that starts to tech against milling.
No not all Jace decks are mill, in fact very few competitive decks actually try to mill the opponent. Regardless, Jace's cards (whether it's incarnations of him in Planeswalker cards or cards that directly reference/depict him) tend to involve deck manipulation and "Mill" effects.
I agree that mill might be a bit too powerful in HS, but without testing I'm not convinced that's the case. In this case, Jace's hero ability might be a "do nothing" effect as you aren't impacting the board in any way and you aren't actually gaining card advantage the way Warlock does. I tried to avoid a lot of incidental mill, i.e. some of the minions are required to either attack or connect with opponent's face to mill a card. That makes them more threatening than the average minion, as they're attacking you in two ways, but I tried to reflect this in their stats/mana cost. A 2/2 for 2 that needs to hit an opponent to mill a card doesn't feel particularly powerful - especially considering the effects of other 2/2 for 2 mana in the game like Mad Scientist and even Cutpurse. The Amnesiac is akin to yeti with this effect but at epic rarity.
I really don't even see "mill" as the actual win condition for Jace - a lot of cards are strengthened or synergize with it, but they're still just looking to be big beaters that are just fueled by incidental mill throughout the game. That's not to say I couldn't see someone looking to fatigue an opponent with Mind Bender combo, but I don't think that's the primary win condition.
Also, unlike MTG, being milled is not game over necessarily. Fel Reaver mills the caster very fast but that almost doesn't matter to the caster. In MTG if you can't draw a card, you lose the game no matter how much life you have. In HS it may take you several turns of fatigue before you actually lose.
I do see Jace being strongest versus decks like Malygos, freezemage, or Patron combo decks though, as certainly getting your 1-of Malygos, Alex, or some number of Patrons/Berserkers/Commanders milled will make life tough.
It wouldn't be as good as in MTG because we don't have shuffle effects so I think it could be balanced.
Yeah, I actually thought about having something like Brainstorm as Jace's hero ability or as a card. The reason I shied away from it is because I was afraid that kind of deck manipulation is too complicated for HS. The closest thing we have to it is Tracking.
That and I really do think a card like Brainstorm is unplayable without shuffle effects. Scry effects might work better or something like Ponder, but Brainstorm, even though it's the 0: ability that broke the Mind sculptor is pretty awful if you aren't netting +1 card advantage OR shuffling away the top 2.
Without a graveyard and with such smaller card pool and card restrictions, I agree, Tracking is likely worse than Brainstorm. Especially since you don't have Land cards, Brainstorm would help ensure you're curve is solid. Regardless of power level though, I feel like a Brainstorm effect (even if the 2 cards shuffled into deck) is just a bit too complicated as a hero ability for HS as a game. MTG is used to complex interactions, whereas HS is much more casual minded. Maybe just a spell "Brainstorm" though rather than hero ability :)
Hey all, I figured I might try my hand at making some HS cards for fun and I figured I'd take the opportunity to draw from my other fave CCG for inspiration. As such, I'm going to do a bunch of MTG Planeswakers as Hero Classes for HS!
Here's my first attempt, Mind Sculptor represented by Jace Beleren. He's not fully fleshed out yet and I'm not entirely sure his effect is balanced or not, as it feels stronger against control and fairly weak against aggro so....I don't know (and never will ;) ). *****NOTE: The card artwork is NOT mine. They are ported from Magic cards.
A themes Jace is often associated with in MTG are: Milling, Card Selection, Card Draw, and to a lesser extent Illusions. Card selection is a bit of a tough nut for HS' simplified mechanics, I'd considered his Hero Ability as something like "Look at the top 3 cards of your deck, put 1 on top and the other 2 on the bottom" but that's pretty wordy for a hero ability and pretty slow mechanically. I ended up with this. I felt like disrupting potential combos is of value and given HS' smaller deck size mill is a bit more formidable but for something that doesn't actually impact the board it's hard for me to tell if this is completely OP or just completely garbage, haha. It'd be pretty bad in MTG, but there are diverse reasons for that. In any event, with this as the hero ability I decided to play off that a bit and look for synergy.
Given you can completely build decks in MTG without any actual creatures, which tend to be the kind of decks Jace would do well in anyway, I had to stretch for Minions for him to use. In his lore, given he's a Mind/Memory Mage, he tends to deal a lot with illusion type creatures - false creatures that are manifestations of mental horrors and tricks. I opted to use that as a minion type Jace could exploit.
Minions:
The Illusions:
Here are the Illusion minions I created thus far. There's sort of two sub-themes going on so maybe they're a little confused, but some maintain a bit of their "Illusion" characteristic from MTG in that once they become the target of a spell or, in this case a Battlecry, they die. In MTG it's "Spell or ability" - but I figured that making them just all die to Mage's Fireblast seemed kind of bad. I'd likely have made more of them have this weakness, but honestly the text box aesthetics kind of made that impossible. The cards that have it tend to be somewhere ahead of the curve, but have that drawback. The other flavor of Illusion pairs with the mill theme of Jace. Cards that either help this strategy or alternatively get fueled by it. I included a class-specific "giant" minion here in Devourer as well.
The Non-Illusions:
A pretty small list here, but....yeah Jace doesn't tend to hang out with too many corporeal monsters. Of those he does hang out with are the leader of the Izzet League, the Firemind himself, Niv-Mizzet. As one of the most intelligent beings in the multi-verse and always on the lookout for brilliant talent, Jace and Niv tended to get along with Jace was on the Plane of Ravnica. I wanted him to be a 7 drop primarily because there really aren't many good 7s outside of Boom and there's a glut of 8 and 9 drop bombs. Maybe at 7 mana he should be a 5/7 so he'd die to Boom and I'm not quite sure on the wording here (it was kind of an issue for me throughout). The idea is he makes the Hero ability mill a card which "discards" allowing your hero ability to draw a card. Each turn you're at least a guaranteed Flamejuggler effect off your natural draw and if you hero ability you're getting a second.
The Sphinx might also be a little overpowered for it's cost. I was trying to compare it to Azure Drake which also has +1 spellpower and a relevant tribe but doesn't have the choice.
The Spells:
Spells:
Omniscience is one of Jace's signature HUGE spells in MTG and as such it is a HUGE spell here. It's significantly weaker than MTG's version, but it's also much more castable. It's slow but it'll help give you a little low cost gas if you have 4> mana minions and it'll make you turn 11+ really interesting. Maybe "Cost (3) less" would be more appropriate but, meh, it's a fan creation that'll never happen ;)
Conjure Illusions is a way to generate some card advantage that Jace is known for. Probably need a few more "bad" illusions for this card to be fair as is but I tried to make it cost so much that it'd be somewhat fair. It also goes with Ingenuity for the "Turn 5 powerful albeit likely 'do nothing this turn' spell.
Mind Bender is sort of like Jace's Edwin VanCleef, you might make a combo deck with this as the win condition x2 to try and just mill them out a ton. Hero Ability - swing some of your mill illusions, cast Bender to mill 3 or 4 then the second to mill 6-8.
Secrets:
Jace is a pretty sneaky guy. The decks that run him in MTG are likely rife with counter spells to disrupt your opponent on their turn. Well, since "Instant" isn't a thing. so secrets are the next best alternative.
Here we have one that helps the mill plan pretty strongly but doesn't necessarily disrupt the game, one that has a twist on Mirror Entity and finally one to help protect you Illusions.
I strongly considered making Ingenuity a "Draw 3" when opponent plays a spell but I thought that'd be far to strong at 3 mana. If it were draw 2 it'd just be a far worse version of Arcane Intellect.
Conclusion:
This is my first attempt at making HS cards. I tried to come up with a theme that'd fit within HS but keep some of its original MTG flavor. I'd welcome all comments and critiques!
Thanks for reading!
Dude, I can't see the pictures how can I see them?
I really like what you did with green (being a green main, i didnt look at any other colors yet, because fuck 'em), i dont really see the point of Into the Wilds. It "Can" be good, but you are playing the lottery for a pretty small win, and a quite huge loss (if you follow), but i think, what you could do is, make it like an unstable portal, but only for beasts, so way the outcome of the spell is way less and you always get the "Beast" effect on the card.
other than that, awesome cards, and nice to see that you followed the idea of the cards, without making them broken (like in MTG :P)
I really like what you did with green (being a green main, i didnt look at any other colors yet, because fuck 'em), i dont really see the point of Into the Wilds. It "Can" be good, but you are playing the lottery for a pretty small win, and a quite huge loss (if you follow), but i think, what you could do is, make it like an unstable portal, but only for beasts, so way the outcome of the spell is way less and you always get the "Beast" effect on the card.
other than that, awesome cards, and nice to see that you followed the idea of the cards, without making them broken (like in MTG :P)
Also: Elvish Pole Dancer* (needs to happen)
Hey thanks again! Yeah I agree about Into the Wilds, the drawback is almost certainly too much. I was kind of trying to balance it versus Far Sight too but I could probably make it a bit more elegant. Far Sight is an epic though so I was trying to make it a little dissimilar and also punish for not being "wild" per se.
I definitely need to go back and fix as well as add some cards to Chandra and Garruk. I'll probably at some point revise to match actual base basic, common, rare, epic, and legendary cards with expansions/adventures. At the moment I was just kind of spewing what came to mind.
I appreciate the feedback and I'll keep the pole dancer in mind ;)
Hey all, I figured I might try my hand at making some HS cards for fun and I figured I'd take the opportunity to draw from my other fave CCG for inspiration. As such, I'm going to do a bunch of MTG Planeswakers as Hero Classes for HS!
Here's my first attempt, Mind Sculptor represented by Jace Beleren. His effect's balance has been questioned a lot and I suppose I'm not entirely sure if it is, as it feels stronger against control and fairly weak against aggro so....I don't know (and never will ;) ) I really think it's on the weaker side as it has zero board impact and less of an immediate impact on the game than Warlock and takes longer to win than Hunter's so I'm not sure. *****NOTE: The card artwork is NOT mine. They are ported from Magic cards.
Basic and Expert Minions:
Non-Collectible Minions:
I created the keyword Illusion to signify "When this minion becomes the target of a spell or Battlecry , destroy it." - It's taken from the similar drawback mechanic in MTG for illusions which as soon as it becomes targeted by a spell or ability, it sacrifices itself. Battlecry felt the most analogous to "ability" as "Hero Power" would just make Jace trash versus Priest and Mage (and Liliana, Garruk, and Gideon of my creations) but super strong versus everyone else.
A lot of the basic/expert set either tie directly to the mill synergy or represent prominent blue creatures from MTG lore - most either have a great stat line to mana cost ratio but a drawback in Illusion or a powerful Battlecry but weak statline to mana ratio. This is often the case for blue creatures in MTG.
The Spells:
Spells:
I tweaked a few of the spells, namely Omniscience and Archive Trap, from my first go-around. Omniscience no longer makes a turn 10 a possible "Spew up to 16 mana's worth of minions" as it no longer reduces to (0) cost and Archive is no longer a static 5 card mill so it can be played around. I made it "card" now as opposed to "spell" to make it potentially easier to play around for some decks and harder for others.
I took a lot of tempo elements from other classes like Cast Away being something of a cross between Freezing Trap and Sap but with the combined mana of the two. A lot of other cards are tweaked versions of Mage like spells/secrets as Mage would likely be Blue/Red if she were a Magic Card - I focused on the more "blue" aspects of her with plays on cards like Mirror Entity, Arcane Intellect, Unstable Portal and Counterspell (arguably the most blue spell ever made). I also gave the mill driven Jace a combo piece.
Naxxramas Cards:
It seemed like a Deathrattle card was the appropriate choice so I tried to think of a blue creature that had an interesting death mechanic - in MTG you could sacrifice the Spiketail Drakeling at any time to counter a spell; the opponent was given the option to pay additional mana to cancel this effect. I didn't want to make this a totally abusive tempo play so I made it a 2/2 for 3 and only (1) mana instead of the original's (2).
Goblins versus Gnomes Expansion:
Minions:
Blue is also known for having a lot of Artifact Creatures, which ties really well into "Mech" synergy/concept (see my Ugin). I focused here on only Artifact based creatures and effects that required blue mana in their cost (as opposed to the more standard colorless mana for artifacts) and only blue mana (sorry Esper). Tezzeret competes with Dr. Boom for a 7 slot spot and is arguably potentially more value driven than even Dr. 7, but at 5/5 for 7, unless you've designed your deck to exploit his Battlecry AND haven't drawn your intended target by the time you play him you might get far less value. Sharding Sphinx was a little too hard to port as is to HS and probably thankfully as it'd be like Grim Patron on speed so I gave it the feels of the original but with a more appropriate HS spin. Similarly Master of Etherium isn't a static X/X which makes him rather poor if you hit him off Tezz as he's just a 2/2 Stormwind Champion for your mechs, but he could be the foundation for a more aggressive mech deck. Inkwell is toned down to fit more Boulderfist Ogre stat line balance but at rare he gets Faerie Dragon immunity to reflect MTG's "Hexproof". Steelclad is a great statline to mana ratio but obviously a pretty big potential drawback. Faerie Mechanist is similar to Mad Scientist or Webspinner but it balances with the drawback of both (it takes it from your deck rather than generating a free card and you still have to cast it for full value) - it also represents a bit of potentially bad synergy with Tezz.
Spells:
Compare to Solemn Vigil - another GvG class card. Given all the other options for Jace in card draw this is likely not where he wants to be but a fair direct port from MTG and potentially stronger card draw for an aggro Mech Jace.
Non-Collectible:
Blackrock Mountain Cards:
Phantasmal Dragon felt like a super appropriate addition for the BRM Jace rare. Phantasmal Bear is possibly a little too strong as it's going to get under most effects but a card like Abusive Sergeant is still going to kill it.
The Grand Tournament Cards:
Minions:
Teferi joining in TGT to rival Mysterious Challenger feels suitable. As one of the most blue creatures (and now Planeswalker himself) in MTG history he needed to be represented but his effect of not allowing opponent to cast on your turn and you being able to play anything on opponent's turn ported extraordinarily poorly outside of secrets. I decided since TGT brought us Christmas Trees and what not his first static would be potentially useful versus some decks, and as a +1 mana Yeti with Acolyte effect he'd still be useful in other matchups. Snapcaster's still got a lot of the same feels (albeit randomized and not 'this turn only' but also not able to ETB on opponent's turn) and will likely offer up a lot of value. Frost Titant has a totally decent stat line for mana cost and has a similar ability to his MTG version but the randomization (note it says character which means even a sole minion has a 50/0 to dodge it) will help keep its power in check. Merfolk Jouster brings back some more mill synergy with the Joust mechanic. Stormcrow almost said "10 Mana: Joust and if you win you win the game" for the LuLz but I opted to instead try and make it a little balanced despite how OP the original is ;). Conjured Jouster takes the joust mechanic and mixes it with Illusion drawback. Basically if you win the joust he's a 3 mana 4/4 but if you lose he's got the Illusion tag.
Spells:
It took me all the way to TGT to make Cryptic Command, what? Anyway I tried to put a lot of its feels into a card with none if its individual options being busted for its cost but the versatility making up for it's often +2 mana cost (or +1 if you compare the first option to Frost Nova). Make Unreal and Sensory Deprivation just felt like flavorful "removal" for a blue mage without it being counter/bounce based.
As always, hope you enjoy!!!
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
Next up- the core red Walker - Chandra Nalaar, the Firebrand!
Red is often associate with a few things - direct damage and chaos. I considered making her ability 2 damage to an enemy, 1 to your hero, but I think this is actually a bit more balanced and fitting for the chaos of red magic.
Minions:
Jaya Ballard was Magic's "prototype" for the Planeswalker series of cards. Her MTG card deals with using mana and discarding a card to activate 3 different but powerful effects. I wanted to keep a bit of that flavor by giving her a powerful Battlecry reminiscent but toned down for HS of her "ultimate" but give her the demon drawback to reflect her original flavor as well as balance her a bit.
Our Epic minion is the reverse of Molten Giant. Given Chandra decks would tend towards trying to race your opponent down, this gives her an option for a strong mid-later game finisher. With that being said, it's possible you never get to cast him in a game.
Our rare minions are the Prophetic Dragon Mage, the Spirit of the Flame, and Chandra's Phoenix.
Dragon mage helps promote the aggressive feel of red magic by rewarding you going face early with him. He represents a bit more of a "must kill" than even Knife Juggler but you won't necessarily be able to guarantee the added value off of him the turn you play him.
The Spirit is a bit less aggressive and represents a threat to our own board which might be comprised of several X/2 bodies. She is a representation of the volatility of fire magic (akin to Wild Pyromancer) burning all other characters on being cast and attack.
Chandra's Phoenix gives Chandra a bit of a combo card. A threat that needs to be answered or it can take over the game once it triggers a few times but one that takes more effort (and mana) than Patron or Dreadsteed.
Our commons represent a bit of the potential burst damage of red magic and some of its aggressive nature further. The Hellhound can find a home in aggressive variants of Chandra decks as a 2/1 vanilla for 1 being acceptable, but with the upside of potentially swinging for much more. The fiend continues to grow in damage potential just from playing but at 2/3 body base for 3 mana he's behind the curve without help. On the first trigger he becomes a 4/3 which is now established as fairly good/okay for 3 mana. Obviously he can grow fast though and is a threat that needs to be answered.
Our class basic minions are rounded out by another minion akin to the Hellhound and/or Mana Addict in the firebird and a modified Fire Elemental. Fixed the Ember Efreet.
SPELLS:
I could see this being a 10 mana spell or perhaps toned down but whatever, 10 to EVERYTHING just feels like the kind of epic spell a fully powered Chandra would unleash. In MTG the card Worldfire just removes everything (i.e. remove everything from play, discard all hands, remove all graveyards from play) and sets both plays life to 1. This spell could easily lead to a number of draw games but I think it'd be potentially a fun card.
I edited these cards and honestly I'm not sure how the "triggers" time in HS as Blizz has been a little awkward about that kind of stuff (see Blizzard mixed with deathrattle or Grim Patron) but the idea is Scorched Earth is the only "collectible" of the three cards. You can draw it and hold it like any other card. Once you cast it, at the end of your turn you get a Raging Fire. You need to cast it the following turn as a cheaper Consecration or it poofs. If you do cast it, you also get a Contained Fire. The Contained Fire similarly must be cast the following turn, but it costs zero so unless you are facing down a Patron or something you can just fire it off for value.
Continuing our chaotic and direct damage themes, we have our basic spells. Chains of Fire is the same net damage and cost as Fireball but with the "upside" of hitting 1-3 enemies but with the downside of having little to no control over the effect (unless there are no enemy minions, in which case it's a direct comparison to Fireball the enemy's face). Combust is most comparable to Flame Cannon and/or Dark Bomb in power/drawback/cost. The fact that it can hit the opponent's face is *not* a strict upgrade to cannon as there are many times cannon is looking to remove that lone minion in play. This might backfire and go face. Given dark bomb is 3 damage for 2 but targeted the randomness of the effect is worth the +1 damage in power.
CONCLUSION:
Chandra would likely be an aggressively minded hero class but with diverse ways to deal damage and boardwipe, even at the cost of her own life points and minions in some instances, I could see being able to make a control red mage as you can in MTG even though red loves chaotic aggression.
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
Next up the nature loving, swole as Hell, Apex Predator himself: Garruk Wildspeaker!
Garruk loving all things huge and beastly would likely use his primal magic to buff up his minions. He is a hunter of all things but finds companionship in the biggest, baddest beasts in the wilderness.
MINIONS:
Garruk is definitely a "Might Makes Right" kind of guy and I tried to exemplify that with minions that either pump other minions or minions who are themselves just high value stats for their mana investment. While Yeva, Craterhoof, and Thragtusk are all actual MTG I drew inspiration from, the rest tend towards the ideals of a green mage in MTG. Yeva's abilities in MTG are not transferable to HS as they deal with being able to play minions at any time (i.e. your opponent's turn and other phases HS does not have). I figured she seems like a giving elf so I decided to give her a battlecry that pumps your board, and extra pumps your beasts. Thragtusk, although with a bit of a tongue in cheek re-name, is almost a direct port to HS as I thought he'd actually be pretty well balanced as is. Craterhoof is similar but his anthem is scaled back a bit and there's really no need for Trample in HS.
The Bellowing Behemoth just felt like the kind of card a green mage would play - just a big, dumb vanilla minion with stats ahead of the curve that would not be available to other colors of magic. I figured the +1 mana but minus negative effect would be somewhat comparable to Fel Reaver.
The Elvish Blade Dancer is just an idea for a minion I'm a little surprised isn't already in the game in some form. She's a 4/4 for 4, so behind the curve when it comes to trade bait, but she's swinging turn 5 as a 5/5 and threatens to just keep getting stronger.
The Elvish Naturalist is a bit of a twist on Harrison Jones which made me wonder if a 3 mana common was a push for the ability, but I figured he's likely just becoming a spider tank with Acidic Ooze battlecry when the opponent has a weapon and is a really crummy 2/3 for 3 otherwise.
The Elvish Tracker would likely be tracking beasts so I made him a sort of standard vanilla with flavorful upside.
The Feral Bushrager is a spider tank a lot of the time and ahead of the curve when you meet his condition. I compared him to Tinkertown Technician when I made him where Tinkertown is better with the condition met as you get the spare part but Bushrager is better if you don't meet the condition.
Non-Collectible "Beast":
SPELLS:
Garruk likely wouldn't be casting a whole lot of spells the way we'd think of spells, but being sort of a cross between Rexar and Malfurion I figured I might try to blend a bit of that.
Secrets:
I figured it wouldn't be classic green without the most classic of green spells: Giant Growth. Even though Giant Growth is one of the most common cards ever printed given it's huge number of re-prints, I thought it'd be appropriate as an epic spell here given its potential impact, but I thought it felt analogous to the original card.
I got a little more creative with the other two. Lore of the Wilds felt like the PERFECT combo of Druid and Hunter and would fit right into a green magic player as well as they love to ramp and tend to "hate" spells. Lurking Predator was a bit of a flavor attempt of a pouncing predator on some fallen prey. It may be a little weaker than Bear Trap but I think it could be playable.
Other Spells:
I tried to stay true to Green type spells from MTG that might be portable to HS. Beast Within was one of the more direct ports as I think the original card is pretty elegantly designed and might even work better in HS. It's a low cost "Destroy a minion" effect but it's not as easy as that...the controller gets a Beast out of it. This might be a way to deal with that pesky Ysera or, alternatively, turn some damaged minion or weaker minion it a 3/3. How about Sylvanas Windrunner ? Steal their guy and get a beast out of it.
Stampede I wanted to play off of Bloodlust and Savage Roar a bit. I figured the addition of Charge to Savage Roar was likely worth +3 mana cost and it makes it harder to combo off, but you still might have 2x 2 drops or a 3-4 drop on turn 10 when you cast it for some added surprise value. That Brushrager turns into an added Fireball worth of damage for example. This card should be basic, not common.
I edited Into the Wilds so it's no longer a worse version of the already unplayable Call Pet (oops). Still not great, but maybe it'd find a niche.
CONCLUSION:
As someone who tends to shy away from green in MTG I actually had a lot of fun with Garruk and found a lot of his likely arsenal to be more supported by HS than Jace or Chandra who rely heavily on non-creature win-conditions. Hope you enjoy!
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
Next up, the Mistress of the Dark: Liliana Vess!
As a Planeswalker known for using his Veil fueled power to corrupt other Planeswalkers (i.e. Garruk) and having a generally negative impact on the planes she walks to, Corrupt felt like the flavor route for her. I was a bit leery again with the -1/-1 as being a bit too powerful, but I compared it to both Paladin and Mage hero abilities. You get roughly a 1/1 worth of juice for your hero ability as seen by Uther, so -1/-1 felt somewhat equal. I still wasn't sure, but where Jaina can basically 0/-1 any minions but also has the ability to go face I figured the -1/0 component of Corrupt wouldn't be too OP.
MINIONS:
So I think I went a little overboard with Liliana, but I tend to think trade-off or mutually destructive effects are pretty fun. HS already has Warlock, and honestly some of these could easily be in Gul'Dan's arsenal but I figured I'd try and make Liliana a bit more ambitious in terms of her ceiling when compared to Gul'Dan. She's looking for HUGE effects but much later in the game and still at a cost, whereas Gul'Dan seems fine trading cards and life points for just more mana efficient minions and effects.
Griselbrand is a bit of a controversial pick as Liliana's legendary as....well...she hates him. He's one of the three Demon Lords who gave her unimaginable power but took her soul in the process. She basically wrought havoc on an entire plane to set Griselbrand free from a prison he was trapped in simply to destroy him. In any event, he is arguably the premier example of a black magician's legendary creature in the MTG world. I replaced his arguably more broken activated ability to cash in 7 life for 7 cards at will for a Battlecry. He retains his lifelink ability, but he's far more vulnerable in HS than in MTG and that 7 life at turn 9 might be a little too high a cost to even deal with this devil. EDIT: Tried to fix language so his static ability doesn't also heal you 7 off battlecry.
Corpse King is a re-invented Grave Titan. He'd be far too broken anywhere near his MTG form so I figured I'd make him a bit of a scaled back cross between Dr. Boom and Savannah Highmane. He's probably a little too strong as is right now as he sort of represents 13/13 in A/H for 8 mana but compared to other 8's I'm not sure he's too far off the mark. EDIT: I see there's a typo in Deathrattle but the imgur account is published so I can't edit it right now.
The Dracolich is an attempt to make the gargoyle idea a bit more playable. He's a 5/5 for 6 but your opponent needs to deal with him on the same turn or like any good dracolich, he'll regenerate.
The Fallen Angel represents a step back in A/H for mana but with a very threatening ability.
Insatiable Horror is also a step back in A/H to mana ratio, but if you can keep her from being isolated she can routinely pick off enemy minions. By doing it at the start of your turn, this is a balance choice. This means the opponent can a) kill her before she ever triggers, or, b) set up the board in a way in which she eats herself to minimal/no upside. EDIT: In re-reading is, I'm pretty sure I'd have to make it "At the beginning of your turn, destroy a friendly minion and a random enemy minion" - as the engine doesn't let you select two targets.
In the commons Blood Cultist is a fairly sorry 2/2 for 2 but she seeks to help restore some of that health you've lost through your dark arts by channeling back to you life force generated by the deaths of other minions. Dark Magician (might need a tweak down in power) represents a 3/2 for 3 that can sac other minions (like maybe the Devoted Cultist or other minions hurting you) to throw a Soulburn at something - if he's played solo he's just a 3-mana Soulburn as he must sac himself. This takes away some of his versatility and is an effort to balance it. Dreadknight is more of a Warlock card probably but he's a 4/4 for 3 but with a potentially huge drawback or one you can potentially use to your advantage if you want to clear some of your stuff. In many cases he will be a 4/4 for 3 with Flame Imp drawback. The Demonic Watchman obviously is very strong A/H and with taunt for his mana cost, but with a pretty steep drawback of draining you 2 life every turn.
At basic minions, we have the slower Necropolis Beacon which in a more controlled board state might generate huge value but in other cases may just be "3 mana: Gain 5 armor". It'll also produce potential fodder for other cards in Liliana's arsenal such as the Dark Magician. Devoted Cultist is just dying to sacrifice herself to your cause. I tried to make her fairly poor stats for 3 mana and also put her behind the mana ramp curve of Druid to not take away from him too much. Plague Spewer is a fair 3/3 for 3 with a reciprocal deathrattle that you need to play to your benefit for.
Non-Collectible Zombie minion:
SPELLS:
Again, probably a little overboard here but...yeah....
Zombie Apocalypse is likely unplayable as your opponent gets the first crack with the total 14 attack power of the zombies, but it's more of a fun flavor card.
Demonic Bargain is probably at the power level to be epic I suppose. I also think in hindsight 5 cards might be too much for 5 life - either up the damage or reduce to 4 cards, but I was sort of using Nourish as my inspiration as I see Lili as a cross between druid and warlock here.
Demonic Dominance was again my way of "upping" everything of Warlock to a bigger effect at a bigger cost. It's a Flamestrike for 1 less mana, but has the chance to hit much of your own board and not harming an opposing Liliana/Warlock.
Raise Dead is the offensive version of Resurrect that felt right up Liliana's alley as a Necromancer.
Dark Ritual is a stronger Innervate but at a cost to your life total. I felt like Liliana needed a representation of this classic MTG card though as it's so classically black but would be broken without a drawback. I could just make it 1 mana: Gain 3 to match the original but then it's functionally Innervate.
Doomblade having taken over one of the quintessential "black spells" of MTG had to be represented but "2 mana: Destroy a minion" felt a little too nuts so I upped its cost and gave it a fairly steep drawback.
CONCLUSION:
This is probably my favorite Planeswalker set I've made so far. I always kind of liked Good Effect Bad Drawback kind of cards so I liked doing this. Hope you enjoy, and as always comments encouraged!
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
Now we come to the white Walker: Gideon Jura, the Hieromancer!
This really should have been Ajani Goldmane, but I started to make him and I thought he'd be waaaaayyyyy too similar to Priest. Also, sorry about the color palate being blue - it was the closest I could find to white and/or gold trim (there was no white).
I actually kind of think Gideon's Hero Power is kind of neat in its application in HS when compared to it's original form in MTG. In MTG the effect is often used as a kill spell effect with forcing a smaller creature to run into a bigger blocker. Damage doesn't remain passed the end of the turn so a big dumb blocker can pick off tons of stuff. That wouldn't work here as blocking isn't a thing so I had to tweak it so it didn't say "Must attack Gideon" because Taunt is different than blocking. This would have the impact of essentially Freezing a minion if you had a Taunt minion in play (or they'd have to kill your taunt with other means first).
MINIONS:
First off, while I introduced Angel tribal, there's no synergies there. I guess it's just the MTG player in me that wants *everything* to have a tribal type.
Avacyn is the lore-counterpoint to Griselbrand (Liliana's legend above) and truly an entire plane's hope against the darkness. In keeping with my efforts to keep some of the cards more true to MTG form, Avacyn grants immunity to friendly minions. I toned the effect way back though, as in MTG it is a STATIC effect whereby your board just becomes permanently immune. That's offset by your inability to attack creatures directly and the need to leave creatures back to block. In reality this is likely just too strong for HS but I'd like to playtest with a card like this before I make that conclusion (something that obviously won't happen).
Captain of the Legion started out as a 4/4 with 2 1/1 tokens for 5. I then kind of thought for an epic 6/6 for 5 over three weak bodies as a little too crummy. I then added the third token and realized she was now essentially a 7/7 for 5. I dropped her attack to 3 so she's now representative of 6/7 in stats for 5 which is only 1 mana less than Boulderfist Ogre but more vulnerable to things like Consecration and Hellfire. Also, you're basically trading +2 mana +3/4 minion - 1/4 weapon when compared to [card]Muster For Battle[card].
Herald of Victory is a flexible souped up version of Dark Iron Dwarf. As I type this I realize she is mission "another" as a restriction on her ability so she can't just land as a 4/7 for 4 or a discounted Salty Dog.
Angel of Serenity is one of the ways Gideon, who likely is taking a lot of punishment thanks to his Hero Power, can get some life back. She's a Yeti who'll likely be a bane to agro decks as if they can't kill her on their next turn she represents you gaining 6 health back before they get a second crack at her. She gains health FAST as it's EACH turn, BUT it's reciprocal - the way White magicians like things. Balanced.
Gallant Knight represents a bit of a must answer but is slow and not going to blow anyone's mind. A different twist on similar existing mechanics.
Legion Guardsman is similar to some of the new dragon priest cards but typically a little easier to trigger but scaled back in power to represent his common rarity. Also, as it's not a battlecry he can lose the effect.
Serra Angel is probably white's iconic card so she had to be in here. Unfortunately, "Flying" and "Vigilance" don't mean *anything* in Hearthstone. I decided to make her sort of this pure soldier that can receive blessings but can't be dealt with through silence or spells. EDIT: There's a typo here. It should read "Can't be the target of enemy spells or Hero Power."
The Elegant Swordsman might not be worded properly, but it's my attempt at "First Strike" in HS. Basically if he swings at a minion with 3 or less life, he takes no damage as they die before they hit him. I wanted to balance it a bit so I made it only on attacks so he can get traded for regularly by opponent.
Grand Abolisher is just a card I play in Modern but I didn't think his effect would port well - it'd either be too weak like Secrets don't trigger, or too strong like "opponent can't cast spells" - so I just made him an inverse of Dragon Faerie - probably a strong arena card at least.
Non-Collectible Cards:
SPELLS:
So I started out with another bang on spells: Armageddon. I don't know if this effect is stronger or weaker in MTG but it's likely fairly broken just like in MTG. The idea would be you'd need to get ahead on board by turn 9+ and then cast this and ride it out. Obviously stronger against other control decks that are relying on a high end curve as they'll recover more slowly than agro, which this would probably not be your first choice to cast again.
Next we have War Preparations - I reasoned 6 mana 7/7 across 7 bodies is pretty strong but you'd need to have an empty board for that. If you have 2-3 minions you're only talking about 4-5 1/1s for 6 which is kind of 'good not great' and if you have 4+ minions this is an awful Muster. Compare to Onyxia and realize for +3 mana you're getting an 8/8 with the package.
Purify the Wicked is probably too weak as it is as it's too niche. This was with Liliana being in the meta in addition to Gul'Dan though.
Hieromancer's Blessing is again one of those "White wants to equalize the playing field" type notions. Compared to Unleash the Hounds I think it might be worse generally but with higher upside.
WEAPONS:
The first class I've done weapons for! Only Garruk seems like the type who'd normally use a weapon (I mean dude rolls around with a massive halberd) - but green is kind of anti-artifact which is what weapons feel like to me. As such Gideon gets this distinction.
As I'm typing this, these BOTH could probably use a -1 durability balancing. My initial thought for the Sural was for it to be an "until end of next turn" type effect, but I thought dealing 2 damage for a 5 mana weapon to momentarily stun them seemed awful. It was 2/5 then and I downgraded the durability -1 to try and fix the problem, but given this could potentially freeze some decks largely out by leaving them with a board of up to 4 worthless minions seems kind of broken. In any event I guess I'd make it a 2/3 with the same effect and the idea is it'd bind the minion.
The Shield is a concept I really like and am somewhat proud of. It's basically giving your hero Divine Shield x Durability. This pairs wonderfully with Gideon's Hero Power as you can make some huge monster swing at you and just bounce off a durability. Maybe 0/4 is fine as there are 4 Hero Powers (5 if we count Chandra) that can easily remove durability as any damage will remove a durability. You'd ideally want to play this later game versus control so their little board dinks like Zombie Chow don't chew it up.
CONCLUSION:
I'd see Gideon being more of a control class looking to find synergies between his hero ability, taunters, cards like the shield and Angel of Serenity, and get themselves in a position where some finisher like Avacyn or Armageddon might just put the game out of reach.
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
For my final Walker in a while we have the colorless Ugin, the Spirit Dragon!
Admittedly I was at a loss for what kind of Hero Power to give Ugin. Manifesting is kind of his thing but simply pumping out 2/2s for 2 is pretty busted compared to like....anything else in the game. I was going to give it mimic the Manifest mechanic a bit where you get a 2/2 at the cost of the top card of your library but that still felt awkward. Given manifest can sometimes hose you I figured I'd give it a random element to try and balance it.
Minions:
Soooo....I couldn't really decide on Ugin's Legend so I made both. Karn the Silver Golem was the *other* colorless PW I considered , but since Karn has an actual Legendary MTG card I figured Ugin could be the hero and Karn could be the legend. Karn was known in his creature form to swap around the power and toughness of creatures, so I figured he could do the same for minions' Attack and Health - he's basically a more vulnerable version of the Naxxaramas construct encounters.
But what would "colorless magic" and Ugin be without Eldrazi? And if you're going to make an Eldrazi, why not make the most absurd one. Emrakul is clearly a HUGE threat that can rather easily win the game solo....but it's going to likely need to after getting to turn 10+ and vaporizing all your mana crystals. Being invulnerable to spells makes it harder to kill but it's still an obvious BGH target or going to require your opponent to commit to throwing everything at it. Once they do they should sail to victory as they're likekly at 10 mana and you're at 1...
Wurmcoil Engine is a marquee artifact creature in MTG. Since there aren't many colorless creatures that aren't artifact creatures and artifact creatures seem kind of mech like I decided to go in on mech synergy. A 6/6 for 7 isn't great obviously, but it represents a possibly 12/12 A/H with deathrattle and upside on the tokens that popped out. I made the balance decision to give the deathtouch and lifelink effects only to the tokens as giving them to the 6/6 seemed super busted.
Lodestone Golem seemed like a pretty fair direct port though I'm noticing now I think I inflated his health to 4 from 3. It's probably for the best as it's a 5/4 for 4 here which is like "okay" but for an epic I gave it a pseudo Mana Wrath effect with upside.
Next we have the card I probably had the most fun with: Morph! In MTG there's a mechanic that let's you play certain creatures facedown for (3) colorless mana. It's a 2/2. At any time you can pay whatever its morph cost is to flip it up. I opted for this rare to have some of that flavor as a 2/2 for 3 which is pretty vulnerable to attack or just silence, but if it survives you have a chance at one memorable morph creature from each of MTG's 5-colors. White is the Exalted Angel, Red is Akroma Angel of Wrath, Green is the Hooded Hydra, Black is Liege of the Pit, and blue is the Scornful Egotist! Obviously *most* of these are very powerful but it should be noted only Akroma can swing on the turn she "flips". Akroma Hydra and Exalted all are pretty clearly powerful for that initial 3 mana investment, while Liege *can be* but could just eat itself or something else you want to keep and the Scornful Egotist is a way to sort of balance the card beyond just keeping a 2/2 alive for a turn. I also opted to makle Egotist an "illusion" to nerf Jace's Conjure Illusion.
Next up is Etched Champion for the mech synergy and represent MTG's "metalcraft". He's pretty self explanatory - you want him with other minions then he can turn into a bit of a Darkbomb every turn.
Bottle Gnomes seemed like a pretty sweet port to HS mechanics and gives some early game survivability versus aggressive decks.
Myr Enforcer represents MTG's Affinity mechanic by being a pretty bad 5/5 for 7 vanilla but if you have 2 mechs out he's an "okay" 5/5 for 5 - any more and you'll have a very efficient 5/5 beater. It should be noted extra synergy with Mechwarper making him immediately cost -2.
Vault Skirge is likely unplayable but he's sort of like Wisp but with higher potential upside as a Mech with lifelink but immediate downside with a self-ping. Designed to fir with other cards like Enforcer, Champion, and the Arcbound Ravager.
After that we have Myr Battlesphere sort of represented by the Battleball. Behind mana to vanilla stat curve ratio but helps with mech synergies as he can spit out mechs and likely a decent 6 drop for arena.
Finally, any mtg artifact deck player's favorite card, Arcbound Ravager. I obviously had to dramatically change his effects as they are non-portable to HS but I thought this deathrattle effect captured it to some extent.
Weapons:
I decided in keeping with artifact theme I'd add in some weapons for Ugin (even though I think he'd prefer his claws and crazy ghostfire). First up is the baddest weapon ever: Batterskull. This probably doesn't do it justice but I think it *sort of* captured the card without being absolutely broken in HS. I'll skip my rare for a second and talk about Mortarpod because it's very similar in concept to Batterskull as reprsentations of "Living Weapon" with a bit of the effect of the original card turned to HS utility.
Now to Basalt Monolith: I really wanted a way to represent colorless mana ramp to port over and I kind of struggled, but then I got this kind of fun idea why not make it 3 mana on layaway in the form of a bad weapon? Obviously equipping and bashing an X/1 for pseudo 0 mana is a valid play with it, but it's more designed to wait until you need that 3 mana boost and then you smack something for 1.
Spells:
The spells were the toughest part of Ugin as there aren't many great colorless "Spells" in MTG.
I gave him a slightly weaker version of Darkbomb for balance sake as his sort of throwback marquee spell (back before Ugin was a thing and was some mysterious entity known for invisible, colorless fire).
I gave him Tanglewire in secret form. Even though this doesn't *really* capture tanglewire's use in MTG where you're often locking down mana not just creatures, I figured this kind of reflects someone who already has board presence getting wired.
All is Dust is basically the biggest "Colorless" 'spell' I could think of from MTG but I couldn't accurately represent "Destroy all non-colorless permanents" in HS- the closest I came was destroy all non-mechs but I figured that'd have to also be like 10 mana as it'd be broken as Hell versus non-mech decks.
Trinisphere is probably the most broken card of the set if the enemy ever pulls it off. I started with 2 cards and realized that was insane. Still, the potential to cast like a turn 5 Emrakul seemed too much so I boosted it's degree of difficulty to pull off.
Conclusion:
Phew, that was a lot of cards! I realizes I need to go back and edit some and balance out numbers to make an "actual" set for each but I'll put that off for now.
Hope everyone enjoyed the series so far though, and thanks again to all who commented and/or up vote it!
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
Why are all those minions Illusions? All of the Hunter minions aren't beasts. Also why did you create that race at all when you don't have any synergies? And what is the purpose of Drifting Apparition?
It's a fair question, and the honest answer is I'd be doing it with an eye towards expanding it further. The key reason I made so many of them Illusion-type was because I made Conjure Illusion pretty early on and if it only hit the few that are more thematically "illusions" i.e. they disappear when you target them, I may as well not have Conjure Illusions as a card.
The point of Drifting Apparition is it can be a win condition if I expanded out an made more hard control measures. Basically, the idea behind it is it can't interact with minions in anyway outside of battle cries which kill it. It just pings face for 3 every turn until someone pings it with something. It may need some commas to make it clear it can attack, just not attack enemy minions.
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
Oh, I see. Conjure Illusion could just say "summon a random Planeswalker minion" or "summon a random minion from Planeswalker class", tho'.
Cool ideas, but are all Jace decks in MtG mill decks? You have tons of "discard the top card from your opponent's deck" in here.
Even if, I don't think there should be a pure mill class in Hearthstone. Standard MtG has what, 60 card decks with up to 4 copies of one card each? Hearthstone has 30 cards with a maximum of 2 copies. Mill both copies of a key card in some decks, and it's GG.
Even worse, where MtG has tons of options to defend against that or counter it, most Hearthstone decks are pretty helpless against milling. Their only option is to kill the enemy hero before it gets too bad. And I really don't want to see a meta that starts to tech against milling.
No not all Jace decks are mill, in fact very few competitive decks actually try to mill the opponent. Regardless, Jace's cards (whether it's incarnations of him in Planeswalker cards or cards that directly reference/depict him) tend to involve deck manipulation and "Mill" effects.
I agree that mill might be a bit too powerful in HS, but without testing I'm not convinced that's the case. In this case, Jace's hero ability might be a "do nothing" effect as you aren't impacting the board in any way and you aren't actually gaining card advantage the way Warlock does. I tried to avoid a lot of incidental mill, i.e. some of the minions are required to either attack or connect with opponent's face to mill a card. That makes them more threatening than the average minion, as they're attacking you in two ways, but I tried to reflect this in their stats/mana cost. A 2/2 for 2 that needs to hit an opponent to mill a card doesn't feel particularly powerful - especially considering the effects of other 2/2 for 2 mana in the game like Mad Scientist and even Cutpurse. The Amnesiac is akin to yeti with this effect but at epic rarity.
I really don't even see "mill" as the actual win condition for Jace - a lot of cards are strengthened or synergize with it, but they're still just looking to be big beaters that are just fueled by incidental mill throughout the game. That's not to say I couldn't see someone looking to fatigue an opponent with Mind Bender combo, but I don't think that's the primary win condition.
Also, unlike MTG, being milled is not game over necessarily. Fel Reaver mills the caster very fast but that almost doesn't matter to the caster. In MTG if you can't draw a card, you lose the game no matter how much life you have. In HS it may take you several turns of fatigue before you actually lose.
I do see Jace being strongest versus decks like Malygos, freezemage, or Patron combo decks though, as certainly getting your 1-of Malygos, Alex, or some number of Patrons/Berserkers/Commanders milled will make life tough.
Thanks for the comments though!
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
Yeah, I actually thought about having something like Brainstorm as Jace's hero ability or as a card. The reason I shied away from it is because I was afraid that kind of deck manipulation is too complicated for HS. The closest thing we have to it is Tracking.
That and I really do think a card like Brainstorm is unplayable without shuffle effects. Scry effects might work better or something like Ponder, but Brainstorm, even though it's the 0: ability that broke the Mind sculptor is pretty awful if you aren't netting +1 card advantage OR shuffling away the top 2.
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
Without a graveyard and with such smaller card pool and card restrictions, I agree, Tracking is likely worse than Brainstorm. Especially since you don't have Land cards, Brainstorm would help ensure you're curve is solid. Regardless of power level though, I feel like a Brainstorm effect (even if the 2 cards shuffled into deck) is just a bit too complicated as a hero ability for HS as a game. MTG is used to complex interactions, whereas HS is much more casual minded. Maybe just a spell "Brainstorm" though rather than hero ability :)
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
Swagtusk... i fucking love you man xD (also, my profile picture \[T]/)
Dude, I can't see the pictures how can I see them?
Haha, thanks! :)
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
Hmmm, I don't know? I can see them and from the other comments I assume other people can see them.
I *think* you can also just see them on imgur: http://scarykoolaid.imgur.com/
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
I really like what you did with green (being a green main, i didnt look at any other colors yet, because fuck 'em), i dont really see the point of Into the Wilds. It "Can" be good, but you are playing the lottery for a pretty small win, and a quite huge loss (if you follow), but i think, what you could do is, make it like an unstable portal, but only for beasts, so way the outcome of the spell is way less and you always get the "Beast" effect on the card.
other than that, awesome cards, and nice to see that you followed the idea of the cards, without making them broken (like in MTG :P)
Also: Elvish Pole Dancer* (needs to happen)
Hey thanks again! Yeah I agree about Into the Wilds, the drawback is almost certainly too much. I was kind of trying to balance it versus Far Sight too but I could probably make it a bit more elegant. Far Sight is an epic though so I was trying to make it a little dissimilar and also punish for not being "wild" per se.
I definitely need to go back and fix as well as add some cards to Chandra and Garruk. I'll probably at some point revise to match actual base basic, common, rare, epic, and legendary cards with expansions/adventures. At the moment I was just kind of spewing what came to mind.
I appreciate the feedback and I'll keep the pole dancer in mind ;)
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
I don't think a 6 Mana 8/8 without any downside is ever acceptable.
Make the Card: The biggest thread on the site!
My mandibles which are capable of pressing down and tearing, my talons which are known to intercept and hold.