Hearthpwn

Quote from TheWamts >>

I don't think a 6 Mana 8/8 without any downside is ever acceptable.

That's probably a fair assessment albeit one could argue Mountain Giant doesn't really have a "downside" and routinely costs less than 6.  I realize it's not the most apt comparison, but if people can deal with Handlock dropping a turn 4-5 8/8 with no downside and have answers for the 4-5 drop Fel Reaver  I don't think a hard 6 mana 8/8 vanilla would be degenerate. Consider that other fat vanilla minions like Boulderfist Ogre and Core Hound aren't even remotely playable.  Removal for big stuff is pretty easy to come by and I honestly think you'd rather see a turn 6 8/8 than a turn 6 6/6 +5 secrets fwiw.

Update: Gideon added.

Updated to add Ugin.

For clarity, Griselbrand's battle cry of 7 damage would trigger his static, right?  You take 7 and draw 7 cards then heal for 7?

Quote from heyitsmiro >>

For clarity, Griselbrand's battle cry of 7 damage would trigger his static, right?  You take 7 and draw 7 cards then heal for 7?

You know, I didn't even think about it interacting that way. I might need to go back and re-word it, but no it's not supposed to do that. I actually kind of saw his Battlecry being more of a drawback as you'll likely be headed rapidly to fatigue and taking 7 but filling your hand and having a big creature that needs to die and can't really be raced against. Even if they're trading into it he'd be gaining that 7 back or more if they need multiples.

But no it's not supposed to work that way, but yes I think you're correct that I inadvertently nullified the -7 off battlecry.

Quote from Gunsillie >>

Contained Fire = RIP Arcane Explosion.

It's not a collectible card. I should note that, thanks. Basically you play Scorched Earth and it's supposed to burn the battlefield for a series of turns.

Quote from drgent >>

This has got to be the most colossal waste of time I've ever seen on something as idiotic as this thread.  Go do something with your life, dude.

Thanks for the constructive criticism ;)

Jace's hero power is like way way way way too strong. It's like orders of magnitude way to strong. It literally reads pay 2 mana a remove a card from the game. Think of that in terms of hearthstone removal. There would be no incentive to not use it every single turn because you're trading a card for 2 mana every single time that's insane value not to mention you are milling their deck and removing key cards. It's mind bendingly broken. Infact I am not sure you could even lose in arena just simply using hero power every turn and just playing any old card on curve. No offense but a lot of these cards are just not well thought out. There are a reason these mechanics aren't in hearthstone.

Quote from Vire >>

Jace's hero power is like way way way way too strong. It's like orders of magnitude way to strong. It literally reads pay 2 mana a remove a card from the game. Think of that in terms of hearthstone removal. There would be no incentive to not use it every single turn because you're trading a card for 2 mana every single time that's insane value not to mention you are milling their deck and removing key cards. It's mind bendingly broken. Infact I am not sure you could even lose in arena just simply using hero power every turn and just playing any old card on curve. No offense but a lot of these cards are just not well thought out. There are a reason these mechanics aren't in hearthstone.

While I do truly appreciate the comment I think you're grossly overestimating the value of Jace's Hero Power.

I actually think it'd be close to the worst Hero Power in the game by itself and relies on it's deck synergies to be anywhere near worth it.

It doesn't actually remove anything relevant from play.  Consider the top card of the deck that's getting milled to instead be the 30th card in your deck. How much does that impact the game? What if it said "Remove it it fromthe bottom"?  Or even "Put it on the bottom." Unless you're actually getting to fatigue the effects are essentially the same. If it were the 30th card rather than the 5th you'd never see that card anyway in most games and may as well have been "milled".

Compare Jace to another hero that can't influence the board: Rexxar the Hunter. Rexxar, with no other interaction would take 15 turns to kill the opponent. Jace would take 20+ depending on who went first. It takes 12-13 turns before activations + natural card draw fatigue the opponent an additional 8 for fatigue to kill.

But what if you mill 2 Patrons or Boom? :P

I love it :P

It's funny because Rexxar is just like Garruk.

Quote from SgtFailure >>

A common misconception when talking about mill is that it removes cards from the game and thus actively impacting the battlefield, and while Hearthstone does have smaller deck sizes than its MtG counterpart there are some things that needs to be remembered.

First of all is the fact that you have no control over what card you "mill". As Koolaid mentioned below take the scenario of it instead burning the bottom card and you will quickly realize that you would often care very little if the bottom was removed. Combining this with the fact that a deck is random, and so the bottom card could have been the top card and vise versa, burning the top card each turn does very little to impact the game. However, due to this counter intuitive interaction, mill is one of the most feel bad mechanics and one of several mechanics most new players tend to over evaluate.

If you compare Jace's hero power with the effects of Fel Reaver you can see that while Fel Reaver does have a discount on its mana cost the drawback still isn't very strong. And that is with burning three cards each spell cast, often resulting in six or more cards each turn. The first three-four triggers of Fel Reaver does nothing in most cases as it isn't until you're in fatigue that it really matters, in most cases. Of course mirror matches for control warriors or any other trading deck are a different story.

Thank you so much for so eloquently stating my own feelings as to the mill Hero Power's strength (or relative lack thereof). My friend posted this thread to Reddit/Hearthstone because he thought it was pretty cool and I'm not a Redditor, and Jace was by far the most controversial of the creations; especially with respect to power level. I was among the minority who tended to think is anything it was a weaker Hero Power that tended to be more of a setup function to go along with some of the synergies in the deck (which is where I thought if anything was where the real OP was - Thought Gorger being able to come out as something like a 9/9 with just a twinge of effort and things like that). Most people, particularly Hearthstone only people who haven't really played MTG or played exclusively something like DotP, tended towards the idea of mill being oppressive "removal". It's definitely one of those "feels strong on paper but feels weak in practice" mechanics as having your deck attacked with little ability to stop/slow it and seeing your bombs fly away FEELS like you're being abused, but in reality they're attacking almost nothing relevant. If anything Jace is strong against combo decks where "Oops there goes your Thaurissan" or "oops there go your 2x Warsong Commander" would certainly be a huge hurdle for some decks to overcome. The key though is, with mill, you might just be "oops I just had the effect of all your Acolytes and Battle Rages and drew you into your combo 4 draw steps earlier".

 

Quote from Ethenil >>

I love it :P

It's funny because Rexxar is just like Garruk.

Thanks! :) In MTG, Garruk is definitely somewhere between Rexxar and Malfurion. Hunter and Garruk really love beasts and, well, hunting - and Garruk and Druid share the love of the wild and desire to protect them at all costs...and ramping.

Quote from MardyVain >>

Jace Hero Power allows you to control the match and, then, start burning your opponent's card, which could win the game itself: just imagine you burned Alexstrasza in a Freeze Mage. Or Emperor Thaurissan/Warsong Commander in a Patron Warrior. Or a Savage Roar in a Combo Druid. You increase your winning chance considerably, just using your 2 mana Hero Power.
Of course, you can't always mill something reliable, but considering there's a chance you could burn a core card of your opponent's deck, this is completely broken.

You can also double its effect with Garrison Commander and, moreover, it's a mechanic your opponent cannot play around; you just have to see your cards burning again and again, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Sorry OP, but I don't think this mechanic is viable. At least, not now.

The thing is, the argument that "[...]imagine you burned Alexstrasza in a Freeze Mage. Or Emperor Thaurissan/Warsong Commander in a Patron Warrior." is moot when you consider the argument what if Alex is the 30th card in your deck as Freeze Mage? The chances you mill a key card is exactly equal to the odds you actually help them draw into it.

Your final paragraph there about " it's a mechanic your opponent cannot play around; you just have to see your cards burning again and again, and there's nothing you can do about it" is the exact trap players inexperienced with a mill mechanic fall into when over evaluating its impact. You can't play around Steady Shot or Fireblast either. Sure you can heal/armor up but you can't stop it and again, Rexxar is going to kill you much faster with Hero Power than Jace ever would.

The ironic thing is the two decks that you listed as being weak to Jace would be two of the least interactive decks in the game as it is. People complain "I can't beat Patron because they do nothing but draw for the first 7 turns and then OTK me from an empty board" - wouldn't having some way to counter that a bit? Right now the non-interactive decks are some of the most maligned- Druid Combo, Patron, etc. Some sort of mill deck that is unquestionably weak to aggro and midrange but stronger versus control/combo helps bridge a meta gap.

In any event this is all theory, but the idea that you'd be spamming Jace's Hero Power over actually casting spells seems like a non-starter to me. It does absolutely nothing to impact the board and in several instances won't impact the game a lick beyond using it to synergize with some of the other cards I made for him. It just feels strong because to the casual observer "Oh my God, you just destroyed my Dr. Boom for 0 cards and 2 mana??" seems oppressive, but he's not really being "destroyed" as he was never cast OR drawn. Just imagine it's burning the bottom card rather than the top.

Heck, maybe I should just remake it to be "Hero Power: Discard the bottom card of opponent's deck" and see how many people think that's OP or too weak - even though it has the EXACT same impact on any given game.

Quote from MardyVain >>

I'm not saying you're spamming Jace's HP, I'm saying you can significantly raise your win chance by using it once. And then, you can play around a mill deck just trying to avoid your opponent plays, reducing the number of cards in your hand planning a different approach. There are no cards or abilities that insta-burn any of your opponent's cards, and the reason is pretty clear.

Quote from ScaryKoolaid >>

Quote from MardyVain >>

In any event this is all theory, but the idea that you'd be spamming Jace's Hero Power over actually casting spells seems like a non-starter to me. It does absolutely nothing to impact the board and in several instances won't impact the game a lick beyond using it to synergize with some of the other cards I made for him. It just feels strong because to the casual observer "Oh my God, you just destroyed my Dr. Boom for 0 cards and 2 mana??" seems oppressive, but he's not really being "destroyed" as he was never cast OR drawn. Just imagine it's burning the bottom card rather than the top.

This is ridiculous; in your scenario Dr. Boom IS destroyed just

I'm curious, how does using Jace's HP even once "significantly improve your win chance"? You're putting too much value into a card you have yet to draw. Seriously, if it said "Discard the bottom card of opponent's deck" would that make you feel differently? If Dr. Boom was the 30th card in your deck, how much help he is likely providing you? The same can be said of basically any card. You also have to ask, "With any given deck, how often do I go to fatigue? How often do I go down to 5 cards left? How often does the game end with 10+ cards left in my deck?" For most matchups games don't go much beyond turns 7-15. With natural draws that's 19/20 - 11/12 cards left in your deck. What if those game I burned the remaining 11-20 cards left in your deck? How does me burning 20 cards in your deck when you may have won with the first 10 over the first 7 turns matter? Especially given that me burning those cards is costing me mana that isn't going towards board presence?

Think about Fel Reaver and consider how infrequently the self-mill effect matters even though it's FAR stronger than Jace's. Why doesn't Reaver really care much about the discard? Because even if he discards 6-12 cards, you still likely have the board with the huge 8/8 and you don't care that your deck effectively 18-24 cards rather than 30 because you're trying to win before that's ever relevant.

Quote from sakram07 >>

I really like your work.

Great job, man!

Thank you! :)

Quote from MardyVain >>

The last post was submitted before I could end the post (dat missclicked), so it's a bit more long than it appeared.
Btw, I'll repeat it for the second time: if you burn a card (and your opponent cannot do anything about it) that is part of your opponent's win condition, you are basically increase your chance to success.
Even if you burn the bottom card of your opponent's deck this is still a broken mechanic (also, you didn't consider Joust shuffles both decks).  
I don't want to rely on examples: jace Hero Power could win the game alone. And this won't happen in Hearthstone.

Fel Reaver has a deck build around it, and you aren't going to use the discarded cards anyway; Reaver is an all-in, you just win or lose by playing it. Your comparison is nonsense. 

I did't want to debase your work or criticize without trying to be constructive, I just wanted to point out what (to me) is a mechanic that is not going to be healthy for the game. 

I'm not taking it as debasing my work at all, but thank you. I'm merely pointing out how and why I think a lot of people are applying a lot of the same overvaluation to mill in HS that they once (and many players still) attribute to MTG. If your deck can't function with a single card being in it then perhaps your deck needs to be tweaked for the meta. I'm under no illusion that any of these fan-art little fun cards I made would ever be in HS, but I don't think mill is nearly as degenerate as a lot of people (mostly on the sister-Reddit) have claimed; I *think* it would actually be a weak stand alone mechanic if done similar to how I designed it.

Comparisons to MTG aren't fully apt as 1) graveyard doesn't necessarily mean "out of the game" in MTG the way discard works here, 2) you have 60 cards rather than 30, and 3) you can have more than 1-2 copies of cards (up to 4 of any non-basic land). The "balance" however, if in the amount milled. In MTG it's not uncommon for "Mill cards" to mill 5-15 cards at once. Here the highest standalone mill is 5 cards and it's on a secret so it can't even combo the Mind Bender or Thought Gorger. Also, in HS you don't lose as soon as you fatigue (although if you have no win-conditions in hand it sort of doesn't matter), whereas in MTG as soon as you mill out, you lose the game. There's no "Fatigue damage" - as soon as you would draw a card from an empty library as a state based effect regardless of health you lose the game.

With all that being considered, mill has always been one of the weakest mechanics in MTG. It's one that WotC has supported for quite some time as it's popular with casual players who often overvalue the impact of mill. Only recently have some "mill" decks become competitive with Spinx's Tutelage in Standard and Lantern Control in Modern, but both function as hard control decks that rely on incidental mill to win the game (i.e. the game may go 20 turns before the actual 'win' though it may be hard/soft locked as early as turn 4-5 with something like Lantern Control).

The funny thing is often the most apt comparison to mill is straight up burn. The same can basically be said here with something like a pure mill deck being more like pure face-hunter. They ignore the board as much as possible and go face with damage, but with mill the 30 cards represent your life total. not the 30 Health. With that being said some face decks can win reliable between turn 4 and 8. In that situation you have so many cards at the bottom of your deck *they may as well have been discarded* if you never draw them to hand before the game ends. The arguments made against the mill concept may as well be made against any combo deck. If you lose before you can combo, what does it matter whether your combo cards are discarded or just never played?

It really is just a matter of "feels bad" as opposed to "is busted".  I just think it's kind of funny that the decks it would be particularly strong against like Secretdin and Patron Warrior and Combo Druid and Handlock and Freeze Mage have been some of the most complained about decks in the various seasons. It's just a matter of continued meta shifts - if there WERE a Hearthstone equivalent mill deck, Patron and Combo Druid and Secretdin that all tend to actively feel weak to or actually support the strat (combo decks suffering from incidental mill while a deck like Secretdin that tends to self-mill all of their secrets out of the deck by turn 6) but be supremely weak to decks with any active board presence early would just make deck selection more important.