Let's start off by congratulating the top-voted finalists of our "Not-So-Secret" competition. Fantastic work! And we'll be reaching out to our winner to help us determine what's in store for you all next week.
Entry Restrictions: Your card must be a Neutral Spell. That is, a spell that is not a class card. There are only a few existing neutral spells (The Coin, Spare Parts , Power Chords), but your spell will be different because it will be collectible, an independent card that you can actually put in your deck.
Considerations: The possibility of collectable Neutral Spells has been discussed many times before, so I'd like to address a few things: Theme: "What would a neutral spell even be?" is frequently asked question when discussing the possibility of neutral spells. The underlying assumption behind the question, though, is a conceptualization of "spells" as magical incantations, like Fireball, Mind Control, or Hex. But that's not all that spells are in Hearthstone. Spells in Hearthstone have a much broader definition that includes Items (Explosive Trap, Bouncing Blade, Deadly Poison), Attacks (Snipe, Slam, Bash), Tactics (Gang Up, Feign Death), Events (Brawl, Solemn Vigil), Concepts (Equality, Humility), and More (Lock and Load, Eye for an Eye, Beneath the Grounds). Consider that racial abilities, profession abilities, and even locations can make for thematically appropriate neutral spells. Balance: It's well known that class minions are generally allowed to be a little more powerful than neutral minions in order to help differentiate the classes. Consider how this would apply to spells as well. Design: At the same time, know why Neutral Spells don't already exist. As stated in interviews, the devs currently want to use spells as a way to differentiate classes. So, when you're designing your spell, consider whether it steps on the toes of or takes away any of the uniqueness of the options available to existing classes. Context: Unlike last week during our Not-So-Secret challenge where we wanted you to assume you were creating a unique card of your type, this week we want you to assume the opposite, that we're adding a ton of neutral spells to the game at once. In other words, your spell does not have to carry the thematic burden of being representative as THE Neutral Spell.
Competition Rules
We, the Fan Creation Forum Moderators, may edit and/or disqualify your entry if you neglect the competition's rules, so please read carefully. These measures are designed to ensure everyone has a fair and enjoyable experience during the contests!
You are allowed to submit one (1) entry per competition. Your entry must be a card of your own creation. You may add minimal comments to explain your card's design, balance, and/or qualities. You may not significantly alter your card once it has been submitted. (Although minor tweaks, such as to adjust balance or correct spelling errors, are acceptable.) You may not delete your submission post. Manipulating votes in any way is strictly forbidden. Any violators will receive a warning and a possible ban / disqualification from future contests. Any discussion of entries, ideas, and so on should take place in this week's designated Discussion Topic. This is the Submission Topic, and it is for submission posts and up-voting only. Recent New Rule - So called "troll entries" can be submitted but will not be able to advance to the final. Fun entries are OK, but outright, unbalanced parodies are not. If you're unsure, check with a moderator before submitting. Recent New Rule -You MUST upload your submission to a site that stores images, for example Imgur.com, Photobucket.com etc. This is for your own good as Hearthcards only keeps your image for a limited time and sometimes has problems resulting in lost images.
Competition Process
Entry Phase and Early Voting (Starts 20:00 UTC 8/October/2015, Ends 18:00 UTC 13/October/2015) It is during this Phase that you may submit entries to the Submission Topic. You may also, of course, feel free to give early up-votes to any submissions that you like!
Voting Phase (Starts 18:00 UTC 13/October/2015, Ends 18:00 UTC 14/October/2015) During this Phase, the Submission Topic will be locked, so no more entries may be submitted. Instead, use this time to browse the submissions and up-vote your favorites!
Final Phase (Starts 19:00 UTC 14/October/2015, Ends 19:00 UTC 15/October/2015) During this Phase, the Discussion Topic will also be locked, and a new Poll Topic will go up. Discussion will be allowed to continue in the Poll Topic, and it will also include all the qualifying finalists and a 24-hour poll to decide the winner of the competition!
How do we determine the qualifying finalists? First, we'll take the highest-voted entry on each page of the submission topic. Then, we'll fill in the rest using the formula detailed here...
(ab) / (c) = x
Where, a = The total number of submissions on the same page as the submission. b = The total number of up-votes that the submission received. c = The total number of up-votes on the same page as the submission. x = The submission's final score.
The formula basically measures which cards stood out the most, with the necessary assumption that each page is about equal in overall submission quality. The bottom line is that, although entries on the earlier pages of the Submission Topic are much more visible and thus receive many more up-votes than entries on later pages, you don't actually have to rush to get your entry in as soon as possible because the up-votes end up being weighted by what page your entry ends up on in order to determine its final score. It will be the ~15-25 entries that receive the highest final scores (depending on the popularity of this week's competition) that move on to the Final Phase.
But wait, there's more! During each Weekly Card Design Competition, each Fan Creation Forum moderators will be given a Wild Card, which they can use to advance any one entry that they feel was initially overlooked or under-appreciated to the Final Phase, regardless of its final score. Wild Cards are our way of spicing things up a bit, but please don't ask to be given one or be upset if you aren't given one. These are just supposed to be fun. (Also, it should go without saying that, while we moderators are allowed to participate in the competitions, we are not allowed to benefit from Wild Cards.)
Rewards
To encourage your competitive spirit, we do of course offer a few rewards to competition winners: Their card forever immortalized in our Winners' Gallery! The power to choose the theme for a future competition! A unique Avatar Border & "Card Design Champion" Title, as depicted below!
The idea of this card is to be similar to Tree of Life but insuring that it has quite a different feel. It's still a comeback mechanic, giving you at most 28 health, but giving the same to your opponent, based on the amount of minions on the battlefield.
Easy hard removal for all classes. Could be useful for those who are just starting out, don't have much dust, and want some extra options for hard removal.
I know that Blizzard is against these kind of cards, but as a neutral it could be useful, since everyone would have access to it. It has a balanced mana cost and a spell-only restriction. It's a card the game will need sooner or later, as it will seriously hinder predictability.
Here's my submission! I wish Dragons were more universally usable (instead of Priest kinda dominating). But I think this could help make it more feasible for classes that don't quite have the support for them yet.
Flavor: "Take a moment to mourn your fallen friends. Otherwise they might get upset with you when they respawn later."
So, the generally agreed upon rule for cards that gain benefits from minions dying is that two minions need to die to get the expected value out of the card. See Solemn Vigil, Dragon's Breath, Volcanic Drake. Unlike these cards however, this gains benefits from the minions your opponent chooses to kill. I set the card to 4 mana because otherwise it would possibly be too similar to (and arguably better than) Solemn Vigil.
The idea is, just for this game, you earn a random card pack, either from vanilla, GvG, TGT, and any other expansion wich comes. As any card pack, you are guaranteed to get at least an uncommon card, or maybe more uncommons, epics or even legendaries. You can't play this if you can't open the five cards. As only exception from buying the pack as usual, golden card gives golden cards, and normal card gives normal cards.
valid means only battle cries that can be in a spell form (this is not valid Defender of Argus)
since the card costs 3 and the battle cry costs 2 also, so the total cost of the spell is 5 and it doesnt spawn any minion so i think this card is balanced.
You could say I'm already in the Christmas spirit (I'm that guy). Way to flood your opponent's hand early to force spending Mana or cause cards to be discarded during draw phase.
Sometimes a bit of extra healing is what you need to survive all the rampaging aggro decks that infest the game, and a healing potion fits the "neutral spell" perfectly as something that any class could use to regain health.
To balance the card I looked at cards like Flash Heal, Holy Light, Healing Touch. I could have balanced mine reducing the amount of healing it provides, and thus making it pretty unplayable (those cards aren't played very much) or nerfing its versatility (it can only heal yourself like Antique Healbot or Seal of Light). I chose this last option so you can't use it to heal minions or to "heal" the enemy hero with the Auchenai Soulpriest in play.
This is the Submission Topic. The Discussion Topic is here.
Week 35's Competition Results!
Let's start off by congratulating the top-voted finalists of our "Not-So-Secret" competition. Fantastic work! And we'll be reaching out to our winner to help us determine what's in store for you all next week.
by adriamrk 2nd Place
by nobravery 3rd Place
by Telefonkabel
Competition #36 - Neutral Spells
This week's theme comes from affekopp111, whose Volley card was the true winner of week #33's "Strength in Numbers" competition. Last week's, nobravery's Rain of Arrows won our "House of Discards" competition and was generous enough to have affekopp take his place in helping us decide this week's theme.
Entry Restrictions:
Your card must be a Neutral Spell. That is, a spell that is not a class card. There are only a few existing neutral spells (The Coin, Spare Parts , Power Chords), but your spell will be different because it will be collectible, an independent card that you can actually put in your deck.
Considerations:
The possibility of collectable Neutral Spells has been discussed many times before, so I'd like to address a few things:
Theme: "What would a neutral spell even be?" is frequently asked question when discussing the possibility of neutral spells. The underlying assumption behind the question, though, is a conceptualization of "spells" as magical incantations, like Fireball, Mind Control, or Hex. But that's not all that spells are in Hearthstone. Spells in Hearthstone have a much broader definition that includes Items (Explosive Trap, Bouncing Blade, Deadly Poison), Attacks (Snipe, Slam, Bash), Tactics (Gang Up, Feign Death), Events (Brawl, Solemn Vigil), Concepts (Equality, Humility), and More (Lock and Load, Eye for an Eye, Beneath the Grounds). Consider that racial abilities, profession abilities, and even locations can make for thematically appropriate neutral spells.
Balance: It's well known that class minions are generally allowed to be a little more powerful than neutral minions in order to help differentiate the classes. Consider how this would apply to spells as well.
Design: At the same time, know why Neutral Spells don't already exist. As stated in interviews, the devs currently want to use spells as a way to differentiate classes. So, when you're designing your spell, consider whether it steps on the toes of or takes away any of the uniqueness of the options available to existing classes.
Context: Unlike last week during our Not-So-Secret challenge where we wanted you to assume you were creating a unique card of your type, this week we want you to assume the opposite, that we're adding a ton of neutral spells to the game at once. In other words, your spell does not have to carry the thematic burden of being representative as THE Neutral Spell.
Competition Rules
We, the Fan Creation Forum Moderators, may edit and/or disqualify your entry if you neglect the competition's rules, so please read carefully. These measures are designed to ensure everyone has a fair and enjoyable experience during the contests!
You are allowed to submit one (1) entry per competition.
Your entry must be a card of your own creation.
You may add minimal comments to explain your card's design, balance, and/or qualities.
You may not significantly alter your card once it has been submitted. (Although minor tweaks, such as to adjust balance or correct spelling errors, are acceptable.)
You may not delete your submission post.
Manipulating votes in any way is strictly forbidden. Any violators will receive a warning and a possible ban / disqualification from future contests.
Any discussion of entries, ideas, and so on should take place in this week's designated Discussion Topic. This is the Submission Topic, and it is for submission posts and up-voting only.
Recent New Rule - So called "troll entries" can be submitted but will not be able to advance to the final. Fun entries are OK, but outright, unbalanced parodies are not. If you're unsure, check with a moderator before submitting.
Recent New Rule -You MUST upload your submission to a site that stores images, for example Imgur.com, Photobucket.com etc. This is for your own good as Hearthcards only keeps your image for a limited time and sometimes has problems resulting in lost images.
Competition Process
Entry Phase and Early Voting (Starts 20:00 UTC 8/October/2015, Ends 18:00 UTC 13/October/2015)
It is during this Phase that you may submit entries to the Submission Topic. You may also, of course, feel free to give early up-votes to any submissions that you like!
Voting Phase (Starts 18:00 UTC 13/October/2015, Ends 18:00 UTC 14/October/2015)
During this Phase, the Submission Topic will be locked, so no more entries may be submitted. Instead, use this time to browse the submissions and up-vote your favorites!
Final Phase (Starts 19:00 UTC 14/October/2015, Ends 19:00 UTC 15/October/2015)
During this Phase, the Discussion Topic will also be locked, and a new Poll Topic will go up. Discussion will be allowed to continue in the Poll Topic, and it will also include all the qualifying finalists and a 24-hour poll to decide the winner of the competition!
How do we determine the qualifying finalists? First, we'll take the highest-voted entry on each page of the submission topic. Then, we'll fill in the rest using the formula detailed here...
(ab) / (c) = x
Where,
a = The total number of submissions on the same page as the submission.
b = The total number of up-votes that the submission received.
c = The total number of up-votes on the same page as the submission.
x = The submission's final score.
The formula basically measures which cards stood out the most, with the necessary assumption that each page is about equal in overall submission quality. The bottom line is that, although entries on the earlier pages of the Submission Topic are much more visible and thus receive many more up-votes than entries on later pages, you don't actually have to rush to get your entry in as soon as possible because the up-votes end up being weighted by what page your entry ends up on in order to determine its final score. It will be the ~15-25 entries that receive the highest final scores (depending on the popularity of this week's competition) that move on to the Final Phase.
But wait, there's more! During each Weekly Card Design Competition, each Fan Creation Forum moderators will be given a Wild Card, which they can use to advance any one entry that they feel was initially overlooked or under-appreciated to the Final Phase, regardless of its final score. Wild Cards are our way of spicing things up a bit, but please don't ask to be given one or be upset if you aren't given one. These are just supposed to be fun.
(Also, it should go without saying that, while we moderators are allowed to participate in the competitions, we are not allowed to benefit from Wild Cards.)
Rewards
To encourage your competitive spirit, we do of course offer a few rewards to competition winners:
Their card forever immortalized in our Winners' Gallery!
The power to choose the theme for a future competition!
A unique Avatar Border & "Card Design Champion" Title, as depicted below!
Good Luck!
Similar to Counterspell but this one negates the minion's effect.
Hope you like it :)
Mad Scientist is broken
It reminds me of the good ol' days.
The idea of this card is to be similar to Tree of Life but insuring that it has quite a different feel. It's still a comeback mechanic, giving you at most 28 health, but giving the same to your opponent, based on the amount of minions on the battlefield.
EDIT: Published to imgur and added context
Easy hard removal for all classes. Could be useful for those who are just starting out, don't have much dust, and want some extra options for hard removal.
Check out my Custom Undead Expansion!
...Or my Custom Elemental Expansion!
RECYCLE POWER FROM MY PREVIOUS WORKS, GOOOOOOOOO
Couldn't think of a better one.
Sorry, but face is NOT place :P
I know that Blizzard is against these kind of cards, but as a neutral it could be useful, since everyone would have access to it. It has a balanced mana cost and a spell-only restriction. It's a card the game will need sooner or later, as it will seriously hinder predictability.
My custom classes : /// / My Card Factory!
This comes along with the idea of adding in a whole 'expansion' of neutral spells.
m.Imgur. com/earpsCb
Here's my submission! I wish Dragons were more universally usable (instead of Priest kinda dominating). But I think this could help make it more feasible for classes that don't quite have the support for them yet.
Imgur: http://imgur.com/JCiist2
Not sure how to better word this, but whatever. The idea gets across.
Flavor: "Take a moment to mourn your fallen friends. Otherwise they might get upset with you when they respawn later."
So, the generally agreed upon rule for cards that gain benefits from minions dying is that two minions need to die to get the expected value out of the card. See Solemn Vigil, Dragon's Breath, Volcanic Drake. Unlike these cards however, this gains benefits from the minions your opponent chooses to kill. I set the card to 4 mana because otherwise it would possibly be too similar to (and arguably better than) Solemn Vigil.
CDC #34, #3.07, #3.08 and Mini Competition #1 Finalist ---
Click on the images below to check out my different custom card threads!
Something is going crazy here, is'nt it?
The idea is, just for this game, you earn a random card pack, either from vanilla, GvG, TGT, and any other expansion wich comes. As any card pack, you are guaranteed to get at least an uncommon card, or maybe more uncommons, epics or even legendaries. You can't play this if you can't open the five cards. As only exception from buying the pack as usual, golden card gives golden cards, and normal card gives normal cards.
http://imgur.com/edit
Click to see my Hearthstone projects:
valid means only battle cries that can be in a spell form (this is not valid Defender of Argus)
since the card costs 3 and the battle cry costs 2 also, so the total cost of the spell is 5 and it doesnt spawn any minion so i think this card is balanced.
here are some examples:
Based on racial ability of blood elves
Cone of Cold and Earth Shock combined
You could say I'm already in the Christmas spirit (I'm that guy). Way to flood your opponent's hand early to force spending Mana or cause cards to be discarded during draw phase.
A must have for any adventurer!
Sometimes a bit of extra healing is what you need to survive all the rampaging aggro decks that infest the game, and a healing potion fits the "neutral spell" perfectly as something that any class could use to regain health.
To balance the card I looked at cards like Flash Heal, Holy Light, Healing Touch. I could have balanced mine reducing the amount of healing it provides, and thus making it pretty unplayable (those cards aren't played very much) or nerfing its versatility (it can only heal yourself like Antique Healbot or Seal of Light). I chose this last option so you can't use it to heal minions or to "heal" the enemy hero with the Auchenai Soulpriest in play.