A little late now perhaps, but I have been on a trip - and better late than never, right? Anyway, here goes my rant:
During the first WOG-stream it was revealed that the expansion would feature corrupted versions of old cards. I thought the idea seemed interesting, but the cards they first revealed (Polluted Hoarder and Corrupted Healbot) were boring. However I thought that future corrupted cards would be more interesting, these were only the first and they maybe didn't want to freak people out with crazy stuff. How wrong I were...
When I think "corrupted" I think of something who is an evil version of itself, of something whose essence has been changed to something sinister etc. I think many can agree with things like that when they think about the word. However not many of the corrupted cards can be said to be corrupted. Psych-o-Tron is a larger version of Annoy-o-Tron, Ravaging Ghoul has the same effect but a different activator etc. Something corrupted should be something that's good, pure or has a clear goal in their life and then twist that beyond recognition.
Ysera could have been made into an AWESOME corrupted card. Instead of Dream Cards she could give you/your opponent Nightmare Cards at the end of each turn which would be harmful to the person having them in their hand. Or a simpler solution could be to cast "Nightmare" on another random friendly minion at the start of each turn (Nightmare gives +5/+5 to a minion and then destroys them a little bit later on). That would be flavorful and interesting. The new Mukla? Does anyone think it's flavorful? Wasn't he evil anyway? Does giving you bananas instead of your opponent constitute a change in his character? I'm not saying the new Mukla is a bad card, that's beyond the point IMO. But he is BORING and has a severe lack of FLAVOR. The same with the new Hogger. They both do their old effect in a slightly different way. Taking a good character from Warcraft and twisting them would be a good way to go to ensure that the created card has flavor and an in-built fun factor. But not only good characters would have to be corrupted, the evil ones could maybe not escape from the Old Gods' madness. Lets take Malygos for example: He is not completely bad if I know the lore correctly, but far from "nice". He is an avid magic user, that's one of the most important things in his life. So why not twist that, basically the essence of his being, into something related to the Old Gods? Or maybe just make him a reverse version of himself, that he now hates magic completely? A card that would destroy spells, minions with spell damage or maybe even have "Spell Damage -5" for both players?
Instead of something like that, where the cards would be fun and interesting they gave us cards like Bog Creeper, Twisted Worgen, Psych-o-Tron, Abberant Berserker etc (still got only the old effect but now costs more with more stat(s)). Is that fun? Is that corrupted? You might think "But hey, not all cards can be legendaries. Some corrupted cards had to be of other rarities". And yes, sure! But the most of them were made so poorly it's hard for me to even comprehend how they got made. Lets take Argent Squire, why not corrupt that card? "1/2/2 - Deathrattle: Give an enemy minion Divine Shield". Simple and quite boring but it has at least some flavor to it. She may serve you in her life, but she's not gonna be happy about it, so when she dies she will try and mess with you. Or a silly idea: "Happy Chicken - 1/1/1 - Enrage: At the end and start of your turn, summon a 1/1 Tentacle". The twisted part would be that the Old Gods have transformed the chicken into some "tentacly" beast that now serves them and instead of being angry has found its place in the world. I'm not saying my ideas have been the best, but if I got paid to come up with ideas? I would beat ALL of the corrupted cards by miles.
If the devs don't want to make cards that are good or serve a niche - fine, but at least make them interesting! Make people smile when they first see them, make them crowd favorites, make them usable in fun decks. Just something, it's your JOB! You are paid to do this so put some effort in it. What new does many of the "new" cards bring to the table? Not much! Simple design is good to have, but there's a difference between "simple design" and "lack of fantasy"/"lazyness".
Lets take Malygos for example: He is not completely bad if I know the lore correctly, but far from "nice". He is an avid magic user, that's one of the most important things in his life. So why not twist that, basically the essence of his being, into something related to the Old Gods? Or maybe just make him a reverse version of himself, that he now hates magic completely? A card that would destroy spells, minions with spell damage or maybe even have "Spell Damage -5" for both players?
I didnt read your whole post, just the one that explains Ysera compared to Hogger and Mukla and I couldnt agree more. I was hoping for Nightmare Ysera tbh.
One wasted potential that I find is the introduction of Neltharion (the guy before he becomes Deathwing). He was a nice guy with all the dragons on his side, hence the effect makes sense. Instead of giving us just another Deathwing with a cool effect, they could have made him with his good side and show how he was before the corruption. Another thing they could have done is change the effect of our current Deathwing to a more powerful version (not discard your hand for example but still destroy everything), since the Old Gods are here to give him more strength and give us back the old effect when the Old Gods where rotating out of Standard; hence solving the dust issues, if people were complaining (though the new Deathwing is supposed to fill that role, it would feel better lore-wise to have only one corrupted Deathwing card in the set).
This just proves that they have very limited time to manage, test and think about everything (+maybe limited staff). Nevertheless, it's still my favourite card expansion so far.
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'There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact'
Sherlock Holmes
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A little late now perhaps, but I have been on a trip - and better late than never, right? Anyway, here goes my rant:
During the first WOG-stream it was revealed that the expansion would feature corrupted versions of old cards. I thought the idea seemed interesting, but the cards they first revealed (Polluted Hoarder and Corrupted Healbot) were boring. However I thought that future corrupted cards would be more interesting, these were only the first and they maybe didn't want to freak people out with crazy stuff. How wrong I were...
When I think "corrupted" I think of something who is an evil version of itself, of something whose essence has been changed to something sinister etc. I think many can agree with things like that when they think about the word. However not many of the corrupted cards can be said to be corrupted. Psych-o-Tron is a larger version of Annoy-o-Tron, Ravaging Ghoul has the same effect but a different activator etc. Something corrupted should be something that's good, pure or has a clear goal in their life and then twist that beyond recognition.
Ysera could have been made into an AWESOME corrupted card. Instead of Dream Cards she could give you/your opponent Nightmare Cards at the end of each turn which would be harmful to the person having them in their hand. Or a simpler solution could be to cast "Nightmare" on another random friendly minion at the start of each turn (Nightmare gives +5/+5 to a minion and then destroys them a little bit later on). That would be flavorful and interesting. The new Mukla? Does anyone think it's flavorful? Wasn't he evil anyway? Does giving you bananas instead of your opponent constitute a change in his character? I'm not saying the new Mukla is a bad card, that's beyond the point IMO. But he is BORING and has a severe lack of FLAVOR. The same with the new Hogger. They both do their old effect in a slightly different way. Taking a good character from Warcraft and twisting them would be a good way to go to ensure that the created card has flavor and an in-built fun factor. But not only good characters would have to be corrupted, the evil ones could maybe not escape from the Old Gods' madness. Lets take Malygos for example: He is not completely bad if I know the lore correctly, but far from "nice". He is an avid magic user, that's one of the most important things in his life. So why not twist that, basically the essence of his being, into something related to the Old Gods? Or maybe just make him a reverse version of himself, that he now hates magic completely? A card that would destroy spells, minions with spell damage or maybe even have "Spell Damage -5" for both players?
Instead of something like that, where the cards would be fun and interesting they gave us cards like Bog Creeper, Twisted Worgen, Psych-o-Tron, Abberant Berserker etc (still got only the old effect but now costs more with more stat(s)). Is that fun? Is that corrupted? You might think "But hey, not all cards can be legendaries. Some corrupted cards had to be of other rarities". And yes, sure! But the most of them were made so poorly it's hard for me to even comprehend how they got made. Lets take Argent Squire, why not corrupt that card? "1/2/2 - Deathrattle: Give an enemy minion Divine Shield". Simple and quite boring but it has at least some flavor to it. She may serve you in her life, but she's not gonna be happy about it, so when she dies she will try and mess with you. Or a silly idea: "Happy Chicken - 1/1/1 - Enrage: At the end and start of your turn, summon a 1/1 Tentacle". The twisted part would be that the Old Gods have transformed the chicken into some "tentacly" beast that now serves them and instead of being angry has found its place in the world. I'm not saying my ideas have been the best, but if I got paid to come up with ideas? I would beat ALL of the corrupted cards by miles.
If the devs don't want to make cards that are good or serve a niche - fine, but at least make them interesting! Make people smile when they first see them, make them crowd favorites, make them usable in fun decks. Just something, it's your JOB! You are paid to do this so put some effort in it. What new does many of the "new" cards bring to the table? Not much! Simple design is good to have, but there's a difference between "simple design" and "lack of fantasy"/"lazyness".
I agree.
I didnt read your whole post, just the one that explains Ysera compared to Hogger and Mukla and I couldnt agree more. I was hoping for Nightmare Ysera tbh.
One wasted potential that I find is the introduction of Neltharion (the guy before he becomes Deathwing). He was a nice guy with all the dragons on his side, hence the effect makes sense. Instead of giving us just another Deathwing with a cool effect, they could have made him with his good side and show how he was before the corruption. Another thing they could have done is change the effect of our current Deathwing to a more powerful version (not discard your hand for example but still destroy everything), since the Old Gods are here to give him more strength and give us back the old effect when the Old Gods where rotating out of Standard; hence solving the dust issues, if people were complaining (though the new Deathwing is supposed to fill that role, it would feel better lore-wise to have only one corrupted Deathwing card in the set).
This just proves that they have very limited time to manage, test and think about everything (+maybe limited staff). Nevertheless, it's still my favourite card expansion so far.
'There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact'
Sherlock Holmes