I need to screencap the current result standings for the next time somebody suggests the formula too severely punishes entries on pages with multiple outstanding entries. The top 3 classes right now are all on the same page. XD
Question about Phase 2 and beyond, do you actually post the card you already show cased ? Or do you only keep your Hero portrait + Hero Power?
Hero Portrait and Hero Power get carried over necessarily. Anything beyond that, you may include as a spoiler or by linking to a previous Phase submission post.
If you are inventing and introducing a new keyword, then the fact that it appears in no other classes or on any basic card means it is class-exclusive by default. Keen should be saved for later.
We do have a bit if a problem that didn't come up at all during our first Class Creation Competition, though. There are a couple of potential Phase II contestants whose Hero Powers are actually entirely non-functional without their class's unique keyword mechanic. An obvious example of this is the Pokemon Trainer on page 1. We need to figure out what to do about that without giving those users an unfair advantage.
So Basic Cards are just really simple cards without our keyword (if the class uses one) ? I think a lot of the cards might end up being quite similar don't you think ?
A lot of the basic cards will be very simple and even potentially very similar to one another and to existing basic cards, yes. That's why this phase is so brutal. You have to contend with that abd still present something outstandjng and unique. And it's certainly possible. Again, just look at some existing basic cards. Innervate? Wild Growth? Tracking? Mind Vision? Sap/Vanish? Backstab? Corruption? Humility? Truesilver Champion? A lot of these may feel simple just because you're used to them, but they all do pretty damn unique things in the game that other classes just can't.
What if it has a downside? "Deal 3 damage. Take 2 damage."
Yeah Outburst is the logical 3 damage AoE compared to Consecration. Mages get leeway of 1 mana so Flamestrike is at 7 instead of 8, like it would be more balanced, not much you can do about it, unless you want to get fancy, but I don't think that is all that good for the basic set and I want a reliable AoE in the basic set.
Getting fancy isn't impossible. After all, Fan of Knives is a thing, and it's pretty unique in being the only AoE that also draws. Of course, getting fancy is also not necessary. Believably boring cards here and there are desirably realistic as fas as I'm concerned. =)
Did you post your set yet?
I've only just begin considering it, to be honest. For boring stuff I'm going to have the Standard Issue in my concept examples (vanilla weapon, 2/2 for (1)), and then Crash, which I just told you about. I'm also probably gonna have a boring 3/2 for 2 minion with Spell Damage +1. I'm considering doing a 4-cost "Restore 10 Health" but since I'm worried that might be too boring I'm considering having it also freeze the target and I can call it sort of an Alien Stasis thingy.
For interesting stuff I currently have Abduct, which is an 8-cost spell that puts a minion in your hand. It's sort of between Entomb and Mind Control, but it's an effect that's not quite been seen and it's thematically appropriate and interesting, so I like it. The other thing is I think I'm gonna poach one of my cards from Seer for a ramp thing: Crop Circles, 2-cost spell "Reduce the cost of cards in your hand by (5), randomly split among them.".
I've had a couple of other more elaborate ideas, but both thematically and mechanically I'm thinking I'll save them for Classic if I get there, like a high-cost Annunaki alien with Divine Shield and Spell Damage +1 that also gives a minion Spell Damage +1 as a Battlecry, like a much better Ancient Mage. I also want to do other stuff besides Alien stuff like Bigfoot and Mothman, and I think I could put Bigfoot in basic, but I was really hoping to give it Stealth, which isn't allowed on Basic. So right now I'm trying to see if I can do something with Men In Black or Eyewitnesses for minion concepts, though then again I might just stick with spells. I want to do just one basic card that gives you a File, so I'm thinking on that...
That was more than you asked for with pretty much no substance, huh? XP Sorry, I rambled...
Side Note, Zukuu, is it intended the way your Hero Power is worded, for your Hero to keep the Attack bonus even during the opponent's turn? Because that would be incredibly good seeing as how it would damage face-attacking minions without losing the buff. Note that hero attack is not on your turn only by default. It's just that pretty much all existing hero attack bonuses only last "this turn". Weapons have their own rules, and that's why those are not active during the opponent's turn, but other attack bonuses like from your hero power don't follow that rule.
I'm pretty sure, for example, that one of the Naxx adventure bosses has a minion that just says "Your hero has +1 Attack" or something like that and it's constantly active so you get hurt doing face damage.
I think it's too good as a set. Not every card in a class's set needs to be or even should be playable. Look at the existing classes' based sets. There are some underwhelming cards in there, and they help to even out the class as a whole. Even if they're not individually broken per se, making every card in a set good makes the whole class too powerful. It may not sound flashy, but making room for mediocre is making room for realism and believably.
Off of the top of my head, Assault Droid could be a perfectly fine 2-drop. I know class cards get some allowances over basic cards, but not two full stat points (see Stonetusk Boar, which isn't even a bad card). Additionally, class 1/3's tend to have that extra 1 point of Health because it actually aids them in using their card text, which isn't the case here, so I'd argue it's unnecessary. If you really want to make it cost (1), I'd say just make it a 1/2.
Laser Cannon just seems super unnecessary in being that good.
Outburst is one of my basic cards too! XD I'm calling it "Crash" though. =)
I think the real standout concepts are Energy Sword and Overcharge, though I'd simplify the first sentence of Overcharge to "Give a minion +2 Attack.".
Finally, about Enhancement, Mech synergy is one of those things that, last competition, we disallowed pre-GvG because the Mech tag didn't exist yet. Then again, I could see the argument being made for it just because if, say, Hunter didn't exist then the Beast tag would have been pointless and there would have been zero things that synergized with it either until GvG... Hmm...
We have determined the number of entries moving on to Phase II.
Using the premise that each elimination should advance about the same proportion of entries, the following formula was devised:
[# of entries] * x^4 = 4
The exponential 4 is because we're going to eliminate 4 times: Phases 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, and 4-5. The 4 at he end is because we want to end up with 4 finalists. After discounting the "REMOVED" posts, we had 187 actual entries. Solving for x left us with ~38%. In other words, ~38% of entries each round would move on to the next round. Therefore...
72 entries will move on from Phase I to Phase II 28 entries will move on from Phase II to Phase III 11 entries will move on from Phase III to Phase IV and 4 entries will move on from Phase IV to Phase V
These are not counting our Wild Cards, so each phase may advance 0-3 more classes (except for the 4 finalists).
Take not that those 187 entries include ones that we've already disqualified. There are, at present, 169 valid entries, so the top ~43% of valid entries are advancing.
If our last Class Creation Competition was any indication, Phase II is going to be the most brutal. Because it's Basic cards, you have to prove that your class concept has merit without needing to resort to class-exclusive keywords or other fancy keywords like Deathrattle, Silence, and Secret. It's a true test of your abilities to create cards that are both simple and unique.
Hey, as the first phase submission phase is over people may be thinking more about their Basic/Classic cards now. I ended up making a spreadsheet with some descriptive statistics on the vanilla hearthstone cards.
It gives a bit of an insight into the set, such as distribution between minions, spells and weapons. I also put in different types of spells and how much usage cards get overall (although this bit is entirely made up but it seemed like a good idea at the time).
Existing Hearthstone cards may not be changed, and I specifically called out Maiden of the Lake in the Phase I Submission guidelines as something to be wary of.
We actually briefly discussed allowing all (valid) submissions to move on to Phase II, but the problem is that it's just not logistically viable. Phase II consists of Basic cards, so each person would have to submit 10, in addition to re-showing their Hero and Hero Power. Phase II will work off of example cards again, yes, with folks being allowed to show 3 out in the open and needing to submit the other 7 behind a spoiler block, but even still the number of cards, coupled with the fact that Basic cards have a lot of restrictions (like not including deathrattles, silences, secrets, or class-exclusive keywords), means that we'd just have too much going on with such a narrower design space and the Phase would end up a clustercuss to wade through. >_<
Well, I've dropped back into 2nd place on the voting on my page. I need a push.
You probably do not. This is not like our WCDCs where only the top 10% or 5% get to move onto the finals. At least a good third of you will move onto Phase II.
I see somebody just posted a Seer class in the submission topic.
I wish them great luck.
*sips tea*
So this happened when I quoted you:
You might have caught right between edits. XD I was hoping the "*sips tea*" would make it more clear I'm just joking and not actually throwing shade. =)
I need to screencap the current result standings for the next time somebody suggests the formula too severely punishes entries on pages with multiple outstanding entries. The top 3 classes right now are all on the same page. XD
If you are inventing and introducing a new keyword, then the fact that it appears in no other classes or on any basic card means it is class-exclusive by default. Keen should be saved for later.
We do have a bit if a problem that didn't come up at all during our first Class Creation Competition, though. There are a couple of potential Phase II contestants whose Hero Powers are actually entirely non-functional without their class's unique keyword mechanic. An obvious example of this is the Pokemon Trainer on page 1. We need to figure out what to do about that without giving those users an unfair advantage.
Sorry, I rambled...
Side Note, Zukuu, is it intended the way your Hero Power is worded, for your Hero to keep the Attack bonus even during the opponent's turn? Because that would be incredibly good seeing as how it would damage face-attacking minions without losing the buff. Note that hero attack is not on your turn only by default. It's just that pretty much all existing hero attack bonuses only last "this turn". Weapons have their own rules, and that's why those are not active during the opponent's turn, but other attack bonuses like from your hero power don't follow that rule.
I'm pretty sure, for example, that one of the Naxx adventure bosses has a minion that just says "Your hero has +1 Attack" or something like that and it's constantly active so you get hurt doing face damage.
I think it's too good as a set. Not every card in a class's set needs to be or even should be playable. Look at the existing classes' based sets. There are some underwhelming cards in there, and they help to even out the class as a whole. Even if they're not individually broken per se, making every card in a set good makes the whole class too powerful. It may not sound flashy, but making room for mediocre is making room for realism and believably.
Off of the top of my head, Assault Droid could be a perfectly fine 2-drop. I know class cards get some allowances over basic cards, but not two full stat points (see Stonetusk Boar, which isn't even a bad card). Additionally, class 1/3's tend to have that extra 1 point of Health because it actually aids them in using their card text, which isn't the case here, so I'd argue it's unnecessary. If you really want to make it cost (1), I'd say just make it a 1/2.
Laser Cannon just seems super unnecessary in being that good.
Outburst is one of my basic cards too! XD
I'm calling it "Crash" though. =)
I think the real standout concepts are Energy Sword and Overcharge, though I'd simplify the first sentence of Overcharge to "Give a minion +2 Attack.".
Finally, about Enhancement, Mech synergy is one of those things that, last competition, we disallowed pre-GvG because the Mech tag didn't exist yet. Then again, I could see the argument being made for it just because if, say, Hunter didn't exist then the Beast tag would have been pointless and there would have been zero things that synergized with it either until GvG... Hmm...
Update:
We have determined the number of entries moving on to Phase II.
Using the premise that each elimination should advance about the same proportion of entries, the following formula was devised:
[# of entries] * x^4 = 4
The exponential 4 is because we're going to eliminate 4 times: Phases 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, and 4-5.
The 4 at he end is because we want to end up with 4 finalists.
After discounting the "REMOVED" posts, we had 187 actual entries.
Solving for x left us with ~38%. In other words, ~38% of entries each round would move on to the next round.
Therefore...
72 entries will move on from Phase I to Phase II
28 entries will move on from Phase II to Phase III
11 entries will move on from Phase III to Phase IV
and 4 entries will move on from Phase IV to Phase V
These are not counting our Wild Cards, so each phase may advance 0-3 more classes (except for the 4 finalists).
Take not that those 187 entries include ones that we've already disqualified. There are, at present, 169 valid entries, so the top ~43% of valid entries are advancing.
If our last Class Creation Competition was any indication, Phase II is going to be the most brutal. Because it's Basic cards, you have to prove that your class concept has merit without needing to resort to class-exclusive keywords or other fancy keywords like Deathrattle, Silence, and Secret. It's a true test of your abilities to create cards that are both simple and unique.
Existing Hearthstone cards may not be changed, and I specifically called out Maiden of the Lake in the Phase I Submission guidelines as something to be wary of.
We actually briefly discussed allowing all (valid) submissions to move on to Phase II, but the problem is that it's just not logistically viable. Phase II consists of Basic cards, so each person would have to submit 10, in addition to re-showing their Hero and Hero Power. Phase II will work off of example cards again, yes, with folks being allowed to show 3 out in the open and needing to submit the other 7 behind a spoiler block, but even still the number of cards, coupled with the fact that Basic cards have a lot of restrictions (like not including deathrattles, silences, secrets, or class-exclusive keywords), means that we'd just have too much going on with such a narrower design space and the Phase would end up a clustercuss to wade through. >_<
I was hoping the "*sips tea*" would make it more clear I'm just joking and not actually throwing shade. =)