With the release of TGT, it is has become apparent that Blizzard wants to make the Warlock discard a thing. Of course Fist of Jaraxxus and Tiny Knight of Evil are not going to cut it.
I have never played Magic, but I have played Yu Gi Oh, and from my experience, there is one HUGE mechanic that hold cards back, especially if they discard cards: the once and done nature of Hearthstone. This problem is demonstrated in cards like Dr. Boom, which is why he is OPOP (Kappa). You can Big Game Hunter that goblin, sure, but he still left his very dangerous Boom Bots to cause havoc anyway.
In Yu Gi Oh, playing around with removed cards, either ones in the grave or ones removed from play, is huge. Only one card in all of Hearthstone lets you even think about cards that have died, Resurrect. The thing about Resurrect is that it is class locked to Priest and it revives a RANDOM minion that DIED ON THE FIELD, from Frog to Ysera. Neither trait makes it very useful for this Warlock discussion.
One deck in Yu Gi Oh that I have always loved was the Dark World deck. They actually fit the Warlock theme quite well, with a bunch of dark fiends that want to be discarded, because they activate their effects (normally a resurrection + something else if the opponent forced the discard) when they are discarded (as long is it was not to pay a cost, but that is beside the point here). Throw in a few spells, traps and monsters that discarded like Fabled Raven and Dark World Dealings and you have a pretty fun swarming deck.
One side point is in Yu Gi Oh, most of the time you get to pick the cards you discard unless the effect says otherwise. This is a key difference which will inform the cards I am proposing. The idea is to have semi-viable cards if you do not discard them, but if you do, you get some benefits.
Now, I have some ideas for some cards to sort of fit that Dark World style, making them all demons that want to be discarded for bonuses but most do not revive themselves or that would be a little too much. All of my ideas are for minions. None have names or images because I am not too familiar with WoW.
1 Mana 2/1 Demon. When you discard this card, summon it.
2 Mana 2/3 Demon. When you discard this card, draw a card.
3 Mana 3/3 Demon. When you discard this card, put 2 random Demons from your deck into your hand.
4 Mana 4/4 Demon. When you discard this card, give a random enemy minion -4 Attack.
5 Mana 2/7 Demon. Taunt. When you discard this card, summon 3 Voidwalkers.
10 Mana 8/8 Demon. Cost (1) less for each card discarded this game.
9 Mana 6/10 Demon. Legendary. Discard your entire hand. Put a number of cards that were discarded this game into your hand equal to the number of cards in your opponent's hand. (Too OP?)
These are just ideas to kick off a springboard. If they are OP, UP, or what have you, it is only because I want to proceed with caution.
I think it would be wildly unreliable because discarding is random. On one hand, you have the potential to trash all of the wrong cards or wind up with a hand of cards that discard but don't benefit from being discarded. On the other hand, you have potentially broken combos. Imagine if on turn 5, your hand consisted of Doomguard and the 3 mana you proposed. You play Doomguard, the 3 gets discarded, and you draw 2 cards. Doomguard became a Charge 5/7 + draw 2 cards. And that's just with one of them in hand. O_o
30 cards means any discarding deck MUST be aggro in order to survive. Sure locks have their hero power but once they are down to but a few cards, there is no getting it back, unlike warrior. Most of these new cards are extremely weak and really hardly account for the lost resources.
People have gotten Fel Reaver to work and this thing discards 9 cards minimum, so i am not sure... Drawing into both Fist of Jaraxxy while you mill through the deck with Reaver sounds interesting, but overall just not competitive.. The team should assume everyones playing ranked at this point.. ZZZzzzzzz
As far as I know, Fel Reaver is confirmed to not trigger "discard" effects, so it doesn't work.
OP, I really like your analysis and agree that the cards we currently have with TGT won't be enough to satisfy a gimmicky discard warlock. Your "When you discard this card" concept is brilliant in my opinion and could even get its own keyword.
There is simply not enough synergy and the reward you get from discarding is not enough to justify running the cards. I have made some discard concepts for a Karazhan adventure a few months ago and made a couple of additional ones to complement those now that I read your post. I believe cards like these could potentially make a discard lock viable!
It really frustrates me when Blizzard are attempting to promote a mechanic that is clearly not going to work. I love Warlocks and I love that in Hearthstone their theme is about doing something powerful at a hefty cost - as you'd expect from playing with dark magic beyond your control. Thing is, there aren't nearly enough tools to support it.
That being said, I really hope that we get some good quality viable cards in the future if Blizzard decide to continue pushing this theme forward. I personally would really love to see a dark-themed, demon and spell heavy deck that is chaotic and destructive. Problem is, like you guys said - discard effect is a loss of value in this game and randomness is a nail in the coffin for it.
The cards you guys produced are pretty neat, really liked a few of the concepts. The OP's concept for "getting something in return for losing a card" is pretty much what we need, with some degree of control over what we discard. Also, Dreadhound, Dark Intent and Prince Malchezaar are really cool.
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With the release of TGT, it is has become apparent that Blizzard wants to make the Warlock discard a thing. Of course Fist of Jaraxxus and Tiny Knight of Evil are not going to cut it.
I have never played Magic, but I have played Yu Gi Oh, and from my experience, there is one HUGE mechanic that hold cards back, especially if they discard cards: the once and done nature of Hearthstone. This problem is demonstrated in cards like Dr. Boom, which is why he is OPOP (Kappa). You can Big Game Hunter that goblin, sure, but he still left his very dangerous Boom Bots to cause havoc anyway.
In Yu Gi Oh, playing around with removed cards, either ones in the grave or ones removed from play, is huge. Only one card in all of Hearthstone lets you even think about cards that have died, Resurrect. The thing about Resurrect is that it is class locked to Priest and it revives a RANDOM minion that DIED ON THE FIELD, from Frog to Ysera. Neither trait makes it very useful for this Warlock discussion.
One deck in Yu Gi Oh that I have always loved was the Dark World deck. They actually fit the Warlock theme quite well, with a bunch of dark fiends that want to be discarded, because they activate their effects (normally a resurrection + something else if the opponent forced the discard) when they are discarded (as long is it was not to pay a cost, but that is beside the point here). Throw in a few spells, traps and monsters that discarded like Fabled Raven and Dark World Dealings and you have a pretty fun swarming deck.
One side point is in Yu Gi Oh, most of the time you get to pick the cards you discard unless the effect says otherwise. This is a key difference which will inform the cards I am proposing. The idea is to have semi-viable cards if you do not discard them, but if you do, you get some benefits.
Now, I have some ideas for some cards to sort of fit that Dark World style, making them all demons that want to be discarded for bonuses but most do not revive themselves or that would be a little too much. All of my ideas are for minions. None have names or images because I am not too familiar with WoW.
1 Mana 2/1 Demon. When you discard this card, summon it.
2 Mana 2/3 Demon. When you discard this card, draw a card.
3 Mana 3/3 Demon. When you discard this card, put 2 random Demons from your deck into your hand.
4 Mana 4/4 Demon. When you discard this card, give a random enemy minion -4 Attack.
5 Mana 2/7 Demon. Taunt. When you discard this card, summon 3 Voidwalkers.
10 Mana 8/8 Demon. Cost (1) less for each card discarded this game.
9 Mana 6/10 Demon. Legendary. Discard your entire hand. Put a number of cards that were discarded this game into your hand equal to the number of cards in your opponent's hand. (Too OP?)
These are just ideas to kick off a springboard. If they are OP, UP, or what have you, it is only because I want to proceed with caution.
Yea... that is a second problem that has been stressed many times by many people. Not sure if there is any way around that one.
... Did you see the list of ideas at the bottom of the post?
I think it would be wildly unreliable because discarding is random. On one hand, you have the potential to trash all of the wrong cards or wind up with a hand of cards that discard but don't benefit from being discarded. On the other hand, you have potentially broken combos. Imagine if on turn 5, your hand consisted of Doomguard and the 3 mana you proposed. You play Doomguard, the 3 gets discarded, and you draw 2 cards. Doomguard became a Charge 5/7 + draw 2 cards. And that's just with one of them in hand. O_o
30 cards means any discarding deck MUST be aggro in order to survive. Sure locks have their hero power but once they are down to but a few cards, there is no getting it back, unlike warrior. Most of these new cards are extremely weak and really hardly account for the lost resources.
People have gotten Fel Reaver to work and this thing discards 9 cards minimum, so i am not sure... Drawing into both Fist of Jaraxxy while you mill through the deck with Reaver sounds interesting, but overall just not competitive.. The team should assume everyones playing ranked at this point.. ZZZzzzzzz
As far as I know, Fel Reaver is confirmed to not trigger "discard" effects, so it doesn't work.
OP, I really like your analysis and agree that the cards we currently have with TGT won't be enough to satisfy a gimmicky discard warlock. Your "When you discard this card" concept is brilliant in my opinion and could even get its own keyword.
There is simply not enough synergy and the reward you get from discarding is not enough to justify running the cards. I have made some discard concepts for a Karazhan adventure a few months ago and made a couple of additional ones to complement those now that I read your post. I believe cards like these could potentially make a discard lock viable!
I lifted the text off of Fist of Jaraxxus for the condition of discarding. Your card ideas are awesome, especially Dark intent and Magtheridon.
I look forward to seeing what we can do with this in the future. I feel like it's like Beast Druid, it just needs more time.
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I had honestly wished dreadsteed was something like 8 mana 7/5 with charge "if you discard this card play it instead"
Instead we get a 4 mana 1/1. Nice going bliz
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It really frustrates me when Blizzard are attempting to promote a mechanic that is clearly not going to work. I love Warlocks and I love that in Hearthstone their theme is about doing something powerful at a hefty cost - as you'd expect from playing with dark magic beyond your control. Thing is, there aren't nearly enough tools to support it.
That being said, I really hope that we get some good quality viable cards in the future if Blizzard decide to continue pushing this theme forward. I personally would really love to see a dark-themed, demon and spell heavy deck that is chaotic and destructive. Problem is, like you guys said - discard effect is a loss of value in this game and randomness is a nail in the coffin for it.
The cards you guys produced are pretty neat, really liked a few of the concepts. The OP's concept for "getting something in return for losing a card" is pretty much what we need, with some degree of control over what we discard. Also, Dreadhound, Dark Intent and Prince Malchezaar are really cool.