Hearthpwn

Honestly I wish it was closer to her Heroes of the Storm characterisation. It has the same stats as Faerie Dragon I guess, but protection from spells, polymorphing a minion, even aoe healing would be considerably more thematic. It's an alright card, and a low cost dragon activator, but as a permanent addition to classic it's disappointingly bland.

"A Raven Lord in the hand is worth two on the battlefield."

Raven Lord Anzu - 6 Mana, 5/5, Legendary Druid Beast:
Choose One - Summon a 2/2 Raven with Stealth; or gain a Mana Crystal.

To give it a little bit of flair compared to other summoning minions, the raven has stealth, helping cement a decent board presence in combination with Anzu's moderately sized body. You can also make use of those crystals around his neck, and yes, it's a filled one, so if you pick this it's pretty much a 5/5 for 5 with mana crystal boost! By giving Anzu two completely different effects, hopefully it'll provide the versatility needed to make it useful in just about any situation.

Fanged Flight - 1 Mana, Common Druid Spell.
Give a friendly minion Rush. After it attacks, return it to your hand.

Simple. It's a cheap spell to grant rush, with the potential drawback (or potential benefit) of returning it to your hand afterwards, whether it lives or dies. Obviously, this card synergises best with low-cost, low-health, and high-attack battlecry cards, but it can be used with a bigger minion in a pinch, even if it means losing board presence.

As you might guess by the card art and name, it's themed after beasts, the Wolpertinger in particular.

"Never feed a Wolpertinger after midnight. Feel free to get it wet, though."

The basic premise for this card is that the base stats are underwhelming, but with the Beast tag, and the opportunity to gain bonus attack and Rush, it'll be pretty decent against your opponent's turn 1 play. Later on it's effectively '1 mana, deal 2 damage to a minion', with its low cost giving opportunities to combine it with damage / health buffs. It's nothing overwhelming, rather something simple yet strong enough to help out in a pinch.

"Never feed a Wolpertinger after midnight. Feel free to get it wet, though."

The idea for this card is that it starts off as a sub-par minion, but if it's able to survive Overkilling a minion, the Wolpertinger transforms and becomes more powerful. This makes it an effective answer to early game 1/1 minions! Buffing this minion can help activate the Overkill effect, but it'll lose those buffs upon transforming, so choose wisely.

Since it pretty much transforms into an Ironfur Grizzly , I elected not to create a token.

"A Raven Lord in the hand is worth two in the deck."

Anzu holds the potential for a small bonus for a small drawback, or a huge one with an equally huge penalty. The larger the spell played, the more you're overloaded. The lore behind Anzu involves him being captured and restrained, but gaining great power in the process - hence casting a spell, but your mana crystals being locked behind an overload effect. Like Yogg-Saron, if it casts an Overload Spell, you'll have that Overloaded on top of Anzu's, which should help keep it's power in check.

Quote from Williamo15 >>

@Azshara

Anzu holds the potential for a small bonus for a small drawback, and the larger the spell played, the more you're overloaded. The lore behind Anzu involves him being captured and restrained, but gaining great power in the process - hence casting a spell, but your mana crystals being locked behind an overload effect. Like Yogg-Saron, if it casts an Overload Spell, you'll have that Overloaded on top of Anzu's, which should help keep it's power in check.

Anzu is a solid card, really like the balance overall, really tactical and gambly to play (chance of having volcano in hand or something, and making it kill itself just like Servant of Yogg-Saron and Yogg-Saron, Hope's End himself.)

Druid of the Wild is just a simplistic card; it has slightly higher stats than Succubus, but lacks any tribe tag or class interactions with discard effects, with a little added versatility. If you draw it later on in the game, it may be more beneficial to destroy a mana crystal. It's not the most inspired or game-changing card, but I wanted to have something solid to fall back on if my other ideas don't pan out. You don't want to play this with Fandral.

Druid of the Wild is really busted i.m.o. a 2 mana 4/4 with a minor drawback (im looking at you Vulgar Homunculus) is incredibly strong, and you will always pick destroy a mana crystal when starting with coin wich would result in no loss whatsoever. Discarding a card for a 2 mana 4/4 isn't a big drawback either, since aggro druid still has enough ways to draw cards.

Edit*  I said discarding a card isn't a big drawback in aggro decks (but that isn't enirely true, because as you can see Succubus is not being runned in zoolock decks.

Jaina basically requires you to sacrifice your allies in exchange for great power, gaining ever increasing spell damage at the start of each turn. The automatic aspect of the hero power means you can only use 8 mana crystals, helping to avoid being too powerful. As you can be guaranteed to only draw spells after you play her, it allows you to filter through the deck for your new win condition, as you'll have no way to create board presence.

Jaina is a hard one for me to decide wether its great or useless.. her battlecry is so weak compared to the Deathknights (not that I want to compare her to Deathknights) but i.m.o. she feels to slow to be put in a burn deck (having to wait till 9 mana and have her in your hand at turn 9 (considering some people don't have or run Aluneth )). Her hero power seems near useless in a control archetype mage deck. So the only thing I could imagine I see this card being used for is some kind of new OTK deck, building up your hero power so it would be around spell damage +5 like Malygos maybe even higher and make your fireballs deal 10+ damage, but having to survive a # amount of turns for it seems fine (given we don't have Ice Block anymore). 

Note* Jaina together with cards like Maiden of the Lake, Garrison Commander, Coldarra Drake would make for some classic wild clown fiesta.

Overall I think Anzu is most fun/balanced, Druid of the Wild is broken and Jaina is really hard to judge looking at current mage decks.

Anzu was the first one I came up with, as I had an idea about the lore and how to make it work as a card effect, glad it seems alright. Having the drawback scale with the power of the spell is pretty nifty, if I do say so myself. As for Druid of the Wild, do you think scaling it back to a 3/4 would make it balanced? That way it'd still be slightly better than Succubus (as intended), without being too powerful; regardless, it's a little too bland to submit, so I'll chalk it up to experience. Finally, for Jaina, I designed her in mind with being amazing with the right cards, but not really fitting into any contemporary decks. I considered having a lower mana cost without the freeze effect, but without the immediate impact, it really didn't feel like it'd hold on its own. Going to think over how to make her a little more approachable, then decide between her and Anzu. Thanks for the feedback!

As for other cards submitted; 

@RigaCrypto: Given how I've designed Anzu, I can say I'm a fan of the card's effect. As for balancing, the stats seem fine; having a slightly more defensive lean means that her effect won't activate too easily, and she won't deal too much damage on her own either. Given her mana cost, you could play smaller spells before you activate her battlecry, which I'm quite fond of. Solid card all round I think.

@ffinderous Show Hand! seems pretty good, though I worry it could be a little too powerful if combined with non-targeted spells like Sinister Strike and Headcrack could lead to single-card one-turn-kills, which feels a little uninteractive. That said, the immediate drawback of not having any cards left could prove good enough to make it balanced. I believe it should say "(targets chosen randomly)".

@Wailor Love the concept for It's Alive! Perhaps having it be 9 mana could give you a means to drop a 1 cost you may have drawn, just to make it a little more consistent, rather than more powerful. Fission's pretty flavourful, but 'draw spells of the same cost' seems vague, do you mean draw from your deck, or add to your hand? Similarly, how would Harmonizer's Discover effect work - what would you be choosing?

@Kwakdizzle: The flavour and balancing for this card seem pretty solid. The wording seems mostly fine, but the battlecry should be "Discard a random card", unless you want the player to be able to choose. Perhaps to cut down on space you could change a couple of things: Whenever could become 'After', and 'the discarded card' could be 'that card'. Other than that, I'm a fan!

@Thezzy: The Collector is the kind of card I can see being added to hearthstone. The effect is consistent while still powerful, though I might increase the cost and stats to make it a later game play. Corrupted Furbolg is cool too, I like the idea of being able to minimise risk at a cost. Perhaps the 2nd choice could be 'Discover two cards in your hand and discard them', to keep in line with existing mechanics / phrasing.

Welp, I've come up with 3 ideas for the moment. With these ones I wanted to explicitly theme each of them towards their class through the use of Keywords. I'm going to hold back on reviewing other cards for now and take a break, but in the meanwhile, let me know what you think (I'm mostly concerned about balancing)!

Anzu holds the potential for a small bonus for a small drawback, and the larger the spell played, the more you're overloaded. The lore behind Anzu involves him being captured and restrained, but gaining great power in the process - hence casting a spell, but your mana crystals being locked behind an overload effect. Like Yogg-Saron, if it casts an Overload Spell, you'll have that Overloaded on top of Anzu's, which should help keep it's power in check.

Druid of the Wild is just a simplistic card; it has slightly higher stats than Succubus, but lacks any tribe tag or class interactions with discard effects, with a little added versatility. If you draw it later on in the game, it may be more beneficial to destroy a mana crystal. It's not the most inspired or game-changing card, but I wanted to have something solid to fall back on if my other ideas don't pan out. You don't want to play this with Fandral.

Jaina basically requires you to sacrifice your allies in exchange for great power, gaining ever increasing spell damage at the start of each turn. The automatic aspect of the hero power means you can only use 8 mana crystals, helping to avoid being too powerful. As you can be guaranteed to only draw spells after you play her, it allows you to filter through the deck for your new win condition, as you'll have no way to create board presence.

Going to give a quick-fire review of each suggestion (deep breath);

@CheeseEtc: Astral curse feels pretty similar to Astral Communion, and I'm not sure what to make of it balance wise, because it seems too 'swingy'. It could give you a turn 5 Deathwing (sooner with Coin / Innervate), but if you have a few low cost cards, it's effectively dead weight. I like the flavour for Big Game Tracking, it works as a lower cost Hemet, and could help bring out a Hunter deck that focuses on bigger minions.

@Demonxz95: Absolutely love Witch Hunter's effect, it offers the potential to delay powerful combos, without shutting them down outright, though if the text can fit, I believe the proper card text should say 'random minion'. Mysterious Merchant is a nice change of pace too, we've seen cards that give coins, but none that really interact with them - the flavour of 'buying cards' is nifty, and the balancing seems spot on.

@linkblade91: I prefer the second text for Wyrmfire Commander, it's simple while conveying what it means. Due to the number of big Dragons, I worry it could be a little too powerful, but given the cost and conditions required, I think that's a good thing; making a dragon deck work revolves around keystone cards like these. (Hate to be nitpicky, though I believe it should clarify a 'random dragon').

@BOOOOOOOOOOM: Feels way too uninteractive and powerful; Illidan used to have an effect like this and they changed it due to it simply not being fun to play, or play against. If it revolved around burning your own cards in order to draw, it'd be pretty good, but cards like Dirty Rat work because they present the opportunity to summon a big minion in exchange, and this does none of that.

@waterwalker: The flavour and potential for this card is brilliant- that said, it might be better to make it a 7 Mana card, to avoid too many shenanigans with Fireball. I understand that's the intended concept, but having this and a single fireball could result in a 12 damage burst, 18 damage if you have two, which seems a little too oppressive. The wording seems clunky, but I'm not sure how to fix it.

@MattyHooba: I'm not sure what the intended idea for Spurious hero is, because while it could mean an early hero power upgrade, it's dependant on a single card, which means it'll almost never activate. Arcane Sniper and Lobotomise just feel way too powerful and frustrating to play against - even if their mana costs were increased significantly, their effects aren't fun in a game like Hearthstone.

@ChildOfTheAtom12: Honestly I feel this is pretty good, albeit a little 'swingy' - It could vary from 5 mana 'discard a minion and summon a 3/5 taunt', to a downright Deathwing power level card on turn 5. In an aggro deck with plenty of draw, this'd be great for upgrading your minions into bigger ones, but I can't see it working in traditional control too much. Solid card that promotes a alternative playstyle. Nice.

@ColinthePyro: I like the flavour of Agni - i.e. converting your spells into minions, but it does feel a little 'uninmpactful', in that we have other legendaries that summon multiple other minions. Going with my usual status for Automation; not a fan of cards that discard from the opponent's hand. Zealous Cultist seems pretty well balanced, and I like the abilitiy to choose the target (that card text placement though).

@zartgruen: Acts as free fodder for Discard warlock and cards that summon from your deck. Perfect. Honestly, I love the idea of it just having ??? as it's name, as if the hearthstone team went ahead and put it in the game, with absolutely no discernible reason for its existence other than finding it funny. One of the few semi-joke cards that I'm absolutely voting for if you submit it.

@Echo_: *Incomprehensible rant about how cards that discard opponent's cards are unfun to play against, and often unbalanced given hearthstone's lack of graveyard interaction*. Really though, I don't know what I'd change, the entire concept of the card is just something I'm vehemently against, regardless of how powerful it might be, even if you nerfed it significantly, it's not something I'd vote for.

@acegamerperson: I love the flavour for this card, in that you discard your cards and 'reanimate' them as undead, though I'd change it to only discard / summon your minions, allowing you to hold onto your spells / weapons. In terms of balancing, it feels a little underpowered almost - perhaps reducing the cost of the card, and increasing the hero power cost slightly (also can't say I like the artwork chosen)

@TheProgenitor: Dragon Snatcher feels a little too sticky and powerful for my tastes - it's effectively 3 mana to summon a 9 mana card as a deathrattle, and it should say 'random dragon' in the card text. Fleeting vision is fantastic, but it could do with costing more; given you're almost certainly going to play your opponent's cards, it's like a better Arcane Intellect. Picky Looter is solid and I like the concept.

@Turkeybag: I really like the idea of this card, in that it helps enable Mecha'thun's effect by discarding a card (or two if you've played two Mechoners). I think it'd be best to clarify that the Discard effect activates before Mecha'thun's effect when you submit it though. Other than that, can't say I have any issues or improvements I can offer.

Going to post my suggestion(s) in a different comment later on if that's alright, to make quoting / referencing easier, and give me some time to think of more ideas / balancing.

"We have no idea if the hero will ever return"

When the day comes, he shall return as the forbidden 5th horserider of the apocalypse; harbinger of

490 dust minimum. 

Blizzard's feeling charitable this year it seems.

Perfectly Balanced

"The Frostskull will send shivers down your spine (disclaimer: they may also steal your spine)!"

The main idea behind this minion is combining it with Freeze effect cards to bolster the control aspect of mage decks that utilise the mechanic. You can combo it with cheap freeze effects like Glacial Shard , set up freezes a turn ahead with cards like Water Elemental , or play spells like Blizzard the turn after, letting you trade it in to activate the deathrattle.

With below average stats and a conditional effect, the potential impact of the card can be much greater, while adding a degree of flexibility not seen in most other cards (i.e. if you can't activate the battlecry, you may be able to activate the deathrattle). That said; like Coldwraith , you only gain 5 armor per effect, regardless of how many enemies are frozen.

Here's my entry for this week, let me know what you think!

The main idea behind this minion is combining it with Freeze effect cards to bolster the control aspect of mage decks that utilise the mechanic. You can combo it with cheap freeze effects like Glacial Shard, set up freezes a turn ahead with cards like Water Elemental, or play spells like Blizzard the turn after, letting you trade it in to activate the deathrattle.

With below average stats and a conditional effect, the potential impact of the card can be much greater, while adding a degree of flexibility not seen in most other cards (i.e. if you can't activate the battlecry, you may be able to activate the deathrattle). That said; like Coldwraith, you only gain 5 armor per effect, regardless of how many enemies are frozen.

Goodnight, sweet Mana Wyrm; and flights of Avianas sing thee to thy rest.