http://s5.postimg.org/mk7wtabc7/edaf1535.png
The next two turns your opponent will draw Sea Reavers, which could be pretty punishing if they're hoping to topdeck something specific. That could hurt in the early game (especially when their board is getting Arcane Explosioned twice) but it will give them a stronger late game, potentially!
47
Hey kids, I'm hosting a Fireside Gathering in the back of my van, who wants to come ?
6
OK. It's really time for Blizzard to fix the ladder. It is not normal that half+ of my matchups at rank 20 are against golden heroes with pandaria card backs and tier 1 decks.
5
Dude your necromantic powers are so high you're making Kel'Thuzad jealous.
11
The flavor behind this card is based on the double-entry bookkeeping system in accounting. Perfect against decks that tend to draw a lot.
EDIT: Replaced "less" with "fewer". Thanks to nurgling13 for having pointed that out.
1
Thanks for feedback! Here are a few of my reponses.
I'm not convinced that Shadow Crash would make any other AoE unplayable, rather they would be played alongside Shadow Crash because consistency is good. I'm persuaded that Priest needs a mid-costed board clear to be viable in the long term because its basic/classic set is too gimmicky which would force Blizzard to constantly release backbone cards for Priest to make it playable, at the expense of other, more innovative cards.
One thing I tried to improve but failed is the card's flavor. Priest AoEs generally don't rely on dealing damage but on each minion's characteristics (Shadow Word: Horror, Lightbomb, etc.). I tried different designs such as "Destroy all minions that cost 4 or less" but I didn't find any design that would be intuitive enough and neither OP or useless.
After some thought I think you're right on this one. Warlock would still need a survival tool in its basic set though but maybe healing is not the way to go. An effect like Mal'Ganis may be better, I'll think about it.
2
Global review time!
Cards I'd vote for:
Hit or Mist by ShadowsOfSense (page 1)
Reinforce by Lathy (page 3)
Twilight Shadowmage by Demonx95 (page 4)
Overwhelming Cold by TheProgenitor (page 10)
Desperate for Attention by YJHS2000 (page 11) - It's retarded, therefore it's awesome.
Jungle Ritualist by NOVEXOR (page 11)
Focused Gaze by Toble (page 16)
Cards I'd vote for with modifications:
Firelands' Wrath by Vilegloom (page 2) - It's underpowered at 8 mana (but I get the meme cost). I would make it cost 7 or even 6.
Lorestealer Cho by PhoenixFeather (page 2) - I would make it neutral, provided "cast it again" is ok of course.
Sands of Time by Cogito_ergo_sum (page 8) [the shaman version] - The flavor is weird. It needs a name related to shamans and a Warcraft-y art.
Rallying Cry by Sinti (page 12) - "If a minion dies this turn"
Cards I'd NOT vote for:
The rest, as usual. Base concept too boring, not original, fundamentally unbalanced, not functional, doesn't follow the rules, etc.
I must also say that this week's theme is extremely restrictive. Outside of the very obvious ideas, nearly all cards are either cards that would be better worded without "cast this again" or extremely high RNG variance cards. If we had more latitude for the wording, it might have been better but right now it's not fun.
As for me I will probably go with Accounting given the feedback I've received, though part of me still wants to go with Roulette Wheel :D
Also just for the memes:
14
Hello everyone,
I'm part of the people who get very sad when a basic card is nerfed because basic cards are the spine of the class. They define a class' identity and its playstyle and guarantees that the class will always have a handful of solid cards to fall back on in case of unfavorable expansions, not to mention they're an entry point for new/F2P players. I don't like Blizzard's aggressive nerf policy towards the basic/classic set.
If it were up to me, I would change or even roll back most of the nerfs to basic cards. I would have changed Rockbiter Weapon to a 3/1 weapon, reduced Warsong Commander's threshold to 2 and made her effect an aura one rather than a "whenever" one (this would have made Frothing Berserker's shenanigans impossible), chosen the "Refresh 2 Mana Crystals" options for Innervate (come on, new players aren't retards, the explanation they gave is ludicrous especially given basic cards like Tracking or Charge, at best it could have been worded "Refill 2 of your Mana Crystals"), and left the Win Axe intact.
I know the rationale, the basic set shouldn't be too powerful otherwise there won't be enough change between each standard rotation, but as I said, this approach has big downsides. They shouldn't make the basic set so weak that it's only playable at rank 25. But what about basic cards that simply can't be balanced in a way they're neither auto-includes nor unplayable ? Well, in those cases I would argue that a basic card that is an auto-include is a lesser evil compared to a basic card that is unplayable. Ultimately, the responsibility is on Blizzard to make new interesting cards that are worth buying and playing over basic cards.
But enough ranting! I made this thread to present you with 9 new basic cards, 1 for each class, which I think are needed to reinforce class identity and class stability. I considered many aspects of each class characteristics, strengths, weakenesses, and general flavor, as well as each class' needs. I prioritized different aspects depending on the quality of the basic set of each class:
Note that most of these cards are bland from an artistic point of view because I focused on gameplay rather than "coolness". Since it's the basic set, being original is not always a good idea.
Without further ado, here are the cards!
DRUID
I know what you're thinking but please put down your pitchforks and let me explain! The problem with Jade Idol is not that it brings infinite, it is that it brings infinite AND EXPONENTIAL value. It is a thing to keep playing 3/2s in the late game, it is another to keep playing 10/10s, 11/11s, that get stronger over time!
As I said, Druid's basic/classic set is already quite good and Darkshore Treant would set "never go to fatigue" as part of Druid's identity. I think it's perfectly legitimate to make Druid "the class that can nullify fatigue" since it already had two cards that do this (Malorne and Jade Idol). As a vanilla minion that can screw draw consistency, it wouldn't see play outside dedicated anti-fatigue decks so wouldn't be an auto-include.
HUNTER
This Hunter card was the second toughest class for me to define (just after Rogue). I strongly hesitated between this and "Draw a card for each of your minions". Why this card ? Two reasons:
- Hunter has no (or conditional) card draw. This is obviously a built-in and legititmate weakness of the Hunter class which would be absolute cancer if it did have good card draw. However it has tons of tutor and targeted card draw cards, this would be one of them. On top of providing a decent play on turn 4, Herd would thin your deck of 3 bad topdecks.
- Give the class a token/zoo archetype. The Hunter class is pigeonholed into a playstyle oscillating between face and midrange because it lacks heal, good aoes and card draw. Blizzard nerfed Face Hunter cards to oblivion and apparently doesn't want it to come back (I can somewhat understand why) but Hunter remains an aggressive class. Token/zoo archetypes are aggro but non-face archetypes based on board control and Hunter already has tons ok token-synergy cards : Scavenging Hyena, Alleyca, Timber Wolf, Unleash the Hounds, Starving Buzzard (which should be rebuffed btw), etc...
This card is susceptible to be an auto-include but again, Blizzard responsibility etc...MAGE
Mage is probably the class with the best basic set out there so again, for them it was just a case of giving more diverse and wacky tools to the class to create new playstyles.
The playstyle I chose here is the Value Mage one. It is basically a single-target Echo of Medivh which may allow you to do interesting stuff with giants or Archmage Antonidas.
I strongly hesitated between this and a "Summon x random C-Cost minions" type of card. I chose this because it won't give new player cards they're unfamiliar with. I think new players can perfectly manage cards they're unfamiliar but not necessarily easily, so I chose Resonance.
PALADIN
Paladin has an inconsistent basic/classic set and is purely reliant on expansion cards to be good. It needs an overall powerful basic card to make the class more stable.
I designed this card by looking at Spikeridged Steed, a card I strongly underestimated that gives Paladin tremendous midrange power and board presence, as well as an extremely sticky minion. Powerful buffs are Paladin's way to retake board control without hard removals and with only weak board clears.
PRIEST
Priest is probably the class with the worst basic/classic set out there (taking only into account basic cards, this title woudl be held by Warlock though). It is full of slow and gimmick cards with only a conditional utility and doesn't give the class any proactive tool.
What does the Priest class need to be viable? Well, if we look at the era when priest was unplayable, we can see that it corresponds to the period after Lightbomb rotated out and before Dragonfire Potion was released. Priest is the slowest class in the game. I think this is fine, but it means the class needs effective catch-up mechanisms to be viable because Hero Power "The Light shall burn you!" on turn 6 is not a very good play.
Shadow Crash is very simple. It's Dragonfire Potion except it also damages Dragons, which I think is fine since Dragonfire Potion's exception advantages you most of the time.
ROGUE
This card was the toughest to design. It's not that Rogue's basic set is bad. On the contrary it's one of the best class basic set out there (and bad class basic sets are in fact easy to modify) so it doesn't really need anything.
Well, not quite. Rogue is one-trick Miracle pony. Tempo rogue became a legit deck only very recently, Quest Rogue was an "artifical" deck, and Oil Rogue was kind of a variation of Miracle itself (and Mill is a difficult archetype not adapted for a classic set). What aspect of the Rogue class has Blizzard tried to emphasize but never took off ? Collectible weapons!
At first I designed weapon buffs but realised it wasn't the way to go since they would always end up on a Wicked Knife anyway. Then I tried to design a collectible weapon, but found no design that was simple enough to be in the classic set. So I went with half a Forge of Souls. This very cost-effective card draw would be a strong incentive to add any collectible weapon into a rogue's deck and therefore emphasize a neglected aspect of the Rogue class.
All basic/classic cards give you something when their effect would be otherwise useless, so I did that here too...
SHAMAN
Well, that one is very straigtforward. It would enshrine Token Shaman as a generic playstyle of the Shaman class. I'm surprised it's not part of the existing basic set to be honest.
To be honest, Evolve would be perfect and much better basic class card if a reverse Hall of Fame was a thing. Sadly, it's not the case.
WARLOCK
Warlock has the worst basic set of all classes. Fortunately its classic set and Hero Power make up for it. I often read that Life Tap is OP and is the "reason" why Warlock only receives shitty cards because but it's not true. Life Tap is not OP. The Warlock class can fail, we saw that last expansion. The thing is that Warlock is the only class more defined by its Hero Power than by most of its cards. Life Tap alone guarantees that Warlock will always have more archetypes : hand and zoo. If all class cards were deleted, Warlock would still feel unique (and for this reason would probably be more powerful) while all other classes would all feel the same (except maybe Hunter). I think I'm not mistaken when I say that Warlock is the class that uses the highest proportion of neutral cards in its decks.
This may be the reason why Blizzard never felt pressured to think much about Warlock archetypes when designing cards and why its themes (self-harm, demons, discard, etc.) are all over the place.
I feel it would be good to think about Warlock beyond hand and zoo but it's not what I did today. Warlock needs healing in its basic set. Good healing, not Sacrificial Pact, so I made Hearthstone which fits into the hand playstyle.
I think Bloodbloom would be a good card to reverse-hall-of-fame too since it's a generic card than can be played with a wide variety of spells.
WARRIOR
Just kidding. Well, no. I still think they shouldn't have nerfed Fiery War Axe but I still have a legit new card for you.
Warrior's basic set has been beaten up by the nerfhammer beyond recovery. 4 of its cards have been nerfed, 2 of them twice. Warrior had one of the best and, more importantly, most diverse basic set of all classes with multiple well-defined archetypes (remember WOG-Karazhan when Warrior had like 5-6 viable archetypes ?) but without the Win Axe its basic set in now one of the worse.
I noticed that Warrior lacks an overall good midrange minion. I made this one with Warrior's subthemes of Taunt and Enrage in mind. But I'm not sure it's enough...
What do you think ?
10
We want the pre-nerf versions of basic/classic cards!
1
Cards I voted for:
Astral Beam - Excellent removal. Its downside make it in line with other forms of Druid's hard removals. It would have been excellent in Warlock too.
Blasting Furnace - Well-designed early-game minion which has synergy with Tunnel Trogg. Also Mech Shaman pls.
Latent Lightning Fanatic - A flavorful card that still has uses.
Honorable Mentions:
Kil'rek - See what I said in the discussion thread.
That said, given what I know and expect of the voting preferences of the greatest number, I expect Gadgetzan Investor to win with a large margin.
11
Based on the Moonwell from Warcraft 3. It is analogous to Lightwell gameplay-wise.
It is a soft taunt since it is too dangerous to ignore.