Hearthpwn

Quote from KillTheCow >>

Not a big fan of natural anomaly, seems too random. Maybe make it more specific like draw a spell or something. Also, i've read through it multiple times but i'm still not entirely sure what it is. You say it's diffrent form of mana but for example if you'd have 6 energy on turn ten does it mean you could basicly play 16 mana worth of stuff? If so wouldn't Charged Shaman be too powerful on turn 2?  And wouldn't it be too powerful with combos? This makes me think you can't use it like mana but isn't it a little specific then? I'm not quitte sure haha, probally just me though.

 Energy isn't mana and you can't use it to pay for cards that cost mana. It's just another resource that can only be earned through specific cards that produce it. It only resembles mana because it's exclusively used to pay for things or to improve the effects of certain cards.

Regarding Natural Anomaly I think it would be a good change to make it draw a specific kind of card but making it draw a spell would be getting into big spell mage territory so I'd rather make it draw a minion. Big minions druid seems like an archetype I'd like going into more.

Quote from PileOfCheese >>

This looks very interesting, I also looked at The Shifting Sands and that looks awesome as well, makes me wish that Blizzard would make more dragon paladin synergies. 

You might want to lower the cost of overcharged fireblast and make it so that it only targets minions or acts as a boardclear (Maybe 5 mana, spend all your energy, deal that much damage to all enemy minions) but seeing as the cards that gain energy you have revealed thus far onlmy give 1 or 2 at a time, I don't think that will be much of a problem. 

What I do think, and thought when I looked at the shifting sands, is where do you want to store all this information. For example, when someone casts a spell that has resonance, you want to be able to have somewhere to see where said resonance counter goes down, now assuming you have some of those counters (which means board clutter as you can have a lot of resonances active at the same time), you also need an energy counter for both players. 

The thing with Hearthstone is that it's UI has always been the best in the CCG market, I mean look at Gwent and the likes, they're good and all, but Hearthstone's UI is something else, I fear these mechanics might overly clutter them.

Then again, I am no game designer and I'm a big fan of what you've made, so keep it up!

 Regarding Overcharged Fireblast it's supposed to be used to end the game if you managed to gain enough energy. Sure, there's not many ways to gain Energy as of now but when I design more and in conjuction with Echoes of Power you could get to dangerously high amounts.

About the UI, I've thought about designing an icon that stays below your hero (between its attack and Health) and that only shows up if you have more than 0 Energy. You're right in that hearthstone's excellent UI is very important for the gameplay experience but as of now I'm just thinking from a design perspective. When all the possible ways of interacting with energy have been designed I'll try to choose how it'd be displayed in-game.

3 MORE CARDS

These are the cards I've designed most recently:

Natural Anomaly and Energy Shield both seem like cards that could be played if enough incentives to reach high amounts of energy exist. I'll see what I can come up with in that respect.

CONDUCTIVE

I've come up with a new keyword that allows for player interactivity regarding Energy. Let's check it out.

And now let's see some examples:

By steal what I mean is that the energy would go from your opponent to you (hence the name conductive). There will be more ways to influence your opponent's energy but this will be one of the main ones and that's why I made it a keyword.

JUST A QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT

Hey guys, I've recently began work on my second expansion, Dreams of Steel.

It uses Resonance and it's a direct follow-up to The Shifting Sands so I really recommend you check it out.

Greetings once again, fellow Hearthpwn community. Since very recently I've began work on my second custom expansion, Dreams of Steel, which is the direct follow-up of my previous expansion, The Shifting Sands (I really recommend you to see it before checking this one out since I'll keep using its previous mechanics and themes to some extent). Previously I've worked by finishing the expansion and only then releasing it but this time I'm going to post cards here as I make it. This means that some of them won't be as polished and there'll be more balance changes but hopefuly you can help me with that by giving me feedback.

The backstory so far is that after being consumed by the time vortex we find ourselves in the distant future, where machines and mechs are the norm. This is tied to the most game-changing mechanic of this expansion, Energy. Energy is a different form of mana that can be earned through specific cards that provide it. Let's see some examples:

First of all, yes I know that's the GvG symbol but I haven't found a better one yet so as of now that's the one I'll be using. Now let me explain in more detail what energy is. It doesn't have a maximum of 10 like Mana Crystals and once you spend it it's gone. But how do you spend energy, you might ask. Well, that's deeply related to this expansion's new keyword, Activate.

And here are some examples:

As you can see, Activate is not only limited to energy which makes it a more versatile keyword. One more detail I want to say is that while The Shifting Sands took into account all the expansions up to KotFT this one goes all the way to the most recent one, The Witchwood so even and odd decks will be taken into account with the design of these cards. For example, Steel War Axe is an excelent card in even warrior since a 1 mana hero power means that you could use it on turn 2 and still attack with it. Finally, let's see 2 odd mage cards that use energy without the need of Activate.

So yes, Echo cards are back (not the Echo keyword from the witchwood but the ones from my previous expansion) and this certainly could seem too powerful based on what I've revealed so far. You don't need to worry, though since I'll design ways for you to interact with your opponent's energy, thus allowing for counterplays for this potential combo.

I've posted these ideas very early in design because I would really appreciate some feedback on the viability of these mechanics. I think they have quite a lot of potential but maybe designing an expansion around them isn't viable due to some unsolvable gameplay problems. I hope you're as excited as I am for exploring these new mechanics so I'll be posting to this thread whenever i get ideas for new cards.

So I was playing a monster hunt against the boss that summons 1/3 minions with Deathrattle: Deal 1 damage to all characters and my health was too low to win but I could force a tie. I thought that it would be the end of that run but I unexpectedly went on and fought the next boss down the line. Is there any difference between winning and tying you might ask. Well, as it turns out you don't get any of the rewards you normally earn by winning, such as the 3 cards for your deck. I also think that your hero's health doesn't increase but I'm not completely sure about that.

Maybe some people already knew this but it definitely surprised me and that's why I thought I'd share it here.

Congratulations to all that made it to the finals. Although this theme was pretty restrictive I found most of the cards to be very original and well designed. Good luck and may the best win!

That cake is a lie, though.

The same thing happened to me while playing against a PVE boss. I'd say it's a bug because if it isn't they should at least show negative attack values to the player. Besides, they would have to explain why a negative attack minion doesn't deal negative damage and therefore heal whatever it attacks.

I get your point but I think it's an issue with the game itself rather than just that deck. I was playing against a Hadronox druid that stupidly ran 8 other Beasts in the deck. It didn't matter though because both Witching Hours rezzed Hadronox anyways. I tried to add him after the game but he didn't respond.

The problem is that this game is not punishing enough with mistakes. Design should be carried in a direction that allows skillful players to rise to the top due to hard decks that are practically guaranteed to make you lose if you make a mistake but that have a very high winrate if you play perfectly. Such decks did exist in the past (Miracle Rogue, Freeze Mage, Patron Warrior) but they have all been nerfed, rotated or power creeped by newer easier decks.

Hearthstone should be a casual game and decent easy decks should exist but the skill ceiling of the game has to rise to allow better players to have considerably higher winrates when playing against average ones. Just compare it to every other esport where a pro would win all the time against a normal player. A pro Hearthstone player might have a 60-65% winrate tops and that shows that skillful play isn't rewarded enough in this game.

I love this card because at first glance it looks terrible. Under most circumstances you don't want enemy minions attacking your hero but what not many people know is that heroes with an attack value will deal damage to everything that attacks them. This means that all the druid cards that give your hero attack during your turn would also make any minion that attacks you when you play Threatening Roar take damage.

For example if you play Claw + Threatening Roar on turn 3 you would deal 2 damage to all enemy minions at the cost of some health lost by them attacking you. Druid has plenty of ways to gain armor nowadays so losing a bit of health shouldn't be much of a problem and most of the cards that give you attack also give you some armor on their own. Other good combinations include Bite and Malfurion the Pestilent 's hero power.

I like creating cards that make existing cards that see very little play more viable and this one in particular is aimed at all the cards that give your hero attack but aren't run very much because there are better options like Swipe or Lesser Jasper Spellstone that don't cost you Health and aren't stopped by taunt .

REMEMBER THAT COMPETITION?

I don't know how but I totally forgot about the card design competition. It's not a big deal though and since only 3 people participated I'll be adding all of them to the original post under a special section as well as reviewing them briefly here.

SHAPELESS ONE BY MUROCAGGROB

Well, well, what do we have here? Isn't that Nightmare Amalgam in the flesh? It's kind of funny that a custom card that wanted to replace a custom card that was made by blizzard gets made by blizzard as well. I think this shows that this card is a great design and that you're in line with what the official designers are thinking.

SPOREBAT MATRIARCH BY LARRYMOMENTS

This card hits the line in many ways. Design wise the idea of making a card that gives other cards a Resonance when you summon them is great and I don't know how I didn't think about it before. Flavor wise it makes a lot of sense related to Sporebat since it essentialy makes any minion you summon have the Sporebat effect. From a gameplay perspective it offers interesting scenarios where you might have to choose if you want to kill the Matriarch and let the buffs trigger or if you want to kill the other minions but leave the Matriarch to buff more stuff in the future. Overall just a great card.

INFINITE INVADER BY ZANYWOOP

I find this card very interesting. I've always liked "overpowered" cards with negative effects (I mean overpowered in the sense that without the negative effect this card would be too powerful). Because it's a Dragon it's not so bad that you're holding it in your hand from early on and it has a decent body. The Hero Power change is very interesting because it acts as a way to stop you from using it temporarily. There's a lot of skill involved in when to sacrifice a minion and return to your original Hero Power. You could also even put this in a deck that synergizes with destroying friendly minions, maybe with eggs or you could run potion of madness to destroy an enemy minion again. A very well designed card.

Finally I wanted to congratulate all 3 participants. Although you weren't many I can certainly say that all of the cards you submitted were excelent designs and of a very high quality overall.