Hearthpwn

Okay so I have a cool idea for my keyword but it's a bit complex so I figured I'd pitch it here to see what y'all think.

Alright so you might be scratching your head trying to understand what this does. Basically, so cards would get a Tick or a Tock effect that work like Battlecries but ONLY if you play them on the right turn. Tick effects go off on odd turns (1, 3, 5, etc) while Tock effects go off on even turns (2, 4, 6, etc). A card may have a Tick or a Tock effect, or even both ! Here's an example :

So If you play this on turn 4, you get two 1/1s. If you play it on turn 7, you get a card !

Gaining or losing Mana crystals does NOT affect the Tick-Tock and you still go from one to the other after reaching 10 Mana.

I would imagine some kind of visual reminder of where you are at in the Tick-Tock, maybe a clock arrow above your hero that swings right or left at the end of each turn, maybe different colored overlays whether you're on a Tick or Tock turn, or maybe Tick-Tock cards have a doted overlay that rotates clockwise or counter clockwise depending on the Tick-Tock. Anyways, that's more of a UI/UX challenge than a design one.

So what do you think ? Is that too crazy ?

PS: I think I'll go with Boomsday for my expansion, that's just the most fun and wacky one :)

Thanks to everyone who voted for my entry ! I'm really happy to have a secure place next phase but that doesn't mean I'll sit around this time either !

So I didn't submit a custom keyword earlier because I'm still debating a lot of ideas, I hope to be able to share something final soon. In the meantime, I see we have to declare our introductionnary expansion and I'm also not sure there.

For Chromie and the Chronomancer, I think Decent of Dragons would be a great fit and provide a lot of dragon synergies. The thing is, both the Bronze and Infinite dragonflights are already portrayed in that expansion. If I were to do my own set, I would have to either overlap with Priest and Paladin cards from that set or invent something that probably wouldn't fit as well. So how would you feel about either scenario ? Are people okay with yet another version of Nozdormu ?

Other ideas I'm considering include : Journey to Un'Goro with its primordial elements, The Boomsday Project with its wacky hijinks and Saviors of Uldum with all that sand around. Do any of these sound better than Descent of Dragons for the Chronomancer ?

For clarity, the Epic with a mechanic from a past expansion : you mean past as in 1. Prior to the Core set or 2. Prior to the expansion where the class is introduced ?

Honnestly, I can't remember most cards exist so I'm super grateful for reminders of what is already out there and how it compares to my cards. That being said, I think the balance that we try to infuse in our custom cards is always a guesstimation. Even Blizzard designers don't come up with the perfect balance on their first go, it takes hours of playtest and feedback to get there. We can used existing cards as a benchmark but I'm not too worried about making something stronger than an underwhelming card.

Congrats to everyone who made it this time around and thanks again to @McF4rtson for making this possible ! I'm already excited for next phase !

@Wintrmute I like the direction you are taking with this class but I don't think a necromancer flavor works best for it. I would go with an archeologist actually ! Also make sure to give the class a lot of card draw to make good use of the cards shuffled into your deck. Your hero power is a little bit too complicated imo, I'd look into a card draw or stabilization effect.

The Chronomancer

"Hi, good to see you again ! Or have we not met yet ? I should introduce myself then: I'm Chromie, Ambassador of the Bronze Dragonflight ! I've noticed a lot of anomalies that require my attention in this... inn you call 'Hearthstone'. So I've come to help. Here, look what I can do !"

Fast Forward - Waiting is dumb... I wanna get to the good part now !

Sand Blast - If you think this isn't a big deal, just you wait for the next one. And the one after that !

Bronze Drake - He's not late, he's just early for next time.

"I'm told that to start off here I need a 'Basic Set'. Well, here it is !"

"Also this guy had a whole speech prepared about 'saving all Time from certain doom', blah, blah, blah... We'll listen to that later, now is the time for fun !"

"Oh! Quick, before I forget: Future Me thinks I should tell you about my silly jokes and comments. You can find them here !"

 "Well, that's all for now folks ! I see I'm a little early here, I can't wait to see everyone else around. See you last- no, next time !"

Hi everyone ! I've been going through a lot of iterations, so I think I'm pretty much good to go. I just wanted to check back in to see what you all think. I also change the Hero Power because it was just a little too complex and unintuitive.

A bunch of cards changed, especially the weapons which I converted into spells and minions. The Sand school is also gone because I didn't have many design ideas for it. I'm generally going to take the Warrior route and ignore spell schools for the most part.

Also a couple new cards I don't think I've shown yet.

Rest of the set.

So that's that, I think I'll showcase Fast Forward, Sand Blast, and Bronze Drake. What do you think ?

Thank to you guy's feedback, I made some balance, design and flavor adjustments :

I'm seeing mixed reactions to the Sand school and I gotta admit that I didn't give much thought to it. I stopped playing HS before spell schools were a thing so I don't really know what it feels like to play with them, I'd like a little bit of insight on that front. Maybe I'm just better off ignoring spells schools altogether...

Sandstorm is more stable now and I like the stalling potential it has. Turning Staff was hard to balance since the effect seems to have a low value in existing cards but it's only been seen on minions or as a permanent effect so I think 5 uses is kinda fine. It does have some interesting implications for this specific class though. Time Flies is probably fine at 5 since the class can reliably play it for 4 Mana instead. Sand Blast shouldn't get out of control now that it costs a bit more. '4 Mana deal 4 damage with an upside' seems like a pretty common balance point so I went with a kinda 3.5ish cost.

I'm shelving Time Trap for now so that leaves room for this new card. Echo makes too much sense for the Chronomancer for me to ignore it ! Can really make an Hourglass deck sting !

FEEDBACK

@MvonTzeskagrad

 @Screwjank

 @EL_Skele

 @McF4rtson

 @JeanTheMedicRat

 Hope this helps !

Alright so after much consideration and debate, I've come to make a big thematic change to my entry. I'm no longer doing a Merchant class as this has already been done and I couldn't find a good match for my hero. I'm still keeping a lot of the design principles and cards ideas though. But to show you that, I need to do a REWIND!

Introducing : The Chronomancer !

The bronze dragon Chronormu, better known as the cheerful gnome Chromie, is a master of time magic ! With Borrowed Time and the Hourglasses it creates, the Chronomancer can manipulate the cost of cards to play them early and create devastating combos. The little guys can also come in handy when you want minions to buff.

The Chronomancer gets access to a new school of spells : Sand ! These spells are good at dealing with enemy minions and setting up combos.

With all that mana to spare, Chronomancers are looking to play big cards and play them fast. This is just the Basic set so you can expect a lot more crazy stuff later on !

Chronomancers also have minions to turn the tide of battle and reinforce their existing synergies. Dragons are likely to show up as Chromie's allies.

The Chronomancer is also a class with weapons but those aren't your typical axe or sword. Instead, they provide additional utility to the class.

Finally, here is a control tool for Chronomancers who want to play it slow.

I'm really happy with the set and can't wait to read what y'all think of it ! I'm still not sure about the cost of Accelerate, Sandstorm, and Time Trap but I decided to go with the cheaper option as a starting point. Cost manipulation is a thing for this class so maybe that was a horrible decision... Sandstorm in particular is hard because it's quite weak if you play it alone but can because a 5 Mana Twisting Nether pretty fast.

As far as keywords go, I'm debating wether I'll keep Stock (with a different name) of make a completely new one.

Thanks @Jengus, @DanFel and @McF4rtson for your feedback ! I'm already looking into some tweaks to the current set I have but I'll need to consider more drastic changes.

This is definetly a "mechanics first" design so I'm not above changing the theme completely but I'm happy with the flavor thus far and I would have to let go pf a lot of puns... I'll have to go look at the previous Merchant winner to get a good feel for wether I have something distinct enough.

While I agree that the second player getting a Coin might be a little hard to manage, I do like the fact that the class plays into something that already exists in HS. I need to think about this a little more, especially in regards to the Finley test (i.e. what happendms when you class gets a different hero power or a different class gets your hero power).

FEEDBACK TIME ! (sorry for double posting)

@MvonTzeskagrad

 @Jengus

 @LivingOrganism

@Laurendor

 @whatTheHeck

 Hope this helps.

Let's do this ! Introducing : The Merchant ! (Yes, I know, done and done but I'd like to try my hand at a simple idea)

So, I'm doing a merchant class and the hero power was quite easy to figure out from there. Still, I want to get as much use for it as I can in my card design. For the hero, I'm not so sure. I know we're doing Warcraft-esque flavor this time around but I couldn't find a good merchant character. There's Gallywix but I don't think he fits super well for the class I envision and it's already been done in the past. I went with an original character but I'm still looking for a warcraftian character and I'm open to suggestions.

As you will have guessed, Coins are really important to the class. I wanted to explore as many synergy points as I could in conjunction with the hero power. I'm starting to think that I might have overdone it... Here I'm also not quite sure what qualifies for the 3rd challenge. Tailoring is a type of craft in WoW and Coin Toss is a boss ability from Gallywix. Is that enough ?

Since the class is taking a control turn and has access to mana acceleration with Coins, I wanted to encourage spending a lot to get huge swigs. A big upside of the class is its ability to reliably play these high-power cards a few turns before they should be available.

To finish the set, I wanted to give the class some draw potential and disruptions tools. Its also a weapon class and I want to expand on that synergy.

Tokens

The class keyword, which will not be used for Basic but that I'm quite fond of. Expect deck and hand manipulation in the future !

I know some of the cards in there might be a little over-the-top for Basic cards but I think the set is very cohesive as a whole and I'm really happy with the flavor. Feedback will be appreciated !

So what do y'all think ?

I can get behind a hero card if there is a specific challenge associated with it. Maybe make a hero card that costs 5 or less ? Or make a hero card that actually downgrades your hero power ? Making a card for a specific WoW character (kinda like Jaraxxus) ? I would be okay with that but this is kinda hard to make sure that everyone is on board. I think if nothing else saying no to hero cards will avoid issues down the line. Folks can still pick KotFT as their 1st expansion if they really want to make that hero card, or they can rework their card into a legendary minion or spell, or they can make a card that givs the hero power they want to give. I see how limits can be frustrating but we're always working with them and like I said I don't think hero cards open enough design space to warrant an exception. Truth be told, I'd be happy to have upgrading cards or dual-class cards available in any expansion but I think we're better off sticking to established boundries, if only for the sake of fairness and consistancy.

I'm against adding Quests and Heroes to expansion that didn't give one to every class. These types of cards where introduced very deliberatly as part of the flavor of the expansion they were in. Also, they are pretty limited in terms of design : Quests have to be 1 Mana spells that you build your deck around and then rewards you with a bug spike of power ; Heroes have to be high cost big power boosts that change your hero power. At the end of the day, I think designing a class is more than making flashy legendaries.

Side question : now that a new expansion should be out when we get to week 5, do we go with that ? It seems to have the same "issue" of being really tied to WoW but I gotta admit that it fits the class I have in mind pretty well. I liked being able to choose an expansion that fit my class in previous contests, I think that can make things easier. That being said, I also like the idea that all the contestants are working on the same/most recent expansion. I think one week of each would be cool. Maybe week 4 is any expansion we choose for flavor and then week 5 we have to choose Horde or Alliance ? 

It's been a while since I came in here but the new contest is peaking my interest. I'm looking at the last two expansions that I missed and there are some big changes there ! I'm not sure I completely understand spells trubes just yet so I wonder if contestants would be allowed to create a new minion or spell tribe for their class.