Hearthpwn

You could have been the one!

                                     Maybe gain? Definitely pain.

Note: Characters can include Heroes, which would return with 1 Health remaining once killed, giving a slight buffer to pesky Mecha'thuns

Art by Anika Maar

Congrats to binza for a landslide victory!

This Week's Finalists

Competition-Specific Restrictions:

• You must make a card that directly benefits Two or more Quests.
• You must also choose one of these sub prompts:
  
  1. Your submission may be a Neutral card that directly benefits quests from different classes.
  2. Your submission may be a Class card that directly benefits both the quest from SoU and JtU. 

We have calculated the 8 entries with the highest scores!
Check out all the finalists below and vote in our poll (vote for as many or as few as you like) to help decide the winner and be sure to check back after the poll finishes for the announcement of the winner and the start of a new theme!

Tokens

Murloc Holmes

Evolve intensifies

As an advocate of unbiased algorithmic bias, I find a few things wrong with your argument. I will speak as a member of the Hearthstone community and a mathematician, not a site moderator.

You are certainly correct that numbers, generally, do not lie. But I disagree with the analysis you claim to have come across.

1. People have a tendency to naturally see patterns in the pattern-less, and choose to only use numbers that benefit their argument. Assuming your numbers about 5-15% for most classes are correct, I don't believe you have a large enough data pool to sufficiently describe the "meta". Decks drastically shift between rank 5 and 50, given dust-cost limitations. You claim to have seen over a hundred games, yet there are systems, such as HSReplay, that have seen millions since the new expansion's launch. Your numbers are not representative of all Hearthstone games. I believe that their data is more likely to show an accurate representation of what decks are being played.
2. According to HSReplay, all decks are between 5 and 20%. Well, of course every single class would be "played in multiple ways". That is just how Hearthstone - or any game - is. There will always be people who are willing to take risks and play a "weaker" style. Fight me and my Dragon Shaman. (Shaman has no class dragon cards in any set)
3. You misinterpret the massive difference between ~20% and 5% play. Sure, they all seem like small numbers in the face of 100. But, you should compare one class against another, not one to the entire whole. If there was a hypothetical Hearthstone with 1000 classes, it wouldn't help to say: "All classes have a 0-2% chance of being played, it's fair". This means that for every game you play against one class, you will play another three or four times. That is certainly not balance. This just means that Warlock is significantly less appealing than Mage.
4. I'm looking at the Seoul Master's Tour statistics. Of the top 8... 3/8 were Mage. 2/8 were Warrior.
   • 2614 Mage Games
   • 1193 Warrior Games
   • 857 Rogue Games
   • And...
   • A measly 40 Warlock Games
   • Source: https://battlefy.com/hsesports/master-tour-seoul/5d3117357045a2325e167ad6/stage/5d55fe2cf684f355006dfc9f/stats

            This may be just by mass personal preference, or because they were knocked out early, but Warlocks were played significantly less than other classes. Of the ~2300 matches played, roughly 1-2% featured Warlocks. What does this number suggest?

Numbers do not lie. But they do mislead.

Quote from Yami_Yugi >>

Quote from McF4rtson >>

Quote from Yami_Yugi >

 Hmmm... the wording is a little bit strange as return sort of means it doesn't die which looks odd on a deathrattle. I'd say "Deathrattle: At the end of your turn, add a copy of this card to your hand."

I was a bit doubtful of the wording as well. But I based it on precedent cards, specifically Dreadsteed and Anub'arak. Also, if I change the wording to 'add a copy'. It will function differently with cards like Necrium Vial and Necrium Blade. And I'm afraid it will generate infinite value, that will make it broken. 

Let me know if there is a better wording that allows the card to work the same way.

 A possible work around is something like:

4 mana, 4/4, Reborn: Deathrattle: At the end of your next turn, return all Spiderdudes to your hand.

It allows the spiders to linger a while longer, but gives your opponent the option to finally kill it, at the cost of making them pay extra resources.

Supreme Archaeology and Lakkari Sacrifice

No amount of cherry kool-aid was enough

Quote from Lordinaryus>>

Stats are inspired by Magic Carpet. I don't know it is good enough to win after seeing Azshara's card :D Loved that one 

 It reminds me a lot of Murmuring Mystic from M:tG. I don't know if the goal of the card is to encourage adding Wisps to your maindeck or encouraging board control, and adding another way to get mass tokens. If it's the latter, I don't think it fully utilizes the word reborn, as if that was just tacked on to fit the prompt.

Overall, however, I really like the thematic concept of taking the "soul" of enemies to use against them.

Quote from Hoez >>

 

 I don't know if it's intentionally part the monk class :/

Anyway, it seems like a really simple card, without many new mechanics. If you were to submit it, I would recommend it as a common (as well as part of the Uldum set). 

"Power... OVERWHELMING!"

Although not strictly hearthstone themed, after seeing this art I knew it had to be done. Archon Form is somewhat different to Galakrond, with lower value Invoking cards, but a higher power Invoke effect. It starts off as 'Deal 3 damage to a random enemy. Overload: (1)', but by the time you upgrade and play the twilight archon, it can be 'Deal 4 damage to four random enemies. Overload: (4)', operating like Arcane Missiles. And yes, it Overloads for each Lightning Bolt cast.

The intent is that the player becomes surging with ever increasing power, dealing massive damage to the opponent, and either winning, or destroying yourself in the process. Each time you use your hero power, is another time you've Invoked, so you'll Overload yourself further and further, dealing more damage, but limiting your own ability to do anything else.

As an Archon might say:

"We... BURN!"