Hearthpwn

I'm a huge fan of this change. Giants themselves have proven to be a pretty large problem, as they often can create absolutely ridiculous swing turns. I think that's the reason Blizzard has been hesitant to make any more neutral ones, and why they nerfed the Molten Giant (and the corresponding classic handlock) to the ground. As someone who plays both wild and standard, I'm excited to see the Molten Giant shine again in a format that can support it, but more importantly, I'm excited about what this means for the future. Unless I'm mistaken, this is the first time that Blizzard has ever reverted a nerf. Who knows, we may get some of them more unplayable cards (like starving buzzard) back for the wild format.

Raza and Patches are long time coming and very fair, as they both have been dominating wild the entire time. When people are running a card as bad Bloodsail Corsair just for Patches, you know you have a problem. The one I'm most surprised at is Corridor Creeper. This wasn't a card that they should have picked up as too strong in internal testing, so they've essentially removed it from the game.

The General

The General is back! Unlike other heroes, who fight themselves and use only minions of their class, the general knows how to field creatures from all walks of life. You can't win a battle if you have no healers to support your warriors, which is why many of the cards have a theme of ready for anything , like Make Camp , so that you do not get stuck with "dead" minions. That is, minions that you can not use to their full potential.

Card Explanation

Stormwind Captain : Showcased this guy already in phase 1, because he's one of the cornerstones of Unity. Cheap enough to combo late game, but quick enough to use for tempo plays as well.

Protect : Part of my "Nuts//Bolts" challenge, (the other being Serve ), this class has numerous cheap ways to protect your minions, as keeping certain other class minions alive is essential for the core mechanics to work.

Serve : With 0-cost cards, the struggle is always "is this effect even worth the deck space?". The only cards that accomplish this are heavily conditional ones. Vast majority of the time, this is giving you a silenced Nerubian Egg with some different art, but with a good way to trigger both Unity and Combo (If you've acquired Rogue cards). There are definite dream scenarios, but they are not enough to justify this card costing 1.

Make Camp : Oh nuts, you got a warrior/priest/mage card the synnergizes with armor/healing/spells. Good thing you got this card! Comparable to Shield Block , but the class has no inherent synnergies with either healing or armor, just the ones it might pick up, and 2 Health is not as good as 3 armor.

Incoming! : Hand of Protection . With armor. Another card to protect high value targets, and offer Paladin synnergy.

Remaining Cards

GREETINGS AND CONGRAGULATIONS, MORTALS!

 To all our competitors who successfully navigated the horrors of Phase I to emerge victorious! Below are the 48 people who made it to the next round. Thank you to everyone and participated!

Deathwing has handed out Wild Cards to: NiRaSt and Opal736

Alexstrasza returns as our lovely host-slash-Deathwing keeper for the brilliant new gameshow, "Deathwing Needs a Friendwing". Joining her is a literally captive audience and her glamorous assistant and expert wheel spinner, Cogito! On Cogito's big fancy stereotypical gameshow wheel are six more criteria that a friend for Deathwing must meet in Phase II of the competition, but don't you worry, we've rigged the game in your favour, and it's audience participation all the way - you'll be voting for which three of these six criteria your class must meet in Phase II. What are the six criteria? Check out the spoiler below!

We recognise that not all of our competitors will know what Phase II of a class creation competition will require of you, so in the spoiler below you'll find a rundown of the other rules for Phase II, to which the three highest voted challenges will be added.

(Note that some of these rules will have to be tweaked slightly depending on which challenges are chosen, but these are the basic idea).

The General

Meet the general. Unlike other heroes, who fight themselves and use only minions of their class, the general knows how to field creatures from all walks of life. You can't win a battle if you have no healers to support your warriors, and the general knows this.

Unlike other classes, the general has no specific weaknesses. This is balanced by the fact that they have no absolute strengths. Instead, many of the cards have a theme of ready for anything , like hero power, so that you do not get stuck with "dead" minions. That is, minions that you can not use to their full potential.

Stormwind Captain (Basic Set) - One of the basic cornerstones of the class, this allows you to get the Unity ball rolling early. His stats are quite weak, as most class 1-drops are actually very strong.

Reinforce (Classic Set) - This is a common theme with Unity cards. It is not an easy requirement to pull off, so many of the class cards have alternatives that prevent them from being useless. Don't have a minion? We'll give you two. Do have the correct minion? Give it a buff. Worse than either Lost in the Jungle or Mark of the Wild , but the variance makes up for it.

Frostwing Welp (Knights of the Frozen Throne) - What else would a death knight general be doing but recruiting more forsaken? The death knight will be all about taking control of previously slain minions.

Grimestreet Recruiter (Mean Streets of Gadgetzan) - Without U nity , this is a bit worse than Grimestreet Informant . However, if you do have Unity , you get a random card that is much more powerful, especially if that card is another Grimy Goons card that scales with attack. That card in turn is harder to get rid of, which makes future Unity even easier.

Field Trip! (Journey to Un'Goro) - Unlike other "bundle" cards that have come out recently, you're actually only getting a 7/8 worth of stats for 8. However, this does multiple things. Sorcerer's Apprentice and Violet Teacher have large synnergy, especially with cards like Reinforce . It also activates Unity , and sets up for any spells that summon minions (which are in the basic set, I assure you).

Quote from WUBRGWUBRG >>

Concerning Barter, I suggested a very similar card in the discussion topic a couple of hours before it was submitted. Not sure if it is coincidence or some next level "inspiration"...

A very simple rogue card that can be used to trigger combo , or with Preparation to ramp out an early creature.

Quote from nurgling13 >>

Quote from PupleMD >>

Quote from nurgling13 >>

So, something like this?

Damage and healing cancel out, except with stuff like Auchenai Soulpriest.

 It would have to be "deal 5 damage, restore 5 health" to qualify. Right now it isn't "cancelled out"

 The rules don't say the entire text has to be redundant, it just has to contain a redundant effect, and part of this card is redundant. The health gain is cancelled out by 1 of the damage. The effect is the same as "Deal 4 damage. Deal 1 damage. Restore 1 health.", where the second two sentences are redundant. It seems like you're being arbitrarily nitpicky if you don't allow this.

Quote from nurgling13 >>

So, something like this?

Damage and healing cancel out, except with stuff like Auchenai Soulpriest.

This is the Submission Topic. The Discussion Topic is here.

Counter-Productive

Welcome to the 6th Mini-Competition; Hosted by me, PupleMD. For this competition, your task is to make cards that don't work.

Competition-Specific Restrictions:

• Your card must contain, through a combination of card text and stats, a seemingly redundant effect .
• An easy example would be a 0/2 with Poisonous, or a minion with charge and "can't attack".
• Your card can be a minion or spell, as long as part of the card is cancelled out by another part.

General Competition Rules

These are the rules that remain consistent from competition to competition.

Competition Process

NOTE: Mini-Competitions have very different time-tables than our normal competitions,
so please pay attention so that you're not caught off-guard!

Rewards

Note that Mini-Competition winners, unfortunately, do not get to select any future competition theme. :(

Good Luck!

This is the Discussion Topic. The Submission Topic is here.
(Please Read the Submission Topic first.)

Hello everybody! This topic is for discussion of our "Counter-Productive" mini-competition from our mod, PupleMD. To make sure that everything runs smoothly, we need to reserve the Submission Topic for submissions only. Everything else goes here. What is everything else, you might ask?

Competition-Specific Restrictions:

• Your card must contain, through a combination of card text and stats, a seemingly redundant effect.
• An easy example would be a 0/2 with Poisonous, or a minion with charge and "can't attack".
• Your card can be a minion or spell, as long as part of the card is cancelled out by another part.

Competition Process

NOTE: Mini-Competitions have very different time-tables than our normal competitions, so please pay attention so that you're not caught off-guard!

• Rules or Process. Do you have a question about the competition's process? Do you need clarification about one of the entry requirements? Are you not sure whether your entry adhered to the rules? Ask here!
• Feedback or Ideas. Do you have some ideas you'd like to run by others before settling on one? Do you need help balancing or wording your entry? Do you need help finding art that will fit your card? Or do you just want feedback from the community on your entry? You're in the right place! Remember, although you are allowed to make minor tweaks to your entry after you've submitted it, you're only allowed one submission per week, so make sure that you've settled on your card for sure beforehand.
• Discussion! Do you have thoughts on other people's entries? Are there directions you don't like that you're seeing too many people take? Or directions you'd like to see more people take? Would you like to help others and contribute to a greater community understanding of Hearthstone card design and balance? This is where you want to be!

All of that said, please refrain from the following:

• Posting TONS of Ideas. Discussion topics become an absolute mess if everybody is posting a dozen different ideas. Please post not more than 3 distinct ideas at a time. Any more than that and we'll have to delete your post.
• Advertising Your Entry. Please don't pop in here just to advertise your entry only to never be heard from again. This includes only asking short, generic, or insincere questions like "Thoughts?" or "Do you think this is interesting?". Yes, getting feedback on your entry is one of the purposes of this topic, but we're not just here for other people to help you. We're here for you all to help each other. 12 hours after this competition begins, there should be plenty of other posts here for you to give specific feedback or for you to comment on a trend. If you post your entry for feedback after this time and do not also offer some form of substantial commentary, critique, or praise of others' work, you may find your post deleted.
• Plagiarism. Many people post their ideas here before finalizing them in the submission topic. Directly plagiarizing those ideas to post in the submission topic yourself is absolutely not acceptable.

 So, without further ado, have fun and get creating! 

When your entire plan falls apart

Quote from NiRaSt >>

Quote from linkblade91 >>

Quote from NiRaSt >>

is that good or bad? 

 Well...it's cool, and it's a boost to Handbuff archetypes, but for 2-mana more than Explorer's Hat you get to set it off automatically forever (as long as you have a minion in-hand to chain it with). I'm not sure that's okay, especially when you consider that your minion is providing double the bonus.

 what you said is true, however, unlike Explorer's Hat, you don't get to choose your target, and like you said, you have to have a minion in hand; guess I'll tweak it a little, i really like the idea. 

Quote from Toble >>

Quote from Sinti >>

Quote from linkblade91 >>

Quote from NOVEX0R >>

Am I blind or there's no Wild Cards this time?

If I recall correctly, this sometimes happens when the "Wild Card" lines up with someone who was going to be a Finalist anyway.

Is that the only reason? How long in advance does it have to be picked? Could he just forgot to do it? I mean it doesnt rly matter in the end, im just curious.

 I just lost track of time and didn't submit one.  Looks like all the cards I liked made it to the finals anyway though.

Northshire Cleric

Had a real hard time balancing this. On one hand, your summoning a damaged 1 drop, but on the other hand, you're setting up a lot of card draw. So I settled on 2.