Hearthpwn

Alright, Guys and Gals, the new thread is up! Go see if you were lucky enough to advance to the next phase here!

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

The people moving on to Phase II are...

Hello everybody! This topic is for discussion of the "Expanding Horizons" Expansion Creation Competition. One of the awesome things about our Fan Creation Forum Competition is that it gets us all talking about what makes a card or a class balanced, fun, realistic, interesting, unique, innovative, exciting, and more. However, 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?

• 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 idea? Do you need help finding art that will fit your cards? 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 competition, so make sure that you've settled on your idea for sure beforehand.
• Discussion! Do you have thoughts on other people's ideas? 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 design and balance? This is where you want to be!

All of that said, please refrain from the following:

• Posting TONS of Ideas. We understand that some of you might have a ton of potential ideas you'd like to share. However, this thread is going to become an absolute mess if everybody is posting a dozen different ideas. Please post not more than 3 distinct ideas at a time, to keep the thread generally orderly and legible.
• 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 balanced?". Yes, getting feedback on your idea 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 ideas 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!

Welcome, Fellow Card Creators!

To Phase II of Hearthpwn's first ever Expansion Creation Competition! The top 38 entries have advanced one step closer to being crowned the Expansion Creation Champion!

(NOTE: If your name does not appear on this list, you MAY NOT submit.)

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

Competition Overview

Unlike our Weekly Card Design Competitions, this Expansion Creation Competition will be conducted over multiple Phases, each of which will have their own unique processes and submission requirements. Each Phase will conclude with our eliminating at least half of the competitors until only three or four finalists remain for Phase V.

• Phase II Submission and Early Voting (Starts NOW! Ends 20:00 UTC 10/07/2017)
  During this Phase, the Submission Topic is made available for your submissions. You may also, of course, feel free to give early up-votes to any submissions that you like!
  
  
• Phase II Up-Voting (Starts 20:00 UTC 10/07/2017, Ends 20:00 UTC 12/07/2017 13/07/2017)
  During this Phase, the Submission Topic will be locked, so no more entries may be submitted. Instead, use this time to browse the submissions and up-vote your favorites!

See below to find out how we'll determine who advances to Phase II:

See below for a general overview of the future competition phases:

General Competition Rules

These are general competition rules that apply to all Phases of this competition and that many of you will already be familiar with if you've competed in our Weekly Card Design Competitions. Even if you're a veteran of our competitions, though, I recommend that you review the rules thoroughly just to be sure:

PHASE II - Neutral Cards

This phase is all about the backbone of every expansion, the neutral cards. Your post will include:

• A Quick Reminder of Your Set Mechanics - Just make sure we're up to speed with how your keywords work. 1 or 2 lines is fine for this (in addition to any tooltips), but any more explanation or balance should be behind a spoiler
• Twenty-One (21) Neutral Cards - Yep, we're getting going fast. The 21 cards will be divided into Eight (8) Commons, Five (5) Rares, Four (4) Epics, and (4) Legendaries. 
• Four (4) Example Neutral Cards of the Set - Once again, you will show off four (4) cards. For this phase, there is not restriction on what rarities must be shown, so choose your absolute best! The other 17 cards must be included behind a spoiler
• Formatting - Once again, your example cards can be no bigger than 250 x 345. Any tokens must be included in a spoiler, so as to prevent the topic from getting to cluttered. Tooltips are allowable as well, just keep them reasonably sized.
• You may have, in the open for this phase, your four (4) example cards, a reasonably sized banner, and any keyword boxes. Any other graphics - dialogue boxes, additional token cards, whatever - may be included behind spoilers, along with the remaining neutral cards, presented however you want, so long as all your neutral cards are there. You may not show any of your non-neutral cards.

If you're at all confused, I've included an example using Goblins vs. Gnomes once again as my "entry":

Goblins vs. Gnomes

This is my expansion! It's about the ongoing conflict between goblins and gnomes! Introduces Spare Parts and Mechs! (you can make this much longer. In fact, please do.)

Spare Parts

I didn't want to copy all the spare parts in. You get the idea.

Example Cards:

Goblins vs. Gnomes is all about harnessing the random and creative genius of the two rivals. Spare Parts are 7 different 1 mana spells that allow you to tinker with your minions. Mechs are a new creature type, and many existing cards like Harvest Golem will become mechs with the release of this expansion.

Rest of Neutrals

 

 

Some Quick Tips:

• Expansions can be both extremely streamlined in their story telling (as in Means Streets of Gadgetzan) or be very broad (as in Goblins vs. Gnomes). Don't feel as though you need to tell the story of just a single event.
• Classes often have a specific identity in expansions. It's a good idea to figure out which of your mechanics best fit with certain classes. 
• Unlike the class competitions, your expansion should have several different mechanics at play. A narrow mechanical theme will leave you with little to work with in later phases (Journey to Un'goro had Quests, Adapt, and new class mechanics for each class).

Rewards

Q&A

If anybody has any other question, please feel free to ask us over in the Discussion topic. Otherwise, get those creative juices flowing, and I'll look forward to your submissions.

Oh, and one more thing:

Have fun! ^_^

Besieged on all sides, against a threat never before seen. Against such insurmountable odds, old hatreds must be put aside to make way for new alliances, forged in the fires of desperation. With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, where will you be when the last hour strikes?

The Last Hour of Azeroth, like Goblins vs. Gnomes, is not based on a specific area or period. Rather, it is an expansion that celebrates those times when the Alliance and the Horde were forced to put aside their difference in favour of survival. To represent this, Last Hour of Azeroth brings in three central mechanics.

Mechanics

Putting aside old grudges will also involve cooperating with your enemy as well, so this expansion will also have a heavy emphasis on cards that give advantages to both players, taking after cards like Grove Tender.

Decimatus

Card Explanation

The submission topic is now open! Feel free to submit when ready! :)

Quickly popping in here to answer a few concerns.

You can re-use old ideas to some extent: Obviously, we don't want just a re submission of a past class jammed into the expansion format, but you're perfectly alright to use old ideas. I know many people take their cards designed in these big competitions and submit them occasionally to the Weekly Comps, so going the other way around is perfectly acceptable.

Teams are as of right now a no go: Now that doesn't mean that you can't collaborate with others! We've always supported getting ideas from people who help you, even entire cards with their permission (as long as you credit them). However, we have scaled down the competition to make it more manageable, and when you win the victory will be your own.

A Last Note on Themes: Remember that as an expansion, you are not regulated to one keyword. In fact, if you subscribe to one mechanic you will definitely find yourself running out of creative steam later on. Remember in Journey to Ungoro, we saw both Adapt and Quests introduced, as well as new mechanics for every class. Mean Streets of Gadgetzan introduced Jade Golems, "Hand buff" mechanics, a flushing out of the "one copy in your deck" mechanic, and tri-class cards.  Your 4 cards for this expansion should be showcasing at least 2 different gameplay styles that compliment each other, because that's what expansions do.

Quote from Demonxz95 >>

Would I be able to compete with an expansion I currently have in progress (it only has about 25 or so cards in it)?

Quote from Otovent >>

"Furthermore, the winning contestant will have a Season 4 competition themed around their winning expansion!"

You mean season 6 right?

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

Hello everybody! This topic is for discussion of the "Expanding Horizons" Expansion Creation Competition. One of the awesome things about our Fan Creation Forum Competition is that it gets us all talking about what makes a card or a class balanced, fun, realistic, interesting, unique, innovative, exciting, and more. However, 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?

• 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 idea? Do you need help finding art that will fit your cards? 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 competition, so make sure that you've settled on your idea for sure beforehand.
• Discussion! Do you have thoughts on other people's ideas? 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 design and balance? This is where you want to be!

All of that said, please refrain from the following:

• Posting TONS of Ideas. We understand that some of you might have a ton of potential ideas you'd like to share. However, this thread is going to become an absolute mess if everybody is posting a dozen different ideas. Please post not more than 3 distinct ideas at a time, to keep the thread generally orderly and legible.
• 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 balanced?". Yes, getting feedback on your idea 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 ideas 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!

Welcome, Fellow Card Creators!

To Hearthpwn's first ever Expansion Creation Competition! Here, your task is to make a (slightly smaller) Hearthstone expansion complete with both class and neutral cards. Just like our Class Creation Competitions, this competition will be split into 5 Phases, with contestants getting knocked out after each Phase until one Expansion finally reigns supreme, its creator becoming our first Expansion Creation Grand Champion.

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

Competition Overview

Unlike our Weekly Card Design Competitions, this Expansion Creation Competition will be conducted over multiple Phases, each of which will have their own unique processes and submission requirements. Each Phase will conclude with our eliminating at least half of the competitors until only three or four finalists remain for Phase V.

• Phase I Submission and Early Voting (Starts 20:00 20/06/2017, Ends 20:00 UTC 27/06/2017)
  During this Phase, the Submission Topic is made available for your submissions. You may also, of course, feel free to give early up-votes to any submissions that you like!
  
  
• Phase I Up-Voting (Starts 20:00 UTC 27/06/2017, Ends 20:00 UTC 29/06/2017)
  During this Phase, the Submission Topic will be locked, so no more entries may be submitted. Instead, use this time to browse the submissions and up-vote your favorites!

See below to find out how we'll determine who advances to Phase II:

See below for a general overview of the future competition Phases:

General Competition Rules

These are general competition rules that apply to all Phases of this competition and that many of you will already be familiar with if you've competed in our Weekly Card Design Competitions. Even if you're a veteran of our competitions, though, I recommend that you review the rules thoroughly just to be sure:

PHASE I - The Concept

In this phase, all we're looking for is for you to pitch your expansion. Tell us what it's about! Each submission is expected to have two (2) things: 

• A Summary of the Entire Expansion - Tell us what this expansion is all about! Your summary should tell us the thematic and mechanic choices your making, as well as anything we can expect should you advance to further phases. Please keep this to one, reasonably-sized paragraph.
• Four (4) Example Cards of the Set - Unlike the class competitions, expansions show off a far more diverse slew of mechanics. So for this phase we're allowing 4 example cards as opposed to the usual 3. These cards must be one (1) of each rarity (Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary). Make sure to also include explanations to any new keywords that you'd like to add (a handy tool for creating tool tips can be found on http://www.hearthcards.net/, in the "More" section at the bottom left of the page)
• Formatting - Your cards can be no bigger than 250 x 345. Any tokens must be included in a spoiler, so as to prevent the topic from getting to cluttered. Tooltips are allowable as well, just keep them reasonably sized.

If you're at all confused, I've included an example using Goblins vs. Gnomes as my "entry":

Some Quick Tips:

• Expansions can be both extremely streamlined in their story telling (as in Means Streets of Gadgetzan) or be very broad (as in Goblins vs. Gnomes). Don't feel as though you need to tell the story of just a single event.
• Classes often have a specific identity in expansions. It's a good idea to figure out which of your mechanics best fit with certain classes. 
• Unlike the class competitions, your expansion should have several different mechanics at play. A narrow mechanical theme will leave you with little to work with in later phases (Journey to Un'goro had Quests, Adapt, and new class mechanics for each class).

Rewards

Q&A

If anybody has any other question, please feel free to ask us over in the Discussion topic. Otherwise, get those creative juices flowing, and I'll look forward to your submissions.

Oh, and one more thing:

Have fun! ^_^

Quote from nurgling13 >>

Quote from Tomerick88 >>

Is there going to be a class/adventure/expansion competition at the start of this season.  Although I'm yet to get very far in one I do find them enjoyable.

 Yeah, there's always a big competition at the start of the season, although they never reveal exactly what it is beforehand.

Quote from Cogito_Ergo_Sum >>

Hey, this is a weird idea, but you could do some sort of special of competition at the end of each "Hearthstone year" (e.g. End of Year of the Mammoth Competition) where we all design and submit 3 cards based on each of the expansions released in that year (e.g. at the end of the Year of the Kraken: We submit a Whisper of the Old Gods, an One Night in Karazhan, and a Mean Streets of Gadgetzan card)? Sort of like a final send off?

Quote from nurgling13 >>

I've been thinking, and I think one thing that needs to be addressed is the News posts for the Final Poll Topics. There are several issues with these. As has already been pointed out, tokens are never listed in them, so people who make tokens are at a disadvantage because of that. The News posts also encourage people to go in and vote without thinking much, or reading the discussion in the Final Poll topic that the card creators participate in. There are two main ways this can be addressed:

1. Posting images of the finalist cards in the News topic

With the card images posted in the news topic, people reading it don't even need to go to the Final Poll Topic to decide what cards they want to vote for. They can look over the cards in the news post, click the link to the poll, vote, then peace out. This means they'll never look at the tokens that aren't posted here, and won't be exposed to discussion in the Final Poll Topic. These problems would be avoided if there was no image of the cards in the News post, so that people would have to go to the Final Poll Topic to look at them. This wouldn't hurt people who read the News Post, since they need to go to the Final Poll Topic at some point to vote, anyway.

2. Comments in News topic

The comments in the News topic generally create a parallel conversation to what is going on in the Final Poll Topic. It further insulates News post readers from the card creators. They don't need to go to the Final Poll to look at the cards, or talk about them. And since the mods started locking the Discussion threads when the Final Poll comes up to consolidate discussion, it doesn't make sense to have another, separate discussion going on. I'm not sure if comments can be disabled in News posts, but I think I remember there being one where you couldn't, like for the class competition or something.

So, in conclusion, if the Final Polls are going to be advertised in News posts, the card images shouldn't be posted in there, and comments should be disabled, to consolidate discussion in the Final Poll topic and to expose more people to it. As Cogito suggested below, the News Post could even just be a direct link to the Final Poll topic, rather than a post in and of itself.

 

Oh wow, was not expecting to win that one, especially considering Lathy's Mercy was so well done. Regardless, thanks to everyone who voted for me :)

The general idea is that this prevents your opponent from drawing one of their deck cards, forcing them to pay 2 mana if they want to get it.

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 "Tiny Terrors" mini-competition. 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?

• 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!

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

Tiny Terrors

Welcome to the fifth mini-competition! I think it's about time we gave some respect to the little guys of Hearthstone, don't you?

Competition-Specific Restrictions:

• Your card must be a 1/1 minion that costs (1). Card text and flavour is completely up to you.
• As always, you may not delete any posts you make in this Submission Topic. Message one of the Fan Creation moderators if you've posted here in error or otherwise would like your post removed.
• Remember that, although HearthCards is awesome, you must host your card somewhere other than Hearthcards, such as Imgur or Photobucket.

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!