Hearthpwn

Quote from Fluxflashor >>

What was the inspiration behind the competition's theme?

 *SMH's INTENSIFIES*

The news of Hearthpwn closing due to circumstances beyond all of our control made me very emotional. I want to mourn the site as well as saying a big thank you for the wonderful people who helped shaped the sites the way it is and my experience on it by the only ways I know how: creating cards in tribute.

Disclaimer: I don't have the profile picture of the people I created, so I improvised the best I can. I'm also only familiar with a few of the mods and what they do. So if you have your own tribute, feel free to do so.

Part 1: The Moderators:

I think the major issue is that you are balancing most of these cards at random. Some of these cards were already good cards, maybe not great cards, that make it into the best meta decks, but still good almost playable cards, and you dramatically changed them.

Pounce is already a very good card. 0 mana to deal 2 damage, even at the cost of potentially taking some  yourself is completely reasonable, making it go all the way to 3 is absurd. Spirit of the Raptor is also completely crazy, especially if you considering having 2 in play at the same time and Pounce. Its just sooooo easy to clear your opponents board and draw a bunch of cards. That card also isn't at all bad to begin with, its more that that specific Druid archtype isn't great. Making a very good card in a bad archtype completely broken isn't helping anything. Either the deck still isn't good, or the deck is completely unbeatable and takes over the meta.

The Spirit of the Lynx change is probably fine. That card isn't insane, and since its not a Beast itself its still not likely to see much play because it conflicts heavily with Master's Call. That said, making it 2 mana does improve its without breaking the game. Beast Within being +2/+2 for 1 mana is absurd. At that point its so good you'd just play it because its a 1 mana for 4 points of stats. I think that potentially making it a larger buff at a higher mana cost would be awesome.

The change to Spirit of the Dragonhawk doesn't make much sense thematically for the set, and it also doesn't really change the cards level of goodness. I also think in general this card is boardline playable, its just that Hero Power mage is kind of bad, there are just way better things to do. The Scorch change is also interesting, but still probably not good enough to make it playable. Again, elementals are just much weaker atm because Un'goro rotated out, though it does seem like a change that could make the card at least closer to playable along side a few more solid elementals, and it does make it feel a lot better to get off of Mana Cyclone.

I think changing A New Challenger is super boring. Yes, it makes the card very good, in fact, I'd say it makes the card very very good, to the point that it would probably be played in very paladin deck, but it would mostly still be about stupid RNG and the fact that missing would never be bad, but hitting the good targets would be very very strong. Most people don't like that sort of RNG in the long run. Weapons are by far the hardest things to mess with. If they get too efficient cost to damage ratios they just become must play sorts of cards. A 5 mana 4/3 Weapon is already very good. Its pretty much as good as a weapon can get, but you also get the upside of the overkill effect when you use it on a minion. That doesn't really fit Paladins style. However I think Bloodclaw would have been a much better target. You have so many options to change, including small tuning to the damage taken, that might actually make a bad card playable, instead of making a bad card really really good.

The change to Surrender to Madness is a bit too much. I think changing the destroyed crystals is fine, but also reducing the cost, allowing you to potentially only lose 1 mana crystal if you are going second, to get +2/+2 on your whole deck seems pretty busted. You change to Sand Drudge isn't complete, because you didn't mention the +1 health on the base unit, plus the insane summoning of 2/2 taunts. I do think making the base unit a 3/4 or even a 2/5 could be sweet, but changing the tokens in the way you chose is crazy. 1/1s and 2/2s are soooo different. I think you could maybe get away with buffing either attack or health on the tokens, but buffing both is way way too much.

Hypeman change is probably fine, since the card isn't overly playable as is, but that's mostly because cards that cost more than 5 are generally not played in rogue decks unless they win games. Even at 6 mana its not that likely to see play. The Stolen Steel change seems worthless because even if you lower its cost, rogue already has plenty of its own weapons it wants to play. Its just a bad card to change. I'd much rather see Bloodsail Howler buffed slightly, like +1 attack or +1 health.

Doubling Wartbringer is interesting, but I wonder why you decided it needed to be doubled and not just increased by 1 point? Dealing 4 damage for 1 mana is pretty damn good, even if its conditional. Zentimo change is very very hard to judge, and I'd much rather see a bump to health than a decrease in mana. Zentimo is very very good, and being able to make his biggest combo plays easier makes him even crazier. Giving him a higher potential to stick around after a combo turn seems like a more balanced pay off than lowering the cost. 

I think knocking 2 mana off Demonbolt is bad. Having just 1 minion makes it Assassinate. Having 2 is a non-conditional Walk the Plank. So its almost always just better than Siphon Soul, even if you're a control deck, and playing it in Aggro means you can likely get a 0-3 mana kill spell, which is insane. I think you could knock off 1 mana maybe, so you could actually cast it for free on certain occasions, but I think 6 is too low. Spirit of the Bat buffing everything is crazy scary. I'd like to point out, in blizzards first round of "buffs" they never actually changed a cards functionality, only its cost or stats to make it more playable, so I think dynamically changing a card is beyond the scope of what they could do.

The Overlords whip change kind of seems awful, and again, against the style of changes we've seen. Its true the card is bad, but I'm not sure anything could ever fix it, because of how its designed to work. The Sul'thraze change is really nuts, because it makes the weapon deal 20 total damage. Its literally 2 more durability over Arcanite Reaper, for 1 mana, plus an ability, and Arcanite Reaper has seen a fair amount of play. Also, you changed 2 weapons for the same class, which seems like a weird decision. Heavy Metal was clearly there to tweak, so IDK why not change it instead of both weapons.

Your custom card is just weird. It has a multiturn stealth, and more or less functions as a crazy anti-stabalization card for aggro against everything, because once you get ahead in Health, your opponent is screwed. They can't kill your stuff of they die, and they can't leave your stuff on the board of they die. That's not a fun or interactive card, its just, oh, this board state is happening, you lose now!

If you want to change cards or create new cards, its important to have perspective. Not just perception of a cards worth or current meta value, but its actual quality and how it compares to other cards. I'm sure to a point this was tough, because there are a lot more playable/borderline cards in RR, so there aren't as many stand out choices.

 BTW, I voted, Sorry, Its Bad. I don't think its terrible, trying at all is worth something, but that said I do think in general you didn't have enough total knowledge and perspective of design and balance with your changes, and instead just did what you thought would be fun/cool/dynamic and potentially shake things up. Not all of blizzards changes were made to specifically make a card or class much stronger. Most of them in fact likely won't impact the meta all that much, but they made them anyway. Changes don't have to make cards build around cards. Don't give up, just learn to apply more knowledge to your concepts.