HearthPwn's Expansion Creation Competition Finale has Arrived! Help us Declare a Winner!
Our Expansion Creation Competition has come to a spectacular end with only four finalists remaining. Today we're looking for your help to review their expansions and picking one that you think deserves to win - we've come a long way since June.
Contestants in our competition were required to create a theme, mechanics, and 84 cards over these past two months to create their own custom Hearthstone expansion. Initially, 77 heroes entered the arena but they were lost to the vicious phases of slaughter.
Here are your expansion creation finalists. We've included a short blurb about their expansion along with a link to view their entire work.
- We ask that you please review all our competitor's entries so that you can give a fair vote to the best one out there.
- Below we've included four sample cards from each expansion to give you a small taste before your feast.
- Each expansion below has a banner which when clicked will take you to their thread where you can find all the details about it.
- After you're done, head on over to the finalist poll to vote. We'll remind you again at the end of this post.
Servitors of the Loa by RazorOfArtorias
Trolls. Voodoo. Blood Sacrifices. Canibalism. Death. Ancient Rituals. Dark Magic... All related to the powerful Loa, the gods worshiped by the trolls. Wild deities beyond good and evil, ethereal beings that can bless and curse their servitors. But something is wrong, nine of the Loa have disappeared mysteriously. The imbalance of the troll pantheon is affecting wildlife and can endanger Nature itself. To find the lost Loas their nine servitors have formed a team of adventurers to traverse the most hostile environments, but they need a leader. Are you brave enough to command them and become one of the Servitors of the Loa?
The Great Thaw by Livienna
An unusual warmth has settled over the wintery landscapes of Azeroth... from Northrend to Winterspring, snow is melting, flowers are blooming, and dormant beings are awakening. The rumors are true: SPRING IS COMING. "The Great Thaw" expansion is all about the clash of Winter and Spring. We have Frostsabers, Ice Elementals, and Avalanches, as well as Forest Spirits, Flowery Glades, and Woodland Creatures. Similar to Goblins vs. Gnomes, this expansion is not set at a certain place or event, but is instead a general theme that permeates all over.
Showdown at the Battlegrounds by Broeck1
In a war that has been raging for centuries, Horde and Alliance go head to head on battlegrounds to conquer lands, resources and... flags? Millions have been slaughtered and for long the war seemed endless. Until now. In a final showdown Horde and Alliance face each other in a final devastating clash. The Stompike Guard meets the Frostwolf Clan in Alterac Valley, the Silverwing Sentinels try to retake their land from the Warsong Outriders in Warsong Gulch and the League of Arathor defends what's theirs against the Forsaken Defilers in the Arathi Basin. In this ultimate battle history will be written. Who will become victorious, Horde or Alliance? It is up to you....
Hallow's End by thepowrofcheese
Prepare yourselves, the bells have tolled!
Shelter your weak, your young and your old!
Each of you shall pay the final sum!
Cry for mercy, the reckoning has come!
There is a festival that occurs in the autumn months. It is a time of celebration, of costumed children and masked matrons passing out candy. When farmers light bonfires to celebrate the harvest. But as villages the world over gather together, the guards must stay vigilant. For with the waning daylight comes things that prowl and skitter and groan and howl. Rotten crops and corpses rise as the cursed Horseman rides. So gather around your family and toss an offering to the Wickerman, so that you may be safe during... Hallows End.
Vote For Your Favourite
Now that you've had a chance to review the four remaining expansions, it's time to vote!
Good luck to all our competitors, you've done a wonderful job!
Can we get these as a yearly thing? These were super creative and I'd love to see more in the future
Thank you! Awesome tournament and an honor to compete against such strong Expansions. I learned a lot with your feedback. Good job everyone!
I want thepowrofcheese to know how incredibly disappointed I am that the priest candy isn't called a Refresh-mint.
That said, I think it's the best of the expansions. There are cards I really like in all of them, but Hallow's End is the one that knocks it out of the part for me.
Servitors of the Loa: Too many cards are already in play whose effects are just as good if not greater than these without having you spend health in addition to mana. Sacrifice Ritual is the biggest joke of this expansion. No minion is worth spending 10 health to get rid of when you have Siphon Soul to do the job much nicer. The Warrior's forced Enrage deck archetype is weak and redundant compared to current Standard minions. Several of these cards appear to be knockoffs of some in these other competing expansions. I love the Loa gods, however, and would greatly enjoy seeing them in play. The Shadowform synergy is also much appreciated, since I am looking to make a Shadowform deck myself.
The Great Thaw: First of all, I've been dreaming of something almost exactly like Wicked Witchcraft for months, minus the card draw, which can be left off as it makes it slightly overpowered. Most or all of the legendaries are ridiculously overpowered, though, and the alternative hero powers are very lackluster.
Showdown at the Battlegrounds: Too many competing mechanics for one expansion. The token legendaries are so overpowered that Blizzard would never allow anything close to them to ever reach the light of play. Unlike the Servitors of the Loa class legendaries, the lack of variation in cost and/or stats of this expansion's class legendaries makes no sense and casts a shadow on the rest of the expansion. Points for the awesome card backs, though.
Hallow's End: Without a doubt, the most sound of all four expansions. Unlike the other three, this expansion's mechanics don't feel at all forced. I would love to see this one published as a real Hearthstone expansion. Some minor changes in card text and illustration would need to take place before publication, though, like Candy Seeker (with the Discover mechanic, you would only have one option when you play it given the candy mechanic), but other than that, the expansion seems polished. The Fear mechanic works well without being overpowered or overemphasized. The use of tokens is particularly interesting, especially the Rogue token Secrets. King Mrgl-Mrgl is hilarious (I mean that in a good way). Again, love the Shadowform synergy. The fact that this expansion synergizes so well with the Year of the Mammoth's would make it a perfect next-year release. You'd be foolish not to give this expansion your vote.
Someone dropped out of school before grammar class. I was talking about Showdown at the Battlegrounds' legendaries, hence the colon (you know what that is, right?) after the expansion name. What do you think the term "unlike" means? Frozen Throne is NOT the only set in Standard right now, and not at all part of the sets I was referring to. I realize your little competition took place long before full reveal; I wasn't born last night. And no, it's not worth 10 health to get roasted on turn 3 by any newb's aggro deck. And you can't deny the fact that your set had more repeating cards of the others' than any other competitor. You can't expect us to believe that doesn't look at least a LIIIIIIITTLE suspicious.
I did actually love your legendaries. "I love the Loa gods, however, and would greatly enjoy seeing them in play." Some people just love to focus on the negatives, though.
Uh, no, Broeck, if you wore your prescription glasses while you were posting (like the doctor told you to), you would notice I made a break-down of EVERY expansion. And it was an expansion competition, not adventures. Being a competitor, you should have remembered that.
"Several of these cards appear to be knockoffs of some in these other competing expansions." That was my first quote on the subject. If you're not understanding, it's because of your own willful stupidity. Remember my grammar class comment? That obviously still applies.
And you're the one who made the expansion FULL of trolls. Talk about a lousy winner.
@AliceisMasquerade
It seems like you think that you're superior in card designing skills to all others. We could use a person like you. Give us the perfect expansion. We'll be waiting to bask in your glory. Surely, you could create an expansion as good as the above. Or how about a few cards?
I'm not sure why you would use hard removal on turn 3 against an aggro deck though; if you used it so early, well duh, then you deserve to lose. You'd think you save it for a greater minion or use it on a friendly minion in Zoo. I agree with the big Health cost though. If only the expansion featured a bunch of healing...like Lifesteal for instance.
Regardless, by needlessly insulting the very competitors of this competition, you have certainly graced them with enlightenment. People will surely be humbled by your gratuitous opinion, and many will respect you for your kind politeness. Clearly, the number of upvotes your comment has received depicted that.
Well, I'm SOOOORRY for everyone who didn't understand my Rotten Tomatoes review of this competition.
On an unrelated note, who on this site uses Rotten Tomatoes?
Just so that everyone hears this, I want everyone to look carefully at every finalist's entire expansion before casting a vote.
I know it sounds ludicrous, but all of what you see here is ~3 months in the making, and all of the contestants have put their heart and soul into each of these creations. The laboured to come up with innovative ideas, balance their cards, and create beautiful, fascinating themes for each of them. I know all of this because I personally worked with them, and it would be a shame if you just judged it at face value. Looking at the example cards, they just don't do each expansion justice!
Spooky Scary Skeleton? Would automatically pre order Hallow's End to get that one card.
Hallows for me
These all have their virtues and problems but out of all of them, Hallow's End has the least problems imo.
I'm not a big fan of the Troll one. It doesn't seem like it does anything new and most of the Voodoo cards just seem outright broken since most of them have effects that allow them to perfectly fit into any kind of aggressive deck.
There is however one card in that set which REALLY peeked my interest and that's the Vampiric Troll. 2 mana 1/1 with Lifesteal that deals 1 Damage to a minion and gives it Lifesteal. In Handlock this card would be absolutely ridiculous. The existence of this card alone would probably make Warlock tier one. Handlock, and Warlock as a class was crippled by the loss of Antique Healbot and most recently, Reno Jackson, and the class hasn't been given good healing since because that would very likely make it near impossible to complete with. Vampiric Troll let's you give Lifesteal to a massive minion you already have on board like a Giant or Twilight Drake and recurrently restore huge amounts of Health with it. And as if that alone wasn't good enough, the fact that it itself is a Lifesteal minion means that you can run it with Sunwalker and put Corpsetakers in your deck. A 4 mana 3/3 Taunt Divine Shield Lifesteal is already pretty good in Paladin but Lifesteal in Warlock is one of the strongest mechanics in the game making the card massively stronger. Absolutely ridiculous.
There are some pretty nice ideas there. Well done.