Iksar Explains why no Keyword Exists for "Can't be Targeted by Spells or Hero Powers"
Referred to as Elusive unofficially by many community members, this block of card text is a subject that's been brought up in the past and recently hit the front page of reddit again.
- There's now 10 collectible cards in the game with the exact effect or a variation on it.
- This year we've seen 5 cards added to the game with the effect, and an entire keyword that can add it to cards (Adapt).
- Interestingly, a change to a single word could make Deathstalker Rexxar's hero power change as it's shorter text.
Noteworthy historical blue mentions on the card text.
- 2014: Ben Brode stated the team had discussed Shroud, Untargetable, and Ethereal as potential keywords. (Source)
- 2014: Yong Woo stated when they have enough cards with the same effect they may turn it into a keyword. (Source)
Now, here's what Iksar is saying today.
- There isn't a great word for the effect that clues you in to what it does.
- Trying out Elusive or Ethereal ending up being more misleading than helpful.
- The effect isn't going to be used on many cards in the future as having too many of these minions decreases the ability to interact with an opponent.
Blue Posts
Quote from IksarWe've talked about this before but opted to spell it out. A keyword is essentially something we ask you to read and understand, so in the future you can look at a card and quickly understand what it does without having to parse through a bunch of text. Sometimes when we can use the right word, you already have a pretty good idea of what a keyword does without reading the description. Divine Shield does a pretty good job of this. People on the team have different opinions on this subject, but one of the reasons not to keyword it is that there isn't a great word for 'can't be targeted by spells or hero powers' that would clue you in to what it does. It's sort of a strange concept to begin with that something can be targeted by a battlecry or an attack but not by a spell. When we used something like 'elusive' or 'ethereal' or various other words I think it ended up being more misleading rather than increasing the ability to understand it quickly, which is counter to the point of making a keyword in the first place. Lastly, this isn't a concept we plan on using on many cards in the future. It's cool to have one-offs like Shimmering Courser or Soggoth but having too many of these types of minions greatly decreases your ability to interact with your opponent. (Source)
Or, and this is a long shot, but what if a keyword was a descriptive-enough single word that defined itself when you hovered over it.
We often state, then restate, then restate this again.... but trying to keep the game easy to pick up and grasp does not also equal a belief that the playerbase lacks intelligence. It's very rare that one particular thing is so complicated that no one will understand it, it's more that in order to protect against a death by a thousand cuts we have to stay vigilant when accessing all decisions (no matter how minor) to make sure that by adding an increase in complexity we are getting something valuable in return. (Source)
Kind of funny, actually, my brother was once completely confused when a hero attacked his Faery Dragon. He was convinced, that untargetable regarding Hero powers would include the Druid / Rogue Hero power XD
You are not targetable by the rogue or druid hero power. The thing is, that these things dont target enemies, they buff their own hero, then the hero attacks. The attack actually is not directly related to the hero power
I do know that. I only meant to say that in reply to the 'keeping it simple and understandable' statement, since even this version was capable of confusing my brother. Sure, it was his first time playing, and he thought that freezing a hero prevents him from using his hero power (instead of only affecting his ability to attack), still it does prove that not all new players instantly know what is meant by the ability. To begin with, if you see a kexword, you automatically try to understand it, right? Why should be that different for this specific keyword?
I wouldn't be surprised if this was simply due to laziness, and later they realized that, if they make it into a keyword, they would have to include it in Rexxars Beast Pool^^
If you don't like making Keywords for effects that are only on a few cards, why did you change "Destroy any minion damaged by this" to Poisonous and why does Counter exist as a Keyword at all, being that it exists on only 1 card Counterspell.
I didn't even know counter was a keyword and I sometimes play secret mage
The counterspell thing is likely just to save room on the card while still clarifying the effect. I think I agree with you about Poisonous though, considering it restricts the flavour of cards that would instantly destroy anything damaging it to things that could realistically have poison, so you can't have a fire elemental or anything that would instantly destroy a minion, since why would one of those be poisonous?
Poisonous happened because Un'goro added a lot of cards with that effect. Hell, a lot more Poisonous minions got added in the other two expansions as well, so by making it a keyword it saves room on the card for more text. With "Elusive" there's not much to do with not being able to be targeted by Spells or Hero Powers is pretty big, and he said it himself there is not many new ones coming next year.
As for Counter, I'm shocked that's even a keyword. My guess is they had more Counter effects in the future, but nothing ever came of it.
I think their idea for this is that pretty much anyone can guess what counter means, but since the "cant be targeted" type effect would never be intuitive and to make a non intuitive effect for only a few cards sounds like a bad idea. Same for poisonous, its fairly obvious roughly what it would do
Hasn't poisonous been here since Naxx? Maexxna has had this keyword before Un'Goro if I'm not mistaking.
I did not know that because I've only been playing this game for around an year now, thanks for being a possitive proactive member of the society who tries to help poorly informed players, thank you! Keep being this way not like the other most members of the society that only know one thing "I don't 110% agree with this comment so I'll downvote it to hell" for the sake of acievements... please stop people...
Only few of are that sort, if you are even bother to come to dig about the answer, I think you are pro enough to know where those cards are and what are their name.
The best part of that blue is the "There isn't a great word for the effect that clues you in to what it does". Because, you know, Inspire was totally giving a perfect clue about what its effect is, right? I can understand that there aren't such many cards with this effect so it's probably not worth a dedicated keyword, but then how many Recruit or Adapt cards there will be in the future? The pool probably won't grow anymore so why giving that a dedicated keyword and not a new one to an ability that is the Classic Set (so it will never leave Standard)? Why also not giving consistency to Recruit itself on older cards?
The logic behind Team 5 decisions sometimes is so dumb.
I would be curious to hear what the team would say about 'Inspire'. I wouldn't be surprised if 'Inspire' as a keyword taught them the lesson they now follow of being cautious about what gets a keyword and what doesn't. You're right that 'Inspire' does not give a clear picture of what it actually means in terms of game mechanics but were there any cards printed after TGT with the 'Inspire' keyword?
there are some rcruit cards running around without the recruit key word.
patches the pirate: when u play a pirate, recruit this.
y'sharj, rage unbound: at the end of your turn, recruit a minion.
meet weagon: deathrattle: recruit a minon with less atack then this one.
madam goya: shuffle a minion into your deck. recruit another minion from your deck.
I often get the impression that there isn't any real logic behind their decision making but that it's more based on sudden impulses or some "brainstorming sessions" rather than a long-term development plan. Although, coming up with new fancy keywords can and will be used as part of the marketing plan for upcoming expansions. Re-wording existing cards doesn't have the same effect.
Agree with all except Madam Goya.
I think a lot of people are rushing to argue about "there isn't a good enough keyword for this" and ignoring "this effect isn't even worth a keyword".
There are ten entire cards in the game that use this keyword. It's not even worth the effort to give it a keyword. It'd be like changing the specific effect of "destroy a friendly minion" to say "Sacrifice:" as a keyword. Why even bother?
Also, it's too powerful of an effect to even be on cards that have enough text to save room with a keyword. All of the Elusive minions have Elusive as their only effect, have Elusive and Taunt, or give Elusive to other characters. If you put Elusive on minions with complex text, like Geosculptor Yip or Ixlid, Fungal Lord , then you're just going overboard and cluttering a card with too many effects.
Elusive cards are incredibly simple, and don't need to be simplified with keywords.
That being said, there are a lot of redundant keywords in Hearthstone that we'd be better off without, like Poisonous.
hm: imo "Ping" is a common term for using the hero-power. kinda combine this with the already suggested "Spellshield" and therefore i would suggest
"Ping- and Spell-Proof" or "Ping-/Spell-Proof" in this matter
and of course use the longer text "Can't be Targeted by Spells or Hero Powers" in those little boxes, that appear, when you hover over those minions
although i must admit, that "Spell-Proof" might be misleading in terms of aoe-spells
What about Pong ?
Everyone focuses on the first part of their argument, but I think they actually have a good point in the last part. We don't need a keyword for an effect that isn't meant to be that common.