Combo/magnetic/hidden agenda for spells

Minions have all the fun! I want to be able to line up a couple of spells and then get a reward like a combo or magnetic effect for spells. Say if you manage to cast a fireball and a frostbolt after one another they melt to become a frostfire bolt doing extra damage. For instance. Only rogues have that atm. Or each consecutive spell in the same turn gets mana reduction. Stuff like that. Or being able to enhance a card in your hand with a spell without the opponent seeing which card you buffed. Some crazy stuff with spells. A spell to revive a spell you cast earlier that game (aka resurrect on spells). A pyroblast! when you have 2 crits in a row would also be nice to have.

That's probably largely down to hearthstone's interface and design philosophy of simplicity. There are loads of cards that power-up spells but they're almost all minions: spellpower +x, manacost reduction, "whenever you play a spell" triggers, mana cyclone, etc. etc. Hell there's Swampqueen Hagatha and Kazakus that arguably do merge spells together(in some fashion), but they're both battlecry minions. Oh and Fandral/Stalladris and Choose one spells.

I do expect Blizzard to keep printing cards like Kazakus in the future simply because the mechanic is immensely popular, but I'd be really surprised if such complexity and power were not restricted to legendaries. I doubt we'll see things more finnicky than twinspell or echo printed on non-legendary spell cards for the foreseeable future.

Quote From FrostyFeet

Extra damage for spells is a dangerous region balance-wise, which is why I don't think that will happen. And since Combo is a very class-specific keyword, I wouldn't expect to see it outside Rogue cards either. But I definitely wouldn't be against more complex design on spells.

It's also kinda weird that the only class having a viable purely-spells strategy is Hunter, which isn't really a spell-casting class lore/flavorwise.

A bit off-topic, but I really dislike the design of the hunter spell-synergy cards (and Keleseth, Genn&Baku, etc.) where an explicit deckbuilding restriction is imposed, compared to say Book of Specters, where the way the card works implies certain deckbuilding choices, but doesn't force them. If, say, mage ever gets a spell theme I hope it'll be with cards that naturally encourage all-spell decks, EG "If you have only spells in hand, does X bonus effect", "Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck, if they're all spells, do Y", etc. 

Combo is a very speific keyword reserved for Rogue. Spreading it away from him will indeed lower a lot the flavor and theme of both the class and the keyword itself.

Quote From Zwane

Minions have all the fun! I want to be able to line up a couple of spells and then get a reward like a combo or magnetic effect for spells. Say if you manage to cast a fireball and a frostbolt after one another they melt to become a frostfire bolt doing extra damage. For instance. Only rogues have that atm. Or each consecutive spell in the same turn gets mana reduction. Stuff like that. Or being able to enhance a card in your hand with a spell without the opponent seeing which card you buffed. Some crazy stuff with spells. A spell to revive a spell you cast earlier that game (aka resurrect on spells). A pyroblast! when you have 2 crits in a row would also be nice to have.

We're getting into that with things like Twinspell.  Being able to merge spells together will come with time I think, though simply 'more damage' I don't think will be in teh cards. It'll probably be completely different spells in an expansion that can combine together to do something unique or will go off if it's pair went off first.

Quote From AliRadicali

That's probably largely down to hearthstone's interface and design philosophy of simplicity. There are loads of cards that power-up spells but they're almost all minions: spellpower +x, manacost reduction, "whenever you play a spell" triggers, mana cyclone, etc. etc. Hell there's Swampqueen Hagatha and Kazakus that arguably do merge spells together(in some fashion), but they're both battlecry minions. Oh and Fandral/Stalladris and Choose one spells.

 

I do expect Blizzard to keep printing cards like Kazakus in the future simply because the mechanic is immensely popular, but I'd be really surprised if such complexity and power were not restricted to legendaries. I doubt we'll see things more finnicky than twinspell or echo printed on non-legendary spell cards for the foreseeable future.

I don't think any of those philosophies are sacred anymore.  Not buffing was sacred.  Careful nerfing was sacred.  HoFing only on rotations was sacred.  

When they changed the head staff, they killed the sacred cows.  I'm pretty sure everything is on the table now, including 'simplicity'.  

I doubt they'll go MTG in complexity still, but otherwise, anything that's been said while..say.. Ben Brode was still on the team is no longer a locked concept. I'd want to hear them make a recent statement about simplicity before saying that Twinspell is the most complex we'll get.