The Price Of Progress - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Submitted 3 years, 6 months ago by
ShadowsOfSense
Competition Theme: The Price Of Progress
We saw some Classic Dragons get a new interpretation when the Core Set released - it's time for some other Legendaries to get in on the action. Progress comes at a price, however - or is that a Prince?
- You must create a Legendary minion which is a re-imagining of a Classic Legendary
- Look to Deathwing vs Deathwing the Destroyer, or Ysera vs Ysera the Dreamer - similar, but different!
- Your Legendary minion must have an effect which is active when you have no cards of the same cost in your deck
- Prince Keleseth, Prince Taldaram and Prince Valanar were our first introductions to this kind of effect
Arkasaur and MathU both contributed to this week's theme - one for the flavour restriction, and one for the mechanical.
As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.
Competition Phases
Here are the phases of this card design competition
- Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Jun 7 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, Jun 12 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
- Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jun 12 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, Jun 13 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
- Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jun 13 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, Jun 14 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
- Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.
Discussion Thread Rules
No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.
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Competition Theme: The Price Of Progress
We saw some Classic Dragons get a new interpretation when the Core Set released - it's time for some other Legendaries to get in on the action. Progress comes at a price, however - or is that a Prince?
Arkasaur and MathU both contributed to this week's theme - one for the flavour restriction, and one for the mechanical.
As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.
Competition Phases
Here are the phases of this card design competition
Discussion Thread Rules
No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.
Welcome to the site!
Not sure if this would be too dangerous.
Working on a couple of ideas:
2 Mana, 0 Attack, 4 Health, Neutral Legendary.
While your deck has no 2-Cost cards, Discover a spell in your opponent's deck at the end of your turn.
5 Mana, 5 Attack, 4 Health, Neutral Legendary.
Battlecry: If your deck has no 5-Cost cards, Discover an ancient Artifact!
Ancient Artifacts:
Thank you for any feedback.
This means no Aeroponics, no Force of Nature (the non-Classic version, anyway), and no Arbor Up.
Can I name him a Master Tinkmaster? (:
I feel like there hasn't been that many Demon Hunter cards in these competitions recently, so here you go.
EDIT: OH FUCK! In the midst of stuff I was doing when I made the card yesterday and trying to find a good Demon Hunter character, I completely blanked out on the fact that it's supposed to be a re-imagining of a Classic Legendary. Well uh, I guess Illidan technically is a Classic Legendary.
I guess, just judge the card by its effect and I will change the artwork to be Illidan??? Or I'll likely just make a different card.
Had a busy day and this is quite a hard prompt, so I'll probably go with something goofy this time around. Here are my first ideas:
I haven't found good art for The Pitch-Black Knight yet, it's also quite powerful and I don't want linkblade to hate me so I'll probably go with Indy.
Feedback in roughly 12 hours from now!
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
No one can say Leeroy doesn’t learn from mistakes!
This doesn’t count mulligan draws ofc. Feedback later maybe
Make The Cow King an alternate Warrior skin plz
Feedback time
My main issue is the name, which is basically a watered down version of the original card's name. I'd try something like Overspark, Overdrived or something like that.
Okay, back with something a little bit more applicable for the comp. This is Sylvanas. We all know her as a dark banshee queen who seems hellbent on some sort of destruction. But she wasn't always like this. At one point, she was a regular elf ranger so full of life, and this card depicts this version of her.
I wanted to emphasize the "ranger" aspect of her character with this version, though I am a bit concerned that the payoff might not justify the deckbuilding required to get it to work. I do also just generally want to see more Hunter weapon synergies.
Feedback
If you want Cenarius to be more powerful, I can do that lol:
No longer benefits minions like Shrubadier, but in exchange it benefits ALL spells. How's this?
Feedback:
Demonxz95 - Unfortunate that the two newest Hunter weapons cost 4; guess it would depend on when the Ranger General came out. I think it's okay, but it has *zero* connection with the Classic/banshee Sylvanas beyond the "skin". Some people might frown on that.
DestroyerR - Won't be "perfectly timed" if you draw extra cards before turn 5 lol :P Still, it's an amusing card and ensures you have a solid turn-5 play right when you need it.
anchorm4n - Not my pretty Totems Taunts! I think the Pitch-Black Knight is pretty OP, as it can lay waste to many a Control player's game-plan if not obliterate archetypes outright. Indiana Ford can do the same to decks that rely heavily on certain weapons, like Kingsbane or Wrenchcalibur, although that is at least more niche than "all Taunt minions". There's nothing wrong with hate-cards, per se, but these are HATE cards lol.
R - Seems fine. I would name him something better, though, and switch to a different watermark (that's GvG, isn't it? The "Prince" effect didn't exist back then).
Longshadow - Losing 2-mana cards from your deck is a heavy price to pay, which is why Prince Keleseth had to be great to succeed. Loreseeker Cho isn't worth that, in my opinion. I also believe Professor Jones is too similar to the OG Rafaam: it's just smaller versions of his spells. Make the Artifacts more unique and I think you've got something here.
Wailor - That looks super good. "I'm doin' fine and don't need these Secrets anymore; might as well end the game!" IIRC the Mage barely loses anything from the 5-mana slot, as well (Cloud Prince being the main one), so the condition seems easy for that kind of power.
Yeah, that that's kinda the point. It's the same character, but if you were to tell someone with no knowledge of Warcraft that live Sylvanas and banshee Sylvanas are two different characters entirely, I feel like most of them wouldn't bat an eye. This is similarly reflected here. The effect is supposed to be representative of the character in a very different way than the original card since the two cards both focus on a very different version of the character that for all intents and purposes, could basically be two different characters entirely.
And unfortunately, yeah I feel like there's probably not many good targets for it right now. Team 5, if you're reading this, then print some Hunter weapons that don't cost 4 (please).
Wind Lords:
Name is a placeholder until I think of something a bit.. more.
Considering making the cost lower so it has a bigger impact on deckbuilding. I'm thinking 4 mana 4/4 and have it affect 4-cost cards, while possibly adjusting the stats of the Wind Lords as well. This would remove Vivid Spores, which would make this a nightmare to face, and allow setup with Primal Dungeoneer.
This effect allows Al'Akir to be reminiscent of its Classic self, with the four keywords that make it notable spread over four minions. It also ties into the Al'Akir encounter in WoW which required the Wind Lords to be defeated before tackling the big guy himself.
Considered having the Wind Lords make Al'Akir dormant instead of immune, and having Al'Akir gain something like +1/+1 for each Wind Lord at the beginning of every turn until he awakens (to make it feel like he's "charging up" while you face his lieutenants) but wanted to consider text space on the main card.
I do have backup ideas in Krush and Thalnos, but would rather work in a space I doubt anyone else will mess with. Hopefully Al'Akir will be good enough haha :)
EDIT: Thinking about doing away with the immune idea, and changing it to "When this minion dies, give Al'Akir [keyword]." Biggest issuebwith making this how I want is still card text space however.
Feedback:
Wailor: I like it. It maintains the flavor of the original while still being its own thing. Might be too dangerous late game, but I think that's okay given the condition and the fact only one Fireball could be played that same turn.
linkblade91: This card reads weird. It wants to be a "For the rest of the game…" but has to have the other text regarding costs on it as well. Maybe make it like the Rogue quest and have it add a card to your hand. This would shorten the text as well. Spreading Saplings exists, so maybe just add that (or variant) to the hand.
R: My favorite so far. This also maintains the flavor of the original. It would be nice to have the 5/5 effect in there as well, but I understand text limitations prevents that. Great!
anchorm4n: I don't like the Pitch-Black Knight. Way too OP. The effect for Indiana Ford is great and very fitting for a remake of a Harrison Jones with restrictions. While I understand the name, it's off-putting for Hearthstone since the other has a precedent in WoW. That said, this is just a Card Design Competition and not actual Hearthstone so it's quite alright.
DestroyerR: Card is perfectly fair as is. This isn't a critique of your card, but if I were designing it, I think I would keep the Start of Game effect and have it be the next card drawn so it's as if Leeroy is charging to the front of the deck. Dumb, maybe, but flavorful haha.
Demonxz95: In the current Standard set, that would only leave 2 weapons Headhunter's Hatchet and Trueaim Crescent. I think it could keep the flavor of a NE Ranger if it said something like "add 2 random Hunter Shots to your hand." similar to how Poisons became a thing for Rogue. List of Standard Shots
There are more and more people who think that the submit form is used to create a card. And also many who don't meet the requirements. Maybe need to put a spoiler with a guide how to create cards at the top of the thread and emphasize the main requirements of each WCDC.
While a very cool idea in theory, your undoing is that our submission form does not support that many cards :/
Second iteration of the old man. I only picked 5 mana so that it can maintain Archmage Antonidas' attack, but you're right that no 5-cost card is barely a limitation. So, here are 3 and 4 mana versions:
The 3-cost version doesn't allow him to be comboed with Secrets or other 3-cost spells (which are quite numerous), while the second doesn't allow to combine him with Fireball itself (which admitedly might not be a big deal). Also, neither of them can't be played with two Fireballs in one turn.
Big thanks to R, who edited the spark in place of the card of the original artwork.
I'm a little bit late for feedback, so it's good to finally get to writing it. I would however like to add a note that I see a lot of people using the Classic watermark for this competition, which I think is a bad look for the card since we're designing cards on characters that appeared in Classic, meaning that two different versions of the same character would be in the same set, which I feel like is just weird. I do realize that Galakrond exists and has 5 versions of himself in the same set, but I think this is chocked up in flavor to different interpretations of what would happen to Galakrond based on 5 different ways to awaken him with different magical powers.
But, here we go for feedback.
In regards to your statement about using Shots the same way as Poisons, this I do believe is a valid design space. But unlike Poisons, where a couple of them are similar but roughly do something different (such as making your hero Immune while attacking or drawing cards after you attack), every Shot in the game does roughly the same thing but just on a different scale, which makes it less interesting to work with.
Hullo! Been a while since I've participated in one of these, but I've got time again. And several ideas! What are your thoughts?
'Course, I came back for a tough prompt. It's difficult to avoid filling up the text box.
Feedback will come in several hours!
Better call Thrall!
Thanks for all your feedback so far. Looks like my ideas were even worse than I thought lol. I'll go with something more boring I guess.
It's a recycled card from season 1, adjusted to this weeks theme. Feign Death on a stick seemed to weak, so I doubled up on it. Funny how that feels a lot more threatening somehow. The restriction rules out Oblivitron, Savannah Highmane, Seeping Oozeling, Khartut Defender and OG Sylvanas herself of course. Not sure what to do about the card text. With four lines it produces an orphan, at -2 and -3 it collides with the Attack value and at everything smaller it jumps back to 4 lines until it becomes minuscule. Strange.
Also sorry for the late response to your ideas, life has kept me busy this week.
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
Since I can't use an absurd amount of tokens for my card, I had to come up with another idea.
My first thought was to have the Warlock hero power also damage the enemy hero, but it was a lot of text on the card, so went another direction. This will now upgrade the hero power to Soul Tap, fitting for the Soulrender. Biggest issue I have is maintaining the flavor of the original. This doesn't have Spell Damage nor direct card draw. Thoughts on scrapping the hero power upgrade and instead having it read "... 2-Cost card, give your hero +1 Spell Damage for the rest of the game" or something to that effect?
Comments! Thoughts. Community engagement.
Wailor!
This version of the Wise Old Ant is both fun, competitive, and succinct, which is lovely. I like the 4-cost one best, if only because 3-mana 2-4 is a well-traveled road for Mage. A 4-mana 2-7 feels more impressive.
Linkblade!
Your change was a good one, I think. The new version allows a more flexible gameplan and is more in-line with the direction they're pushing Druid. That said, though, the effect seems very strong. Druid can bash out 2-4 spells a turn easily - imagine having this dude down on turns 1-4 and then continuing? Thankfully there's no Savage Roar these days, but still, that's scary - the sort of game-defining scary that Classic legendaries should be, which is why I'm torn. More powerful is always better, so I'd go with it, unless you can think of an artful way to tune the card down.
R!
Already in. Thoughts, though - this card, like some others, feels like the Barrens Kazakus - it's not something you'd build around, but if there are only two or three 3-cost cards in your deck, why not cut them for the powerspike? Neutral cards with that sort of 'well, why not include it?' feel are the sort that can ruin expansions. Thankfully, Barrens Kazakus is quite interesting and 4-mana is a tough slot, so it's alright. Master Overspark isn't as interesting, though, so doesn't feel worth the risk. It's a neat card, and a fun one, but not something I'd want to see in the game.
Anchorman!
Indeed, destroying all of your opponent's anything is scary! It makes sense to bring Sylvanas back as a Hunter card, though, given the hero skin - that's an exciting sort of boldness. The effect is bland at the moment, though. If a 3-mana card that triggers Deathrattles doesn't see play, would this one? Perhaps, admittedly, but I'm more wary than excited. There should be another way to retrofit Sylvanas' flavor (mucking with your opponents minions) with Hunter. A Freezing Trap-esque effect? Maybe a Hysteria-like effect where you choose an enemy minion to attack the others? You could do a lot in that arena - choose an enemy minion and its attack and health explode, are stolen, distributed among your minions, an effect activates for each ATK or HP, etc.
Destroyer!
This is hilarious. I wouldn't label it a winner, because at end of day he's just a mediocre Rush minion, but the combination of effect, art, and history are more than enough for me to give 4 stars anyway. Maybe tweak it elegantly with flavor in mind, but if not, go! Live the dream!
Demon!
Admittedly, much as I appreciate that you've taken a new direction, it's hard to swallow such a radical shift for a character that we're familiar with. I'd love if she were one of several cards that told the story of Classic legendaries through re-imaginings, but that's beyond the scope of the competition. To really sell me on the idea, I think that either the effect should be cooler or there should be some callback to Classic Sylvanas. Maybe you could work minion muckery into the card, somehow? "Give a weapon x attack for x enemy minions." is a dumb, overpowered idea, but it could be an avenue. "Destroy an enemy minion. Its ATK and HP become your weapon's ATK and Durability for a turn." … actually, that's badass. Part of me wants to steal it for my own use!
Lundy!
The token rule really disappoints me, because your original idea is my favorite design so far. Admittedly, no relation to the original besides a tribal tag, but he's just so TOOTHSOME! Who cares if immune effects have an evil history in every other card game I know? I want it. I want my majestic, impenetrable storm daddy.
Cough. Anyway. Thalnos. Is Thalnos a Warlock in WoW? As a Hearthstone-exclusive chump, this feels odd. He's a tough card to reimagine, since the original effects are so basic and succinct (same with Al'Akir, actually. You choose tough cookies!), but I think there ought to be more connection to the original than there is now. Your current effect feels niche and broken. If you continue down this path, perhaps you could have him play into the self-damage aspect of Warlock instead - something like "Your Hero Power costs 0. Cards you draw this turn have Spell Damage +1." or "Activate your Hero Power twice." My general thought is that he should be, like the original, an all-around useful card that helps Warlock do Warlock things a l'il more easily or efficiently, rather than a deck-definer or a finisher. If you do want to be bold and create a finisher, I'd play to the draw or spell damage aspects - two ideas could be, "Deal 1 damage to your opponent whenever you draw a card." or "Gain +1 Spell Damage whenever you draw a card. If your deck has no 2-cost cards, your Hero Power costs (0) this turn."
That's a lot. Sorry. I have too much free time at the moment, obviously!
How do y'all add titles to the spoiler tags?
Better call Thrall!
Had to scrap my first idea because I thought it was any previous legendary and not just Classic, but I'll still post the feedback I had.
Feedback:
Lundy: Thalnos is simple but useful, I like it.
Anchorm4n: This could be a pretty powerful card, although something about the ability doesn't fit for me.
Me0203: Out of the three, I'd say Gruul is the most interesting.
Wailor: I'd go with the 4-Mana version.
linkblade91: You might want to increase the mana cost to 6 or 7, this is a pretty powerful card early and it's not hard for Druid to get to 5 mana early enough for this to have a big impact
Demonxz95: Pretty powerful effect if you build your deck right, I like it.
DestroyerR: Good card. I kinda wish this still had Charge, but that's just me (it would be completely broken with it).
R: Simple but effective and good flavor.
Longshadow: I like the flavor of Professor Jones, although the spells should probably cost 5 Mana.
-Hordaki (rhymes with Mordecai)
Check out the Tactician custom class!
Okay, last try with a more interesting take of Sylvanas:
This captures the effect of OG Sylvanas and the flavor of the Forsaken since it raises your opponent's dead minions to fuel your own army. It obviously sucks against Token decks but that never stopped OG Sylvanas from being good. Summoning two units should acertain that this is a solid play at least stat-wise (comparable to Jandice).
Which version is better? "Resurrect" is an established mechanic, but it has never been applied to enemy minions before, so the second version might be the safe way to go. I don't want people to think the card summons minions for your opponent. Some late feedback would be great!
@Lundy: Making a Thalnos card is very ambitious. I can easily picture him in Warlock (a Bloodmage in the blood magic class), but the effect doesn't work out for me yet. Maybe you should focus on that aspect some more. What I imagine definesThalnos as a Bloodmage design-wise is having paid with his life force for the spell damage (low stats) and gaining resources upon death.
@Me0203: Wow, what a great read! I have rarely seen such an elaborate an well verbalized post. I also appreciate it very much that you have given constructive criticism and made suggestions what we could do. If you want to polish up the spoilers, you start out as usual: type your text, mark it, click the "Spoiler" button. Then you add " text="name"" between the first brackets. Here's an example: {spoiler text="Me0203"} I hope this is understandable. Credits to Demonxz95 who taught me this in the first place.
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
King Krush reimagined. What do you think?
-=alfi=-
This is a strictly better king krush, even with 8 cost cards in your deck. And if you don't have 8 cost cards in your deck (not a hard requirement for hunter), this destroys a minion and gains a stat boost as well. I don't know how you could fix this card, as it basically has no requirement in most hunter decks.
Further feedback.
I think you forgot to change the watermark on Gruul because he still has the Classic one meaning he would technically exist in the same set as regular Gruul. Speaking of regular Gruul, I think it is a little bit off-putting that this card is a 1/1 whereas the original card in a 7/7. This is a huge size discrepancy, which is unfortunately just an inherent negative side-effect of the prompt.
Millhouse is a cute idea, but I feel like it is side-stepping the rules of the prompt a little bit. Greenskin I think is definitely the best of the three, although I think he should have some guaranteed effect if you play him even without another Pirate.
Your idea for my Sylvanas sounds pretty neat, although copying Durability for one turn is a bit weird and the more inward specifics of how that would work is not so clear.
@Anchorman
Thank you! Bless ya, that spoiler trick worked.
I like this design. It's likely not as good as OG Sylvanas, but it occupies a fun niche - it's definitely a card that I'd slap in a deck whenever I could, like Bandersmosh. Regarding the wording, I think that the second is more clear and fits nicely within the box. Like Demon notes for Alfi's card, though, is it possible to work 'Sylvanas' into the card title?
Better call Thrall!
More feedback.
Ahem, in all seriousness, I really like your neutral version of The Banshee Queen. I prefer the second wording, since it's more clear.
Also, I think the name is great, even if it doesn't contain the word "Sylvanas". She is a pretty recognisable character, so I doubt people would downvote you for that.
Changed Thalnos to be more in line with his Classic counterpart. Like the OG, Thalnos gives Card Draw and Spell Damage. Not sure if I worded the card correctly to get what I wanted to convey across. Actually hope I can word this differently, as I had to space out the words so that they could fit the card frame. Honestly, I think this is trash and wouldn't vote for it. Going to go for something new and hope for the best lol
Feedback:
Took some time to come up with a new card, here's what I've got. Ties into Brightwing's Legendary effects while serving as a potential combo piece.
More feedback:
Anchorm4n: Go with the second version, it's more clear and still fits in the box. I like the new angle for the card.
Alfi: Ridiculously overpowered currently. Switch to Rush, lower the base stats, and / or change the mana requirement.
Lundy: Maybe make it say "replace your hero power with [insert name here]", and include a token with a new hero power with the original text plus the spell damage. I still prefer the first version you showed, but this one does have more connections to the original Thalnos.
-Hordaki (rhymes with Mordecai)
Check out the Tactician custom class!
@Hordecai
Your new version is much better! Having seen it, I find it odd that they haven't printed a similar card before - all-legendary decks are such a popular meme, after all. Not to mention, she's a competitive card as well. Perhaps too competitive, but hey, unique and fun enough for me not to care. Only change I'd make is tweaking the title to 'Best Friend Brightwing', 'Brightwing, Lovable Companion', or something else that gets along the friendship aspect - she's helping someone else out, after all!
Better call Thrall!
Really cool to see so much traffic in here that late in the competition! Here are some more thoughts from my side.
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
Good luck to everyone in the voting! I went ahead with my OP Cenarius, so I expect to lose great things!
Damn, MathU. You gotta leave some competitions for other people to win (jk, congrats yet again).
Congrats to MathU once more!
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
I'm definitely not the main winner now lol. Congrats MathU! This is the Season of Math!
What a competition. Look at how close those final scores are. Congratulations to MathU for edging out the other folks!
Looking through the report, I'm most surprised by how CursedParrot's 'Antonidas, the Secretive' ended up. It doesn't have much relation to the original Aunty, sure, but the effect was so crazy! I gave it five stars on the principle of pure, wacky fun. Other folks very much didn't agree with that, haha.
Better call Thrall!