Combo Harvester - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Submitted 3 years ago by
ShadowsOfSense
Competition Theme: Combo Harvester
It's time to start bringing those Mercenary innovations over into the main game - starting with those fancy Combos!
- You must create a regular Hearthstone card which uses the Spell School Combo mechanic from Mercenaries
- For those unfamiliar, some abilities in Mercenaries have additional effects if an ability of a specific Spell School was used previously that turn - Nature Combo, Fire Combo etc. - and we're looking to see this mechanic translated into regular Hearthstone.
- For example, a card would have its Fel Combo ability activate if you played a Fel spell earlier that turn.
BloodMefist and anchorm4n have joined forces for this prompt - a particularly potent Combo, I think you'll agree!
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, Dec 20 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Dec 25 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
- Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Dec 25 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Dec 26 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
- Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Dec 26 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Dec 27 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
- Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.
Discussion Thread Rules
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Competition Theme: Combo Harvester
It's time to start bringing those Mercenary innovations over into the main game - starting with those fancy Combos!
BloodMefist and anchorm4n have joined forces for this prompt - a particularly potent Combo, I think you'll agree!
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!
I'm throwing my ideas in earlier this week. Fingers crossed, I won't clinch last place again :') Let me know what you think!
Better call Thrall!
You forgot to make them Battlecries :P
I'm wondering if I can get away with making a card reliant on an unusual class+spell school combination:
The implication being that, in an Emerald Nightmare-based expansion, the Druid would receive more Shadow spells. They have Webweave, so it's not completely unprecedented.
Heh, it's been awhile, apparently. Edited! Thanks for the catch.
Regards to your card, while I'm in love with the idea of a future-expansion Shadow Druid, it's difficult to reconcile pure hero damage with Druid. Effects closer to Webweave seem more fitting - maybe effects like poisonous, copying, resurrection, entangling/corrupting friendly/enemy units, cost increases for benefits, etc. Big ole board-fillin' nature-gone-bad stuff.
Better call Thrall!
I really like the art and the halo makes it somewhat holy, but let me know if it's too fiery.
Yeah...it mostly came down to "what aura can I fit in the limited space I have?" The Shadow Combo is using two lines on its own, so that didn't leave much. I'll keep tinkerin'; my first concern is whether or not people would accept the Nightmare Shadow-Druid setup.
Thanks for givin' it a look :)
Edit: How's this? Still messing around with the card:
It gives you "infinite value", assuming you continuously spend the Mana to play it. If you can Shadow Combo, you actually gain copies of Nightmare Servant. The flavor is that the Nightmare cannot be truly killed, only contained. Might be garbage without Rush *shrugs*
First 2 ideas. I wanted Equilibrium to also do a little damage or a little healing but there wasn't enough space for that. Anyway, i do feel Kirin Tor Prodigy is better and cooler. Little neat effects that when stacked up after one of those classic mage-plays-15-cards-in-a-turn turns are the cherry on top for a wild display of magic.
I'll boop you
That being said, your first idea really didn't fit Druid, but your new idea is quite nice. I particularly like how the combo doesn't just duplicate the minion, but its effect as well. It's not something Druid has really done before, but still feels like it fits Druid's identity, which I enjoy. Balance looks good to me.
Equilibrium doesn't have an effect if you play it without the conditions, which I don't think should ever really happen. And its effects are quite boring. Kirin Tor Prodigy is far more interesting, but feels unbalanced. Even though you won't be able to play it on-curve, it can still give a lot of value and should probably be a 3-cost. I also think just drawing a single spell for Arcane would be more balanced.
I've had several ideas for this prompt, but none of them is particularly good. To avoid overloading this thread, I'll post the two I like the most.
Swift Assassin can be played without the Combo to clean small minions or with the combo to take on a big one. Nature spells in Rogue tend to be Poisons, so there's that.
Archmage's Scribe can potentially gain Spell Damage +3, but in order to do so, you need to play a lot of spells before it, which goes against what you want to do with a Spell Damage card, so you need to plan properly before playing it. The ideal scenario would be to play non-damaging spells like Arcane Intellect or Hot Streak before it. It also has synergy with Sorcerer's Gambit.
Feedback:
Shadowfin Soulmancer is a bit tricky, since Soul Fragments are a thing from the Year of the Phoenix, before spell schools were introduced. Some people here tend to dislike this sort of inconsistencies, so I'd discard this idea. It's a shame, because it was quite solid otherwise.
Virulent Voidmancer is a bit on the bland side, but it seems quite balanced.
Finally, whether you decide to go with one card of another, you should definetly put an expansion watermark. If you have doubts about how to do this, you can ask for help :)
That said, I think both have potential:
I like how Kirin Tor Prodigy's effects are all very fitting of their spell school. I agree with Aerojulwin that it's a bit too strong, especially the Arcane Combo part.
Equilibrium, while simpler, also has a very flavorful baseline. I appreciate its yin-yang theme, in that the Shadow Combo gives a Holy spell and vice-versa. If you decide to go with it, an easy solution would be to make it a minion. Something like a 3 Mana 3/3 would be balanced, I think.
Hello, folks! I'm baaack!
Got 2 ideas this week, though I think I like Hail Storm better:
Feedback:
Me0203: The murloc is a little busted IMO. I like the Voidmancer, but you can probably word it as "Battlecry and Shadow Combo:".
linkblade91: This only works if that particular expansion has a bunch of Shadow Spells for Druid, which might lose you points. Don't like that it's basically an infinite 3/2, but that might not be that strong? Not sure.
AeroJulwin: Good card! Not much else to say.
BasilAnguis: I also had a Mage card with all the Combos in the back of my mind, I like your implementation. Equilibrium is a little odd, since it does nothing without the Combos, but that might be ok.
Wailor: Damn, both are pretty good! The Scribe might be better, since there's a better chance the Combos actually trigger. It's also kinda anti-synergistic, since you want the Damage BEFORE you cast the spells.
R: The issue here is that Spell Schools were introduced in FitB, which is the expansion after this card's.
I'll drop Shadow Druid for now, although I do like the Arcane Owl idea. How about one of these?
The first one is information + disruption, while the second one keeps the multiplying-Deathrattle synergy to influence decision-making. I wanted it to be only your opponent who suffers, but try fitting the word "opponent" in there and keep it within four lines of text lol D:
I will drop some feedback tomorrow: going to bed now.
Bit late for my own party, but work has been busy for a few weeks now. Here's my idea:
I'm still undecided if it should be a Rare or an Epic and if it should cost 4 or 5 mana. The 5 Cost version would mean a Flamestrike and a free Fireball when you're at 7 Mana which seemed a bit too mediocre so I went with the 4 Cost version for now. What makes this really hard to balance though is Hot Streak. The most extreme scenario would basically be a Fireball and a free Flamestrike (Hot Streak into Fiery Lessons = 2 Mana) which might be okay since nobody cares about board presence anyway. I'm looking forward to your feedback!
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 had a card I liked, but because Imgur is currently broken, I can't post it. It is on the Discord though.
EDIT: Got it through!
Nonetheless, it's time for me to do my part and post my feedback.
Shadowfin Soulmancer has one pretty huge problem: Chronological inconsistency. You have a card that uses Soul Fragments, a mechanic from a year before spell schools existed, and combining that with spell schools. There's simply no place in the game's life that this card could be placed. It can't be placed in Year of the Phoenix because spell schools didn't exist yet. It can't be placed before then because neither Demon Hunter nor Soul Fragments existed yet. And it can't be placed after because then you'll have a card that is unusable in Standard because there's no Soul Fragment cards in the format.
Virulent Voidmaster is definitely better. It's easier to use and it doesn't have the same chronological problem that Shadowfin Soulmancer does.
Kirin Tor Prodigy is cool, although the discrepancy in power on each of the effects is a little bit off-putting. The Fire Combo effect is just blatantly much weaker than the other two.
Equilibrium has really cool flavor, but unfortunately that flavor will overlap with BloodMefist's card from the last competition. It also doesn't do anything without the Combo effects.
"but none of them is particularly good"
I disagree. I like both of these cards. I say Swift Assassin is a little bit better since it's more to-the-point on how you're supposed to use it and it's quite flavorful, but both of them are solid cards.
It seems fine. Hot Streak is going to make any Fire spell broken, and that's not really avoidable so it's best to not worry about that.
I must ask though. Is it intended to not have a spell school? If that's the case, then balance is a complete non-issue and the card is 100% fine as is.
Feedback:
Demonxz95 - I can't stand Vanish, so you might lose a point from me there, but I also don't play many low-cost minions so it wouldn't bother me as much in practice.
anchorm4n - I care about board presence…a lot :( All of my decks seek to hit the board, so this could be pretty painful in my own experience. What about something like "Fire Combo: The next one you play this turn costs (1)." That way the other spell goes back to full cost; that would allow you to readjust the base spell more favorably, and mitigate a crazy Hot Streak turn.
Nirast - I'll be honest: I don't like either one. Healing Hail is an okay play on Healing Rain, but the flavor is very weird (you're being pelted with ice-rocks; why is it healing you?). Hail Storm is just Blizzard with extra steps. I'm not sure if either of them would find a home somewhere.
R - A reverse-Meteor that can also go face if you want it to? That sounds super good. I personally don't feel like Fire Mage needs more face-damage spells: it needs to be encouraged to actually use its board for once.
Wailor - Swift Assassin being connected to Poisons and thus gaining Poisonous is perfect flavor, so I would choose that one. The Scribe is wonky and redundant when we already have the simple-and-clean Lab Partner.
BasilAnguis - I like the version you posted in Discord, with the "Frost Combo: Gain 5 Armor." A nice connection to Ice Barrier, the bold text flows nicely, and you probably don't need the Prodigy to Freeze someone because you just played a Frost spell (and thus did it already).
AeroJulwin - It's okay. It's a little better than Blessing of Kings, but I don't know if it is worth running in one's deck.
Me0203 - The Soulmancer is naturally comboed with Soul Shear, but that's kind of it. The DH doesn't have many worthwhile Shadow spells; not like the Warlock does. While I like Soul Fragments more, the Voidmancer might be more viable overall.
Thanks, everyone. I'll probably submit Swift Assassin, since it has had a better reception. I also like it better (even if the art from the other card is much cooler)
More feedback:
I'd also change the name since the current one is too similar to Wildfire
My main issue is that it probably shouldn't be a Beast, since Astral Tiger isn't.
I'm a big fan of the Combo, but I do feel like 8 damage is a tad much. 6 would probably be fine. I know it doesn't double +Spell Damage that way, but that seems less important on cards that already deal quite some damage.
I also don't like how the effect is phrased. 'Deals' should probably be 'Deal' and the 'double damage' not specifically referring to the 4 damage feels weird to me, although I won't deduct for it.
Hail Storm is nice. The Combo makes sense to me and fits the art. But would maybe be fine as a 4-cost.
Right now you'll always want to wait keep it until you want to use Flamestrike or have Lethal, so you might consider reducing the costs permanently. A 2 or 3 Mana reduction would work well because you get two powerful spells in any case, but you can also get your Mana back.
Less than 12 hours to go! Don't forget to submit between what hopefully are great holidays for all of you :)
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 hope everyone here has had (or is having, depending on timezones) a pleasant Christmas and of course good luck to the other finalists.
Congrats, Mefist! Very cool card.
(Btw, I have lost count of the times I've been the runner up this season XD)
Congratulations to BloodMefist for the victory (and it being their own comp to boot!) :D
Congrats to BloodMefist!
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