Questing For Two - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread

Competition Theme: Questing For Two

Sometimes you need to hedge your bets. Why send one class to save the day when you can send two?

• You must create a Dual Class Quest card
  • You're free to match up whichever classes you want, but make sure it's a Quest - no Questlines or Sidequests allowed!

MrRhapsody wants us to bring the classes together this week, and what better way to bond than an epic Quest?

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 6 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, Jun 11 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jun 11 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, Jun 12 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jun 12 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, Jun 13 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.

This is an awesome prompt!

This is the first idea i had. Common Shadow synergy between warlock and priest, some resummoning and minion stealing, all in all a simple mesh of themes.

This one i foresee people hating because people hate secrets. Maybe 10 secrets at once it's too much given rogue has bounces. Might make it a spell.

I wanted to do a different class combo for the 3rd idea but then i saw link say you can't make a Xal'atath quest. WELL I CAN! Control focused card with the theme of board clears that priest and warlock have so many of. And the reward basically makes the enemy hero have 15 max hp, making it easier to finish them off.

Feedback:

• linkblade91 - Looking for Group is a great idea, but i feel Teamfight tactics might be a bit OP. I can see this very easily spiraling out of control. Control the skies is a much nicer one and the reward is cool. 7 cards might be too much through but i suppose to make use of the reward you'd want to stuff as many armor cards as you can.
• Demonxz95 - The reward i feel is too op. Twice the stats means Blessing of Kings is a 8 damage burst. I can see Blessed Champion being played unironically to quadruple the attack of Leeroy Jenkins to 32 xD.

Miracle of Shadows explores two themes Rogue and Priest have in common: the Miracle archetype and the 1/1 copy thing, which mesh together very well. Maybe too well, I'm afraid it might be OP lol It also has some thieving action sprinkled in, which is also something both classes tend to focus on.

The flavor is a bit boring and very leaning towards Priest, so I might change it later.

Regarding Keep the Balance, it makes you play three Shadow and three Holy spells; or three Arcane and three Nature spells. The reward grants some passive recovery, which isn't present in the game I believe, and fits both Priest and Druid very well.

Overall, I think the flavor of Keep is better, but I prefer the gameplay of Miracle (if it's not OP, that is)

@Wailor

Miracle of Shadows is hard to analyse how OP would be. I am certain there is a possible broken combo somewhere but I cant think of it. 

I like Keep the Balance more but the wording needs help. The way it is makes me think I need spells that have 2 spell schools. 5 health per turn might also be a bit too much, 3 seems more balanced. 

A lore friendly quest to two classes that loves hitting their own minions. Just to be clear, to advance the quest you would need to directly deal the damage, minions surviving damage would not count towards quest progression. Kinda feel like it is too week right now, so I would like a second opinion on that matter.

Quote From MrRhapsody

A lore friendly quest to two classes that loves hitting their own minions. Just to be clear, to advance the quest you would need to directly deal the damage, minions surviving damage would not count towards quest progression. Kinda feel like it is too week right now, so I would like a second opinion on that matter.

If anything this seems too OP. A single Whirlwind or Rain of Fire will complete it if you have 4 or 3 minions. The random demon part is the scariest because most of the time you will get a huge body for just 2 mana. Even a 3/4 would be huge but you can regularly pop out stuff over 6 mana. 

Feedback:

I tried to come up with a way to give Priest a fun win condition while also helping Thief rogue and maybe allowing for a more controlling rogue deck, here's what I came up with:

In case it wasn't clear, the original Old Gods are C'Thun, Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound, N'Zoth, the Corruptor, and Yogg-Saron, Hope's End, all from the Whispers of the Old Gods set. Playing 7 cost copies of the Old Gods may seem very powerful (especially since you can double the Battlecry with Brann), but I think it is balanced by a couple of factors:

1. Even if you play a shadow spell or created/bounced card every turn, the earliest that Saria could reasonably come down is turn 7, since you still have to play 5 mana to play her. This means that the Old Gods would start coming down on turn 8 at the earliest, making it a relatively small mana cheat and not too powerful compared with other late-game win conditions.

2. There is a deckbuilding cost to complete the quest, which makes it harder to make the Old Gods a good payoff. For example, N'Zoth would be worse in a Saria deck than in a regular N'Zoth deck because you would have to play shadow spells and cards that create cards rather than Deathrattle cards.

3. You can only really support 1 Old God in any deck, which means that the other three would end up being more like powerful tempo cards than win conditions in their own right

There's also the argument that it doesn't fit rogue too well, but Rogue does have a minor theme of Shadow Spells, and with all of the thief rogue cards as well as bounce effects (Shadowstep progresses the quest by 2 and can let you play an Old God again) I think it would be viable in a rogue deck as well as a control Priest.

So what do y'all think? Should I tone down the power level and change the cost reduction to something more reasonable like (8) or would that make the concept too weak?

EDIT: I originally made the cost reduction to (6), but I changed my mind quickly after posting because I realized that the Shadowstep synergy was too good and would potentially allow for potential turn 6 Olds Gods, which seems a bit broken. At 7 Mana you can still do interesting combos like Brann or Zola, but it removes the possibility of blowout games.

New lore-based idea:

It's basically a Hero Power Quest, like those from Saviors of Uldum, but it also changes the look of your hero for extra flavor. I had another version which gives you The Lich King as a hero card that equips Frostmourne as a Battlecry, but I decided to go with this simpler version.

I also wanted to know if the wording I chose for the requirement is right. I was going to go with "Destroy 6 minions summoned by your Hero Power", but I'm not sure if that implies you have to destroy them, which is not what I want.

@Wailor

I like the concept of this quest, but it seems a little limited in terms of what kinds of new deckbuilding and gameplay patterns it encourages, all it encourages you to do is use your Hero Power and cards like Tour Guide, and then the payoff is just a 2 mana 3/3 Taunt each turn. My suggestion would be to make the reward a Hero Card called "The Lich King," and then give it an interesting Battlecry effect that encourages synergy with other cards (for example, something like "Battlecry: For the rest of the game, when you summon a minion without playing it, give it +1|+1 and Taunt"). As you mentioned, you could also make him Equip Frostmourne if you find an interesting design for that. Overall, I think you have a great idea and flavor behind the quest, but you need to iterate on the payoff effect more (you could even change the quest requirement to friendly minions you summoned without playing them dying, or maybe 1 cost minions dying, anything that opens the synergy up more).

Alright then, new version based on feedback, with a harder condition and a spell reward instead of a hero power. I wanted to go with the first version but since I know a lot of people hate Charge, I made a second version. I'll try to writte a feedback tomorrow on my day off.

Alright then, I decided to make the reward a Hero Power again, the spell version would be either broken or stupid, so a in between version was necessary.

And now, feedback time.

Show Spoiler

Linkblade: Control the Skies flavour's Amazing! Though I'm not quite sold on the reward, the pratical side of it seens kinda lackluster. Looking for Group though is awesome in every way, one of my favorites so far.

Wailor: Of all your cards, I like Keep the Balance the most, nice flavour, class dynamic and balance. Miracle of Shadows is nice too but not my favorite, and honestly We are One has a good flavour but that is about it, not really a fan of it.

CursedParot: I think you're trying too hard with your card, a lot of things in it seens kinda throwed away for no reason (Like Stealth or the "They cost (7)" part) Your card has potencial, but you should REALLY simplify it and give it a more clear direction.

BasilAnguis: Out of your cards, I like Feed the Void the most, nice flavour and class dynamic here, however I have two complains, the first being the art of L'ura of the Void, a screenshot as a card art is a bad idea, if you decide to go with it, here's a art suggestion for you on the spolier, and the other one is the condition should've been harder to complete, 6 could be easilly completled with a board clear (Similar to my original card ironically).

Show Spoiler

Demon: Well, submmiting cards from custom expansions haven't really worked for me in the past, but maybe you'll have better luck. Regarding the card, I like it a lot! The burst potencial might be scary, but if Stormwind thought us something is that quests are supposed to be finishers and not stallers, so I don't think it is really a problem (Althought I can see some people giving it lower rates for that matter).

I ended submitting Keep the Balance, but I changed the reward to Yu'lon (I forgot to put a watermark on her pls don't be too harsh). I think all four Celestials would fit very well for dual Quest rewards in a Pandaria themed expansion. Chi-Ji would be Mage/Paladin, Niuzao Warrior/Hunter and Xuen Shaman/Rogue.

Anyway, some late feedback:

Thanks for all of the feedback, I streamlined the design a bit (hearthcards automatically makes the "Corrupt" in Corruptor bold, so if someone has a solution to that I'd appreciate that too):

For the redesign I basically just focused it on specifically Yogg Saron and N'Zoth, so now the quest requirement and the quest reward should be more in line with one another. This does shift the synergy from Thief Rogue to Deathrattle/Spell Rogue and Priest, but I think it makes the deckbuilding more open and causes the design to make a lot more sense.

Feedback:

Demonxz95- I really like your concept but I do see how it might allow for too many combos with increased attack. I think you could either make the reward only double health buffs, or do something like "For the rest of the game, your stat buffs give an extra +1|+1 and Taunt," which would remove the overpowered combos (though it might make small buffs too good and big buffs a little weak).

MrRhapsody- I agree with other commentators that the balance seems way off, Charge would be way too good and Rush+Taunt would be awful. I think a better reward might be something like "When you summon a unit with 2 or more health, deal 1 damage to it and give it +3 attack" which still has some of the same flavor but isn't as hard to balance (though with this change it would likely be too weak at 5 mana)

Linkblade91- I don't really have any feedback since your designs seem pretty good, my only worry is that in terms of gameplay the Overkill quest might be a bit frustrating since the gameplan would just be tons of removal and then a burn finisher that discourages the opponent from playing minions.

@Cursed the new requirement is much better I think, as it's something that ties into the reward and both classes like to do. For the reward, though, I'd go with the previous one, but removing the Stealth and Lifesteal.

@Demon the DH/Warrior Quest is my fav of all you posted so far.

Made the quest a bit more interesting and hard to complete. The different mana cost requirement works better with the actual reward and it asks you to keep track of the values yourself. Of course it's possible the enemy does not have minions of 5 different costs but most shadow spells can target friendly minions too, or damage them anyway as they are bilateral boardclears. Could use this to resummon specific minions you want with L'ura for just 5 mana and do some combo!

New idea. No one here decided to go down the hero power reward path of Uldum so i made this. Why warrior and druid? Well, worgens are connected to druids lore wise. As for warrior... idk, armor and attacking stuff i guess. The idea is that you basically have a 2 part her power. You can only use the human form if you triggered the worgen form. Of course you can just go face with the worgen form, but the quest is viable as both control and aggro strategies.

• Demonxz95 - It's strange seeing Darius on a hunter card lol. Volcanic Forging seems a bit op as it's Mind Blast each turn at worst, and even more toxic immovable object at best (Bulwark of Azzinoth!!!). Legion Expedition seems ok balance wise but i'd suggest different art. The crystal alcoves i like cause it reminds me of Dragon Soul. This at least seems to be playable. One day my precious....
• CursedParrot - Not a fan of cards that are basically "add this older cooler card to your hand".
• linkblade91 - Mad Summoner into Hagatha's Scheme otk. Idea is cool, near impossible to balance sadly. And i think shaman has had enough game winning quest rewards, right? xD
• MrRhapsody - Giving all minions charge is a really bad idea (see Mr. Smite). The second reward doesn't really have synergy with the quest requirements. I guess it works for eggs but on the warrior side the enrage and self damage minions kinda suffer.