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Fan Creations

Location, Location, Location - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread

Competition Theme: Location, Location, Location

So, where we dropping boys?

  • You must create a Location card
    • It's as simple as that! Check out our expansion guide if you want a refresher on how Locations work, and to see the existing Locations!

BloodMefist has us designing Locations ahead of the new expansion launch - we had to do it sometime, and what better time than now?

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, Jul 25 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, Jul 30 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
  • Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jul 30 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, Jul 31 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
  • Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jul 31 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, Aug 1 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: Location, Location, Location

    So, where we dropping boys?

    • You must create a Location card
      • It's as simple as that! Check out our expansion guide if you want a refresher on how Locations work, and to see the existing Locations!

    BloodMefist has us designing Locations ahead of the new expansion launch - we had to do it sometime, and what better time than now?

    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, Jul 25 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, Jul 30 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
    • Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jul 30 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, Jul 31 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
    • Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jul 31 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, Aug 1 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.

  • I don't have a token card for the Nightmare right now, but it's not important if people don't like it. The flavor of the location should be pretty straight-forward: being overwhelmed by your fears made manifest.

    Friendly

  • I decided to go for lore locations this week.

    Draenor and Outland depict how this planet once governed by elements (kind of controlable) got corrupted by the Burning Legion, suffering from Fel waves that transformed the Draenei into the Broken and turned the orcs green. To reflect this, Draenor would use the Lightning Bolt animation and Outland the one from Felfire Potion (without the vial dropping, of course).

    It's not a mind blowing effect, but think the legendary status is justified by its high total durability and its sustained control capabilities. I don't know, it would feel a bit weird to have a whole freaking planet not be legendary lol

    Walls of Orgrimmar is probably the better card anyways, but it kinda breaks the mold of what locations are supposed to do: they usually cannot be attacked, yet this one's function is just to take hits. I could see Blizzard printing it, though.

  • If I seem like I'm slow in this comp at responding to anything, that's because I got Covid! (or so I think) I can't say that exactly having fun by any means.

    I am already aware that Haunted Grove is on the weak side at the moment, but I can't be asked to change it the moment since I'm not feeling great.

    Friendly Staff

  • I believe locations' effects should be ones that wouldn't quite be worth spending a card on as a single-cast spell/battlecry, and I think this fits that nicely. I'm also very happy with the flavor.

    It's supposed to make adding silences to your deck more worthwhile.

    My first idea was "Destroy a Silenced minion". I kind of wanted it to be a 1-Cost, but I decided to add the initial silence for flexibility and to keep it useful outside of its intended archetype, so it probably needs to stay at 2 Mana. I do like that the silence can still target friendly minions to give players some more deck options. Let me know what you think on that though.

  • Border looks like it's druid or rogue location, but it's actually neutral. Are neutral locations allowed?

    • Quote From R

      Are neutral locations allowed?

      I don't see why not :)

      Friendly

  • Wishing you all the best Demonxz95, I hope you get well soon!

  • hey guys, there are some cards I made in different class

  • More streamlined versions of my previous cards:

    Let me know which version you prefer.

    Feedback:

    linkblade91
    Pretty cool card, whose effect fits the flavor well enough. My only gripe is that Druid isn't supposed to be good with removal, but since many minions are Health-heavy, that's probably not too big a deal.

    Demonxz95
    First of all, I hope covid isn't too hard on you and you recover soon!

    About your cards, both introduce interesting ideas to locations, which I really appreciate.

    • I think I prefer Haunted Grove, but I'd make the baseline token a 2/2 Treant. Maybe I'd nerf the Shadowbark Golem to a 4/4 or a 3/4 to compensate.
    • About Scorchland Spires, it's not bad, but its similarity to Mage's HP makes it feel less interesting, especially considering that the HP Mage archetype tends to run a lot of refresh and cost reductions already.

    AeroJulwin
    I think locations need to be a bit weaker than if they were a spell, since they can be used several times. That said, your card seems pretty balanced, and its flexibility makes it very interesting. Flavor is on-point, too.

    R
    I like it, but I think it's a bit weak right now. Since you can only activate locations every other turn, this would take 5 whole turns to generate Mana advantage. Thus, I'd probably drop its cost to 1 Mana or give it an extra Durability (which would make it even slower, but in turn would generate more value).

    Also, the effect feels like a Druid or Rogue card more than Neutral, but I guess it can stay that way because of its Coin flavor (this card references throwing coins to a wish fountain, right?)

    adamsleungcn
    Pretty interesting bunch of cards! As a general criticism for them, you shouldn't use WoW screenshots, since it doesn't look very well. For each card individually:
    • I like Hermetist's Room, but I don't get the second part. Does it transform all your spells into random ones from the chosen school? Or does it simply change their school tag? I don't like any of this options very much, but the base concept of doing something with the chosen spell school is very cool. Perhaps drawing a card from your deck that has that very same school? Dunno.
    • The Highest is probably my favorite of your cards, but the name is a bit strange. I'm not an English native speaker, but I think The Highest Point or The City's Pinnacle would make more sense. Besides that, I think it could cost 1 Mana instead of 2, and even have 3 Durability.
    • Sunwell is quite interesting, but lorewise should probably be a Mage card. I also think it should be a legendary card, both for lore and balance reasons. Finally, I'd word it as "Add a copy of the next spell you cast to your hand. It costs (0)."
    • Moonwell is cool and a very good translation of its Warcraft 3 effect. I'd just change the artwork, but it's otherwise very cool.
    • Finally, both versions of Altar of Evil are cool, but I'm not specially fond of their base concept. Not that they're bad, I just enjoy your other cards more.

    All in all, you have very interesting concepts here. They just need some polish, but the idea themselves are very good, especially for someone new at card design.

    • Quote From Wailor

      Since you can only activate locations every other turn

      I somehow missed that this is how it works.

      Yeah, it's "wish fountain with coins" flavor. Just can't find good art for mint/coinage flavor.

      • Quote From R
        Quote From Wailor

        Since you can only activate locations every other turn

        I somehow missed that this is how it works.

        Yeah, it's "wish fountain with coins" flavor. Just can't find good art for mint/coinage flavor.

        What about this? Found it under "fantasy fountain with coins art" in Google. Looks a little more Hearthstone-appropriate, with a good view of the fountain and the coins inside.

        Show Spoiler

        Friendly
        • Quote From linkblade91
          What about this?

          Looks great, but it's small. I think that I can't upscale it to good proportions with photoshop.

          Show Spoiler

  • Alright, let's push through this!

    I've updated my card, although now I feeling that it's a bit OP if I compare it to Nightcloak Sanctum. The great thing about this design is that I don't need a new Treant token, and I can just use the one created by Plot of Sin.

    Linkblade91
    There is the situation of Druid not being good at removal, but the card's flavor and mechanics are on point. It is slightly situational given that it can't remove minions with more Health than Attack. You may want to make it 5 mana to hopefully dodge some comments about Druid removal.

    Wailor

    Thank you for your kind words.

    Draenor is a pretty creative location, although it doesn't really feel like a dual-class card to me.

    Your original Walls of Orgrimmar seems to have expired, so I unfortunately can't leave a comment about that one.

    Shadowmoon Valley is cool. It's certainly not as problematic in Warlock as it would be in either Paladin or Shaman, but Warlock is still a class that's pretty good at swarming useless tokens onto the board. Potentially locking out an enemy board like this is a bit on the scary side, though it does limit your board building potential, and you may have to dump quite a few cards out of your hand to use it, so it might be fine.

    Orgrimmar should probably specify "Give this Taunt" or something like that. I read it, and my first thought was that your hero gained Taunt and then figured out that it was the location after I kept reading.

    AeroJulwin

    This feels like it might be too slow and impractical to work as good removal since you need to silence the minion you want to kill first, wait 2 turns (meaning your opponent will be able to attack twice with it before you can use the location again), and then use another point of Durability to kill it. I think it ends up working better as just a way to silence 3 minions rather than being used as a removal since you can just use removal spells to do that same thing.

    Flavor though is absolutely great.

    R

    A Neutral location is going to hard to win over with the voters, but if you want to try, then go ahead.

    The card seems fairly okay.

    Amansleungcn

    Hermetist's Room is a bit awkward to use. Specifically the second part, since if you only care about a single spell school for synergy, then most spells in your deck are going to be of that school anyway. And on the other hand, if you're running multiple spell school synergies, then the second effect has anti-synergy as it actively turns them off. Judging by the way it's phrased, it appears to be permanent too.

    The Highest is okay, although the flavor is not too obvious.

    Sunwell feels like it could be quite broken.

    Moonwell seems to be awkwardly phrased, and I do agree that the art could be better. As a card though, it's alright.

    I personally prefer the first Altar of Evil over the second.

    Friendly Staff

  • Feedback:

    Show Spoiler

    R - I think it looks fine, art-wise :) Giving everyone a Neutral ramp tool is kind of scary, especially when you can run two and it has barely any down-payment of Mana. Hard to say when you can't test it, though, so I say go for it!

    Demonxz95 - This looks much better with Treants - you can enjoy all the synergies that come with that distinction. I think compared to Nightcloak Sanctum it should be fine, considering that that location can Freeze, their tokens ping when they die, and they're building to an end-game bomb that Treant Druid doesn't have.

    Wailor - I agree with Demon: if you go with Orgrimmar, I would clarify that the location gains Taunt and not your face (I was a little confused initially as well). Still, it feels a little clunky; I think I prefer Shadowmoon Valley: I like the decision-making that comes with blasting your own minion(s) to keep the Valley up.

    adamsleungcn - I didn't say anything properly last time around, so a big "Welcome!" from me :) First things first, I would definitely try to find better art for your ideas: Altar of Evil is mostly fine, but the others use in-game imagery that is very obvious and doesn't look good. Beyond that, I like "The Highest" (if you change that name and art), and the 1-Mana Altar of Evil the most. The Altar is basically good-to-go, so if you don't want to fiddle with The Highest then I can understand just going with the Warlock location.

    AeroJulwin - I think this is a very neat idea. Silence Priest is whatever, but combining Silence with removal is cool and could open the archetype up more to relevancy. The flavor is perfect, as well. Probably my favorite at the moment.

    Friendly

  • A bit late to the party, but here are a couple of initial ideas:

    De Other Side loses some tempo early, but can potentially be a free deathrattle trigger for things like Undying Disciple. I've thought about pushing it to 3 Durability to make it less likely to be a mid-game swing and make it more late-game oriented. Area 52 provides some handy control for Mage decks that need to build up or stall in the early game. 

    Feedback: 

    linkblade91
    Always a fan of the Emerald Nightmare and the flavor for this works well, for the most part. Copying from an enemy feels more Priest-y and it could be quite annoying to give Druids a potentially very efficient removal tool. I think changing it to use a friendly minion's stats and/or changing the effect from Rush to Taunt is the play.

    Wailor
    Shadowmoon Valley and Orgrimmar are both awesome, but I prefer Valley. Valley makes for more interesting gameplay decisions than Orgrimmar and Orgrimmar doesn't have much counterplay or interactivity for the opponent.

    Demonxz95
    Haunted Grove is very well done. I don't think you need to worry much about its power compared to Nightcloak Sanctum either. Different classes and Nightcloak has much more utility.

    AeroJulwin
    I like Library, but the flavor feels good and bad at the same time. Silencing makes sense, but it feels kinda weird for a library to destroy a minion that is silenced. Maybe some other effect for already silenced minions, like adding a copy to your hand?

    R
    Banking mana as a Neutral card has spooky implications. Escaped Manasaber serves a similar functionality, but can be interacted with. Locations have far fewer ways to be played around, so I worry this would be used too broadly in many strategies.

    adamsleungcn
    I like The Highest the best, but it needs new artwork.

  • I like the idea of switching to Taunt over Rush, so how about this? It needs to keep the enemy-copying, in my opinion, because the idea is to summon a Nightmare from your opponent's mind; copying your own stats to make a Nightmare ruins the flavor.

    Because it is now much slower, I gave it an additional point of Durability. Not sure if that's necessary.

    Edit: I included a token, but I'm not a fan of it. Mostly because it's not red lol. If anyone could help me find better art of a red spirit/ghost/nightmare, I would be very appreciative :) Edit2: I have an edited version of the Nightmare token's art, courtesy of Shadows :D Very happy with it now!

    @BloodMefist - De Other Side is really cool: I'd go with that one. As much as people complain about Resurrect Priest, it's perfect for the class in flavor and gameplay. The art is also better than the one for Area 52. I think De Other Side is good with 2 Durability: 3 would require five turns to see an outcome, and by then you could be dead :/

    Friendly

    • How about this art? Doesn't 100% fit the Nature-y aspect of the Emerald Nightmare, but I think either fits the Nightmare aspect pretty well. Left one needs a bit of cropping too :P

      Show Spoiler

      Lord of Shadow | Criaturas escuras, Monstros, Arte de monstroKASIMOVA — And my collection of the Emerald Nightmare

  • This feels like it might be too slow and impractical to work as good removal since you need to silence the minion you want to kill first, wait 2 turns (meaning your opponent will be able to attack twice with it before you can use the location again), and then use another point of Durability to kill it. I think it ends up working better as just a way to silence 3 minions rather than being used as a removal since you can just use removal spells to do that same thing.

    That does sound very slow and impractical, but the card isn't meant to be used that way. It relies on synergy. The player is supposed to silence the target first using another effect. The location will then provide you with a cheap removal. Cards that silence are something that people don't include a lot of in their decks, because multiple silences generally aren't worth it. I think this card could change that. And yes, if you don't find the right cards/situation, it would work just fine silencing a few minions instead.

    Feedback Time

    linkblade91
    Thanks!

    I think this should be a 5-Cost. And if you would like to give the player a little less control, sticking to the flavor, you could remove the Rush and instead force the Nightmare to attack its original. That would probably be the intended effect in most scenarios anyway, but that way you can't just copy some big stats and ram them into a different minion with a passive effect.

    Wailor
    Its previous version was too chaotic, but I like Shadowmoon Valley. I like how normally you'd want an AOE effect to only hit enemies, so it's very fitting for Warlock to simply let it hit your own minions to get an extra use out of it. However, I also agree with Demon that its control potential is a little scary. With the Questline and Curses, I think some Warlock decks wouldn't care too much about building their board.

    Based on that, I think Orgrimmar is the better choice. It can be quite obstructive and definitely breaks the mold of what locations are (similar to Bulwark of Azzinoth), so I'm glad you turned it into a Legendary. Only being able to use it every other turn gives it some nice balance and gives the player the choice to save it for a more impactful turn.

    The only thing I dislike about it is that it break the identity of locations pretty heavily (little early for that lol) and doesn't specify that it can only be attacked while it has Taunt. I think using Bulwark as an example and giving it "Next turn, whenever an enemy damages a friendly character, this loses 1 Durability instead." or something similar, makes more sense from a gameplay-perspective, while not totally messing up the flavor.

    Demonxz95
    Whatever it may be, I hope you have an easy recovery.

    Haunted Grove is some nice Token Druid support, but I feel like the Deathrattle is only there because otherwise it would be too boring. I think Deathrattles on locations could have more interesting uses than this. Perhaps a growth effect that buffs the token with each activation would be more interesting?

    I prefer Scorchland Spires. Its refresh mechanic is unique and completely fits the way locations work and the effect suits its archetype well. I do think it would probably be more worthwhile as a 1-Cost with 4 Durability, since each time it refreshed, it also resets the one turn cooldown. Probably needs new art, somebody used this one in their submission.

    R
    I had the same misconception until halfway during last week's prompt. The site says "a Cooldown of one turn between activations", so after briefly reading over it, once a turn seemed like a logical conclusion until I watched the video of the stream where they showcased the use of locations in play.

    The card looks good. I don't mind Neutral being able to mess with Mana a little and since this can only give you one extra Mana on a turn, I think it's still quite balanced for Neutral, maybe a little slow. Also, all current locations are Rare, so probably stick to that.

    adamsleungcn
    That's a lot of cards! I appreciate the enthusiasm, but in the future, try to stick to the two or three ideas you like best. People won't give feedback to each individual card if you post too many. This is a newcomers exception.

    Hermetist's Room is my favorite from the bunch. You should use the term "transform" and it I think it could be an Epic. I also think transforming spells in your deck is a big downside and should generally be avoided. My reasoning for this is that you choose the spells you put in your deck. Chosen is almost always better than random. This doesn't necessarily count for your hand, because you have direct control over you hand. You can play the spells you want to play and use this location to transform the rest, which I think is cool.

    I see why others like The Highest, but Demon Hunter needs to manage their hand well if they want to profit from Outcast effects and I personally don't like that this card removes that need entirely.

    For Sun Well I noticed the same points Wailor pointed out and I think it should cost quite a bit more. Even at 2 Durability it would be very strong.

    Moon Well is a good option. You should remove the comma and the phrasing should use "refreshes" and "restores". If that makes the text too small, you could remove the word "also".

    The first Altar of Evil is kind of bad. I'm not sure you'd want to discard a minion for a random Shadow spell. It should at least be Discovered.

    The second Altar of Evil is a little too similar to Grim Rally for my liking.

    Edit: Noticed the new cards right as I finished. I'll give more feedback later tonight.

  • I like Library, but the flavor feels good and bad at the same time. Silencing makes sense, but it feels kinda weird for a library to destroy a minion that is silenced. Maybe some other effect for already silenced minions, like adding a copy to your hand?

    My interpretation is that if you are shushed once, you'll be fine, but if you need to be shushed again, you'll be in trouble. Whether that means you're kicked out of the library/board or something worse is up for interpretation. I guess bouncing would make more sense with the "kicked out" flavor, but that messes with the value and purpose of the card too much and I'm very happy with its current effect.

    I'll admit it's a little farfetched, but transferring flavor into in-game effects does cause that more often and there's worse examples, so I'm happy with this.

    BloodMefist
    The cards! The cards! Great, now I've got the song stuck in my head.

    Both of these work very well in their intended archetypes. I think Area 52 might need to deal 3 damage, since we've seen from the Questline that it can stack up pretty quickly. Either way I like 🎵De Other Siiiiide🎵 better. This is the more interesting use of Deathrattles on locations I was talking about earlier.

    linkblade91
    I didn't want to propose using Taunt earlier, because I was afraid that would mess with the identity of the card too much and you had probably considered it already. I do think it works well while sticking with the flavor and is debatably more balanced. However, I also think it makes the card a little less exciting. And I don't think it needs the extra Durability.

    adamsleungcn
    The Highest seems to be your most popular card. Again, I do see why. Its effect is unique and since its use is limited to every other turn, there's still some planning required, so I think you should go with this one. Do try to find some better art + naming and probably increase the Durability to 3.

  • More feedback:

    Demonxz95
    I think the current version is balanced, even when compared to Nightcloak Sanctum. The small tokens lose a lot of value as the game progresses, while Freeze will slowly start to gain value as you can cripple your opponent's big minions. So, I think you're good to go.

    BloodMefist
    As anyone else, I prefer De Other Side, but I think it's too weak currently. Sure, it gives you twice as much value as Reincarnate, but you won't be able to capitalize on it after 2 whole turns. I'd probably drop its Mana cost to 1 or even 0.

    linkblade91
    I'm not sure if I like it more with Taunt or Rush. I know I said Druid's weakness is removal, but they also have a fair share of Rush minions, and Rush fits the flavor more. Dunno, whatever you feel more confortable with.

    The art is cool, though.

    DoctorDoom
    I like the idea of having a tech location, but this design makes way more sense as a Druid card with Choose One than as a Rogue card.

    I'd probably change the name and flavor too, since the current one doesn't seem to describe a place, which is what locations should do.

    • Quote From Wailor

      More feedback:

      Demonxz95
      I think the current version is balanced, even when compared to Nightcloak Sanctum. The small tokens lose a lot of value as the game progresses, while Freeze will slowly start to gain value as you can cripple your opponent's big minions. So, I think you're good to go.

      BloodMefist
      As anyone else, I prefer De Other Side, but I think it's too weak currently. Sure, it gives you twice as much value as Reincarnate, but you won't be able to capitalize on it after 2 whole turns. I'd probably drop its Mana cost to 1 or even 0.

      linkblade91
      I'm not sure if I like it more with Taunt or Rush. I know I said Druid's weakness is removal, but they also have a fair share of Rush minions, and Rush fits the flavor more. Dunno, whatever you feel more confortable with.

      The art is cool, though.

      DoctorDoom
      I like the idea of having a tech location, but this design makes way more sense as a Druid card with Choose One than as a Rogue card.

      I'd probably change the name and flavor too, since the current one doesn't seem to describe a place, which is what locations should do.

      It's a neutral location. The place is your worst nightmare. It describes a place in my opinion.

  • Went back to Rush, upped it to 5-mana, and submitted. I now definitely have the most expensive location lol >_>

    Thanks for the feedback everyone :)

    Friendly

  • Thanks all your feedback, it helps a lot, emm..there's a problem for me, I don’t know where to find the artwork suitable for cards, can anyone tell me how you find the artwork for your card?

    • Quote From adamsleungcn

      how you find the artwork for your card?

      Yeah, find good art is difficult sometimes. And sometimes the chance to make a good card/flavor is missed because of this. As someone suggested, add "fantasy art" when you search art. You can also search for something on artstation, deviantart, etc.

  • Good luck to the future finalists!

    Friendly

  • Congratulations to AeroJulwin! 4.21 is an impressive final score :D

    Friendly

  • Thanks! I was really proud of this card, so I'm glad it won!