Hearthstone
One-Set Wonder - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Submitted 2 years, 4 months ago by
ShadowsOfSense
Competition Theme: One-Set Wonder
Sometimes your favourite new archetype just doesn't get a chance to shine - so let's fix that!
- You must create a card which supports an undersupported existing archetype
- Think something like the classic meme of Freeze Shaman, which for a long time only had one expansion of (mediocre) support and only recently was revisited. Use that as a rough guide - if it's been supported for more than two expansions, it's not undersupported!
Moondreamer has asked us to look to the past and find our favourite archetypes to show some love to this week!
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, Aug 15 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, Aug 20 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
- Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Aug 20 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, Aug 21 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
- Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Aug 21 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, Aug 22 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
- Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.
Discussion Thread Rules
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Competition Theme: One-Set Wonder
Sometimes your favourite new archetype just doesn't get a chance to shine - so let's fix that!
Moondreamer has asked us to look to the past and find our favourite archetypes to show some love to this week!
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 don't have any cards right now, but an important note of this competition is to be mindful of where you place your card. Since your archetype has only been supported by one or two sets, its important to consider the context of where your card is that supports it.
This is less of a concern for something based on minion types, spell schools, or card sizes since more of those can always be printed at any given time. But for things like Soul Fragments, the mechanic itself only exists in one set, so your card placement is extremely critical.
My early idea was to support Mechlock, which despite being an actual archetype back in GvG only received one support card meant to go in the deck (Fel Cannon). Supporting an archetype that has practically nothing in it is a challenge, but maybe I found a way: by marrying it to an existing archetype that gets supported. And by that I mean Discard.
Jaraxxus, Metal Mayhem has a couple things going for him:
The location, Abandoned Laboratory, was my first creation before I went with Mecha-J. It has the same "put souls into Mechs" flavor, just on a smaller scale.
There have been some lone damaging Arcane spells in expansions, but the rest are from Classic/Basic and there have never really been any direct synergies within Druid. Since Moonbeam was recently printed, I do suspect the developers might add some support for the archetype in the near future.
It's very basic. I'll try to come up with something more interesting tomorrow.
Get your one-set wonders ready!
SI:7 Scout is fairly explanatory. SI:7 support for Rogue.
Commander Akrula is something for Big Demon DH, and there are quite a lot of Demons that work well with her (and end of turn effects will still activate), but it can also be used as a tutor for any large Demon even if they have a strong Battlecry (which there surprisingly aren't any for DH or Neutral other than debatably Sathrovarr, but that doesn't mean more can't be made) since it can be used once it's returned to the hand.
This comp requires pretty good memory!
EDIT: small changes to my cards that don't deserve a new post.
i wanna make some cards to support Warlock with these card's design : Bloodscent Vilefin, Commander Ulthok, Stealer of Souls, Bloodbloom, Seadevil Stinger, Cho'gall.
_______________________________________________________________EDIT
i cant find a new artwork for Advance Wave
More cards as promised. This one's based on Renounce Darkness:
And another Druid card. It's been a while since I last made cards for older expansions.
Just noticed I made a mistake on this^ one: "5" shouldn't be between brackets. Force of habit... I'll fix it may I submit it.
Elemental Mage has been supported in the past, but never really took off, and Big Hand Mage was only ever supported in Boomsday. Malicious Magmacaster provides mostly new support for Big Hand Mage, but also synergizes with existing Elemental Mage themes of creating lots of cards in hand. Archimonde is a desperate attempt to give Warlocks some real Fel payoff. 0-cost spells can get spooky, but the selection of Warlock's Fel spells isn't that impressive.
Feedback:
That said, I'm not sure if any of these cards count for the comp. I mean, Jaraxxus and the tokens of both cards are Mechs, but devoid of other cards to synergize with, that just seems flavor. It's like saying Blackwater Behemoth is support for Beast Priest. There are some neutral buffs for Mechs, so maybe I'm wrong with this assumption, but that's how I feel anyways.
In any case, if you can't participate, I'd save Jaraxxus for another comp, because I really liked it.
Discover the Light is flavorful, but I'd say it's my least favorite of your cards. It's also a bit on the weak side, but I'm not sure how would I fix it, beyond making the discount bigger.
Finally, Moonglow Stalker is probably my favorite of the bunch, despite being a bit similar to my Ferocious Wildcat (not sure if I'll end up going with it, so this might not be a problem for any of us). Besides this, I'd use a different watermark, since Rush didn't exist in Un'goro and the art doesn't fit the expansion anyways. Also, the restriction of only copying a minion 5 or more Attack seems a bit shoe-horned to fit the archetype. Overall, I think this can achieve a high score if you fix the small issues it has.
Commander Akrula is more interesting, but I wonder if she could be a bit cheaper. I mean, I don't like cards that allow you to cheat stuff too early, but 8 Mana is a bit too much. Also, the minion won't stick to the board, so her effect is not as dangerous as other stuff which is actually cheaper. The alternative to this would be keep her Cost but make her a non-Legendary card.
If I'm missing something and they support an archetype I'm not familiar with, I think I prefer Hold the Ground. I think it's balanced, as its infinite nature is held back by its low tempo and small effect.
Advance Wave isn't bad either, but you should change the watermark, since neither Rush nor spell schools existed in TGT. Finally, about the artwork, I'd recommend using a generic Paladin art if you're unable to find a good one with Silver Hand Recruits in it. This is much better than reusing existing artwork, IMO.
For this reason, Malicious Magmacaster is my prefered card. The fact it supports two archetypes is very cool.
Feedback time
Mechlock is a cool archetype to push. I am slightly worried about the fact that your cards seem to push Discolock more than Mechlock though, not necessarily for validity, but because it'll probably affect your score.
Jaraxxus, Metal Mayhem is a really cool incantation of Mecha-Jaraxxus in card form, although I am slightly worried about both the amount of damage it can deal, and how much it can put on the board.
Abandoned Laboratory is a little safer in my opinion, although it seems difficult to use well and the artwork doesn't feel Hearthstone-y to me.
With all that said though, I really enjoy the direction you're going.
I'm not sure if Arcane Druid counts given that Druid has never had any cards which support Arcane spells, thus it usually isn't classified as an archetype. If the card does count, then it seems okay to print if slightly uninspired. It's not particularly great that it can be traded for free and doesn't pose a big threat. All those 0 mana 1/1s like Snowflipper Penguin have only ever been played in extremely specific strategies to exploit the fact that they're free cards that can synergize with something and aren't game breaking. And in VttSC, we got Priestess Valishj in Priest, so I think you can get away with making this a 1/1 especially since the Spell Damage is specifically just for Arcane spells. I'm also worried about the fact that there are so few Arcane spells, and only about half of them deal damage.
Discover the Light is a pretty good flavor card, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't count since it doesn't support an existing undersupported archetype for Warlock. I wouldn't call Renounce Darkness an archetype as much as it is just a fun meme card that people sometimes make decks for.
Moonglow Stalker is probably my favorite of the three cards by design, but Rush didn't exist yet in Journey to Un'Goro.
I like Ferocious Wildcat. Not only does it support that "5 or more Attack synergy", but since Druids in general are just good at running big minions, many Druid decks can run it no problem.
Deathmetal Encorer is a fine, although slightly weak support card for Deathrattle DH, but I see one pretty major problem with it. It uses the same art as Mordresh Fire Eye.
Advance Wave is an okay idea in principle, but Paladin doesn't typically exceed in spell-spamming despite their affinity for small spells. It also uses the same artwork as Level Up! It has some other, more significant problems such as the fact that it uses Rush in TGT, which is a set where Rush didn't exist yet. The biggest problem however is the fact that it's a card that requires spell school synergy in a set spell schools didn't exist yet, meaning the card is literally unfunctional. This is what my note I left earlier in the thread was referring to, but there's still plenty of time to fix the problem.
Hold the Ground is a neat idea, but it feels a bit weak.
I like Malicious Magmacaster as support for hand size synergy in Mage. It is quite easy to get about 5 damage with this, which might make it incredibly strong.
Archimonde is a cool Legendary. It's a bit limited by the fact that Warlock doesn't have any huge Fel spells (Felfire Potion and Impfestation are the most expensive Fel spells for the class), but there's probably still some strong things you can do with it.
If people are uncomfortable with Mecha-J being more Discolock than Mechlock, I'll table it for now. I have a new idea, this time for Mech Shaman:
Clearly...! I always forget Rush was only released in Witchwood. That's the time I started playing Hearthstone, so to my brain Rush has just always been a thing.
Anyhow, I'll be going with Moonglow Stalker. Here's the changed version. I also 'buffed' the stats because powercreep. Although the more I think about, the less sure I am. It can provide a strong removal later on, so I don't want it to be too cheap, but on the other hand, you do need to pay for a big minion first. Please let me know what statline you think makes more sense.
For my initial design this week, I propose Squeamlish, the clumsy Druid from Rise of Shadows.
The aim of this card is to push the Healing Druid archetype that was only really tried in Rise of Shadows. To make the card more interesting and open up brand new Druid strategies, Squeamlish doesn't just double the amount of Health restored by cards such as Crystal Power or Healing Touch but she also doubles the amount of Health given by cards, making some underplayed cards such as Mark of the Wild and Mark of Nature a viable choice for some decks.
Just a small note: be careful about the competition requirements! They specifically mention that the archetype you choose must not have been supported for more than two expansions.
This would, for example, disqualify both of Adam's first proposals (both Holy Paladin and Taunt Warrior have been pushed for countless expansions) and the unfortunately already submitted card for Murloc Paladin, another archetype that's been supported for quite a number of expansions by now.
I made a fun custom expansion called Holidays at Un'Gol Island. You should check it out :)
Hey everyone,
I've chosen to revisit the "cards that didnt start there" rogue from Madness at the darkmoon faire.
Premeditate - Wording from Elise the Enlightened and Malevolent Strike. Say you have Sunken Vessel at the bottom of your deck, play this and now there are two!
Gloomblade - Lets you turn those additional cards in your deck into damage on board.
Control Wrench is more interesting. Sneaking some Windfury in there. I never knew Powermace existed. For a second I thought this had anti-synergy with Whirling Zap-o-matic, the only actual Mech printed for Shaman, but then I realized it actually allows it to attack four times, so that's some nice synergy. My only concerns are that it has some slight anti-synergy with Powermace, since both are weapons and that the GvG cards weren't available in Standard at the time. I don't know if people will make a big deal out of that, but I noticed pretty much everyone is using custom watermarks. It's the get-out-of-jail-free card thanks to the existence of Core sets.
Deathmetal Encorer has the issue of being too similar to Death Blossom Whomper. Personally, I still prefer it though, because I think it could see some interesting use in DH.
The only reason I'm not a big fan of Archimonde is because I feel it limits future Fel spell design, because it is balanced around the current (lower) powerlevel. If they'd ever want to print a 10-Cost Fel spell, they'd run into issues.
New version of Deathmetal Encorer to differentiate it from Death Blossom Whomper.
Late feedback
Another Squeamlish design, this one more focused on the initial idea of Healing Druid. This allows a fully healed minion to get extra Health when healed, hopefully improving the lackluster Healing Druid cards and allowing some experimentation with old and underperforming neutral minions.
Aggressively statted for 4 Mana but Healing Druid needs a big push and this card still requires synergy, so this feels more than fair to me.
Some quick feedback:
Wailor - I like the new Deathmetal Encorer much more! It's a simple card but does its thing well. Well done!
Arkasaur - Very interesting concepts! You should absolutely go with Premeditate in my opinion. I'll give you some conflicting feedback: I think Wailor's off when he says that the card should be a minion. As a spell it can sit in your hand and do nothing, sure, but as a minion there's no way it wouldn't be busted. Rogue has waaaay too many ways to bounce minions. On a cheap minion, they could bounce it a bunch of times and get insane value as early as turn 3-4, on a mid to late game minion it would be a worthless effect (Shuffle Rogue wants to win in the early to midgame). Gloomblade is unprintable. If this card existed, Rogue would have a Wild OTK that you can pull off on turn 3 with a lucky hand, probably on turn 4-5 on average using Academic Espionage and a Preparation or two.
Linkblade - I really like the concept of a weapon allowing your board to essentially get Windfury. Very very hard to judge how good the card would be without playtesting it but I think at 4 Mana it would probably be absolutely busted. Also a very scary weapon in the same class that has access to Inara Stormcrash on the following turn.
I made a fun custom expansion called Holidays at Un'Gol Island. You should check it out :)
However, I don't like the new statline. 7 health is already a lot, but keep in mind that this is in the same set as Crystal Power. For only 1 extra Mana, this could be a 2/12, making it extremely difficult to remove. A good way to bypass this would be to have the passive only affect your other minions. The phrasing also doesn't sound completely natural to me. I propose this phrasing instead:
"Whenever you restore Health to a(nother) friendly minion, excess healing is converted into Health."
(Also, you accidentally put my name on linkblade's feedback)
Treacherous Felstalker is made to support Token Demon Hunter, which, as far as I can tell, has only received support in the Initiate and Madness at the Darkmoon Faire sets.
If you can generate a large board of 1/1 Illidari and then use this to consume them all, you can end up with quite a large minion quite quickly.
I don't have much knowledge of WoW so I'm not sure if a Felstalker is a thing. All feedback appreciated!
A Felstalker is a thing. Felstalker, Lakkari Felhound, Reffuh are examples of Felstalkers in the game.
I admire your creativity with the card, but unless you're attacking eggs (or similarly small minions with big Deathrattles), attacking your own minions doesn't seem that useful since it'll still take damage and you're losing your board in the process, meaning that the strength in which it scales is not very significant.
I feel like you can do better, but there's not very much time.
Thanks Demonxz95!
I've just submitted a new idea in the final few hours — it might be a bit too powerful :D
I'll get in early for the next competition
Good luck to everyone in the voting!
Good luck to the finalists :)
Congratulations to Sothis!
Congrats Sothis! It was one of the only two 5 stars I gave on the first phase :)