Hearthstone
Cast On, Cast Off - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Submitted 2 years, 3 months ago by
ShadowsOfSense
Competition Theme: Cast On, Cast Off
It seems like an awful lot of effort to play all these cards. If only they could help out somehow...
- You must create a card which can play other cards
- There's plenty of ways to go about this - at random (Servant of Yogg-Saron) or very specific (Lady in White); from hand (Felwalker), from deck (Nightshade Bud) or from the past (Tess Greymane). Maybe you'll find another different way!
Sothis is looking for some cards to be cast this week - so why not get the cards to do the casting?
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 29 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, Sep 3 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
- Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Sep 3 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, Sep 4 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
- Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Sep 4 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, Sep 5 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
- Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.
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Competition Theme: Cast On, Cast Off
It seems like an awful lot of effort to play all these cards. If only they could help out somehow...
Sothis is looking for some cards to be cast this week - so why not get the cards to do the casting?
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 have two initial ideas for this one; pretty satisfied with the Druid minion, but the Legendary I pre-nerfed twice already lol:
Massive Macaw is the counter-point to Grey Sage Parrot: the Parrot replays Rune of the Archmage or Time Warp over and over again, so why can't the Druid resummon minions repeatedly?
Izzy the Overachiever could be really fun, but Survival of the Fittest from the same set makes it scary. I upped her cost and swapped Battlecry for Spellburst to make it harder to cheat out a spell before it's time.
Two variations of the same idea. I think they count, given the examples provided by the prompt.
I think the dude version will be preferred, but I don't know if the idea is inherently too aggro. Maybe they would be more balanced as Legendaries, dunno.
EDIT: linkblade's Massive Macaw reminded me of another Druid Parrot I made back when Deadmines was announced. It's a bit too similar to both Pathmaker and Raid Negotiator, though.
A little education will go a long way.
I wanted Yogg to cast the spells regardless of whether you've played them yet. That way you don't have to spend a turn to play that expensive spell/number of smaller spells that are still in your hand before you can use Yogg effectively. But in case the phrasing is too unusual, I did make an alternative version that sticks to the "that didn't start in your deck" line.
Edit: Noticed "spell" not being a plural.
Edit: And the misspelling of "if"… Look, it was late at night, okay.
Other "cards" or "spells"? For example Dirty Rat or Party Crasher is allowed?
As Demon would put it, if this was a physical card game, both of your examples would cause a player to place a card from their hand onto the table, effectively "playing" it. I think "play" has a slightly different definition in Hearthstone because you have to truly pay the cost of a minion to trigger its Battlecry - as opposed to summoning it randomly, Recruiting it from the deck, etc. - but Tess Greymane was an example given to us by Sothis, and she can replay minions, so we have to assume minions are allowed as well.
But Party Crasher is just slightly different neutral Nightshade Bud, isn't it?
Nightshade Bud would have been an acceptable submission even if minions were not allowed because it can cast the spells from your deck; the minion part would've been considered non-relevant to the comp, albeit still a cool addition to the card. We debated a little whether or not minions should be allowed, and the group decided that they're fine. My opinion doesn't matter anymore *shrugs*
This was all an unnecessarily-verbose way of saying Yes, those two are fine. Dirty Rat, Party Crasher, Deathwing, Dragonlord, Ironforge Portal; pulling minions from the hand or deck (or the ether) are okay.
For the sake of consistency, it makes sense to allow minions as well. It'd be really weird to allow one and not the other as the distinction is seemingly arbitrary.
My first idea hit a dead end. So I hope weapons count too.
some ideas
My proposal for this week. Honestly very proud of this design. This is my final design unless some textual inconsitency pops up that I might have missed.
Some quick feedback:
Linkblade - Massive Macaw is cool, I dig the design. I'd say go for that one. I personally despise designs like Izzy and I think they will never be printed as they just pose way too many problems. From the moment an effect like this is printed the design space for expensive spells in any class will be forever restricted because every class can have every spell, they can allow classes to work around inteded weaknesses (imagine giving, for example, a Standard Ramp Druid access to powerful board clears such as Whirlpool or Twisting Nether), they can create silly and overpowered combos (you've suddenly given every single class access to Potion of Illusion), they would complicate the UI during deckbuilding (something Hearthstone really cares about, rightfully).
Wailor - I'd go with the Murloc. Having an incentive to put spells in Murloc decks is a concept I'm fond of, especially considering how minion-heavy Murloc decks usually are, and Silver Hand Commander is probably too strong as is, especially at an odd mana cost.
Demonxz & AeroJulvin - Good designs! I'd personally go for the second wording on Yogg though, so that it's consistent with other similar effects. The text also doesn't visually look any worse, so there's no reason not to.
R - Incorporating weapons is a cool idea, but the card is most likely quite overpowered at 4 mana. The amount of value and stats you could get on turn 4 or even turn 3 with coin is just absurd. This should be at least 5 mana. And even then, it would be quite an insane card.
Adam - I'd go with Arcaneburst Dawngrasp. Relic Chest is fundamentally broken: if it's supposed to upgrade after each played Relic then it's both extremely overpowered at 3 Mana (this would be, like, a 7-8 Mana effect) and the wording is incorrect. If it's not supposed to upgrade after each use, then it shouldn't be called a Relic. The other two cards are okay-ish but have incorrect wording/spelling mistakes in them.
I made a fun custom expansion called Holidays at Un'Gol Island. You should check it out :)
Feedback time, let's go.
Massive Macaw looks good. Even though it looks like it should be OP, it seems to be fine following Grey Sage Parrot logic, which can do many similar things. I'd say this is probably the safer of the two cards to go with as Izzy seems like it could be an "all-or-nothing" type of submission.
Izzy the Overachiever is an extremely bold idea. There's probably an extremely easy way to utterly break it, but until one of us figures out what that is, it might be an okay card to submit. I'm just afraid that some people might be slightly put off by the fact that it breaks a fundamental rule of the game, and some others might also mistake the spell as being added to your deck (if my own Time Traveler set for Murder at Castle Nathria is anything to go off of).
Comparing Silver Hand Commander and Sacredgill Champion, my first inclination is to say that the latter is easier to balance since Murlocs are things that you actually have to put some effort into playing as opposed to SHRs which can be summoned by just using your Hero Power repeatedly.
Erudite Cockatoo is a neat card, although unfortunately I must agree that it is too similar to the two cards you use as comparison.
I think a Selfless Sidekick effect counts. The effect is okay, even though it's quite powerful at that small size. It's not difficult for this to pull a weapon from your deck and get a big Rusher on turn 4 or even 3.
And even though Rogue doesn't really have big weapons to cheat out with this, it does prevent them from getting some later because of how easy/quick you could cheat them out.
Ice Manipulator Dawngrasp is suspiciously incredibly similar to my Lady Frostheart card from the previous comp. Granted, I didn't submit that card and instead chose a different one, but it's still not a good look on you to go with something so incredibly similar to a card that someone else made very, very recently. I'm not also a big fan of the fact that it affects the enemy hero as well since it allows for some very quick burst damage (hence why I made Frostheart's effect only apply to minions), and it also should say "enemies" instead of "enemy".
Arcaneburst Dawngrasp is okay. There's always the chance that you just deal 3 damage to the enemy hero, but with some luck, it does become a relatively strong board clearing effect.
Relic Chest is alright I guess. It's not exactly the type of design I'd go for if I were to design Relic support, although I suppose it needs to be that way for it to be eligible for the competition. It looks like it's also missing the word "one".
I'm not sure what's up with the name BladeFlurry, and more to the point is that Blade Flurry is already a taken name. The effect itself is okay, though like your other cards, it has some wording mistakes.
I DO notice a textual inconsistency. The card shouldn't say "on me" since that's Legends of Runeterra wording and I must admit that I'm not the biggest fan of the wording conventions in that game in the first place.
As for the card, I feel like I probably don't like it very much? If you play it on turn 3, then it's just a 3 mana 3/8 with no downside and as long as you keep playing on curve (which is ideally something that you want to do on your following turns anyway), then there isn't really any downside. Well, it appears that I didn't quite get the card correctly the first time. I guess it's a bit better balanced now
I however do like the synergy it has with minions that trigger their effects off of other minions dying. Admittedly, Druid doesn't really have a lot of ways to take advantage of this, but if more good ones were to exist, then this could be a clever and cool way to use that.
Feedback:
Of course, Massive Macaw is the safest choice, but I think I'd go with Izzy. I'd probably remark she's meant to be a freebie legendary, as her effect really feels like one.
As a very minor note, I'd probably make the adult version a 4/7 in order to make the Attack-Health difference consistent in both versions.
BladeFlurry is a also a pretty cool card for Enrage Warrior, but it has several flaws:
I don't enjoy the other two cards, unfortunately. Relic Chest is just not my cup of tea and Ice Manipulator Dawngrasp's double damage effect is broken against heroes but almost worthless against minions.
That said, I'd probably give it Taunt, as right now seems a bit weak: it's effectively a four Mana minion that forces you to play badly in the following turns. Considering that, 3/8 Taunt doesn't seem broken.
About the wording, it should say "cast 'BEEEES!!!' on this" or "cast 'BEEEES!!!' on this minion". I'd say the word "any" is also expendable, in case you run out of space.
Appreciate the help with the wording! I've been playing some Runeterra lately and I got it mixed up. (And I agree with you Demon, LoR wording sucks.)
I don't think Taunt is necessary, there's already some things you can do with the card that make it very powerful. There's a lot of hidden power in the card!
For example, spending all your mana when the card is at one HP to still gets three 1/1 Bees, effectively making it a 3 mana 6/11 in the perfect circumastances. Didn't think much about "when a minion dies" effects as Druid doesn't have many of them; the real reasons for the bees was to discount the big Druid beasts. Beast Druid was one of my most played decks when it was strong in Wild and you'd often use BEEEES!!! on your own 1 Health minions to get an early Knight of the Wild or Frostsaber Matriarch.
I made a fun custom expansion called Holidays at Un'Gol Island. You should check it out :)
Due to popular demand I'll be going with the second version of Yogg-Saron, The Lucid Dream. Although its flexibility goes down sightly, it uses the familiar phrasing, which I also prefer.
They would be more balanced as Legendary minions. But even then, I think these are a dangerous (side)upgrade to Kotori Lightblade. And I agree Erudite Cockatoo is almost a direct combination of the two cards you mentioned.
Relic Chest works, but is not very exciting.
Besides the issue with the name, I don't like BladeFlurry because plenty Warrior card "deal 1 damage to all minions". It's a common effect so cards don't generally refer to Whirlwind for it. This being the exception feels very forced. I like its effect the best out of these, but don't think it belongs in this comp.
My ideas for this week. Unsure why I got hit with a weapon kick, but oh well.
Grand Apothecary Putress is meant as support for a different kind of Weapon/Poison Rogue, where instead of going all in on a single weapon, the Rogue is rewarded for equipping many weapons over the course of a game. The hero power becomes much stronger over the course of the game, but I'd like to see more emphasis on gradual value for Rogue instead of extreme and swingy bursts.
Lord Blackhand by contrast rewards large investment into fewer, but bigger weapons. There have been similar effects, such as with Hoard Pillager, but not needing the weapon to be destroyed enables some extra shenanigans with Remornia, Living Blade. I'm considering changing the effect to making your hero attack after equipping the weapon to better synergize with most of Warrior's weapons.
I'll get feedback in sometime tomorrow :)
Didn't remember Kotori Lightblade, maybe I copied it subconsciously. Even then, it's too dangerous, sor here's another design.
If you don't have a Beast, you get a Banana. If you do, you give it +1/+1.
It's supposed to belong into a Banana Hunter package, but its powerlevel is easy to grasp even outside this context.
does it count itself or other beasts only?
Some quick feedback:
Wailor - I think it would be safe to add a Banana to your hand *and* cast it on another friendly Beast, but you'd have to add "another" in there to avoid it just going to the Rascal. Amusing card :)
BloodMefist - I like Lord Blackhand more than the Grand Apothecary: Putress is fine, but it's a small investment that only starts to pay off after multiple weapons, and could be dangerous if something like Leeching Poison returned to prowess. Blackhand can slot directly into just about any Warrior deck that wants to work around a specific weapon (so…basically all of them lol). I'm not sure what you mean by your proposed change: you want to make the player automatically attack as the Battlecry finishes? Can't they just choose to do that on their own?
Moondreamer - Your card discourages me from trying to come up with a new idea; I honestly think we have a winner already lol :P
adamsleungcn - I guess I like Relic Chest the most? As others have said they all have some errors in wording/phrasing and need to be cleaned up. I believe the Relic Chest's Infuse only needs to say "Cast another." and it would be fine.
R - This is a lot in one card, but I wouldn't want to strip anything out because it's a cool combination. Maybe bump it up to 5 Mana?
AeroJulwin - I passionately despise Yogg and his random bullshit, but yours is not nearly as random so I guess I can give it a pass.
Demonxz95 - Beyond what I've already said about it, I agree with Wailor in-that her stats should grow in a consistent manner, just for that little extra flavor bonus.
Posted a new idea, but deleted my post because I just wasn't feeling it. Not overly encouraged for any of my cards, truth be told, so I decided to be bold and submit Izzy with some alterations. We'll see how low I can go with a controversial idea lol
Do you mean add a Banana and, if you have another Beast, cast another Banana on it? I guess that wouldn't be OP, but it would get a bit too wordy, I think.
I gave Izzy 5 stars, btw. She seems not that dangerous with the new restriction.
I think something like "Battlecry: Add a Banana to your hand and cast one on another friendly Beast." would work: it's still three lines of text or thereabouts.
And thanks :)
Other Beasts only. I changed the wording a little to make this clear.
@linkblade I finally decided to submit it as is, since it's currently a Crackling Razormaw that can be played without Beasts on the field, and +1/+1 is already one of the best Adaptations for this card. Only drawback is that you can't highroll with +3 Attack. Thanks for your feedback anyways, sorry to be such a contrarian xD
@BloodMefist I like them both, but I prefer Putress. Still, both are very solid options. The balance seems on point in both cases.
Been busy but here's a few ideas:
Goblin Dealer was a first idea, to support self damage Warlock, while also helping cheat out a high cost spell. After checking, Warlock didn't really have access to any high cost spells during United in Stormwind (I've placed it in the mini-set) so I'm not sold on it being a good card.
Stormlash Totem is a simple card that can be slotted into any Shaman deck. It rewards setting up your deck in such a way that your minions line up with specific spells you want to cheat out.
Bazaar Plunderer (probably my favourite of these) keeps track of the highest cost spell that's been played and will recast it. It also rewards knowing the deck your opponent is playing, e.g. against Spooky Mage you can trade it away until you've seen a Rune of the Archmage and then get a big pay off.
I'll add some feedback later tonight, although I think a lot of these have already been submitted :D
I also like Bazaar Plunderer the most of the three, but two things: "Cost" should be capitalized (you did it on the Totem :P), and I think it needs to lose some stats. Right now it's vanilla with Tradeable and a very potent Battlecry; that's too much.
Updated version of Bazaar Plunderer, thanks linkblade91. I did play with the idea of it having 4 Attack but still felt too high.
Feedback:
I'd definitely change it to incorporate linkblade91's (Infuse text) and Moondreamer's (mana cost + name change) feedback, so it could be a 5 mana Broker's Chest: Cast a random Relic. Infuse (3): Cast another.
Thanks :) Only she casts the spell: you cannot add it to your deck to play the spell by itself. I mean, it technically is included in your deck while building, but it's only there to function with Izzy. I can see where that could be some confusion: hopefully that doesn't color too many peoples' perceptions the wrong way, but I'm imagining otherwise.
With your card, I think you're good to go!
Hello, I'm back. Here's my idea for this prompt
I wanted to make a worgen that switches from light to dark but I couldn't quite fit in all the words. Hope it's OK like this.
I'll boop you
Late feedback.
Grand Apothecary Putress is cool. I thought some Poisons were way better than others at first, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that they're all pretty good and could in a vacuum, be seen as relatively close to equal in value. It is also a long-term value card which is not as powerful in Rogue as it could be in other classes, so I'm tempted to say that it's fine.
Lord Blackhand is definitely easier to use. Warrior doesn't have that many ways of enchanting weapons, but the re-equip effect enough is easy enough to get value of it, so I think this is good.
Whichever one is the better of the two to go with is not quite so clear.
My favorite of the three is Stormlash Totem. I like the way it makes you consider how you design your deck to take advantage of it optimally and the plays you can make with the proper deck are pretty cool.
I don't like Goblin Dealer because of how much it limits design space and can create lots of potential swing turns. Admittedly Warlock doesn't have a lot of spells that can become problematic with this, but that doesn't mean that they won't get more later. Even just casting Shadow Waltz with this thing on turn 1 or 2 is incredibly good.
Bazaar Plunderer is quite solid. It's not as overpowered in Rogue as it could be in other classes since Rogue doesn't have the huge spells to take advantage of it by itself (which is the same reason why Swiftscale Trickster is not overpowered in Rogue even though it absolutely would be in other classes), so you're mostly relying on either copying something incredibly specific that you play, or on your opponent to cast something huge that you can safely take advantage of.
Less than 19 hours to go!
Good luck to everyone in the voting :)
Congratulations to Moondreamer! I told ya we had a winner already :)
2.46 is honestly higher than I expected for my card. Nothing like ending my finalist streak more-or-less by choice lol
Thanks for the votes, and thank you linkblade for the kind words, I appreciate them :)
I made a fun custom expansion called Holidays at Un'Gol Island. You should check it out :)