Hearthstone realm banner
Hearthstone realm avatar Hearthstone realm home

Hearthstone

142 Characters Joined
Create Thread
Hearthstone | Posted by | 6 years, 9 months ago
Discussion

Thoughts on 'new' type of minions

A while back I randomly had the thought - could Hearthstone add 0 health minions into the game?

I immediately thought that it's actually impossible, but on second thought - it could have a deathrattle? But that idea sounds pretty stupid imo.
Why make a card that needs to instantly die when being played?

I thought again and wondered if these types of minions would work if they had a magnetic effect?
That'd remove the problem of them instantly dying, but then again, another magnetic card that will probably be used to hit the opponent's face is probably a bad idea.

What are your thoughts? :)

7 Share

// join_the_conversation

Sign in to share your thoughts, vote on comments, and connect with the community.

Sign in Create account

Comments

Sort by:
Oldest Newest Top

  • A while back I randomly had the thought - could Hearthstone add 0 health minions into the game?

    I immediately thought that it's actually impossible, but on second thought - it could have a deathrattle? But that idea sounds pretty stupid imo.
    Why make a card that needs to instantly die when being played?

    I thought again and wondered if these types of minions would work if they had a magnetic effect?
    That'd remove the problem of them instantly dying, but then again, another magnetic card that will probably be used to hit the opponent's face is probably a bad idea.

    What are your thoughts? :)

  • Cool idea!  Depending on the class and tribe, It could have synergy with existing cards like (Standard only because the list of synergies is potentially very long):

    Ok there's a lot more potential synergy here than I thought initially.  Basically anything that benefits from a handbuff, from a minion dying, or has tribal synergy could make this useful.  Gotta be careful too because if it's neutral, it could be pretty powerful in Rogue.  

  • Would be good for the game's health.

    while reading this post i immediately came with the idea of "Bodyguards". 

     Type of minions who always got taunt, you need a minion they can protect, the taunt will only work for that specific minion, your enemy still can attack your face. but that specific minion is immune until the taunt dies.

     

    it's really hard how to make a new minion type but it's possible, just like spells, they have secrets, which in fact are spells as well as quests, maybe a merchant could be a new type of minions? you pay a specific currency to buy one of his 4 products he shows you ?

  • I'm going to say that these are the two main reasons there are no 0-Health minions in the game.

    • Random minion summons. Suppose you get one of these minions out of a Maelstrom Portal or Mounted Raptor. Well, you basically get nothing since the minion will die immediately when it hits the battlefield, and thus the summoning portion of the effect has been negated. Did you use Recombobulator on your 1-Cost minion in hopes of getting a Taunt minion or something like that? Well, screw you, you lose the minion. It's not just bad RNG, but it's unhealthy RNG. Let's suppose that they're added to your hand instead by something like Ravencaller or Astral Rift. You basically got only one minion (or in extreme cases, even none) from that effect. Now it's not just a case of "am I going to get a good minion, a bad minion, or a situational minion?", but also "am I even going to get a minion at all?" This is probably why Lynessa Sunsorrow and Hir'eek, the Bat are 1/1 instead of 0/0. That way they're not literally unplayable should you happen to play one without being able to use its effect. If these 0-Health minions would supposedly have a Deathrattle, you could just make them slightly bigger and make the effect a Battlecry instead of a Deathrattle.
    • It's unintuitive. 0-Health minions are supposed to die. New players do learn at some point that using Crazed Alchemist against a Doomsayer will kill it because the Doomsayer will now have 0 Health. It's not immediately obvious, but it makes sense. It has no Health, so it dies. When a minion loses of its Health, it dies. So if a new player views a 0-Health minion in their collection, their thought might be something along the lines of "wait, this has no Health, so what's the point?" If it comes out in a set with handbuffing, some will think "oh, I get it, I'm supposed to handbuff this", but then what happen players who don't have many (or any) handbuff cards? The card is completely useless to them since it's basically a literal "pack filler", not even a card. Just a roadblock instead of a card you might find in a pack.
    Friendly Staff

  • An idea based on what's said here: instead of 0 health have a mechanic that instantly kills the minion on battlecry.  Thus when the minion is played, it instantly dies. 

    On first feel it'll end up feeling like a spell when you do things like "Battlecry: instantly dies.  Deathrattle, deal 2 damage to all minions"  However, it does mean that it interacts differently with other cards.  Recruiting it means it just turns into a normal minion.  OTOH, it bypasses counterspell.  OTOOH, it means anti-minion cards work against it.  OTOOOH, other cards can interact with it: knifejuggler works, minions that react when a minion dies, so on.  

    It does let you do crazy things, like, a 2 mana 5/5 that dies instantly (thus you want to summon or recruit it).  Or have an effect that attaches "dies instantly" to an opponent card in their hand.  Thus your opponent now has, say, a mountain giant in their hand that just dies when played.  You can even do wild stuff like "dies instantly, at the begginng of your turn revives and silences itself (so that it doesn't keep reviving :P).

    Though essentually putting it as a battlecry makes it more intuitive.  You may not know WHY you would want a minion that dies like that but you know it will if you use it.  

     

    • Quote From Dakarian

      An idea based on what's said here: instead of 0 health have a mechanic that instantly kills the minion on battlecry.  Thus when the minion is played, it instantly dies. 

      On first feel it'll end up feeling like a spell when you do things like "Battlecry: instantly dies.  Deathrattle, deal 2 damage to all minions"  However, it does mean that it interacts differently with other cards.  Recruiting it means it just turns into a normal minion.  OTOH, it bypasses counterspell.  OTOOH, it means anti-minion cards work against it.  OTOOOH, other cards can interact with it: knifejuggler works, minions that react when a minion dies, so on.  

      It does let you do crazy things, like, a 2 mana 5/5 that dies instantly (thus you want to summon or recruit it).  Or have an effect that attaches "dies instantly" to an opponent card in their hand.  Thus your opponent now has, say, a mountain giant in their hand that just dies when played.  You can even do wild stuff like "dies instantly, at the begginng of your turn revives and silences itself (so that it doesn't keep reviving :P).

      Though essentually putting it as a battlecry makes it more intuitive.  You may not know WHY you would want a minion that dies like that but you know it will if you use it.  

       

      I like it!

  • That "new type" of minions actually is actually a thing in the fourth wing of Dalaran.

     

    I can see it as deathrattle cards, with them being more or less spells but with extra synergy with summoned\died minions.

     

    Random minion summons. Suppose you get one of these minions out of a Maelstrom Portal or Mounted Raptor. Well, you basically get nothing since the minion will die immediately when it hits the battlefield, and thus the summoning portion of the effect has been negated.

    That depends. If this is X\0 vanilla or battlecry, then yep, that's not nice. If it is deathrattle - you are still getting the effect. Also you do know that there are results of random minion generation that are worse than getting nothing at all? I have doomsayered my board with a lackey more than once

     

    The card is completely useless to them since it's basically a literal "pack filler", not even a card. Just a roadblock instead of a card you might find in a pack.

    Again, It is completely wrong if the card has a useful deathrattle. Same with battlecry\choose one\combo. But even if it is a vanilla creature, instantly dying procs cards like Cult Master. Is that a good reason to put it in a deck? No, but it is a reason nevertheless.

     

    Let's imagine a card. 1 mana 3/0 battlecry deal 2 damage to the enemy hero. Is it good? No, Can you use with something like Knife Juggler Yes. Can you play it in a handbuff deck? Yes. Can you play it in some bizarre Shudderwock deck? Yes.