The main reason why it’s not in is because it makes your Call to Arms less consistent, but it’s definitely a great idea for the reno version which doesn’t run Call to Arms! Thanks for suggesting it, I will try it out.
With Blizzard introducing the Initiate Set as an alternative to making 200 cards (Naxx to present) any time you want to try making a new class, I decided to give it another shot.
Meet Scanlan Mellowridge, Gnomish Bard extraordinaire. Well traveled and with many adventures under his belt, he prefers the slower pace of his local tavern these days, where he entertains the patrons with songs and tales of his past exploits. But make no mistake, if there's trouble, he has more than a few aces up his silk sleeve.
Bard in fantasy settings is a nimble, versatile support class, and I wanted to capture that with the hero power costing 1 rather than 2. The Bard can always sneak in a small word of encouragement in the middle of combat, whether to themselves or an ally.
But the Hero Power is much more than a small heal. Every time you use it, you generate a Note (up to a maximum of 3) that are displayed on the Hero Power button similarly to Silas' and Kael'Thas' abilities in Battlegrounds. Notes enable the class' keyword: Melodic
With some cards requiring 1 Note, while others 2 or 3, there's always an interesting decision to be made on whether to use a Melodic card now, hold off to play a more powerful one later, or plan out your turns so you can accumulate more in the interim.
The class has multiple ways to cheaply draw cards to maintain a nimble, versatile playstyle, while also excelling in stat manipulation (buffs, handbuffs and debuffs), once again drawing on the Bard's identity as a support class. And when you've been around as much as Scanlan has, you hear things, and no one understands the power of information better than the Bard, giving the class access to powerful 1 mana Secrets and related synergy cards.
To balance things out, the class has access only to limited amount of healing beyond its Hero Power, and very few ways to deal damage directly from hand. It also has no hard removal or area of effect damage spells in its arsenal.
Unlike Demon Hunter, that had a 20 card Initiate set and got 15 cards per Year of the Phoenix expansion, I decided on a 30 card Initiate set (mostly because Secrets and Secret synergies take up so much space), which will probably allow me to get away with giving Bard the normal 10 cards per expansion, before picking some of the Initiate set to become part of next year's Core.
To see all 30 cards: Click here: http://www.hearthcards.net/setsandclasses/#6574-Bard
BGH is too restrictive Im talking about cheap removal with no or close to no downside. BGH is irrelevant with all the power crept removal that's come out.
BGH was extremely relevant during the time period I mentioned, before it was nerfed. That's why it was so frequently mentioned (and why it got nerfed).
But even if she's removed cheaply, Natalie scores a two-for-one trade. Mana isn't everything. She may feel like garbage now because there are cards like Convincing Infiltrator, as well as 8-drops like Catrina Muerte and Murozond the Infinite, but those will all be gone soon.
If you're one of those people who see no middle ground between tier-one material and dumpster fire, we can stop talking now. But I think you'll nearly always be disappointed if you are hoping to see extremely competitive legendaries in the Core set, either now or in years to come. I'm judging this card against other Core cards, not expansion cards. Core cards aren't supposed to be 5-star fabulous.
Imp Swarm (Rank 1) looks inefficient in most of its potential uses. Cards that care about stats that see play today are run to be played on curve, and this is just a worse Cult Neophyte on turn two. By turns five and ten, the 3/2 bodies are way less likely to have an impact even if when summoning 2-3 of them. The only way I see this being competitive is if Warlock gets an impactful demon synergy card that Imp Swarm (Rank 1) can take advantage of, but Warlock will also have Fiendish Circle in the core set for a more efficient way to swarm demons if they need to.
I'm not necessarily saying that Blizzard did it for this reason, but nowadays I feel like most people who call their games a "beta" just call it that to deflect criticism.
Perhaps it's worthwhile recognising that the fellow is characterising this as "taking a break" from HS - he might return. There are precedents for folks being shifted internally, then unshifted when they are no longer needed in their new "job" - Celestalon was shifted onto HS years ago (I can't remember where he was prior to HS), and solo-ed LoE initial design while other members of the team took holidays. He left HS after LoE and came back years later.
(source = Angry Chicken 400.)
We know that members of the HS team have been shifted internally from developing low-priority assets (we've only seen a few new TBs over the past year) to high-priority (all the expansions have been on-time, if not early, despite work-from-home orders.) It isn't too unlikely that such shifting is also taking place between different teams, in order to keep all the Blizz high-priority stuff on-time.
Hello everyone! Don't know if anyone else has the same problem, but i always collect the majority of cards in each expansion, but i end up playing the same meta decks over and over.
I usually use HSreplay to find competitive decks, but i would like to know what sites you visit in order to find fun decks. I don't want to search for Tier 1 decks, but also not win 1 out of 10 games meme decks. I want something in the middle, like decks that differentiate from the Top decks and use some not so played cards, that can win if you play many games and learn how to pilot that deck.
''Lucky Dragon Casino Mage" that was shared in this site, is a good example. Relies too much on RNG to be reliable, but i love Mage and have good results with the deck without it being meta.
This is the kind of Spell School card I'm excited to see - one that allows for a lot more interesting tech cards. Very bad weapon stats here to make sure it doesn't get to just show up in every deck.
I think it compares favorably too Bloodbloom, which was somewhat playable. Cost and stats are a good callback to the original Kael'thas, but the choice of school seems off: from a quick search in the wowpedia I've found this snippedt:
Several of [Kael'thas'] followers had left him to join Illidan to be trained as demon hunters and he believed he could harness fel magic just as they did to sate his addiction. Soon, the fel gnawed at his mind, causing him to become more paranoid of his people, believing them to think of him as a failure
Here is my first idea. I will change the watermark later, I also intend to change the art when I find something better (if anyone has any good art that would be appreciated). My main concern is that it is too similar to Mana Tide Totem.
More feedback:
Show Spoiler
@Swizard: I like Ilxos a lot more than arrogant gnome. It works very well as a finisher/build around card, and I don't think it is terribly OP. The only concern I have is that a lot of decks running a bunch of burn spells probably won't need a big finisher, they would just kill you with the initial round of Fire spells. Maybe change to arcane spells?
@grumpymonk: I prefer Abundance. Partly because I just really like Druid, drawing cards, and gaining armor. But also because I have a feeling that a lot of people are going to be making Fire spells, so staying away from that school may help your card stand out more. I do think Abundance is a little powerful as it is. It shouldn't be hard to put only nature spells in your deck, so this can easily tutor 2 spells and gain you a hefty amount of armor. Maybe if it only drew one nature spell and gave you armor for the cost, or if it gave you 5 armor instead of armor equal to the cost.
@Dreams: First off you shouldn't use the Classic watermark. I think this card is very powerful, I would either increase the cost or make it buff +1/+1 instead.
@Neoguli: This basically gives your arcane spells a soft version of twinspell. I think it is an interesting idea but in practice I don't see this surviving more than 1 turn, which means you probably won't be able to get more than 1-2 spells from it. I would make it cheaper and smaller, and just have it buff a random arcane spell in your hand with twinspell, or have it generate a copy of a random arcane spell in your hand. This would make the design much cleaner while keeping the card roughly the same.
@NerdyMcNerd: I don't have anything to criticize. The card looks great! :)
@KingMicahhh: First off you shouldn't use the Classic watermark. My main concern is that it is too similar to Lyra the Sunshard. It has the exact same cost/stats and has a very similar effect. You did a good job on flavor, but I would adjust it slightly to make it a bit more unique.
@anchorm4n: I like it but I agree with other people that this could very easily become problematic. I would make it a 7/7 and have it affect only the first spell.
@Elfensilver: There is a typo in the word "whenever" and it should also say "your hero" instead of "you" in the battlecry. I like the design but I would change the battlecry to a "when drawn" effect so that the opponent can't just hold onto it and avoid taking damage.
Every popular game has it's doomsayers. From Fortnite to Fallout, there are always a group of people who cannot help but to complain. It is the one of the few things I have seen consistent in every game, competitive or casual.
Feedback time. One recurring problem I see with this comp is not knowing what all the spells with spell types are and which ones they'll be.
Fedrion
I think just about any Frost spell that targets minions already Freezes anyway, so that part doesn't seem relevant. You don't really want to cast spells on Frozen characters either since they aren't big threats.
Nirast
I already mentioned this in Discord, but I prefer Natural Evolution.
MoLaD, MoLaS, and MoFaF are okay cards, but I feel like they don't really do that much interesting.
Frost King Malakk has a bit of weird flavor, and this doesn't feel like the set to support Freeze Shaman either, so the watermark is a bit out of place.
BloodMefist
I prefer Vile Inquisitor over Cruel Instructor, since it has a better "fluidity" in the card text that I really like. They're both good cards though.
Linkblade91
Both of these cards give more Windshear Stormcaller vibes (except these cards are much easier to use). Herald of Flame is definitely too much like Jan'alai. I don't think we really need two cards that summon it. Herald of Light I quite like though.
Swizard
Ilxos, Lord of Flame seems a bit scary to me. I prefer Arrogant Gnome, although the name doesn't seem to match the flavor.
Grumpymonk
Both of these are two pretty solid cards.
Anchorm4n
I'm going to have to say this is probably against the intentions of the prompt a bit too much. Seems a bit scary too. Kael'thas is a bit better.
Dreams
A fairly okay card although it seems a bit scary if you're able to sling a lot of Fel spells together. There's so much potential for such a huge buff that it might be too scary, and the fact that it costs only 1 mana and you're willing to play it as just a 1/3 also helps that. As far as other problems go, your card uses the Classic watermark where it's not appropriate to use it and you're also missing a plus on "+2/2".
Neoguli
A pretty creative idea. I enjoy it. My only concern is that it might limit the design of high-Cost Arcane spells.
NerdyMcNerd
A solid card. Nothing much more than that.
KingMicahhh
I reckon we'll see something like this design a lot. The card itself is okay, but the bigger problems I have with it are the Classic watermark (where both Discover and spell school synergy would not have existed yet) and the bolding of spell schools which are not done. Spirit Healer doesn't bold the spell schools. Bru'kan only does this because the Nature is part of the Spell Damage.
Rule of thumb: Only bold spell schools when they're part of another keyword like Spell Damage (or hypothetically Spellburst too, but then you're making an "anachronism stew" in your card which I usually penalize people for).
Elfinsilver
I assume by "you", you mean "your hero" which is the way this effect is actually meant to be written. You also have a typo where you wrote "Whenver" instead of "Whenever". Shadow should not be bolded either. There is also a logo visible in the art. Aside from that, the idea is okay I guess.
You might've misunderstood Future Sight. You don't draw a card or anything. You just look at the top 4 cards of your deck and then put them back on top in whatever order you want, but you don't draw afterwards.
Yeah that's pretty strong it can allow you to curve out perfectly but it does have a downside of using up a hand space slot. So you would probably need a good amount of draw in your deck to run Future Sigh
BGH is too restrictive Im talking about cheap removal with no or close to no downside. BGH is irrelevant with all the power crept removal that's come out.
I have noticed too. I suits me fine as I only use Lab of Legends to gain an extra 400 and 200 XP "PvP" win. However, it takes away the challenge and it wasn't even that hard to begin with.
I set challenges for myself Example: never attacking until the oponnent decks out
You might've misunderstood Future Sight. You don't draw a card or anything. You just look at the top 4 cards of your deck and then put them back on top in whatever order you want, but you don't draw afterwards.
Most insane combo i had was Lucian with the power Out the Gates + 1/+1 buff ability combined with Wild Inspiration + Warden's Prey + ephemeral copy in hand ability
How does it work: Start of the game Lucian is summoned. Warden's Prey gets played wich generates another copy in hand that is ephemeral and cost 0 due Wild Inspiration power. Now fill the board with 5x ephemeral Warden's Prey alongside Lucian and attack. Not only Lucian will level up and double attack, but he also procs his Rally effect since one Warden's Prey dies after he attacks. This equals exactly 30 damage from T1... quite amazing
New Priest Minion - Natalie Seline
It was relevant because big minions like Ragnaros were relevant.
destroying one big minion does nothing in the new metas because of power creep.
The buff won't make it relevant again that was the past...
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (The Resurrection Attempt)
None of these are the weapon. I guess keep hacking at it and you'll get it. Sorry, maybe the interaction isn't known.
It's a weapon that can attack more than once a turn if something happens.
Pure Prelate Paladin
The main reason why it’s not in is because it makes your Call to Arms less consistent, but it’s definitely a great idea for the reno version which doesn’t run Call to Arms! Thanks for suggesting it, I will try it out.
[Custom Class] Bard
With Blizzard introducing the Initiate Set as an alternative to making 200 cards (Naxx to present) any time you want to try making a new class, I decided to give it another shot.
Meet Scanlan Mellowridge, Gnomish Bard extraordinaire. Well traveled and with many adventures under his belt, he prefers the slower pace of his local tavern these days, where he entertains the patrons with songs and tales of his past exploits. But make no mistake, if there's trouble, he has more than a few aces up his silk sleeve.
Bard in fantasy settings is a nimble, versatile support class, and I wanted to capture that with the hero power costing 1 rather than 2. The Bard can always sneak in a small word of encouragement in the middle of combat, whether to themselves or an ally.
But the Hero Power is much more than a small heal. Every time you use it, you generate a Note (up to a maximum of 3) that are displayed on the Hero Power button similarly to Silas' and Kael'Thas' abilities in Battlegrounds. Notes enable the class' keyword: Melodic
With some cards requiring 1 Note, while others 2 or 3, there's always an interesting decision to be made on whether to use a Melodic card now, hold off to play a more powerful one later, or plan out your turns so you can accumulate more in the interim.
The class has multiple ways to cheaply draw cards to maintain a nimble, versatile playstyle, while also excelling in stat manipulation (buffs, handbuffs and debuffs), once again drawing on the Bard's identity as a support class. And when you've been around as much as Scanlan has, you hear things, and no one understands the power of information better than the Bard, giving the class access to powerful 1 mana Secrets and related synergy cards.
To balance things out, the class has access only to limited amount of healing beyond its Hero Power, and very few ways to deal damage directly from hand. It also has no hard removal or area of effect damage spells in its arsenal.
Unlike Demon Hunter, that had a 20 card Initiate set and got 15 cards per Year of the Phoenix expansion, I decided on a 30 card Initiate set (mostly because Secrets and Secret synergies take up so much space), which will probably allow me to get away with giving Bard the normal 10 cards per expansion, before picking some of the Initiate set to become part of next year's Core.
To see all 30 cards: Click here: http://www.hearthcards.net/setsandclasses/#6574-Bard
Looking forward to your feedback.
New Priest Minion - Natalie Seline
BGH was extremely relevant during the time period I mentioned, before it was nerfed. That's why it was so frequently mentioned (and why it got nerfed).
But even if she's removed cheaply, Natalie scores a two-for-one trade. Mana isn't everything. She may feel like garbage now because there are cards like Convincing Infiltrator, as well as 8-drops like Catrina Muerte and Murozond the Infinite, but those will all be gone soon.
If you're one of those people who see no middle ground between tier-one material and dumpster fire, we can stop talking now. But I think you'll nearly always be disappointed if you are hoping to see extremely competitive legendaries in the Core set, either now or in years to come. I'm judging this card against other Core cards, not expansion cards. Core cards aren't supposed to be 5-star fabulous.
New Warlock Spell - Imp Swarm (Rank 1)
Imp Swarm (Rank 1) looks inefficient in most of its potential uses. Cards that care about stats that see play today are run to be played on curve, and this is just a worse Cult Neophyte on turn two. By turns five and ten, the 3/2 bodies are way less likely to have an impact even if when summoning 2-3 of them. The only way I see this being competitive is if Warlock gets an impactful demon synergy card that Imp Swarm (Rank 1) can take advantage of, but Warlock will also have Fiendish Circle in the core set for a more efficient way to swarm demons if they need to.
The Caverns Below was a Mistake (For Revert)
wheres Boar? is he safe? is he alright?
Conor Kou Has Departed the Hearthstone Team and Battlegrounds, Remains at Blizzard
I'm not necessarily saying that Blizzard did it for this reason, but nowadays I feel like most people who call their games a "beta" just call it that to deflect criticism.
Conor Kou Has Departed the Hearthstone Team and Battlegrounds, Remains at Blizzard
Perhaps it's worthwhile recognising that the fellow is characterising this as "taking a break" from HS - he might return. There are precedents for folks being shifted internally, then unshifted when they are no longer needed in their new "job" - Celestalon was shifted onto HS years ago (I can't remember where he was prior to HS), and solo-ed LoE initial design while other members of the team took holidays. He left HS after LoE and came back years later.
(source = Angry Chicken 400.)
We know that members of the HS team have been shifted internally from developing low-priority assets (we've only seen a few new TBs over the past year) to high-priority (all the expansions have been on-time, if not early, despite work-from-home orders.) It isn't too unlikely that such shifting is also taking place between different teams, in order to keep all the Blizz high-priority stuff on-time.
Websites for (viable) meme decks!
Hello everyone! Don't know if anyone else has the same problem, but i always collect the majority of cards in each expansion, but i end up playing the same meta decks over and over.
I usually use HSreplay to find competitive decks, but i would like to know what sites you visit in order to find fun decks. I don't want to search for Tier 1 decks, but also not win 1 out of 10 games meme decks. I want something in the middle, like decks that differentiate from the Top decks and use some not so played cards, that can win if you play many games and learn how to pilot that deck.
''Lucky Dragon Casino Mage" that was shared in this site, is a good example. Relies too much on RNG to be reliable, but i love Mage and have good results with the deck without it being meta.
Thank you for your suggestions.
Conor Kou Has Departed the Hearthstone Team and Battlegrounds, Remains at Blizzard
For me "Beta" means "No entry fee and no rewards".
New Shaman Minion - Bru'kan
Those spell schools seem really cool! Need to see the new expansion's cards before saying if this is good.
Colourful Casting - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
This is the kind of Spell School card I'm excited to see - one that allows for a lot more interesting tech cards. Very bad weapon stats here to make sure it doesn't get to just show up in every deck.
Colourful Casting - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
@anchorm4n
I think it compares favorably too Bloodbloom, which was somewhat playable. Cost and stats are a good callback to the original Kael'thas, but the choice of school seems off: from a quick search in the wowpedia I've found this snippedt:
Wow-Gamepedia/Kael'thas
So while the same effect is somewhat expected for Fel and Warlock/DH, it fits the lore way better.
Colourful Casting - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Here is my first idea. I will change the watermark later, I also intend to change the art when I find something better (if anyone has any good art that would be appreciated). My main concern is that it is too similar to Mana Tide Totem.
More feedback:
@grumpymonk: I prefer Abundance. Partly because I just really like Druid, drawing cards, and gaining armor. But also because I have a feeling that a lot of people are going to be making Fire spells, so staying away from that school may help your card stand out more. I do think Abundance is a little powerful as it is. It shouldn't be hard to put only nature spells in your deck, so this can easily tutor 2 spells and gain you a hefty amount of armor. Maybe if it only drew one nature spell and gave you armor for the cost, or if it gave you 5 armor instead of armor equal to the cost.
@Dreams: First off you shouldn't use the Classic watermark. I think this card is very powerful, I would either increase the cost or make it buff +1/+1 instead.
@Neoguli: This basically gives your arcane spells a soft version of twinspell. I think it is an interesting idea but in practice I don't see this surviving more than 1 turn, which means you probably won't be able to get more than 1-2 spells from it. I would make it cheaper and smaller, and just have it buff a random arcane spell in your hand with twinspell, or have it generate a copy of a random arcane spell in your hand. This would make the design much cleaner while keeping the card roughly the same.
@NerdyMcNerd: I don't have anything to criticize. The card looks great! :)
@KingMicahhh: First off you shouldn't use the Classic watermark. My main concern is that it is too similar to Lyra the Sunshard. It has the exact same cost/stats and has a very similar effect. You did a good job on flavor, but I would adjust it slightly to make it a bit more unique.
@anchorm4n: I like it but I agree with other people that this could very easily become problematic. I would make it a 7/7 and have it affect only the first spell.
@Elfensilver: There is a typo in the word "whenever" and it should also say "your hero" instead of "you" in the battlecry. I like the design but I would change the battlecry to a "when drawn" effect so that the opponent can't just hold onto it and avoid taking damage.
Conor Kou Has Departed the Hearthstone Team and Battlegrounds, Remains at Blizzard
It reminds me of Warframe, a game which will always be in beta.
Conor Kou Has Departed the Hearthstone Team and Battlegrounds, Remains at Blizzard
Every popular game has it's doomsayers. From Fortnite to Fallout, there are always a group of people who cannot help but to complain. It is the one of the few things I have seen consistent in every game, competitive or casual.
Colourful Casting - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Feedback time. One recurring problem I see with this comp is not knowing what all the spells with spell types are and which ones they'll be.
MoLaD, MoLaS, and MoFaF are okay cards, but I feel like they don't really do that much interesting.
Frost King Malakk has a bit of weird flavor, and this doesn't feel like the set to support Freeze Shaman either, so the watermark is a bit out of place.
I reckon we'll see something like this design a lot. The card itself is okay, but the bigger problems I have with it are the Classic watermark (where both Discover and spell school synergy would not have existed yet) and the bolding of spell schools which are not done. Spirit Healer doesn't bold the spell schools. Bru'kan only does this because the Nature is part of the Spell Damage.
Rule of thumb: Only bold spell schools when they're part of another keyword like Spell Damage (or hypothetically Spellburst too, but then you're making an "anachronism stew" in your card which I usually penalize people for).
Colourful Casting - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Thanks Elfensilver, I came to the same conclusion. How do you like my take on Kael'thas (last post on page 1)?
Custom Class - Time Traveler (Updated February 17th - Return to Naxxramas added!)
Yeah that's pretty strong it can allow you to curve out perfectly but it does have a downside of using up a hand space slot. So you would probably need a good amount of draw in your deck to run Future Sigh
Conor Kou Has Departed the Hearthstone Team and Battlegrounds, Remains at Blizzard
What does beta even mean anymore?
New Priest Minion - Natalie Seline
Natalie is garbage outside of discovering it.
BGH is too restrictive Im talking about cheap removal with no or close to no downside. BGH is irrelevant with all the power crept removal that's come out.
The AI in lab of legends
I set challenges for myself
Example: never attacking until the oponnent decks out
Custom Class - Time Traveler (Updated February 17th - Return to Naxxramas added!)
You might've misunderstood Future Sight. You don't draw a card or anything. You just look at the top 4 cards of your deck and then put them back on top in whatever order you want, but you don't draw afterwards.
The AI in lab of legends
Most insane combo i had was Lucian with the power Out the Gates + 1/+1 buff ability combined with Wild Inspiration + Warden's Prey + ephemeral copy in hand ability
How does it work: Start of the game Lucian is summoned. Warden's Prey gets played wich generates another copy in hand that is ephemeral and cost 0 due Wild Inspiration power.
Now fill the board with 5x ephemeral Warden's Prey alongside Lucian and attack. Not only Lucian will level up and double attack, but he also procs his Rally effect since one Warden's Prey dies after he attacks. This equals exactly 30 damage from T1... quite amazing
Extra: