I already love this new series! Great article, thank you very much for your efforts! To answer your question, my meme deck of choice in Standard is also for Warlock and uses pretty much the same early game package, but aimes at Deck of Chaos shenanigans as its win condition. The dream in this case is a board full of 4 Mana 9/4 Carnival Clowns. It's super fun to play and at least somewhat competitive. Here's the list:
unpopular opinion: kids are the ones that dont even look at things. kids can be so smart on a lot of stuff but then can be stupid as shit on the more basic things in life
They can sure try though. Even though they can't attack you directly, they can still mill your deck, destroy your minions, and damage you with Circus Medic...
I still prefer your original card that summoned both minions if the condition was met, even if it was a bit OP. Dunno, Oasis Surger exists and, sure, you need to complete the Quest to make it work, but you don't need to criple your deck in order to do so.
About the name of the tokens, what about Animal Guides? It's a pretty common trope that a mysticall animal guides you through the forest, which would mesh well with your flavor I think.
anchorm4n
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I like Light the Fuses a lot. I think it's fine both at three and at four bombs.
Staff of Souls is also fine but not so much.
FenrirWulf
Show Spoiler
I think Harvest the Weak is your strongest card (pun intended). It seems useful and pretty flavorful as well.
BloodMefist
Show Spoiler
Malicious Memories is a more interesting design, but I really like the artwork of Shattered Memory. I think you could get away with giving SM's name and artwork to MM and it would work just fine from a flavor perspective.
Ozymandias
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Your card has no effect if you have minions in your deck, which is a bit weird. I don't know if it can be fixed, since it's already crammed with text :/
Besides that, it's a neat effect, but you're right the name is a bit eh. Also, the watermark shouldn't be AoO, since Demon Companions were introduced in Scholomance.
MenacingBagel
Show Spoiler
I'd reduce the Spell Damage to 2, since 3 is too much. You could also give it higher stats if you do that.
linkblade91
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Flavor is fine, but it's a bit hard to pull off. I agree with Hordaki's solution: reduce the number of copies and the mana cost.
Hordaki
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I don't quite get the card, to be honest. Like, the effect, the name and the fact that it is a weapon don't quite mesh together. Could be just me, though.
From a balance perspective, I think the card is fine, although I think you could get away with making it a Discover effect instead of adding a random minion.
Pokeniner
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Pretty interesting combination of effects. Simple but very synergistic.
DestroyerR
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It's interesting, but it feels a bit too dangerous, especially when compared to MenacingBagel's idea (which has already been deemed as dangerous by many people).
Also, I believe there's a minor mistake in your HP's format: the words "Passive Hero Power" should be on a separate line without the colon (like in Death's Shadow.
FieselFitz
Show Spoiler
The fact "minions" is repeated doesn't bother me too much. However, there are a couple mistakes that you should fix, IMO:
Neither "minions" nor "type" should be capitalized, unless they're at the begining of a sentece.
The text "wherever they are" should be written in italics.
There shouldn't be a full stop between "instead" and "whenever". Instead, it should be at the end of the text. See Beckoner of Evil
Apart from formatting, I belive your card is a bit too polarizing :/
KANSAS
Show Spoiler
I think the connection to Looming Presence is hard to get, but the card is quite fine otherwise.
plazmanoob
Show Spoiler
It's a bit weird to have a minion which draws minions and is also intended to work in a non-minion deck, IMO.
Arena Hearthstone is an absolute clown fiesta right now with random generation determining who wins the match, people keeping their decks are the least of our worries right now.
Fixed it for you.
Wasnt always the case but yes, nowadays it is mostly about RNG and it sucks.
I think casual mode, similar to Duels, for Arena could be cool and could possibly get more ppl to play it. Then again, the heavy RNG aspect makes things a bit different than it used to. The skill cap and acquiring said skill, which could be done mostly by just playing the game mode, was the biggest factor in Arena once upon a time. And it was very costly to be able to better yourself. With a casual mode with no rewards, but no entry fee, ppl could get a grip on how the mode works and how to draft their decks and eventually move to the regular Arena and enjoy playing it.
Or at least thats what i would have said a few years ago. Im not really sure what to say today. Arena was my main game mode for years and i had thousands of games played and pretty much sustained myself from Arena alone. I loved the draft mode. But the amount of RNG there now, i just cant enjoy it anymore, because the RNG leveled the playing field. Which might sound elitist of me to say, but i think it is fair to want a more experienced player to do better than the least experienced one and have their choices matter. Not always, but most of the time. If the game decides i lose, i lose, if the game decides i win, i win. My actions rarely matter. That is an exaggeration, ofc, if you play like a total newbie you will still lose more often, but the skill of knowing how to draft, what to look out for and trying to bait out stuff or play around just almost does not exist anymore, because the random generators make this impossible.
I think the change to the entry fee, and consequently to the reward system, is the one thing that needs to happen, if there is ever going to be a "revive" of Arena, but im not holding my breath for it to ever happen. Duels were my last hope that with its introduction, especially since it was supposed to share the Arena reward system, would bring about a reword to that, but that didnt happen, instead it basically slid into Arena's shoes, which is bad. Oh well.
I had a game where my opponent used a Corrupted Circus Medic and dealt damage to me. Twice.
They otherwise seemed to know what the brawl was, helped me beat the pinata and even healed me after the first incident. It seems that this person had the intention of healing me, but forgot to take into account that when you pay a 5+ Cost card in your hand, it will deal damage instead.
Lesson to everyone: If you want to play Circus Medic for the healing and a more expensive card in the same turn, play the Medic first, then the more expensive card.
Man oh man was this tough. My first three games all ended with my opponent actually killing me by attacking me directly.... I just don't understand what makes people just jump into a brawl totally blind and not understand their deck isn't just random cards.
Thanks. The more I think about this from my perspective as a software developer, the more it seems like a problem. A process that I assume is high-priority can be disrupted for a month or two because one key person takes a week off. That should not happen in a mature software development process.
Either they don’t actually consider balance to be a priority, or they don’t have the staff to deal with predictable interruptions, or they have an inflexible process that depends on key people despite having a large staff. All of those would be concerning for different reasons.
They give every impression that balance changes are a priority, but maybe they aren’t. That would come as a surprise to me and most other people who read news and comment online, though maybe the game has a silent majority who don’t care as much about that. I’m not sure. It would certainly change my opinion of the game if I learned that balance was an afterthought, though.
If balance IS a priority, then they should be able to do something about issues like this. My company has handled several emergencies during the holidays, even though normal development has slowed down significantly. I would think that balance decisions like this need a team of several people, and in a pinch decisions can be made by any two of them. Of course, they’d USUALLY want most of the team (including the lead) involved, but they could have a process for a skeleton staff to still tweak a card at this time. Maybe one lead is involved most of the time, but for the other people this would be 8-10 hours a week alongside their other responsibilities. That means that in the budget, the balance team requires about 2 FTEs.
If they can’t afford 2 salaries to balance a competitive game, then I worry about the viability of the genre. Sure, I’d understand a small indie company responding slowly over the holidays, but if one of the biggest online CCGs can’t afford it, then the hobby may be in trouble.
Maybe they DO prioritize balance and DO have the budget for enough staff, but they just don’t have a process that allows them to do anything when Steve Rubin is out. That’s an understandable situation for a newish development team to find themselves in, but I hope that this serves as a wake-up call. Being overly dependent on one person can lead to huge disasters.
I suspect that that last possibility has a lot of truth to it. When Bastion’s balance was off, Rubin said “[The things] I’m working on make it a bit hard for LoR Live Design to keep up... patch day is incredibly stressful for me.” If I were the manager of a key employee who felt the need to say that publicly, I’d certainly do something about it.
EDIT: Here’s the source for the quote above. That article does confirm that it’s just two people (Steve Rubin and Dave Smith) making balance decisions.
I agree that some people can ruin your experience in this brawl, but the more fun when they actually co-op and you get the win along with a good laugh :)
Didn't stop the idiot I had first attempt from killing off my taunt minions and using spells to remove my non-taunt minions... Seriously, how is "co-op" so hard for some people to understand???
I've always liked Talanji's effect but she never made an impact, I hope this adds at least a bit of spookyness to that card. The second effect should trigger after drawing a card (I think).
As you can see in class distribution, I encountered only 4 paladins with score 2-2 (iirc 3 of them were odd) and 3 Demon Hunters (all odd) with score 1-2. These hyper aggressive decks can be a problem, either you have an answer in hand, or you are dead.
I missed last competition, hopefully I can be on-time and submit my card this week.
This is meant to be a tribute to the ever present boss card, Looming Presence. If you go full-warlock then you get to use cards reserved for the most sinister boss monsters.
I am not sure if the reference is clear enough or good enough, this is just the first idea I had.
Quest Trading - Play A Friend!
Battletag:Matwan#1696
Region: NA
Trade Only: Yes, you go first.
Having Fun With Rafaam, The Supreme Archaeologist! Memes and Dreams #1
I already love this new series! Great article, thank you very much for your efforts! To answer your question, my meme deck of choice in Standard is also for Warlock and uses pretty much the same early game package, but aimes at Deck of Chaos shenanigans as its win condition. The dream in this case is a board full of 4 Mana 9/4 Carnival Clowns. It's super fun to play and at least somewhat competitive. Here's the list:
Wild · Unknown Warlock · by anchorm4n · 5 years, 10 months ago
Snowpocalypse
He is, isn't he?
I'm still amazed how they initially made all the animation possible using clay and reposition the stuff frame by frame.
A New Year Bash
unpopular opinion: kids are the ones that dont even look at things. kids can be so smart on a lot of stuff but then can be stupid as shit on the more basic things in life
Darkseeker's channel - 13th November update: KOtsosKOtsos' Reno Evolve Shudderwock Shaman - ft. Archivist Elysiana
30th December update: AndrzejSmar's Standard P2W Highlander Warrior, ft. Headmaster Kel'Thuzad!
Highlander Warrior, with lots of nice expensive cards :-) A really fun deck, unexpected, and so you have the element of surprise!
Check out the awesome deck guide: https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1373987-p2w-warrior-full-guide
Deck code:
AAECAQceS6IE/AT/B5WUA/yjA5+kA6ikA4KoA/WoA9mtA9utA9+tA4ixA5GxA7i5A765A8C5A/nCA7PMA4rQA5PQA6vUA5vYA7XeA7beA8DeA8HeA7/gA8jhAwAA
https://youtu.be/p0ofR53awdY
A New Year Bash
They can sure try though. Even though they can't attack you directly, they can still mill your deck, destroy your minions, and damage you with Circus Medic...
A New Year Bash
I got a Turalyon, the Tenured from a Cenarion Ward. Was not really expecting it to work on the piñata, but it totally did. EZ
Oops! All Spells! - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Feedback
DavnanKillder
About the name of the tokens, what about Animal Guides? It's a pretty common trope that a mysticall animal guides you through the forest, which would mesh well with your flavor I think.
anchorm4n
Staff of Souls is also fine but not so much.
FenrirWulf
BloodMefist
Ozymandias
Besides that, it's a neat effect, but you're right the name is a bit eh. Also, the watermark shouldn't be AoO, since Demon Companions were introduced in Scholomance.
MenacingBagel
linkblade91
Hordaki
From a balance perspective, I think the card is fine, although I think you could get away with making it a Discover effect instead of adding a random minion.
Pokeniner
DestroyerR
Also, I believe there's a minor mistake in your HP's format: the words "Passive Hero Power" should be on a separate line without the colon (like in Death's Shadow.
FieselFitz
Apart from formatting, I belive your card is a bit too polarizing :/
KANSAS
plazmanoob
This is what would save the Arena format (So Obvious.)
Wasnt always the case but yes, nowadays it is mostly about RNG and it sucks.
I think casual mode, similar to Duels, for Arena could be cool and could possibly get more ppl to play it. Then again, the heavy RNG aspect makes things a bit different than it used to. The skill cap and acquiring said skill, which could be done mostly by just playing the game mode, was the biggest factor in Arena once upon a time. And it was very costly to be able to better yourself. With a casual mode with no rewards, but no entry fee, ppl could get a grip on how the mode works and how to draft their decks and eventually move to the regular Arena and enjoy playing it.
Or at least thats what i would have said a few years ago. Im not really sure what to say today. Arena was my main game mode for years and i had thousands of games played and pretty much sustained myself from Arena alone. I loved the draft mode. But the amount of RNG there now, i just cant enjoy it anymore, because the RNG leveled the playing field. Which might sound elitist of me to say, but i think it is fair to want a more experienced player to do better than the least experienced one and have their choices matter. Not always, but most of the time. If the game decides i lose, i lose, if the game decides i win, i win. My actions rarely matter. That is an exaggeration, ofc, if you play like a total newbie you will still lose more often, but the skill of knowing how to draft, what to look out for and trying to bait out stuff or play around just almost does not exist anymore, because the random generators make this impossible.
I think the change to the entry fee, and consequently to the reward system, is the one thing that needs to happen, if there is ever going to be a "revive" of Arena, but im not holding my breath for it to ever happen. Duels were my last hope that with its introduction, especially since it was supposed to share the Arena reward system, would bring about a reword to that, but that didnt happen, instead it basically slid into Arena's shoes, which is bad. Oh well.
A New Year Bash
I had a game where my opponent used a Corrupted Circus Medic and dealt damage to me. Twice.
They otherwise seemed to know what the brawl was, helped me beat the pinata and even healed me after the first incident. It seems that this person had the intention of healing me, but forgot to take into account that when you pay a 5+ Cost card in your hand, it will deal damage instead.
Lesson to everyone: If you want to play Circus Medic for the healing and a more expensive card in the same turn, play the Medic first, then the more expensive card.
Snowpocalypse
Shaun is the best :D
[GVG] OG Control Priest
Aww ... i mean, yeah :D sometimes :P
A New Year Bash
Man oh man was this tough. My first three games all ended with my opponent actually killing me by attacking me directly.... I just don't understand what makes people just jump into a brawl totally blind and not understand their deck isn't just random cards.
A New Year Bash
Just happened to my last game as well. It's almost as if this was not play-tested at all before launch 🤡
Legends of Runeterra Won't Be Balancing Cosmic Creation Cards Until February
Thanks. The more I think about this from my perspective as a software developer, the more it seems like a problem. A process that I assume is high-priority can be disrupted for a month or two because one key person takes a week off. That should not happen in a mature software development process.
Either they don’t actually consider balance to be a priority, or they don’t have the staff to deal with predictable interruptions, or they have an inflexible process that depends on key people despite having a large staff. All of those would be concerning for different reasons.
They give every impression that balance changes are a priority, but maybe they aren’t. That would come as a surprise to me and most other people who read news and comment online, though maybe the game has a silent majority who don’t care as much about that. I’m not sure. It would certainly change my opinion of the game if I learned that balance was an afterthought, though.
If balance IS a priority, then they should be able to do something about issues like this. My company has handled several emergencies during the holidays, even though normal development has slowed down significantly. I would think that balance decisions like this need a team of several people, and in a pinch decisions can be made by any two of them. Of course, they’d USUALLY want most of the team (including the lead) involved, but they could have a process for a skeleton staff to still tweak a card at this time. Maybe one lead is involved most of the time, but for the other people this would be 8-10 hours a week alongside their other responsibilities. That means that in the budget, the balance team requires about 2 FTEs.
If they can’t afford 2 salaries to balance a competitive game, then I worry about the viability of the genre. Sure, I’d understand a small indie company responding slowly over the holidays, but if one of the biggest online CCGs can’t afford it, then the hobby may be in trouble.
Maybe they DO prioritize balance and DO have the budget for enough staff, but they just don’t have a process that allows them to do anything when Steve Rubin is out. That’s an understandable situation for a newish development team to find themselves in, but I hope that this serves as a wake-up call. Being overly dependent on one person can lead to huge disasters.
I suspect that that last possibility has a lot of truth to it. When Bastion’s balance was off, Rubin said “[The things] I’m working on make it a bit hard for LoR Live Design to keep up... patch day is incredibly stressful for me.” If I were the manager of a key employee who felt the need to say that publicly, I’d certainly do something about it.
EDIT: Here’s the source for the quote above. That article does confirm that it’s just two people (Steve Rubin and Dave Smith) making balance decisions.
A New Year Bash
So.. i broke it...i killed the pinata with a poisonous minion early... well.. we had to keep playing but the pinata was invisible
A New Year Bash
I agree that some people can ruin your experience in this brawl, but the more fun when they actually co-op and you get the win along with a good laugh :)
Madness at the Darkmoon Faire - Hearthstone Concept Art Spotlight
Yea, I especially like the perspective change on the paladin card after being corrupted, gives it a whole new feeling. :(
A New Year Bash
Second try I had someone who actually knew what they were doing. Done! Who knew Supreme Abyssal could actually be a good card!
A New Year Bash
Didn't stop the idiot I had first attempt from killing off my taunt minions and using spells to remove my non-taunt minions... Seriously, how is "co-op" so hard for some people to understand???
A New Year Bash
And on my first attempt, my idiot co-op partner kills all my minions, not the party crashers...
Snowpocalypse
Oops! All Spells! - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I've always liked Talanji's effect but she never made an impact, I hope this adds at least a bit of spookyness to that card. The second effect should trigger after drawing a card (I think).
Wild Secret Mage (My first time Legend Rank, 12-2020)
As you can see in class distribution, I encountered only 4 paladins with score 2-2 (iirc 3 of them were odd) and 3 Demon Hunters (all odd) with score 1-2. These hyper aggressive decks can be a problem, either you have an answer in hand, or you are dead.
Oops! All Spells! - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I missed last competition, hopefully I can be on-time and submit my card this week.
This is meant to be a tribute to the ever present boss card, Looming Presence. If you go full-warlock then you get to use cards reserved for the most sinister boss monsters.
I am not sure if the reference is clear enough or good enough, this is just the first idea I had.