Top Secret Card Design Competition

A clever tool for rogues to delay threats or to disrupt their opponent's gameplan.

Rogues always appreciate cheap cards, and the current Standard Secrets don't really help with that. Swindle helps to fill that void. If Secret Burgle Rogue ever becomes a thing, this card will be a huge boon to that archetype, too.

"You give 'em the shot. Or ya get shot."

Counterspell and Freezing Trap had a baby. It's a Counterspell where your opponent doesn't lose the spell, and has a delayed chance to use it again. AKA Freezing Trap for spells.

A perfect tool for the mystical Control Hunter. 

"The most popular cooling off method right after counting to ten."

The secret should encourage trading over just going face, so it's a bit like Flame Ward for higher Health minions. Tried to balance it around Curse of Weakness, not sure if it's still any good since that card saw very little play.

IMO, Hunter's single biggest weakness is card draw. While this doesn't fix that, it does synergize with weapon usage by offering a tutored draw that can be activated by you as well as your opponent. If it couldn't be activated on your turn, I think I'd make the effect a bit more powerful, but as is, this Secret offers less counterplay for your opponent. They can either A) Destroy your weapon and expect you to equip another one on your next turn, or B) Eliminate the possibility of other Secrets, then prepare for you getting another weapon on your turn as soon as your equipped weapon's Durability hits 0.

Trick your opponents into playing around Secrets you don’t have, then get a new Hunter, Mage, or Paladin Secret next turn. Because it does nothing for a turn, I felt the Discover wasn’t too powerful. Works well with Rogue’s themes of misdirection and stealing from other classes.

Legendary Secrets FTW! “Different cards” meaning they can’t play ANY cards they played during the first run of that turn. It wouldn’t trigger if they didn’t play any cards during their turn. 

It's hard to focus on spell-casting when you're being kicked in the balls.

I thought this would be interesting because unlike Counterspell it punishes low-cost spells as you can make use of multiple copies, however if your opponent plays a large spell you may only be able to cast one.

Secret to tie into burgle rogue. Provides enough reload and variety in gameplay.

Your opponent tries to trigger your Secret, he is forced to play cards in a weird way, so he can avoid as much damage as possible. SIKE ! Now he has to do it all over again with 2 Secrets ! 

If it isn't clear, this secret swaps friendly minions (switching spots on the board) and changes the target of the minion being attacked to that of the minion it switches places with. The minion that actually takes the hit is the one that becomes immune for the turn.

Don't forget this Secret before you use up your mana!

Flavor text: "We're talking about practice. Not a game, practice" 

Secret: Transform the second minion your opponent plays in a turn into a 1/1 Penguin.

Secret: When your opponent plays a minion, summon a Panther with the same stats.

Standard Conceal. Back on your turn they lose Stealth.

Useful to recycle buffs from minions that die, saving them for other minions. Also has ability to give more copies of Libram of Wisdom or more spells for Lady Liadrin.

"Rexxar used Sleep Spores." "The enemy The Darkness fell asleep!"

A far weaker take on the loved/loathed Ice Block mechanic. While this does prevent lethal, and even throws some healing in the deal, it lacks the immune effect that meant that Ice Block could survive even the most ridiculous boards. While this would protect against (some) 0TKs and large burst damage, sustained damage will break it and still be able to beat down the Paladin. Just be sure to break it with your 1/1, and not your 8/8!

"What is the most evil plan in the world? A bomb with red wires only!"

-Dr. Boom

This is a secret anti-tech Secret tech card for a Secret Hunter (woah there). The opponent can play around this effect simply by not triggering it, turning it into a dead card. However, that way it can still function as a secret that benefits cards like [Hearthstone Card (Hyaena Alpha) Not Found]. Note that in Wild mode, Kezan Mystic can steal this Secret without triggering it.

"George and Karl always wait for the perfect opportunity to show up!"

I put this secret in The Witchwood because I believe it matches the "Hero Power" theme and emphasis of the expansion. Giving Paladin another way to summon Silver Hand Recruits in bulk fits really well into the Odd Paladin archetype/theme created during this expansion.

"Well your opponent went fishing, and all we found were Piranhas..." - Rexxar The Confused.

I made this card on Hearthcards a long time ago and it got in with a surprisingly high approval rate, I'm really proud of it. For those who can't immediately realize the flavor, this secret only would trigger if your opponent went "fishing" for cards.

'Activate' means that your weapon deals damage when your hero is attacked and doesn't loose durability. 

This is a card that I made for a western-themed expansion that I worked on with some other people, which ended up being one of my favorite cards of the set.

"I can do what you can do."

Very situational Secret, as you have to play against a class with Secrets (or a class that doesn't have Secrets but is capable of stealing/copying). The card art depicts magic being sucked out (or "stolen") from a scroll which reminded me of Reno stealing scrolls in Raid the Sky Temple's card art, which is why the watermark is Saviors of Uldum. If this Secret is active and your opponent casts the same Secret, it won't trigger simply because your copying the same Secret and you can't have two of one Secret at the same time.

"Why am I hitting myself? Why am I hitting myself?" In the vein of Molten Reflection, a Secret that creates a lava copy of a minion - but in this case a copy of the minion attacking you.

If no Secrets were triggered, this would not activate (like how Competitive Spirit doesn't trigger at the start of your turn if you have no minions)  

Counter Strike helps a minion "punch up" against a stronger enemy, or to seriously punish the opposing hero for clearing a minion with their face. Could be really good in combination with Autodefense Matrix, especially on a Taunt minion.

A great value tool for Hunters, introduces a new way of interacting with secrets, but also has its downsides as the secret you gain later would cost 1 extra mana, plus you can only make use out of this only 40% of the classes,

While Flame Ward might help you survive the early game against aggressive swarm decks, his twin (spell) brother aims at the mid to late stage of your efforts. Stalling most of your opponent's minions for another turn may often be all that it takes to find that last piece of burn or removal. At half the cost and effect of a Blizzard, this card also fits in seamlessly into Wild Secret Mage, where it helps compete against one of the decks biggest weaknesses, wide and tall boards.

"She protec. She atac. But most importantly, she bite of your fac."

A giant Mamasaur that'll do anything to protect her baby. I realised that Hunter didn't receive a Secret in the Un'goro expansion, so here's to filling that void. Functionally similar to Wandering Monster, except with a bigger body and a minion trigger. Played early, this card could provide some serious stats in the early game and allow Hunter to safely smorc away. Also: she's a Beast.

In a murloc deck it can be pretty good or bad, depending on your pulls effect, Health and Attack Totals.

I think the risk/reward factor is balanced as far as long as they dont print any crazy giant murloc on paladin or neutral.

I've always been a big fan of Paladin secrets, and I could see this being played as a tech against some annoying cards.

'I can't shake the feeling I could have worked the word attack in there at least once more.'

The secret to defeating an enemy is to know where and when they will strike. It also helps if you have a spy short enough to fit anywhere.

What's one of the most powerful kinds of card in Hearthstone? Battlecry! Wouldn't it be great if you could prevent that annoying battlecry from seizing victory from you at the last second? It sure would! How do you do this? Very simple. Just have a really small spy listen in on your enemy's plans so you know what they are going to do when they leap out at you. Armed with this info, you can counter it perfectly. 

This is my first card design entry ever, and to be honest, I’ve never really even looked at many before, so this could have been something that has already been done.  I just tried to think of something that seemed very Rogue-like to do, and tripping people (maybe by tying their shoelaces together) seemed like one of the top things on that list.

I think that this could be a really fun card to mess with people’s minds, because when trying to figure out what secret your opponent has played, we tend to do the safest things first.  If we think it is an Explosive Trap, for instance, we use our minions to kill the opponent’s minions first.  Well, Rogue has Bamboozle, and it seems like trying to test for that would get dicey if a card like this existed also.  There’s a pretty big difference between which minion you send in if you think their minion is going to change to one costing 3 more or if you think your minion could be returned to your hand.

It seemed best to me to have this only target minions that attack minions because it is just way too safe to attack face to check for a secret.

All other players are using traps too... let's se what hunter is hunted now...

I love the idea of Secrets for Rogue, and sadly they didn't continue it through the Year of Raven and Dragon. This Rogue Secret follow the restriction of Rat Trap and Hidden Wisdom in The Witchwood expansion, which I found pretty interesting and unique comparing to other Secret types. Would love to see more of them in Year of Phoenix. 

I thought it was a little weird that both Paladin and Hunter got a "when your opponent plays 3 cards in a turn" secret, but Mage didn't. So I present to you, Retaliating Flame. 

This Secret can be a bit risky because it also damages your own minions, but when used at the right time it is a powerful board clear. Unlike Rat Trap or Hidden Wisdom, you don't always want to just drop this whenever you can, but you want to play this when you know you can get value from it. 

"Step One in a Kobold plan is always the same - steal someone else's plan"

Rogue Secrets are tricky. They've only appeared in two expansions, both positioned in such a way that we currently couldn't add more Secrets to other expansions without leaving that lone Secret as Rogue's only Secret for some amount of time, which kind of ruins the point.

I took that as a challenge. Molten Planning depicts King Togwaggle's Chief Strategy Adviser for the assault on Dalaran coming up with their plan.

At this time (Rise of Shadows), Rogue would have no Secrets in Standard, so it needed to be something that could stand on its own. Thus, we have an ever-shifting Secret, representing the Kobolds' complete inability to plan effectively, and their desire to steal from others. I think it plays quite well into the Rogue fantasy of trickery, along with their class theme of stealing from other classes. Plus, when Ashes of Outland introduces more Secrets, weaving in one of these could certainly throw people off.