Honestly I wasn't very surprised about the low number of submissions. Thematically, it wasn't too narrow and the list grumpymonk provided on page 1 was invaluable. Major "but": Finding good art was very difficult and that's what I suppose stopped quite a few people from participating.
If anyone feels like it, I would be grateful for some quick feedback on Toki, Mistress of Time, which was my submission for this week. I aimed at twisting her flavor from Toki, Time-Tinker giving you Legendarys from the past to my version giving you cards from the future by discovering a copy from your opponent's deck. Was it too annoying? Too risky?
I can tell you that Deathrattle Hunter has become viable in Standard and Wild. While it's certainly not top tier, the combination of Secrets and Deathrattles has finally come to fruition. Cards like Maxima Blastenheimer, Oblivitron and Flark's Boom-Zooka have found a home and the archetype is super fun AND competetive.
I've been playing mainly Wild these days, where Sylvanas Windrunner is mvp against Big Priests and Warlocks. I can provide a list tonight if you're interested. It's quite close to the one of clawz161, but also features Sneed's Old Shredder (fun card, might try out Oblivitron with Tonks instead of it), Barnes and Master's Call to avoid Barnes and Maxima hitting each other. I've also cut Deathstalker Rexxar in favor of Flark's Boom-Zooka which is crazy good in this deck.
I'm sorry but I have too much work this week to participate in the discussion. I did submit the first halfway good idea I had and will cast my votes, though. Good luck to everyone!
A little defense of my card: I thought giving Mage a wand as a Weapon in an expansion themed around a magic school would be flavourful. I mean, what kind of card type would you make a wand if not a weapon? The wand increasing your magical abilities seemed natural, too, thus the Spell Damage. Triggering the effect was meant to be easy as well, since a mage should not have problems using their wand to their advantage. I concede that the 3/2/1 statline is a bit random but the point I was trying to make is that a "stick" isn't that great of a weapon. Finally, I accept that this would be very powerful in a meta without weapon removal, but my argument against that point is that Scholomance brought along strong Weapons synergies for at least Demon Hunter, Warrior and Rogue.
While we're at it complaining about all the stuff Blizzard has messed up over the years, I'd like to add my own little piece to the pile: Hero Power borders.
It really is beyond me how they can offer new Hero skins on a regular basis without giving us a platinum / diamond / whatever Hero Power border for 1.000 wins.
Lots of players have invested incredible amounts of time to reach that mark and thus by all means earned their bragging rights. So why is it so hard to do the same effing thing as they do at 500 wins and give us a new Hero Power border on top of the in some cases horrible portrait? I am very proud of my 1.000 Hunter wins, but I'd very much prefer to play with Sylvanas than dumb face Rexxar.
So yeah, this is a minor issue for most players, but I'd really like to have a 1.000 wins Hero Power border.
Well, that was a tough one. I eventually got frustrated enough to sit down and write a short analysis of what could be done with a 1 Durability Weapon. That finally wielded 2 interesting ideas. I've put the more straight forward one to use but had to do with mediocre art. Maybe I'll try to go with the rational method for the next weeks instead of following my first gut feeling as I usually do.
If someone's interested: I've submitted Cedar Wand. It was tempting to go full Harry Potter crossover and make it a legendary Druid "Lifestick" that restores all friendly characters to full Health via Spellburst, but cards like this are hard to balance and rarely do well.
The second interesting idea was to make a 0/1 Weapon with a strong Deathrattle for a class that has no easy access to weapons. This would have required more time to thoroughly think through which I don't have right now. That's a shame because using Deathrattles would have been a nice idea this week.
Thank you for all your feedback! It seems Balanced Blade needs some more explanation (which isn't a good sign in the first place).
1) I'm aware of the fact that the art is bad and it remains to be seen if I have the time to look for something better.
2) I know this is close to Gorehowl, that's why I've put it in Rogue instead of Warrior.
3) But then, a) you can go face with Balanced Blade without destroying it and b) Rogue has Doctor Krastinov, Vulpera Toxinblade and Deadly Poison in Standard with many more options to buff the Attack in Wild. Admittedly it needs some setup, but I think this is way more dangerous than Gorehowl.
4) I'll probably drop it to 4/4/1 or maybe even 3/3/1 so the card isn't so dangerous anymore and you don't lose too much tempo playing it at the same time.
That said, I really like the art of Staff of Souls. The issue with this card is that there's no good reason to put it at 1 Durability when Skull of the Man'ari has 3 - a problem several of us seem to be struggling with. I'll see if inspiration strikes and maybe rework the effect. As I've told one of you in my feedback, I'm of the opinion that good art carries you farther than a good idea.
Staff of Souls:
Show Spoiler
Oh hell, here's a third idea. I'm pretty sure this will not be received well because of the current state of Demon Hunter, but I need to get it out of my head. Feel free to prove me wrong :)
More feedback:
Show Spoiler
DestroyerR: I'm still having trouble with Xal'atath's mechanic. The one out I see here is something like "Xal'atath chooses the perfect target." - that way, people would associate the affect with Zeph and understand how it works. I still think it's a cool idea flavorwise. I'd also understand if you would drop the card because it is too risky and Pocket Knife is a nice one, too.
KANSAS: Nice art, nice idea. I'd probably rate it 4 stars right now.
DavnanKillder: Midnight's Scythe is very cool and ready to go imho. 4 stars for the time being, but a strong contender for a 5 stars rating.
grumpymonk: I prefer Detachable Blade. Nice idea!
Wailor: I'm still fine with Mirror Maze being in Priest. Soul Eater looks interesting, too, but I'm not sure if the Weapon would actually break if there are no more Soul Fragments left in your deck. Unstable Felbolt still works if you don't have a friendly minion on board, after all. An unbreakable Soul Eater without a drawback would be OP.
Nirast: Thunderfury looks cool. There's a little error in Vol'jin's Mojo: it isn't a minion (line 2).
linkblade: Looks great and ready to go. Instant 5 stars!
fungusABao: A neutral weapon will probably cost you some points since they aren't a thing in HS right now. That said, The Card of Legend looks cool, but I don't get how The Orb of Eternity is supposed to work. Either it's super easy to break or not at all without weapon removal. I don't like both of these options, but maybe I don't understand the mechanic correctly.
FieselFitz: Yeah, we do usually use fresh art, taking up something that has already been printed will cost you lots of points. Try artstation.com and use very abstract search patterns. I recently noticed that you get lots of cool stuff if you look for "elemental", "dagger" or something similar. I still like the effect, although a Zuljin in Mage might end up OP.
DestroyerR: Even with your explanation I don't understand how the HS A. I. would choose a target. Maybe the "perfect" one, like with Zeph? The flavor is certainly there with Xal'atath being sentient but maybe you need to adjust the wording so the effect becomes more clear.
DavnanKillder: Midnight's Scythe is my favorite even if Warlock isn't a weapons class. You should add a comma after "card".
Nirast: Nice idea, but… Demon Hunter has access to so much attack buff right now that giving them another 4 hits with a guarantee to strike face even through taunts will probably cost you votes. Personally I even refrained from making a DH card for this competition at all (the idea was to make it a 1/1 that gains +1/+1 for each Soil Fragment in your deck). DH needs a nerf and people won't like more support for them until some kind of fix has been implemented. Worgen's Claw is nice but would be better at 3 Mana imho.
Demon: It's a cool idea but I'm having trouble identifying a Worgen in the art. Everything else is fine.
BloodMefist: I prefer Infusion Hammer. Cool idea and very nice art!
Hordaki: Really nice, I like it!
Pokeniner: The general idea is not bad, but paying 2 mana for 2 attack isn't good enough imho.
Wailor: The idea is great, but the execution is tough. Here's why: I prefer the Scholomance art, but I understand your reasoning about the flavor which puts it in Darkmoon. On top of that, it has enough burgle flavor to feel awkward in anything but Priest and Rogue. I'd probably go with a Scholomance Priest card because art carries you farther than puns imho.
linkblade: For your intended use, it would be essential to use the second version. It's a very cool idea, the only thing I can contribute is to suggest to make it a Warlock/Priest dual class card. That would fit both class identies and compliment the colouring.
First idea, not happy with the art yet but I wanted to hear your thoughts about the balance and the effect. I've decided to put it in Rogue because they got some weapon support in Scholomance.
Will add feedback in roughly 12 hours.
Edit: Second idea. A bit wordy, but intriguing. Which one do you prefer and why?
Reach level 25, gets fkn Deck of Chaos as random legendary. Anyone have a decklist for me?
EDIT: Checked out hsreplay for inspiration. This magnificent beast of card is played in 0,4% of decks and has a deck winrate of 37,8%. Zero decks to check out. I feel even worse now. But at least my copies of Fel Lord Betrug and Archwitch Willow have some company now.
This may be a little late, but yeah, I do have a list for you. It's my favorite semi-competitive meme deck at the moment. Mulligan for your Soul Fragment cards and Dark Skies. Sometimes there will be too much pressure from your opponent to play Deck of Chaos even if you get your hands on it, but it's really cool when it works.
Deck of Chaos
A Unknown Warlock Deck created by
anchorm4n. Last updated 5 years, 1 month ago
I've really wanted to make this work but 1/16 at bronze 8 speaks for itself. You have to mulligan and draw like a god to have a chance and even then aggro eats you for breakfast. The only deck this might work against is Raza Priest if they don't find silence with their discover spells or transform in a Kazakus potion. The one win felt great, but I strongly advice not to take this to ladder.
I'm with griffior in this. The outrage probably has a few solid reasons, but the amount of hate that is prevalent in several places just feels completely out of proportion. So I've decided to sit this one out. I don't play very much these days, but when I do, I'm having fun with stuff like Deck of Chaos Warlock, Elemental Mage or Deathrattle Hunter. If you know what you're doing, they're even somewhat competitive. Regarding the reward track, I'll decide once the next expansion comes. If doing all my daily and weekly quests doesn't amount to at least 6k gold, I'll devolve from a whale to F2P again and probably switch to wild for good. Meanwhile I embrace all voices that maintain a positive and respectful attitude during this time of transition.
Since nobody seemed to like my card very much (including me), I'll save up the art for another time. I've heard you guys like Freeze Shaman, though. So what about this:
I've wanted to design a card with this Battlecry for quite some time and this seemed like a good opportunity. The idea is obviously to freeze the enemy board and hit them in the face or make a favorable trade next turn. 2 Health protects them from Jaina's Hero Power and 6 Attack at 3+1 mana makes it a Fireball with a body (if it survives). The Elemental tag seemed fine because of Violet Spellwing. I'm still not completely sure about the cost and the overload, so feedback would be very welcome.
Moar feedback from me (edited for Demon):
Show Spoiler
KANSAS: I actually like the idea of giving it windfury. It's very flavorful and I don't mind that it doesn't work without a combo card. Good idea!
ChickyChick: Nice meme card! It's pretty cool but you should use another watermark.
fungusABao: It's hard to decide between the two of them, but I prefer Just a Bark. That said, 4 mana 8/8 might be too much and both cards should have the same name. If you should go with A'tur: There's a typo in "opponent's" and the last word shouldn't stand alone in its line.
linkblade: Rush doesn't feel right on Imposing Bark but I still like it more than Julia Celeste. (This has nothing to do with her being a Paladin card and I'll cut the jokes, I'm sorry if I've upset you.)
Demon: Really cool idea, I like it! … but I like Remil even more. The art is super badass and while I usually have a strong aversion against nonexistent class combinations, this one fits like a glove. The nerf of the Attack was important and well done so all in all this will pretty surely receive 5 stars from me.
grumpymonk: I prefer the Priest card, which is a pretty neat idea. You should change the name, though. "Lightforged" has been Paladin exclusive so far.
Alfi: The idea is good enough, but there are a few quite similar cards in this thread already. If you should stick to it, Divine Shield has to be bold and you should change the watermark.
Honestly I wasn't very surprised about the low number of submissions. Thematically, it wasn't too narrow and the list grumpymonk provided on page 1 was invaluable. Major "but": Finding good art was very difficult and that's what I suppose stopped quite a few people from participating.
If anyone feels like it, I would be grateful for some quick feedback on Toki, Mistress of Time, which was my submission for this week. I aimed at twisting her flavor from Toki, Time-Tinker giving you Legendarys from the past to my version giving you cards from the future by discovering a copy from your opponent's deck. Was it too annoying? Too risky?
Greetings, traveller!
I can tell you that Deathrattle Hunter has become viable in Standard and Wild. While it's certainly not top tier, the combination of Secrets and Deathrattles has finally come to fruition. Cards like Maxima Blastenheimer, Oblivitron and Flark's Boom-Zooka have found a home and the archetype is super fun AND competetive.
I've been playing mainly Wild these days, where Sylvanas Windrunner is mvp against Big Priests and Warlocks. I can provide a list tonight if you're interested. It's quite close to the one of clawz161, but also features Sneed's Old Shredder (fun card, might try out Oblivitron with Tonks instead of it), Barnes and Master's Call to avoid Barnes and Maxima hitting each other. I've also cut Deathstalker Rexxar in favor of Flark's Boom-Zooka which is crazy good in this deck.
gl&hf!
I'm sorry but I have too much work this week to participate in the discussion. I did submit the first halfway good idea I had and will cast my votes, though. Good luck to everyone!
Made my day! :DD
Congrats! Nice card :)
Thanks for the feedback! I'll try to do better next week :)
Fair points all of them.
A little defense of my card: I thought giving Mage a wand as a Weapon in an expansion themed around a magic school would be flavourful. I mean, what kind of card type would you make a wand if not a weapon? The wand increasing your magical abilities seemed natural, too, thus the Spell Damage. Triggering the effect was meant to be easy as well, since a mage should not have problems using their wand to their advantage. I concede that the 3/2/1 statline is a bit random but the point I was trying to make is that a "stick" isn't that great of a weapon. Finally, I accept that this would be very powerful in a meta without weapon removal, but my argument against that point is that Scholomance brought along strong Weapons synergies for at least Demon Hunter, Warrior and Rogue.
While we're at it complaining about all the stuff Blizzard has messed up over the years, I'd like to add my own little piece to the pile: Hero Power borders.
It really is beyond me how they can offer new Hero skins on a regular basis without giving us a platinum / diamond / whatever Hero Power border for 1.000 wins.
Lots of players have invested incredible amounts of time to reach that mark and thus by all means earned their bragging rights. So why is it so hard to do the same effing thing as they do at 500 wins and give us a new Hero Power border on top of the in some cases horrible portrait? I am very proud of my 1.000 Hunter wins, but I'd very much prefer to play with Sylvanas than dumb face Rexxar.
So yeah, this is a minor issue for most players, but I'd really like to have a 1.000 wins Hero Power border.
Well, that was a tough one. I eventually got frustrated enough to sit down and write a short analysis of what could be done with a 1 Durability Weapon. That finally wielded 2 interesting ideas. I've put the more straight forward one to use but had to do with mediocre art. Maybe I'll try to go with the rational method for the next weeks instead of following my first gut feeling as I usually do.
If someone's interested: I've submitted Cedar Wand. It was tempting to go full Harry Potter crossover and make it a legendary Druid "Lifestick" that restores all friendly characters to full Health via Spellburst, but cards like this are hard to balance and rarely do well.
The second interesting idea was to make a 0/1 Weapon with a strong Deathrattle for a class that has no easy access to weapons. This would have required more time to thoroughly think through which I don't have right now. That's a shame because using Deathrattles would have been a nice idea this week.
No blame on you, I knew what I did when I tried it out on ladder. It's sad we don't have the ranked floors for experimentation anymore :(
Thank you for all your feedback! It seems Balanced Blade needs some more explanation (which isn't a good sign in the first place).
1) I'm aware of the fact that the art is bad and it remains to be seen if I have the time to look for something better.
2) I know this is close to Gorehowl, that's why I've put it in Rogue instead of Warrior.
3) But then, a) you can go face with Balanced Blade without destroying it and b) Rogue has Doctor Krastinov, Vulpera Toxinblade and Deadly Poison in Standard with many more options to buff the Attack in Wild. Admittedly it needs some setup, but I think this is way more dangerous than Gorehowl.
4) I'll probably drop it to 4/4/1 or maybe even 3/3/1 so the card isn't so dangerous anymore and you don't lose too much tempo playing it at the same time.
That said, I really like the art of Staff of Souls. The issue with this card is that there's no good reason to put it at 1 Durability when Skull of the Man'ari has 3 - a problem several of us seem to be struggling with. I'll see if inspiration strikes and maybe rework the effect. As I've told one of you in my feedback, I'm of the opinion that good art carries you farther than a good idea.
Staff of Souls:
Oh hell, here's a third idea. I'm pretty sure this will not be received well because of the current state of Demon Hunter, but I need to get it out of my head. Feel free to prove me wrong :)
More feedback:
DestroyerR: I'm still having trouble with Xal'atath's mechanic. The one out I see here is something like "Xal'atath chooses the perfect target." - that way, people would associate the affect with Zeph and understand how it works. I still think it's a cool idea flavorwise. I'd also understand if you would drop the card because it is too risky and Pocket Knife is a nice one, too.
KANSAS: Nice art, nice idea. I'd probably rate it 4 stars right now.
DavnanKillder: Midnight's Scythe is very cool and ready to go imho. 4 stars for the time being, but a strong contender for a 5 stars rating.
grumpymonk: I prefer Detachable Blade. Nice idea!
Wailor: I'm still fine with Mirror Maze being in Priest. Soul Eater looks interesting, too, but I'm not sure if the Weapon would actually break if there are no more Soul Fragments left in your deck. Unstable Felbolt still works if you don't have a friendly minion on board, after all. An unbreakable Soul Eater without a drawback would be OP.
Nirast: Thunderfury looks cool. There's a little error in Vol'jin's Mojo: it isn't a minion (line 2).
linkblade: Looks great and ready to go. Instant 5 stars!
Feedback
fungusABao: A neutral weapon will probably cost you some points since they aren't a thing in HS right now. That said, The Card of Legend looks cool, but I don't get how The Orb of Eternity is supposed to work. Either it's super easy to break or not at all without weapon removal. I don't like both of these options, but maybe I don't understand the mechanic correctly.
FieselFitz: Yeah, we do usually use fresh art, taking up something that has already been printed will cost you lots of points. Try artstation.com and use very abstract search patterns. I recently noticed that you get lots of cool stuff if you look for "elemental", "dagger" or something similar. I still like the effect, although a Zuljin in Mage might end up OP.
DestroyerR: Even with your explanation I don't understand how the HS A. I. would choose a target. Maybe the "perfect" one, like with Zeph? The flavor is certainly there with Xal'atath being sentient but maybe you need to adjust the wording so the effect becomes more clear.
DavnanKillder: Midnight's Scythe is my favorite even if Warlock isn't a weapons class. You should add a comma after "card".
Nirast: Nice idea, but… Demon Hunter has access to so much attack buff right now that giving them another 4 hits with a guarantee to strike face even through taunts will probably cost you votes. Personally I even refrained from making a DH card for this competition at all (the idea was to make it a 1/1 that gains +1/+1 for each Soil Fragment in your deck). DH needs a nerf and people won't like more support for them until some kind of fix has been implemented. Worgen's Claw is nice but would be better at 3 Mana imho.
Demon: It's a cool idea but I'm having trouble identifying a Worgen in the art. Everything else is fine.
BloodMefist: I prefer Infusion Hammer. Cool idea and very nice art!
Hordaki: Really nice, I like it!
Pokeniner: The general idea is not bad, but paying 2 mana for 2 attack isn't good enough imho.
Wailor: The idea is great, but the execution is tough. Here's why: I prefer the Scholomance art, but I understand your reasoning about the flavor which puts it in Darkmoon. On top of that, it has enough burgle flavor to feel awkward in anything but Priest and Rogue. I'd probably go with a Scholomance Priest card because art carries you farther than puns imho.
linkblade: For your intended use, it would be essential to use the second version. It's a very cool idea, the only thing I can contribute is to suggest to make it a Warlock/Priest dual class card. That would fit both class identies and compliment the colouring.
First idea, not happy with the art yet but I wanted to hear your thoughts about the balance and the effect. I've decided to put it in Rogue because they got some weapon support in Scholomance.
Will add feedback in roughly 12 hours.
Edit: Second idea. A bit wordy, but intriguing. Which one do you prefer and why?
Edit 2: Simpler version, might be OP though.
Congrats, Sothis!
This may be a little late, but yeah, I do have a list for you. It's my favorite semi-competitive meme deck at the moment. Mulligan for your Soul Fragment cards and Dark Skies. Sometimes there will be too much pressure from your opponent to play Deck of Chaos even if you get your hands on it, but it's really cool when it works.
Good luck everyone!
Lol it's the other way round for me, I gave more 4 and 5 star ratings than I usually do :D
I've really wanted to make this work but 1/16 at bronze 8 speaks for itself. You have to mulligan and draw like a god to have a chance and even then aggro eats you for breakfast. The only deck this might work against is Raza Priest if they don't find silence with their discover spells or transform in a Kazakus potion. The one win felt great, but I strongly advice not to take this to ladder.
I'm with griffior in this. The outrage probably has a few solid reasons, but the amount of hate that is prevalent in several places just feels completely out of proportion. So I've decided to sit this one out. I don't play very much these days, but when I do, I'm having fun with stuff like Deck of Chaos Warlock, Elemental Mage or Deathrattle Hunter. If you know what you're doing, they're even somewhat competitive. Regarding the reward track, I'll decide once the next expansion comes. If doing all my daily and weekly quests doesn't amount to at least 6k gold, I'll devolve from a whale to F2P again and probably switch to wild for good. Meanwhile I embrace all voices that maintain a positive and respectful attitude during this time of transition.
Since nobody seemed to like my card very much (including me), I'll save up the art for another time. I've heard you guys like Freeze Shaman, though. So what about this:
I've wanted to design a card with this Battlecry for quite some time and this seemed like a good opportunity. The idea is obviously to freeze the enemy board and hit them in the face or make a favorable trade next turn. 2 Health protects them from Jaina's Hero Power and 6 Attack at 3+1 mana makes it a Fireball with a body (if it survives). The Elemental tag seemed fine because of Violet Spellwing. I'm still not completely sure about the cost and the overload, so feedback would be very welcome.
Moar feedback from me (edited for Demon):
KANSAS: I actually like the idea of giving it windfury. It's very flavorful and I don't mind that it doesn't work without a combo card. Good idea!
ChickyChick: Nice meme card! It's pretty cool but you should use another watermark.
fungusABao: It's hard to decide between the two of them, but I prefer Just a Bark. That said, 4 mana 8/8 might be too much and both cards should have the same name. If you should go with A'tur: There's a typo in "opponent's" and the last word shouldn't stand alone in its line.
linkblade: Rush doesn't feel right on Imposing Bark but I still like it more than Julia Celeste. (This has nothing to do with her being a Paladin card and I'll cut the jokes, I'm sorry if I've upset you.)
Demon: Really cool idea, I like it! … but I like Remil even more. The art is super badass and while I usually have a strong aversion against nonexistent class combinations, this one fits like a glove. The nerf of the Attack was important and well done so all in all this will pretty surely receive 5 stars from me.
grumpymonk: I prefer the Priest card, which is a pretty neat idea. You should change the name, though. "Lightforged" has been Paladin exclusive so far.
Alfi: The idea is good enough, but there are a few quite similar cards in this thread already. If you should stick to it, Divine Shield has to be bold and you should change the watermark.