If the art in the teaser is the one we'll get, I might actually use it instead of the 1.000 wins portrait. That's how bad the latter is. 

Wow, this theme sounds quite cool, but I've never struggled to find good art that much before. With all the Vulperas already around and the stage time Tortollans have gotten via Turtle Mage, I decided to go with the Furbolgs. I found the Polar version especially handsome and managed to dig up some art in a dark corner which hopefully qualifies. So here goes:

Pretty straight forward. Ursa are elite Furbolgs that are strong enough to battle Dragons, therefore the stats. "Enrage" was a key Warrior mechanic in KotfT and I figured it fits the art - you really shouldn't provoke a Polar Furbolg. 

I'm still trying my best to #makehunterwinawcdc, but it was very hard to come up with something this week. I decided to design what Abominable Bowman should have been in the first place. 

Not very happy with either of them, so feedback is very appreciated.

Here are my thoughts on your cards:

Nirast

RealJC1234TheToonist

Este

KingKuba

Wailor

FieselFitz

Arkasaur

Valor1204

BloodMefist

Inconspicousaurus

DavnanKillder

KANSAS

grumpymonk

Pokeniner

Cg8889

linkblade

Demon

Congrats to Sinth! 

I do actually think that KANSAS is right and art carries you farther than it could be expected.

Is it Ironbark Protector?

Edit: That would be too obvious, my guess is Ironwood Golem.

Quote From Demonxz95

Fellow finalist here.

The problem I had with Fresh Apple is the fact that it uses art that's already used by another collectible card in the game (in the same expansion too, no less): Witchwood Apple.

Considering this and the fact that Carrot Muncher uses the classic watermark and has a spelling error ("health" should be capitalized), I'm even more surprised about some rather promising cards not showing up in the finals. The transparency report will be very interesting this week. Maybe we can draw some conclussions from this.

I'm not very happy with this week's results. None of my favorites made it - where are Friendly Barkeep and Slice and Dice? Neither did we manage to get a Hunter card to the finals once more. Sigh. Anyway, good luck to the finalists!

Man, I actually checked all the "scarlet" cards but dismissed them because I misunderstood Dermostatic's last message. So I did mention Jaffa the city and the hint at scarlet first but failed to make the connection. Yeah, teamwork!

A color that fits fever and letter is scarlet (scarlet fever is a sickness and The Scarlet Letter is a famous book). Sounds fitting since there's the Scarlet Crusade in WoW. 

Now I'm almost completely ignorant of WoW lore but Google also told me that there's a Scarlet Monastery. One of its former leaders was High Inquisitor Whitemane. I know that's a bit far fetched but I don't know what a "scarlet mayor" could be otherwise. Any WoW experts around? 

Thanks a lot! I've added the Ender's Shadow and the First Law series to my wish list for the time being. So much to read, so little time.

I cannot stress enough how great hpmor is - just try the first chapter, it's free and only two clicks away ;-) 

So... an urban Jaffa might be a mayor? That would be Mayor Noggenfogger, but Dermostatic said those two refer to the second word in the card's name. I think we need another hint.

Thanks, that sounds very interesting. Closed has become a hard criterion for me. What are your favorites?

Hey guys and gals, I figured it might be cool to talk about our favorite books, recommend each other hidden gems and keep up to date with promising releases.

For starters, I'd like to let you know that I'm rooting for Science Fiction and Fantasy (big surprise) and everything in between since I've been given the Lord of the Rings as a present on my 10th birthday. Here are some of the titles I'd like to recommend to anyone with a similar taste:

Dan Simmons: The Hyperion Cantos (4 books)
My favorite Sci-Fi books. Don't be fooled by the first book, it's  primarily a set up for the main story which takes place in books 2-4. There's space craft, there's AI, there's an epic love story and if you feel rather sceptic about religion, this is a great book for you.

Eliezer Yudkowsky a.k.a Less Wrong: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Yes, this is a fan fiction. But please hear me out: This is probably the best book I've ever read. The basic question of the book is what Harry Potter would have acted like if he was a (very) intelligent, grown up, modern person. At times it's hillarious, all of it is exciting, and last but not least: it's free. You can read or download the book at www.hpmor.com - I actually went to the lenghts of taking this to a copy shop and having it bound for 80 € because it is so, so great.

David Mack - Dark Arts series (currently 3 books)
This is another series about magicians, but with an interesting twist to the usual pattern: the magicians are yoking demons to perform magic for them. The storys of the first and the second book are taking place during the Second Wolrd War with magic users on both sides. It's way darker than HP in all kind of ways. A good example is the yoking of demons which is mentally exhausting to the point that all major magic users are addicted to alcohol, cocaine or other drugs because they'd lose their mind otherwise.

Terry Goodkind - The Sword of Truth series (main plot ends after book 11)
One of my favorite fantasy series, The Sword of Truth is a great story about ethics and morale, set in a world full of magic and magical creatures. It has its lengths but never lost its relevance for me, since it colorfully describes what happens if narrowminded, intolerant people gain the upper hand with the help of a very powerful leader. This is adult material as well - there's quite some cruelty and while the sex scenes themselves are scarce and not detailed at all, the teasing which leads to them certainly isn't.
[In my personal opinion, you should start with "Wizard's first rule" and most importantly stop after "Confessor". All the other sequels were just an attempt to milk the cow to death.]

I have chosen to showcase those 4 because my other favorites are rather well known and don't need to be promoted very much imho. Among them are the "Foundation" series by Asimov, the "Ender" series by Orson Scott Card, "The Forever War" by Haldeman and "The Parafaith War" by Modesitt Jr.

High places on my next to read list are taken by "To sleep in a sea of stars" by Paolini and "The Name of the Wind" by Rothfuss (if he ever manages to finish book 3 of the series). I am entertaining the thought to try Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series for a third (or fourth?) time. I've never managed to get past book 4 because he's all about character development and I prefer faster plots.

What are your favorites? Is there anything you'd like to advertice in particular? Something you're looking forward to? Please tell!

KANSAS

BloodMefist

bananenparty

bigcums

This is really tough. Lets try to pick it apart.

Letter - could be a that archaic form of e-mails that usually contains bills or other bad news; or: a part of the alphabet

fever - first associations are sick(ness) and hot

Jaffa - I actually had to google this. It's a former city in Israel, being part of Tel-Aviv today. There are also Jaffa-oranges and -cakes.

Urban - first associations are city, town. But there were also no less than 8 popes of that name.

It might not be important, but I noticed that Letter, Jaffa and Urban are written with capital letters while fever isn't. 

Heed these words to pull back the curtain - immediate association is One Night in Karazhan

So far I haven't been able to put the pieces together. Maybe we should all go back to giving reasons for our guesses so we can work it out together?

Yeah, Secret Door also immediately made me think of Second Dinner. They sound suspiciously alike - any chance they're working together? And while we're at it: Has Second Dinner brought anything forth since their founding? How long does it usually take a studio to at least announce what they're working on?

Thanks for your feedback! Linkblade and Demon thought I could get away with a 3 Mana cost. I would like to avoid that since this slot is really crowded in Hunter. 4 Mana also avoids Unleash the Hounds into double Sharing the Spoils which is relevant because of the other change I made: I raised the buff to +2/+2. Since I also changed my mind about this not being able to target heros in favor of flexibility, here's the new version of the card:

I hope this is a little more exciting for y'all. I'm pretty fond of the flavor, even if the art looks rather relaxed in comparism to your usual ferocious Hunter card. What do you think?

Next round of feedback:

bigcums

FieselFitz

Neoguli

KANSAS

DestroyerR

DavnanKillder

GameTheory345

Inconspicuosaurus

Cg8889

Whelp! I really didn't want to give people a headache with the theme. There had been an interesting No Neutrals card in the WCDC the week before which wasn't Paladin and I got curious what would come out if we focused on that effect. Turns out there's a reason why Blizz hasn't given those cards to all the classes. Really great results nevertheless. I rated all the finalists 4 or 5 stars.

Quote From Demonxz95

More feedback

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Pokeniner - Now that's a great joke with the name and the art. The effect is neat, although I am slightly worried that it would end up going the same route as Roll the Bones.

BloodMefist - A brilliant reference to the real life Gordon Ramsay, and a smart usage of an existing WoW NPC. The flavor (and that pun is going to keep happening whether I want it to or not) is pretty on-point too. I'd say this is pretty good.

Neoguli - A completely fair enough card by itself, but it seems extremely out of place in theme. Any possible reference to cooking or eating you could mangle from this will not be obvious enough for a lot of people when it comes to voting.

Anchorm4n - Ah, I remember when Big Game Hunter was meta. Conflicting times, conflicting times. Your card seems fine to me. Actually, something somewhat hilarious is imagining a Deep Sea Predator eating another Deep Sea Predator.

TheHoax91 - A flavorful (hahahahahahahahahahahahaha) representation of Patchwork with a neat effect, although depending on how specific "phases" of combat work, it might be hard to use the effect properly since it has 4 Health.

JackJimson - I think the proper text would be "Give your Beasts Immune this turn, then they attack a random enemy minion. If they kill any, they gain Health equal to the damage dealt". This however would end up being 5 lines of text with no convenient way to short it enough, so you're best off with a different card instead.

FieselFitz - I enjoy the second version much more than the first. I think it's a solid interpretation of the effect. I'm not sure how good it would be in comparison to Underbelly Angler, but that card was a mistake to being with.

Inconspicuosaurus - I feel like the card is probably too weak. I'd say you could probably make it 4 mana. Based on Nethrandamus, I feel like you could probably use "Upgrades each time a friendly minion dies" for the upgrade part. That said, the card itself is pretty hilarious in terms of the connection between the name, art, and effect, which I really like.

DavnanKillder - Deadly Banquet seems fine for a Rogue Secret, although the flavor feels off. In this situation, normally only person is the target for murder (the owner of the establishment where the gathering in question is taking place). Innocent Apple Seller is a fine reference to Snow White, although judging by how Corruption is not played, I feel like this wouldn't either.

Thanks! How do you like the Hunter spell though (a few posts downward on page 2)? I think it fits the theme much better.

BasilAnguis

FieselFitz