I agree, Demon Hunter feels viable but not oppressively so in Wild. I mainly play the Odd list these days but switch to an Aggro Keleseth list now and then. It's not incredibly strong, but games are fast and the class feels still fresh so I see how many wins I can net before the next round of nerfs hits.
Would it be posible to add a feature that gives us the option of bookmarking decks? I'm already struggling with the 18 deck slots in game, but with all the cool ideas I stumble upon on here, I usually end up copying the deck code and sending myself an email or storing it in a notes app. I would love a button on a deck page which adds it to a bookmarks site linked with my account. So...
1) Are there other people who'd like to bookmark decks?
2) Could it be implemented technically?
Thanks for reading and the great work on this page!
Thanks for sharing the deck and the cool guide :-)
One question: How would you feel about swapping the Voidlords with Enhanced Dreadlords? The Lifesteal of the latter's tokens certainly comes in useful, the N'Zoth synergy is still there and you could avoid clogging your board with Voidwalkers when Bloodreaver Gul'dan's or Kanrethad Prime's battlecries hit...
Good luck to everyone who submitted, and an extra shot of lock to whoever submitted Impflicting Pain. That's a far more interesting, less swing-y card than my Impvasion!
That was me, thank you very much :-)
Good luck to the finalists, I'm glad almost all my favorites made it. Really a lot of great ideas this week!
Thanks for the explanation, Xarkkal. I'm certainly not new to the game but these details still sometimes elude me. I was thinking about the Card Design Competition about the Taunt Warrior deck where somebody had an idea for a card that gave all minions in their hand taunt, but that wouldn't count towards Fire Plume's Heart. Looks like that's a different thing than discounting spells for Open the Waygate.
Anyway... I like KANSAS idea best so far. Apprentice is a centerpiece card for mage and a key and iconic part of its identity imho. I would hate to see that one nerfed. Flamewaker surely is a big part of the problem but not really to blame either. I could live with him only hitting enemy minions which could help keep the potential face damage in check, though. Not sure about the giants yet... So the quest itself is the obvious target and reworking the condition feels more fair than tuning down the reward in this case. I really like KANSAS solution for those reasons.
I've been playing quest mage today to learn the deck and see for myself just how broken it is. I've never been a fan of it myself, and have rarely played the archetype. But the current form of it is just ridiculously easy to pull off. The biggest problem is the mana cheat. You end up casting so many spells for 0 mana, which can alone end up completing your quest. I was thinking about it today on what could be done to slow down the quest completion, but also not just completely kill the OTK potential. It is healthy to have OTK decks in the meta, but the random spell generation and low cost spells have been pushed in Mage to the max for too long, and has made this Quest just way too easy to complete. I think the best option would be to make it so spells that cost 0 do not count towards quest progression. That way, only spells you spend mana on would count towards your quest. This would also eliminate The Coin being such a huge benefit.
(I have debated making it for spells that cost 2 or more just because of the amount of 1-cost spells that mage has, but I think starting with just removing the 0-cost spells should be enough to slow it down to an acceptable power level.)
This also leaves Sorcerer's Apprentice untouched. As much as I hate this card, it is actually perfectly fine. If this card was touched, it would break way too many Mage decks. Any nerfs need to be directed towards the Quest itself, and the Giants. My proposed nerf makes Sorcerer's Apprentice less powerful in the deck, since it would make all your 1-cost spells not count towards your quest.
I also agree with Lyra that the cost of Mana Giant needs to be increased. I agree that it should start at 12-mana just like Arcane Giant.
These two nerfs should slow down the speed of the OTK, while not completely destroying the archetype. This will allow for a less polarized meta that Quest Mage could still be a part of, without being a Tier-S deck.
I'm not sure that's enough, actually. I played the deck a lot in March to grind my Mage to 1.000 wins and my impression is that most spells initially cost more than 0. Like OP said, it's the cheap spells for 1 or 2 mana that get cheaper with apprentice or glyph that make up most of the cycling. Or do I get the mechanic wrong and they wouldn't count towards the quest in your iteration if they get discounted? I always assumed such cards check for the initial state of the card, not an altered form it gained by buffs or the like.
Thanks everybody who tried to help me out this week. I've just submitted my card and will try to think things through before posting here next week ;-) The thing is that I'm still new to this and every idea that comes to my mind feels terribly exciting so that I want to share it with you :D
One more round of feedback:
@Feuerrabe:
Show Spoiler
Very interesting idea. I'm not sure about the powerlevel, this could be devastating and extremely frustrating to play against. The discard mechanic is meant to be a punishment for getting to play stronger than usual cards; by inflicting thi punishment upon your opponent you gain a huge advantage.
@Xarkkal:
Show Spoiler
Thanks for your kind words! It was surely fun to create the card, but as you said, it's too bland. I like your chicken, the flavor is there! The only issue I have is that the other two chickens gain Attack while yours shuffles bombs, so that's a bit off. Making it a mech should be enough to go with the traditional effect and the card still see play because of the combo with Zilliax alone. I don't know. I got the impression people are fed up with bombs. I would give you 4 stars anyway, the chicken is cool and useful as it is.
@MenacingBagel:
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Honestly I like Grub much more. The only thing I would change about his last iteration is that one player's cards should be returned after all his bombs exploded and not all of them.
Congrats! That surely is a great feeling :-) Nice to see that rather conservative decks still work these days. If I'm lucky enough to find Kanrethad Ebonlocke in one of my season's reward packs tomorrow, I will give your deck a shot. Thanks for sharing!
Very cool idea, I love this! What would you think about additionally taking one or two cards that haven't done so well and explain the mistakes that were made or ways to improve them? Do you think people might take that badly?
Okay guys, last try for this week. What would you say if Embiggen and Baku the Mooneater had a baby? It's quite hard to balance since it will usually effect all of our minions but on average only half of the opponent's. That's why I felt better reducing the buff to +1/+1. Is this any good?
This beauty got me 7 downvotes in less than an hour on imgur. I see this in a Control Mage deck as a disruption tool. Probably very polarising and the art would be hard to find, so here's another card:
The discover hits our own deck because a gambler usually knows the stacks, but not the outcome. I wanted it to have an immediate impact so the swapped card gets added to hand. Here starts the trouble: I'm not sure about the wording. 1) Should it be a "random" card from my opponent's deck? 2)Is it okay to add "it" to your hand, meaning the card from the opponent's deck? For the stats I used Hench-Clan Burglar as a reference. I was also toying around with something cost-related like reducing the cost of the swapped card by 1 or pulling a card from the opponent that costs 1 more than my own, but there's only so much space there. It could work out if the card doesn't get added to hand, though.
Too bad, but thanks for letting me know this early in the competition. Back to the drawing board it is.
@Dermostatic: That's a nice idea with great flavor. If you find the place for it, you could make it shuffle a worthless imp into their deck like in Impbalming. The cost is fine.
@KANSAS: The new name and the new art fit your card a lot better. Well done!
@Demon: Both of your new cards look good. Wildfire would be way more playable in a competitive sense. The card is pretty strong so I feel better with 4 mana.
Thank you! I think the easiest way to improve it would be to lower the cost. At 6 mana, maybe even 5, it would be way stronger. But at that power level I could as well change my mind and submit the legendary :D How do you like that one?
As for the effects, I didn't want to do the obvious and shuffle stuff in their deck that negates the highlander benefits. Instead I tried to find solid effects that go along with the class identity. The point is, those cards already are useful against highlander decks AND regular decks, because every deck eventually becomes a highlander deck if the game goes on long enough. So what I'm trying to do actually is pushing Control Demon Hunter as an archetype with a strong late game card which has a huge benefit if you should happen to face a highlander deck.
Okay forget about recycling my old card, I had a new idea! I want to turn the highlander condition around and check if my opponent has no duplicates in his deck. This will certainly happen at some point in (almost) every match, so the effect won't be useless if your opponent doesn't go highlander. But you will benefit from it way earlier if he does!
The first idea that came to my mind was a Demon Hunter Card granting your Demons Lifesteal. I went with buffing Demons in hand and making the card itself expansive to prevent a buffed Demon to be played on the same turn. I could switch it to buff minions on board, but that would be totally OP in my eyes. What do you think?
Edit: I would be very grateful if one of the staff could confirm or deny that checking for duplicates is enough interaction with the opponent's deck to qualify for this competition. No need to be happy about a cool idea if it's bound to be disqualified. ;-)
After some consideration I figured Alandien's effect is probably too strong for such a weak restriction. I will make her a Highlander Card herself and store her away for future competitions.
I want to keep the mechanic, though, so here's my alternative card:
Feedback would be very welcome and pretty pretty please somebody tell me the effect qualifies!
Okay forget about recycling my old card, I had a new idea! I want to turn the highlander condition around and check if my opponent has no duplicates in his deck. This will certainly happen at some point in (almost) every match, so the effect won't be useless if your opponent doesn't go highlander. But you will benefit from it way earlier if he does!
The first idea that came to my mind was a Demon Hunter Card granting your Demons Lifesteal. I went with buffing Demons in hand and making the card itself expansive to prevent a buffed Demon to be played on the same turn. I could switch it to buff minions on board, but that would be totally OP in my eyes. What do you think?
Edit: I would be very grateful if one of the staff could confirm or deny that checking for duplicates is enough interaction with the opponent's deck to qualify for this competition. No need to be happy about a cool idea if it's bound to be disqualified. ;-)
I like this idea, it would sure see play in most highlander decks in wild. The only reason I can think of for not giving 5 stars is that's a tech card. Well done!
Xarkkal:
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I can't put my finger on the reason for this, but I don't like Xavius. Maybe the issue is that only half of the decks are corrupted, which makes the game basically dependend on who is lucky enough to draw non-corrupted cards. I see potential to toy around with this by using mana cheating mechanics like Darkest Hour or Skull, but somehow I don't like it (yet). Could you add some info about the lore? Is corruption something Xavius is known for?
Destroyer:
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I prefer Silmother Siqara. I dislike Go'thol because I don't want a mechanic in HS that reveals so much info about my deck to my opponent AND grants them influence to what I (don't) draw next. I don't like Anaxxis either, this could feel horrible if played against an empty handed opponent. Siqara works well with Fal'dorei Strider or The Darkness. Those were both part of Kobolds and Catacombs, so maybe you could place it there, though I understand the using a custom watermark is always a safe bet. The flavor fits Rogue pretty well.
KANSAS:
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While I generally dislike those "put it at the bottom of their deck" cards, yours looks fair because it targets minions who are already in play. It feels familiar to Entomb, which brings me to my one question / problem: why is this a warlock card? I'll go art hunting myself later and will let you know if I stumble upon something fitting.
Conduit:
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Nicely done, that was my fallback idea if reworking my card wasn't okay with a majority of you people. Balancing these effects is hard, but I was even thinking about shuffling any minion into the opponents deck, so you can use it as removal against enemy minions. If that's too strong for you, I would go with shuffling at least two copies as a counter to highlander decks.
Pokeniner:
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I get your reasoning for the effect, but I don't feel it. As far as I know, the "casts when drawn" effect usually makes you draw another card and I would expect your token to work similarly. That way, you don't gain enough to make the effort worth it.
Hordaki:
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As I already told KANSAS, I usually dislike those cards which let you look at the opponen'ts deck and mess with their order. But your idea looks fair enough, it doesn't reveal too much and the influence you gain is somewhat restricted, too. I'm not sure if the stats aren't too strong, but I'm no expert on this at all. Well done!
thepowrofcheese:
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Nice idea, this is veeeery versatile. Really cool card!
Wailor:
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Haha, that's a fun idea. I don't like the artwork of the token, but the stats look fine. You should consider KANSAS' feedback, shuffling 3 cards that summon a doomsayer for your opponent (that is, you) sounds like a cool idea.
shaveyou:
Show Spoiler
I prefer Roaring Inferno. A minor issue though: the artwork of the token doesn't fit the main card very well, it is rather yellowish while Inferno is mainly red. I get where the other's feedback is coming from, though, so maybe it's too strong.
Demonxz95:
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Eeeeevil! I would certainly play it myself, but hate it to be played against me. I'm not sure if this is balanced, Bomb Warrior was already good without it.
linkblade91:
Show Spoiler
Burning Chainwhip is quite a risky card, I would be reluctant to play it. Shouldn't there be a red border around the text, if it's meant to be a Warrior card? Toxic Longtongue has a lot of flavor, it's my favorite of your suggestions. The one thing that's a bit off is the fact that it doesn't attack the minion it pulls. You could get lucky and draw something small and then remove something big. The flavor would suggest the toad to kill what it pulled with its tongue.
Neoguli:
Show Spoiler
Sorry, but I'm not sold. The use for this card is very restricted and I would hate to draw this from a pack.
This was my submission for CDC 1.03 ("Do you copy?"). I really liked it and almost made it to the finals. It fits this week's theme pretty well so I'd like to rework it. Two things came to my mind:
1) Looking for a different character/art and tweaking the stats
Or
2) Reducing the rarity and make it cast only one spell.
What do you think? How can I make this better?
Will add feedback later, really cool ideas so far!
I agree, Demon Hunter feels viable but not oppressively so in Wild. I mainly play the Odd list these days but switch to an Aggro Keleseth list now and then. It's not incredibly strong, but games are fast and the class feels still fresh so I see how many wins I can net before the next round of nerfs hits.
Would it be posible to add a feature that gives us the option of bookmarking decks? I'm already struggling with the 18 deck slots in game, but with all the cool ideas I stumble upon on here, I usually end up copying the deck code and sending myself an email or storing it in a notes app. I would love a button on a deck page which adds it to a bookmarks site linked with my account. So...
1) Are there other people who'd like to bookmark decks?
2) Could it be implemented technically?
Thanks for reading and the great work on this page!
Thanks for sharing the deck and the cool guide :-)
One question: How would you feel about swapping the Voidlords with Enhanced Dreadlords? The Lifesteal of the latter's tokens certainly comes in useful, the N'Zoth synergy is still there and you could avoid clogging your board with Voidwalkers when Bloodreaver Gul'dan's or Kanrethad Prime's battlecries hit...
That was me, thank you very much :-)
Good luck to the finalists, I'm glad almost all my favorites made it. Really a lot of great ideas this week!
Thanks for the explanation, Xarkkal. I'm certainly not new to the game but these details still sometimes elude me. I was thinking about the Card Design Competition about the Taunt Warrior deck where somebody had an idea for a card that gave all minions in their hand taunt, but that wouldn't count towards Fire Plume's Heart. Looks like that's a different thing than discounting spells for Open the Waygate.
Anyway... I like KANSAS idea best so far. Apprentice is a centerpiece card for mage and a key and iconic part of its identity imho. I would hate to see that one nerfed. Flamewaker surely is a big part of the problem but not really to blame either. I could live with him only hitting enemy minions which could help keep the potential face damage in check, though. Not sure about the giants yet... So the quest itself is the obvious target and reworking the condition feels more fair than tuning down the reward in this case. I really like KANSAS solution for those reasons.
I'm not sure that's enough, actually. I played the deck a lot in March to grind my Mage to 1.000 wins and my impression is that most spells initially cost more than 0. Like OP said, it's the cheap spells for 1 or 2 mana that get cheaper with apprentice or glyph that make up most of the cycling. Or do I get the mechanic wrong and they wouldn't count towards the quest in your iteration if they get discounted? I always assumed such cards check for the initial state of the card, not an altered form it gained by buffs or the like.
Now that would be really nice! I so want to finish that DH legendary Alandien I created this week :)
But first: good luck to everyone for this week!
Thanks everybody who tried to help me out this week. I've just submitted my card and will try to think things through before posting here next week ;-) The thing is that I'm still new to this and every idea that comes to my mind feels terribly exciting so that I want to share it with you :D
One more round of feedback:
@Feuerrabe:
@Xarkkal:
@MenacingBagel:
Congrats! That surely is a great feeling :-) Nice to see that rather conservative decks still work these days. If I'm lucky enough to find Kanrethad Ebonlocke in one of my season's reward packs tomorrow, I will give your deck a shot. Thanks for sharing!
Very cool idea, I love this! What would you think about additionally taking one or two cards that haven't done so well and explain the mistakes that were made or ways to improve them? Do you think people might take that badly?
Nice! I'm gonna see if I can scratch some dust together to craft Umbra and try both of those Deathrattle decks. Thanks for showcasing them!
Okay guys, last try for this week. What would you say if Embiggen and Baku the Mooneater had a baby? It's quite hard to balance since it will usually effect all of our minions but on average only half of the opponent's. That's why I felt better reducing the buff to +1/+1. Is this any good?
New day, new ideas!
This beauty got me 7 downvotes in less than an hour on imgur. I see this in a Control Mage deck as a disruption tool. Probably very polarising and the art would be hard to find, so here's another card:
The discover hits our own deck because a gambler usually knows the stacks, but not the outcome. I wanted it to have an immediate impact so the swapped card gets added to hand. Here starts the trouble: I'm not sure about the wording.
1) Should it be a "random" card from my opponent's deck?
2)Is it okay to add "it" to your hand, meaning the card from the opponent's deck?
For the stats I used Hench-Clan Burglar as a reference.
I was also toying around with something cost-related like reducing the cost of the swapped card by 1 or pulling a card from the opponent that costs 1 more than my own, but there's only so much space there. It could work out if the card doesn't get added to hand, though.
Feedback would be very welcome!
Too bad, but thanks for letting me know this early in the competition. Back to the drawing board it is.
@Dermostatic: That's a nice idea with great flavor. If you find the place for it, you could make it shuffle a worthless imp into their deck like in Impbalming. The cost is fine.
@KANSAS: The new name and the new art fit your card a lot better. Well done!
@Demon: Both of your new cards look good. Wildfire would be way more playable in a competitive sense. The card is pretty strong so I feel better with 4 mana.
Thank you! I think the easiest way to improve it would be to lower the cost. At 6 mana, maybe even 5, it would be way stronger. But at that power level I could as well change my mind and submit the legendary :D How do you like that one?
As for the effects, I didn't want to do the obvious and shuffle stuff in their deck that negates the highlander benefits. Instead I tried to find solid effects that go along with the class identity. The point is, those cards already are useful against highlander decks AND regular decks, because every deck eventually becomes a highlander deck if the game goes on long enough. So what I'm trying to do actually is pushing Control Demon Hunter as an archetype with a strong late game card which has a huge benefit if you should happen to face a highlander deck.
After some consideration I figured Alandien's effect is probably too strong for such a weak restriction. I will make her a Highlander Card herself and store her away for future competitions.
I want to keep the mechanic, though, so here's my alternative card:
Feedback would be very welcome and pretty pretty please somebody tell me the effect qualifies!
Okay forget about recycling my old card, I had a new idea! I want to turn the highlander condition around and check if my opponent has no duplicates in his deck. This will certainly happen at some point in (almost) every match, so the effect won't be useless if your opponent doesn't go highlander. But you will benefit from it way earlier if he does!
The first idea that came to my mind was a Demon Hunter Card granting your Demons Lifesteal. I went with buffing Demons in hand and making the card itself expansive to prevent a buffed Demon to be played on the same turn. I could switch it to buff minions on board, but that would be totally OP in my eyes. What do you think?
Edit: I would be very grateful if one of the staff could confirm or deny that checking for duplicates is enough interaction with the opponent's deck to qualify for this competition. No need to be happy about a cool idea if it's bound to be disqualified. ;-)
Feedback time!
grumpymonk:
Xarkkal:
Destroyer:
KANSAS:
Conduit:
Pokeniner:
Hordaki:
thepowrofcheese:
Wailor:
shaveyou:
Demonxz95:
linkblade91:
Neoguli:
Congrats linkblade!
This was my submission for CDC 1.03 ("Do you copy?"). I really liked it and almost made it to the finals. It fits this week's theme pretty well so I'd like to rework it. Two things came to my mind:
1) Looking for a different character/art and tweaking the stats
Or
2) Reducing the rarity and make it cast only one spell.
What do you think? How can I make this better?
Will add feedback later, really cool ideas so far!