Huh. I think you’re right. Making HS more complex would kind of defeat the point of it because then HS would just be a worse version of other complex card games, whereas right now it’s the best simple card game. Thanks for the insight!
As I said before, Hero Power mana seems better than spell mana. Also, I agree that the swapping can be annoying, which is why I would suggest that spells, Hero Powers, and minion attacks be burst speed (resolve immediately and don’t pass initiative), and that only playing a minion swaps initiative. This would also help to make spells different than minions. I understand that HS is different than LoR and MtG, it’s intended to be casual and fun and not take too much thought (which I’m not saying is a bad thing), but I think it would be a much more compelling game if it had interactivity beyond just Secrets. That’s why this would probably be better as a separate game mode for players who want more interactivity. Thanks for your feedback!
Well that's why I suggested that unspent mana reduces the cost of your next hero power instead. The Hero Power is usually pretty insignificant so it wouldn't enable many combos and only really affect Inspire cards.
Hi, I just wanted to make this thread to discuss how HS could potentially learn from the innovations that LoR introduced and make the game better. Of course, HS is very unlikely to change any of its core gameplay even if it would be an improvement (due to it confusing new and returning players) but I think it could be an interesting thought experiment. Alternatively, this could be a new game mode!
1. Spell Mana: In LoR up to 3 of your unspent Mana can be kept as Spell Mana, which you can only spend on spells. HS could just directly implement Spell Mana, but I think it'd be more fitting for how HS works to make it so that any unspent Mana you have at the end of the turn reduces the cost of your next Hero Power by that much. This would allow players to play off-curve more often and might occasionally lead people to purposefully not spend Mana to save it for their next Hero Power. Additionally, it would make Inspire cards more interesting and viable.
2. Rounds instead of turns: In LoR, players also gain Mana at the start of their opponent's turn, and whenever a player plays a card the other player may play a card in response. One player has all the odd Mana turns and the other player has all the even Mana turns. HS could have a similar version of this, where whenever a player plays a minion their opponent gets initiative. Spells and minions would still resolve immediately, but with initiative swapping the opponent would still have the chance to react. For example, if your opponent plays a charge minion you could play a Taunt minion in response, or destroy the charge minion with a spell. Attacking would still work like normal and not swap initiative, which would encourage players to attack at the start of their turn. The advantage of this system is that it allows for counterplay and is a lot more engaging. It also eliminates the advantage for the first player.
What do you all think about these changes? Would this work in regular HS, or would it be better as a new mode?
Yeah actually you’re right. It just feels psychologically worse because now I feel like I have to grind more, and if it took 9 days I wouldn’t have to grind at all. At this point I don’t need cards anymore but for some reason my brain really doesn’t like missing out on rewards.
What? I assumed that it was a visual bug because they had mentioned so many times that we’d get an extra two days. It’s obviously not what they intended, so it’s weird that they aren’t going to fix it.
How are y’all liking ARAM? I think it’s pretty fun, despite some champions (Zed, Heimer, and Anivia) being a little too good. I’ve also noticed that the card buckets seem very random and include some very bad cards (like Lure of the Depths with no Sea Monsters).
I think Level 1 Braum should have the text “When I survive damage, create a Mighty Poro in hand” so that he’s worse in non- Poro decks like Anivia Braum and requires self damage or Poro support cards to be good. I dislike him being another low synergy powerful card like Sejuani.
Interesting changes! I feel like both of them were nerfs that needed to happen at one point, Pilfered Goods is just way too good at a baseline level and Solitary monk is too OP when played on turn 3 as a 4/3 elusive with no drawback. It’s a similar change to how Navori Conspirator was nerfed from a 3/2 to a 2/2. This should hurt both elusive decks and Heimer decks, so I think it’s a good change.
Its also exciting to hear that they’re considering changes to Heimer’s turrets, it feels really awful that his 3 Mana Turret is OP and the rest of them are complete trash. I also like the discard archetype, so it’s cool that they’re shifting the Aggro power to discard cards and away from burn. Less burn damage and fewer elusives could make the meta a lot more fun
The cards this time around weren't too popular. The only cards to get a score above 3 were the top 8 that made it to the finalists. And there were 4 cards that got a score below 2.
Yeah, I feel like this competition theme was really hard to design for because you either make a pirate synergy card that won’t work because it’s in a class that’s never had a pirate deck, or you make a card that just happens to be a pirate, which seems to defeat the point. I think Hordaki did really well though, since his card is playable without the Pirate tag but still feels a lot like a pirate and would work in a Pirate Paladin deck.
I'm pretty sure that what they mean is that 1.5 will have changes but 1.6, 1.8, etc will all also have card changes. 1.6 will probably have fewer changes to compensate for all the changes in 1.5. The reason they are doing balance changes in 1.5 is that they decided that the meta has too many issues to go on like this for 2 more weeks.
I'm also excited to hear that they'll eventually introduce non-LoL champions, since I was scared that they might do something strange like release fewer champions or multiple versions of champions. It'll also be interesting to see how LoL will interpret the abilities of LoR champions, since it's been only the other way around so far.
Thanks, I didn't consider that. I think I will just go back to the first version since I wanted Carla to be able to work in a no minions Mage. Is "starts in your opening hand" too strange of a card text or do you think it would be acceptable? It's sort of like the Quest mechanic so I thought it would be fine.
EDIT: I decided to keep the "starts in your opening hand" text because it allows no Spells mage to run her and gives her the downside of taking up a spot in your opening hand if you don't want her from the start of the game.
Carla now equips the Raiding Staff. I kept Raiding Staff the same because the chance of getting multiple Parachute Brigands is not likely, given that there are 8 current standard Pirates that cost 8 or less (and more when Mage Cap'n Carla would have been released). I will also remember to add the Watermark to Raiding Staff when I submit the card.
Feedback for others (not all done yet):
Show Spoiler
@KANSAS
Davy Jones is much more balanced as a Deathrattle card (compare to Cursed Vagrant). Maybe the 2/2s should be on the Deathrattle too? EDIT: For your next version of Davy Jones, I think the card draw is somewhat unnecessary and you could just give Davy Jones more stats. Warlock doesn't want to draw Pirates, and no Warlock Pirate Deck would want to play a 7 drop. If you're scared of high damage from the Flying Dutchman, you can just give it "can't attack heroes" which would also justify the high stats.
@Pokiner
I like the idea of Captain Robin, if you wanted to make the Treasure Cat not have the (once per game) text you could change it to "At the start of your turn, destroy/silence this and add a Fantastic Treasure to your hand"
@Valor124
I think your Captain Ediza could be different enough from Pokiner's Card if you changed the art and maybe changed the Deathrattle to something like "shuffle 4 Fantastic Treasures into your deck."
@Me0203
I think that the Swordwraith is the best of them, although I think he could be a 5/6 or possibly gain the stats of the weapon he destroys
@Elfensilver
I like the Old Helmsman the best, although the art should be different since the grey and white boxes in the background causes the card to not look like a real Hearthstone card
@Bigcums
I like your card, but I think it would be better as a start of game effect (maybe I'm just biased because I like start of game effects though)
@Anchorm4n
Southsea Bladedancer seems the best out of the three, although the art would need to be changed.
@Bloodmefist
I like the Parrot Tamer the best, it seems like it would help make Pirate Hunter a real deck.
@Linkblade91
The 3 Mana one seems like it would support a real Pirate Paladin deck, whereas the 6 Mana one seems like just a good card that happens to be a pirate for flavor reasons. My advice on how to decide which card to submit is to consider whether or not you think a Pirate Paladin deck would be interesting and successful.
The idea of Mage Cap'n Carla would be to run her in either a Spell Mage to allow you to play useless spells as Pirates, or in a Pirate Mage deck to get access to more Pirates. The spells transform back into what they were at the end of the round, so there is no downside of potentially transforming a good card into a useless Pirate. Also, "Raiding Staff" specifies playable Pirates, which means Pirates of a Mana cost equal to or lower than your available Mana crystals.
I like Storm Captain, she seems balanced and provides a nice but not too powerful upside to Overloading. If you want to enable more evolve synergy I'd make her a 3/6 so she's more likely to survive, and if you wanted to prevent that synergy I'd make her a 5/4 or 5/3. Overall, it's a good card!
@Linkblade91
Terror of the Tides seems like it doesn't have the support cards to really work and Grand Duelist seems weak due to attack and kill being a very hard thing to trigger. Kultiran Staffwielder seems the best out of these and does provide a unique and powerful payoff for playing pirates in Paladin.
@Xarkkal
Captain Impbeard seems way too random to me, maybe it'd be better if he was something like a 3 mana 3/3 with "Whenever a Pirate dies, add a random Demon to your hand."
@KANSAS
Davy Jones has way too many stats given that he summons a minion that is worth 6 or 7 Mana just by itself. Either Davy Jones has to be something like a 3/2 or the Flying Dutchman needs to have far fewer stats. Around 16-18 total stats split among them should be balanced. Orc Raider seems like an alternate version of the 3/2 Rush Reborn mummy for Warrior, which means that it's balanced but not really inspiring. I guess it could work in a Battlecry Shaman deck, so that's pretty interesting.
The way Arcane Quartermaster would work is that when you play a Pirate, it triggers "when you cast a Spell" effects and Pirates in your deck don't count as minions, allowing you to play pirates in a no minions mage deck. Portal Captain is a more intuitive version of this, but has the important difference of allowing you to use Pirates as 0 Mana Spells to help trigger effects like Gadgetzan Auctioneer. I think this would be balanced out by the fact that pirates are generally not very powerful cards in mage.
EDIT: Here's another card idea I had that is more Pirate-y
The idea of Mage Cap'n Carla would be to run her in either a Spell Mage to allow you to play useless spells as Pirates, or in a Pirate Mage deck to get access to more Pirates. The spells transform back into what they were at the end of the round, so there is no downside of potentially transforming a good card into a useless Pirate. Also, "Raiding Staff" specifies playable Pirates, which means Pirates of a Mana cost equal to or lower than your available Mana crystals.
What if L2 Jinx were given something like “Last Breath: Draw 2”? That way she would refill your hand after you were forced to dump it, and your opponent can’t totally destroy you by destroying your Jinx when you have an empty hand.
I always see people talking about how difficult it is to balance a class, but certain cards like Skull of Guldan and Aldrachi Warblades were very clearly too strong in their prenerf versions. 5 Mana draw 3 with a slight upside was already established as quite powerful (like Nourish) so it should have been very easy for Blizzard to make Skull of Guldan reduce the cost of the cards by something like 1 or 2 instead. Literally anyone who looks at Skull of Guldan versus cards like Sprint and Far Sight, even without prior knowledge of HS, can see that the numbers don’t match up.
I think the reason that Blizzard printed cards that were so clearly OP is because they designed the cards when the DH hero power was 2 Mana gain +1 Attack. Then when they changed the Hero Power they didn’t adjust the cards as well. Class cards are balanced around the power level of the Hero Power, that’s why Warlock tends to have worse cards than other classes. DH’s cards are balanced as if they have the worst Hero Power, while at the same time they have one of the best Hero Powers.
Huh. I think you’re right. Making HS more complex would kind of defeat the point of it because then HS would just be a worse version of other complex card games, whereas right now it’s the best simple card game. Thanks for the insight!
As I said before, Hero Power mana seems better than spell mana. Also, I agree that the swapping can be annoying, which is why I would suggest that spells, Hero Powers, and minion attacks be burst speed (resolve immediately and don’t pass initiative), and that only playing a minion swaps initiative. This would also help to make spells different than minions. I understand that HS is different than LoR and MtG, it’s intended to be casual and fun and not take too much thought (which I’m not saying is a bad thing), but I think it would be a much more compelling game if it had interactivity beyond just Secrets. That’s why this would probably be better as a separate game mode for players who want more interactivity. Thanks for your feedback!
Well that's why I suggested that unspent mana reduces the cost of your next hero power instead. The Hero Power is usually pretty insignificant so it wouldn't enable many combos and only really affect Inspire cards.
Hi, I just wanted to make this thread to discuss how HS could potentially learn from the innovations that LoR introduced and make the game better. Of course, HS is very unlikely to change any of its core gameplay even if it would be an improvement (due to it confusing new and returning players) but I think it could be an interesting thought experiment. Alternatively, this could be a new game mode!
1. Spell Mana: In LoR up to 3 of your unspent Mana can be kept as Spell Mana, which you can only spend on spells. HS could just directly implement Spell Mana, but I think it'd be more fitting for how HS works to make it so that any unspent Mana you have at the end of the turn reduces the cost of your next Hero Power by that much. This would allow players to play off-curve more often and might occasionally lead people to purposefully not spend Mana to save it for their next Hero Power. Additionally, it would make Inspire cards more interesting and viable.
2. Rounds instead of turns: In LoR, players also gain Mana at the start of their opponent's turn, and whenever a player plays a card the other player may play a card in response. One player has all the odd Mana turns and the other player has all the even Mana turns. HS could have a similar version of this, where whenever a player plays a minion their opponent gets initiative. Spells and minions would still resolve immediately, but with initiative swapping the opponent would still have the chance to react. For example, if your opponent plays a charge minion you could play a Taunt minion in response, or destroy the charge minion with a spell. Attacking would still work like normal and not swap initiative, which would encourage players to attack at the start of their turn. The advantage of this system is that it allows for counterplay and is a lot more engaging. It also eliminates the advantage for the first player.
What do you all think about these changes? Would this work in regular HS, or would it be better as a new mode?
Yeah actually you’re right. It just feels psychologically worse because now I feel like I have to grind more, and if it took 9 days I wouldn’t have to grind at all. At this point I don’t need cards anymore but for some reason my brain really doesn’t like missing out on rewards.
What? I assumed that it was a visual bug because they had mentioned so many times that we’d get an extra two days. It’s obviously not what they intended, so it’s weird that they aren’t going to fix it.
Oh also, there’s a rule that Riot didn’t include in the explanation:
”When a champion dies, shuffle a copy of it into your deck”
How are y’all liking ARAM? I think it’s pretty fun, despite some champions (Zed, Heimer, and Anivia) being a little too good. I’ve also noticed that the card buckets seem very random and include some very bad cards (like Lure of the Depths with no Sea Monsters).
I think Level 1 Braum should have the text “When I survive damage, create a Mighty Poro in hand” so that he’s worse in non- Poro decks like Anivia Braum and requires self damage or Poro support cards to be good. I dislike him being another low synergy powerful card like Sejuani.
Interesting changes! I feel like both of them were nerfs that needed to happen at one point, Pilfered Goods is just way too good at a baseline level and Solitary monk is too OP when played on turn 3 as a 4/3 elusive with no drawback. It’s a similar change to how Navori Conspirator was nerfed from a 3/2 to a 2/2. This should hurt both elusive decks and Heimer decks, so I think it’s a good change.
Its also exciting to hear that they’re considering changes to Heimer’s turrets, it feels really awful that his 3 Mana Turret is OP and the rest of them are complete trash. I also like the discard archetype, so it’s cool that they’re shifting the Aggro power to discard cards and away from burn. Less burn damage and fewer elusives could make the meta a lot more fun
Yeah, I feel like this competition theme was really hard to design for because you either make a pirate synergy card that won’t work because it’s in a class that’s never had a pirate deck, or you make a card that just happens to be a pirate, which seems to defeat the point. I think Hordaki did really well though, since his card is playable without the Pirate tag but still feels a lot like a pirate and would work in a Pirate Paladin deck.
I'm pretty sure that what they mean is that 1.5 will have changes but 1.6, 1.8, etc will all also have card changes. 1.6 will probably have fewer changes to compensate for all the changes in 1.5. The reason they are doing balance changes in 1.5 is that they decided that the meta has too many issues to go on like this for 2 more weeks.
I'm also excited to hear that they'll eventually introduce non-LoL champions, since I was scared that they might do something strange like release fewer champions or multiple versions of champions. It'll also be interesting to see how LoL will interpret the abilities of LoR champions, since it's been only the other way around so far.
Thanks, I didn't consider that. I think I will just go back to the first version since I wanted Carla to be able to work in a no minions Mage. Is "starts in your opening hand" too strange of a card text or do you think it would be acceptable? It's sort of like the Quest mechanic so I thought it would be fine.
Here's my second iteration of Mage Cap'n Carla:
EDIT: I decided to keep the "starts in your opening hand" text because it allows no Spells mage to run her and gives her the downside of taking up a spot in your opening hand if you don't want her from the start of the game.
Carla now equips the Raiding Staff. I kept Raiding Staff the same because the chance of getting multiple Parachute Brigands is not likely, given that there are 8 current standard Pirates that cost 8 or less (and more when Mage Cap'n Carla would have been released). I will also remember to add the Watermark to Raiding Staff when I submit the card.
Feedback for others (not all done yet):
@KANSAS
Davy Jones is much more balanced as a Deathrattle card (compare to Cursed Vagrant). Maybe the 2/2s should be on the Deathrattle too? EDIT: For your next version of Davy Jones, I think the card draw is somewhat unnecessary and you could just give Davy Jones more stats. Warlock doesn't want to draw Pirates, and no Warlock Pirate Deck would want to play a 7 drop. If you're scared of high damage from the Flying Dutchman, you can just give it "can't attack heroes" which would also justify the high stats.
@Pokiner
I like the idea of Captain Robin, if you wanted to make the Treasure Cat not have the (once per game) text you could change it to "At the start of your turn, destroy/silence this and add a Fantastic Treasure to your hand"
@Valor124
I think your Captain Ediza could be different enough from Pokiner's Card if you changed the art and maybe changed the Deathrattle to something like "shuffle 4 Fantastic Treasures into your deck."
@Me0203
I think that the Swordwraith is the best of them, although I think he could be a 5/6 or possibly gain the stats of the weapon he destroys
@Elfensilver
I like the Old Helmsman the best, although the art should be different since the grey and white boxes in the background causes the card to not look like a real Hearthstone card
@Bigcums
I like your card, but I think it would be better as a start of game effect (maybe I'm just biased because I like start of game effects though)
@Anchorm4n
Southsea Bladedancer seems the best out of the three, although the art would need to be changed.
@Bloodmefist
I like the Parrot Tamer the best, it seems like it would help make Pirate Hunter a real deck.
@Linkblade91
The 3 Mana one seems like it would support a real Pirate Paladin deck, whereas the 6 Mana one seems like just a good card that happens to be a pirate for flavor reasons. My advice on how to decide which card to submit is to consider whether or not you think a Pirate Paladin deck would be interesting and successful.
The idea of Mage Cap'n Carla would be to run her in either a Spell Mage to allow you to play useless spells as Pirates, or in a Pirate Mage deck to get access to more Pirates. The spells transform back into what they were at the end of the round, so there is no downside of potentially transforming a good card into a useless Pirate. Also, "Raiding Staff" specifies playable Pirates, which means Pirates of a Mana cost equal to or lower than your available Mana crystals.
Feedback:
@Demonxyz95
I like Storm Captain, she seems balanced and provides a nice but not too powerful upside to Overloading. If you want to enable more evolve synergy I'd make her a 3/6 so she's more likely to survive, and if you wanted to prevent that synergy I'd make her a 5/4 or 5/3. Overall, it's a good card!
@Linkblade91
Terror of the Tides seems like it doesn't have the support cards to really work and Grand Duelist seems weak due to attack and kill being a very hard thing to trigger. Kultiran Staffwielder seems the best out of these and does provide a unique and powerful payoff for playing pirates in Paladin.
@Xarkkal
Captain Impbeard seems way too random to me, maybe it'd be better if he was something like a 3 mana 3/3 with "Whenever a Pirate dies, add a random Demon to your hand."
@KANSAS
Davy Jones has way too many stats given that he summons a minion that is worth 6 or 7 Mana just by itself. Either Davy Jones has to be something like a 3/2 or the Flying Dutchman needs to have far fewer stats. Around 16-18 total stats split among them should be balanced. Orc Raider seems like an alternate version of the 3/2 Rush Reborn mummy for Warrior, which means that it's balanced but not really inspiring. I guess it could work in a Battlecry Shaman deck, so that's pretty interesting.
Here are two versions of my idea:
The way Arcane Quartermaster would work is that when you play a Pirate, it triggers "when you cast a Spell" effects and Pirates in your deck don't count as minions, allowing you to play pirates in a no minions mage deck. Portal Captain is a more intuitive version of this, but has the important difference of allowing you to use Pirates as 0 Mana Spells to help trigger effects like Gadgetzan Auctioneer. I think this would be balanced out by the fact that pirates are generally not very powerful cards in mage.
EDIT: Here's another card idea I had that is more Pirate-y
The idea of Mage Cap'n Carla would be to run her in either a Spell Mage to allow you to play useless spells as Pirates, or in a Pirate Mage deck to get access to more Pirates. The spells transform back into what they were at the end of the round, so there is no downside of potentially transforming a good card into a useless Pirate. Also, "Raiding Staff" specifies playable Pirates, which means Pirates of a Mana cost equal to or lower than your available Mana crystals.
What if L2 Jinx were given something like “Last Breath: Draw 2”? That way she would refill your hand after you were forced to dump it, and your opponent can’t totally destroy you by destroying your Jinx when you have an empty hand.
I always see people talking about how difficult it is to balance a class, but certain cards like Skull of Guldan and Aldrachi Warblades were very clearly too strong in their prenerf versions. 5 Mana draw 3 with a slight upside was already established as quite powerful (like Nourish) so it should have been very easy for Blizzard to make Skull of Guldan reduce the cost of the cards by something like 1 or 2 instead. Literally anyone who looks at Skull of Guldan versus cards like Sprint and Far Sight, even without prior knowledge of HS, can see that the numbers don’t match up.
I think the reason that Blizzard printed cards that were so clearly OP is because they designed the cards when the DH hero power was 2 Mana gain +1 Attack. Then when they changed the Hero Power they didn’t adjust the cards as well. Class cards are balanced around the power level of the Hero Power, that’s why Warlock tends to have worse cards than other classes. DH’s cards are balanced as if they have the worst Hero Power, while at the same time they have one of the best Hero Powers.