Maybe Anivia should have something like “Play: Frostbite an enemy”? That way she would be better on her first use, which seems to be the problem with her. Also, it would fit with her Ice theme and make her a contender for a control Ashe deck.
Each dragon in hand is transformed into a "Dragonrider" that adds the Dragon it used to be back to your hand when it dies. The idea is that you can mitigate the downside of expensive dragons by transforming them into cheap cards, at the cost of not getting the original card back until the Dragonrider dies. Alternatively, it could be changed to transform the Dragons into "Rookie Dragonrider", if this design seems too unintuitive.
Time Jump would be a way for Paladins to "skip ahead" of the Mana curve by discarding Dragons. (Edit: I changed Time Jump to 3 Mana so that it can't be used to gain insane early game starts)
Crystal Broodmother gives Mage a way to generate Crystal Whelps in hand, either to play for their Spell Damage or as Dragons to discard.
Verdant Protector is another self-discard synergy card that gives extra power to the minion that discards it.
Fatestealer helps mitigate the randomness of discard by letting you choose which card to discard (if a card says "discard a dragon", Fatesealer will only Discover among dragons in your hand). The low cost makes it easy to combine with other cards, and could even be used in a Warlock discard deck. If you discard a card on your opponent's turn, a random one of the discover targets is chosen, just like when a Discover Spell is cast by a card like Yogg-Saron.
Keeper of Legacies helps to keep your deck full of Dragons, and grants them +2/+2 to make even the small ones useful
Dragon Knight gives Hunter extra face damage, Mage extra removal, and Paladin more Silver hand recruits. The Hero Power doesn't even have to be used that turn, which makes Dragon Knight almost always useful.
This card would make Spell Damage mage more consistent by making the Spell Damage bonus also improve your Hero Power's damage. To compensate for this, the Hero Power can now only target minions, which helps balance the card and prevent potential OTKs.
I really like the idea of this set, using dragons as a separate resource instead of a card to play is really cool. If you wanted to, you could also make it so that it’s less random by making the effects “discard your lowest/highest cost dragon” or even “Discover a Dragon in hand. Discard it to do XYZ”.
in terms of the cards themselves, I think most of them are really good, but a few seem a bit too strong. For example, the Paladin Hero Card is essentially a better Bloodreaver Guldan, since the dragons will usually be bigger and you don’t have to actually play them for them to count towards the effect. Maybe it would be better if the discarded dragons were shuffled into your deck with Casts when Drawn, so that it isn’t as much of an immediate board swing. Alternatively, it could be “Add 7 Dragons you discarded this game to your hand. Summon any that don’t fit”, so that it’s more conditional and summons 1 less dragon. The other card that I don’t like is the 1 Mana 2/3 Taunt for Paladin, since it seems way too good in the early game and awful in the late game. Maybe it would be better as something like a 1/2 Taunt with “Discard a Dragon to give this minion and adjacent minions Divine Shield”.
Overall, I really like your unique take on Dragon discarding, I think I might make a few cards based on the concept and post them here!
I’d like more of the Wrathscale Naga type of minion death synergy, because I think it’s an interesting and new form of a token deck.When they first revealed DH they said that was going to be a core part of their identity, but it’s had too few cards to really make it work.
I did mean single-target play effects, but since things that affect all allies/enemies don't count as targeting (as established by them not advancing Ezreal's level up) I didn't feel the need to clarify. Honestly, I feel like Riot should change the single-target ally cards to specify other allies, both for clarity's sake and to open up design space for units that target themselves.
About the balance changes, I think Riot nerfs cards less to make the game feel fresh, and more to promote deck diversity. Without nerfs, we wouldn't have the fun and varied metas that we have a lot of the time. Also, since new cards are coming every two months now, Riot has said that they'll probably do less frequent balance patches in the future, so you got your wish :). I hope they'll still do consistent buffs though, I've really loved how cards like Avarosan Trapper, Crimson Curator, and Kindly Tavernkeeper have gone from practically nonexistent to viable cards in certain decks.
I think “ally” is defined as “friendly unit”. Since Vlad is a friendly unit, he should count towards his level up. Also, I’m sorry if my post was confusing, Imperial Demolitionist does not actually say “another ally”, it just says “ally”. I think the issue is that units that target an ally cannot target themselves, despite the card text not specifying that they aren’t a valid target. When an effect targets itself and all other allies it says “all allies” and when it targets all other allies it says “all other allies” (looking at Brightsteel Formation and Crimson Awakener, so it seems like Riot has just established that “Play” effects cannot target the unit that plays them.
Well what I meant more was that you build the same general idea of an existing constructed deck, but with certain worse cards and some extra copies of insane cards. When I build a deck with 6 Badgerbears it still feels a lot like Midrange Demacia. Because of the buckets, you end up creating decks that are based around only one or two concepts instead of a truly unique deck. I figured my idea would lead to people creating decks that they wouldn’t make in constructed.
Yeah, imperial Demolitionist should probably say “deal 1 to another ally to deal 2 to the enemy Nexus”. However, given that “another” is not present on other ally-buffing cards like Laurent Bladekeeper, Kindly Tavernkeeper, and Brightsteel Protector, it seems like Riot has consistently established that units cannot target themselves with Play effects.
The current draft game mode for LoR right now is Expeditions, but I think that due to giving cards in buckets it often leads to worse versions of constructed decks instead of truly unique decks.
My draft mode mode work like this: first, the player chooses 3 Regions out of an offered 5, then they are taken to a separate empty collection and given 65 random cards from each region and 9 Wildcards (that can be used for any rarity). This separate collection and wildcards would not transfer over to the player’s real collection. Then, the player would build a deck of 40 cards with those 3 Regions, using the random cards that they got as well as cards they crafted with the wildcards. After each victory or defeat they receive 2 Wildcards (to a max of 10) and they can adjust their deck. The run would end after 6 victories or 2 consecutive losses, and a second run can be taken after the first one (just like expeditions). The mode could either be played with an entrance fee and then give rewards based on victories, or be played for free with no rewards.
The point of this mode would be to offer interesting deck building challenges for players, as they would have to change their strategy based on which regions and cards they receive, and use Wildcards to refine their decks. I’m not sure about what the exact numbers of Wildcards and Random cards given should be, but it could be adjusted to an optimal amount that doesn’t lead to too consistent decks.
I swear this is the last time I'll post another version of my cards on this thread but here are my new versions:
For the Violet Spellshielder I figured it would be better if it worked as a Battlecry from the last turn, that way you wouldn't have to incorporate playing the Spellshielder into the turn you deal excess damage. The Crimson Spellzerker and the Desert Plaguebringer both provide a more interesting payoff than Armor, so I think they might be more interesting designs.
Good job on making your post formatted normally and without centered text! I think you’re on the right track towards making your posts sound less righteous and annoying. However, at this point people are so used to you going “I told you so” about Freljord being strong that even though your original post in this thread is fine, people still view it as an “I told you so” without you explicitly mentioning it. Also, your follow up posts do have more of a tone of superiority, so that’s still something you need to work on.
At this point, I think you just need to give up on claiming that Freljord is the best region. Even if you’re right, people will still be annoyed that you brought it up because they’ll see it as an “I told you so” instead of a genuine analysis and conversation. If you want to post more about what how you think the meta is changing you can, but be warned that if you focus too much on how you were right and everyone else was stupid, people will continue to downvote you.
Thanks for the feedback! I do agree that Lyra is a bad payoff, so I think I'll stick with Violet Spellshielder. I think double Armor might be a bit too strong for a Neutral card, especially with board clears. Here's some alternate versions that I think would be better:
I like the version on the left because it is restricted to targeting spells, making it more balanced since it won't count AoE. However, it might be too narrow in scope, in which case the version on the left would remain good against aggro while not as great in control mirrors.
I really like Felfire Fury, it seems very powerful and balanced when compared to something like "Breath of the Infinite." If you wanted to bring its powerlevel down a bit, you could make it 3 Mana "Deal 1 damage to a minion and 2 damage to all minions except it"
@MrRaphsody
I liked your card, but I think that it would work better (and be more flavorful) if the excess damage was dealt to your hero instead of itself. You would of course also have to bring the stats down a little to compensate, which would also make it less overpowered in it's ideal case of hitting a 4+ Health minion.
@KANSAS
I think it would be better if the Goblin dealt 3 damage and had 3 Health. That way it would be more balanced compared to something like Fire Plume Phoenix and it would produce fewer coins.
I like the idea of your card, but I think it might be a bit overcosted. To balance it, consider how much excess damage you usually do in a round and base the cost off of how much dealing that much damage to the enemy Hero would be worth. From my estimations, I think you'd need to deal around 10-12 excess damage for it to be worth 6 Mana, which doesn't seem like it's the average amount of excess damage usually dealt. You might want to either reduce the cost or attach it to a minion as a Battlecry or passive effect. Also, it shouldn't be in the classic set, since it is a Legendary Spell.
I like your card, but I think that in order to make the effect clear, you might want to include an image that shows how the effect would function in terms of UI. For example:
Based on people's feedback I've made 2 different versions of the Kirin Tor Arcanist
The Violet Spellshielder converts your excess damage to Armor, so that AoEs and damage Spells like Torrent can be used to gain Health. Lyris would be intended to be played alongside AoEs like Flamestrike to clear off remaining minions, or just to gain a little extra damage off of a Frostbolt or a Fireball.
Which version is better? Should I go with the original version that draws Spells when you deal excess damage, or are these designs more interesting?
This is my first idea. The point would be to disrupt the opponent by making it so that once they play one card their Mana is spent and they can no longer play more cards that turn. It shouldn't work in something like Wild Secret Mage though, since it gives the opponent a big taunt minion that can block a lot of damage.
The idea of this card was to make a versatile minion that can be used either as removal, or as a big taunt when attacking a weak minion, such as a 1/1.
This last card would be a way to gain extra value from dealing excess damage to minions. Because this triggers off of a Spell casting, it will not trigger multiple times off of a board clear that "Overkills" several minions. This could also be used in Spell Shaman with cards like Torrent.
Which card do y'all think is best? Are they balanced?
Interesting idea! I think it would be cool, but might be limited by the existence of Legendaries like Keleseth and Frizz Kindleroost that are insanely powerful when played on curve. Imagine a Zoo deck that always plays Keleseth on turn 2, or a Dragon Deck that always has Frizz on turn 4. I think these problems could probably be solved by nerfs to those cards in EDH game mode only, so maybe it wouldn’t be a problem.
Yeah, you're probably right. Once Runeterra grows and establishes itself I'm sure that a Hearthcards equivalent will pop up that keeps up to date with the new Keywords and doesn't require using another site to store the image. Looking at Reddit, r/CustomLoR has around 2.5K users while r/CustomHearthstone has around 86K users. I guess it's better to just wait :(
Maybe Anivia should have something like “Play: Frostbite an enemy”? That way she would be better on her first use, which seems to be the problem with her. Also, it would fit with her Ice theme and make her a contender for a control Ashe deck.
Here's another card I made!
Each dragon in hand is transformed into a "Dragonrider" that adds the Dragon it used to be back to your hand when it dies. The idea is that you can mitigate the downside of expensive dragons by transforming them into cheap cards, at the cost of not getting the original card back until the Dragonrider dies. Alternatively, it could be changed to transform the Dragons into "Rookie Dragonrider", if this design seems too unintuitive.
Time Jump would be a way for Paladins to "skip ahead" of the Mana curve by discarding Dragons. (Edit: I changed Time Jump to 3 Mana so that it can't be used to gain insane early game starts)
Crystal Broodmother gives Mage a way to generate Crystal Whelps in hand, either to play for their Spell Damage or as Dragons to discard.
Verdant Protector is another self-discard synergy card that gives extra power to the minion that discards it.
Fatestealer helps mitigate the randomness of discard by letting you choose which card to discard (if a card says "discard a dragon", Fatesealer will only Discover among dragons in your hand). The low cost makes it easy to combine with other cards, and could even be used in a Warlock discard deck. If you discard a card on your opponent's turn, a random one of the discover targets is chosen, just like when a Discover Spell is cast by a card like Yogg-Saron.
Keeper of Legacies helps to keep your deck full of Dragons, and grants them +2/+2 to make even the small ones useful
Dragon Knight gives Hunter extra face damage, Mage extra removal, and Paladin more Silver hand recruits. The Hero Power doesn't even have to be used that turn, which makes Dragon Knight almost always useful.
Here's my idea:
This card would make Spell Damage mage more consistent by making the Spell Damage bonus also improve your Hero Power's damage. To compensate for this, the Hero Power can now only target minions, which helps balance the card and prevent potential OTKs.
I really like the idea of this set, using dragons as a separate resource instead of a card to play is really cool. If you wanted to, you could also make it so that it’s less random by making the effects “discard your lowest/highest cost dragon” or even “Discover a Dragon in hand. Discard it to do XYZ”.
in terms of the cards themselves, I think most of them are really good, but a few seem a bit too strong. For example, the Paladin Hero Card is essentially a better Bloodreaver Guldan, since the dragons will usually be bigger and you don’t have to actually play them for them to count towards the effect. Maybe it would be better if the discarded dragons were shuffled into your deck with Casts when Drawn, so that it isn’t as much of an immediate board swing. Alternatively, it could be “Add 7 Dragons you discarded this game to your hand. Summon any that don’t fit”, so that it’s more conditional and summons 1 less dragon. The other card that I don’t like is the 1 Mana 2/3 Taunt for Paladin, since it seems way too good in the early game and awful in the late game. Maybe it would be better as something like a 1/2 Taunt with “Discard a Dragon to give this minion and adjacent minions Divine Shield”.
Overall, I really like your unique take on Dragon discarding, I think I might make a few cards based on the concept and post them here!
I’d like more of the Wrathscale Naga type of minion death synergy, because I think it’s an interesting and new form of a token deck.When they first revealed DH they said that was going to be a core part of their identity, but it’s had too few cards to really make it work.
I did mean single-target play effects, but since things that affect all allies/enemies don't count as targeting (as established by them not advancing Ezreal's level up) I didn't feel the need to clarify. Honestly, I feel like Riot should change the single-target ally cards to specify other allies, both for clarity's sake and to open up design space for units that target themselves.
About the balance changes, I think Riot nerfs cards less to make the game feel fresh, and more to promote deck diversity. Without nerfs, we wouldn't have the fun and varied metas that we have a lot of the time. Also, since new cards are coming every two months now, Riot has said that they'll probably do less frequent balance patches in the future, so you got your wish :). I hope they'll still do consistent buffs though, I've really loved how cards like Avarosan Trapper, Crimson Curator, and Kindly Tavernkeeper have gone from practically nonexistent to viable cards in certain decks.
I think “ally” is defined as “friendly unit”. Since Vlad is a friendly unit, he should count towards his level up. Also, I’m sorry if my post was confusing, Imperial Demolitionist does not actually say “another ally”, it just says “ally”. I think the issue is that units that target an ally cannot target themselves, despite the card text not specifying that they aren’t a valid target. When an effect targets itself and all other allies it says “all allies” and when it targets all other allies it says “all other allies” (looking at Brightsteel Formation and Crimson Awakener, so it seems like Riot has just established that “Play” effects cannot target the unit that plays them.
Well what I meant more was that you build the same general idea of an existing constructed deck, but with certain worse cards and some extra copies of insane cards. When I build a deck with 6 Badgerbears it still feels a lot like Midrange Demacia. Because of the buckets, you end up creating decks that are based around only one or two concepts instead of a truly unique deck. I figured my idea would lead to people creating decks that they wouldn’t make in constructed.
Yeah, imperial Demolitionist should probably say “deal 1 to another ally to deal 2 to the enemy Nexus”. However, given that “another” is not present on other ally-buffing cards like Laurent Bladekeeper, Kindly Tavernkeeper, and Brightsteel Protector, it seems like Riot has consistently established that units cannot target themselves with Play effects.
The current draft game mode for LoR right now is Expeditions, but I think that due to giving cards in buckets it often leads to worse versions of constructed decks instead of truly unique decks.
My draft mode mode work like this: first, the player chooses 3 Regions out of an offered 5, then they are taken to a separate empty collection and given 65 random cards from each region and 9 Wildcards (that can be used for any rarity). This separate collection and wildcards would not transfer over to the player’s real collection. Then, the player would build a deck of 40 cards with those 3 Regions, using the random cards that they got as well as cards they crafted with the wildcards. After each victory or defeat they receive 2 Wildcards (to a max of 10) and they can adjust their deck. The run would end after 6 victories or 2 consecutive losses, and a second run can be taken after the first one (just like expeditions). The mode could either be played with an entrance fee and then give rewards based on victories, or be played for free with no rewards.
The point of this mode would be to offer interesting deck building challenges for players, as they would have to change their strategy based on which regions and cards they receive, and use Wildcards to refine their decks. I’m not sure about what the exact numbers of Wildcards and Random cards given should be, but it could be adjusted to an optimal amount that doesn’t lead to too consistent decks.
I swear this is the last time I'll post another version of my cards on this thread but here are my new versions:
For the Violet Spellshielder I figured it would be better if it worked as a Battlecry from the last turn, that way you wouldn't have to incorporate playing the Spellshielder into the turn you deal excess damage. The Crimson Spellzerker and the Desert Plaguebringer both provide a more interesting payoff than Armor, so I think they might be more interesting designs.
@Nifty129
Good job on making your post formatted normally and without centered text! I think you’re on the right track towards making your posts sound less righteous and annoying. However, at this point people are so used to you going “I told you so” about Freljord being strong that even though your original post in this thread is fine, people still view it as an “I told you so” without you explicitly mentioning it. Also, your follow up posts do have more of a tone of superiority, so that’s still something you need to work on.
At this point, I think you just need to give up on claiming that Freljord is the best region. Even if you’re right, people will still be annoyed that you brought it up because they’ll see it as an “I told you so” instead of a genuine analysis and conversation. If you want to post more about what how you think the meta is changing you can, but be warned that if you focus too much on how you were right and everyone else was stupid, people will continue to downvote you.
Thanks for the feedback! I do agree that Lyra is a bad payoff, so I think I'll stick with Violet Spellshielder. I think double Armor might be a bit too strong for a Neutral card, especially with board clears. Here's some alternate versions that I think would be better:
I like the version on the left because it is restricted to targeting spells, making it more balanced since it won't count AoE. However, it might be too narrow in scope, in which case the version on the left would remain good against aggro while not as great in control mirrors.
Feedback:
@Demonxy95
I really like Felfire Fury, it seems very powerful and balanced when compared to something like "Breath of the Infinite." If you wanted to bring its powerlevel down a bit, you could make it 3 Mana "Deal 1 damage to a minion and 2 damage to all minions except it"
@MrRaphsody
I liked your card, but I think that it would work better (and be more flavorful) if the excess damage was dealt to your hero instead of itself. You would of course also have to bring the stats down a little to compensate, which would also make it less overpowered in it's ideal case of hitting a 4+ Health minion.
@KANSAS
I think it would be better if the Goblin dealt 3 damage and had 3 Health. That way it would be more balanced compared to something like Fire Plume Phoenix and it would produce fewer coins.
@meisterz39
I like the idea of your card, but I think it might be a bit overcosted. To balance it, consider how much excess damage you usually do in a round and base the cost off of how much dealing that much damage to the enemy Hero would be worth. From my estimations, I think you'd need to deal around 10-12 excess damage for it to be worth 6 Mana, which doesn't seem like it's the average amount of excess damage usually dealt. You might want to either reduce the cost or attach it to a minion as a Battlecry or passive effect. Also, it shouldn't be in the classic set, since it is a Legendary Spell.
@Cg8889
I like your card, but I think that in order to make the effect clear, you might want to include an image that shows how the effect would function in terms of UI. For example:
Based on people's feedback I've made 2 different versions of the Kirin Tor Arcanist
The Violet Spellshielder converts your excess damage to Armor, so that AoEs and damage Spells like Torrent can be used to gain Health. Lyris would be intended to be played alongside AoEs like Flamestrike to clear off remaining minions, or just to gain a little extra damage off of a Frostbolt or a Fireball.
Which version is better? Should I go with the original version that draws Spells when you deal excess damage, or are these designs more interesting?
This is my first idea. The point would be to disrupt the opponent by making it so that once they play one card their Mana is spent and they can no longer play more cards that turn. It shouldn't work in something like Wild Secret Mage though, since it gives the opponent a big taunt minion that can block a lot of damage.
The idea of this card was to make a versatile minion that can be used either as removal, or as a big taunt when attacking a weak minion, such as a 1/1.
This last card would be a way to gain extra value from dealing excess damage to minions. Because this triggers off of a Spell casting, it will not trigger multiple times off of a board clear that "Overkills" several minions. This could also be used in Spell Shaman with cards like Torrent.
Which card do y'all think is best? Are they balanced?
Interesting idea! I think it would be cool, but might be limited by the existence of Legendaries like Keleseth and Frizz Kindleroost that are insanely powerful when played on curve. Imagine a Zoo deck that always plays Keleseth on turn 2, or a Dragon Deck that always has Frizz on turn 4. I think these problems could probably be solved by nerfs to those cards in EDH game mode only, so maybe it wouldn’t be a problem.
Yeah, you're probably right. Once Runeterra grows and establishes itself I'm sure that a Hearthcards equivalent will pop up that keeps up to date with the new Keywords and doesn't require using another site to store the image. Looking at Reddit, r/CustomLoR has around 2.5K users while r/CustomHearthstone has around 86K users. I guess it's better to just wait :(