I don't believe Elusive as a mechanic is overpowered per se. In Open Beta, they have a little bit of wiggle room to play around with until they figure out what works and what doesn't.
I believe that Elusive would probably be easier to balance if it was more accessible to all regions. The reason Flying works well in MTG is because every color has at least a little bit of it, and there's specific counters to them. Even if Green has the fewest Flying creatures, they're also the best color at countering them.
I feel like if they want to "fix" Elusive, making it a more neutral keyword found in more regions might help. Flying works in MTG because every color has access to at least a little bit of it, and there's specific counter to it.
Cristalize Blood is meant to be an activator for Fresh Blood. You trigger the keyword without actually decreasing your life total. It also boosts cards like Bloodflame Bolt.
No, I didn't say anything about it's balance or usefulness. I think both are fine.
I was just saying that it doesn't make sense for a Basic card to reference a card that came after it, although if you want, I suppose you can pretend that Crystallizer is actually referencing that card instead.
UPDATE: THIS CARD MAKER IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE TO BE USED!!!
Welcome to the Custom Runeterra section. If you're here, and you're anything like me, then you love to create cards. Fortunately for us, the LoR Card Maker exists. If you want to create your own LoR cards, this guide I wrote will show you how.
When you first open the card maker, you are met with this interface.
Don't panic! Everything will make sense shortly. You have three different card types:
Followers
Champions
Spells
Making them all work a little bit differently, so we're going to focus on one at a time. First, we're going to focus on followers since that's the default when you first open the page.
Stats and Keywords
If you're making a follower or champion, you may wish to find the art of your card first as the text may sometimes be hard to read without, particularly if there’s a lot of blue or yellow.
This top section is the card type. The middle helmet is the follower which (as I already mentioned) will be chosen for you when you enter the page. The helmet on the left is the champion, and the fireball on the right is the spell.
While making a follower or champion, this section is where you choose the Mana, Attack and Health of the unit in question. Below that is where you can choose what keyword abilities to put on the card.
From left to right, your choices are Regeneration, Lifesteal, Challenger, Fearsome, Quick Attack, Elusive, Overwhelm, Double Attack, Ephemeral, Fleeting, Can’t Block, Barrier, Tough, and Trap. You can put as many of them as you want on one card, although for the sake of realism, I wouldn’t put more than 4 on one card. There is currently only one card in the game with 3 keywords, Final Spark (and formerly Tryndamere in his Leveled Up form). Some keyword combinations (such as Regeneration and Ephemeral) may not end up working together very well anyway.
When you click on a keyword, it will light up meaning that it’s in the card canvas now. Clicking on it again will deactivate it.
If a card has one keyword ability, it will display that ability and its name on the card. If you have multiple keyword abilities activated, it will display the small icons without the names. We've called in Ahri from Ionia to help demonstrate.
Textboxes
This area is where you will write the name of the card, and its description if you wish to give it one. Writing the name is a walk in the park, but the description has a few more rules.
Below where you write the text, there is a blue square, a yellow square, and keyword icons for almost all of the available keywords.
The blue and yellow squares will allow you to write blue or yellow text. Use blue text to refer to specific cards by name (as is found on champion spells for examples), and use yellow text to refer to keyword abilities or various state-based actions. When you write a keyword ability as part of card text, its icon appears first, then the name of the keyword immediately after (example: Yoni WindchaserBADCARDNAME). When you click on one of these clickables, its code will appear in the Description box. For example, choosing Tough will be displayed as this:
This will be displayed on the card like this:
All code will be placed on the end of the text at that point, so keep that in mind when you’re writing a card that uses code.When you use blue or yellow code, it will appear as “<name><name>” or “<keyword><keyword>” respectively. At this point, write whatever you wish to be highlighted in that color in between the codes.
For example, writing this:
Will be displayed on the card like this:
If you're less familiar with LoR than you are with other card games, the standard wording conventions of the game might trip you up a little bit. If you're not sure with how a card should be worded, look at existing cards to get an idea of how cards with similar triggers/effects are worded.
This subtype box will be where you write the subtype of the card (Elite, Tech, Poro, Spider, etc.). It will be displayed on the top of the card like this:
Region, Rarity, and Artwork
This final part here is where you will choose the Region and the rarity of your card. You have the standard 6 Regions in the game to choose from at your disposal (from left to right: Demacia, Frejlord, Ionia, Noxus, Piltover & Zaun, Shadow Isles), as well as 7 other icons to choose from (from left to right: Bandlecity, Bilgewater, Ixtal, Shurima, Targon, Void, Runeterra).
Below that is the choice of rarity. On spells and followers, your choices are None (for token cards), Common (Green), Rare (Blue), and Epic (Purple). Since Ahri is an Ironian champion, we’ll choose Ionia. For rarity, we’ll choose Epic. On the card, it will look like this:
The final option we have is to change the artwork position and zooming.
On this interface, click the arrow buttons to move the artwork around, and the magnifying glasses to zoom in or out.
There is no support for image URLs. Only images from your computer can be used as artwork, although this is not a huge issue and if you’re creating cards for a huge set, you’re likely to save all the artwork you use anyway.
Put everything together, and you get this:
Champions
Making champions works largely the same way, but there are two big differences. The first and foremost is the new Level Up box.
This is where you will place your champion's Level Up requirement. Be careful about the wording. In the case of the Leveling Up requirement progression towards a certain objective, some champions require it to be on the field for any progression to be counted (Kalista, Shen, Heimerdinger), whereas others do not (Ezreal, Yasuo, Teemo). Use the phrasing "I’ve seen" if the champion requires it to be on the field for progression to count.
Typing this into the Level Up box…
… will display this:
Although some champions will have blue or yellow text in their Level Up text, the maker does not allow this.
The second major difference with champion cards is that you're locked into using the Champion rarity represented by the yellow gem. Next to the yellow gem is the option to remove the Level Up box for when you make your level 2 champion.
One last cool thing about champions is that if you're making a follower and decide to change the card to a champion, the artwork will stay in the exact same place and it won’t reset back to its default position.
Spells
The final card type is the spell. Where followers and champions are mostly similar to one another with few significant differences, spells are vastly different in design.
Spells only have a mana cost, and then there are 6 keyword boxes below that. The first three are the spell speeds (Burst, Fast, and Slow), the fourth one is the "Skill" box used for unit abilities, the final two are additional effects added to the spells (Fleeting or Overwhelm). A spell must always have a speed or skill option enabled.
(Disclaimer: I’ve never been a LoL player, so don’t hate me if this isn’t the actual name of the ability)
Spells have a very different from design from followers or champions. The artwork is positioned on a circular landscape, and colors found in the artwork be faded into the background of the textbox. Spells will also have different frame designs depending on what spell speed is chosen.
Concluding Messages
VERY IMPORTANT: DO NOT use the "Download" button to save your cards. Due to an apparently un-noted update, downloading the card with this method will display stats and text in the wrong place. Until this is fixed, my fix for this is to use the Snipping Tool and snip the card that way.
But that's just all I have to say about the LoR Card Maker. I've made Ahri as a proper champion here:
And here's a bonus card if you want a break from all the Ahri cards I made (I swear I'm not a furry). It's Shroud Soulrender.
So, what are you waiting for? Go out there and make some cards!
What exactly does Trail of Evidence do? The text is not clear to me.
The way I see it, it Discovers a spell, and then what that spell is cast, you Discover another spell. When that spell is cast, you Discover another spell, and so on. So, as long as you can keep playing the Discovered spell, you'll always Discover another spell after you cast it.
Do we know for sure that it draws the card, and not a copy of it? Blizzard has used inconsistent wording before, particularly when the text box gets crowded. And honestly, I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes. A card still in your deck that you never draw is the same as a card that's not in your deck. Only matters in longer matchups where you draw your whole deck.
Yes, it does indeed draw it. Compare the wording to Master's Call which always draws even if you don't get the second condition.
My favorite moment from 2019 is the launch of this site and becoming part of the squad for the content here. As far as I'm concerned, that technically counts as a Hearthstone moment.
What I look forward to the most in 2020 is where this site will go, but also to see where the game goes. New cards and new ideas to explore. Team 5 has a lot to play around with, and they've been getting better every year. Legends of Runeterra might also provide some real competition for Team 5 and if they, things will be even more interesting.
It was mentioned earlier that it will use the old linear-style adventure system. We don't actually know if we'll need to make our own deck for these, but it's highly likely that most of them will if they're really trying to use the old format.
If you guys are curious about applying for the Content Squad, I've got three words for you:
GO FOR IT
In the last 6 or so months I've been there, it's been great. The whole team is great to work with.
Sad to see him leave the Hearthstone team, but I wish him the best of luck on what he works on in the future.
I will also jump on this "good update" train.
I don't believe Elusive as a mechanic is overpowered per se. In Open Beta, they have a little bit of wiggle room to play around with until they figure out what works and what doesn't.
I believe that Elusive would probably be easier to balance if it was more accessible to all regions. The reason Flying works well in MTG is because every color has at least a little bit of it, and there's specific counters to them. Even if Green has the fewest Flying creatures, they're also the best color at countering them.
I feel like if they want to "fix" Elusive, making it a more neutral keyword found in more regions might help. Flying works in MTG because every color has access to at least a little bit of it, and there's specific counter to it.
No, I didn't say anything about it's balance or usefulness. I think both are fine.
I was just saying that it doesn't make sense for a Basic card to reference a card that came after it, although if you want, I suppose you can pretend that Crystallizer is actually referencing that card instead.
Regardless of what's in them, the card pack design itself is pretty cool.
Likely a bug, and will likely be fixed in a future patch. I wouldn't worry about it too much right now.
A problem I see is that Crystallize Blood appears to reference Crystallizer when that card didn't exist yet.
UPDATE: THIS CARD MAKER IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE TO BE USED!!!
Welcome to the Custom Runeterra section. If you're here, and you're anything like me, then you love to create cards. Fortunately for us, the LoR Card Maker exists. If you want to create your own LoR cards, this guide I wrote will show you how.
When you first open the card maker, you are met with this interface.
Don't panic! Everything will make sense shortly. You have three different card types:
Making them all work a little bit differently, so we're going to focus on one at a time. First, we're going to focus on followers since that's the default when you first open the page.
Stats and Keywords
If you're making a follower or champion, you may wish to find the art of your card first as the text may sometimes be hard to read without, particularly if there’s a lot of blue or yellow.
This top section is the card type. The middle helmet is the follower which (as I already mentioned) will be chosen for you when you enter the page. The helmet on the left is the champion, and the fireball on the right is the spell.
While making a follower or champion, this section is where you choose the Mana, Attack and Health of the unit in question. Below that is where you can choose what keyword abilities to put on the card.
From left to right, your choices are Regeneration, Lifesteal, Challenger, Fearsome, Quick Attack, Elusive, Overwhelm, Double Attack, Ephemeral, Fleeting, Can’t Block, Barrier, Tough, and Trap. You can put as many of them as you want on one card, although for the sake of realism, I wouldn’t put more than 4 on one card. There is currently only one card in the game with 3 keywords, Final Spark (and formerly Tryndamere in his Leveled Up form). Some keyword combinations (such as Regeneration and Ephemeral) may not end up working together very well anyway.
When you click on a keyword, it will light up meaning that it’s in the card canvas now. Clicking on it again will deactivate it.
If a card has one keyword ability, it will display that ability and its name on the card. If you have multiple keyword abilities activated, it will display the small icons without the names. We've called in Ahri from Ionia to help demonstrate.
Textboxes
This area is where you will write the name of the card, and its description if you wish to give it one. Writing the name is a walk in the park, but the description has a few more rules.
Below where you write the text, there is a blue square, a yellow square, and keyword icons for almost all of the available keywords.
The blue and yellow squares will allow you to write blue or yellow text. Use blue text to refer to specific cards by name (as is found on champion spells for examples), and use yellow text to refer to keyword abilities or various state-based actions. When you write a keyword ability as part of card text, its icon appears first, then the name of the keyword immediately after (example: Yoni WindchaserBADCARDNAME). When you click on one of these clickables, its code will appear in the Description box. For example, choosing Tough will be displayed as this:
This will be displayed on the card like this:
All code will be placed on the end of the text at that point, so keep that in mind when you’re writing a card that uses code.When you use blue or yellow code, it will appear as “<name><name>” or “<keyword><keyword>” respectively. At this point, write whatever you wish to be highlighted in that color in between the codes.
For example, writing this:
Will be displayed on the card like this:
If you're less familiar with LoR than you are with other card games, the standard wording conventions of the game might trip you up a little bit. If you're not sure with how a card should be worded, look at existing cards to get an idea of how cards with similar triggers/effects are worded.
This subtype box will be where you write the subtype of the card (Elite, Tech, Poro, Spider, etc.). It will be displayed on the top of the card like this:
Region, Rarity, and Artwork
This final part here is where you will choose the Region and the rarity of your card. You have the standard 6 Regions in the game to choose from at your disposal (from left to right: Demacia, Frejlord, Ionia, Noxus, Piltover & Zaun, Shadow Isles), as well as 7 other icons to choose from (from left to right: Bandlecity, Bilgewater, Ixtal, Shurima, Targon, Void, Runeterra).
Below that is the choice of rarity. On spells and followers, your choices are None (for token cards), Common (Green), Rare (Blue), and Epic (Purple).
Since Ahri is an Ironian champion, we’ll choose Ionia. For rarity, we’ll choose Epic. On the card, it will look like this:
The final option we have is to change the artwork position and zooming.
On this interface, click the arrow buttons to move the artwork around, and the magnifying glasses to zoom in or out.
There is no support for image URLs. Only images from your computer can be used as artwork, although this is not a huge issue and if you’re creating cards for a huge set, you’re likely to save all the artwork you use anyway.
Put everything together, and you get this:
Champions
Making champions works largely the same way, but there are two big differences. The first and foremost is the new Level Up box.
This is where you will place your champion's Level Up requirement. Be careful about the wording. In the case of the Leveling Up requirement progression towards a certain objective, some champions require it to be on the field for any progression to be counted (Kalista, Shen, Heimerdinger), whereas others do not (Ezreal, Yasuo, Teemo). Use the phrasing "I’ve seen" if the champion requires it to be on the field for progression to count.
Typing this into the Level Up box…
… will display this:
Although some champions will have blue or yellow text in their Level Up text, the maker does not allow this.
The second major difference with champion cards is that you're locked into using the Champion rarity represented by the yellow gem. Next to the yellow gem is the option to remove the Level Up box for when you make your level 2 champion.
One last cool thing about champions is that if you're making a follower and decide to change the card to a champion, the artwork will stay in the exact same place and it won’t reset back to its default position.
Spells
The final card type is the spell. Where followers and champions are mostly similar to one another with few significant differences, spells are vastly different in design.
Spells only have a mana cost, and then there are 6 keyword boxes below that. The first three are the spell speeds (Burst, Fast, and Slow), the fourth one is the "Skill" box used for unit abilities, the final two are additional effects added to the spells (Fleeting or Overwhelm). A spell must always have a speed or skill option enabled.
(Disclaimer: I’ve never been a LoL player, so don’t hate me if this isn’t the actual name of the ability)
Spells have a very different from design from followers or champions. The artwork is positioned on a circular landscape, and colors found in the artwork be faded into the background of the textbox. Spells will also have different frame designs depending on what spell speed is chosen.
Concluding Messages
VERY IMPORTANT: DO NOT use the "Download" button to save your cards. Due to an apparently un-noted update, downloading the card with this method will display stats and text in the wrong place. Until this is fixed, my fix for this is to use the Snipping Tool and snip the card that way.
But that's just all I have to say about the LoR Card Maker. I've made Ahri as a proper champion here:
And here's a bonus card if you want a break from all the Ahri cards I made (I swear I'm not a furry). It's Shroud Soulrender.
So, what are you waiting for? Go out there and make some cards!
The way I see it, it Discovers a spell, and then what that spell is cast, you Discover another spell. When that spell is cast, you Discover another spell, and so on. So, as long as you can keep playing the Discovered spell, you'll always Discover another spell after you cast it.
And also thanks for reading the interview. :)
Yes, it does indeed draw it. Compare the wording to Master's Call which always draws even if you don't get the second condition.
On turn 2, you can transform your 1-drop into a 4 mana 7/7. Or even better, an 8/8.
Celeste?
Well, wouldn't you happen to know?
Update!
We've now get Galakrond's Awakening up.
In a twist of events, we've got an Ethereal on the good side for this one.
It's not a bad card, but it has such a weird statline for a Stealth minion.
And the adventure releases tomorrow, so the timing is perfect.
Enjoy your free adventure! I think it'll be fun.
My favorite moment from 2019 is the launch of this site and becoming part of the squad for the content here. As far as I'm concerned, that technically counts as a Hearthstone moment.
What I look forward to the most in 2020 is where this site will go, but also to see where the game goes. New cards and new ideas to explore. Team 5 has a lot to play around with, and they've been getting better every year. Legends of Runeterra might also provide some real competition for Team 5 and if they, things will be even more interesting.
Oh shit, that's awesome! I can just go in there guns-a-blazin'
It was mentioned earlier that it will use the old linear-style adventure system. We don't actually know if we'll need to make our own deck for these, but it's highly likely that most of them will if they're really trying to use the old format.