Much simpler idea this time around. When one's death is not killed in honor, the light gives them a second chance.
More feedback:
Anchorm4n
I like this new place you've taken the card. However, I do agree with Wailor about everything. If you can fix all this up, then you'd have yourself a pretty strong contender in my opinion.
Daybreaks
Welcome aboard. Hope you enjoy yourself. If you ever have any questions, then please feel absolutely free to ask.
My main two criticisms of the card are the fact that Paladins don't normally get large board clears like this, as well as fact that it doesn't feel like a VttSC card. Paladin does very occasionally get a small board clear here and there, but when it comes to large minions, their way of dealing them with is to lower their stats and then attack them rather than outright destroying them. As AeroJulwin said, do be sure to remember the Holy spell tag.
BasilAnguis
The first thing I notice is that the name is already taken by Dragon's Hoard, so you should change that when you can.
It's certainly interesting. I do think it can hurt you because if your opponent kills it on their turn (and then they would presumably also kill the Dragon if they do this), then you're guaranteed to burn a card. I don't really think there's a way to avoid that though. My first instinct is to say that balance is probably okay, but I can't really say for sure.
I've had some time taken up. Let's just say that I've been working on a project for a while, and I'll give you a little teaser in the spoiler below.
Show Spoiler
More on that will be revealed later...
In response to my card's feedback, I must admit that I do like the Treant-summoning idea. I'll see if I can make it work on the card*. Here's my thoughts on everything so far:
Wailor
I do prefer Spectacular Explosion over Allari the Souleater, and I think the wording on it is fine. I do think Allari looks better in her Rare-Demon form too. Deranged Shot is neat, but unfortunately the rate in which you deal damage versus buff C'Thun is incredibly weak.
Linkblade91
I like it. I do think "Keywords" is something Hearthstone will use like this someday (if what I'm saying makes sense). I think this looks pretty good. I remember The Forest's Aid being pretty good, and this kinda looks like that, so it seems quite solid to me.
AeroJulwin
A really cool idea (though I must also agree about the wording), and I do think it needs better artwork.
Anchorm4n
I unfortunately must agree that your card is both overpowered and not particularly compelling, but I think it can absolutely be worked into something better.
*I'm now finding that the idea is extremely similar to Link's card. Both would be 8 mana Epic Druid spells that summon Treants based on an excess quantity of some other entity.
Further into the depths of the sunken city is the throne of the tides where Neptulon and Ozumat have a clash. Guarding the path inside are the Oceancrafters which are responsible for keeping the very state of the ocean as is, lest a Cataclysmic Opening were to occur.
Thanks for bringing this up again. Honestly I was a little disappointed when Season 5 started without any changes to the system. I do know how life gets in the ways of plans we have and while the card design competitions surely are a great way to entertain ourselves, there are far higher priorities. I hope everything worked out in the best possible way for Shadows!
- Finalist Voting or nah? We couldn't reach an agreement about the idea of abolishing the finalist voting. The point stands though that participation goes way down during the finalist voting, partly due to the fact that the finalists can not vote themselves.
- New rating system? The idea of a new rating system didn't find many supporters. It was meant to serve the purpose of avoiding too harsh ratings. If someone is forced to rate balance and flavor seperately for example, an OP but flavorful card might come out with a better rating than with the current system, where people might just go "OP! 1 star!". There were different ideas for the execution of this like adding categories to rate the cards in or extending the star system. Another interesting option that came up for the finalist voting asks the voters to put the submissions into their prefered order.
- Quality of life improvements The description boxes for each card should be visible in the finalist voting. It would help to see the cards on our voting pages and in the finalist voting ordered by how many stars we gave them in the first voting stage. Rewards (not only for the winners?) would be nice :)
We ended up finding that we like the idea of having the description boxes available during voting. As far as rewards go, Gold is definitely something to give out. The main problem is just the fact that we simply don't have very many things to buy with the currency yet, or else it would absolutely be a go.
We all came to the conclusion that a more advanced rating system also wouldn't really help much. In addition to requiring much more work on the voter's part (it may not sound like much, but it forces voters to think about their rating much more thoroughly). It would also look much more intimidating to newer competitors and would end up lowering the voter turnout.
We did also agree that the finalist phase is quite important. There are several times where the highest-scoring card from the initial voting phase doesn't win in the end, which means that the finalist voting is still very impactful. Another problem with removing the finalist phase is that it allows the possibility of trying to cheat the system by submitting your card shortly before the deadline where an extremely late submission could up with a really high score just simply because of the fact that barely anyone voted for them and they all voted for them relatively high.
I agree with all what anchorm4n said. Finalist voting feels bad and too low engagement, more rating options would be awesome and some 2nd place and 3rd place rewards could be good for attracting new people. I personally suggest we at least increase the Finalist stage from 1 day to 2, just to squeeze in a few more votes.
And i know it would be very hard to do, but i really wish for a big comp again. A custom class or custom expansion competition.
Extending the finalist voting a day could be feasible. The side-comps we've hosted in the past has proven that people don't have any problems with keeping track of 2 competitions at one time, and this is easier than that.
I'd be just as excited about a custom class or custom expansion competition as you are, but we would need to figure out a much better system to do that because the current one we have for regular competitions absolutely will not cut it. I do also question its viability as an event at the moment since our turnout for regular competitions is already quite low (which is something that we hope to find a way to remedy), and a competition on as large of a scale as this requires monumentally more effort and upkeep from the competitors.
Do you feel the water and the wind carrying you forward?
The effect will simply stop drawing cards once you reach your hand size limit, but will remember how many cards it still has left to draw, and when your hand has empty space, it will draw until you reach that amount.
I've updated Whelping Hand to be 5 mana, and I feel like this is probably the highest I can go or else it becomes too expensive to be practical since it does also warp your deckbuilding. Regarding some comments, the aspect of it being able to grab non-targeting spells is intentional and if I wanted to limit it to only targeted spells, I don't really have enough text space to do that.
And a new card, Blacktalon Boss. I had a previous Whelp synergy card earlier, but I deleted it because it was so fucking boring that I almost felt embarrassed to keep it in the post. This one is still incredibly boring, but it does still seem more exciting than that other card. I just wanted a Whelp synergy card. Whelp, here we go again.
Feedback time!
Linkblade91
I like the card effect, though I unfortunately can't really help with the wording. I must ask though, are Deathrattles intended to trigger twice with it?
Wailor
Both pretty solid cards. I like them.
AeroJulwin
I do like some Whelp synergy cards for this comp, but I feel like they should probably be Neutral since there's otherwise not enough cards for them to work. Pretty nice card though.
MrRhapsody
Lord Nefarious feels like it has too RNG-dependent for me (and incredibly strong in Druid), and Onyxia, Mother of Corruption feels like a Carnival Clown with bigger stats.
Single Broodmother is definitely my favorite of the three. I really like it.
BasilAnguis
Something about the card feels weird to me and I'm not even exactly sure what it is, but the balance seems quite fine.
Tisha Darkblight seems to be the more favored of my two cards. I have bumped it from a 3 mana 2/3 to a 4 mana 3/4.
MrRhapsody
Thermal Shocker is definitely my favorite of the two cards, although I think I agree about the condition being quite easy for a strong effect. It doesn't seem too egregiously strong compared to Lightmaw Netherdrake, but it's definitely strong.
Showmaster Thisley seems easy to abuse, especially at only 5 mana, but I do like the idea you have.
Linkblade91
3 mana 3/3 Zealous Zoologist seems pretty good to me.
Erudite of Duality is a pretty competent Common card. The Holy/Shadow flavor doesn't seem too apparent on the artwork itself, but I think the card itself works pretty well enough.
Your first version of Marine Biologist I'm going to have to rule out unfortunately. Your second and third versions however fit the prompt quite nicely and are both pretty solid cards.
Mur'gul Servants is a pretty nice flavor blend of the "watery" minion types, although Warlock doesn't have access to a lot of Nagas so it would probably be too difficult to build something really good out of it.
Linkblade91
I like it. Pretty simple and sweet. Now that same people raise that it might be too strong, I feel like it might be, but I still like the card quite a bit.
BasilAnguis
I guess The Class Trainer is okay? I'm not really too sure how to evaluate it. The classes that seem to be able to cast 3 different spell schools the easiest similarly don't get that much of a benefit from actually upgrading their Hero Power. Mage for instance can just Wildfire and cut out the middle-man entirely. I do also agree with what others have said about the name.
Class Trainer I don't really like because there's not much benefit for a second copy of a card that upgrades your Hero Power outside of refreshing it or just being more likely to draw the card.
True Collector will be disqualified, so I would avoid it. Even if it weren't though, I don't like the fact that it's a spell card that only has a conditional effect since spells aren't designed this way.
AeroJulwin
I think the effect is pretty neat, but I feel the same way that others are about the flavor.
Arkasaur
Grim Incantations is pretty sweet.
Gift of N'Zoth is a cool effect, but I'm not sure how well it really works/fits in Priest since Priest is generally one of the least tribe-centric classes in the game. I do think it's a pretty solid idea and the art is really nice. Don't worry about R's comment because that's not how it would work. An Amalgam would just count as one tribe you haven't played yet (per my comment above).
Neoguli
I assume the "switch to Nature" is also meant to switch the spells that trigger the draw to Arcane. If so, then that could probably be communicated on the card a bit better, but I think the card is solid.
BloodMefist
Fin-Friendly Bronzescale is kinda hilarious. I do like the fact that the Battlecry plays into the Deathrattle, although I do worry that trying to fuse Murloc and Dragon gameplans together tends to not really work since both tribes tend to play in opposite ways. I think the name is also a bit weird.
Darkmoon Security is totally Berth, and I don't understand why they never made him into a Legendary card. I really like the effect, although I do think it's a bit weird to have both it and Barricade in the same set.
I think one thing to keep in mind for balance reasons is not necessarily counting the amount of types of minions you've played this game; playing an amalgam on turn 3 shouldn't immediately buff all your "improved by types of minions you've played" to 10. Realistically, it should be worded "for each minion you've played of a different type this game" or "each unique minion type you've played this game"
I believe All technically counts as its own type specifically for this purpose, just that it works to satisfy any different type condition in the game. In the case of caring about minion types, minions with the All type just fill-in for any one type rather than counting as each different one all at once.
Some examples of this interaction include:
Tent Trasher won't reduce its Cost to 0, but instead just costs 1 less as normal. The Amalgam is just filling in for one minion type that isn't currently there.
N'Zoth, God of the Deep just resurrects it once and counts it as many minion type that isn't there. It doesn't count as all of them. Otherwise, all you'd just to do is just play one Amalgam and N'Zoth would resurrect it six times.
Effects like Menagerie Magician and Ringmaster's Baton will only buff a minion one time. If you have an Amalgam on board or hand as your only minion there, it won't buff it for each different minion type to buff. It just fills in for one that isn't there meaning that it would only receive one buff, and not three.
Effects like The Curator or Ringmaster Whatley won't stop drawing if it draws an Amalgam first, but instead that Amalgam just fills in for one type you haven't drawn yet regardless of what it is.
Using Amalgam of the Deep's Battlecry on another Amalgam of the Deep won't make you Discover one minion of every type, but instead it just lets you Discover one minion of any type.
So in the case of card effects like "for each minion type you've played this game", an All minion won't immediately count as every type but it just fills in for one type you don't have. We don't have any All spells in the game yet (though we probably will get one some day), but when we do, I think it's also safe to assume that it won't make Multicaster draw several cards alone, but just that your All spell will count as one type you haven't played yet.
I've opened up a feedback thread for you all to talk about how you believe the competitions can be improved. Historically, we haven't had enough time to implement changes and a large part of that is because our down-time tends to be taken up with expansion reveal seasons, so asking during the season as opposed to after it should give us a lot more time to discuss the finer details and for us to be more actively involved with you guys in how these competitions are run.
This is the place where you can leave your thoughts about how the competitions are proceeding and how you suggest things should be changed if necessary.
Historically, when we've tried to do this before, it has resulted in asking for how things can be changed which gets us some nice feedback, and then we end up not having any time to discuss implementation because the down-time is often occupied by an expansion reveal season which eats up a LOT of time and focus. It has therefore come to me that it would be better to ask how satisfied you are with the system during the season as opposed to after it.
If you have ideas, then please let us know. We'll have more time to actively be able to discuss it.
I think this should clear it up now since it reads the same way as Dragonrider Talritha. As for the Hero Power, my alternatives were either a Shadowstep or Shadowcaster effect (which might make the Rogue side of the card a bit more obvious), which both seem fairly dangerous as a Hero Power. That said, for people thinking about the balance of those two ideas, the extra effects are applied as enchantments and therefore wouldn't persist if you returned them to the hand or copied them.
Feedback
AeroJulwin
I do like the idea of the Battlecry even though I do think it's a bit on the difficult side to get it to get good value of it a lot of the time. My main point of concern is that giving your hero Attack during your opponent's turn. Not specifically from my own personal viewpoint because I think the way you've executed it here is fine, but I know that it's extremely touchy to a lot of people, and I know a lot of people have a rather volatile reaction to this type of design.
MrRhapsody
I think both of these designs are quite sound, but unfortunately your first one has a pretty major roadblock: Violet Illusionist.
Your second design is definitely safer. Some people might be irked at the fact that you're giving Mage a Lifesteal card, but this particular instance doesn't really bother me so much. Unfortunately though, there isn't really a way to Mage to use the Hero Power since they don't have the self-damage that Warlock does.
Neoguli
I do think this design is rather solid overall, though there is one admittedly quite minor thing about the card that bothers me a bit which is with the Hero Power. If you want the Hero Power to benefit from scaling its damage, then I feel like the card itself should probably have a way to do that.
Much simpler idea this time around. When one's death is not killed in honor, the light gives them a second chance.
More feedback:
My main two criticisms of the card are the fact that Paladins don't normally get large board clears like this, as well as fact that it doesn't feel like a VttSC card. Paladin does very occasionally get a small board clear here and there, but when it comes to large minions, their way of dealing them with is to lower their stats and then attack them rather than outright destroying them. As AeroJulwin said, do be sure to remember the Holy spell tag.
The first thing I notice is that the name is already taken by Dragon's Hoard, so you should change that when you can.
It's certainly interesting. I do think it can hurt you because if your opponent kills it on their turn (and then they would presumably also kill the Dragon if they do this), then you're guaranteed to burn a card. I don't really think there's a way to avoid that though. My first instinct is to say that balance is probably okay, but I can't really say for sure.
I've had some time taken up. Let's just say that I've been working on a project for a while, and I'll give you a little teaser in the spoiler below.
More on that will be revealed later...
In response to my card's feedback, I must admit that I do like the Treant-summoning idea. I'll see if I can make it work on the card*. Here's my thoughts on everything so far:
*I'm now finding that the idea is extremely similar to Link's card. Both would be 8 mana Epic Druid spells that summon Treants based on an excess quantity of some other entity.
Here comes the mini-set!
Throne of the Tides
Further into the depths of the sunken city is the throne of the tides where Neptulon and Ozumat have a clash. Guarding the path inside are the Oceancrafters which are responsible for keeping the very state of the ocean as is, lest a Cataclysmic Opening were to occur.
I must apologize, as I did not mean for it to take this long to get back to the two of you.
We ended up finding that we like the idea of having the description boxes available during voting. As far as rewards go, Gold is definitely something to give out. The main problem is just the fact that we simply don't have very many things to buy with the currency yet, or else it would absolutely be a go.
We all came to the conclusion that a more advanced rating system also wouldn't really help much. In addition to requiring much more work on the voter's part (it may not sound like much, but it forces voters to think about their rating much more thoroughly). It would also look much more intimidating to newer competitors and would end up lowering the voter turnout.
We did also agree that the finalist phase is quite important. There are several times where the highest-scoring card from the initial voting phase doesn't win in the end, which means that the finalist voting is still very impactful. Another problem with removing the finalist phase is that it allows the possibility of trying to cheat the system by submitting your card shortly before the deadline where an extremely late submission could up with a really high score just simply because of the fact that barely anyone voted for them and they all voted for them relatively high.
Extending the finalist voting a day could be feasible. The side-comps we've hosted in the past has proven that people don't have any problems with keeping track of 2 competitions at one time, and this is easier than that.
I'd be just as excited about a custom class or custom expansion competition as you are, but we would need to figure out a much better system to do that because the current one we have for regular competitions absolutely will not cut it. I do also question its viability as an event at the moment since our turnout for regular competitions is already quite low (which is something that we hope to find a way to remedy), and a competition on as large of a scale as this requires monumentally more effort and upkeep from the competitors.
Do you feel the water and the wind carrying you forward?
The effect will simply stop drawing cards once you reach your hand size limit, but will remember how many cards it still has left to draw, and when your hand has empty space, it will draw until you reach that amount.
Hey, you know what goes pretty well with that new 9-mana Paladin spell? *wink, wink*
No, it wasn't a joke. You realized that your attempt to be an asshole backfired horribly and now you're trying to backpedal to save face.
Well, this is a bit awkward now, isn't it?
I've updated Whelping Hand to be 5 mana, and I feel like this is probably the highest I can go or else it becomes too expensive to be practical since it does also warp your deckbuilding. Regarding some comments, the aspect of it being able to grab non-targeting spells is intentional and if I wanted to limit it to only targeted spells, I don't really have enough text space to do that.
And a new card, Blacktalon Boss. I had a previous Whelp synergy card earlier, but I deleted it because it was so fucking boring that I almost felt embarrassed to keep it in the post. This one is still incredibly boring, but it does still seem more exciting than that other card. I just wanted a Whelp synergy card. Whelp, here we go again.
Feedback time!
Lord Nefarious feels like it has too RNG-dependent for me (and incredibly strong in Druid), and Onyxia, Mother of Corruption feels like a Carnival Clown with bigger stats.
Single Broodmother is definitely my favorite of the three. I really like it.
I'd be very happy to give you guys all a Whelping Hand with your cards if you need it (hehe).
even though all he did was dig himself a really deep hole to live in.
So Y'Shaarj was taking the classic Minecraft noob strategy, hehe.
Tisha Darkblight seems to be the more favored of my two cards. I have bumped it from a 3 mana 2/3 to a 4 mana 3/4.
Thermal Shocker is definitely my favorite of the two cards, although I think I agree about the condition being quite easy for a strong effect. It doesn't seem too egregiously strong compared to Lightmaw Netherdrake, but it's definitely strong.
Showmaster Thisley seems easy to abuse, especially at only 5 mana, but I do like the idea you have.
For my first wave of feedback.
Erudite of Duality is a pretty competent Common card. The Holy/Shadow flavor doesn't seem too apparent on the artwork itself, but I think the card itself works pretty well enough.
Your first version of Marine Biologist I'm going to have to rule out unfortunately. Your second and third versions however fit the prompt quite nicely and are both pretty solid cards.
Mur'gul Servants is a pretty nice flavor blend of the "watery" minion types, although Warlock doesn't have access to a lot of Nagas so it would probably be too difficult to build something really good out of it.
I guess The Class Trainer is okay? I'm not really too sure how to evaluate it. The classes that seem to be able to cast 3 different spell schools the easiest similarly don't get that much of a benefit from actually upgrading their Hero Power. Mage for instance can just Wildfire and cut out the middle-man entirely. I do also agree with what others have said about the name.
Class Trainer I don't really like because there's not much benefit for a second copy of a card that upgrades your Hero Power outside of refreshing it or just being more likely to draw the card.
True Collector will be disqualified, so I would avoid it. Even if it weren't though, I don't like the fact that it's a spell card that only has a conditional effect since spells aren't designed this way.
Grim Incantations is pretty sweet.
Gift of N'Zoth is a cool effect, but I'm not sure how well it really works/fits in Priest since Priest is generally one of the least tribe-centric classes in the game. I do think it's a pretty solid idea and the art is really nice. Don't worry about R's comment because that's not how it would work. An Amalgam would just count as one tribe you haven't played yet (per my comment above).
Fin-Friendly Bronzescale is kinda hilarious. I do like the fact that the Battlecry plays into the Deathrattle, although I do worry that trying to fuse Murloc and Dragon gameplans together tends to not really work since both tribes tend to play in opposite ways. I think the name is also a bit weird.
Darkmoon Security is totally Berth, and I don't understand why they never made him into a Legendary card. I really like the effect, although I do think it's a bit weird to have both it and Barricade in the same set.
I don't think anybody could've expected Yata-Garasu to be unbanned. This is the end of an era.
I believe All technically counts as its own type specifically for this purpose, just that it works to satisfy any different type condition in the game. In the case of caring about minion types, minions with the All type just fill-in for any one type rather than counting as each different one all at once.
Some examples of this interaction include:
So in the case of card effects like "for each minion type you've played this game", an All minion won't immediately count as every type but it just fills in for one type you don't have. We don't have any All spells in the game yet (though we probably will get one some day), but when we do, I think it's also safe to assume that it won't make Multicaster draw several cards alone, but just that your All spell will count as one type you haven't played yet.
Hey, a brand new face joins our list of winners!
I've opened up a feedback thread for you all to talk about how you believe the competitions can be improved. Historically, we haven't had enough time to implement changes and a large part of that is because our down-time tends to be taken up with expansion reveal seasons, so asking during the season as opposed to after it should give us a lot more time to discuss the finer details and for us to be more actively involved with you guys in how these competitions are run.
https://outof.cards/forums/fan-creations/custom-hearthstone/20921-wcdc-season-5-feedback-thread
This is the place where you can leave your thoughts about how the competitions are proceeding and how you suggest things should be changed if necessary.
Historically, when we've tried to do this before, it has resulted in asking for how things can be changed which gets us some nice feedback, and then we end up not having any time to discuss implementation because the down-time is often occupied by an expansion reveal season which eats up a LOT of time and focus. It has therefore come to me that it would be better to ask how satisfied you are with the system during the season as opposed to after it.
If you have ideas, then please let us know. We'll have more time to actively be able to discuss it.
Multiple type synergies, here we go!
I do realize Animal Caretaker doesn't have the perfect "3" theming with the +2/+2 bonus instead of a +3/+3 one, but balance comes first I say.
If you've got more projects, then there's absolutely no doubt that you'll be featured more on this series. ;)
I think this should clear it up now since it reads the same way as Dragonrider Talritha. As for the Hero Power, my alternatives were either a Shadowstep or Shadowcaster effect (which might make the Rogue side of the card a bit more obvious), which both seem fairly dangerous as a Hero Power. That said, for people thinking about the balance of those two ideas, the extra effects are applied as enchantments and therefore wouldn't persist if you returned them to the hand or copied them.
Feedback
I think both of these designs are quite sound, but unfortunately your first one has a pretty major roadblock: Violet Illusionist.
Your second design is definitely safer. Some people might be irked at the fact that you're giving Mage a Lifesteal card, but this particular instance doesn't really bother me so much. Unfortunately though, there isn't really a way to Mage to use the Hero Power since they don't have the self-damage that Warlock does.