Onyxia's Lair has been added. It ended up taking longer to post here since I was waiting for Dnikko to update HearthCards with the mini-set watermark and he just never did. In the end, I just decided to post it here.
This is it. We've made it to Onyxia's Lair for the final showdown! Infinis's goal has lead him to the lair itself where he has unlocked his potential for time manipulation and his last goal is to defeat Onyxia. All the mercenaries have lead themselves here and they're not backing down. Take the final charge!
Just a little something to think/discuss about. Would like to hear everyone's thoughts. Feel free to quote this post to a new thread if needed.
It hardly seems to matter how much I try to improve my designs or interact in voting. I vote fairy? I get hammered with 1's. I don't vote at all? I get hammered with 1's.
Which...makes it increasingly unappealing to contribute at all.
I must admit that I was the one person who gave your card a 1-star in the finals (and one of the two who rated it that way during the initial voting period) and the reason I voted it 1 star was because it was a pre-FitB card that required spell schools to function. Pre-FitB cards that require spell schools to function are one of those designs that I always rate 1 star regardless of how well the card is designed in other areas, because in my mind, it renders the effect non-functional for its time. If the card existed in Scholomance, it would basically be a vanilla 4 mana 3/3 since it's trying to use something that didn't exist in the game at the time. I've always been very passionate about the QA/QC of custom card designs in general and I've always viewed attention to details like this to be very important.
In my mind, this reasoning for voting a card 1 star seems entirely justified, but I know that not everyone views these details with the same level of important that I do. It is true that some people will attempt to game the system in their favor by voting other people's cards lower than they normally would and this is unfortunately something that can't be fixed entirely. A reality though is that some people just have different voting metrics than others. I mentioned before about the watermark and the effect is something I consider into scoring a lot, but I know that there are a lot of people who seem to not care about this detail at all (after all, you did end up making the finals). If you disagree with me and think this penalty for an incorrect watermark is too harsh, then that's completely fine and I understand why you would think that.
A thing to note is that you should try to participate in the Discussion Topic. Really, I think everyone who takes part in these competitions should do that since it's always better to have more people active in those threads and it increases the productivity of them tenfold. There, you would've likely had someone tell you (probably me) about the watermark problem and it could've been corrected to get a better score. While card designing skill is obviously a big part of these competitions, there is of course a degree of luck involved as well. Above all else, it's important to just try to have fun with these competitions. Even if you don't end up winning them, just merely taking part in them will do wonders to improving your card making abilities, especially for your own purposes.
Wow, this competition IS moving slowly. Here's my own feedback.
Linkblade91
As I mentioned on Discord, you are quite limited to the amount of transform cards Shaman card use without transforming itself, but it's a pretty solid card.
BloodMefist
I do also prefer Ambitious Acolyte. Void Wisp is a fine idea, but it's a weird card in the sense that you aren't meant to play it and realistically you probably never will unless you're in a dire situation.
Wailor
I must admit that this is quite an ingenious way to design a dual-class Mage/Priest card. It seems stronger in Mage compared to Priest in most instances due to the number of ways Mage can upgrade their Hero Power, but Priest still has some good usage too. I do think the card could be better, though ways to do this are quite limited.
SkeithDE
I appreciate the idea of The Perfect Challenge, though I am with Wailor on the textbox being too packed for my tastes. Cost should also be capitalized.
Chill Out has quite a few issues. Namely the fact that the downside can be completely negated by just playing it as the final card on your turn effectively making it a 1-mana Frost Nova. But also suppose you're in Fatigue and not many cards left in hand, and you can also use this as a way to permanently Freeze your opponent's board. A niche situation, but one to consider nonetheless. Logically, it is also a bit weird that you're trying to support a card that didn't exist yet as this is a Scholomance card and [Hearthstone Card (Glacial Racer) Not Found] is from the Darkmoon Races.
Screeching Nightworm is a quirky idea for Silence Priest, but it's very weird.
AeroJulwin
I'm not so sure on specifics, but I quite enjoy the idea.
It must be enraging to these guys that they never see any play, so let's help them out a little bit. I'm sure all of us would think that it'd pretty cool for a dedicated Rager deck to actually be pretty good.
Side note: The card is meant for Onyxia's Lair, but the watermark for the mini-set doesn't exist in HearthCards yet. Come on Dnikko, where are you?
Now I have no idea if this idea is practical or not, but playing around with numbers really played off.
Now for some feedback.
SkeithDE
I'm unfortunately not a huge fan of this card. Other than the fact that it doesn't seem very practical to me for any game state, I'm afraid I simply just don't like it too much.
This isn't really your fault or anything. Sometimes you just end up finding cards that you don't like but you can't entirely grasp why.
Linkblade91
I already gave you the feedback on Discord, but for the sake of everyone here reading, I will reiterate for them.
It's a pretty good card. Though some weapons are particularly problematic. Not just Twig, but also Aluneth is another one. It's also just powerful deckthinning.
Wailor
Honestly I'm convinced that we already have the winner of the competition right here. Nexus Collectionist is a pretty stellar card and you've had an extremely good track record this season. Meanwhile I'm supposed to be the "FC guy" around these parts and I have not (sad face).
Shadowbeak Cleric is okay, but I think it's supposed to read "All enemy minions -1 Attack" which would set its score to 5.
AeroJulwin
If you win with this card, I'm gonna be lowkey super pissed because I came up with this exact card and didn't go through with it because "Draw 1 card" is not traditional wording and therefore its proper score would be 6 instead of 7.
As far as feedback for the card itself, well… that. Great card though.
Out of every class, Priest is currently tied with Hunter for fewest winning cards (they both have 4). If there's a comp here that can get Priest out of that spot, it's this one. I'm honestly a bit surprised to not see any Rogue cards yet. There's a lot of Shaman here.
Feedback
Linkblade91
Did someone say…
Jokes aside, you may get some meme points for using Thunderfury. The first version is very Reaper's Scythe-esque, though it's a lot easier to use in my opinion making it a stronger card. The second one I would avoid because giving a lot of stuff Windfury will always be problematic. We all know how [Hearthstone Card (Battlegrounds Battlemaster) Not Found] turned out.
Wailor
Redscale Armorsmith is a very solid card all around and I can see it doing well.
Dragonblight Ritualist is a cool design (and one that I may or may not have taken some inspiration from, so I hope I didn't step on your toes too much) though the reward is definitely too weak. Compared to Scion of Ruin which gives you some addition 3/2s with Rush or Veiled Worshipper which draws 3 cards, your reward for Invoking twice is summoning a random 2-Cost Demon. If you can bump that up, I think it'll be a pretty good card.
BloodMefist
Storming Invocation should probably be a Nature spell, but otherwise it's a fine card.
I prefer Gronn Taskmaster. I think its designing is just a lot more interesting overall.
SkeithDE
Welcome aboard! I look forward to seeing more of you around these parts.
I am a fan of this "if you've Invoked this turn" idea as it's a cool spin on the usual Invoke effects not just in the real game, but also so far in this competition. It's a strong 3 mana 4/4 which isn't technically overpowered, but with a positive effect, will most likely rub people the wrong way. I do think the effect is also a bit weak. Forked Lightning is not exactly one of Shaman's stronger spells.
Forked Lightning also doesn't need the DoD watermark in my opinion.
AeroJulwin
Shaman seems to be the most popular choice for the comp so far.
I like this. I quite like that the Invoke plays into the Freeze effect with the 2/1 Elemental. I will say that maybe it should be a 2/5 because it seems quite pushed at the moment. Great job overall though.
A funny juxtaposition of Zephrys, but I don't really like it too much unfortunately. Mostly from a technical standpoint, but I also think it's weird for a Zephrys effect (or in this case, the opposite of said effect) to be on a Common card.
Wailor
I definitely prefer the Neutral version (and the art is better as well). It can definitely be a 1/1 since other minions with their own Tavern Brawl have also been 1/1s (Webspinner, Jeweled Macaw, and also Shifter Zerus even though you're not intended to play it in base form). As a 2 mana 2/2, it does also overlap with [Hearthstone Card (Wandmaker.) Not Found]
R
A neat little Pogo-Hopper-esque effect that works. This version in particular also works better with bouncing as it distributes the stats among a 1/1 and a big body as opposed to just a big body.
I love the artwork and how well everything in the card is put goether. I really like the flexibility of the card, but I feel like it falters in terms of playability since summoning a random X-Cost minion is usually going to be worse than just putting a minion of that Cost into your deck in the first place.
Do you think it would be better if the card cost 0 initially, like Nirast said? 0-Mana for a random 1-cost minion; it would then become a 1-Mana discount (until the very end).
Possibly so. Starting at 1 mana for a random 2-drop might be another option.
The power level of the card would shift to the other side. Paying 1 mana for a random 2-Cost minion seems pretty good most of the time since in many cases it'll be basically a vanilla 1 mana 2/3 or 3/2 and sometimes you might even get one with a good Deathrattle.
Question for y'all: What do you consider to be more important for the competition? Would it be how playable the card is for Constructed, or how fun the hypothetical Tavern Brawl would be? Or do you try to evenly balance the two judgements together? Or do you not really care either way?
Linkblade91
I love the artwork and how well everything in the card is put goether. I really like the flexibility of the card, but I feel like it falters in terms of playability since summoning a random X-Cost minion is usually going to be worse than just putting a minion of that Cost into your deck in the first place.
Wailor
I do agree with Nirast that "Studies card" feels more methodically written, but the card is great! As far as the Tavern Brawl part is concerned, this is probably the best card so far.
R
Probably say "total mana" as opposed to "current mana" to remove any ambiguity of whether or not it counts your spent mana.
I guess one thing that's a bit weird is that once you reach 10 mana, the card's effect just completely stops changing (unless you use Wildheart Guff I suppose, but you'd never use that card with this one) and it feels a bit weird for the "dynamic" aspect of the card to just completely stop for the rest of the game once you reach a certain point.
And speaking of which, it's quite strong at high mana costs. Especially if you can play a second copy in the same turn or repeat its Battlecry again somehow.
AeroJulwin
The card is coherent, but other than just being an Evolve card, it doesn't really have any Evolve flavor to it. Then again, some real Evolve cards don't have Evolve flavor either, but still. Maybe something to consider.
It's definitely weaker than Evolve though. I don't think paying two extra mana for the effect to get what is essentially a random 2-Cost minion to your evolution board is going to be worth it.
Nirast
I definitely prefer the second version from a balance perspective, even though that does effectively make it a worse Double Agent.
While I think the card is a pretty sound idea from a Constructed perspective, I don't think it would make for a good Tavern Brawl. I'm still not quite sure how much importance that plays into this competition.
BloodMefist
Even if it is just a slightly different variation of the Shifter Zerus brawl, it works for the Tavern Brawl potion. It's not going to be competitively viable, but these cards never are and I don't imagine was made with the intention to be either, so I'm not going to give the card negatively for it.
There was apparently a closed beta for it a few months ago, and is still being developed.
*Warcraft mobile game announced*
"Do you guys not have phones?"
Onyxia's Lair has been added. It ended up taking longer to post here since I was waiting for Dnikko to update HearthCards with the mini-set watermark and he just never did. In the end, I just decided to post it here.
This is it. We've made it to Onyxia's Lair for the final showdown! Infinis's goal has lead him to the lair itself where he has unlocked his potential for time manipulation and his last goal is to defeat Onyxia. All the mercenaries have lead themselves here and they're not backing down. Take the final charge!
One can dream, but nope, they won't be added to the game.
You need more people to throw them at. Let me help you with that. *wink, wink*
I must admit that I was the one person who gave your card a 1-star in the finals (and one of the two who rated it that way during the initial voting period) and the reason I voted it 1 star was because it was a pre-FitB card that required spell schools to function. Pre-FitB cards that require spell schools to function are one of those designs that I always rate 1 star regardless of how well the card is designed in other areas, because in my mind, it renders the effect non-functional for its time. If the card existed in Scholomance, it would basically be a vanilla 4 mana 3/3 since it's trying to use something that didn't exist in the game at the time. I've always been very passionate about the QA/QC of custom card designs in general and I've always viewed attention to details like this to be very important.
In my mind, this reasoning for voting a card 1 star seems entirely justified, but I know that not everyone views these details with the same level of important that I do. It is true that some people will attempt to game the system in their favor by voting other people's cards lower than they normally would and this is unfortunately something that can't be fixed entirely. A reality though is that some people just have different voting metrics than others. I mentioned before about the watermark and the effect is something I consider into scoring a lot, but I know that there are a lot of people who seem to not care about this detail at all (after all, you did end up making the finals). If you disagree with me and think this penalty for an incorrect watermark is too harsh, then that's completely fine and I understand why you would think that.
A thing to note is that you should try to participate in the Discussion Topic. Really, I think everyone who takes part in these competitions should do that since it's always better to have more people active in those threads and it increases the productivity of them tenfold. There, you would've likely had someone tell you (probably me) about the watermark problem and it could've been corrected to get a better score. While card designing skill is obviously a big part of these competitions, there is of course a degree of luck involved as well. Above all else, it's important to just try to have fun with these competitions. Even if you don't end up winning them, just merely taking part in them will do wonders to improving your card making abilities, especially for your own purposes.
Oh shit, why did it take me this long to notice that this was up?
Always a joy to see as usual.
Wow, this competition IS moving slowly. Here's my own feedback.
I appreciate the idea of The Perfect Challenge, though I am with Wailor on the textbox being too packed for my tastes. Cost should also be capitalized.
Chill Out has quite a few issues. Namely the fact that the downside can be completely negated by just playing it as the final card on your turn effectively making it a 1-mana Frost Nova. But also suppose you're in Fatigue and not many cards left in hand, and you can also use this as a way to permanently Freeze your opponent's board. A niche situation, but one to consider nonetheless. Logically, it is also a bit weird that you're trying to support a card that didn't exist yet as this is a Scholomance card and [Hearthstone Card (Glacial Racer) Not Found] is from the Darkmoon Races.
Screeching Nightworm is a quirky idea for Silence Priest, but it's very weird.
It must be enraging to these guys that they never see any play, so let's help them out a little bit. I'm sure all of us would think that it'd pretty cool for a dedicated Rager deck to actually be pretty good.
Side note: The card is meant for Onyxia's Lair, but the watermark for the mini-set doesn't exist in HearthCards yet. Come on Dnikko, where are you?
From what I gather from the feedback, Dr. Smalls is basically DOA so here's a new card instead without negative numbers.
Now I have no idea if this idea is practical or not, but playing around with numbers really played off.
Now for some feedback.
I'm unfortunately not a huge fan of this card. Other than the fact that it doesn't seem very practical to me for any game state, I'm afraid I simply just don't like it too much.
This isn't really your fault or anything. Sometimes you just end up finding cards that you don't like but you can't entirely grasp why.
I already gave you the feedback on Discord, but for the sake of everyone here reading, I will reiterate for them.
It's a pretty good card. Though some weapons are particularly problematic. Not just Twig, but also Aluneth is another one. It's also just powerful deckthinning.
Honestly I'm convinced that we already have the winner of the competition right here. Nexus Collectionist is a pretty stellar card and you've had an extremely good track record this season. Meanwhile I'm supposed to be the "FC guy" around these parts and I have not (sad face).
Shadowbeak Cleric is okay, but I think it's supposed to read "All enemy minions -1 Attack" which would set its score to 5.
If you win with this card, I'm gonna be lowkey super pissed because I came up with this exact card and didn't go through with it because "Draw 1 card" is not traditional wording and therefore its proper score would be 6 instead of 7.
As far as feedback for the card itself, well… that. Great card though.
Congrats Kommutator, you won!
Since your competition is going to be competition 4.20, I suggest that your comp is something called "Blaze It!"
Just a suggestion...
Managed to get another idea in here.
Out of every class, Priest is currently tied with Hunter for fewest winning cards (they both have 4). If there's a comp here that can get Priest out of that spot, it's this one. I'm honestly a bit surprised to not see any Rogue cards yet. There's a lot of Shaman here.
Feedback
Did someone say…
Jokes aside, you may get some meme points for using Thunderfury. The first version is very Reaper's Scythe-esque, though it's a lot easier to use in my opinion making it a stronger card. The second one I would avoid because giving a lot of stuff Windfury will always be problematic. We all know how [Hearthstone Card (Battlegrounds Battlemaster) Not Found] turned out.
Redscale Armorsmith is a very solid card all around and I can see it doing well.
Dragonblight Ritualist is a cool design (and one that I may or may not have taken some inspiration from, so I hope I didn't step on your toes too much) though the reward is definitely too weak. Compared to Scion of Ruin which gives you some addition 3/2s with Rush or Veiled Worshipper which draws 3 cards, your reward for Invoking twice is summoning a random 2-Cost Demon. If you can bump that up, I think it'll be a pretty good card.
Storming Invocation should probably be a Nature spell, but otherwise it's a fine card.
I prefer Gronn Taskmaster. I think its designing is just a lot more interesting overall.
Welcome aboard! I look forward to seeing more of you around these parts.
I am a fan of this "if you've Invoked this turn" idea as it's a cool spin on the usual Invoke effects not just in the real game, but also so far in this competition. It's a strong 3 mana 4/4 which isn't technically overpowered, but with a positive effect, will most likely rub people the wrong way. I do think the effect is also a bit weak. Forked Lightning is not exactly one of Shaman's stronger spells.
Forked Lightning also doesn't need the DoD watermark in my opinion.
Shaman seems to be the most popular choice for the comp so far.
I like this. I quite like that the Invoke plays into the Freeze effect with the 2/1 Elemental. I will say that maybe it should be a 2/5 because it seems quite pushed at the moment. Great job overall though.
You see a storm approaching? That's the sign of the end. The world will end with Galakrond. He is called "Azeroth's End" after all.
Y'all got a little under 24 hours left to submit.
Hey. While I admire your enthusiasm for sharing your ideas, you should make your images smaller for the sake of everyone else reading the comments.
Possibly so. Starting at 1 mana for a random 2-drop might be another option.
The power level of the card would shift to the other side. Paying 1 mana for a random 2-Cost minion seems pretty good most of the time since in many cases it'll be basically a vanilla 1 mana 2/3 or 3/2 and sometimes you might even get one with a good Deathrattle.
Question for y'all: What do you consider to be more important for the competition? Would it be how playable the card is for Constructed, or how fun the hypothetical Tavern Brawl would be? Or do you try to evenly balance the two judgements together? Or do you not really care either way?
I guess one thing that's a bit weird is that once you reach 10 mana, the card's effect just completely stops changing (unless you use Wildheart Guff I suppose, but you'd never use that card with this one) and it feels a bit weird for the "dynamic" aspect of the card to just completely stop for the rest of the game once you reach a certain point.
And speaking of which, it's quite strong at high mana costs. Especially if you can play a second copy in the same turn or repeat its Battlecry again somehow.
The card is coherent, but other than just being an Evolve card, it doesn't really have any Evolve flavor to it. Then again, some real Evolve cards don't have Evolve flavor either, but still. Maybe something to consider.
It's definitely weaker than Evolve though. I don't think paying two extra mana for the effect to get what is essentially a random 2-Cost minion to your evolution board is going to be worth it.
I definitely prefer the second version from a balance perspective, even though that does effectively make it a worse Double Agent.
While I think the card is a pretty sound idea from a Constructed perspective, I don't think it would make for a good Tavern Brawl. I'm still not quite sure how much importance that plays into this competition.
A bit funnier than my usual cards, but it just works out so perfectly here, wouldn't you agree?