Our adventurer's find ourselves in the Wailing Caverns. Contrary to Hamuul's warning not to go in, Infinis goes in. The caverns is full of several mysteries and dangers that lie ahead (and Screeching Horrors). What is undiscovered about the caverns though is the aura of Arcane energy to allow reality itself to be altered by whomever however they wish. Having been in the business of time magic after discovering Eternos from his Un'Goro trip with Elise, Infinis is of course intrigued by this possibility and heads in to claim it himself.
I have yet to remake all the old cards with spell schools, but from the counting I've done, Arcanic Dungeoneer has easily more than enough targets to be able to use well. There are about the same amount of Arcane spells for Time Traveler as there are Nature spells for Shaman to use with Primal Dungeoneer.
I feel the need to point this out since this is the second competition in a row to feature a card called Scale Up! and use the artwork from Anyfin Can Happen.
Now, I get it. Not everyone has an encyclopedic knowledge of every artwork in the game that is used, but do avoid using artwork for your cards that is already featured on cards accessible via collectable cards. The general rule of thumb is that artwork found on cards that can only be seen outside of Ranked mode is fair game, but artwork that can be found on cards accessible in Ranked mode isn't.
Nathanos is a very creative way to interpret "scaling" to say the least. If it were up to me, I would say that it would count. But it's not up to me, and I'm not sure what the official judgement is. I think the effect is pretty interesting though.
Shadow Illusions is cool in theory, but it can become extremely powerful fairly easily.
BasilAnguis
I agree with everyone in that it should just be named Counterintilligence. I think the card is really flavorful, but I am concerned on the fact that it borders on the line of being a class tech card.
Linkblade91
I definitely prefer the second one because it's a lot easier to judge in terms of general balance and is a lot easier to figure out what it's going to do in gameplay. I do believe it could cost 3 mana though.
Having 2 out of 8 cards so far being hard disruption cards seems a little bit worrying. I am hoping that this mini-set won't turn into just a big pile of disruption cards.
Took a while to think of something I liked, but I've finally got it. Specifics can still be tweaked, but I'm quite fond of the scaling condition.
Feedback
Nirast
Get Ready for the Boom! is a bit strange with Dr. Boom's Scheme in the same set, although the latter is one of the worst cards ever made, so I wouldn't necessarily blame you for refusing to acknowledge its existence, though quite a few people will. I feel like announcing that you're using used art is also a bit counterproductive.
Exponential Explosion is flavorful, though you are right that it doesn't fit Warrior. Not to mention potentially too strong. You can deal 32 damage with this card if your opponent has 6 Bombs in their deck (or 5 Bombs and use both copies of this). You also seem to be forgetting the watermark and rarity, although I can let it slide here given that the card feels more like a proof of concept.
Wailor
Spell Damage is absolutely still a thing in Shaman. There are lots of Shaman cards that are related to Spell Damage in some way. The reason Wrath of Air Totem was removed was to allow them to make Spell Damage synergies in Shaman without making it a highroll and because according to Blizzard, it's by far the worst Totem in some Shaman decks, and by far the best Totem in some other Shaman decks. Though I argue that since Searing Totem is always the worst Totem in every circumstance, we should remove that too and keep Wrath of Air Totem.
While specific stat balancing might use some tweaking (as I agree with HuntardHuntard that both of these cards are fairly weak), the concept behind them is quite solid. I personally prefer Maelstorm Harbinger myself.
Anchorm4n
I quite like Pyrotechnician! I don't particularly mind which version you go with myself since they are both pretty solid cards. The version able to hit face might be a bit too powerful if you're playing against a Control deck with a large hand and an empty board, though such situation may be niche enough to balance the card.
C'Thun, the Insatiable is actually C'Thun 4.0 (Mecha'thun cries in the corner). I think the proper wording of the card is "For each card you've played this game, deal 1 damage randomly split among all enemies.". Certain decks do have the potential to scale this up pretty high and pretty quickly, although I don't think that'll be a problem.
Just checking to be sure, there is no penalty for using a well-known anime image and perhaps even the name for my card right? Or does it have to be Hearthstone or WoW specific? As long as I manage to follow this weeks competition theme, it should be okay I think?
Some people might penalize you for blatantly using a non WoW-IP in a place where it doesn't belong, but your card won't be disqualified for it
Transparency report looks like a tie (both with exactly 3.4444...), but only my card is shown at the competition page. Not sure if or how tiebreaking is done, but MathU should also be shown at the least.
Only showing one winning card in a tie has always been the way that it works, but the Card Design Conversation will acknowledge the tie and both winning people will be able to share their ideas for next week's comp.
I'm going to assume that the 145 cards thing is probably just a typo.
As for watermarks, I think the way it's handled here is basically the best that it could've been done given the limitations of HearthCards. Adding your own watermarks basically requires you to contact Dnikko directly and then maybe he'll add it, or use some type of photo editing program to edit them in yourself. Needless to say, not everyone really wants to do that, so what we have in the set as it is, I think it's perfectly serviceable that MrRhapsody just used a different music-related watermark for the mini-set. Eventually through looking at just a part of the whole set, it should just click through anyone's head that the G Clef watermark is supposed to represent the mini-set cards.
I've been a part of this website since its inception, before it was officially launched as Out of Cards, and it's been a real pleasure to work with everyone here and see how this website has grown over the two years that it has been around.
Happy birthday Out of Cards, and many more to come.
Well, evidently I care about Toki losing her spectacle. The difference between Princess Huhuran and Toki is that Huhuran is just a random throwaway character with an effect that's not particularly flashy or intended to be unique to the card, particularly when Feign Death already existed for an entire year. Toki on the other hand is supposed to be one of the primary protagonists of the expansion she is part of and her effect is built specifically with the intention of being unique.
Arkasaur
Nah, I think it's fine at 2 mana since it specifically needs to be played in decks with mostly big minions to make it effective. I really like this card, although Cost should be capitalized.
@Demonxz95 Any thoughts on how to improve the feeling of deliberacy? Or what more generally makes a card feel deliberate?
Basically what I meant by "deliberacy" is when every piece of card feels like it was specifically put together to make the card rather than just putting a bunch of random pieces together. Admittedly, this is in many respects harder to avoid with very simple Common cards and there are probably several upon several existing cards that you could apply this line of logic to as well. Pack filler Common cards in general are prone to this since it's very easy to just slap whatever effect you want on a random body with any artwork and call it a day.
A source of this specific card feeling this way does also come from what Link said about the card attempting to fill two completely antithetical purposes. Obviously, the Poisonous and the damage is meant to be used as a pseudo-Assassinate on a body that can possibly take another minion out by itself, but the option of dealing very specifically 3 damage to something including face goes against this since the fact that it deals 3 damage as opposed to 1 won't matter when the Poisonous effect will kill it anyway, or when you use it to hit face in which case you're not really using the effect combination for its intended purpose as well as the fact that playing it for face damage also just makes the card feel very weak.
Hopefully you can understand what I mean since translating my thoughts into words is not always my strong suit.
There seems to be more activity in this comp than the last few. That's pretty good!
More feedback.
Fedrion
I know you've already submitted the card, but it's a VERY solid card and I could definitely see it making the finals.
Arkasaur
I think the card itself is fine. The synergy with Poisonous and the Battlecry is cute, but I feel like the card doesn't have much deliberacy. Everything on the card just feels like it just happened to be put together that way. As a card for the competition though, it'll likely get some good votes due to its interesting design.
BasilAnguis
I have already mentioned before about reducing the text size too much on the second version (in which, "Weapon" also should not be capitalized), which is why prompts like this are usually avoided in the first place.
That said, I do also have a problem with the first version which is that Discovering a card based on being Rare doesn't really narrow the pool in a meaningful way. While you may know what cards you'll be able to get and which ones you can't, there isn't really anything you can try to grab from the pool. I also don't like putting "from the past" on a Common or Rare card. Perhaps we might see it on an Epic one day, but as a Common or Rare, it very much takes away from the spectacle of Toki, Time Tinker.
And one last note, but that is definitely not a Kobold. It looks more like a humanoid raptor person.
KANSAS
I still stand by all the things I said about the card before, but I do think it's better as a 3/2.
The phrasing "Draw a Legendary from your deck" feels incomplete and could come off as deliberately skimping on the rules to fit the card into the competition. While I think it's kinda cool that it can draw non-minions now, there is the chronological problem in that Legendary non-minion cards did not exist during Blackrock Mountain. This aspect would only really become meaningful in The Boomsday Project (as Quests start in your hand anyway). Minion should also not be capitalized on the second version as the word is only capitalized when it's at the start of a sentence.
Wailor
I do agree with Link in that it should be a Warlock card. For basically the same reason. It would be weird for Time Rip and Roar of Time to exist in the same set (and at the same rarity no less).
Linkblade91
I'm going to go against the grain and say that I actually preferred the previous art over the current one, although this one does feel a lot more Hearthstone-y.
Nirast
I do kinda like Boastful Assassin. It's flavorful and it feels like a proper dual-class card. I do believe we will eventually see a Stealth + Taunt card in the game one day, although I will agree that the general weirdness of combining the two mechanics might rub people the wrong way.
Hibernating Rockbeast is pretty good.
DestroyerR
I did already mention this on Discord, but yeah, Showstopper exists and is also not very good.
Honestly, I think tinkering with the font size shouldn't be an immediate reason for a DQ as long as you don't go out of the window with it. I mean you have to compensate for a single letter, that should be done by going -1 or -2 and won't probably be noticed at all if people don't know it from the start. I've tried out alternate wording for KANSAS' card and it still looked okay at -4. We could also ask Shadows but I'm all for not asking questions in cases like this.
I do agree with this. The current wording actually already has text size reduced. It's currently at -2, but it works because it looks natural with the way the text on the game is usually presented. There is a problem with reducing the card text too much in that it can come off as natural and an attempt to force a card into the prompt where it wouldn't otherwise belong.
Alternatively, "can only" will make the text work while still appearing natural, but my hesitancy to use this wording stems from the fact that "can only" could psychologically make the effect sound like a downside even if the effect itself is still exactly the same.
@Demon: Thanks for the explanation. Regarding the text, why don't you simply phrase it in the present tense? "Your Hero Power always summons Stoneclaw Totem."
There is a technical problem with this text which is the fact that despite having less characters overall, this exact wording is harder to fit into 2 lines of text because of the specific line "summons Stoneclaw Totem" as opposed to "summon Stoneclaw Totem" which takes up more space on one line and forces it into another line. This is actually something I'm finding out after I already made the card with the wording it has now, which makes the process moving forward a bit more difficult to navigate around.
It's a case of a weird wording problem, which is one reason why prompts based on specific card texts are usually avoided.
It's a simple but very solid effect on that iconic 1/1/3 statline. I like it. That said, two minor issues: I'm no native speaker, but "Earthwarder" got me irritated for a moment. Shouldn't it be "waren"? Then I'm not sure why you're using future tense in the effect ("will always summon"). Don't aura cards usually use present tense ("always summons")? I've run a quick check and there's not a single card in the database that has the word "will" on it.
"Warder" is actually correct here. A "warder" is another word for a guard of some type, and to "ward" something can be used as a way of saying to protect or guard something. This is enforced on the card as summoning Stoneclaw Totem, which protects things and is also the representative of earth out of the original 4 Hero Power Totems.
You actually aren't the first person to point out that "will always" is not proper wording here. Truth be told, I'm not quite sure what the best wording to use here is. I haven't really been able to find anything better.
Now this is a card that will definitely do well. I also really like it just as a card. I like how it uses a game mechanic in a new way that feels very realistic as well as the fact that it manages to feel Legendary while still abiding to the two-line limit.
Wailor
I've always been a sucker for time-based aesthetics on cards, so you've definitely got my flavor vote. If we were still in 2016 or 2017 Hearthstone, I'd say that 4-Cost is appropriate, but nowadays though, when Assassinate costs 4 mana without a downside, I think it can probably be 3 mana.
Anchorm4n
I have mentioned before that I quite like this card. I was originally concerned that the flavor wouldn't be very obvious without voicelines, but Grumpymonk seemed to catch onto it quite fine, so it seems that won't be an issue. For the sake of consistency, I do agree that it could be just "Spellburst: Draw a weapon." and it would even fit naturally on only one line of text.
I have personally always wished that Team 5 made some type of weapon support for Paladin, so I like it for that as well.
KANSAS
Draining Imp seems OP to me. It is a 1 mana 3/3 and the downside seems inconsequential to me as it's delayed, very slow to grow, and can easily be stopped.
High Justice Grimstone is indeed very flavorful and he's very faithful to how he appears in Hearthstone as is, but I am slightly concerned about the card's tutoring power since it's able to very easily draw several powerful win-condition effects without needing to change your deckbuilding very much, if at all. Some people might also be put off by the card's inherent P2W aspect of the card, which was definitely more-so the case during the days of Blackrock Mountain.
BasilAnguis
Indeed a very simple card, which I do agree may be the card's downfall. But I think the card itself is fine.
Forged in the Barrens mini-set is now out!
Forged in the Barrens Mini-Set
Our adventurer's find ourselves in the Wailing Caverns. Contrary to Hamuul's warning not to go in, Infinis goes in. The caverns is full of several mysteries and dangers that lie ahead (and Screeching Horrors). What is undiscovered about the caverns though is the aura of Arcane energy to allow reality itself to be altered by whomever however they wish. Having been in the business of time magic after discovering Eternos from his Un'Goro trip with Elise, Infinis is of course intrigued by this possibility and heads in to claim it himself.
I have yet to remake all the old cards with spell schools, but from the counting I've done, Arcanic Dungeoneer has easily more than enough targets to be able to use well. There are about the same amount of Arcane spells for Time Traveler as there are Nature spells for Shaman to use with Primal Dungeoneer.
I feel the need to point this out since this is the second competition in a row to feature a card called Scale Up! and use the artwork from Anyfin Can Happen.
Now, I get it. Not everyone has an encyclopedic knowledge of every artwork in the game that is used, but do avoid using artwork for your cards that is already featured on cards accessible via collectable cards. The general rule of thumb is that artwork found on cards that can only be seen outside of Ranked mode is fair game, but artwork that can be found on cards accessible in Ranked mode isn't.
Time for more feedback.
Nathanos is a very creative way to interpret "scaling" to say the least. If it were up to me, I would say that it would count. But it's not up to me, and I'm not sure what the official judgement is. I think the effect is pretty interesting though.
Shadow Illusions is cool in theory, but it can become extremely powerful fairly easily.
Having 2 out of 8 cards so far being hard disruption cards seems a little bit worrying. I am hoping that this mini-set won't turn into just a big pile of disruption cards.
Took a while to think of something I liked, but I've finally got it. Specifics can still be tweaked, but I'm quite fond of the scaling condition.
Feedback
Get Ready for the Boom! is a bit strange with Dr. Boom's Scheme in the same set, although the latter is one of the worst cards ever made, so I wouldn't necessarily blame you for refusing to acknowledge its existence, though quite a few people will. I feel like announcing that you're using used art is also a bit counterproductive.
Exponential Explosion is flavorful, though you are right that it doesn't fit Warrior. Not to mention potentially too strong. You can deal 32 damage with this card if your opponent has 6 Bombs in their deck (or 5 Bombs and use both copies of this). You also seem to be forgetting the watermark and rarity, although I can let it slide here given that the card feels more like a proof of concept.
Spell Damage is absolutely still a thing in Shaman. There are lots of Shaman cards that are related to Spell Damage in some way. The reason Wrath of Air Totem was removed was to allow them to make Spell Damage synergies in Shaman without making it a highroll and because according to Blizzard, it's by far the worst Totem in some Shaman decks, and by far the best Totem in some other Shaman decks. Though I argue that since Searing Totem is always the worst Totem in every circumstance, we should remove that too and keep Wrath of Air Totem.
While specific stat balancing might use some tweaking (as I agree with HuntardHuntard that both of these cards are fairly weak), the concept behind them is quite solid. I personally prefer Maelstorm Harbinger myself.
I quite like Pyrotechnician! I don't particularly mind which version you go with myself since they are both pretty solid cards. The version able to hit face might be a bit too powerful if you're playing against a Control deck with a large hand and an empty board, though such situation may be niche enough to balance the card.
C'Thun, the Insatiable is actually C'Thun 4.0 (Mecha'thun cries in the corner). I think the proper wording of the card is "For each card you've played this game, deal 1 damage randomly split among all enemies.". Certain decks do have the potential to scale this up pretty high and pretty quickly, although I don't think that'll be a problem.
I personally prefer Pyrotechnician myself.
Some people might penalize you for blatantly using a non WoW-IP in a place where it doesn't belong, but your card won't be disqualified for it
Only showing one winning card in a tie has always been the way that it works, but the Card Design Conversation will acknowledge the tie and both winning people will be able to share their ideas for next week's comp.
I'm going to assume that the 145 cards thing is probably just a typo.
As for watermarks, I think the way it's handled here is basically the best that it could've been done given the limitations of HearthCards. Adding your own watermarks basically requires you to contact Dnikko directly and then maybe he'll add it, or use some type of photo editing program to edit them in yourself. Needless to say, not everyone really wants to do that, so what we have in the set as it is, I think it's perfectly serviceable that MrRhapsody just used a different music-related watermark for the mini-set. Eventually through looking at just a part of the whole set, it should just click through anyone's head that the G Clef watermark is supposed to represent the mini-set cards.
I've been a part of this website since its inception, before it was officially launched as Out of Cards, and it's been a real pleasure to work with everyone here and see how this website has grown over the two years that it has been around.
Happy birthday Out of Cards, and many more to come.
I was really tempted to make a "Primus sucks" post, I feel like a lot of people wouldn't get the joke.
So instead, I will say that I support this notion 100%.
Basically what I meant by "deliberacy" is when every piece of card feels like it was specifically put together to make the card rather than just putting a bunch of random pieces together. Admittedly, this is in many respects harder to avoid with very simple Common cards and there are probably several upon several existing cards that you could apply this line of logic to as well. Pack filler Common cards in general are prone to this since it's very easy to just slap whatever effect you want on a random body with any artwork and call it a day.
A source of this specific card feeling this way does also come from what Link said about the card attempting to fill two completely antithetical purposes. Obviously, the Poisonous and the damage is meant to be used as a pseudo-Assassinate on a body that can possibly take another minion out by itself, but the option of dealing very specifically 3 damage to something including face goes against this since the fact that it deals 3 damage as opposed to 1 won't matter when the Poisonous effect will kill it anyway, or when you use it to hit face in which case you're not really using the effect combination for its intended purpose as well as the fact that playing it for face damage also just makes the card feel very weak.
Hopefully you can understand what I mean since translating my thoughts into words is not always my strong suit.
There seems to be more activity in this comp than the last few. That's pretty good!
More feedback.
I have already mentioned before about reducing the text size too much on the second version (in which, "Weapon" also should not be capitalized), which is why prompts like this are usually avoided in the first place.
That said, I do also have a problem with the first version which is that Discovering a card based on being Rare doesn't really narrow the pool in a meaningful way. While you may know what cards you'll be able to get and which ones you can't, there isn't really anything you can try to grab from the pool. I also don't like putting "from the past" on a Common or Rare card. Perhaps we might see it on an Epic one day, but as a Common or Rare, it very much takes away from the spectacle of Toki, Time Tinker.
And one last note, but that is definitely not a Kobold. It looks more like a humanoid raptor person.
I still stand by all the things I said about the card before, but I do think it's better as a 3/2.
The phrasing "Draw a Legendary from your deck" feels incomplete and could come off as deliberately skimping on the rules to fit the card into the competition. While I think it's kinda cool that it can draw non-minions now, there is the chronological problem in that Legendary non-minion cards did not exist during Blackrock Mountain. This aspect would only really become meaningful in The Boomsday Project (as Quests start in your hand anyway). Minion should also not be capitalized on the second version as the word is only capitalized when it's at the start of a sentence.
I do kinda like Boastful Assassin. It's flavorful and it feels like a proper dual-class card. I do believe we will eventually see a Stealth + Taunt card in the game one day, although I will agree that the general weirdness of combining the two mechanics might rub people the wrong way.
Hibernating Rockbeast is pretty good.
Can't be any worse than Freeze Shaman.
I do agree with this. The current wording actually already has text size reduced. It's currently at -2, but it works because it looks natural with the way the text on the game is usually presented. There is a problem with reducing the card text too much in that it can come off as natural and an attempt to force a card into the prompt where it wouldn't otherwise belong.
Alternatively, "can only" will make the text work while still appearing natural, but my hesitancy to use this wording stems from the fact that "can only" could psychologically make the effect sound like a downside even if the effect itself is still exactly the same.
There is a technical problem with this text which is the fact that despite having less characters overall, this exact wording is harder to fit into 2 lines of text because of the specific line "summons Stoneclaw Totem" as opposed to "summon Stoneclaw Totem" which takes up more space on one line and forces it into another line. This is actually something I'm finding out after I already made the card with the wording it has now, which makes the process moving forward a bit more difficult to navigate around.
It's a case of a weird wording problem, which is one reason why prompts based on specific card texts are usually avoided.
"Warder" is actually correct here. A "warder" is another word for a guard of some type, and to "ward" something can be used as a way of saying to protect or guard something. This is enforced on the card as summoning Stoneclaw Totem, which protects things and is also the representative of earth out of the original 4 Hero Power Totems.
You actually aren't the first person to point out that "will always" is not proper wording here. Truth be told, I'm not quite sure what the best wording to use here is. I haven't really been able to find anything better.
Feedback time.
I have mentioned before that I quite like this card. I was originally concerned that the flavor wouldn't be very obvious without voicelines, but Grumpymonk seemed to catch onto it quite fine, so it seems that won't be an issue. For the sake of consistency, I do agree that it could be just "Spellburst: Draw a weapon." and it would even fit naturally on only one line of text.
I have personally always wished that Team 5 made some type of weapon support for Paladin, so I like it for that as well.
Draining Imp seems OP to me. It is a 1 mana 3/3 and the downside seems inconsequential to me as it's delayed, very slow to grow, and can easily be stopped.
High Justice Grimstone is indeed very flavorful and he's very faithful to how he appears in Hearthstone as is, but I am slightly concerned about the card's tutoring power since it's able to very easily draw several powerful win-condition effects without needing to change your deckbuilding very much, if at all. Some people might also be put off by the card's inherent P2W aspect of the card, which was definitely more-so the case during the days of Blackrock Mountain.
Holy fuck that score is high!
Always the Totem that everyone always wanted to summon anyway besides the occasional Wrath of Air Totem (which can no longer summon, RIP).
I'm interested to see how this comp goes since it's all about simplicity.