The rumor is June 10th, which seems more and more likely as we fail to hear anything about the Adventure. It might have been delayed because of the coronavirus, but they could have said as much at some point :(
I didn't know that some people took grammar seriously in the competition, but thanks everyone for critiquing me on grammar. so from now on I will put grammar to the utmost importance in my card designs
Grammar and formatting mistakes fall under the same wheel-house as the watermark, for me at least. It all comes down to how "real" your card appears to be: could/would Blizzard print something like this? Blizzard cares about their watermark continuity and making sure their cards are 100% perfect, so you should too. It's the sign of a polished product, and I personally do take it seriously.
congrats to all of the finalists im bummed that my card wasnt one of them but i do belive the battlecry was kinda lopsided anyways
...
Edit: here was my card in case you were wondering
The Battlecry is strong, but not a deal-breaker. For me personally what did you in was the formatting mistakes:
"Restore" needs to be capitalized, and needs a space in-between the word and the colon that preceded it.
"Health" and "Dragons" need to be capitalized.
You need a period after "hand".
You need "Hero Power" in bold above "Restore 5 Health," and a period at end. Also don't know why it costs 3.
It hurts your card when there are a lot of mistakes on it, but a proofread can help with that. If you're not sure it's right, you can always bother the lot of us to assist you :)
What would you replace Underlight Angling Rod with? I don't have one, and I'm not tempted to craft it (saving my resources for a different deck, plus I hate Murlocs). I have everything else.
Every week I think about crafting Highlander Hunter or Highlander Mage, and every week I don't do it...I guess that's a good thing because they're not super dominant, but still would be nice if a deck I liked did well *cries Libram Paladin tears*
Good luck everyone in the voting, and good luck to our future finalists :)
We had a lot more variety this week than I honestly expected: I was waiting for a ton of Sylvanas', Arthas', and Alexstraszas to pop up, if-only because they have a lot of available art. People got creative to get around the art issue, and I'm glad to see what came to be.
The main stumbling block is that he always start with dealing damage for every minion in my deck. Hence the spell druid. The hunter deck will kill me on his first spell :(
Well the spells he cheats with are different for each class: Druid, for example, loses all minions that cost 3 or less. I got around this by going Jade Druid.
For the Hunter, you just have to balance it and see how comfortably low you can get without getting killed. I had like 6 Health going into the fight, but on my winning run it didn't matter because I was the aggressor the whole time. But again, my strategies come from back when the Adventure first came out; if anyone has a more recent strategy that would work better, I'm all ears as well.
I haven't played against TLK since the Adventure came out, but I do have all nine victories so I know these strategies work. They might be improved with more recent additions, but with time and patience they can be done the original way:
Hunter
Show Spoiler
Strategy: Scavenging Hyena all-in. Fill your deck with cheap Beasts you can kill off and whatever else you need to clear a path, then sacrifice everything to the Hyena God in an effort to kill TLK before he ever plays Frostmourne. We're talking Kill Command, Alleycat, Crackling Razormaw, etc. Mulligan hard for a turn-1 play and a Hyena, or hope you get lucky and draw what you need that turn; if not, restart. If he plays his weapon you lose, so restart if the strategy is flagging. It can be really frustrating watching TLK Obliterate the Hyena, but it can be done this way: it took me like 50 restarts, but my father did it in 7.
Strategy: Secret Cheese. You can use Kabal Lackey into Counterspell to make the fight more of a normal match, or you can use Mana Bind to steal TLK's spell and use it against him, making the fight a risk but also faster. I went the Mana Bind route, for what it's worth, and worked to win before Frostmourne was played. Build a regular Secret Mage deck around the package, perhaps with more removal to save your precious 1 Health from harm.
Strategy: Young Dragonhawk all-in. Similar to the Hunter's strategy, you need to buff the Young Dragonhawk as high as possible and hope he kills TLK before Frostmourne is played (I'm sensing a pattern). Buffs and other people to clear the way are what you need. Blessing of Might, Righteous Protector to block access to your Dragonhawk, Adaptation to give him Divine Shield or another +3 Attack, etc. This one took me less time than the Hyena strategy, but it's just as capable as taking forever if things don't go your way.
Strategy: I'm not gonna say anything about the Priest, because the fight is a joke. Without a real Lich King "cheating spell" to worry about, you can play anything that can go the distance and win.
Rogue
Show Spoiler
Strategy: Had to look up what the cheating spell was, because I totally forgot this fight. I believe I used Murlocs. See the Shaman.
Shaman
Show Spoiler
Strategy: Murlocs, and more Murlocs! This fight got harder now that Murloc Warleader has been nerfed, making everything you have that much flimsier. That being said, it's still doable. Swarm the board and win before, you guessed it, Frostmourne is played.
Strategy: Alarm-o-Bot switcheroos. Fill your deck with big minions, removal spells, and two Alarm-o-Bots, then mulligan hard for one of the Bots. Protect him long enough to get something big on the board, then repeat. TLK tends to ignore the Alarm-o-Bot to focus on the heavy minions, but you've got the clearing spells just in case.
Improvements: Woecleaver and Gather Your Party can Recruit minions directly without using the Alarm-o-Bots. The Boomship can quickly drop a bunch of heavies. Dimensional Ripper and The Boom Reaver can summon copies of your heavies onto the field. The Galakrond package can protect your Alarm-o-Bots while leading to a big draw, making your heavies even bigger.
grayghost39 - I like the card well enough and it could definitely find a home in Fire Plume's Heart decks to get to Sulfuras faster. That being said, I feel like the effect is not worth being a Legendary: Infested Goblin, for example, is very similar but is a Rare. Maybe "Battlecry: Fill your hand with 2/2 Gnolls with Taunt"?
Hordaki - I despise Combo decks, so I accept that I am biased here. That being said I think Encore takes away from the uniqueness of Open the Waygate, being the exact same reward. I know that gameplay-wise it will play out differently in a separate class, but still. I love ETC as he is, I just feel Encore could do something more unique. Also if you could shift ETC's art to the right a little more, that will remove Alarak's arm + blade from the picture lol :P
It's been a month already, so there's some hope that we'll maybe hear something about it tomorrow or next week. That's pure speculation, though. There's a rumor circulating that we won't see the Adventure until June, which I imagine would bother some people, so hopefully that's not the case.
Hey everybody! This is my first entry into the card design competition, and I'm pretty excited. What do you think?
Welcome to our side of things :D
I also like the first one better, because the other card is just the original with a "Recruit 3 Murlocs" Battlecry tacked on. The first iteration captures the "I'm a Murloc that grows powerful" feel but does so in a new way. It's a little weird to be borrowing Gral, the Shark's effect before he ever existed, but I'm trying to be lenient lol. This is also way better than Gral, but Gral kind of sucks so whatever.
Gral is so bad that I actually forgot he existed, so I didn't know I was copying :)
Do you think I should say something like "remove 3 murlocs" or "destroy 3 murlocs" to have a different flavor, or should I change it mechanically?
I don't think it's a deal-breaker to use Gral's effect, if you want to keep it, although maybe change the watermark to avoid the issue. Make it a custom watermark, suggesting it came after Gral.
If you want to change the card mechanically to be separate from Gral or whatever, you could say "Charge. Battlecry: Destroy 3 friendly Murlocs and gain their stats. Deathrattle: Resummon them." That would require board setup beforehand, instead of pulling from your deck.
Hey everybody! This is my first entry into the card design competition, and I'm pretty excited. What do you think?
Show Spoiler
I think I like the first one better, and I'm not sure about the wording on the second one. Feedback is appreciated.
Welcome to our side of things :D
I also like the first one better, because the other card is just the original with a "Recruit 3 Murlocs" Battlecry tacked on. The first iteration captures the "I'm a Murloc that grows powerful" feel but does so in a new way. It's a little weird to be borrowing Gral, the Shark's effect before he ever existed, but I'm trying to be lenient lol. This is also way better than Gral, but Gral kind of sucks so whatever.
While we have not currently nailed down what we're going to do to close out the Season here at OoC, on that other website we used to end a Season with a series of "mini-competitions" in November, then take the holidays off before returning in January.
grumpymonk - I would stick with Maiev, because Kael'thas is a bit messy. If you have to explain it that much, it's too much.
SDhn2a - Welcome to Out of Cards :D I like Y'Shaarj the most because it connects back to his original effect and stats. Moroes seems really strange, and C'Thun doesn't really feel flavorful to me. I'm not sure what he has to do with the Schemes.
RenoLord - Leeroy the Chef is really strange, so I would go with Kel'Thuzad. You won't be able to post all three images, though, so you'll have to explain in your description that you come back with 5 Health.
HyperOrange - I love Kel'Thuzad being Freeze-related, although it would be difficult to pull off the destruction effect because your opponent's minions would thaw out first. I don't like Leeroy. I understand you can copy Chickens and whatnot to really ramp him up; I guess I just don't like seeing another huge Charge minion enter the game after the original Leeroy was removed.
Wailor - As has been said, you would need to change Harrison to include Legendary weapons from other classes, otherwise he'll only provide Kingsbane because of the way Discover works. I think Xavius is too gimmicky; I know mana gain is part of the Druid's main identity, but it still feels weird to me. I like Manastorm the most.
meisterz39 - I like Maiev, but it also feels really close to what the Demon Hunter already does. You've borrowed Kayn Sunfury's effect, and Crescent Slash is very similar to the DH Hero Power. I think The Curator is more creative as a solid Menagerie build-around card. The one problem, though, is that you need to change the name: The Curator is his original name. See cards like Deathwing and Deathwing, Mad Aspect. You also need the Hero Power to say "Hero Power" at the top, but that's a minor thing most people forget.
MenacingBagel - I know you're trying to connect to Brightwing's Heroes of the Storm iteration, but healing is supposed to be one of the Mage's key weaknesses and people will dock points for that. I think if you stick with the original version of your Trickster Brightwing, but clean up the outlying criticisms, you have a solid enough card.
TheHoax91 - I like this version of Eydis better. The Hero Power is more in-line with the original Eydis, and the mana cost seems fair. I'm not a fan of your other cards, so I would stick with Eydis.
DestroyerR - Hakkar seems really cool, and it's my favorite of the three, but it's also pretty easy to abuse him with Galakrond's horde of 1/1 Imps. I could definitely see him coming down earlier than intended because of Galakrond.
KANSAS - I like this version of Mukla even more. 5/5 connects to his original stats, and his effect with the +1/+1 connects to the Bananas. Nice work :)
Swizard - I would cut off the "Make them Legendary" part, because it is confusing and it adds too many lines of text to your card. Beyond that, I think the card is fine: it could be combo'd in a Plot Twist deck with Fel Lord Betrug or Dollmaster Dorian to get those minions back into your hand/back on the table.
Xarkkal - I like the latest Subject 9. It's a direct call-back to the original effect, while also being different enough to warrant its existence. Can't thin your deck out, but generating a "free" Christmas tree of Secrets is always fun :D
Thez - These are both much better than your original iteration of Rivendare. I think I like the Rogue version more, because it captures the original iteration's effect but in a new way. I think you could get away with the weapon being a 3/3.
shaveyou - I really like the version of Sally that links back to the original. It goes perfectly well with cards like Equality or Libram of Justice to act as a board-clear, while still being potentially good on its own.
we know that it won't include any new cards for classes
So does this mean it will include neutral cards?
No I believe it means I phrased the sentence poorly lol. We are not expected to see any new cards.
The one glimmer of hope is that a golden version of Kael'thas Sunstrider has not been made available yet, and could maybe be a reward from this Adventure.
The rumor is June 10th, which seems more and more likely as we fail to hear anything about the Adventure. It might have been delayed because of the coronavirus, but they could have said as much at some point :(
Grammar and formatting mistakes fall under the same wheel-house as the watermark, for me at least. It all comes down to how "real" your card appears to be: could/would Blizzard print something like this? Blizzard cares about their watermark continuity and making sure their cards are 100% perfect, so you should too. It's the sign of a polished product, and I personally do take it seriously.
The Battlecry is strong, but not a deal-breaker. For me personally what did you in was the formatting mistakes:
It hurts your card when there are a lot of mistakes on it, but a proofread can help with that. If you're not sure it's right, you can always bother the lot of us to assist you :)
Edit: I've been ninja'd.
I like what I see :)
What would you replace Underlight Angling Rod with? I don't have one, and I'm not tempted to craft it (saving my resources for a different deck, plus I hate Murlocs). I have everything else.
Thanks: I'll give it a look :)
Every week I think about crafting Highlander Hunter or Highlander Mage, and every week I don't do it...I guess that's a good thing because they're not super dominant, but still would be nice if a deck I liked did well *cries Libram Paladin tears*
Finalist voting has begun; good luck to our finalists :)
Good luck everyone in the voting, and good luck to our future finalists :)
We had a lot more variety this week than I honestly expected: I was waiting for a ton of Sylvanas', Arthas', and Alexstraszas to pop up, if-only because they have a lot of available art. People got creative to get around the art issue, and I'm glad to see what came to be.
Your deck has four Libram of Wisdoms in it: might want to swap those out for two more cards :P
Four hours left! If you haven't already submitted, you should seriously consider doing so!
Well the spells he cheats with are different for each class: Druid, for example, loses all minions that cost 3 or less. I got around this by going Jade Druid.
For the Hunter, you just have to balance it and see how comfortably low you can get without getting killed. I had like 6 Health going into the fight, but on my winning run it didn't matter because I was the aggressor the whole time. But again, my strategies come from back when the Adventure first came out; if anyone has a more recent strategy that would work better, I'm all ears as well.
I haven't played against TLK since the Adventure came out, but I do have all nine victories so I know these strategies work. They might be improved with more recent additions, but with time and patience they can be done the original way:
Hunter
Strategy: Scavenging Hyena all-in. Fill your deck with cheap Beasts you can kill off and whatever else you need to clear a path, then sacrifice everything to the Hyena God in an effort to kill TLK before he ever plays Frostmourne. We're talking Kill Command, Alleycat, Crackling Razormaw, etc. Mulligan hard for a turn-1 play and a Hyena, or hope you get lucky and draw what you need that turn; if not, restart. If he plays his weapon you lose, so restart if the strategy is flagging. It can be really frustrating watching TLK Obliterate the Hyena, but it can be done this way: it took me like 50 restarts, but my father did it in 7.
Improvements: Rastakhan's Rumble introduced Springpaw and Halazzi, the Lynx, both invaluable tools to boost your Hyena and clear the way at the same time. Diving Gryphon and Mok'Nathal Lion can also work.
Mage
Strategy: Secret Cheese. You can use Kabal Lackey into Counterspell to make the fight more of a normal match, or you can use Mana Bind to steal TLK's spell and use it against him, making the fight a risk but also faster. I went the Mana Bind route, for what it's worth, and worked to win before Frostmourne was played. Build a regular Secret Mage deck around the package, perhaps with more removal to save your precious 1 Health from harm.
Improvements: Cinderstorm, Rolling Fireball, and Arcane Flakmage are decent removal. Cloud Prince can be removal or a finisher, while Ancient Mysteries makes the whole deck more consistent.
Paladin
Strategy: Young Dragonhawk all-in. Similar to the Hunter's strategy, you need to buff the Young Dragonhawk as high as possible and hope he kills TLK before Frostmourne is played (I'm sensing a pattern). Buffs and other people to clear the way are what you need. Blessing of Might, Righteous Protector to block access to your Dragonhawk, Adaptation to give him Divine Shield or another +3 Attack, etc. This one took me less time than the Hyena strategy, but it's just as capable as taking forever if things don't go your way.
Improvements: Brazen Zealot gives us another growing threat to work around if necessary, making the deck potentially more consistent. Autodefense Matrix protects your Dragonhawk from harm. Sound the Bells! and Hand of A'dal can buff your Dragonhawk, while Subdue can bring a Sludge Belcher down to size.
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Strategy: Murlocs, and more Murlocs! This fight got harder now that Murloc Warleader has been nerfed, making everything you have that much flimsier. That being said, it's still doable. Swarm the board and win before, you guessed it, Frostmourne is played.
Improvements: Underbelly Angler, Scargil, and Soul of the Murloc help you flood the board. Storm's Wrath can buff your wide board. Plague of Murlocs can remove stupid stuff like Sludge Belcher while (hopefully) still retaining your deck synergy.
Warlock
Warrior
Strategy: Alarm-o-Bot switcheroos. Fill your deck with big minions, removal spells, and two Alarm-o-Bots, then mulligan hard for one of the Bots. Protect him long enough to get something big on the board, then repeat. TLK tends to ignore the Alarm-o-Bot to focus on the heavy minions, but you've got the clearing spells just in case.
Improvements: Woecleaver and Gather Your Party can Recruit minions directly without using the Alarm-o-Bots. The Boomship can quickly drop a bunch of heavies. Dimensional Ripper and The Boom Reaver can summon copies of your heavies onto the field. The Galakrond package can protect your Alarm-o-Bots while leading to a big draw, making your heavies even bigger.
grayghost39 - I like the card well enough and it could definitely find a home in Fire Plume's Heart decks to get to Sulfuras faster. That being said, I feel like the effect is not worth being a Legendary: Infested Goblin, for example, is very similar but is a Rare. Maybe "Battlecry: Fill your hand with 2/2 Gnolls with Taunt"?
Hordaki - I despise Combo decks, so I accept that I am biased here. That being said I think Encore takes away from the uniqueness of Open the Waygate, being the exact same reward. I know that gameplay-wise it will play out differently in a separate class, but still. I love ETC as he is, I just feel Encore could do something more unique. Also if you could shift ETC's art to the right a little more, that will remove Alarak's arm + blade from the picture lol :P
It's been a month already, so there's some hope that we'll maybe hear something about it tomorrow or next week. That's pure speculation, though. There's a rumor circulating that we won't see the Adventure until June, which I imagine would bother some people, so hopefully that's not the case.
I don't think it's a deal-breaker to use Gral's effect, if you want to keep it, although maybe change the watermark to avoid the issue. Make it a custom watermark, suggesting it came after Gral.
If you want to change the card mechanically to be separate from Gral or whatever, you could say "Charge. Battlecry: Destroy 3 friendly Murlocs and gain their stats. Deathrattle: Resummon them." That would require board setup beforehand, instead of pulling from your deck.
Welcome to our side of things :D
I also like the first one better, because the other card is just the original with a "Recruit 3 Murlocs" Battlecry tacked on. The first iteration captures the "I'm a Murloc that grows powerful" feel but does so in a new way. It's a little weird to be borrowing Gral, the Shark's effect before he ever existed, but I'm trying to be lenient lol. This is also way better than Gral, but Gral kind of sucks so whatever.
While we have not currently nailed down what we're going to do to close out the Season here at OoC, on that other website we used to end a Season with a series of "mini-competitions" in November, then take the holidays off before returning in January.
More feedback!
grumpymonk - I would stick with Maiev, because Kael'thas is a bit messy. If you have to explain it that much, it's too much.
SDhn2a - Welcome to Out of Cards :D I like Y'Shaarj the most because it connects back to his original effect and stats. Moroes seems really strange, and C'Thun doesn't really feel flavorful to me. I'm not sure what he has to do with the Schemes.
RenoLord - Leeroy the Chef is really strange, so I would go with Kel'Thuzad. You won't be able to post all three images, though, so you'll have to explain in your description that you come back with 5 Health.
HyperOrange - I love Kel'Thuzad being Freeze-related, although it would be difficult to pull off the destruction effect because your opponent's minions would thaw out first. I don't like Leeroy. I understand you can copy Chickens and whatnot to really ramp him up; I guess I just don't like seeing another huge Charge minion enter the game after the original Leeroy was removed.
Wailor - As has been said, you would need to change Harrison to include Legendary weapons from other classes, otherwise he'll only provide Kingsbane because of the way Discover works. I think Xavius is too gimmicky; I know mana gain is part of the Druid's main identity, but it still feels weird to me. I like Manastorm the most.
meisterz39 - I like Maiev, but it also feels really close to what the Demon Hunter already does. You've borrowed Kayn Sunfury's effect, and Crescent Slash is very similar to the DH Hero Power. I think The Curator is more creative as a solid Menagerie build-around card. The one problem, though, is that you need to change the name: The Curator is his original name. See cards like Deathwing and Deathwing, Mad Aspect. You also need the Hero Power to say "Hero Power" at the top, but that's a minor thing most people forget.
MenacingBagel - I know you're trying to connect to Brightwing's Heroes of the Storm iteration, but healing is supposed to be one of the Mage's key weaknesses and people will dock points for that. I think if you stick with the original version of your Trickster Brightwing, but clean up the outlying criticisms, you have a solid enough card.
TheHoax91 - I like this version of Eydis better. The Hero Power is more in-line with the original Eydis, and the mana cost seems fair. I'm not a fan of your other cards, so I would stick with Eydis.
DestroyerR - Hakkar seems really cool, and it's my favorite of the three, but it's also pretty easy to abuse him with Galakrond's horde of 1/1 Imps. I could definitely see him coming down earlier than intended because of Galakrond.
KANSAS - I like this version of Mukla even more. 5/5 connects to his original stats, and his effect with the +1/+1 connects to the Bananas. Nice work :)
Swizard - I would cut off the "Make them Legendary" part, because it is confusing and it adds too many lines of text to your card. Beyond that, I think the card is fine: it could be combo'd in a Plot Twist deck with Fel Lord Betrug or Dollmaster Dorian to get those minions back into your hand/back on the table.
Xarkkal - I like the latest Subject 9. It's a direct call-back to the original effect, while also being different enough to warrant its existence. Can't thin your deck out, but generating a "free" Christmas tree of Secrets is always fun :D
Thez - These are both much better than your original iteration of Rivendare. I think I like the Rogue version more, because it captures the original iteration's effect but in a new way. I think you could get away with the weapon being a 3/3.
shaveyou - I really like the version of Sally that links back to the original. It goes perfectly well with cards like Equality or Libram of Justice to act as a board-clear, while still being potentially good on its own.
I appreciate the unexpected shout-out :)
No I believe it means I phrased the sentence poorly lol. We are not expected to see any new cards.
The one glimmer of hope is that a golden version of Kael'thas Sunstrider has not been made available yet, and could maybe be a reward from this Adventure.