"Release new cards more often" is so incredibly far from the simple task you make it out to be. Not only do all those new cards have to be designed, balanced and integrated into the game by the developers, we as players also have to have a way of collecting them, meaning more money required just to keep up.
I also think it's weird that you assume malice on the part of the developers in releasing 'broken' cards. It's not like there's some magical formula that they can perfectly balance cards with and they just choose not to use it so they can change up the meta with nerfs after a month; they just fuck up sometimes and correct their mistakes when the data rolls in.
Was Demon Hunter more pushed than new cards normally are? Yeah! I totally understand wanting people to play your new class and getting really excited by all the cool new cards you're making and just overshooting the balance. Thankfully, they've made frequent and quick adjustments, and Demon Hunter is now in a much better place.
Cards are only 'obviously broken' to us because we all collectively play millions of games and quickly sort out the good from the bad, and then just play the good. The Devs need to balance every card, and have far less people available for the testing. Now, there have been two big recent misses - super early Gala Shaman and super early Demon Hunter - but both were course corrected very quickly, and received further balancing after more data came in.
I just don't see this 'trend' of not testing cards or deliberately releasing broken cards or whatever. Whenever something has been broken, they've just decided they're now actually going to balance it quickly, instead of waiting around because they don't want to admit the mistake like they used to do.
Also, about the whole voting system “strategies”... if I submit this card, wouldn’t it make sense to vote all other cards 1 star? I honestly think the WCDC mods should assess this issue ASAP, since it kind of defeats the point of the rating system
If someone is caught deliberately manipulating the vote in such a way, their entry will be disqualified.
We're more lenient for the finals, since far more people will be voting than just those in the final (even though I think you should still assess each card fairly, rather than trying to game the system), but deliberately rating every other card a 1 in the initial phase will get you a DQ.
Any ratings system will inherently allow people to try and game it in their favour - the best we can do is DQ people who try.
i must say i was intriuged by how many millhouse submitions there were and how none of them went into the finals
Millhouse submissions were in a weird spot for me - if they were just a good card, I didn't think they represented Millhouse that well, and if they were a card that could backfire on you... then it could backfire on you, and that isn't fun.
Some 'restrictions' put on them also either made the card way too bad or way too good, from what I remember. I think there was one which was just a 2 mana 4/4 so long as you didn't play any spells without killing it off first, which is just a really good card for something like a Big Spell Mage.
Well, congrats to the finalists. My two favorites are Beast Tamer Hemet because it looks very interesting and fun, and also Medivh the Cursed because of the incredible story telling.
I would like to ask (again) for more feedback on my card; what you voted and why, and what were the main strong and weak points on my card.
my card:
Show Spoiler
I think your card is very well balanced - it feels appropriately like a finisher, and due to the fact that it's a Battlecry it doesn't immediately slot into Big Beast decks as a terrifying finisher (though there's still something to be said for the combo potential in one card - King Krush, Charged Devilsaur and a couple flex spots is kind of scary).
I think the two areas it falls down a bit are connected - it doesn't really connect to King Mukla that much, and overall the design isn't incredibly exciting. Some of the finalists don't relate at all to their original cards, of course, but I know why Kel'thuzad, Fallen Archmage would be doing this effect; I understand the flavour of Arthas, Mad Prince.
When I look at Mukla, King of the Wild, all I have to go on - in my own personal experience - is the original Hearthstone card. I don't know enough about WoW to know if this is a completely new imagining, or if it references something real. The +1/+1s are maybe to represent Bananas? That's kind of cute, but I can see it getting missed by a lot of people. Other than that, it's a 10 mana card that summons a lot of semi-controllable stats, which while good and realistic, doesn't exactly excite the imagination, imo.
Having said all that, I can say you were very highly rated, you just didn't quite make the top 8, so a very good card overall!
I love Deathrattle Hunter and was happy to see it supported again in Ashes of Outland. Sylvanas was a natural pick for this, I hope she isn't too boring because of the alternate hero skin. I'm still thinking about the name and looking for art, but what do you think so far? Is Battlecry AND Deathrattle too much? I don't want her to be beaten by Teron Gorefiend... is she too similar to him?
You should specify 'other', because as it stands Leper Gnome + this will OTK your opponent.
Personally, when cards get to the finals I compare them to each other and grade on a scale - the card or cards I want to win get a 5, the worst card (in the finals) gets a 1, and everything else falls somewhere in between.
So in this final, as an example, I gave Cleansing Surveyor a 5, Incendiary Chicken a 1, and went from there (I believe those were the only 5 and 1 I gave, not completely sure).
I mean, this data represents games played from Diamond to Legend over the last week, from players enfranchised enough to have HSReplay installed.
Are there decks which can likely counter some of these strong decks? Of course! Can the average player pilot these decks effectively enough to have a better winrate with them? Not always. It's not wrong to tell someone that if they want to ladder as quickly as possible, here's the easy decks to do so.
Zoo and Face Hunter are strong laddering decks because of how quick the games tend to be anyway, not because they're necessarily exceptional in the overall meta. The next level up is looking at HSReplay stats and thinking 'okay, now that I know what the majority are playing what deck can counter that?'.
It doesn't feel anymore egregious than Freezing Trap to me, which while strong is not something I'd say needed changed. The fact that it's an obvious allusion to that makes it all the better, to me.
I'm going to say it now, I really don't like Counter Shot, it's a 2 mana better Counterspell imo. I don't care if you say you get the spell back, not only do you waste mana, you also get a punishment on a really cheap spell you tested on or make a big finisher card unplayable. Not only that, you make your opponent take up more handspace that might want. You play this card in an aggro deck against spell mage with a full hand and they are forced to Flamestrike or Puzzlebox in order to survive and this happens. Then they burn a card after wasting 7 mana. Counterspell at least got rid of the card for space and allowed you to draw cards after playing the spell, this however is much more powerful and at 1 Mana less.
I don't understand this logic at all. The handspace issue is so minor as to not matter at all. The other situations you bring up sound ridiculous to me; surprisingly, if you needed to Flamestrike or Puzzle Box to survive, Counterspell would also prevent you from doing that.
It's probably one of the best designed Secrets I've ever seen someone come up with, and is the only card I gave 5 stars in the finals this time.
I find it ludicrous that you're somehow considering giving the opponent their spell back (albeit at a premium) this massive increase in power over a card which completely prevents them from ever playing the spell again. Like, sure, the fact that its a Hunter card and that its 2 mana, those are worth looking at to decide the balance; if it was a Mage Secret it'd just be worse Counterspell, while you seem to think it'd be better?
I was less disappointed in the number of Rogue Secrets with the same premise and more disappointed in the number of Rogue Secrets which were in an expansion that Rogue didn't get Secrets in, without taking that into account.
I gave any Rogue Secret that wasn't from Ashes or KnC (and couldn't work as a standalone Secret) 1 star. The expansion you put your card in is so important for flavour and balance, and it seems like a bunch of entries didn't consider it at all.
I think I'm a little more lenient with my watermark grading. For me, as long as the rogue secret wasn't in an expansion pre-KnC, it was acceptable. As long as rogue secrets existed in the game, I think it's interesting to think what a Rogue secret in other expansions would look like.
The flavor is extremely important. Unless I can come up with a very good reason to stick a card in an existing expansion, I think it's best to go with a custom watermark.
It's interesting for sure, but if a Rogue Secret is for any other expansion than KnC or Ashes, that would make it the only Rogue Secret in Standard at some point in time. If it doesn't work as a standalone Secret, then it's badly designed to me.
I'm normally more lenient - an unfitting watermark would knock a star off, maybe - but when you can only design a single Secret, you have to consider how it would work in-game.
I was less disappointed in the number of Rogue Secrets with the same premise and more disappointed in the number of Rogue Secrets which were in an expansion that Rogue didn't get Secrets in, without taking that into account.
I gave any Rogue Secret that wasn't from Ashes or KnC (and couldn't work as a standalone Secret) 1 star. The expansion you put your card in is so important for flavour and balance, and it seems like a bunch of entries didn't consider it at all.
I think the way they view it is that if you need an auto-squelch option, you're admitting that there's a reason that someone would never want the emotes on; to them, auto-squelch is basically saying that emotes are a bad user experience, and shouldn't be in the game.
I don't agree with them about auto-squelch, but I can understand not wanting to essentially endorse the idea that emotes are a toxic part of the game.
Instead of many classes using the same card draw, they can print class appropriate card draw tailored to each class without worrying about giving some classes too much card draw.
Competition Theme: By Your Powers Combined
Tired of the same old Hero Power every game? Great news! We're swapping them out this week.
Remember to include your Hero Power in your submission by adding it as an extra card!
This week link wants us to branch out into a different specialisation; to do that we'll need to change up that Hero Power!
As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.
Competition Phases
Here are the phases of this card design competition
Discussion Thread Rules
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"Release new cards more often" is so incredibly far from the simple task you make it out to be. Not only do all those new cards have to be designed, balanced and integrated into the game by the developers, we as players also have to have a way of collecting them, meaning more money required just to keep up.
I also think it's weird that you assume malice on the part of the developers in releasing 'broken' cards. It's not like there's some magical formula that they can perfectly balance cards with and they just choose not to use it so they can change up the meta with nerfs after a month; they just fuck up sometimes and correct their mistakes when the data rolls in.
Was Demon Hunter more pushed than new cards normally are? Yeah! I totally understand wanting people to play your new class and getting really excited by all the cool new cards you're making and just overshooting the balance. Thankfully, they've made frequent and quick adjustments, and Demon Hunter is now in a much better place.
Cards are only 'obviously broken' to us because we all collectively play millions of games and quickly sort out the good from the bad, and then just play the good. The Devs need to balance every card, and have far less people available for the testing. Now, there have been two big recent misses - super early Gala Shaman and super early Demon Hunter - but both were course corrected very quickly, and received further balancing after more data came in.
I just don't see this 'trend' of not testing cards or deliberately releasing broken cards or whatever. Whenever something has been broken, they've just decided they're now actually going to balance it quickly, instead of waiting around because they don't want to admit the mistake like they used to do.
If someone is caught deliberately manipulating the vote in such a way, their entry will be disqualified.
We're more lenient for the finals, since far more people will be voting than just those in the final (even though I think you should still assess each card fairly, rather than trying to game the system), but deliberately rating every other card a 1 in the initial phase will get you a DQ.
Any ratings system will inherently allow people to try and game it in their favour - the best we can do is DQ people who try.
Competition Theme: Two Quests Are Better Than One
We're going on a quest this week!
We're specifically looking for synergy with the Quests, not the Sidequests.
DestroyerR has a quest for us this week; to improve the options for both Quests a class has access to!
As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.
Competition Phases
Here are the phases of this card design competition
Discussion Thread Rules
No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.
Millhouse submissions were in a weird spot for me - if they were just a good card, I didn't think they represented Millhouse that well, and if they were a card that could backfire on you... then it could backfire on you, and that isn't fun.
Some 'restrictions' put on them also either made the card way too bad or way too good, from what I remember. I think there was one which was just a 2 mana 4/4 so long as you didn't play any spells without killing it off first, which is just a really good card for something like a Big Spell Mage.
I think your card is very well balanced - it feels appropriately like a finisher, and due to the fact that it's a Battlecry it doesn't immediately slot into Big Beast decks as a terrifying finisher (though there's still something to be said for the combo potential in one card - King Krush, Charged Devilsaur and a couple flex spots is kind of scary).
I think the two areas it falls down a bit are connected - it doesn't really connect to King Mukla that much, and overall the design isn't incredibly exciting. Some of the finalists don't relate at all to their original cards, of course, but I know why Kel'thuzad, Fallen Archmage would be doing this effect; I understand the flavour of Arthas, Mad Prince.
When I look at Mukla, King of the Wild, all I have to go on - in my own personal experience - is the original Hearthstone card. I don't know enough about WoW to know if this is a completely new imagining, or if it references something real. The +1/+1s are maybe to represent Bananas? That's kind of cute, but I can see it getting missed by a lot of people. Other than that, it's a 10 mana card that summons a lot of semi-controllable stats, which while good and realistic, doesn't exactly excite the imagination, imo.
Having said all that, I can say you were very highly rated, you just didn't quite make the top 8, so a very good card overall!
You should specify 'other', because as it stands Leper Gnome + this will OTK your opponent.
Personally, when cards get to the finals I compare them to each other and grade on a scale - the card or cards I want to win get a 5, the worst card (in the finals) gets a 1, and everything else falls somewhere in between.
So in this final, as an example, I gave Cleansing Surveyor a 5, Incendiary Chicken a 1, and went from there (I believe those were the only 5 and 1 I gave, not completely sure).
Competition Theme: Classically Trained
This week we're recruiting people to our favourite classes!
This week linkblade91 wants us to imagine what some Legendaries would be like if they were a little less Neutral.
As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.
Competition Phases
Here are the phases of this card design competition
Discussion Thread Rules
No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.
I mean, this data represents games played from Diamond to Legend over the last week, from players enfranchised enough to have HSReplay installed.
Are there decks which can likely counter some of these strong decks? Of course! Can the average player pilot these decks effectively enough to have a better winrate with them? Not always. It's not wrong to tell someone that if they want to ladder as quickly as possible, here's the easy decks to do so.
Zoo and Face Hunter are strong laddering decks because of how quick the games tend to be anyway, not because they're necessarily exceptional in the overall meta. The next level up is looking at HSReplay stats and thinking 'okay, now that I know what the majority are playing what deck can counter that?'.
Competition Theme: Archaeological Deck
This week we're taking a leaf out of Rafaam's book this week and messing with our opponent's deck!
Cards which simply force the opponent to draw, like Coldlight Oracle, do not count.
Devizz wants us to mess around with the opponent's deck this week in any way you can think of!
As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.
Competition Phases
Here are the phases of this card design competition
Discussion Thread Rules
No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.
It doesn't feel anymore egregious than Freezing Trap to me, which while strong is not something I'd say needed changed. The fact that it's an obvious allusion to that makes it all the better, to me.
I don't understand this logic at all. The handspace issue is so minor as to not matter at all. The other situations you bring up sound ridiculous to me; surprisingly, if you needed to Flamestrike or Puzzle Box to survive, Counterspell would also prevent you from doing that.
It's probably one of the best designed Secrets I've ever seen someone come up with, and is the only card I gave 5 stars in the finals this time.
I find it ludicrous that you're somehow considering giving the opponent their spell back (albeit at a premium) this massive increase in power over a card which completely prevents them from ever playing the spell again. Like, sure, the fact that its a Hunter card and that its 2 mana, those are worth looking at to decide the balance; if it was a Mage Secret it'd just be worse Counterspell, while you seem to think it'd be better?
It's interesting for sure, but if a Rogue Secret is for any other expansion than KnC or Ashes, that would make it the only Rogue Secret in Standard at some point in time. If it doesn't work as a standalone Secret, then it's badly designed to me.
I'm normally more lenient - an unfitting watermark would knock a star off, maybe - but when you can only design a single Secret, you have to consider how it would work in-game.
I was less disappointed in the number of Rogue Secrets with the same premise and more disappointed in the number of Rogue Secrets which were in an expansion that Rogue didn't get Secrets in, without taking that into account.
I gave any Rogue Secret that wasn't from Ashes or KnC (and couldn't work as a standalone Secret) 1 star. The expansion you put your card in is so important for flavour and balance, and it seems like a bunch of entries didn't consider it at all.
Well, guess I've gotta give Runeterra another go now, huh?
Competition Theme: Top Secret
What's the design brief this week? It's a Secret!
This week, shaveyou wants to keep things Secret. Why? None of your business!
As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.
Competition Phases
Here are the phases of this card design competition
Discussion Thread Rules
No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.
I think the way they view it is that if you need an auto-squelch option, you're admitting that there's a reason that someone would never want the emotes on; to them, auto-squelch is basically saying that emotes are a bad user experience, and shouldn't be in the game.
I don't agree with them about auto-squelch, but I can understand not wanting to essentially endorse the idea that emotes are a toxic part of the game.
Ah, you're very likely right. I knew it wasn't Brode, of course, but I forgot that there have been many Bens on the team! I'll get that fixed.
Instead of many classes using the same card draw, they can print class appropriate card draw tailored to each class without worrying about giving some classes too much card draw.