Back to around our usual time! Has everyone been enjoying making massive boards in Battlegrounds? I'm quite excited to see what changes they make to balance things, because as much fun as the new cards are it's definitely feeling a little like the introduction of Demon Hunter all over again, but for Battlegrounds. We've also been promised buffs to Standard cards, which will be very fun to see. I'm interested to know what the devs think are places they want to push power level a little.

Our Conversation this week takes a promised look at the past - and what a terrible past it is.

Tree Tops

As always, we must congratulate the winner of the latest WCDC! This time, that's MathU and their Prolonged Growth!

We look forward to seeing what they cook up for next week's competition!

Bits And Bobs

The Fan Community Spotlight shines on a Custom Card Set this week - RadioInactive's "Scrapyard Showdown", a mechanical marvel!

As one might expect from the name, this set is very Mech-forward, which I think is a very interesting challenge nowadays. We've already had two Mech-focused sets in Hearthstone - Goblins vs Gnomes and The Boomsday Project - which means that there's already expectations and ideas surrounding what exactly a 'Mech set' should be.

It can be tempting to just throw Spare Parts or Magnetic in a new set and call it a day, but exploring other ways of doing a tribe can be fun, and gives you a bit more room to work with. Instead of pigeonholing yourself into ideas that you might not completely be satisfied with, you can iterate freely until you come to something that works.

That's not to say that reusing mechanics isn't something that might work for a fan expansion - it could even be that final piece that clicks everything into place. You just shouldn't be afraid of breaking away from pre-established ideas to chase something you think might work better.

There's a few cards to tease you - now go check out the full interview at the link above, which includes a link to the full set!

Memory Lane

Last week I mentioned looking at some of my old cards with you all, and looking at ways in which they could be improved. In reality, I think I'll just be laughing at some of my poorer attempts at wording, but who knows - maybe there's some gems I've forgotten!

As far as I can tell, this is the first card I ever created - or at the very least, the first one that I deemed good enough to save somewhere. This would've been about May of 2015, and I know I was definitely making things as early as January of that year, but I don't seem to have kept them anywhere, unfortunately.

It's a pretty simple idea - a reverse Clockwork Giant, our most recent Giant at the time, intended to be good against Aggro decks which would dump their hands very quickly.

The orphan is the first thing I notice, and something I'd definitely avoid doing nowadays. Next is the... interesting flavour. I understand what I was going for - a minion that finds it more difficult to come into play against a prepared opponent - but the stats are very strange for a supposedly 'overwhelmed' creature. Also, it frankly just isn't that good at its job - even if you get it out turn 3 or 4, it doesn't have Taunt and can only pick off one minion at a time, so it'd probably just get ignored. Aggro decks might even run it for the mirror match.

Maybe I'm being too harsh - this might've been fine at the time of a recently nerfed Undertaker. Making something like this now I'd definitely be looking to give it Taunt or some other defensive ability for immediate impact - Second-Rate Bruiser feels like what this card wanted to be.

 

This was my first ever attempt at my own Hearthstone Class, from around June of 2015. There was a lot of focus on both Spell Damage and Weapon synergy, since that felt very distinct from any existing class. Spellwear was a keyword specifically for Weapons - whenever you cast a spell, a weapon with Spellwear would lose 1 Durability. It's admittedly a pretty interesting idea looking back at it, but I just had no concept of how to balance my damaging spells in a class with such easy access to Spell Damage.

 

I'm not sure which of these three cards is the most misjudged, honestly. 

Agathat the All-Knowing I can imagine I judged as not too much of an issue because Malygos exists. Surely a class card can be a little bit better than that, right? Unfortunately, that (orphaned) Battlecry is just asking for things to break, because so many of the Archivist's weapons give you additional Spell Damage on top of their other effects. Not only that, but weapons like Book of Dreams are part of the package - a shaky idea at the best of times, basically asking your opponent to run weapon removal or you'll just set up a board, play a spell and kill them, but now something you can randomly force on your opponent too!

Adela Brightspawn I actually love the wording of - she's scarily powerful, but that wording at least pleases me. I remember being very annoyed by Poisoned Blade specifying that it'd give your weapon +1 Attack instead of replacing it, despite working with Hero Powers that don't actually replace anything. Still, the card is fairly abusable without too much set-up, and is also just a fairly awkward mechanic to include in TGT, where you'd expect to see Inspire if a card is working with the Hero Power. Wait... isn't that where Poisoned Blade is from? Goddammit!

I'm sure I don't need to tell you why Words of Power, a repeatable source of damage at no cost to you in a class with a ton of Spell Damage was just... a bad idea. And in the Basic set, too! This is just one example of the kinds of spells I was making, which is what was really breaking cards like Agathat and Adela. 

This was quite a fun little jaunt into the past! I might do this again some time, maybe try and find my favourite cards I've ever designed and explain why I think their designs are so good.

One And Only

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