Hello everybody and welcome back to another Fan Community Spotlight. Murder at Castle Nathria was just released just a few days ago, and there's been some fun to be had. I've been playing a Freeze-Skeleton Mage.

A few weeks ago on the r/customhearthstone Discord server, the community held an event for a bunch of people to create their own cards and place the best ones of certain rarity-class combinations together to form a custom mini-set for Rastakhan's Rumble. I only submitted one card (a Rogue Common) that sadly didn't make the cut. Incidentally, exactly 3 months ago, we showcased a project by KingKuba that also involved returning to Rastakhan's Rumble. In the case of both projects, we have a fresh new coat of paint added to the set in consideration with today's power level.

A lot of people ended up with some cards for the mini-set. I have two of the top contributors to the set, TwoManaPriestSpell and Nobody, with a total of 3 and 8 cards that made it into the set respectively. As of this article, Nobody is also the 60th unique person to be interviewed for a Fan Community Spotlight article. This is a fun two-fer article in interviews, so let us begin!

What inspired you to take part in the event?

TwoManaPriestSpell: "I love design competitions! Sometimes it’s hard to find the motivation to make cards, but competitions are an excellent excuse for me to push myself to do some design. As a result I try to join as many discord competitions as I can, regardless of the theme or rules."

Nobody: "I was inspired to create cards for this competition because it looked fun. Mini-sets are cool, and I figured it would be fun to envision what cards would go well in one for Rastakhan's Rumble."

What cards of your own are your favorite? Why do you think they won?

TwoManaPriestSpell: "My favorite card was actually one that didn’t get accepted, Frog Lore. It’s a simple card that blends some themes together that shaman was messing around with at the time, overload and spell synergies. It has different uses in different decks, and even some funny flavor.

Of the cards of mine that did get in, my favorite is Bloodsail Captain. I wanted to make a pirate that worked well with Captain Hooktusk, but also the pirate rogue strategy of pirate tokens for cards like [Hearthstone Card (Ship’s Cannon) Not Found] and Cannon Barrage. I thought a card with different modes would be a good way to accomplish this, and decided Combo would be a good way to switch between the modes.

Bloodsail Captain was the result and I think it’s pretty clean. I’m guessing it won because it rounds out the Rogue archetypes for the miniset nicely. In general I think minisets can be less focused than full expansions because that’s what fits their small size (devoting an entire class miniset towards one type of deck would excite less people). The other Rogue winners (Sharktoothed Celebrant and Ticket Forger) support Even and Miracle Rogue respectively, so it’s reasonable to round the set off with some Pirate support as well.

Nobody: "After Hours and Fireworks Project are my two favourites that I made. I think I hit the flavour aspect of these cards pretty well, which is most likely how they ended up winning."

What are your favorite winning cards from other members?

TwoManaPriestSpell: "There’s a-lot of cards that I’m a fan of, but I’ll just mention three. Social Butterfly by Henlo is a simple card with cool flavor and interesting gameplay. Bar Scanner by Pircival and Eager Minibot by CaptainAmber are both good uses of Magnetic, the former encouraging some interesting Mech/Secret overlap, and the later having loads of different fun applications. "

Nobody: "The more unique cards that caught my eye were Confused Medium and Bloodsail Captain. Their effects are ones I've never personally seen. The set's only cycle, the Party Favor cards, was a good pick for the set."

How do you feel about the mini-set as a whole?

TwoManaPriestSpell: "I think it turned pretty good! Most of the cards hit the sweet spot of being interesting and pushing the boundaries of Hearthstone, while still being simple to understand. It’s a bit difficult to say how it’d play out if it was introduced back in year of the raven (we were asked to design cards of today’s power level), but at the very least I can say there are a lot of interesting additions that I wouldn’t hate seeing in the game."

Nobody: "I think the end product of the mini-set is as good as it could be (from what was submitted). Every card fits well with the others that were picked for their respective class and has a bit of a party theme going for it. I think the judges did a great job putting it all together."

Do you have anything behind the scenes you want to share?

TwoManaPriestSpell: "Something that came up in the event itself was how some people were submitting “too many” cards, which I disagree with. Design is an iterative process; if you’re adding a set of cards to the game, you have so much time to make/adjust/rework/scrap cards before you have to call that project done. Early on in the process it’s important to explore as many ideas as possible so you can then narrow those down into the best of the best. If you are too picky early on, then it’s very possible that you miss out on some genius ideas that just need a little bit of work to be realized. Don't give up on unrefined ideas too easily!"

Do you have anything else you wish to share?

TwoManaPriestSpell: "If you’re interested in taking part in any customhearthstone community events, or just talking hearthstone design in general, join the discord!"

Nobody: "I really enjoyed making cards for this mini-set and competitions as a whole, I'm looking forward to participating in the next one on both the CHS discord and subreddit."

The afterparty may be over, but there can still be an after-afterparty. Click the banner below to see the entire 35-card mini-set.