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Hearthstone | Posted by | 4 years, 4 months ago
Fan Creations

Worth Every Penny - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread

Competition Theme: Worth Every Penny

It's an expensive world we live in, and the cards you're making this week just keep asking for more mana!

  • You must create a card which increases the cost of a friendly card or Hero Power
    • Just one card or all of them at once - you could even have it increase its own cost!

DestroyerR has asked us for cards that just keep making you pay for them - so make sure you've got spare mana to hand!

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

  • Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Dec 13 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Dec 18 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
  • Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Dec 18 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Dec 19 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
  • Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Dec 19 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Dec 20 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
  • Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

Discussion Thread Rules

No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

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  • Competition Theme: Worth Every Penny

    It's an expensive world we live in, and the cards you're making this week just keep asking for more mana!

    • You must create a card which increases the cost of a friendly card or Hero Power
      • Just one card or all of them at once - you could even have it increase its own cost!

    DestroyerR has asked us for cards that just keep making you pay for them - so make sure you've got spare mana to hand!

    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

    • Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Dec 13 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Dec 18 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
    • Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Dec 18 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Dec 19 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
    • Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Dec 19 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Dec 20 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
    • Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

    Discussion Thread Rules

    No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

  • Got a triple threat for you guys this time around.

    Friendly Staff

  • From zero to hero.

    A bit of an endgame card for Rise to the Occasion.

    Edit: New card.

  • Perhaps it would be more balanced at 3 mana given the new rogue hero, but overall I think it works. Refill for your hand, if you can still afford to cast this.

  • Got a weird idea, not sure if this is the right way to phrase the text or balance the card. Feedback would be very appreciated, I'll try to reciprocate ASAP. 

  • Quick feedback.

    Wailor

    Mythmaker has some cool flavor, but a problem stems from the fact that making cards cost 10 is bad. I'd imagine this problem would only be exacerbated with 1-Cost minions since they (logically) don't do very much so you now have a 10-Cost card in your hand that doesn't do much of anything impactful. Splintergraft suffered a very similar problem (in addition to it being an 8-Cost card that required board presence and also didn't do anything immediately).

    Desperate Shot is a more interesting design although it has a very weird dynamic in that Hunters have typically never been that good at holding a lot of cards in their hand anyway (although this has admittedly been changing over the course of this year).

    BasilAnguis
    Aside from the weird phrasing and syntaxing (which I'm not entirely sure how to fix), the card is a bit weird in that it costs more mana when you play more cards and thus spending more mana. True that Rogue decks can play a lot of 0 or 1-Cost cards to offset this, but it's a strange dynamic in which the card weirdly works against itself.

    R

    I like the callback to Justicar Trueheart, but the upgrading your Hero Power seems a bit off to me since it just upgrades your Hero Power with no real cost (other than just making it slightly more expensive for 3 uses). It's not like Justicar which required you to play a minion with a bad stat distribution, or either Genn Greymane, Baku the Mooneater, or Sir Finley of the Sands which each have deckbuilding requirements.

    The effect of costing more can also somewhat be negated with cards like Tour Guide which might be something worth thinking about.

    Anchorm4n
    Cool idea. It seems that you may have run out of space on the card to specify this, but if possible, I'd probably put "(up to 10)" somewhere on the card.

    Friendly Staff

  • Two variations of a new idea (which I like much more than my previous cards):

    It's a bit of a foreshadowing of Honorable Kill in the previous expansion, since it encourages you to not waste excess damage.

    I'd like to know if you think cost and damage are well ajusted and whether you prefer it to affect your whole hand or a single card. Not sure if the wording is 100% right, either.

    Feedback time:

    Demon
    First of all, sorry for publishing a new card right after you gave feedback on my first batch heh

    About your cards, I think Nashura the Breeder is your best one. I appreciate her design, similar to Kirin Tor Tricaster, and her strong flavor.

    Skull Golem is quite elegant, but I'm afraid it's too clunky. Even with the Taunt, it's works kinda similarly to Forbidden Ancient, which wasn't very good.

    Finally, Clock Tower Guard is too similar Mana Wraith, which wasn't a very interesting card from a gameplay perspective.

    Basil
    I think it's too complex. I might not be the sharpest tool in the box, but I had to read the text a couple times to know what it does.

    R
    I really like the callback to Justicar Trueheart, but the effect is way too strong. I'd either make her effect a Battlecry, make the cost increase permanent or nerf her stats. I'd probably go with the two later approaches at the same time.

    anchor
    I really enjoy the crazy concept and the flavor. Maybe some people will find this too crazy, but I like it nonetheless.

  • Shadows has been busy so I haven't gotten a totally-official ruling, meaning I'm gonna go ahead and post this anyway:

    Would you say this counts; yay or nay? I think it's a cool card because you can play it straight-up with Wildheart Guff, or "combo" with Pathmaker and/or Pride Seeker. And, of course, you can simply pay the base amount for a slightly-cheaper The Forest's Aid, meaning it's not totally useless if you generate the card outside the ideal use-case.

    Friendly
    • Quote From linkblade91

      Shadows has been busy so I haven't gotten a totally-official ruling, meaning I'm gonna go ahead and post this anyway:

      Would you say this counts; yay or nay? I think it's a cool card because you can play it straight-up with Wildheart Guff, or "combo" with Pathmaker and/or Pride Seeker. And, of course, you can simply pay the base amount for a slightly-cheaper The Forest's Aid, meaning it's not totally useless if you generate the card outside the ideal use-case.

      If the opinion of the theme-suggester matters, I’d be inclined to say it doesn’t count unfortunately. I pictured the card as actually raising the cost of cards and turning them red, not having the option to spend additional mana. By the way, I also didn’t mean for cards that raise costs in both sides to count, a lá Mana Wraith

      • Quote From DestroyerR
        Quote From linkblade91

        If the opinion of the theme-suggester matters, I’d be inclined to say it doesn’t count unfortunately. I pictured the card as actually raising the cost of cards and turning them red, not having the option to spend additional mana. By the way, I also didn’t mean for cards that raise costs in both sides to count, a lá Mana Wraith

        Well...damn. I kinda figured, as Demon had already told me No on Discord. I will come up with something else.

        Feedback:

        Show Spoiler

        DestroyerR - As Sinti noted, I don't think anyone would ever play it as a Mage minion. The stats aren't worth it at all, and the Mage cares about the cost of cards in its hand; your opponent would simply kill and rekill this over and over until your hand is worthless.

        BloodMefist - I like that it switches around; that's a neat feature. I'm concerned that someone would find a way to abuse the fact that it starts as Shadow, like with Mind Blast and Void Shard: play this during an OTK turn (after reducing its cost with Insight?) and just utilize the Shadow cost reduction without any care for the switching part.

        Wailor - I would very much not have it increase the cost of all cards in-hand, like the Epic version: that's just awful. The Rare version seems good-to-go.

        anchorm4n - I honestly don't think you'll be able to fit the "up to 10" part without sacrificing something else to make room, so I say screw it. You're good-to-go otherwise :)

        R - With the existence of Tour Guide I just don't think this should be a Start of Game effect. Battlecry, sure, but Tour Guide just blows the requirement out of the water and defeats the point.

        BasilAnguis - I like that it promotes decision-making: the more productive your turn, the more expensive it becomes (and thus harder to refill). That being said I don't think others will appreciate that as much, and it just kind of feels wrong to have a Rogue card that becomes harder to use.

        Wailor (again) - The flavor of Mythmaker is awesome…it's just that the actual effect is suspect. Most 1-Cost minions are not impactful enough with their effects to warrant being 10/10/10s. I think maybe you could win off the idea alone, if people don't think about it too much, but it's hard to say. Desperate Shot annoys me because it would go right into a "dump my hand and win the game" Hunter deck to remove a Taunt.

        Friendly

  • An initial idea that supports the idea of mixing and matching spells in Priest, since they utilize both schools quite a lot. It starts out lowering Shadow spells so it can't be buffed too much out the gates. A tad worried the reduction might be too scary, but Radiant Elemental existed and didn't break the game too much.

  • How do you balance this?

     

    • Quote From DestroyerR

      How do you balance this?

       

      Why would you play this lol. Maybe if it was a 5/5 or something :D

      Staff

  • Feedback at last, sorry for being late! 

    DestroyerR
    I like your general idea but this is too weak by far to be worth the draw back. I'm also not sure if Mage is the right class, there's not much flavor in any direction so you might as well make it a Neutral.

    BloodMefist
    My favorite card so far. Very cool!

    Wailor
    Interesting flavor though I have to admit I'm not a big fan of the pizza art piece. You managed to find a very fitting effect for it and the foreshadowing of Honorable Kill is a really nice addition that you should definitely mention in your description box. I'd go with the rare version that increases the cost of one card.

    R
    Plus 1 point for creativity since you are the only one in this thread who went down the Hero Power road. Other than that, judging the balance is pretty hard since there's a delay, but it lacks Baku's deck building restriction. I tend to vote OP though.

    BasilAnguis
    This is genius and at the brink of being too complicated at the same time. I can guarantee 4 stars from me but will have to think some more about adding the fifth as well. Great work! (The name is a bit bulky as well)

    Demonxz95
    The Golem would have been fine a few years ago but doesn't make the cut for me these days. Clock Tower Guard is okay but too niche to be really interesting. The Hunter card has a lot of combo potential without necessarily encouraging OTK builds too much. I definitely like that one the most out of the three.

    • Quote From doingtheobvious

      You don't need the first "by", Cost should be capitalized in this instance, and I think you mean for it to say "every Fire spell you cast this game". Beyond those minor errors, you should be good to go :)

      The card is strong, but:

      • A. It's a Legendary so it's harder to access;
      • B. It has no spell school so it's harder to tutor or directly synergize with it; and
      • C. Work has to go into building it up, like Mordresh Fire Eye but minus the pass/fail aspect (since you can use the Potion early if you want to). I think most people would end up using it early, to deal with Aggro boards and the like.

      All-in-all, I like it.

      Friendly

  • I hope this sticks.

    • Quote From Neoguli

      I hope this sticks.

      That effect could be crazy for generating value, if your hand is full of spells, so I'm wondering if the cost-increase needs to be higher, like a 2. Not sure without being able to test it; maybe it's okay. Being Neutral means everyone has a chance to abuse it, though, so in the interest of hedging one's chances nerfing it in advance might be the right call *shrugs*

      Also, I personally would not name them "(X) Roame", just because we already have an established Roame family and there's no need to add to it IMO.

      Friendly

  • Alright, cleared up the card text and found a new name for it. I am perfectly aware this gets harder to play as you play more cards, that's the intent. To provide a challenging mini-puzzle that can offer amazing card draw if you plan accordingly.

    Feedback

    Neoguli
    Like link said, Roame is connected to Cariel and Tamsin, unless you mean this to be another member of her family. Effect is good, balance might be not. I think it might work better as an aura, increasing their cost by 2 but making all spells you play discover other spells. A little chain effect like Instructor Fireheart or Lyra the Sunshard

    doingtheobious
    I like it, can be a big finisher like Mordresh Fire Eye. there might be a bit too much overlap with his effect and this.

    DestroyerR
    I like the concept but the balancing is way off. Enemy could easily just kill this a bunch of time just to make everything in your hand cost 10 and fuck with you, locking you out of the game. If you want an immortal minion perhaps something akin to Greybough but for spells in your hand could work. Spell costs more but resummons this maybe bigger each time.

    BloodmeFist
    Love how this ties with the flavor of the new priest hero. Balance wise, i think it's fine. 2 mana but for only 1 spell school doesn't arise any big problems in my head. Yeah you could do some Bless/Divine Spirit thing, but aMind Blast/Vivid Nightmare/Prophet Velen is also possible so both schools are busted kinda. For 4 mana you can just drop 2 elementals making this the same thing, just slightly easier. Seems alright.

    linkblade91
    I don't think it's right to have something unplayable unless you have 2 very specific cards.

    Wailor
    Flavor is spot on (haha!). I think perhaps making the next card you play cost more by the excess damage is better. Cause then you're forced to deal with the drawback right away. Making whole hand cost more is too much and conflicting with the quest we got in that xpansion.

     

  • I found this fanart which inspired me, and I'm trying to create an effect which matches its' mood of being in an unknown place - whether by lashing out in terror, being overwhelmingly confused, or seeing shadows jump from every corner.

    Which do y'all think works best?

    Feedback for unsubmitted cards:

    Show Spoiler

    Destroyer: That isn't worth the effect, nor is there a flavor there I can see to it. Also, I think you're right about there being balance issues: a card like this will fundamentally being overpowered or underpowered, with very little space in between (if any). Perhaps you could find a different direction for the art by synergizing with Mage's elementals somehow, which are all about cards added to hand, spell damage, elemental cost reduction, tokens added to hand, and/or hero power damage. There is a lot of cost reduction in that sphere - maybe you could find enjoy turning an aspect around humorously or playing two aspects against each other.

    R: I'm not a fan. For one, the effect seems too easily obtained, but also, the hero power ALWAYS costs (1) more. While balanced, the playing experience is crappy. I don't feel that I've done something special, and what I have obtained is tough to use. I'd go back to the drawing board and figure out how that cost increase can be a payment for something flashy and fun, rather than the shackles on your fun reward itself. That said, you're the only one following a hero power theme, so if it does work out, you'll be in pretty well!

    Neoguli: I'm not crazy about it. Fundamentally, it's similar to R's card - by increasing the cost of your reward, while balanced, you're decreasing how fun the card is to play. If you could apply the cost reduction to another aspect, it might be more successful. An aspect that adds some flavor, perhaps - at the moment, I'm not sure why the card does what it does. Discover is a neat field to play with for this competition, so I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

    Doingtheobvious: I quite like this! You are increasing the cost of your reward, but the damage scaling with that makes the more expensive card feel better, not worse! And actually, I like the non-dual class version more. Fire synergy isn't really a Shaman thing. My only gripes with the card would be that it's a potion, which seems odd for Mage, and that you also ought to change the expansion symbol, because some sticklers care about that.

  • Round 2 here we go.

    Wailor
    Nice flavor all around and a super cool usage of the pizza art. I'd say the Rare version only increasing the Cost of one card is the way to go. I actually also like Basil's suggestion of making it affect your next card as opposed to just one card at random or all of them.

    BloodMefist
    Super flavorful, but I feel a bit of a design disconnect in the sense that you can play it and then toss out all your Shadow spells and then the penalty to Holy spells doesn't really matter since you've already gotten so much value out the card. And then the penalty to Shadow spells next turn doesn't matter since you've presumably already played all of them on the previous turn anyway. Minions also don't tend to survive long enough for effects like this to function the way they're intended.

    DestroyerR
    Really cool artwork, but I don't see the use for the card. It also doesn't really feel like a Mage card either.

    Doingtheobvious

    I understand your reasoning for not making it a Fire spell, but it has artwork that sorta needs it to use the Fire spell tag. Not including will likely cost you some points since the art just specifically screams "Fire spell".

    Your second version needs capitalized "Cost" and also "Fire" should not be bolded. Beyond that, I am worried by how quickly and easily this can ramp up. Just casting a single Fire spell already makes it a 1-mana Consecration.

    Neoguli
    I will agree with everyone else and say that you shouldn't use "Roame" in the name. I'm gonna say that balance is probably fine since Discovering a spell by itself with no additional upside is not worth 1 mana and adding a 1 mana tax to that won't break anything. If anything, it actually makes the cards slightly worse on average as far as mana efficiency goes.

    BasilAnguis
    I am fully aware that the intent is that it gets harder to play by playing more cards, but it still features a dynamic that works against itself by increasing its Cost as you're spending more mana which is just doubly making it harder to use as opposed to just wanting you to play more cards.

    Friendly Staff

  • Reef Dweller
    Couldn't find the inspiration earlier this week, so I snuck this in at the last moment.

    Remember, we're looking for increased costs - changing a card completely, even into one that costs more, wouldn't count for this prompt.

    Didn't notice this part until it was too late, so I hope it still counts since it still increases the cost required for the Battlecry and doesn't transform them in-hand.

    I'll see what happens.

    Good luck everyone!

  • Good luck to all the finalists :)

    Friendly

  • Hey alright, I finally got off the schneid lol

    Friendly

  • Congrats to linkblade91! And it wasn't even a Paladin card! :P

    Jokes aside, cool idea :)