Card Design Contest [#4/2018]

[attheedge]

Welcome to the 4th Card Design Contest. This contest’s prompt is evolved around a mechanic that, in my opinion, is quite underused in Duelyst. It is the direct interaction with your own or your opponent’s deck. Get creative…

For those of you who are new: This contest is all about designing an own card following the contest’s prompt. A jury will then nominate 12 cards that are going to appear in the poll thread, where you all can vote for your favorite.

We also have prizes for the best three cards:

First: 5 Orbs + Exclusive forum badge “Design God” + Place in the jury next month
Second: 4 Orbs + Place in the jury next month
Third: 3 Orbs + Place in the jury next month

Thanks to Counterplay / Bandai Namco for providing the orbs and the forum badge.

Here are the rules:

• Everyone is allowed to submit ONE card design per month.
• They have to follow the basic template:

Name
Faction, Type
Cost / (Stats)
Card text.

Example:
Shadowmaster Serai
Songhai Minion
5 Mana (3/5)
Backstab: (1) All of your Backstabs deal 2 more damage.

• Clearly over- or underpowered cards or memes are not allowed.
• Cards have to follow the monthly design prompts (e.g.: Create a Battle Pet).
• Unless stated otherwise, you may NOT create own Keywords.
• You may submit card art, as long as it is created by yourself. Art is not taken into consideration from the jury and will not appear in the poll thread.
• Please avoid copying cards from other CCGs.

This month’s prompt: Design a spell or artifact that interacts in any way with your or your opponent’s deck of cards.

Please do not discuss ideas here. Feel free to discuss thoughts about submitted cards here instead.
This is how the jury will evaluate cards.

The deadline for submissions is the 15th of September!

This month’s jury is:
@mmf
@degenerator
@anjosustrakr
@darkjovo

Good Luck to all participants!

[alexx55]

Does making opponent draw cards count?

[phoenixtoasches]

Shadows of the New Moon
Songhai Artifact
5 mana
Each player must play one minion or spell from their deck at the start of their turn.

[alexx55]

Hungering Void
Abyssian spell 8 mana
Whenever your opponent draws a card, draw a card from their deck(Lasts for the rest of the game, cannot be dispelled)

Edits

Edit: Changed name from Null Void Omega->Hungering Void

[zanestheargent]

Desperate Measures
Songhai Spell
6 Mana
Burn 2 cards from your deck, then deal 10 damage to the closest enemy.

Edits

Cost from 5 to 6.
Targeting from anything to the closest enemy.
Damage from half the cards missing in your deck to 10.

[alplod]

Edit for contest requirements: Is this worthy?

I’m not the one to decide.

My design:

Mass Defection
0 mana Abyssian spell

For each card played this turn steal a copy of each minion of the same cost from the opponent’s deck and put it into yours.

Design Explanation and Balance Talk

Well, you see what I’ve done here, it’s a hard counter to Wanderer.

OP, you think? I think not.

A normal deck usually plays around 1-3 different minions of the same cost. Playing this spell will steal a copy of each, and while it may be fun for Reliquarian or Mill memes it gives you immediate card disadvantage. Futhermore, playing this one with several low cost cards filters your opponent’s deck of low cost minions which can be advantageous for him in the long run.

However this card can also steal opponent’s tech minions, is devastating against Wanderer, Ox and Strategos (indirectly nerfing most popular Trial decks which everyone seem to be OK with) and very fun and meme. Design also fits modern Abyssian theme of steal and betrayal.

If you see any ways to abuse the effect to OPness, please don’t hesitate to put a message in discussion thread, I’d be glad for any feedback.

[improbableblob]

The Great Swapening
9 mana Songhai spell
Both players now draw from the opponents deck for the rest of the game

Summary

if two The Great Swapening are played then both players draw from their original decks

[excogitator]

Strider’s Riddle
Songhai Spell
0 mana
At the start of the game, shuffle this into your opponent’s deck. Draw 1 card, restore 3 health.

Explaination + Flavour

You thin your deck, but might give your opponent lots of extra health. Also hard-counters Wanderer.

References the line “not all who wander are lost” from the poem of the same name in Lord of the Rings.

[miguelosz]

Infernal Condemnation
Abyssian spell
5 mana
Destroy ALL cards with only a single copy from both players’ decks. This card’s cost cannot be decreased.

(Edited my entry into a spell to match with the prompt. Reduced cost to 5 since the effect no longer comes with a body.)

[victorious23]

Hoarfrost Bulwark
Vanar Artifact
3 Mana
When you attack an enemy minion, shuffle it into your opponent’s deck. Increase the cost of all copies of it by 1. (Cost cannot exceed 9)

[idnotfound]

Manticore
Neutral Minion
4 Mana (6/2)
Whenever your opponent plays or replaces a card, put a Chain of Burden into their action bar.

Chain of Burden
Neutral Spell
2 Mana
Shuffle a Chain of Burden into your deck.

Aiming for a neutral disruption tool, similar to the Sphynx’s Riddle. Chain of Burden does nothing but clog up your hand, forcing you to use your replace or 2 mana to put it back into your deck.
Casting Chain of Burden or replacing it while Manticore is still active will do nothing (Manticore will put another copy into your action bar, and the prior copy gets shuffles into your deck).

The goal is to get multiple Chains into your opponent’s deck so it limits their options each turn as well as their hand size.

[cookedpoo]

Birth of the Revenant
6 Mana
Abyssian Spell
Draw a minion from your opponents deck. It gains RUSH, and +X/+X, equal to the amount of Shadow Creep you have.

Not sure what happens when you give a battle pet rush

CPG already has a card named unleash the evil so I can’t use it

[anon52821416]

Kaiju Transformation
Magmar Artifact
8 Mana
Your Bloodbound Spell is now AWESOME.

(the cost would remain at 1, just for clarification)

Vaath's awesome BBS

Remove a minion with Grow from your deck. Restore 3 health to your General and give them +3 attack.

Starhorn's awesome BBS

Both players draw a card. Burn cards from your opponent’s deck equal to the number of cards in their action bar.

Ragnora's awesome BBS

Summon a Ripper egg nearby. Draw a minion with Rebirth from your deck. It costs 2 less.

[unktrial1]

Mimicry Mirror
Abyssian artifact
2 mana
Whenever you replace a card, the card will replace a card in your opponent’s hand. Cannot replace Mythrons.

Design notes

As the opponent can replace the card given to them, this isn’t a particularly strong card on its own. However, this artifact was can interact with Aethermaster and Theobule, making it more interesting.

[romdrake]

Abyssal Breacher
Abyssian Minion
3 mana (3/3)
Shuffle five Inner Darkness into the enemy deck.

Inner darkness
Abyssian “spell”
0 mana
Plays it at draw .Transfer 1 health to the enemy general and at the end of turn, create an enemy shadow creep in your general’s space.

*im really undecided so… apologize me if the cost/stats aren’t the best, focus on the effect =)

[cold52]

Edit: i didnt notice it said spell or artifact for the prompt this month >_>;;;

Novaborn Ritual
Abyssian Spell
6 mana
Add a Novaborn Summoning to your opponents hand, it cannot be replaced.

Novaborn Summoning
Abyssian Spell
4 mana
Summon an enemy Novaborn Archfiend on a random enemy creep tile, while this card is in hand your minions cost 2 more.

Novaborn Archfiend
Abyssian Minion
6 mana (6/6)
At the end of your turn summon a minion from your opponets deck onto a random friendly shadowcreep tile, if it is 6 mana or more, it transforms into a Novaborn Archfiend.

[trulster]

Earth Crown
Magmar Artifact
3 Mana
Your general has “Grow: +1/+1”. Whenever anything grows, move one card from the opponent’s deck to yours.

[bepoest]

Harbinger of Unbirth
Abyssian Artifact
2 mana
Intensify: Whenever your General deals damage to a minion, deal that much damage to 1 random minion in your opponent’s deck.

Notes

Intensify on an Artifact is something to be tried, and can be enabled by Artifact Hunter. Although in this case we are in the dangerous theme of Abyssian self-hurt, which poses an interesting strategy choice.
The cumulated payoff is potentially very good, and could strongly reinforce the relatively stronger Abyssian end game versus an opponent dredging up half corpses (or straight up dead minions) from their deck.

Un-summoned corpses is kind of the point ultimately, and I figure if this card was to be implemented IRL then the devs would have to handle the case of Minions reaching 0 health in the deck. I assume it would be trivial to make the Dying Wish routine only take place when the minion is on the board (i.e. in the worst case, you could summon a 0-heath Azure Horn Shaman, it’d die immediately and would buff neighboring minions).

How many procs are we looking at? At maximum, three artifacts’ worth of procs would cause 15 random slaps to the opponent’s un-summoned army. Given that most mid-range deck lists feature something like 25 minions, and maybe by the time this effect snowballs there would only be like 15 minions left in the deck, its maximum effect is devastating.
In order to do that, the Abyssian General would have to be able to soak 3 to 9 hits to the face, depending on the artifact stacking, meaning the deck would have to be completely built around lots of healing and Artifact Hunters.
That’s the best case scenario though, as the opposing general can kill artifact charges with correct positioning. Interestingly Spectral Blade would enhance the effect and sustainability of the strategy, but dilute the tutoring effect of Artifact Hunter.

The potential abuse in any metagame would be fairly contained, because artifact countering tech cards are universal and super effective.

Changes:

• v1 - An artifact implementing the General’s incremental version of Dying Wish (a Hurting Wish?)
• v2 - Now proccing on damage dealt to minions, so that the opponent has a counter play strategy (hitting face with own General) to mitigate this artifact’s effects.
• v3 - Renamed to better fit the Abyssian semantic field

[buyingcoats]

Prism of Duality
Vanar Artifact
1 Mana
If possible ALL minions always replace into spells and ALL spells always replace into minions.

Notes

This card should really be on a neutral minion to both interact with itself in a way and open up the effect to all factions but the rules don’t allow it. As the effect wants to be continuous it doesn’t work well on a spell and it is in Vanar because they get weird effects and can probably make this work. It has interesting ways of disrupting the opponent and is a unique way of tutoring if you build your deck for it. Unfortunately since it’s not blatantly overpowered it probably won’t win this time.

[atheistmantis]

Sacrifice onto Oserix
Vetruvian, Spell
3 mana
Destroy a friendly non-token minion to draw 2 random artifacts from your deck.