Card Design Contest - October

[attheedge]

Hey Duelysts,
We are back with the 2nd Design Contest. This time, our prompt is more specific and it probably takes some time of thinking to submit a good card. Please make sure to read the rules, they have been updated. Here is the prompt:

Design a card that interacts with your opponent’s action bar (e.g. The High Hand, Sphynx, Mindwarper, Darkseed).

The card may be Faction or Neutral. However, if it is a spell or artifact, it must be Faction.

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)
• Include a description (can be very brief) of the design’s purpose.
• Card text shouldn’t exceed 4 lines. (Use http://duelystdb.com/card/custom to check this)
• Use the “Hide Details” function for any Lore, Artwork, Etc.
• Do not create new keywords or Generals
• Avoid directly copying a card from another CCG.

The thread is open for submissions until the 15th of month.

Please discuss cards here: Fan Card Design Hub: Discussion (+Card Design Contest Discussion)

Here you can see the criteria for judging the cards: http://docdro.id/uQ15RiF

Prizes:

• First: 2 Orbs + Exclusive forum badge “Designer” + pixel art + Place in the jury next month

• Second: 2 Orbs + Place in the jury next month

• Third: 1 Orb + Place in the jury next month

This month’s jury:
@eudaimonia
@attheedge
@oranos
@narasimha
@nullaurelian
@martinsilenus

[stewiehs]

Aksia of Xaan
Songhai Minion
2 Mana (4/1)
Backstab: (equal to the number of cards in your opponents action bar)

Seems like an interesting concept to have an ‘always changing’ backstab amount and ur opponent trying to play around it. Body is pretty weak and can’t be inner focus’d as well cause of broken combos and huge bursts… Overall i think it would be a much needed help to an archetype that’s suffering… Kaleos life matters!

[katara]

Konda General
Lyonar Minion
4 Mana (4/3)
Opening Gambit: Discard 1 card from your opponent’s action bar .

Pretty self explanatory, it’s an RNG effect sure, but a necessary one for every card game the ability to remove a threat from ur opponent’s hand… Interesting mind games with this card, ur opponent can actually replace to protect a precious card so opens up to cool possibilities!

[alkyone]

Here’s my entry for the month!!!

Traitor of Mar
Magmar Minion
3 Mana (6/6)
Provoke
Opening Gambit: Gains -1/-1 for each card in your opponent’s action bar.

• The idea is basically a reverse High Hand
• It’s on a slot that Magmar doesn’t have many options
• A keyword ability (Provoke) that’s also lacking from the flavor of the faction
• It’s a good defensive tool for aggro decks that vomit their hand

[the1337llama]

Sajonsellum
Vetruvian Spell
8 Mana
Dispell all cards in your opponents current hand

OR
(Same Name)
Vetruvian Spell
3 Mana
Randomly Dispell one card in your opponents hand

OR
(Same Name)
Vetruvian Spell
4 Mana
Turn a random card in your opponents hand into a 2/2 Maw

Im bad with names, you can change that if you want just had some ideas for cards

[Sorostaran]

Darlac The Immutable
Neutral Minion
3 Mana (1/1)
Cards in your opponent’s action bar cost 3 mana.
Dying Wish: Re-summon this minion on a random space.

Explanation: There needs to be a way to counter all these ridiculously powerful low-cost cards. A major problem with the game right now is that low-cost cards are so ridiculously powerful and low-cost removal are so ludicrously efficient, power density is almost always achieved through low-cost cards and massive draw effects. There has to be a trade-off here to have better balance between high-cost and low-cost cards for the game to have more options. This card hampers your opponent’s low-cost spells, but also has the drawback of accelerating your opponents’ high-cost spells.

[attheedge]

Thank you all for your submissions but to actually take part in the contest, make sure that you follow the rules and add a short explanation of your card. Only one submission is allowed per month per Person. Right now, only the submission of @stewiehs is taking part.

[Envest]

Ostracon Hypnotist
Vetruvian minion
5 mana (3/7)
Opening Gambit: The minion in your opponent’s action bar with the highest attack can no longer attack Generals.

A defensive minion for Vetruvian. The affected minions gain the effect: “Avoids Generals, This minion may not attack Generals unless attacked”, which is also used for Mark of Solitude. Hypnotist helps avoid some lethals, like Kara’s tigers, without being too oppressive (tigers still kill your minions).

Edit: Changed health to 6, thanks for your input @oranos and @attheedge.

Edit 2: Adopted @eudaimonia his idea to limit the effect to the minion with the highest attack. In case of a tie one is chosen at random. I think the randomness is fine in this case, because you don’t exactly know what you’re targeting anyway. Likely targets are Kron in general, Tigers for Kara, Mandrake or Makantor for Magmar (Note that Makantor can still inflict Frenzy damage to your General), Aymara for Vet, Four Winds for Songhai, Specrev for Abyssian and maybe Elyx for Lyonar. Note that the effect can be dispelled, so you have to think twice before you dispel that Aymara. I also changed the health back to 7, I think the effect is on par with the opening gambit of Dancing Blades, and Hypnotist deserves equivalent stats.

[raqyee]

Eternal Preservator
Vanar, Minion
4 mana / (3/6)
Opening Gambit: add one Eurielle’s Tear to your deck for each card in opponent’s action bar.

Eurielle’s Tear
Vanar, Spell
1 mana
Restore 2 health to your General. Draw a card.

---

Goal? To make control Vanar viable. The faction has plenty of control cards but the actual control deck simply isn’t doable due to lack of healing. This card is meant to be played early where it’s stats are going to be most relevant, while your enemy still has sufficient amount of cards in their action bar for card’s effect to be relevant.

Some notes about the card:

• It’s stats are a bit worse than average but it’s enough to help in the early game by trading with most 2 and 3 drops.
• It doesn’t have immediate game impact.
• the card will get most value when played in long games, ie it shines in control deck variants.
• Accumulative heal three of these can provide is potentially huge, but it needs to be kept in mind how heals are all in small increments and how the card is naturally slow.
• Heals cost 1 mana rather than 0 for balance purposes. With it being costed at 0 it could perform too good in midrange decks as there’s no real downside to it while in control having to spend an extra mana for an effect such as this is worth it.
• Even though the generated spells draw a card, they’re not really cycle cards as those are used to thin out your deck while the generated spells just replace themselves and don’t make you go through your deck any faster.
• Card is comparable to Earth Sphere. For the same mana it doesn’t provide an instant heal but it does provide slow over-the-time healing and body that is decently helpful early on.
• It’s also comparable to Shieldmaster. Same aggressive stats but it not having a provoke is a pretty big deal as it’s significantly worse at every stage of the game when it comes to board presence. Midrange decks will still prioritize Shieldmasters so the card isn’t strictly better, and even it was it’s a faction card after all so it’s justifiable to some degree.

[mrwavey]

A honorable Duel
Lyonar, Spell
4 mana
Summon the Minion with the highest Mana cost form both Players action Bar. Destroy the one with the lowest Attack.

Idea: My idea was to come up with card that could effect the way players choose cards during their opening mulligan phase .

[moses000]

Dark Sapling
Abyssian - Spell
3 mana
Turn a random space into Shadow Creep for each card in your opponents action bar.

Trying to make control Cassy creep more operable in the current meta. These are meant to be played as opener/ early game options, being not too OP yet giving sufficient standing for given strategies to commence. Would also give way to early/ mid-game artifact usage ensuing a more diverse usage of the “strictly-finisher” cards.

edited

[seththeseal]

Stampeding Leviatan
Magmar, Minion
7mp 5/11
This minion’s movement range always equals amount of cards in your opponents action bar.

Concept: Starhorn has very little support in the game at the moment and Magmar is the only faction, which doesn’t have any movement related effects (excluding Rush). This minion is supposed to fill the void for both categories. In most cases it has at least 1 bonus movement tile, which allows for some interesting plays.

[priestly]

Dreamer

Magmar, Minion

5 mana, 0/3

Opening Gambit: Each player draws cards equal to the number of cards in their action bar.
Grow: +1/+1 per card in opponent’s action bar.

---

I believe Starhorn’s BBS, while currently not the most powerful, offers a ton of room for interesting designs, way more than what the game currently presents us with.
Nonetheless I want to avoid submitting cards that are useful only to one particular hero. Dreamer allows aggressive Vaath players to replenish their hand and still put a credible (though slow) threat on the board while simultaneously allowing Starhorn players to make full use of his hand manipulation.
It strongly rewards careful management of hand size, not going too low or too high and also might enable a possible ‘milling’ Magmar archtype that is not currently viable.

[locoblutaxt]

Flaring Mutation
Magmar, Spell
3 Mana

Give a random Non-Rebirth Minion in your action bar the Rebirth ability.
Transform a random Minion in your opponents action bar into a Rex Battlepet.

[Aeruniel]

Psychic Suppressor
Neutral, Artifact
4 mana
Your opponent’s Action Bar now has 2 random blocked slots.

Notes about the design:

• Blocked slots are slots you cannot play cards from, draw cards into or replace cards from.
• They are random because otherwise people could play around it.
• It is worded such that equipping multiple Psychic Suppressors does not stack the effect.
• I feel that reducing an opponent’s hand and thus choice can be quite interesting for slower decks of any Faction. I also think that it may help against perfect hands with perfect answers, making the game more interesting for all, as you have to deal with the situation in new unexpected ways instead of preserving the perfect hand with the perfect curve.
• Lastly, I know we do not have them, but quoted from rules: “The card may be Faction or Neutral. However, if it is a spell, it must be Faction.” So artifacts are allowed to be designed neutral.
  I think the concept of flexible, neutral artifacts is nice, as Artifact Hunter and Grincher are neutral as well so there’s ‘artifacty presence’ in neutral.

[hellcat]

Caterwauling Skyra
Abyssian minion
4 mana 2/6
If the enemy general has more cards in their action bar than you at the end of their turn, they take 3 damage.

Puke your hand to watch the enemy suffer as they try to puke their own to ruin their gameplan, or make people play conservatively by not immediately dropping their card draws.

NOTE: This would be BEFORE card draw.

[skulldragon42]

Blind Prophet
Neutral, Minion
6 mana 3/7
Both player’s action bars are revealed

This card could allow you to play around big swingy cards, like conditional removal or control effect, and it doesn’t directly interfere with your opponent’s resources and punish them for card advantage. It allows you to replace more freely, as well, as you don’t have to hold onto a counter to a card they don’t have. However, it also shows them your hand, so they aren’t forced to blindly play into the cards you saved to deal with their cards.
Edit: changed it to a 6 mana 3/7. The effect is quite powerful, so I decided to put in on a weaker late game body.
For the AI, 6 smaller circles, maybe in 2 rows of three, could be added above the board, between your and your opponent’s mana bars.

[orthoceras]

Frozen Spite
Vanar, Spell
4 Mana
Summon three joined 2/1 Walls that can attack with “Dying Wish: Put a Spiteful Thaw in your opponent action bar.”

Spiteful Thaw
Spell
1 Mana
Cannot be replaced. Summon an enemy 3/3 Blazing Spines on a random space nearby the enemy general.

I’d see this as an indirect way to patch up Wall Vanar glaring weakness to AOE in the early-mid game and as a disengage tool in the late game. It could also provide sinergy with Hailstone Prison.

[excogitator]

The Red Queen:
Magmar, Minion
6 mana 4/4
At the end of your turn, increase the cost of each card in your opponent’s action bar by one, but not over 9.

This is meant to synergise with Starhorn’s BBS by making it harder for your opponent to play more than one card per turn. Also, counters combo decks, allowing more combo cards to be designed without being completely broken. As for the name, it refers to the red queen theory, which states that organisms must continue to evolve not to gain an advantage, but to not fall behind.

[archer4]

Evolution
Magmar, Spell
0 Mana

Minions in BOTH player’s action bars and decks cost (1) more and gain +1/+1. Draw a card.

(Note: the increase in cost and in stats is a permanent effect and is not removed when a minion is dispelled, returned to hand, etc.)

Slows the pace of the game and gives Vaath more time to ramp up his attack. If you build your deck around this card, you should be able to take advantage of it more easily than your opponent can.