These card designs were submitted by Nocturnal Advantage for Task 6 of the Wulven Apprentice. After you have reviewed them and those of the other team, Random Heroes, please cast your vote as to which team you thought did the better job.
Three Cards They Selected and Refined
Originally submitted by Drekall.
Originally submitted by Caitlyn.
Originally submitted by d3ath.
Two Cards They Designed
Rationale for Decisions
To help you judge their cards, the team were given the opportunity to share design insights on the cards they produced. What they wrote has been pasted here verbatim:
Our Mission Statement:
We wanted to find cards which would strengthen some of the less prevalently used heroes and strategies in Shadow Era, and thereby add more variety to the metagame. Our goal was to help bring some of the unsung heroes and deck archetypes of Shadow Era into the limelight, and help them compete with some of the more popularly played options.
CARD JUSTIFICATIONS
Quelling Force:
We were attracted to this design because we wanted a weapon which Logan Stonebreaker could use most effectively, but which could still provide some use for other heroes as well. We made a couple adjustments to the initial design to bring it into balance. The card's initial design had 10 durability, which we felt was a little too much, so we reduced the durability to 7. Also, Quelling Force was initially phrased to reduce all damage to its user by 2, which we changed to a reduction of 1 damage.
Even with these small adjustments, Quelling Force should still be a powerful tool. Logan can combine his Shadow Energy ability with Quelling Force's activated ability to create a one-sided Tidal Wave of sorts, which allows him to come back from an unfavorable board position (something which has been very difficult for Logan in the past.) Since Quelling Force may not have its attack or durability raised, weapon-based heroes such as Amber or Darkclaw may not find it to be a worthy inclusion, but we suspect that its damage reduction ability and high durability will still make it a potentially attractive option for more control-based strategies.
The Green Knight:
The primary thing that attracted us to this card was its ability to be a win condition for more control-oriented deck archetypes. We wanted there to be more options for decks which choose to play a heavy permission strategy, and The Green Knight seemed like a perfect contender for this role. After all, what control deck wouldn't love to use an ally big enough to provide a credible win condition on his own while simultaneously keeping the opponent's army in check?
The initial design of The Green Knight as submitted to the contest cost 6 resources to play, and had 2 attack and 5 toughness. He was also submitted with his -2 damage from all sources reduction, but his "kill target opposing ally" ability originally could target any opposing ally! He retains most of this flavor in his final version, but we felt we had to restrict his ally-killing ability to allies of 4cc or less, to make sure the card was balanced. To make up for it though (and to decrease his similarity to Armored Sandworm), we buffed his stats a bit.
And what stats he has! With 6 health and a hide as tough as an Armored Sandworm, he should be hard to kill indeed. And since The Green Knight has steadfast, a simple Retreat! won't solve the problem. Once he becomes active on the board, The Green Knight will be a force to reckon with, capable of going toe-to-toe with some of the largest allies in the game, or of simply dispatching the small fries with his ability.
Wildfire Trap:
We selected this card primarily to address Victor Heartstriker's difficulty in dealing with aggressive rush decks, but it should prove to be a versatile tool for all of the Hunters in the game. The card was submitted with the name "Land Mine," but we felt that a more fantasy-oriented title would match more closely with the Shadow Era mythos. Wildfire Trap should be a staple for any Hunter deck with a relatively slow early game, allowing you a bit of time to set up before your opponent bum-rushes you with Aldon the Brave and his cohorts. Wildfire Trap makes your opponent think twice before they try to swarm you with a quick army. It is definitely not a card for only Victor to enjoy, though. By weakening your opponent's allies on the board, you can make them easy targets for the many various bows and arrows in the Hunter arsenal.
One other subtle point is worth mentioning: Since Wildfire Trap has a cost of three resources, it can cause the opponent to confuse it with a Death Trap (or even a Rolling Boulders). This can lead to all sorts of interesting mind games... for your adversary.
Conviction of Faith:
With this card, we wanted to create a tool that specifically helped Jericho more than Zhanna, which proved to be a bit of a conundrum. However, by making the ally removal ability on Conviction of Faith itself tied with Jericho's Shadow Energy ability, we were able to do just that. Conviction of Faith is rather lackluster if you are only using it to give an ally +1/+0 and steadfast, which is about all Zhanna is able to do with it. But if you use Jericho Spellbane's ability to destroy Conviction of Faith, it suddenly becomes a deliciously efficient method of ally removal. Conviction of Faith also combos very well with Lingering Essence and Divine Connection, giving you a method of recurring one of your best removal spells and healing in the process. It functions almost like a Priest version of Assassinate, but you get to play your ally removal spell proactively and then use it when you want to. And if your opponent is a rascal and kills the dude you had Conviction of Faith attached to before you blow it up with Jericho, they still have to sacrifice one of their allies. That's what I call rewarding the faithful!
Value of the Ill Gotten:
In going along with strengthening the lesser used heroes, we turned our attention to Rogues, although to be more specific, towards Serena. This card helps promote Serena’s weapon-based damage and plays well with her ability. The popular Rogue card Ill Gotten Gains lends to this card’s theme. Value of the Ill Gotten would not serve to make Serena too powerful, but it should make her a viable contending hero. Her ability to discard would help a player keep more cards in hand than their opponent, allowing this card’s bonuses to take effect. Ill Gotten Gains also gives Rogues a solid draw engine to keep up your hand advantage and keep the bonuses rolling. Because of its ability to combo with Ill Gotten Gains and other draw spells, this card still provides a valuable resource for Lance to use as well. Value of the Ill Gotten should also be a lot of fun in a deck with Pay Day. It is definitely a card with the potential to gain strength as new armors and weapons are printed also.
In summary, we think these five cards would help the overall metagame of Shadow Era by creating more variety in the competitively played strategies, and bolstering some of the heroes which are currently enjoying less success. We sought to have five powerful designs, since our goal with these cards was primarily to support lesser used archetypes. It is possible that we erred slightly on the side of "more powerful" rather than "less," but we felt that having memorable, impressive cards was our primary concern. We hope you will enjoy them, thanks from Team Nocturnal Advantage for taking the time to check out our work! Cheers!
-Sean & Caleb (Shadowryou and DukeDemonKn1ght)
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