Complete expansion proposal: The Shadow's Calling

[razcrux]

Thank you everyone for your kind words. Some replies to the specific card comments and questions!

Writing this as I read through:
Over run; would prefer this as a mechanic, and have more cards able to play on it, but I've always like this idea.

Sure

Spark II[/B]; Though I'd change the name. The ability though, is sound.

Yeah many of my names are just "place holders" for myself or someone else to name properly later.
With the 40 card minimum, spark I was killed... this would revive the original card.

Transmutation; Though I'd reduce cost to 3.

Hmmm there are many cost 5 abilities that attach in this expansion. The ability to move an attachment from the enemy hero, to your own, or from one ally to another is potentially game reversing. Hence Why it is currently at 5. It might be that 5 is too much, but its always a lot easier to "boost" a card than to "nerf" it. Hence why I started this card at cost 5. If its not played enough at 5, it can go to 4; and re-asses.

Preperation; Cost 2, ongoing.

Problem with that is that warriors can get very high attack values of +1 to +4 or more. It would then make it impossible to attack such a creature. Warrior also already has many attachment-like abilities, so I was looking for a cheap instant that would be very useful in the early game.

Blitz; Make cost 2 or 3.

2 is probably too powerful, but 3 might be more proper. Again, same logic as transmutation, test, asses, reduce if needed.

Tiger Wolf[/b]; Though I'd add a condition, maybe only +1/+1 if another wolf is in play. Only if it stacks that is.

I agree a condition would be a good idea. I was thinking of a cap amount of boosts you could do, say 3 boosts. We already have wolves that gain attack from other wolves, so I wanted to add some variety, and someone for you to want to stick "pack alpha" onto. Need to think more here.

Iron Power Bow[/B]; Though the attack needs reducing to at least 2 with this ability.

But would it still be a viable companion to Soul Seeker? That bow is far better than any of the existing bows and I was afraid that the "2 attack + 3 gain life" was not going to be as enticing as "2 attack, armor loses 2 durability instead of 1" weapon? Soul Seeker is such a great weapon it has set the bar very high.

Fan of Blades[/B]; except 4 is too many, unless you lose durability for each ally attacked, and then, I would give it 6 durability. Either way, 3 allies would be enough. I like the spread damage idea.

The weapon loses endurance every time you attack, so in theory you could deplete it in one turn, if you have enough targets and you are wiling to get hurt. I added the "4" to the description because with "tinkering" you wouldn't lose any endurance from your 4 attacks. Each card I added was in consideration to other cards, for example: Poison card, letting you poison 4 targets in one turn.

Templar; (first one with the jesus looking dude on it (sorry n3rd)); Almost guaranteed to get a hit in, especially with human protectors and the other cards you have available to prevent a card being attacked or give it haste. Needs a tweak somewhere.

Ok, how about this new text for the "Jesus" Templar [sorry for the duplicate name]
-=-
Paladin of the Faith
4 COST -- UNIQUE
2-4 attack/life
Your opponent must pay this card (1) Shadow energy each turn, or lose one of their attached hero-abilities at random at the end of their turn.
-=-

Law and Justice; By T6, this isn't going to be so useful. I'd probably drop the cost to 5, or 4. You lose tempo by playing it, as you should, so it becomes a tactical choice.

At first I started the card off at 4, but then I considered some of the combinations and realized that this card is actually very powerful. You draw a card if you have less resources, but there is no necessity to make any resources on your next turn either; so you can effectively stay at "less than your opponent" for ever. Plus there is plague, and that card is also played at 4; leading to a severe abuse loop-hole if you just start collecting 2-cards a turn to your opponents 1. So I then made it 5. But then I realized that I added a new Human Ability card called "taxation" and that this card could also be used to artificially reduce your resources... so I bumped it to 6. At 6 this card might indeed be overpriced, and again if that were the case we can always bump it back down to 5. Easier to buff than nerf.

World Eater; Reduce health. It's a very powerful ability.

I would have to agree with you, expect a new version at 4 life instead of 5.

Wulven Predator; This ability would never get used, you paid 5cc and have a 3/5 ally. Sacrificing the card is a too high price. Maybe exhaust for 2 turns.

The idea here was to make a platform for "alpha" card. I agree that you wouldn't usually want to sacrifice this ally, but consider the following situations:
1.) You need to kill a certain ally, the loss of this ally is circumstantially worth it, you will be thankful then for its "predation" ability. It's a fat wolf, it can take one for the pack.
2.) If you have alpha on it, you can "sac" it to kill something; and then all your other wolves get +1 on that turn. So it combines with Pack Alpha ability... at least, that was the goal of the card.
This set also introduces many "wulven" type allies, which will indirectly make the existing wolves very powerful [maybe even too powerful?] -- it's an aspect that would need serious testing. Because of that, just having "one more wolf" is powerful in and of itself.

Inner Blood; None of your "gain extra shadow energy" cards are available for wulven.... unless I missed a shadow ability, which I may have done. This then essentially gives you no shadow energy, and wouldn't see play.

This card is tricky. It was meant to have a very serious negative -- I wanted a negative that encouraged Wulven players to not rely 100% on their shadow energy, as they currently do. This card is very useful if you can build a deck where you are not winning soly because of your shadow energy. Note that you can still gain shadow energy from the Shadow Font card, or from other cards. Though at the moment I think Shadow Font is Wulven's only option [none in this set that give Wolf shadow, unless they are facing Elementalists].

Thunder Cost; Way to specific a counter. Ignoring ALL "allies can't attack" ability cards would be better.

It was just meant as a cheap, somewhat useful card to fill a Nitch and open up some new combos. If you allies could ignore all "prevents your allies from attacking" abilities, then it would have to cost 5 or 6. I'd be open to replacing this card with that 5 or 6-cost alternative, depending on what the community feels is missing from the Rogue and Hunter's arsenal.

Quality Platemail; Meh, at best, and that's being generous.

Was looking for some vanilla armor. Armor that doesn't always have a flame thrower or lazer gun built in. Note that you can destroy your card, draw a new one when the armor has been sufficiently used. So you can think of it as some "borrowed" armor you just pawn back for another card when its used; think of it as REI armor [REI is a dept store in the US that will exchange your stuff for life, no mater how bashed up you made it].
[quote]

[razcrux]

Shatter Ice; Again, too specific. Consider expanding the ability somehow, or adding more freeze conditions to new cards.
[/quote]
I had many more cards designed that didn't make "the cut". One of which was another freeze-type effect for mage. Note that this card is meant to help Nishaven. Nish uses a lot of freeze type-effects already. "Voice of Winter", "Snow Sapphire" and "Freeze". this card would combine with those to make even more of a "lock down" threat. If you see Nish putting a "Voice of Winter" into play, you can no longer drop 3 allies down because the opponent could just "wipe" all your frozen allies with a single "shatter ice" spell. Instead you would have to wait for a time when Nish also had frozen allies and wasn't willing to cast his Shatter Ice spell.

I mention this because perhaps in your feedback you hadn't considered this combo.

That said, 6 might be too costly, 5 might be better; again easier to nerf than buff if underpowered.

And yes: if there was a Shatter Ice card, then future expansions could continue to extend the theme even further -- if it seemed that the strategy was still not viable with the current 4 cards that play on this theme.

Ivory Cloak; That word..... Random..... Do not like that in strategy games, it relies on luck too much to see play, and the ability isn't strong enough to justify that with the cost. If you DREW 1 card instead of taking damage, then maybe.

It is random, it isn't amazing, but it is total damage prevention if you have cards in your hand. Please note that several of the cards in this set help wizards to draw more cards, and they still have existing card: Research to draw more. If you are facing an opponent who only does direct-damage, or who can't remove your armor, you essentially have an invincible wizard... and if they can attack you, you negate all damage for the first 4 hits; which is like a weak-version of Armor of the Ages. I was concerned that this card was too powerful, not underpowered. So I'm glad to hear you think it's under powered. If others also felt it was underpowered, I would work to see if there wasn't some change that could be made to improve it.

Note that there already is a proposed card for Mage where you draw a card, it's called: Mage Battle Armor in my set. But you only draw a card from Abilities [so spells or spell-like effects].

Since this card is potentially similar to the Mage Battle Armor, it is possible I would replace it for a another card that I didn't put in because of lack of space.

Notes:
Precise Attack; We have no instants in the game, and afaik, Kyle doesn't want them. They stutter the gameplay too much.

I realize this, I didn't imply you could cast it on your opponent's turn. Was just specifying that you use the card, and then it disappears. i.e. not attached.

Guardian Oath; Name change, we have a weapon called guardian's oath already....
Templar; As someone has said, you have two of them.

Thanks for catching those, will rename. Or someone else can.

Furion Terror; Not sure what damage the "Immune to this damage type" covers.

If you put a second Furion Terror on the board, the existing one is immune to the new one's entrance. I might rename this to be "immune to fire damage"; but that would imply also immunity to Fire Ball, Wrath of Summer... and I wasn't sure that was what I really wanted.

All in all, if these were released tomorrow, it would be epic.
Congrats on all the effort you have put in.

Thank you so much!!

And @ Padaan Pete: I guess from a lot of playing and consideration of cards! You think of one card, mentally go over all the others it interacts with, and then look at it again from top to bottom and do the same all over again... I think I went through each card thinking about interactions at least 20 times over in the last 2 days to get it where it is now. And nothing beats play testing, so a lot of that would be required!!
:-)

[N3rd4Christ]

Wow awesome! You've earned my respect (whatever that's worth) awesome job! Any chance of a higher resolution image having problems reading on mobile

[danae]

Nice job. Haven't read through all the cards and probably won't as it will probably take too much time to absorb. I think you just out-carded qwerty and anurak in one go. Hopefully, wulven takes all these ideas from all the forum card designers and goes through them with a fine-toothed comb and make some of them a reality in the next set.

[iClipse]

I like your suggestions. I'm not sure most of them are priced correctly though. Some are really terrible in terms of casting cost.

[pardalfla]

I just think it's too much for an expansion card ... just so the game will be too much too soon with letters .... this will force the team to do more Powerpuff letters, and the other one will be super powerful to deter and Powerpuff so on .... I think the expanções few letters should be well balanced and the game continues without ceasing to be fun

[pardalfla]

although it is a great post with great ideas, but still other letters were only proposed for an expansion

[jonathan strange]

Appreciate all the thought u put into this

[Dark Void]

...wow, this is unbelievable. Some of the higher cost things may need to be bumped down a cc, but there's so many I couldn't hope to tell how all of them would interact. Solution: Kyle, get these on the test server by next week!

[razcrux]

Hi everyone, thanks again for all your nice words. Again, I reiterate, costs are generally high on these cards because it is far easier to "buff" a card than to "nerf" it. Once a card is cheap, people fall in love with it, and if you try and suddenly "nerf" it, people take it very personally... so yes, some of the cards are very expensive, but I did try and point them at a level that I felt would still be useful with certain combos, or in late to mid-game.

Note that with even more card-draw options for everyone in this expansion, and more reversal options, mid-late game would be a richer sphere than it is currently.

BTW regarding the wulven cards, I'm not 100% satisfied with the cards that you see currently, so I may change 2 to 4 of them.