The Return of MECH Shaman?! Top Custom Cards of the Week  

Damn that's deep.

This would be the Trump card of the week if Trump had depression

Well, Esteem Needs is even more difficult, since it is itself a card played from hand, therefore it is impossible for the hand to be full while it is being cast. Each step certainly has issues. Interesting concept, but probably unsalvageable.

@@vincentpelletier57 technically possible with Gathetzan Auctioneer since his effect activates before the spells' effects but yeah, they card is super poorly worded/designed

@@vincentpelletier57 idk if I’d describe the card design as unsalvagable, just terribly worded. I think everyone understands the intent behind each card so all you have to do is rewrite the cards to actually fit the effect

I mean the draw part has a double whammy issue of is a card played from hand and if your hand would be full even after playing it, it couldn't add the payoff card into your hand aswell

@@sunbleachedangel thats an issue, because it then cannot add another car to your hand

I was going to provide his correct name, but discovered that I actually forgot his name. Oh the irony.

@@ezariogerion3138 Terenas Menethil II

Love that you’re on a first-name basis with the Archduke

@@themostdiabolicalhater5986 you ain't? What did you do to get hated by him

[Establishing shot of Northrend, VO of Arthas's Dad Or Something] My kid or whatever Right around when you showed up, some trees or something told me "Arthas" was a dope name Little dude, I guess I liked seeing you get bigger and become a weapon of being good and stuff Don't let it slip your mind that earlier dudes were smart and strong And I'm pretty sure you won't be a jerk just because you're swole But man, it's the best when your people really like you I'm talking about this because when I die I'm pretty sure you get my job

except al'akir you don't have to draw, doesn't require you to play a 1 mana 1/3 (bad stats) but the synergies is probably a bit weaker Edit: 1 mana 1/3 murloc wasn't that bad back in the day, my mistake. got caught a bit up in that nowadays a 1 mana 1/3 needs powerful upsides to work

@@hagger4858 since when is a 1 mana 1/3 bad stats? people played Dire Mole. the reason Vilefin Inquisitor wasn't played was because it would make you summon a bunch of 1/1s with no effect off of Anyfin Can Happen.

@@hagger4858 Vilefin's effect almost never did anything, it just had good stats

@@TheMirksta The effect was a good part of it, tho now thinking about it 1 mana 1/3 murloc might be good back then, my bad.

@@icecontrol2571 You didn't play anyfin can happen in the deck, that was a separate deck that was more like a combo deck, and the 1/1 murlocs was a really nice benefit with cards like murloc warleader, but where you are right are that back the 1 mana 1/3 murloc could see play, nowadays a 1 mana 1/3 has to have really strong upsides.

The way it's worded I assume you draw 2 first and then it checks if your hand is full right? Same way that the gain 2 mana crystals wouldn't work if it checked then gave you 2 mana since it costs 1 mana to cast

@@simonbas6 wording specifies "already", the intent is clearly to check before the card does its things. I'd even say the intent is clearly that all the steps of the "quest" do nothing for the quest to be more difficult

...what happened to warrior? Or I guess it does even out if warlock happens after. If warlock happens first, it'd potentially be important that you lose 2 HP, gain 2 armour

It's gain plus one attack this turn

You have Druid and DH giving 1 attack each​@@raphaelunger3057

But then you can play cards after Draw. The turn ending was the intended downside for a value 2 mana draw 2, but your point is very valid; the card's design is fundamentally flawed

@@joshparchure9084 to be fair, it acheives the same effect. By making it draw two at the end of turn, you cannot utilize the draw immediately. So i agree with OP on that fitting well, and accounting for Yoga style effects.

@@hellfrozenphoenix13 sure you can't use the cards, but i was thinking the flavour of the card was to "draw your weapons" and prepare for the attack, hence ending your turn. but yes it does fix those yogg interactions which would be pretty bad for the game

Too be fair, a lot of those cards were horribly unbalanced anyway, even if they had a cool effect.

I think if we try to assimilate that to other cards to estimate the real cost it would be something like that (trying to pick up the cheapest cards from classes) ~Renew on self (priest + warrior + druid armor + warlock) Arcane shot face (hunter) whatever 1 mana minion summoning a random 0 drop (shaman + paladin) ~twin slice (druide attack + rogue + dh) (could have been pounce) So yeah around 3~5 mana worth of rather good cheap cards, with no extra tax on mana

That's what I was thinking. It would probably have to be 5 mana since it's neutral at the cheapest.

I would say 5 mana. Is a lot of face damage, a bit of cycling, a bit of armor, a ping and the hunter cat.

Ultimately the only part about the whole thing that means it should be 5 mana, is the drawing a card from warlock really. Warlock hero power is the only one of the group thats worth around 1 mana, rather than the 0.5 that all the others are worth.

Thinking of it as a 4 mana draw a card, equip a 3 damage weapon this turn that deals one damage next turn, ping something, heal a friendly minion that value traded this turn, summon a 1/1 and a 0/2 or a second 1/1. It sounds pretty good for sure but at 5 or 6 mana, i don't know if it would be playable. Its like a flame juggler (stats and ping) + a fire war axe (weapon) combo + some minor additional affects.

Gud point

Or, you know: “At the end of your turn, draw two cards.”

@@TechnoBacon55 That's much better

There are other spells that are horrible to be carded randomly like Cataclysm. That’s just part of the game.

@@TechnoBacon55 Wait that makes so much more sense from a hearthstone perspective, wtf I suppose the only difference would be that you could cast it in the middle of your turn and free up a card/mana, but that doesn't matter for hunter

14:41 obviously you wouldn't be playing mechastorm alakir for the stats but 4 mana 3/5 is weak for an effect that doesn't do anything inherently. Could be a 4/5 at least.

@@ktktktktktktkt Debatable. At 4/5 Taunt it would have no downside. It really depends on the strength of mech synergie shaman receives. If they get strong synergie, then 3/5 is fine. If they get weak synergie, might be wort buffing to 4/5

I agree with what you said about the two situations, but I'd argue that this makes the card arguably quite balanced, since it's not as consistent as Trump would suggest.

Also if aranna became too prevalent, but combo was otherwise top tier, combo decks might try to juke her by putting in one card that costs the same or more than their main combo enabler

Also if she would be prevalent in the meta its quite easy to build around, just have your highest cost minion not be your combo piece (yeah go cry me a river all you Daddy D Fanboys) If its Kel, Kael, Maly or whomever just add a Stonborn general and you're safe from Aranna. Even Denathrius gets a 50% or with 2 Generals even a 66% chance to dodge the effect. Lower the stats to 5/5 as suggested and you enemy now just played a sub-par minion losing valuable tempo giving you time to get your combo off. And if she makes it to wild ... lets go, The Darkness becomes a 4 Mana 20/20 if you build correctly... Tech-Cards can never be overpowered. Because if they are, you know they are Coming, which means you can just avoid the Tech and be happy your Opponent is playing a Trash minion. THE ONLY Problem besides the statline is that Tech-Cards shouldn't be Class specifics. Tech needs to accesable to all classes to avoid very one sided Metas. Otherwise if a Combo-Meta forms and Aranna is the Answer its gonna be 50% Demonhunter 50% whatever combo is Strong in Ranked

I also just do not see the flavor at all. Pretty sure the creator made it just to dunk on Denathrius and nothing more.

@@NuckElBerg you would most likely be corret. I agree the card is balanced, but I think it's swingy (unreliable as it's often useless), easy to counter and not that interesting over all.

Then the card text needs to add the word "instead" at the end of the card text, also applicable for all of it's precursor cards.

Demon priest sounds sick. But I guess shadow priest fits that theme already.

Ever better/worse: you can also just shadowstep her, making this card super busted and entirely impossible to print at 3 mana. Imagine going Brann + Hooktusk + Shadowstep + Hooktusk at 7 mana.

if she died, then her effect wouldn't trigger at all. the stealing happens at the start of your opponents turn

It would probably be better on a legendary named Maslow Peacetree, given it references Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Esteem could just say "become self-actualized and win" instead of adding the last part to your hand. Actually, just make it a questline with a big reward that represents an inevitable win condition instead.

I thought esteem wouldn't work because, when you cast it, you have 9 cards in your hand afterwards, which isn't a full hand. But it makes sense like this

@@Pixxel124 generally speaking a card that gives you another card will leave your hand before the new one gets added so I don't see how it wouldn't work, it's played with 10 cards in hand, counts them (including itself) then leaves the hand and adds the new card

I find it hilarious that trump always complains about things not translating well into other languages and him actually criticizing that exact word 'draw' in videos before but that he's fine with it here

That's not quite true, since you need to have a minion on board to transform. If you think paladin hero power into using the card for example, that is a 7 mana still, or if you were to use it on a 1 mana minion, that would require using 2 cards as a downside, as well as costing 6 mana. It might still be too strong, but its definitely not a 5 mana 7/14 no downside

Unless the combo minions are in hand: gets hard countered by simply keeping your expensive combo pieces in hand instead of sending em back in the Mulligan, which for Sire Denathrius, you want to do anyways for max infusions, or simply add in some bigger minions that aren't part of your win condition but can improve your deck's performance It's strong, but nowhere near OP since it can't hit hand

oh and I forgot every board wipe in the game-Twisting Nether, Earthquake, and Whirlpool to name a few.

It probably also need to say something like "can't cost less than 1 mana" or it would be too op.

@@sabnock31 idk if druid has any ways to discount their own spells, but yeah, it's potentially game-breaking with something like thief priest + discount elemental

Gonna go a bit off here, but this is an issue with having a card game where the attacker fully controls trades (as opposed to blocker-based systems like MTG or Runeterra where the defender picks the trades). This means aggressive strategies have an inherent advantage, which means it's harder to reach the lategame. As the power level increases the lategame becomes even harder to reach so big cards have to basically win the game on the spot to be worth running, which means the decks running them instalose if those cards are yoinked, which means disruption can cause too many really feel-bad outcomes. Iksar even said at one point they were having trouble designing cards that cost more than 5 because the power level needed to be absolutely bananas or they'd never see play. The way to solve this is simple: just dial the power level down for a few expansions every few years so you have a new baseline to creep up from. I liked when they tried to do that with the Year of the Raven - bit of a boring year because new stuff was overshadowed by the last year's stuff, but the next year could've been great - but it unfortunately was followed up by the insane power creep of Year of the Dragon, with possibly the single biggest power spike in all of Hearthstone being Descent of Dragons.