Card Design Contest Jan.29 - Feb. 5

    • Card Design Contest Jan.29 - Feb. 5

      It's About Time...


      The Rules:

      Design a card (or possibly multiple cards) that meets the design constraint described below. The one that I like the best is the winner. You may submit multiple entries, but please be considerate of your fellow players and don't go too overboard. In the case of multiple entries, you will still receive one prize at most.

      In addition to any listed prizes, the winner then creates a thread for the next round, creates a new design constraint, and the game continues.


      Design Constraint:
      Design a card or equipment that cares in some way mechanically about using time . To clarify, I want a card that in some way cares about the passage of time in game (i.e. cares about turns passing). Examples are provided in the next section.

      Please note, this is not a themed contest. A card that is time-flavored but has mechanics that do not care about turns passing in some way will not be considered in this contest.


      Examples and Suggestions:
      One possible implementation would be to create a card that changes over time. The simplest implementation would be to use time to have a card grow. For example, Seed Pod and other cards that gain counters over the course of several turns use time to represent growth.
      But it doesn't just have to be growth; cards that cyclically transform, like Savvas' Evocation and Tranquil Seedheart, could be argued to use time to affect how they work. So maybe make something that implements a Day/Night cycle in game, or maybe have something flavored around the seasons that transforms each turn.

      A different way to approach this problem is to design a card that uses time as a resource. For example, all the Tunneling Cards allow you to play something for cheap, but require you to wait a certain number of turns to benefit from it. Maybe make cards that are extremely limited in the timing of how they could be played. Maybe make a card with a time limit.

      Ultimately, I am looking for something that cares about turns passing.

      Judging Criteria:
      Here's what I focus on in judging, in order of priority
      • It's About Time: The mechanics of the card in some way cares about turns passing. Your submission MUST meet this point to be considered for prizes.
      • Mechanically Creative, yet realistic: Show me something new that hasn't been done before, but make sure it still fits within the realm of HEX gameplay. Feel free to invent keywords and even use non-Entrathian flavor, but keep your designs mechanically grounded to work within the game rules.
      • Elegance: Keep your designs to as little rules text as possible. I tend to start mentally nitpicking overly verbose cards and wondering why sometimes disparate abilities are grafted together on a card.



      Rewards:
      1st place: 1x Mastery of Time + 2x Time Bug + 4 DoW booster
      2nd place: 2x Plant Garden + 1x Forever's Bloom + 1 DoW booster


      Deadline:
      The contest will end on Monday, February 5th at 12pm PST. I will then judge the cards that afternoon/evening.

    • All right, fine. I've been wanting to do this a while, but don't blame me if it makes you laugh hard. Also, this is more of an 'event card' or a PVE.
      In the spirit of Mooof, I present:

      M.Greg's Garden
      Cost: 2
      Rare Constant
      [SPELLSHIELD] [INVINCIBLE]
      Deploy: Summon a P'tur. Put a Farmer M.Greg into each opposing deck. Put a Flop'see, a Mop'see, and a C.tail into your deck.
      At the start of your turn, select one of the following at random: Add a Radish Counter to this, Add a Parsnip Counter to this, Add a Carrot Counter to this.
      If the previous line is blank: Add a Ruin Counter to this.
      At the end of your turn; for each Radish Counter on this, move Flop'see up a space in your deck; for each Parsnip Counter on this, move Mop'see up a space in your deck; for each Carrot Counter on this, move C.tail up a space in your deck.
      For each counter on this, Farmer M.Greg has a 1% chance to be moved to the top of your opponent's deck at the end of your turn.
      At the end of your turn, if you control Flop'see, Mop'see, C.Tail, and P'tur, you win the game.
      "You must never go there, children. Remember what happened to your sire." - J'seph'ne

      P'tur
      Cost: 2
      Unique Rare Troop - Shin'hare Warrior
      [SPEED]
      When this attacks, add your choice of Radish Counter, Parsnip Counter, or Carrot Counter to M.Greg's Garden.
      2 [ATTACK] /2 [DEFENSE]
      "Come on, girls! What's the worst that can happen?"

      Flop'see
      Cost: 2
      Unique Rare Troop - Shin'hare Cleric
      Shin'hare you control have [STEADFAST] .
      Deploy: This gets +1/+1 for each Radish Counter on M.Greg's Garden. Remove references to Radish Counters from M.Greg's Garden.
      2/2
      "P'tur is an idiot, but he's still my brother."

      Mop'see
      Cost: 2
      Unique Rare Troop - Shin'hare Ranger
      Shin'hare you control have [SKYGUARD] .
      Deploy: This gets +1 [ATTACK] /+1 [DEFENSE] for each Parsnip Counter on M.Greg's Garden. Remove references to Parsnip Counters from M.Greg's Garden.
      2/2
      "You know what could happen. *sigh* Brothers."

      C.tail
      Cost: 2
      Unique Rare Troop - Shin'hare Warlock
      Shin'hare you control have [RAGE] 1.
      This gets +1/+1 for each Carrot Counter on M.Greg's Garden. Remove references to Carrot Counters from M.Greg's Garden.
      2/2
      "Stupid, stupid, stupid! We've got to save my brother from himself... and everything else."

      Farmer M.Greg
      Cost: 5
      Unique Rare Troop - Human Farmer
      Deploy: Opposing Shin'hare lose all boons.
      [EXHAUST] : Void opposing Unique Shin'hare. Choose one of the following: Summon a Farmer's Pie; Summon a Farmer's Coat; Summon a Farmer's Guard.
      [RAGE] 2
      5 [ATTACK] /5 [DEFENSE]
      "What th-? Me garden! I'll get ye!"

      Farmer's Pie
      Cost: 2
      Rare Constant
      Farmers you control get [SWIFTSTRIKE] .
      "Tasty thieves."

      Farmer's Coat
      Cost: 2
      Rare Constant
      Farmers you control get [LIFEDRAIN] .
      Made with love, lined with fur.

      Farmer's Guard
      Cost: 4
      Unique Rare Troop - Coyotle Ranger Farmer
      [STEADFAST] , [SKYGUARD]
      4 [ATTACK] /4 [DEFENSE]
      "Not again..."

      Equipment
      Gloves of the Garden Raid
      Rare Gloves
      M.Greg's Gardens you control instead have: "At the start of your turn, select one of the following at random twice: Add a Radish Counter to this, Add a Parsnip Counter to this, Add a Carrot Counter to this."
      Quick fingers get results faster.

      J'seph'ne's Foresight
      Legendary Helm
      P'tur gains: "When this attacks, you may view the top four cards of your deck. Put them in any order you wish."
      He's smarter than he acts.

      Blue Jacket
      Rare Chest
      P'tur gains: "Opposing Farmers gain Tunneling 3 and "This may only be deployed by Tunneling.""
      "Almost got it! Just a bit more..."

      There we go. I built a timed minigame.

      The post was edited 3 times, last by Zyblen ().

    • Eraia wrote:

      What does the 'ruin' counter do?
      Makes the farmer mad/adds to the counter total once the other three have been capped out by playing the bunnies (continues to increase the risk of the farmer hitting the top of the opposing deck).
      Edit: Thank you for making me realize that someone could hold the bunnies in hand and power them up. I might have to fix this to a "when drawn" rather than "when deployed" effect on the buff from their counters. I might also give the farmer [CRUSH] or a buff on deploy, himself. Still, being able to void each of the Shin'hare in a few turns and scaling with [RAGE] seems to make him powerful enough.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Zyblen ().

    • Dingler World Conference

      Cost: 3
      Threshold: [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE]
      Rare Constant

      At the start of your turn, create a Dingler for each opposing champion for each dingler counter on this and put them into their decks.
      When your opponent draws a card, add a dingler counter to this.
      Dinglers in all zones have "Draw a card."

      Once every 13 years all the dingler tribes spontaenously gather in an unpredictable location. This phenomenon causes great grief to the locals, although it has been said to end devastating wars as well.

    • Anticipate
      X cost
      [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE]
      Quick Action

      Secretly choose a non-resource card name. For the next 5 turns (including this one), you get "Whenever an opposing champion plays a card with that name, gain [X/0] and search your deck and reserves for a card and put it into your hand."

    • My first entry might have been a little too abstract in its approach to the "turns passing" theme, so I'll give it a more straightforward go this time.

      Bubble Wall
      4 [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE]
      Contant (rare)

      Whenever a player plays a non-resource card, void it. After two turns, play that spell at the beginning of the same phase in which it was originally played.

      Bear Trap
      [DIAMOND] (no cost)
      Action (uncommon)

      Trap: 1 [DIAMOND] (Put this card underground by paying its trap cost. It accumulates tunneling counters as if it had tunneling. When its trigger condition is met, play this card.)
      When an opposing troop with [ATTACK] less than or equal to the number of tunneling counters on Bear Trap enters play, trigger Bear Trap and stun that troop for three turns.

      The Faceless King
      10 [BLOOD] [BLOOD] [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE]
      Unique Troop-Chaostouched (Legendary)

      Advent (At the start of your turn, if any cards with advent are in your deck or hand, choose and trigger one condition based on that card's current location.)
      Top 10 cards of your deck: Move this card in your deck up one space unless an opposing champion pays 1.
      Top 5 cards of your deck: Bury the top card of each champion's deck.
      Hand: This card gets cost -2.
      Deploy: Target champion draws fifteen cards.
      7/7


      Inversal
      2 [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE]
      Unique Troop-Elemental (Rare)

      Advent
      Top 59 cards of your deck: Move this card in your deck down three spaces.
      Bottom card of your deck: Put this card into your hand.
      At the start of your turn, put the bottom card of your deck into your hand.
      2/2

      The post was edited 1 time, last by BlazingRagnarok ().

    • New keyword: Tempo. When a card with Tempo is played, if you do not yet have a Timeline, summon a Timeline.

      Timeline
      0
      Constant
      Deploy - This gains a time counter
      At the start of your turn, this gains a time counter.

      Skipper
      2 [SAPPHIRE]
      Troop - Temporal Insect
      5/5 [SPEED]
      Tempo
      Void this at the start of your turn.
      At the start of your turn, if this is in the void and a Timeline you control has en even number of Time Counters, put this into play.

      Borrowed Time
      1 [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE]
      Action
      Tempo
      Refill your resources, ready your troops, and give them speed. There is an additional combat phase after this phase. Add 1 to all time counters you control. Skip your next turn. Void this.

      Temporal Disruption
      3 [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE]
      Action
      Choose - Temporal Gap OR Temporal Rupture

      Temporal Gap
      Choice card
      Create a Lost in Time and put it into your hand. It gets cost -2.

      Temporal Rupture
      Choice card
      Summon a Timeline.

      Out of Phase
      3 [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE]
      Action
      Empower
      Target opposing troop gets 'Void this at the end of your turn. At the start of your turn, if a Timeline you control has a number of time counters divisible by 2 and this is in the void, put this into play. It gets Speed this turn.'
      Target troop's controller summons a Timeline.

      Accelerate
      1 [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE]
      Action
      Tempo
      Target Timeline gains 1 Time Counter.

      Stolen Tomorrow
      3 [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE]
      Constant
      Tempo
      [X] -> Draw X cards, this gains X 'catch up' counters.
      When a card you control gains a time counter, this loses a catch up counter.
      If there are one or more catch up counters at the start of your turn, skip your draw phase.

      Glitchbug
      4 [SAPPHIRE]
      Troop - Temporal Insect
      3/4
      Tempo
      If a Timeline you control has an even number of Time Counters, this has swiftstrike and +2 [ATTACK] . If a Timeline you control has an uneven number of Time counters, this has steadfast and +2 [DEFENSE]

      I'm getting a ton more ideas, maybe I'll share them here later, or maybe I'll make a separate fan concept thread some other time, but for now, I'm just going to post this.

      EDIT: Changed keyword from Tempo-locked to simply Tempo, because it sounds waaaaaay better.

      EDIT2: Changed wording around to be more accurate and in line with standard HEX terminology. Changed Temporal Rupture to Temporal Disruption to give it additional functionality and make it less dependent on circumstance.

      EDIT3: Forgot to fix wording on Out of Phase.

      The post was edited 8 times, last by Firellius ().

    • Name: Destroy Timeline
      Cost: 5
      Threshold Requirement: [BLOOD] [DIAMOND] [RUBY] [SAPPHIRE] [WILD]
      Type:Quick Action
      Rarity: Uncommon
      Abilities: This can only be played during your Ready Phase.
      Undo everything that resolved since the End Phase of your last turn.
      Put the time lost back onto all clocks since the End Phase of your last turn.
      All cards undone this way cease to be as if you just played it as a resource card but aren't activated in the least.
      Favor Text: Didn't we just take the advantage here? - Reasonable Conserns

    • So a couple questions about your cool concept:

      1) So first a general question, when you say if a time counters is even", does this check whether any Timelines that have even counters, even is some of them are odd? Does this include if your opponent controls a Timeline even timeline?

      2) So when you say you are adding "1 to all time counters", I think proper Hex-speak would be "Timelines gain 1 time counter." Again, is this just your Timelines or opponent's as well?

      Firellius wrote:

      Temporal Rupture

      5 [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE]
      Action
      Summon a Timeline.
      3) I think I see the point of this card: it allows you to have multiple Timelines in play; so you could have both an odd number and an even number at the same time. But is it really worth it to have a card that has little effect on an empty board cost 5? Timelines are otherwise a very parasitic card and they do absolutely nothing in a deck with no Tempo-locked cards. Pure parasitic cards like these are pretty bad cards for those with small collections or in a limited environment.

      ...Okay... I admit, that was more just a suggestion than a question. Sorry about that.


      Firellius wrote:

      Skipper
      2 [SAPPHIRE]
      Troop - Temporal Insect
      5/5
      Tempo-locked
      Void this at the start of the turn. If a time counter is even, return this from the void and ready it.



      Out of Phase
      3 [SAPPHIRE] [SAPPHIRE]
      Action
      Empower
      Target opposing troop gets 'Void this at the end of the turn. If the time counter is divisible by 2, return this from the void and ready it.'
      Target troop's controller summons a Timeline.
      4) Skipper always exits and maybe re-enters play at the start of a turn, but unfortunately it will never be able to attack since it doesn't have speed. Is this intentional?

      5) In addition, I believe the intention is for these cards to be able to be able to return on later turns, but they aren't worded as such. For example, Skippers that blink out on turns with odd counters will never come back for the rest of the game. Abilities on troops only work if they are in play, unless stated otherwise. For example, look at Freak of Nature and Horrific Poltergeist. Is the possibility of permanent voiding intentional?

      6) Lastly, and especially for Out of Phase, whose turn does it disappear at the end of, or is it all turns? As currently written, these cards will trigger on everybody's turn.



      Overall, I think you have a really cool concept of having cards play differently depending on the turn.

    • Arcanyx wrote:

      *Snipped for brevity*
      There was a LOT going on in my head and I was very improper in my wording, and a lot of cards got reworded without considering the implications.

      1) It should be 'If any Timeline under your control has an even number of time counters', etc. etc. And yes, another timeline being odd does not disqualify one being even, and vice versa. So if you have two Timelines, and one is even, and one is odd, the Skipper would just always come back.

      2) Correct, it should be 'Timelines you control gain 1 Time Counter'. Or possibly 'Target timeline gains 1 time counter', so you can also sabotage an enemy's skipper or Phased Out target.

      3) Good call. I might try and mix this with Out of Phase, so it's a card that can do one of either, and will always have at least one use.

      4) My initial idea for the Skippers is that it got the 'summoning sickness' on the turn -after- it is played, but that simultaneously seemed like a difficult thing to balance, and it seemed to have relatively little impact, and since the 'summoning sickness' isn't actually named in-game, it couldn't be relayed by HEX terminology. I did use the keyword Speed in that version, but forgot to reinstate it when I came up with the new idea.

      5) The wording should work. At the start of the turn, the Skipper is voided. Then, the game checks whether there is a Timeline with an even number of Time Counters, and returns it if there is one. If there is an effect that can pull a card from the void, it will still play if that card is in the void. It is true, however, that there is a previously established wording for this mechanism, so I'll edit that in to make it more precise.

      6) Out of Phase should apply a similar effect as what the Skipper suffers. I'll rewrite it to say 'your turn', which means the controller's turn.

    • Firellius wrote:

      Arcanyx wrote:

      *Snipped for brevity*
      There was a LOT going on in my head and I was very improper in my wording, and a lot of cards got reworded without considering the implications.
      1) It should be 'If any Timeline under your control has an even number of time counters', etc. etc. And yes, another timeline being odd does not disqualify one being even, and vice versa. So if you have two Timelines, and one is even, and one is odd, the Skipper would just always come back.

      2) Correct, it should be 'Timelines you control gain 1 Time Counter'. Or possibly 'Target timeline gains 1 time counter', so you can also sabotage an enemy's skipper or Phased Out target.

      3) Good call. I might try and mix this with Out of Phase, so it's a card that can do one of either, and will always have at least one use.

      4) My initial idea for the Skippers is that it got the 'summoning sickness' on the turn -after- it is played, but that simultaneously seemed like a difficult thing to balance, and it seemed to have relatively little impact, and since the 'summoning sickness' isn't actually named in-game, it couldn't be relayed by HEX terminology. I did use the keyword Speed in that version, but forgot to reinstate it when I came up with the new idea.

      5) The wording should work. At the start of the turn, the Skipper is voided. Then, the game checks whether there is a Timeline with an even number of Time Counters, and returns it if there is one. If there is an effect that can pull a card from the void, it will still play if that card is in the void. It is true, however, that there is a previously established wording for this mechanism, so I'll edit that in to make it more precise.

      6) Out of Phase should apply a similar effect as what the Skipper suffers. I'll rewrite it to say 'your turn', which means the controller's turn.
      Cool cool, I just wanted to make sure everything was clear. My occupation has given me a tendency to be extremely pedantic about imprecise language, much to my students' chagrin.

      Your responses pretty much match how I interpreted them; still, it didn't hurt to double check.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Arcanyx ().

    • Name: Grandiose Joust
      1-cost

      Rare Constant

      At the start of each player's turn, transform one non-resource card in their hand into a random troop they meet the threshold and cost requirements to play. It gets, at the end of turn, discard this. If the player has no non-resource cards in hand, they draw two cards, void this.

    • Arcanyx wrote:

      Cool cool, I just wanted to make sure everything was clear. My occupation has given me a tendency to be extremely pedantic about imprecise language, much to my students' chagrin.
      Your responses pretty much match how I interpreted them; still, it didn't hurt to double check.
      I'm a stickler for solid communication myself, so no worries! I did make some mistakes, but I think I fixed everything now.

    • The Unbroken Wall
      14 cost Action

      Summon 3 random non-Unique Walls.
      Summon "The Fourth"

      If this is in your hand, it gets -1 cost at the start of your turn.

      "Will not Break..." - Mystic Artifact Salesman

      The Fourth
      4 Cost
      Unique Wall Troop
      Defensive

      This has -1 Defense for every 2 minutes that have passed on your gameclock.
      This has +1 attack for every 2 minutes that have passed on your gameclock.

      Deathcry: Deal damage equal to its attack to all troops in play. Deal damage equal to its defense to all champions.

      0/10
      "... It broke" - Mystic Artifact Salesman

      Turtling has never been so silly.
      Gamer. Streamer. Photographer. Writer. Anime Lover. Possessor of Stuffed Animals.

      Also... I'm terrible at this game.