If you’re a Hearthstone fan who would love to tinker and fiddle with the game’s meta, r/CustomHearthstone is your favorite new subreddit. It’s a place where fans design their own concepts for minions and spells that they think could fit into the larger tapestry.
Some of these are exceptionally silly, some of them are ridiculously overpowered and would never get printed under any circumstances. But most are created with some real thought and foresight. Those are the most enthralling, because you can actually comprehend how they’d work in the game.
Even now, after a combined five expansions, there’s still a lot of cool ideas left to explore in the game of Hearthstone. These are some of the most upvoted cards on the subreddit. And it makes sense why.
The Quizmaster
I love the Quizmaster concept. You’re paying seven mana for 3/9 worth of stats, which is obviously garbage. But you’re also giving your opponent a disastrous, counterintuitive secret—things like, “when your opponent casts a spell reduce its cost to zero,” or “when you’re reduced below sixth health, destroy your character.” It’s the only time in Hearthstone where giving your opponent a secret is a good thing (the exact opposite reaction you have after killing a Mad Scientist) and I think that’s worth considering if only to get revenge on all those Paladins.
Overestimated Knight
This is such a clever card. On paper (and to every new player) this might seem like the most pointless design in the game. It’s eight mana for two-mana stats, but it also comes with a discount of six mana so… yeah. It’s effectively just a vanilla two drop. Who cares?
But here’s the thing. Paladins have cards like Holy Wrath, that deal damage equal to a card’s mana cost, and Tuskarr Joster, which come with that rarely-used “joust” effect where higher mana costs are useful. The problem with both those effects is that you have to make your curve super heavy to take advantage of them. But if you were able to get the same effect off a two-drop? All of a sudden those mechanics become a lot more viable.
Build-a-Golem
There are a lot of weird cards on Custom Hearthstone, but there’s also stuff that just makes perfect sense. Build-a-Golem let’s you run into a 3/2, 2/3, a 2/2 with taunt, or a 2/2 with stealth, with the power of a rinkydink spare part. It’s super clever, and with Goblins vs. Gnomes fading into the rearview mirror, it might be nice to get some new mech cards. Just don’t select Emergency Coolant for this thing, unless you’re going for some next level BM.
Bound Guard
A lot of these custom cards do a good job of thinking about design choices in inventive, surprising ways. Bound Guard is basically a 2/5 with taunt, but when silenced? All of a sudden you’re looking at a 5/8. You can slide it in with Ancient Watcher and Eerie Statue, which are two of my favorite minions in the game. Silence is a problematic, unfun, (but necessary) mechanic in Hearthstone, so it might be a good idea to print a card that counters all those Spellbreakers and Ironbeak Owls hiding out in decklists.
Murloc Holmes
A fun mechanic, sure, but mostly I’m just always here for Murloc puns. Let’s get a Sir Finley Mrrggleton and Murloc Holmes crossover adventure game or something.
Death or Mercy
It’s a cheap spell that fits right into Rogue’s M.O., it gives them a “one mana deal two damage” effect that they don’t have with the option of flipping it into more card draw for that Miracle Rogue 2.0 deck we’ve seen on ladder. Also the name. Death or Mercy. Two damage or draw a card. I just like it when stuff makes sense even in the context of a silly card game, that’s all.
New Captain’s Parrot
Seriously, Blizzard should print this. Yes it’s stupid. Yes it’s purely cosmetic. Yes nobody would run it for non-trolling reasons. But I swear to god, there will be a couple moments in major tournaments where someone plays this right before killing their opponent, and it will be incredible. A permanent, pantheon-level meme. We need this in Hearthstone. We need this. I want to tell a Hunter I will “hunt them down” with my Priest.
Murozond
Out of all the cards we’ve looked at from Custom Hearthstone, I think this is the one I’d like to see printed the most. Replacing your hero power with a two-mana spell from your class could be incredible, but it also could be disastrous. A warrior might get bolster, for instance, would lead to the fastest rage quits the world has ever seen. A Rogue might get Shiv, however, and be able to draw his entire deck and quickly win the game. The Trolden potential for Murozond is so high. I’d love to see it in game.
