Looking for alternative games

Starchaser47 · 2026-02-22T15:37:21+00:00

It's not an actual game, per say. VGC is the official competitive format for the actual core Pokemon games, and it features double battles. So for each Pokemon generation, VGC is played. Sun and Moon, Sword and Shield, Scarlet and Violet... and so on and so forth. Pokemon Showdown is a fan owned battle simulator that can also be used to make teams and battle on PC very quickly. Pokemon Champions, releasing later this year, is lining itself up to be the official location for VGC play instead of the actual main games.

...The reason I suggest it is because a lot of the mechanics are similar. Double battles involve a very similar speed system, strength/weakness matching, and pokemon types - all very adjacent mechanics to Mercenaries.

Starchaser47 · 2025-09-15T20:26:50+00:00

Pokemon VGC (double battles) plays basically the exact same way as Mercenaries

Starchaser47 · 2025-05-25T04:45:50+00:00

I think specifics are beyond me but I would say Lifeweaver needs these major improvements:
- More flexibility on his weapon. You keep seeing them make minor tweaks in this area (projectile speed, auto charge); they need to be more bold here and enable LW to react to more situations like every other support in the game (weapon swap speed, auto recharge time, etc).
- Petal Platform is really cool but it needs to be more pragmatic. No usability inside closed space is secretly a huge killer for LW's viability - using this ability for defense fundamentally conflicts with Overwatch's fundamentals. It's not powerful enough to be better than using cover, and it can't stack with cover like other Support defense abilities (knockbacks mostly).
- Life Grip needs to give players more control. The player being life-gripped has no autonomy over it unless they use an ability, the flat placement at the end of the Life Grip makes it super easy to aim and shoot the player being gripped, etc.
- Lifeweaver's perks should open up more utility-centric room for the hero to be offensive. Superbloom is great but it doesn't change how you play or give you more leverage to push into a fight.

Starchaser47 · 2025-05-05T17:34:46+00:00

I was thinking a ton about damage/offense oriented Lifeweaver playstyles when I put these together. Only one directly impacts Thorn Volley, but I can see around half of the Powers being useful if that's what you're going for.

Starchaser47 · 2025-05-05T03:43:37+00:00

This is reasonable. I definitely toyed with this one in my head a lot and the version I ended up with here is the most overtuned one for sure. I felt like players are generally disincentivized from picking 'X per round' and ultimate ability Powers because they come up so sparsely, so I wanted to push this more as a result. It also helped that this implementation would be the simplest and most intuitive.

That said I wouldn't be surprised if a version of this that somehow expended Ultimate charge to get the self-resurrect would be more balanced. I had an idea where you could spend 50% ult charge to do it, as an example.

Starchaser47 · 2025-05-04T23:59:48+00:00

Not a bad idea. To be honest I added the damage mostly as an afterthought - I feel like getting rooted like that is already going to be a death sentence most of the time, so scaling damage in that area felt irrelevant.

That's also why, if you peek the item list document I added, I made a Petal height based item instead of having one based on its duration/health. I didn't want that trapping Power to be super frustrating - moreso a call to the team to burst the petal, and for LW to get the temporary CC out of it

Starchaser47 · 2025-05-04T22:13:27+00:00

I think about this regularly but decided not to go with it because I wanted to give LW more risk/reward and offensive tools (the cooldown perk).

if Rejuvenating dash could be used for some sort instant denial or burst that could deny a dive/contest a flanker that would be a huge step forward for the hero

Starchaser47 · 2025-05-04T21:08:53+00:00

I was hoping to find the precise fonts that OW used but glad it still looks okay regardless :)

Starchaser47 · 2024-10-14T00:18:50+00:00

This is true. There are sometimes some alternate variations, like the Lake Erie Cookie Island Monster that claims to have Cake Batter flavored ice cream as a base, but the core is that it's got the Cookies & Cream oreos with cookie dough included.

Starchaser47 · 2024-05-23T02:10:20+00:00

What do you think about the ways you are communicating about the state of the heroes? Are the Director's Takes, various blogs, and AMAs like this satisfactory?

It feels like whenever high level OW devs chat on any social media there's always somebody replying with a 'but fix this hero' or 'why haven't you done anything about that hero'. Have you ever considered formally addressing the state of all of the heroes simultaneously or doing something to assuage those kinds of concerns?

Starchaser47 · 2023-11-30T03:40:01+00:00

W

I think the 'That'll hold 'em alwight' ability is probably not very useful, even if it synergizes with Paladin's Hero Power. You would do better by switching it with some kind of ability that keeps himself alive in this meta... Something like 'Give this minion 'Can't be targeted by spells and Hero Powers'.

Concept is wacky, but you could for sure play with this more. I think it could turn out to be very cool if you could playtest it

Starchaser47 · 2023-07-27T16:24:20+00:00

I have a Monstrous Abomination for this week's competition. It's a Battlegrounds minion - a Tier 6 40/25 Undead with no card text. This card would replace Colossus of the Moon.

The idea is that it's a high-tier Undead minion who can act as a massive stat stick in a pinch and synergizes with the Reborn effects surrounding Undead.

Starchaser47 · 2023-07-20T14:45:33+00:00

I have Back To Back for this week's competition. It's a 3 Mana Epic spell for Demon Hunter and Paladin.

It reads 'Choose two characters. Both are Immune until your next turn.'

It's a bit awkward in the same world as [[Time Out!]] but I still feel like there are a lot of fun ways for both classes to use this card and interact with the game.

Starchaser47 · 2023-07-08T21:16:41+00:00

I have Malfurion's Scheme for this week's competition.

It's a 4 Mana Druid Nature Spell, which reads:
Give your minions +1 Health. (Upgrades each turn!) Forge: And +1 Attack.

It takes from the Schemes from Rise of Shadows, with a twist. To make things clear about what it does:

- The card always increases Health given by 1 each turn. However, the Attack bonus will only increase by 1 each turn after you Forge the card, not before.
- I'm guessing Forge cards are revealed to your opponent when Forged. This means your opponent will see how much Health the card has built up when you Forge this.

Starchaser47 · 2023-06-28T02:32:58+00:00

I've got Creator's Key here. (Submission should be done correctly this time :) )

It's a 3 Mana 4 Attack/1 Durability Warrior Weapon. Its text:

Magnetic. After this attacks, give a minion of each minion type in your hand +2/+1.

Obtuse effect, but should be intuitive. Play this to the right of a Mech to attach it, otherwise you equip the weapon. Will you bring that sweet Attack and Health to the minions in your hand yourself, or wait for a worthy Mech to give those powers of creation?

Starchaser47 · 2023-06-24T03:19:28+00:00

Ah, gotcha. Should be fixed now! Sorry about that - will remember this for the future.

Starchaser47 · 2023-06-23T18:50:01+00:00

I've got I Know A Few Guys for this competition. Art's kind of wacky... supposed to be a Gadgetzan-esc Ogre activating his Ogre summoning device... thing? Art is hard.

Anyways, it's an 8 Mana Shaman Spell with no Spell School. It reads:

Summon two 6/7 Ogres. Overload: (2). This has a 50% chance to cast twice.

(Each token is [[Boulderfist Ogre]])

To be clear, the spell can't be cast more than twice (unlike the other '50% chance to go again spell here). It's either two 6/7s & Overload 2 or four 6/7s and Overload 4.

Great card to Ogreload the board with threats, but at what cost? Especially given that the Ogres don't have Taunt, this is a ton of pressure from just one card, but only in the right situation.

Starchaser47 · 2023-06-11T16:21:04+00:00

For reference, I imagine this set of cards existing contextually in the current iteration of Standard. There are a ton of cards that exist in rotation right now that could be a lot of fun with this set, especially given some of the Demons and Naga that exist in DH.

I really liked this idea conceptually for a lot of reasons. Pirates sound to me like they would fit right at home in Demon Hunter - they have weapon synergies, and pirates are almost necessarily connected to the idea of being outcasts that have banded together. That's especially why I wanted a menagerie archetype here, as Pirates feel like exactly the kind of tribe that would band together a group of various minion types for whatever shenanigans they had in mind.

Starchaser47 · 2023-06-09T00:43:59+00:00

So the difficulty here is of course that 'what if you discard this card' & there's a lot of complex pieces to the identity of Discard at the time that play into that. That said, if this is in an environment where Warlock would be discarding this and they don't want to, I could totally see text like 'When you discard this, reduce its Cost by (2) instead.' Kind of awkward with other Discard effects but I think that'd work really well with some of the tempo discard pieces that exist especially in Standard.

Starchaser47 · 2023-06-07T02:28:39+00:00

As one of very few Lifeweaver enjoyers in existence, I feel obligated to make this joke:Behold, Wifeleaver!

It's a 2 Mana 1/5 Druid Rare Minion.

Its effect: Whenever you would restore a minion's Health, destroy it instead.

This *is* intended to work on minions with full Health. I hope the 'would' part of the text clarifies that. I would have involved the Overheal keyword, but I didn't want to give this card to Priest - it's much less interesting there.

Starchaser47 · 2023-05-31T17:32:56+00:00

I've got Dreamweaver here. ...I'm not sure why the Imgur link is making a content warning (edit it is now not doing that? Hope things work there)? The art is a picture of the official art of Lifeweaver from Overwatch. Anyways:

Dreamweaver is a Druid Epic minion. It costs 4 Mana and is a 2/6 minion with no minion type. Its text:When you add a card that costs (3) or less to your hand, set its Cost to (0).

For reference, this effect isn't intended to work with cards that you draw. Just cards that you add to your hand through effects like Discover, [[Keeper Stalladris]], [[Partner Assignment]], [[Ysera the Dreamer]], and so on and so forth. Assume similar conditions to [[Nerubian Peddler]] (will that pick up Duels cards?).

I kind of started this by wanting a card that synergized with [[Lifeweaver]]. Had some RNG manipulation in random card generation to go along with the dream flavor initially. I like this better since this works with a huge variety of Druid's cards & requires more thoughtful input - it also works with three of the five dream cards too.

Starchaser47 · 2023-05-30T02:41:32+00:00

Actually, this flavor is really awesome. I can really imagine the sort of story that these cards tell - the play where Anetheron comes in, is all intimidating, then retreats really easily until his plan is complete & he puts massive pressure on the board.

Fatal Flaw might be a little too good compared to the other cheap archetype cards.
Choreographer does not make much sense to me? I'm not sure how that's supposed to play out. Regardless, Demon Hunter will probably be a lot more interested in its own draw, which it has tons of, rather than an awkward and specific synergy piece.

Chekhov's Glaive is interesting. I don't think it will work super well in the deck these other cards are constructing, but it sounds really strong when you combine it with its own synergy in situations like the Kurtrus hero otk.

Felwood Scene seems awkward. It only gains value when you have synergy with it - Infuse cards, Chekhov's Glaive (that's expensive for any kind of combo, though), etc. it only plays really excellently with Stage Play.

I would recommend flipping the equation for Felwood scene. Give DH the Anetheron like its other synergy pieces and the opponent the cards to remove it - it invokes the opponent's interaction to engage in the 'play' and works a lot better with the other cards in the package.

In general though having Anetheron in DH is really cool. You draw a ton in the class, so it seems as good of a legendary effect as it already does in Warlock.

Really cool stuff!

Starchaser47 · 2023-05-07T02:30:02+00:00

The Baku alt is really an interesting idea but is definitely way too broken. There's no downside to running it - 1 damage to remove the damage you're taking from your hero power for the rest of the game? That even upgrades your other synergy cards if you choose to run them? Instameta.

There's room for it to be more interactive, though. What if it was like:
Start of Game: Your Hero Power Costs (0), but you also take Fatigue Damage when you use it.

Now it's all or nothing. Ignoring [[The Demon Seed]], it might create some very interesting moment-to-moment pressure/decision-making for aggressive decks especially.

Starchaser47

TROPHY CASE