Card Design Style Guide

When I look at cards, I'm very critical of grammatical errors. I'm quite the pedant, actually. I thought what I'd do is create a tool that could be referred to when designing cards to help people in /r/customhearthstone create cards that comply with Hearthstone's implied style guide. Of course, Blizzard being Blizzard, there are exceptions to many of these, but hopefully this page can help improve the quality of cards we see posted.

Capitalized Terms

The following terms always appears as Capitalized.

• Armour
• Attack (including x-Attack (ie: Hobgoblin))
• Note: this refers only to the Attack statistic, and not the use of attack as a verb.
• Class
• Druid
• Hunter
• Mage
• Paladin
• Priest
• Rogue
• Shaman
• Warlock
• Warrior
• Coin
• Cost (including x-Cost (ie: Piloted Sky Golem))
• Durability
• Health
• Hero Power
• Mana Crystal
• Power Chord 
• Tribes
• Beast
• Demon
• Dragon
• Mech
• Murloc
• Pirate

Bolded Terms

The following terms always appear as bolded.

• Battlecry:
• Charge
• Choose One - 
• Combo:
• Counter
• Deathrattle:
• Discover
• Divine Shield
• Enrage: 
• Freeze: 
• Immune
• Inspire: 
• Legendary
• Mega-Windfury
• Overload: (x)
• Secret
• Spare Part
• Spell Damage +x
• Stealth
• Taunt
• Windfury

Other Patterns

The following are some standard patterns used in Hearthstone cards. When designing cards, it's a good list to refer to to ensure you're using the correct syntax (especially with the use of punctuation, like single quotes, double quotes, dashes and commas). There are too many conditions and effects to really go into too much detail - that's where the style guide ends and creativity can really prosper.

• All cards end with a period, unless:
• The only words on them are bolded terms (see King Krush)
• The card ends with Overload: (x)
• All Legendary cards uses a proper noun as a name
• Whenever mentioning a mana cost reduction list the reduction numerically, in parenthesis. (ie: (1))
• Whenever a card draws card(s), that copy always appears after the card text, unless: 
• It is attached to a condition (ie: Hammer of Wrath)
• The card drawn is modified somehow (ie: Far Sight) 
• Whenever a card references:
• Attack and Health, use ±x/±y.
• Only Attack, or Health, instead use ±x Attack or ±x Health.
• Use verbose numbers (ie: "three") whenever two numbers are adjacent to each other (ie: Cenarius "...summon two 2/2 Treants...")
• Note that "one" is never used, use "a" instead
• Use ALL CAPITALS under the following circumstances:
• The card includes an effect that is against expectations, where misunderstanding the effect would have substantially negative consequences. (ie: Baron Geddon)
• The power of ROCK is invoked! (/me wails on guitar)
• Surround words around 'single quotes' under the following circumstances:
• Referring to a specific card in the game (ie: Archmage Antonidas)
• Changing a Hero Power (ie: Charged Hammer, Shadowform)
• Surround words around "double quotes" under the following circumstances:
• Adding text to a card (ie: Soul of the Forest)
• When indicating a range of possible values separate the low value from the high with a dash and no spaces (ie: Imp-losion deals 2-4 damage)
• Specific card syntaxes:
• Whenever [condition], [effect]. (ie: Cult Master)
• Whenever [condition] while this is in your hand, [effect]. (ie: Bolvar Fordragon)
• Whenever your hero [condition], [effect]. (ie. Truesilver Champion)
• When [condition], [effect]. (ie: Flame Leviathon, all secrets)
• At the end of your turn, [effect]. (ie: Kel'Thu-freaking-zad)
• At the start of your turn, [effect]. (ie: Alarm-o-Bot)
• If you [condition], [effect]. (ie: Crush)
• Reveal a [minion/spell/weapon] in each deck, if yours costs [less/more], [effect].
• Costs (x) [less/more] for [condition] (ie: Volcanic Drake)
• [effect 1]. If you have [condition], [effect 2] instead. (ie: Mortal Strike)
• Has [effect] for each [condition]. (ie: Old Murk-Eye)
• Has [effect] while [condition]. (ie: Cogmaster's Wrench)
• [effect], but not [less/more] [condition]. (ie: Summoning Portal)
• For each [condition], [effect]. (ie: Unleash the Hounds)
• Give your opponent a '[card name]' card. While they hold it, [effect]. (ie: Curse of Rafaam)
• Each time you [condition] this turn, [effect]. (ie: Lock and Load)
• Shuffle x [card name(s)] into [your/your opponent's] deck. When drawn, [effect]. (ie: Beneath the Grounds)
• Destroy any minion damaged by this [minion/spell/weapon]. (ie: Emperor Cobra)
• [effect 1]. Combo: and [effect 2]. (ie: Sabotage)
• Choose One - [condition 1]; or [condition 2].

Order of Terms

This is the order that bolded terms will appear on cards. If you have cards with more than one bolded term, unless they're included in a conditional statement (ie, a card like "Battlecry: If you have less Health than your opponent, gain Windfuy") the bolded terms should appear in this order.

• Windfury
• Charge
• Deathrattle:
• Divine Shield
• Taunt
• Stealth
• Spell Damage: (x)
• Battlecry: 
• Discover
• Overload: (x)
• Notes: There is a discrepancies in the order of:
• Taunt and Overload.
• Battlecry and Overload.
• Basically, Overload is split down the middle as either appearing first or last on cards. Later cards list it last, without a period, so I'm going to commit to this as the direction Blizzard intends to go with Overload cards.

Other Terms

The following terms (and word combinations) are used throughout cards in Hearthstone. If you want to more closely comply with Blizzard style guidelines, compare the terms in your card to this list before publishing it. For each of these, if you want examples of use, I recommend Hearthpwn (click on "Include card text" checkbox).

• 50% chance to
• add (consider "put")
• as normal (ie: Argent Watchman)
• at a time
• at least
• at most (NB - this is conjecture, and not currently in the game, but is derived from 'at least')
• adjacent
• after
• all
• battlefield (not "into play")
• bonus
• both players
• Can't Attack
• card
• cast
• change
• characters
• choose
• class (including 'class card')
• control
• copy
• damage (including 'damaged')
• deal
• deck
• destroy
• die (consider "destroy")
• discard
• double
• draw
• drawn
• each hero
• each player
• earlier this turn (ie: Edwin VanCleef)
• effect (ie: Unearthed Raptor)
• empty
• enemy
• equip
• except
• for each
• force (ie: Betrayal)
• friendly
• gain
• give
• hand
• have
• healing
• hero
• hold (also "holding")
• instead 
• kill (consider "destroy")
• less
• locked
• lose
• minion
• more
• next turn
• non-[tribe]
• opponent
• other
• play (not summon)
• power
• put
• random
• repeat
• replace
• restore
• return
• reveal
• set 
• shuffle
• spell
• summon (not play)
• survives
• swap
• take control
• takes damage
• target
• this turn
• transform
• trigger
• twice
• undamaged
• unlock
• use
• while (ie: Cogmaster's Wrench)
• wrong