[2023] The four horsemen of breaking the limits

Our first Location designs actually were this. They were on the board, but you had to play a minion into it to be able to use it.

Something like "Minions that die here trigger their Deathrattle twice." or "After you play a minion here, deal 1 damage to it and give it +2 Attack."

The biggest concern was UI. It was hard to see when a minion was in a Location, what Location it was, how much Durability it had left. We tested this in Alterac Valley, but couldn't find a good way of showing players what was going on.

Second attempt was in Nathria, but we made the card "double wide" so it took up 2 slots, but you could socket a minion into it. It solved a bunch of the UI issues, so things looked good, but after playtesting them (weeks), we realized we weren't getting any new design space. A lot of the cards could have just been minions with an aura effect. It didn't justify making it a new card type.

Where we ended up built us more space to create designs we couldn't have made before, while giving us the narrative space to show off places around an expansion.

We've also tried the opposite by removing minion slots. Turns out it's not fun at all.