We developed a new mana system for our game that makes it impossible to get mana blocked. We have playtested it for a while now and really like it. Allows more strategy and player choice and almost always end up with the player able to play a card every turn.
I like this! This ensures no points go to waste. So the player isn't influenced to have to spend every action because they are rewarded with stronger card drawing. I LOVE IT!
great, iwill qote this in my tvg to me the summum is :vs system, 2cards is superior to 1. everythin is more fun. Lorcana should have used vs system innovations over Mtg core
Im always excited when i see a new video from you! Thank you for discussing this paramount feature to TCGs. Ive been kinda doing an overhaul to my TCG since writting the original rules. Your videos are a huge inspiration and a great help staying motivated. ❤
My favorite card game, Exceed, uses both the first and last systems. Each turn you get one action, and then if you didn't initiate a Strike (where players simultaneously reveal attacks then resolve them -- the core of the game), you draw a card. However, there are also 2 actions available for drawing additional cards. "Prepare" has you draw 1 card (so 2 total, including the end of turn draw). "Change Cards" has you spend cards from your hand or Gauge (attacks that previously hit) to draw that many cards (+1 for end of turn). Card advantage isn't as important in Exceed as it is in other card games, since you can usually only play one card a turn (as an attack during a Strike or for its boost effect, though there are exceptions), so it's more about having the right options for the situation. The card draw actions let you trade tempo for flexibility.
Amazing videos! I love the upbeat attitude you have as you present the information as well. One TCG game that I believe has some good mechanics is "Cardfight Vanguard". (At least from it's early days, as I have not played in a long time.) Would you be willing to break down a few game structure choices, along with it's pros and cons compared to other TCGs? Things such as the decision to create a pure creature game vs adding spells, locking stronger cards to rank levels, or a prevalent luck system tied to card draw and game advantage? Without worry of any emotional connection to the game, I would also just like to hear your opinion on the game design. lol
Vanguard was a phenomenal game! Super well designed. In it's early days, it was very balanced and a structure deck could take on the expensive master decks and still win. Of course as power creep happened, all of that went away.
Look at the top 2 or 3 cards of your deck at the start of every turn, draw 1 and discard the others/put them at the bottom of your deck. Reduces randomness and allows players hands to be smaller (if you can always draw the right card, you won't need to draw a lot of them)
This was an interesting discussion. Some things they might have missed were the idea of a mulligan, drawing during both players turns, the different restrictions on hand size limits, and how the first turn is often treated differently (or not). Also they didn't seem to explicitly talk about how a game's resource system is an important factor in determining how cards should be drawn. In a way, they kind of "cheated" the discussion by saying that last system was the best, because it's not just a drawing system. It's a resource system and drawing system both being compared to just the drawing system of other games. Anyway, for the game i'm working on, it's very fast paced where both players draw up to 3 cards during each turn, but i'm still deciding on how I want to handle the first turn because I don't want going first to have too much of an advantage.
True, they did shoehorn the resource system into the final draw system. You have a keen eye. That was something I hadn't even considered as an implication.
Fun idea to maybe do try to make a small card game in a week like it gust needs to be playable btw this is better if two people make to different card games
Yah my friend and I had done this challenge it is very hard but forces you to thing quick on your feet when something goes wrong and it doesn't matter if the game is bad because it was made in a week btw my friend also expanded on his game but it it went nowhere
My card game uses a Mana System. You passively draw 2 cards at the end of your turn, as long as your hand does not exceed 7 cards. During the beginning of your turn, you can draw as many cards as you would like, each for 1 Mana. This is called Overdraw, which lets you go past the 7 card limit, and go to 10 cards (10 is the ABSOLUTE max; other cards with draw effects can let you go past 7 without spending).
I feel the problem of "the best drawing system" is that limits a lot the possible card design. So for example If a have a simple basic rule I can design more complex cards on top. In mtg for example I have cards that let me paying life to draw ecc. If the rules already set an exchange, what the point of having a card that do that exchange? I think simple rules frameworks are better because let you more space on card design
This is true! Something that was mentioned in my TCG 101 video. Your game rules need to be simple and easy to learn. The complexity comes from the cards themselves.
The problem with the Draw Up to a fixed number draw systems (or the play and replace one), are that it means that the player that can play more cards gets more cards to play, which is a recipe for a snowball effect, which means you need to really think about catch up mechanics. My card game has a magic style draw at the start of the turn, but it also has a draw by action system (Playing Cards, Attacking, Moving and Drawing are basic actions), I originally tried limiting the drawing as an action to once per round, but it quickly became clear that it only helped the winning player to limit it, as the player winning gets an advantage just by having more to do, like having more creatures to attack with. There are also cards that allow you to draw, because I saw no reason to not include them, but they are at least someone color restricted.
Cards that allow you to draw are referred to as cycle cards. You can play a card and gain a little more field presence, but the big thing is that draw power as it cycles through your deck faster. This makes your players' decks run more efficiently because that cycle card is not really included in the number of cards in your deck, and the fewer cards in your deck, the less random your draws become 😉
My current plan is just to simply draw 2 cards per turn. I don't think 1 will quite cut it, as once you run out of cards theres probably not gonna be a Pot of Greed in my game to draw multiple cards, so you'd only get 1 card play per turn which isn't fun, and would cause mana overflow. Though using mana to be able to draw is something I like the idea of, nice to hear it's working well in your game.
Drawing two cards instead of one is a simple and effective solution to speeding up the pace of your game. If you end up deciding on further searches, then I would suggest look up cards, where you draw 4 cards, choose 1 card, and then bottom deck the rest. This increases your search but adds a risk factor to your game where you might have to bottom deck some valuable cards. It's not needed, but it is something different to a pot of greed that just draws 2 cards.
LORCANA: if 48 cards draw cards in my 82 card deck, aint it efficent? description of variants: 2of those duplicate themself, 4 are wheels (draw7), 8x can draw each turn, 6 x draw 2card, rest are rgulo draw.... 80% do another thing atop THE Draw itself
A mechanic I have been developing. The player draws 3 cards before the first turn. The player may choose up to 3 cards from their hand. For each card a player puts into play. This reduces the number of cards drawn by 1. Which is done as the last step on their turn.
@@ShardTCG The max amount of cards put into play is 3. Otherwise the max number of cards drawn is 3. The cards are necessary to reach the objective. If a player wants to hoard cards all game. They are guaranteed to lose.
LORCANA: if 48 cards draw cards in my 82 card deck, aint it efficent? description of variants: 2of those duplicate themself, 4 are wheels (draw7), 8x can draw each turn, 6 x draw 2card, rest are rgulo draw.... 80% do another thing atop THE Draw itself
That's a nice safety rule to have in your game to keep gameplay going. It isn't too intrusive. I don't think players will deliberately use all of their cards for that additional draw power but it does depend on how the rest of the game is built so in most cases it will be quite fine.
I can tell he never really played V:tes because their is a lot of things he got wrong about the draw system and how it actually works in the game. Your hand size is set at 7 (unless you can increase it) and anytime a card is returned to your hand you must discard down to your hand size. Furthermore, you are not limited to 4 copies of a card in V:tes.
This is another unique thing about Ashes Reborn. You don't draw per turn, action, nor resource. So the game is played in a series of rounds and a round is made up of a series of turns. Once each person passes their turn consecutively then it moves into as new round. At the start of each round you draw up to hand size, not per turn. Every play has a 'main action', a 'side action', and a 'reaction'. Per turn you only get 1 of each, and the non-active player gets only 1 reaction per turn. This makes the game extremely tactical.
You should do a video on the best kind of mana systems next.
I can do that?
I can do that!!!
ude marvel/dc vs system 2004
period
We developed a new mana system for our game that makes it impossible to get mana blocked. We have playtested it for a while now and really like it. Allows more strategy and player choice and almost always end up with the player able to play a card every turn.
How does it work?
I'll share mine.
Lightseekers: Drawing a card at the end of the turn for every unspent action.
I like this!
This ensures no points go to waste. So the player isn't influenced to have to spend every action because they are rewarded with stronger card drawing. I LOVE IT!
great, iwill qote this in my tvg
to me the summum is :vs system, 2cards
is superior to 1. everythin is more fun. Lorcana should have used vs system innovations over Mtg core
Great video! Definitely got me intrigued when thinking about the rules I have set for my game
It's food for thought. Play around with all of them and see which one feels best for you
@@ShardTCG oh definitely, the first booster packs for my tcg are being sent to me so il be play testing the rules and tweaking what needs tweaking
Im always excited when i see a new video from you! Thank you for discussing this paramount feature to TCGs. Ive been kinda doing an overhaul to my TCG since writting the original rules. Your videos are a huge inspiration and a great help staying motivated. ❤
It's a huge grind. Take whatever motivation you can get and make something you are proud to show the world. Thank you for the kind words.
My favorite card game, Exceed, uses both the first and last systems. Each turn you get one action, and then if you didn't initiate a Strike (where players simultaneously reveal attacks then resolve them -- the core of the game), you draw a card.
However, there are also 2 actions available for drawing additional cards. "Prepare" has you draw 1 card (so 2 total, including the end of turn draw). "Change Cards" has you spend cards from your hand or Gauge (attacks that previously hit) to draw that many cards (+1 for end of turn).
Card advantage isn't as important in Exceed as it is in other card games, since you can usually only play one card a turn (as an attack during a Strike or for its boost effect, though there are exceptions), so it's more about having the right options for the situation. The card draw actions let you trade tempo for flexibility.
It's a good combo of draw options to have. Also simultaneous battles look fun and is something I need to research more into.
Amazing videos! I love the upbeat attitude you have as you present the information as well. One TCG game that I believe has some good mechanics is "Cardfight Vanguard". (At least from it's early days, as I have not played in a long time.) Would you be willing to break down a few game structure choices, along with it's pros and cons compared to other TCGs? Things such as the decision to create a pure creature game vs adding spells, locking stronger cards to rank levels, or a prevalent luck system tied to card draw and game advantage? Without worry of any emotional connection to the game, I would also just like to hear your opinion on the game design. lol
That's an interesting idea to make comparisents between two extremes. I'll make a note of it, thank you!
Vanguard was a phenomenal game! Super well designed. In it's early days, it was very balanced and a structure deck could take on the expensive master decks and still win. Of course as power creep happened, all of that went away.
Look at the top 2 or 3 cards of your deck at the start of every turn, draw 1 and discard the others/put them at the bottom of your deck. Reduces randomness and allows players hands to be smaller (if you can always draw the right card, you won't need to draw a lot of them)
This was an interesting discussion. Some things they might have missed were the idea of a mulligan, drawing during both players turns, the different restrictions on hand size limits, and how the first turn is often treated differently (or not). Also they didn't seem to explicitly talk about how a game's resource system is an important factor in determining how cards should be drawn. In a way, they kind of "cheated" the discussion by saying that last system was the best, because it's not just a drawing system. It's a resource system and drawing system both being compared to just the drawing system of other games. Anyway, for the game i'm working on, it's very fast paced where both players draw up to 3 cards during each turn, but i'm still deciding on how I want to handle the first turn because I don't want going first to have too much of an advantage.
True, they did shoehorn the resource system into the final draw system. You have a keen eye. That was something I hadn't even considered as an implication.
FaB draw system still my favorite. Thanks for the video.
Fun idea to maybe do try to make a small card game in a week like it gust needs to be playable btw this is better if two people make to different card games
It's a fun challenge. I never thought to make it a kinda head to head. Adds an element of competition
Yah my friend and I had done this challenge it is very hard but forces you to thing quick on your feet when something goes wrong and it doesn't matter if the game is bad because it was made in a week btw my friend also expanded on his game but it it went nowhere
You can also use a random prompt generator to make it more interesting
Using life points as a resource is new to me, opens up strategy thats for sure
My card game uses a Mana System. You passively draw 2 cards at the end of your turn, as long as your hand does not exceed 7 cards. During the beginning of your turn, you can draw as many cards as you would like, each for 1 Mana. This is called Overdraw, which lets you go past the 7 card limit, and go to 10 cards (10 is the ABSOLUTE max; other cards with draw effects can let you go past 7 without spending).
I feel the problem of "the best drawing system" is that limits a lot the possible card design. So for example If a have a simple basic rule I can design more complex cards on top. In mtg for example I have cards that let me paying life to draw ecc. If the rules already set an exchange, what the point of having a card that do that exchange? I think simple rules frameworks are better because let you more space on card design
This is true!
Something that was mentioned in my TCG 101 video. Your game rules need to be simple and easy to learn. The complexity comes from the cards themselves.
The problem with the Draw Up to a fixed number draw systems (or the play and replace one), are that it means that the player that can play more cards gets more cards to play, which is a recipe for a snowball effect, which means you need to really think about catch up mechanics.
My card game has a magic style draw at the start of the turn, but it also has a draw by action system (Playing Cards, Attacking, Moving and Drawing are basic actions), I originally tried limiting the drawing as an action to once per round, but it quickly became clear that it only helped the winning player to limit it, as the player winning gets an advantage just by having more to do, like having more creatures to attack with. There are also cards that allow you to draw, because I saw no reason to not include them, but they are at least someone color restricted.
Cards that allow you to draw are referred to as cycle cards. You can play a card and gain a little more field presence, but the big thing is that draw power as it cycles through your deck faster. This makes your players' decks run more efficiently because that cycle card is not really included in the number of cards in your deck, and the fewer cards in your deck, the less random your draws become 😉
My current plan is just to simply draw 2 cards per turn. I don't think 1 will quite cut it, as once you run out of cards theres probably not gonna be a Pot of Greed in my game to draw multiple cards, so you'd only get 1 card play per turn which isn't fun, and would cause mana overflow.
Though using mana to be able to draw is something I like the idea of, nice to hear it's working well in your game.
Drawing two cards instead of one is a simple and effective solution to speeding up the pace of your game.
If you end up deciding on further searches, then I would suggest look up cards, where you draw 4 cards, choose 1 card, and then bottom deck the rest. This increases your search but adds a risk factor to your game where you might have to bottom deck some valuable cards.
It's not needed, but it is something different to a pot of greed that just draws 2 cards.
LORCANA: if 48 cards draw cards in my 82 card deck, aint it efficent? description of variants:
2of those duplicate themself, 4 are wheels (draw7),
8x can draw each turn, 6 x draw 2card, rest are rgulo draw.... 80% do another thing atop THE Draw itself
Could you review chaotic, duel Masters, card fight Vanguard, buddy fight and some other OCG (Eastern TCGs) and compare their systems to western TCGs.
Eastern vs Western Card Games is intriguing.
I will look further into this one. Thank you!
A mechanic I have been developing. The player draws 3 cards before the first turn. The player may choose up to 3 cards from their hand. For each card a player puts into play. This reduces the number of cards drawn by 1. Which is done as the last step on their turn.
So their hand size would double every turn if they played nothing, or is it a max of 3?
@@ShardTCG The max amount of cards put into play is 3. Otherwise the max number of cards drawn is 3. The cards are necessary to reach the objective. If a player wants to hoard cards all game. They are guaranteed to lose.
LORCANA: if 48 cards draw cards in my 82 card deck, aint it efficent? description of variants:
2of those duplicate themself, 4 are wheels (draw7),
8x can draw each turn, 6 x draw 2card, rest are rgulo draw.... 80% do another thing atop THE Draw itself
What about a draw 1 at the beginning of the turn unless you have 0 in hand before the draw. If you have 0, then you draw more, like draw 2 or draw 3?
That's a nice safety rule to have in your game to keep gameplay going.
It isn't too intrusive. I don't think players will deliberately use all of their cards for that additional draw power but it does depend on how the rest of the game is built so in most cases it will be quite fine.
I can tell he never really played V:tes because their is a lot of things he got wrong about the draw system and how it actually works in the game. Your hand size is set at 7 (unless you can increase it) and anytime a card is returned to your hand you must discard down to your hand size. Furthermore, you are not limited to 4 copies of a card in V:tes.
Hello hello how are you
vs system2004,
2cards per turn
is superior to 1
No offense to this at all but you look like if Mark Hoppus (Blink 182) and Stipe Miocic (UFC fighter) had a baby
I see it.
I don't know what to do with this new knowledge, though.
@@ShardTCG Rule the world my friend haha
15:10 Actually Netrunner isn't actually discontinued. It was picked up by a non-profit.
This is another unique thing about Ashes Reborn. You don't draw per turn, action, nor resource. So the game is played in a series of rounds and a round is made up of a series of turns. Once each person passes their turn consecutively then it moves into as new round. At the start of each round you draw up to hand size, not per turn. Every play has a 'main action', a 'side action', and a 'reaction'. Per turn you only get 1 of each, and the non-active player gets only 1 reaction per turn. This makes the game extremely tactical.
This makes the game incredibly boring*
@@kateslate3228 Star Wars Unlimited says otherwise