Element Duel

[sneaky_squirrel]

Hi I recently started to work on a TCG of my own. It is a battle TCG (Like Yugioh, Pokemon, Magic etc) with a theme of heroes, soldiers, and monsters fighting each other. The universe isn't that rich (Going for a versatile fantasy, ranging from humans to dragon to robots and more), the purpose behind this TCG is in the new mechanics I am playing around with, adaptability for tag duels (Nothing gives me more satisfaction than seeing my partner saving me in a card game) and adding a new level of strategy.

Very early work in progress, here are the rules so far (Subject to change) (Trying my best to make this wall of text pleasing to the eye).

Prototype: Element Duel

Objective:

• Win by sending 5 of your opponent?s duelists to his soul pile.
  OR
  
• Losing all drive cards in your drive pool.
  
  
  
  
  There are 2 main types of cards:
  Combatants (They fight.)
  Power Cards (Cards that change the tide that can also act as resources.)
  
  
  Some combatant cards are ?Duelists? which are a stronger, have battle skills, are required to be in play and taking them down is the objective. While those combatants who are not duelists are merely tools to take them down faster.
  You may have more than one duelist on the field, but all duelists are "unique" (You may not have more than 1 copy of the same duelist card in your deck and Chosen/Party combined, for example you can't own 2 "Torchlight Wizard" cards in your deck.
  
  Power cards are both event cards and resources (Most power cards have two sides), you can either choose to place them as resource cards to place more powerful ones later on or play them to change the tide of the match in your favor.
  
  
  There are many zones: Deck, Hand, Front (Where all your combatants are placed), Rear (Usually for power cards with some exceptions), Discard Pile, Drive Pool (Where you play your resources), Soul Pile (Where defeated duelists go to) and Chosen/Party (Which one sounds more fitting/less cheesy, or suggest a name), a deck of 5 "rank 2" duelists to play on the field.
  
  
  I divided the overall elements in the game to 5 (6 if you include the "Progress" element cards, they represent "technology"  or non elemental).
  I wanted to have these 5 elements sort of counter each other, but hard counters are not fun at all. So instead of giving a flat bonus to certain matchups, I gave a different playstyle to each element which gives them an advantage over each other. (All cards, including power cards, have an element)
  
  
  
  
  Earth cards specialize in strengthening combatants and summoning them. They focus on combatants.
  
  Fire cards specialize in damaging the opponent?s combatants and devastating the field at high costs. They focus on the field.
  
  Water cards specialize in protecting the player?s combatants and sabotaging the enemy behind the scenes. They focus on player hands.
  
  Storm cards specialize in eliminating cards in play and revealing cards. They focus on single targets.
  
  Wind cards specialize in revealing cards, avoiding attacks, delaying the enemy, drawing and manipulating effect targets. They focus on the rear.
  
  Progress cards have no specialty, jack of all trades, versatile, conditionless and usually weak. Outside of the elemental chain.
  
  
  
  Turn Sequence (How the game plays)
  
  Golden Rule:
  Card rules hold priority over general rules. If the game says there shall be no ice cream and a card says let there be ice cream, then there shall be ice cream.
  
  Full turn sequence
  
• Each player will go through their turns once (Draw Phase, Start Phase and End Phase), after they have all completed one turn they will proceed to the Battle Phase (A universal Phase that begins once all players have gotten a turn).
  
  Game Start
  
• You start the game by having each player choose 5 "rank 2" duelists from their deck and have their enemy shuffle it (These cards become their Party Deck) Then they choose 5 drive cards from their decks and place them in their drive pool (These become both their lives and resources).
  
• Each player draws 5 cards.
  
• Players may choose to play their duelist either from their hand or their Party (Paying their call cost).
  
  Game Phases
  
• Draw Phase (You draw  a card from your deck)
  
• Start Phase (When you play combatants, power cards, use skills etc. In the beginning of this phase all your combatants recover.
  
• End Phase (Your turn ends)
  
• Battle Phase (Occurs after all players have taken their turns, outside of player turns)
  
  Draw Phase
  
  
• You may "recover" 3 drives in your "Life Pool".
  
• Draw 1 card.
  
  Start Phase
  
• If a player has no "Duelists" in their start phase, they must immediately call a "Duelist".
  
• You may "call" as many combatants to the field as you want (As long as you can pay their "call" cost).
  
• Same for Power Cards, but these are "played" in your rear.
  
• Whenever a card is called (Combatant) or played (Power), you must exhaust a number of drive cards equal to its cost (And at least one them must match the element or the card played).
  
  End Phase
  
• Some cards effects usually trigger during this phase.
  
• Your turn ends.
  
  Battle Phase (Universal)
  
• All players assign each of their combatants in one of two zones (Defense Zone and Attack Zone), those in the shield zone cannot attack and uses their defense rating to calculate battle resolution, those in the attack zone can attack and use their attack rating to calculate battle resolution.
  
• Combatants that attacked become "exhausted" after calculating battle resolution.
  
• Combatants in the "Attack Zone" can only attack enemies in the opponent's attack zone if that specific opponent has no "recovered" (Not exhausted) combatants in his defense zone.
  
• When a combatant attacks another combatant, both of their "battle values" (Either their attack or defense depending on where they are).
  
• Attacker > Defense Zone. if the attacker has a higher value, the defender loses 1 life and becomes exhausted. But if it is equal or lower, reduce the defense value of the target by the attack value of the attacker.
  
• Attacker > Attack Zone. if the attacker has a higher value, the defender loses 2 life. If the attacker has the same value as the defender, they both lose 1 life, if the attacker has a lower value, the attacker loses 2 life.
  
• Attacker > Attacker. If two combatants happen to target each other simultaneously (Read next bullet, "Attack Order"), the outcome is the same as the "Attacker > Attack Zone".
  
• Attack Order. The attack order is decided by the speed rating of the combatants, those with higher speed rating go first (And once there are none left you proceed to the next highest speed until there are no combatants left that can attack).
  
• Same Speed.If there are combatants of the same speed rating, each player chooses one of their combatants (If they have one) and declares a target (All battle outcomes are simultaneous), repeat this step until there are no combatants of the same speed left.
  
• If a combatant's life is lowered to 0, it is considered defeated and sent to the discard pile.
  
• Once no player has any actions left to do, the phase ends and the players start their turns again.
  
• At the end of this phase "recover" (Become no longer exhausted, rotate 90 degrees to a vertical position) all "exhausted" combatants.
  
  
  Defining Mechanics
  Mechanics that make the game stand out from the rest, so far I have thought up of one.
  
  
• "Resource/Lifepoints" Cards are limited by resource costs which can be payed with your current life. The more total life you have, the more options you have. Destruction of it may give some advantage over the opponent and must be done with care. This resource fluctuates a lot and has a semi limited use (Each turn you usually gain 1 or 2 drive to your total "Life Pool" (Life Pool has replaced "Drive Pool"), but you only recover 3 drives to play more cards.
  
  
• "Discourage" Whenever a player's non-duelist (Losing a duelist already has enough cons) combatant is sent from the field to the discard pile (Destroyed or defeated) by an opponent's card, the owner of the combatant loses a number of drive cards from his "Life Pool" equal to the rank of the combatant (For example, you lost a rank 1 "Frostlings", 1 of your drive cards is destroyed and sent to the discard pile. If it were "Frozenskin Rat" you would lose 2 drive cards since it is a rank 2 combatant. If you were to lose "Torchlight Wizard, you would lose no drive cards because he is a "duelist"). You must find the right balance between hiring heroes (Duelists) and using your own minions (Linked to your "Life Pool" to obtain victory.
  
  
• "Universal Battle Phase" Attacks take place on a "universal turn" instead of your own, in which all players assign targets for their combatants to attack. This pace is done to simulate a "skirmish" in which all action takes place at the same time.
  
  Reason behind the mechanic:This mechanic encourages playing low cost cards (You will be losing a few drive cards which will make it difficult to player high cost cards early on), gives the player a reason to have more than one duelist on the field and not just spam combatants (Devastating powers, no set backs in resources, but get 5 of them in the soul pile and it is over). Each combatant will have stats almost worthy of being a duelist, but they also have collateral (Sure you can summon this rank 2 by exhausting 3 drives this turn, but if it is destroyed you lose 2 drives (Equal to its rank) for good.
  
  
  
  Card Anatomy
  
  Deck Proportion
  A deck should contain 50 cards minimum (And recommended), 10 of these are separated at the beginning of the game (5 drive cards to your drive pool and 5 duelists become your "party" deck). Currently desired/planned proportion of the deck would be 20 power cards (Half of the deck is resource/spells), 12 combatants, 6 duelists and 2 specialized powers(No drive side). Plus 5 power cards for your starting drive and 5 "rank 2" duelists for your party deck  [Proportion subject to change at any moment]
  
  Combatants
  
• Divided into duelists and non duelists (All duelists are combatants, not all combatants are duelists)(I'm trying to minimize terminology)
  
• Name (Whats-his-name)
  
• Cost (Number of drives needed to play)
  
• Faction (Who do they belong to)
  
• Rank (How powerful is it)
  
• Race (What is it?)
  
• Type (Profession if any)
  
• Skills (Effects and abilities)
  
• Life (How many losses it takes to be defeated)
  
• Attack
  
• Defense
  
• Speed (Decides attack sequence)
  Examples (New Layout is on the left, old one to the right)
  
  
  Torchlight Wizard
  The example shown, the Torchlight Wizard, has the average HP of a rank 2 duelist (rank 2 is pretty cheap to play and can be placed as your first duelist free of charge), sacrificing defense (A very useful stat) for more offense and average speed (Speed is usually not a very important factor in a fight), His "battle skill" lets him do damage to all the foes of the enemy and it is further powered up by having cards placed in your rear (Usually where you placed your power cards, the equivalent of the "spell card" in this game). This card specializes in dealing damage, but has no built in defense whatsoever.
  
  FrozenSkin Rat
  The other example, Frozenskin Rat, has the average Life of a rank 2 combatant (Weaker than duelists), it sacrifices attack and speed for defense. Its skills specialize it for defense (Attacking it once will do no good since it won't leave an opening until being attacked twice thanks to "frozen shell"). Usually you could use a power card to force opponent's to attack this card (Leaving your duelist safe from harm) which is VERY resistant early in the game.
  
  Stonecutter Mole
  Stonecutter Mole has more HP, average speed and low attack and defense. This combatant is very durable in the sense it cannot be directly destroyed or damaged by effects. It can only take damage by being attacked. This combatant sacrifices power in exchange for prolonged existence.
  
  Mushroom Guard (New)
  Mushroom guard has higher HP, average attack and speed and low defense. It becomes stronger with more earth cards on the field and is cheaper to play when you have a high rank duelist in play. A card currently planned for the mushroom archetype (Swarming playstyle).
  
  Frostlings
  This card along with the free (No drive cost) power card "Heavy Rain" (No example of this card ATM) "You can only activate this card if you have 4 cards in your hand or more. Discard 3 cards and your opponent discards 2." Water playstyle specializes in being able to fight with little drive and limiting the opponent's ability to get big cards out. When "heavy rain" is used you end up at a disadvantage (You lose 1 more card than the enemy), but if combined with 1-3 frostlings (Non unique cards are limited to 3 copies, odds of having 3 frostlings are small) you can minimize or even completely negate the card's cost (3 of your cards) as well as letting you dig deeper into your deck.
  
  I put this together in a few hours (I have very little experience with digital art, so I can't do anything fancy at the moment. Any suggestions to changing the layout are welcome. Every element has a different colored card background.)
  
  
  Power Cards
  
  Power Cards are what defines this game (After duelists), these are separated into 5 different types:
  
• Powers (Basic) (These are played, they do their thing, send straight to the discard pile)
  
• Battle Powers (These are used in the battle phase)
  
• Persistent Powers (They stick around and deal a passive effect as long as they remain in the rear)
  
• Equip Powers (These are placed under combatants (They are not placed in the rear) and give them a bonus or effect.
  
• Field Powers (Only one field power may remain on the field, if the opponent activates one when yours is in play. Your field is sent to the discard pile and his remains. These are placed in the rear (Like Persistent powers).
  
• Ruse Powers (There are used as counters to the opponent's actions if they are facedown in your rear).
  
  Drive Cards
  Some power cards are double sided (They can be placed as either this or that on the field, but not sided as in flipping the cards. The bottom and top of the card are separated.) (Basic and Battle Powers hold another side which the card can be used as, it is called a "drive card", once per turn in your start phase you may place one of these as a drive card (If it has a drive card side) in your drive pool. These cards are what generate drive (the resource used to play cards).
  
  General Power Rules
  
• You may place them facedown on the rear for free.
  
• You can't activate them on the same turn you place them facedown on your rear.
  
  
  
  Current Questions:
• What do you think of this game from what I have told you so far?
  
• Any questions? (In case I missed something that might confuse you)
  
• Any themes, combatant ideas, card ideas that take advantage of some mechanics.
  
• What font would you recommend for the cards? (Changed from Arial to something called Arno Pro Smbd Display)
  
• Any recommendation of WHERE to keep my card's + summary/strategy/synergy database? (I don't think turning this thread can become the storage of my online card database)
  
  
  Updates:
  
  Update 2:
  
• Added new example card and a combo summary which includes it ("Frostlings" with the power card "Heavy Rain").
  
• Questions still apply, and thanks for the feedback so far.
  
• Added major new mechanic "Discourage" (Nothing special, but not too shabby of an idea).
  
  Update 3:
  
• Combined Ruse with Powers, Ruses will now be a subtype of power (Like Field and Equip) and have their activation conditions be mentioned on the card.
  
  Update 4:
  
• Updated card layout (Eliminated text represented stats below to make more room for the illustration, text put to the left side of the illustration and replaced with numbered symbols to differentiate, stats easier (Heart = HP, Axe = Attack, Shield = Defense and Bolt = Speed), made skill/flavor background less white and changed border colors, plus I eliminated colored background below title for more illustration space.
  
• Currently practicing my digital painting (To make sexier graphics, current ones are low quality placeholders).
  
• Managed to find a few of my disappeared friends (Cards ideas might come in faster).
  
• Attempted to make a blog, my conclusion is that free blogging software is too much hassle for little benefit, will continue to use the forums.
  
  Update 5:
  
• A new victory condition has been added, drive cards have become this secondary condition.
  
• Combat mechanics have been completely revamped. Players will no longer hold a battle phase during their own turns and stat/battle mechanics are also different.
  
• Battle will now be held in a universal phase which occurs after all players have finished their respective turns.
  
• Second change to the card layout, they reflect the new rule changes and contain even more image space.
  
• Rank and cost has been separated, the cost remained where it was and the rank is represented by the yellow shield/sword emblem to the left of the image. The stats to the right remain Life (Heart), Attack (Axe), Defense (Shield) and speed (Feather/Wing).
  
• First card layout completely scrapped, second one is now old example.

[DavidChaos]

Reading through everything, I honestly feel like the whole thing is basically "Yu-Gi-Oh with the Duel Master's mana system".

[Wisp]

i agree

[sneaky_squirrel]

Reading through everything, I honestly feel like the whole thing is basically "Yu-Gi-Oh with the Duel Master's mana system".

Thanks for the criticism, I come to understand that it is related to yugioh by the power cards/spells and ruses/traps (Aspects I loved from that game). I also researched "Duel Masters", not very familiar with the rules but I'm guessing its related to the 5 shields with my 5 duelist defeat condition (The 5 shields condition looked a lot faster since I saw cards that could destroy up to 4 shields at once in the wiki XD).

My game might not be very original so far, the few things I have done so far (That I feel is a good thing for this game) is:

• Make combatants last much longer on the field (HP/Defense instead of a single stat).
  
• I made the "drive/resource/mana" system to allow for weak/strong cards one as viable as the other, it also helps to keep a rough turn count for cards I want to have used midgame.
  
• Drive system also helps avoid the "Suddenly losing your guy" problem that I saw in yugioh (Hah! Trap Hole!, Oh no!, Hah! Sakuretsu Armor!, Oh no!, Hah!, Man Eater Bug!, Oh no!). The costs and conditions should make the player feel less cheated (Either fair cost, only targeting  low ranks or being able to destroy very weakened big boys etc)
  
• Made fights two sided, if you attack on your turn your enemy will still have a blow at you (Unless you manage to have higher speed and take him out in one blow, possible through powers).
  
• Allowed multiple weaklings to chip away a big boy since the first attack will cancel his defense once it becomes exhausted (Making weak guys viable lategame in some conditions, there are also powers/skills that can do damage to multiple targets which would counter having lots of weaklings)
  
  I will keep brainstorming (By myself so far since I have failed to find anyone with ideas to contribute), uploading examples and trying to come up with that "mind blowing idea" to add some of that "originality spice to the game" (Perhaps some duelists could trigger effects when sent to the soul pile?).
  
  My next 2 cards will demonstrate a simple combo (Ranges from a horrible trade to a completely broken card), the mechanic is old and unoriginal, but it is a demonstration of the playstyle of water cards (Buying time and devastating the opponent behind the scenes)
  
  If anyone has that "mind blowing idea" or something close to it and thinks it can be implemented here, please share ;p. Or any information that could help me and the project.

[DavidChaos]

First, the win condition is a little bit unbalanced, not to mention you don't really explain certain things.  For instance, what if your opponent gets rid of your duelist, and you have no others?  Is that an automatic loss?  What are the mulligan rules for not drawing a drive/duelist combination you can play?

Second of all, the Duel Master's mana system has you play cards upside down as mana cards once per turn, a number and color circle at the bottom of the card indicating what it represents (almost all cards are 1 mana of a single color, though).  Your Drive card thing is very much like that, only not every card can be used as mana (granted, I think there are one or two later DM cards with no symbol at the bottom).

Also, as far as your combat system, there's only 2 things you're doing that are different from Magic:  First, is the Speed stat, which I'll admit is a decent idea.  Second, having a defense stat and HP stat, but that's something my game is doing as well (of course, my game is also using team combat, but that's a whole different story).  As far as Powers and Ruses, very little about the Powers isn't exactly the same as a Spell type in YGO, and Ruses are, more or less, normal trap cards.  I also feel the limits on front and rear field are unneeded, especially the rear field, if you have a mana system.  Part of the reason YGO has a limited field is because it's easier to play out a bunch of cards.

[Dragoon]

A battle driven card game I played is ophidian. It featured the flow mechanic, in which you coulld only act when you have the flow. Flow was lost when you played certain cards or other actions. When all players passed, a next round started. Search "Ophidian 2170" for more info.

As for Duelists, you could use a starting pile of duelists where you could play them from and having you to force play one when you have no duelists in play.

Also, for others, when being critic, give constructive criticism, so stuff can be changed, please.

[sneaky_squirrel]

@DavidChaos
"What if your opponent gets rid of your duelist, and you have no others?  Is that an automatic loss?  What are the mulligan rules for not drawing a drive/duelist combination you can play?"
I missed mentioning that part (Wasn't too sure how to do it either) whenever your duelist is defeated you MUST place another duelist (Paying its cost as well) on the beginning of your next start phase (Let me complete this in Dragoon's response).

"Your Drive card thing is very much like that"
Indeed it is, but I must admit I got that  idea from Magic (Didn't know about Duel Master's at the time).

"Also, as far as your combat system"
Yes I want to try and squeeze and much juice from the speed stat as possible (And eventually every other mechanic I decide to include). I'm Planning to have the thunder and wind cards (especially wind) take advantage of having higher speed and using plenty cards to turn speed in their favor. Powers equal spells and ruses equal traps (Just didn't want to give the idea that everyone was a mage so I changed the wording to "power", I changed "trap" to "ruse" so the terms of my game wouldn't be too often confused with yugioh (Roughly the same idea "an action intended to mislead, deceive, or trick", I learned the word when the strategy videogame "Ruse" came out).

"I also feel the limits on front and rear field are unneeded, especially the rear field, if you have a mana system.  Part of the reason YGO has a limited field is because it's easier to play out a bunch of cards."
The limits on these were for the sake of having a clean formatted field (I am very Yugioh minded, perhaps this is what is holding me back, didn't really take the "resources" into consideration. You make an extremely good point here, I will lift the restrictions.


@Dragoon
"It featured the flow mechanic, in which you coulld only act when you have the flow."
Read the game rules just now, pretty interesting mechanic (I could probably get something out of this, though I am going to stick to the current turn pace of full onslaught then surviving the enemy's full force, repeat. (Like in Yugioh or Cardfight Vanguard). "Flow" makes the battle feel more fast paced and dynamic (To simulate a gladiator fight), this makes me wonder what sort of pace I want for this game (Thanks for making me think ).

"As for Duelists, you could use a starting pile of duelists where you could play them from and having you to force play one when you have no duelists in play."
The idea once crossed my head, but I never really stopped to think about it until David mentioned it. The players would draw 7 cards (7 out of 40), the odd of getting a drive was high, but having too many duelists wouldn't be the ideal strategy (So the odds of drawing some would be highly unlikely, turning it into an "not-fun" scenario).

What I could do is have a separate pile of 5 "rank 2" duelists (Of your choosing) which would be shuffled by your opponent. When players draw their 5 cards, they could either choose to play a duelist from their hand that met the requirements, or if they have drawn no duelists they could draw a card from the duelist pile to play immediately. (Even if they have duelists in their hand they could play, usually this would be the most favorable option). I like this idea, the deck sizes would change from 40 to 45 (And the gameplay would be much more balanced and less based on drawing luck).


Thanks for the observations, I honestly couldn't see those mistakes. Also since I went to get my passport (Lost around 7 hours there, almost another one working on this reply) I had very little time to work on the cards, the visible samples might not be posted today.

To keep ideas and discussion flowing I'll attempt daily updates on card ideas I have had without the useless but nice to have pictures (I have a small cluster in a word document).