I find that drawing cards is the most exciting when you've got limited draw opportunities and high stakes. What's a game that really nails that "Heart of the Cards" feeling for you?
Ok, I’m only 3 mins into your video and I already have a crystal clear understanding of why PoG is OP thanks to your specific Yu-Gi-Oh! example (versus other videos with more convoluted Yu-Gi-Oh! Examples). Thank you, thank you for opening with an simple example 🙏
Yugioh is a great example of this because cards like maxx c could out right win you games from the start in master duel and ocg where it isn’t banned let alone a banned card in all format like pot of greed
Hey, Simon! Keep up the good work, your videos are great! The quality of your videos are in pair with million subs channels, so dont lose hope! You'll get there soon
Hey, that is how I play gwent. Lots of cards that let me draw more cards, let me return cards to my hand (to play them out again, including cards that let me draw cards), or play them directly form the graveyard (also including cards that let me draw cards or play other cards from the graveyard) Stuff like playing a card that lets me play a card from my graveyard. That card turns out to be a card with the same effect (so for one card from my hand I have played out 3 cards) But the card I pull back is one that lands on the enemy side and lets me draw 2 cards. Then obviously cards that let me pull a card back to my hand, which I then can play again. That is obviously one of those that let me play a card from my graveyard. So by spending one card from my initial hand, I can play out 4 cards on my side and 1 on the enemies side. Or playing a graveyard pulling card, to pull another graveyard pulling card, to pull a card that allows me to play all cards with the same name directly from my deck. 1 card played from my hand gives me 5 cards on my side of the field which in total gives me 24 points by playing a single card. And if I go for the full 3 card per type limit, I could play the middle one 3 times for 34 points. At least the gwent included in witcher 3
Neutering card advantage via impermanent hands also goes way back to Dominion. Due to its action and buy limits, you might waste action or treasure cards. Sadly most other deckbuilders don't do it, letting you autoplay your entire hand instead
That is an interesting discussion on card draw. I just thought of this mechanic. So I watched this video out of curiosity. I don't know much about Yu-Gi-Oh. I never played it. In this video I finally see why Pot of Greed is banned. That gimmick is pretty sleazy. I think this one card is just the tip of the iceberg with problems with the game. One strange thing about Yu-Gi-Oh is that it has no resource cards. This video refered to cards being a resource. That is interesting. I think of resource cards as being specialized for paying for other cards. MTG is the game with the best resource system I have seen. That has resource cards called lands. Yu-Gi-Oh games tend to move way too fast because there are no resources to slow things down to a reasonable pace. There are limits to how many monsters one can summon, but those can be bent pretty easily with fancy methods of summoning. The biggest limit a player can do on their turn is their hand size. So drawing two cards can be a huge benefit, especially if a player gets lucky. I see how Pot of Greed card could be so "broken", even if it looks like a basic drawing card. A player could never get away with that sleazy gimmick, if they played MTG. They are going to run out of mana. Since blue is the main color for card draw, I assume the player will run out of islands. This gimmick won't work in Pokemon either. Pokemon has free card draw with cards like Bill and Professor Oak. However only creatures can do damage. Creatures use resource cards, called energy, in order to attack. They can only attack once per turn. Even if player did get a bunch of cards, it won't make their creatures attack more. They can't win immediately. Aside from being too fast, another problem that Yu-Gi-Oh has is that it would be more difficult to balance the game. That probably contributed to the ban card draw effects are fine if they take up resource cards or have some other limit. Both MTG and Pokemon have a limit on four copies per card. That probably helps with avoiding sleazy gimmicks. Pokemon won't even allow for more than four creature cards of the same species, even if the cards have different artwork and different effects. The easiest way to balance out a powerful card is to make it more expensive. That forms a basic power curve. Yu-Gi-Oh can't form such a curve very easily without resource cards. I recently got a brilliant idea on how to balance card draw effects. Now I don't want any randomness in my game. So I have players pick a card in their deck before they draw. My idea works only if there isn't randomness. A player can draw two cards. However each card has to be equal or less than the draw card in cost. Being limited to cheaper weaker cards will help prevent card draw from being overpowered. I can even turn this to a sliding scale. All card draw spells draw two cards. However the more expensive ones can draw the more powerful cards. If that draw to power comes at a greater cost, that would balance the game. The card draw effects can stay within the power curve. This is brilliant.
I like your balancing idea. It lets you fine-tune the power level of draw cards more finely. This, at least partially, solves the common problem of the gap between drawing 0 and 1 (cantrip effect) and 1 and 2 (replacement Vs card advantage) being very large by allowing you to differentiate between card power levels depending on their cost and what have you.
If you want to see a weird outlier at lowering the power of extra card draw, look at Ashes Reborn. It has a 'draw 3' card, and it isn't considered powerful, but not for the same reason as Pokémon.
Drawing cards is overpowered in every single game. I learned this early on in my quest to create a fundamental balancing engine for all games. The general principle is that you can’t take an action without consuming accessible resources. So a card that simply says draw 1 card, is actually already overpowered.
Yeah, cards that "just draw another card for free*" were actually widely used in some Magic decks (cards like Mishra's Bauble, to a lesser extent Gitaxian Probe, which had an upside). The added benefit of deck thinning/seeing more cards was enough to incentivize these decks to play them, even though they came with a cost of some kind (delay in drawing the new card, life loss).
Did you know that if you normal summon elemental hero stratos and add a card to your hand its the same amount of card advantage as playing pot of greed? Except you get to pick the card which is arguably better than random cards. Its no wonder that yugioh is so degenerate that its built on stratos like starters.
A bit late, but I think this video is pretty weird. The title doesn’t make a lot of sense imo, a core mechanic in a card game cant be “overpowered”. The example cards you gave in the intro doesn’t really serve the title well, as they are obviously outliers in their respective games. There are many more examples of bad cards that draw cards, then good ones. I feel like restructuring the video to explain how card draw is handled in games would make the video shorter and make a lot more sense. For example, how the fundamental lack of a resource system in yu gi oh makes card draw more valuable than in other card games. This leads to card draw in modern yu gi oh having severe limitations, like with pot of desires or pot of extravagance. Also small nit pick, backflip is actually a phenomenal card in slay the spire.
Appreciate the constructive nature of your criticism. The mechanic itself being overpowered is a bit of a mental shortcut. It's central position in the design of many card games is what makes the cards that have it overpowered, or at least difficult to balance. Maybe I could've been more clear on that point. Backflip is dece, maybe a different card would make for a more clear comparison, though I believe it works in the context. Thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts!
I find that drawing cards is the most exciting when you've got limited draw opportunities and high stakes. What's a game that really nails that "Heart of the Cards" feeling for you?
Hearthstone
Ok, I’m only 3 mins into your video and I already have a crystal clear understanding of why PoG is OP thanks to your specific Yu-Gi-Oh! example (versus other videos with more convoluted Yu-Gi-Oh! Examples).
Thank you, thank you for opening with an simple example 🙏
What's simple for one person is the limit of Yu-Gi-Oh understanding for another.
It's me. I am another :D
@@GamesDeconstructed 😹
Yugioh is a great example of this because cards like maxx c could out right win you games from the start in master duel and ocg where it isn’t banned let alone a banned card in all format like pot of greed
Yeah, Yu-Gi-Oh is one of the best examples of draw power I know. I should really play some more master duel sometime.
Really glad I found this channel, working on some TCG designs currently
.
Good luck with your TCG then! ;)
Hey, Simon! Keep up the good work, your videos are great! The quality of your videos are in pair with million subs channels, so dont lose hope! You'll get there soon
Thank you so much for the kind words mate, you're too kind!
An intersting topic could be "resources", lile mana, energy or even health!
I'm making a card gem and I find this hidden gem. Alright!
Hey, that is how I play gwent. Lots of cards that let me draw more cards, let me return cards to my hand (to play them out again, including cards that let me draw cards), or play them directly form the graveyard (also including cards that let me draw cards or play other cards from the graveyard)
Stuff like playing a card that lets me play a card from my graveyard. That card turns out to be a card with the same effect (so for one card from my hand I have played out 3 cards) But the card I pull back is one that lands on the enemy side and lets me draw 2 cards. Then obviously cards that let me pull a card back to my hand, which I then can play again. That is obviously one of those that let me play a card from my graveyard. So by spending one card from my initial hand, I can play out 4 cards on my side and 1 on the enemies side.
Or playing a graveyard pulling card, to pull another graveyard pulling card, to pull a card that allows me to play all cards with the same name directly from my deck. 1 card played from my hand gives me 5 cards on my side of the field which in total gives me 24 points by playing a single card. And if I go for the full 3 card per type limit, I could play the middle one 3 times for 34 points.
At least the gwent included in witcher 3
Neutering card advantage via impermanent hands also goes way back to Dominion. Due to its action and buy limits, you might waste action or treasure cards. Sadly most other deckbuilders don't do it, letting you autoplay your entire hand instead
True, Dominion is the granddaddy of deckbuilders and mechanics from it are still present in today's designs :)
That is an interesting discussion on card draw. I just thought of this mechanic. So I watched this video out of curiosity. I don't know much about Yu-Gi-Oh. I never played it. In this video I finally see why Pot of Greed is banned. That gimmick is pretty sleazy. I think this one card is just the tip of the iceberg with problems with the game. One strange thing about Yu-Gi-Oh is that it has no resource cards. This video refered to cards being a resource. That is interesting. I think of resource cards as being specialized for paying for other cards. MTG is the game with the best resource system I have seen. That has resource cards called lands. Yu-Gi-Oh games tend to move way too fast because there are no resources to slow things down to a reasonable pace. There are limits to how many monsters one can summon, but those can be bent pretty easily with fancy methods of summoning. The biggest limit a player can do on their turn is their hand size. So drawing two cards can be a huge benefit, especially if a player gets lucky. I see how Pot of Greed card could be so "broken", even if it looks like a basic drawing card. A player could never get away with that sleazy gimmick, if they played MTG. They are going to run out of mana. Since blue is the main color for card draw, I assume the player will run out of islands. This gimmick won't work in Pokemon either. Pokemon has free card draw with cards like Bill and Professor Oak. However only creatures can do damage. Creatures use resource cards, called energy, in order to attack. They can only attack once per turn. Even if player did get a bunch of cards, it won't make their creatures attack more. They can't win immediately. Aside from being too fast, another problem that Yu-Gi-Oh has is that it would be more difficult to balance the game. That probably contributed to the ban card draw effects are fine if they take up resource cards or have some other limit. Both MTG and Pokemon have a limit on four copies per card. That probably helps with avoiding sleazy gimmicks. Pokemon won't even allow for more than four creature cards of the same species, even if the cards have different artwork and different effects. The easiest way to balance out a powerful card is to make it more expensive. That forms a basic power curve. Yu-Gi-Oh can't form such a curve very easily without resource cards.
I recently got a brilliant idea on how to balance card draw effects. Now I don't want any randomness in my game. So I have players pick a card in their deck before they draw. My idea works only if there isn't randomness. A player can draw two cards. However each card has to be equal or less than the draw card in cost. Being limited to cheaper weaker cards will help prevent card draw from being overpowered. I can even turn this to a sliding scale. All card draw spells draw two cards. However the more expensive ones can draw the more powerful cards. If that draw to power comes at a greater cost, that would balance the game. The card draw effects can stay within the power curve. This is brilliant.
I like your balancing idea. It lets you fine-tune the power level of draw cards more finely. This, at least partially, solves the common problem of the gap between drawing 0 and 1 (cantrip effect) and 1 and 2 (replacement Vs card advantage) being very large by allowing you to differentiate between card power levels depending on their cost and what have you.
So you want something like tutor 2 cards with cost of X or less for X ? Just make sure X is big enough.
If you want to see a weird outlier at lowering the power of extra card draw, look at Ashes Reborn. It has a 'draw 3' card, and it isn't considered powerful, but not for the same reason as Pokémon.
Thanks, I'll check it out
Nice video and channel! Subscribed
Thanks, glad you liked it!
The hell is Transparent Bluff?
I can’t find this card anywhere
I can't believe I haven't caught this earlier - it's actually a r/custommagic card. Thanks for pointing this out!
@@GamesDeconstructed lol
Drawing cards is overpowered in every single game. I learned this early on in my quest to create a fundamental balancing engine for all games. The general principle is that you can’t take an action without consuming accessible resources. So a card that simply says draw 1 card, is actually already overpowered.
Yeah, cards that "just draw another card for free*" were actually widely used in some Magic decks (cards like Mishra's Bauble, to a lesser extent Gitaxian Probe, which had an upside). The added benefit of deck thinning/seeing more cards was enough to incentivize these decks to play them, even though they came with a cost of some kind (delay in drawing the new card, life loss).
@@GamesDeconstructedaquatic form in Hearthstone is another great example!
@@theelectricant98 I missed out on that being in the meta. Crazy to see "dredge" being a keyword in HS as well.
Did you know that if you normal summon elemental hero stratos and add a card to your hand its the same amount of card advantage as playing pot of greed? Except you get to pick the card which is arguably better than random cards. Its no wonder that yugioh is so degenerate that its built on stratos like starters.
It's a HERO specific tutor effect, right? Yeah, built in archetype tutors in Yu-Gi-Oh would be insane in most other card games except maybe Pokémon.
A bit late, but I think this video is pretty weird. The title doesn’t make a lot of sense imo, a core mechanic in a card game cant be “overpowered”. The example cards you gave in the intro doesn’t really serve the title well, as they are obviously outliers in their respective games. There are many more examples of bad cards that draw cards, then good ones.
I feel like restructuring the video to explain how card draw is handled in games would make the video shorter and make a lot more sense. For example, how the fundamental lack of a resource system in yu gi oh makes card draw more valuable than in other card games. This leads to card draw in modern yu gi oh having severe limitations, like with pot of desires or pot of extravagance.
Also small nit pick, backflip is actually a phenomenal card in slay the spire.
Appreciate the constructive nature of your criticism.
The mechanic itself being overpowered is a bit of a mental shortcut. It's central position in the design of many card games is what makes the cards that have it overpowered, or at least difficult to balance. Maybe I could've been more clear on that point.
Backflip is dece, maybe a different card would make for a more clear comparison, though I believe it works in the context.
Thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts!
Where new vid
First