I hadn't thought of how much weirdness link monsters in defence mode would cause - good point! It's more that they made an entire class of card without defense mode, and the game basically shrugged - less a deliberate point and more just a demonstration the game functions just fine without it.
@@tcgacademia There are a few link monsters that prevent their owner from taking excess battle damage, essentially giving the benefits of defense mode without having to figure out how to make defensive link monsters work.
@tcgacademia Also, late shout out to Rush Duel's Maximum Summoning, which is also a class of monsters that only has an attack mode. Though I am personally distasteful towards them, as I haven't had any good gameplay experience involving them, they are a beloved mechanic that doesn't use defense modes(probably due to game board ergonomics)
@@froz5551 Haven't played rush duel that much, but one thing that I love about maximum monster is how cool that all of the 3 card images connected seamlessly lol, giving exodia card images vibe.
It's honestly funny to think of the DEF of a YGO card ever coming into play in the modern game. The day of stalling out with Defense position Monsters has been long gone for a decade+
@@SakuraAvalon Yeah, it always seemed a bit of a weird balancing tool. Like, sure, Gemini Elf has less DEF than La Jinn, but there is no world where that is relevant.
@@tcgacademia Well, I imagine cards like Earthquake, Block Attack and Zero Gravity were intended to see more play, at least in Konami's eyes. It didn't pan out that way, but Book of Moon did see use as a staple card. And one of the key uses, was allowing you to get past Monster's inferior DEF points.
It was briefly mentioned in the video, but I think the way these games use cards and mechanics to combat the unfun moments created by the rules is an interesting and important extension of this topic. For example, as it pertains to combat: MTG has evasive keywords like Flying and the constant threat of board wipes to help alleviate the issues of board stalls. Yugioh has defensive traps and various protective abilities to protect weaker creatures from easily being destroyed. Pokemon has cards that punish the player who is ahead, and strong recursion options to help a player recover lost resources. In some ways, evergreen cards/effects like removal and card filtering/draw in MTG, gust, switch, and ball search effects in Pokemon, and, uhhh... special summons?, floodgates?, counter/hand traps? in Yugioh are often so quintessential to their games that they act as an extension of the rules that every player must consider when building a deck and playing, helping to round out the rough edges of the game's base ruleset.
As i said before, it truly is a mistake to consider the combat of a game independently of the other components. the premise that mtg has board stales is a bad one imo. even if that was the case, each colour has the tools to break the stalemate and it adds tension to gameplay. in modern yugioh protecting creatures is not much of an issue either since every cards has so many effects that it doesnt matter. also the games are decided very fast, the opposite of what mtg control decks do.
@@goncaloferreira6429 I somewhat agree. On one hand, yes, it's important to consider other components of the game when looking at combat, especially when certain cards and effects are important enough to always be taken into consideration. Pokemon is probably the best example of this since Gust and Switch effects are present in most decks, regardless of color. MTG has some similar staples, though they are largely based on deck color, but not to the same extent. I'm not really sure about Yu-Gi-Oh; I think hand traps are popular right now. On the other hand, the game's core combat rules do exert a "gravity" on all effects, as was mentioned in the video. It's important to look at the ruleset to identify its strengths and weaknesses, then determine what game effects can be used to compliment the strengths and shore up the weaknesses. For example, the combat rules in MTG give no way for the attacker to proactively interact with defending creatures. Thus the developers have had to find ways to deal with that issue (i.e. removal). The exact components used don't necessarily matter.
@@thebigcheese1905 interesting topics. " example of this since Gust and Switch effects are present in most decks, regardless of color. " This leads to a whole new conversation about the nature of staples in pokemon and yugioh. In the first they are well made(cheap) and in the second not so much( usually expensive). More important staples in both games lead to samey decks and gameplay. To reiterate looking just to base rules is not enough. all games have 2 basic components, units and one shot effects. their interactions make the game.
@@goncaloferreira6429 Are you talking about monetary costs when you say "cheap" and "expensive"? Card availability and price is an interesting but separate discussion that relates to game design, and is often out of the designers' control. I agree, though, that there is an interesting comparison to be made in how Pokemon has largely kept the integrity of the restrictions imposed by its rules, and Yu-Gi-Oh has not (special summons everywhere!). I don't think that having popular staples necessarily leads to samey gameplay across decks that use them. That would be like saying that all MTG decks are samey because they play basic lands. I have to disagree with your last statement, there is no requirement to have both units (persistent effects) and one-shot effects in a card game. The most popular example would probably be Flesh and Blood, which has almost no persistent effects, and is a very different experience than the big 3 tcgs.
@@thebigcheese1905 1st paragraph: i mean that pokemon staples- the professor ´s research, marnie, the balls etc -are all cards that cost 0,20 to 0,50$, making the game less expensive for players. in yugioh the staples- think the hand traps- tend to be more expensive. does this relate to card availability? maybe if you want to que the good practices of pokemon and the not so good way konami handles yugioh( that is already a special game) . 2nd paragraph: pokemon is perhaps the game that has change the least over the years. compared to the way yugioh has transformed it is a good point. On the other hand when you played pkm for a long time you can see how the game is frozen in time, reusing the same effects and cards again and again. 3rd: ido not know flesh and blood all that well to comment. are you saying there are no effects in that game?
Sooo... the last part of this video made me realize that the big 3's rules flaws (at least the theoretical caveman versions of them) are ALL about not having enough push and pull: -MTG: If you can't quite kill your opponent, slowly drawing random cards are not likely to get your over your opponent's defenses. -Pokémon: If you got blown up, your resources left with your Pokémon and it's much harder to set up a new one that can match your opponent's. -Yu-Gi-Oh!: If you lose your monsters to a high ATK monster, you don't have time to summon enough monsters to tribute into a more powerful one. On the other hand, more modern games have systems to counteract these snowball situations (normally comeback mechanics): -Duel Masters: Player being hit draws a card and has a chance to shield trigger, since it's so difficult to stop attacks without specific cards. -Weiss Schwarz: A lot of effects pump your field only during your turn, so it's less about board advantage and more about getting small edges each turn. You can also play as many characters as you want so you never fall behind. -Wixoss: Getting hit and getting your SIGNIs destroyed gives you resources so that you can make a bigger playe next turn. You can also play as many SIGNIs as possible for free. -Dragon Ball Super: Battle cards are trivially easy to remove so there's never too much permanent advantage. Getting hit also draws but here it gives you cards to combo or counter attack and slow down the game immediately. -Digimon: This one doesn't have a comeback mechanic at all, but small Digimon often die by attacking, so it's more about counting attacks and hits rather than permanent board advantage. Big Digimon do have a big impact, and especially recently they have very nasty lockdown effects, but at least you have your breeding area where you can safely build to your own big Digimon without them interrupting your evolution line. It does have random shield triggers. -One Piece: DON!! cards pumping any character or leader means you can always attack a big thing, if you don't mind losing tempo. There's also shield triggers. Some of these modern games are a bit too overtuned for my taste, they feel like a very strong rubberband where they make sure the game doesn't go too far in one direction, but I wonder what the big 3 would be like with just a little of this. Maybe Pokémon could recoup the energy on your KO'd Pokémon, or maybe Yu-Gi-Oh! could give you an extra normal summon for each 2 monsters destroyed. Good video as always!
I wonder if I can make a small rubber band that can go either way but won't break to cause flaws. Basically making my own way to negate the stall, like drawing cards for everytime your opponent attacks, but that's too OP, something else needs to happen to defenders to comeback. Got any ideas?
@@kagemushashien8394 A lot of games already do something like that actually. -Dragon Ball Super: Most leaders draw a card when they attack. This encourages you to always attack and keep the game moving forward. This is important because most leaders need low life to "awaken" and without this explicit advantage, players could just stare at each other refusing to lower their opponent's life. -Weiss Schwarz: Whenever one of your characters attack, you gain one resource, which can also randomly give you a bonus effect (like a shield trigger, but from the top of your deck). This and the general pace of the game make it almost impossible to stall, you're placing three characters and wiping your opponent's board pretty much turn after turn. -Vanguard: When your Vanguard attacks, you do a drive check, revealing the top card similar to WS. This gives you a card in your hand (similar to DBS) but also might do a trigger effect. Note that none of these games are like Magic where you can turtle up, none of them have summoning sickness, and they're all pretty much "Attack all the time" kind of games. You should absolutely consider rewarding attacks, but like you're saying, you need to take it into account when balancing the game. Simply adding a "Whenever you attack, draw a card" mechanic to a game that wants you to sometimes play defense can become very unfair to certain strategies.
@@fernandobanda5734 I posted my game's mechanisms, mabey you can pin point where I need to add something to reward attacker's, the Honor phase sounds good, like for every point you give you subtract yours, or every successful attack you draw, something has to happen here.
I think the digimon security system is already comeback mechanic by itself? not really sure how it's going today tho also the problem with giving good combat mechanic is the danger to make player not willing to attack, like in DM it's not uncommon to go OTK or not attacking at all, then it gives another push to attack like Drive check in Vanguard. In the end it's the nice balance of push and pull
I think the main thing I'm struggling to understand is how boardstate stalling is a negative. I don't see a real issue with Magic's combat system favoring blockers, since the game is built around this fact. Legend of Runeterra, as a non-magic example, gives the defending player an advantage in deciding where damage is dealt, but uses this to further open design space. "Challenger" units forces an opponent's creature to block them, and some cards grant the "vulnerable" debuff to a unit, allowing the attacker to decide who that unit blocks for the defending player. These specific keywords grant specific granular advantages to the attacking player which they can accumulate over many turns (just on the board rather than via card advantage), but this design pattern extends elsewhere in LoR. Favoring the defender clearly opens up design space. And, as much as you might not enjoy it, control decks which seek to completely control the game over many turns (as with Teferi/Elixir) is a valid archetype and design space to explore, *if said archetype has sufficient counterplay, of course.* And yes, Magic definitely has plenty of counterplay to Control. Almost every successful trading card game builds itself around its core mechanics and how they function. To that end, Magic's combat system isn't "bad", it is merely different (especially since its other mechanics are meant to allow players to break past the inherent advantage towards the defending player).
Board stalls are dangerous because they are one part of a general game stall - where neither player are taking game actions due to a lack of possible moves. In most cases this is pure negative, and I think games are better when this doesn't happen. Even Magic has gotten pretty good at making sure that even if combat stalls, players still have relevant game actions they can work with - long, painful game stalls are rare these days. I definitely think you have a point with favouring defense opening up design space. Magic's system isn't bad, but it does require a little more nudging than some other games to get to an enjoyable play pattern. (Also, nothing against hard control as an archetype, as I agree it's a valid part of a functional meta, but win cons like Teferi are pure misery and I would argue are objectively terrible game design.)
@@tcgacademia I'm discovering the video really late but Teferi ult is something you'll only lose once by playing it out (unless you're making your opponent play it out to waste their clock but that's something else), unless you can pull a fast win after the ult it's nothing less or more than a "you win" with extra steps. I'm mostly playing on Arena and unless it's control versus control I never saw a game go into unintentional stalling. I would actually have more problem with decks taking wins in the first three turns, not letting most decks enough time to interact with them.
@@SalazarDaraster It is a good point that you also don't want games to be too fast for meaningful interaction. Teferi's an extreme example, and generally constructed formats rarely fall into a top deck war - it's more common in draft formats. Even in constructed formats, though, you can end up in situations where both players are just starting at each other for several turns, waiting for someone to draw something to break the stall.
>control decks which seek to completely control the game over many turns Nothing about attacker's choice prevents this from being true. Hearthstone has always had strong control decks. >Favoring the defender clearly opens up design space. You haven't thought about this for more than 1 second, have you? Just reverse attacking and defending in your previous statement and you'll see just as much design space is opened up by attacker's choice. I'll do it for you if you want.
@@blahthebiste7924 I think I agree with your statements? I don't think they contradict mine? Hearthstone's cards and systems are designed around the inherent advantage conferred by the attacker choosing the targets of the attack- control decks exist in hearthstone because the game is designed around this fact! You're completely correct, in fact, that was mostly my point there... "control" in hearthstone is designed differently than MTG, and for good reason. I'm not saying that favoring the attacker or the defender is inherently better. I'm saying that both are agnostic... the mechanics designed for a game are borne of overarching systems. Like you said, favoring the attacker or defender doesn't determine whether the mechanics designed for them are good or bad. Design space is wide for both options. So yeah, you're right.
This is a great video, and daring, too. I ended up not sticking to Vanguard, because I don't know anyone that plays it, but I absolutely LOVED learning how to play that game in digital formats because its vanilla gameplay is so fun. I remember really struggling to get into Magic because starter products used to STINK and you'd get into slow, slow games. And if you love drafting and you're in a set like Ixalan? RIP! I love YGO Rush Duels as well because it bakes into the rules what overcomplicated effects in YGO do: draw a lot, spend cards to summon big guys. It is SO much more fun to play casually, and YGO is already pretty fun with kitchen table decks and buddies. Is it gonna be as fun and crazy as high level YGO? Maybe not, but it fills a niche I get more consistent joy out of. Newer games being over-engineered can be its own flaw (especially with their reliance on decks all of a named tribe), but it gives you a better baseline.
A big part of what inspired this video was Wixoss vanilla gameplay, which like Vangaurd is actually really good! I always liked the idea of going back to the basics of a game, vanillas, starter decks, stuff like that, to really enjoy the game in its most 'pure' form, and MTG is just not very good at that level. There's a ton of extra layers over most tcgs that massages the game away from that core level, but it really does make you appreciate the baseline of the game - glad the video makes some sense! And yeah, rush duels are really fun on a casual level. I really like it!
8:16 as a Yugioh Player myself, combat in Yugioh is really simple yes, however, the point you made about the defense values causing stalls isn’t true today, we have many means of removal during any phase including battle that doesn’t revolve around combat. So we don’t really have stall issues except for those poorly designed cards such as Mystic Mine.
don't forget generic omni negates that aren't conter traps or restricted to an specific action(og stardust dragon being ony able to negate destruction based card effects).
I'm not sure it was ever true in the actual game, it was more a theoretical flaw in the game, as well as a little venting about what a weird design Labyrinth Wall / Millennium Shield is - it's like it's designed to create stalls! But yeah, not much of anything yugioh's doing nowadays has much to do with its core rules - most of its gameplay is spelt out as card text.
Two points I greatly agree with on first viewing: 1) Magic has incredibly poor card economy with the single draw per turn. It greatly increases RNG and with decks heavily diluted with lands, creates many non-games or just situations where you lose or win based purely on luck rather than smart play. 2) I love your final point-design games without these flaws rather than having to design cards to try to fix the flaws of the game itself. I think this has been the biggest issue I see with all of the older TCGs. They are in a cycle of trying to fix the games with cards, rather than just rebooting. The issue I see you commenting on most is stall in games. At first, I thought you just wanted more aggressive games that are always moving toward the elimination win condition. But what it instead sound like is your are looking at how games themselves should always be moving torward the end game, rather than locking up and dragging out (which is definitely due to bad game design). I think what might have helped these videos is if you instead started off by setting your premise of what makes a good combat system, and then analyzing the different games' systems. Of course, this does leave out other games that do not use combat as a win condition, but a lot of the premises are the same.
Thanks for the comment on this video as well! I'm glad it seems like the premise makes a little more sense after the part 2 - I do think I should have released this as one video, rather than separating it into two. Also good point on laying out what I'm looking for in a combat system - I think that would have made these videos a lot more clear. I'm glad you agree on the poor card economy of Magic - it's easy to overlook until you play more modern tcgs that give players a lot more options to draw from. Combat stalls are much less of an issue when your deck isn't stuck firing air.
One utterly intriguing aspect of Yugioh's combat system is that, other than cards specifically designed around the defense position, it serves functionally zero purpose in combat. An attack position monster will always be a 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘭 than a defense position one, because attack and defense position monsters are both dealt with the same way - the bigger number always wins! This is most evident in the classic monsters, The Spirit of the Harp (800atk, 2000def) and her evil counterpart, Dark Elf (2000atk, 800def). Why would you ever play Harp when Elf has the same 2000 point hurdle to overcome AND has the choice to attack your opponent!
Yeah, I remember noticing that back in middle school when I started playing! One of the reasons I think most tcgs now just use a single power number if they're using a yugioh-style combat system.
Dark Elf has the cost of paying 1000 LP to attack, whereas the vanilla monsters of the period did not, and this at a time where the LP limit was 4000. So, it makes that is a good offensive defensive wall, if that your point.
@@TheMadVentriloquistthe life points were always 8000 in the actual game, even since the first set came out The 4000 LP was an anime and duel links only thing (games are much shorted and fit better into a TV episode if both players start with half life)
@@tcgacademia i think other tcgs drop having a secondary non offense stat if they using a yugioh-style combat system is because yugioh doesnt innovate enough when it comes to the defense stat as a whole considering at its core its simply just anorher variable to be interacted with but far too often the only effects revolving around the def stat is simply piercing or forcibly shifting monster to def position that may or may not be paired with def reduction effects which at its core is basically anti-def as someone who dabbles in icejade its actually surprising how little answers the opponent may have against a pseudo 4000 or even 3000 wall at times along with the other proactive ways they utilize the defense stat and especially so when used offensively too like its always funny seeing the opponent thinking theyre atking into something they can beat over only to be faced with a bigger wall and having to take rebound dmg i believe that def stat is a largely unexplored territory in yugioh
I think this might be the best video to show my cousin who's been playing magic the Gathering for a long time. I'm personally more into Vanguard, and since this case study isn't one-sided, it's perfect for the both of us.
Board stalling is really only a problem in poor limited formats IMO - even in the midrange heavy standard meta of today, I would hesitate to say that board stalling is a flaw or an issue in MTG's combat for constructed play. I think the premise is disingenuous here from the start.
I agree that most normal situations have this solved but it's not wrong to say that at least theoretically Mtg leads to board stalls without special care in the cards' designs. That is, Magic doesn't really end with vanillas and no tricks, whereas other games in a similar situation might be boring but at least lead to something.
@@fernandobanda5734 yeah a green vs green kitchen table match with random cards maybe, but calling it a problem in magics design is a false premise - and no it doesn't require "special care", it would really only happen if say like green dominated a particular limited format to the point that decks barely drafted removal spells to fit the meta. It's a complete non issue and the fact that the board CAN stall is arguably a positive feature of magic, it's how certain midrange/combo/control decks can stabilize to meet their win condition, which usually involves breaking the board state. Honestly the only situation I can even imagine this happening in a frustrating way is in a competitive midrange mirror match where both players didn't side for the mirror. without even the possibility of a combat stall, the entire game trends toward turbo to win condition around floodgates. magic is lightyears ahead of yugioh and pokemon in game design. the strength of magic is that the entire variety of deckbuilding and playing concepts (aggro, midrange, combo, control, synergy) have been viable all of these years and while there's an ebb or flow to it, I think it's precisely the color pie/stall potential that maintain that integrity other card games have struggled with.
@@CC-oi9mc I agree that favoring defense makes Magic very unique and even my favorite game. But when I say it needs "special care", I mean that the designers know what they need to design. We don't feel the stall BECAUSE there's flying and attacking first strike and good removal and board wipes and good tempo plays. Like you said, if you just jammed cards together, especially big non-flying bodies that do little else, it becomes a problem. But they design the game so well nowadays that it isn't, if that makes sense.
@@CC-oi9mc Correct. I don't see it as a "flaw" like this channel. I understand where they're coming from and don't know what a better word would be, though.
Stall strategies do exist in Yugioh and are usually frown upon by the majority of the playerbase (for good reason) the fact that modern yugioh monsters have crazy effects that can act as recursion, follow-up and combo starter (poplar, circular, nightmare magician,...) but their base stats are lack luster means they can't attack high floodgate monsters that prevent your opponents from doing anything to bring out bigger boss monsters.
The difference is you need card effects to create stalls, they don't just randomly show up if the game is a little too close. Yugioh definitely has some crazy card effect designs to help stalls, though!
I think this is an example of different people getting different things out of games. I see the default of Magic causing stalls as desirable, while the use of dedicated blockers in games like Digimon or Duel Masters as making the game too fast. That being said, the game I'm designing takes a lot from Magic's combat system where the attacker chooses their target, but the defender has the option to use one of their nearby creatures to defend it (I deliberately designed it with important positioning), but attacking comes at the expense of being able to block (it taps them similar to magic), but creatures can usually only block once per round. The biggest difference is that damage on creatures accumulates like in Magic, so as long as some damage is getting through, and you can keep your defences up, you will be able to break a board. But games are long and very tactical. Or at least that's the design I'm trying to accomplish, I'm still early enough in the design that it's possible emergent gameplay or just future ideas will make the game play differently than I am currently planning.
One of the worst feelings in a game is helplessness, where you're staring at one or no cards in your hand, with a mostly empty board, and you're hoping your next draw at least lets you do something. This can happen in almost any game when you lose, but Magic is the only game I've experienced where both players can be in this situation at the same time. That being said, Magic's system works pretty well most of the time, so as long as you're aware of the danger of where that kind of combat system is puling you, I think it's a completely valid combat system to use.
There's a difference between stalling because you're building to something else, and stalling because there's nothing either player is able to do. It's a bit of a balancing act to let players stall to let slower strategies work, and having the game stall where both players can't do anything relevant. Some games and mechanics balance that better than others.
@@tcgacademia I see this as more of a failure of set designers to build archetypes that teach players to build proactive decks. Even if you aren't tutoring for that OTK combo, you should have some kind of plan that involves winning, not just losing more slowly.
@@FelbloodStreaming In theory that's true. In practice, a lot of newer players will get so caught up in trying to build their own board, that they forget that actually have to use that board to win at some point.
seeing comments from this and prior vid, maybe I agree that "flaw" is quite a heavy word. But I don't think that's the point of the video, it doesn't mean to say magic is flawed game. It's more of explaining the drawback of the combat system when you plan to take it as reference, what possible issue attached to it.
The way this works in Myths and Legends (a chilean card game very popular in latin america, but mostly in Chile), is that the system is the same as MTG but all cards naturally have trample. This means that if you have the bigger card, there's never a reason to not attack, not like you are gonna get chump blocked. (Also only 1 blocker can be assigned per attacker)
I can not express enough how much I like the turn limit in wixoss allowing games to end in a more timely matter. I do wish we had a bit more combo tools to break the flood gate or aggro dichotomy the game is currently in.
It follows the flavour set out in the anime so naturally, it took me a while to really appreciate what it did for the gameplay - it really puts in work setting the pace of the game. The high level of consistency actually really helps this as well - since decks are much more consistent, you don't need to go through best-of-3 to get a satisfying result.
I love these videos, could you make a video on what would be the best way to play test your own card game and what questions I should ask while play testing? Recently I was asked by someone some interesting questions that I never thought of while play testing and I want to be more prepared
One of the topics I want to dive more into this year is the actual process of designing a game, so play testing is definitely something I'll touch on. Thanks for the suggestion!
A few months ago I did a playtest that showcased the base rules with simple card designs. It really depends on what you're doubting about your design and what you want to prioritize but these are the questions I made after each playtest: 1) Was there a rule about the game that you found confusing? 2) Were the individual cards too confusing or too long to read? 3) Is there something about the rules that you disagree with? Either because of balance or because it's unintuitive to you. 4) Do you feel like deciding what to do was too hard or complex? 5) Any other comments or suggestions? #1 is about general rules complexity. They got the idea in general but needed visual reminders so I incorporated token cards. #2 is about card complexity. Changed some word choices that felt unintuitive. Cards were fine, but be careful if your players think a single card is too complex. #3 is more about game design. Playtesters aren't all good at game design, so take this feedback with a grain of salt, but listen still. My feedback here was much more varied. Hearing what they would change also informed me about what they find unintuitive that they didn't mention before. #4 is about strategic complexity. This one is easy to hide from beginners, so it's not a big deal unless your players are paralyzed by decision making. Be prepared to make substantial changes (towards simplicity) if there are problems here. #5 is important because they'll often remember something they forgot to tell you before. Good luck!
Calling the things that balance a game flaws is a bit much. But I do see the downsides you are pointing out with them. However I do not think a game becomes better by simply getting rid of those things.
Flaws is a bit harsh, and I honestly wasn't 100% sure it was the right word, but it was close enough to "something in the rules that pulls the game in an undesirable direction that must be counteracted by other means in the game."
Hey man really love this video in addition the last one especially because I am trying to design the combat in my pet card game!! Wondering what are your thoughts on the combat of Legends of Runeterra since it takes nods from MTG? Love your work on this channel, keep it up king!
I'm still don't love the defender declaring blockers, but I've not actually played the game, so it could be fine. Legends does look like it does some interesting things with its turn structure.
Ive played a college course of going second yugioh in my time, and man is it rough, but the nice thing is, the fighting was in the mainphase, if i have anything and we hit the battlephase, the speciality of my combat focused boss monster will plow any number of high number sticks.
I'd love to hear your take on the Digimon TCG's combat system. Between security and your opponent being able to attack your suspended Digimon, attacking has some pretty substantial draw backs. But the card economy and protected breeding area creates a lot of opportunity for game actions. - That said, those disadvantages to attacking do often result in a lack of aggression. Whether that's good or bad, I'm not too sure.
From the (admittedly few) games of Digimon I've played, combat looks very similar to Duel Masters, which is a very well-designed combat system. It can create a lack of aggression in some spots, but with few blockers and only a few shields, it quickly gets to the point where one player can OTK if they're both just sitting there building a board. There's a really good natural tension to the board.
Power creep is definitely one way to "fix" this problem. Although it feels like even Magic has been pushing power levels a bit in recent years to avoid stall-outs.
Interested in your take on Mindbug, co-designed by Richard Garfield himself. Because I view the design as a solution to your premise. It does favor blocker in combat, but simplified to one attacker/one blocker with evergreen keywords of evasion and targeting. The core rules mandates players to either attack or play to the extreme result of loss if they cannot. Love your concise and insightful analysis
Haven't tried Mindbug, but I found it really interesting how Keyforge basically corrected for basically every criticism I had for Magic - from the combat system to the card economy. I really do think Richard Garfield is a fantastic game designer.
I feel like this is kind of based on a flawed premise that stallikg is always bad. I prefer the strategic nature of getting past a stall. Chess, for instance, has a lot of stalling potential
Part of this does come down to preference, but a couple of stalled turns as players build up their board is fine, and often even a good feature in a game. Stalling after the build up, though, is what I really don't like - like in a draft game where both players trade off a good portion of their field, and are stuck just waiting for a lucky top-deck to actually make the game do anything. Magic's combat system is especially vulnerable to the later kind of stall, especially in comparison to many other tcgs. Doesn't mean the game itself is bad, but the default play pattern means designers have to be especially careful about the balance of effects they add to the game. In chess pawns can only move forward, and in Magic you may have some late-game mana sinks sitting on your lands or smaller value creatures.
I... very much disagree with your view of "no cost for attscking is good". I think making the decision on whether you should attack important adds a lot of depth to the game. The rest I think I agree with
Yeah, I actually kind of agree on that. Vanguard, for one example, gives the opponent resources when you attack. You want a bit of tension when attacking so it's not just a free action, but you also don't want attacking to actively feel bad.
I know this Video is kinda surface level. But another "big" thing about yugioh combat is the stages. First comes attack declaration any effect can be activated there. Then comes the damage step, only effects which change the dmg (modify atk or def) can be activated there and also some others with specific wordings. This can be relevant, because not every card can be activated as a response, to a card activated in damage step.
It's definitely a very simplified view, but most card games have plenty of subphases within combat as well, so it's not a huge differentiating factor for yugioh. It's still a fairly straightforward combat system in most cases.
5:55 This is a miserable way to play. That's it. For people who like the fast swings and tense endings sitting across from a Teferi feels the worst. The card design is just unfun since it usually if a control player deploys a win con fast, they aren't able to protect it. This piece of junk makes sure that the control can respond after spending all its mana on the 5 cmc win con.
I think the design space opened by some imperfections of the core rules is essential to the longevity of a game. There are only so many effects that can be added before power creep basically becomes unavoidable. However, it might be a smart decision to let some things be card effects added with time instead of focusing on making the core rules perfect. I think it's better for the core rules to be simple and adaptable so that changes could be applied over time in a way that allows for the game to evolve without losing its identity. With all of its shortcomings on the business front Magic is a perfect example of this. The core rules are laughably simple with most of the complexity coming from the various types of interactions which result from the effects of numerous keywords added through time. It's a formula that that has allowed the game to not only evolve up to this point but also to be open to basically limitless evolution. Yeah, that means ever growing complexity but it's either that or a fairly quick fizzle out. Of course having major flaws in your core rules is also not good because then the foundation of your game would not make sense or at least wouldn't be fun (even though that's subjective). Overall I think core rules need to at least be solid enough to support an ever growing.number of additions in the form of mechanics and card effects without losing the identity of the game...
It's one of the more interesting balancing acts. I think you have a really good point that the imperfections in Magic's rules gave it a ton of design space, and I do honestly wonder if that has been part of what contributed to its longevity. Tighter rules can much more carefully regulate the game's pace and gameplay - I do think Wixoss has a better core gameplay loop. You can also go too for, though, like Luck and Logic, where the rules were too calibrated and the game had very little design space. Long term, I'm not sure if it's better to lean towards Magic and have more flaws to design around, or Wixoss, which has tighter core rules - mostly because no game has been around longer than MTG to compare it to. It is a really interesting decision point early in the game design process, though: do you fix an issue in gameplay with a card mechanic, or with a game rule?
@@tcgacademia I think there's no hard rule for which approach is better. I personally am a fan of the way Magic goes about this but don't see anything wrong with having a really in depth, well developed and possibly rigid rule system from the very start. I think the more free flowing approach works better for a game with no definitive setting such as a multiverse while the more specific approach works from a lore perspective for a more board game-y type of game, set around a very specific theme.
@@tcgacademia I feel like if you've designed a game so tight that the core gameplay is almost fun without considering the cards, you've created a board game. I feel like the fact that the cards push back against the ruleset is the thing that makes TCGs tick for me. I want my game pieces to feel like solutions to problems, not like pawns with game functions.
@@fastpuppy2000 Fair point. I came down a bit hard on MTG's system here, and given the discussions on this video, I think there are some good points to designing a game like MTG where you give yourself room for card designs to fix relatively static core rules. I do prefer games like Wixoss or even One Piece that have momentum built into their systems, but there is a lot of room to maneuver between a fundamentally messy system, and a straight-up board game.
Yeah. I think that's an especially relevant point with Magic's mana system. It has the drawback of being inconsistent and leading to some non games, but has led to a massive amount of design space. You have the color pie and the ability to mix and match colors at the cost of consistency. You have a million utility lands with different effects. You have the ability to include mana denial strategies (this one isn't always a positive but has been a thing for most of the games history).
I got a solution to stall: Don't make cards that stall. But honestly I'm making my own game and to understand it's combat you need to learn the whole mechanisms to give a good visual and feel of my game, here's the latest installment of my game rules, which I believe is finished, but for now I need critics.
My game will be divided into chapters: 1. Rules and layout. 2. Stats. 3. Combat. 4. D'Rs. 5. Paras. 6. O.L.s. 7. Signets. 8. Metaclasses. Chapter 1. Rules In my game, you are called a Melder, each Melder starts with 0 LP, the limit is 30, if you get your opponent to 30, you win. Your deck consists of 50 through 100 cards, that is the minimum and limit, your Extra deck as you may call it consists of 28 cards, you are allowed up to 4 copies of a card. There are 7 colours in the game, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet, 1 is an exception and represents all of them, and that's White. Red is Earth. Orange is Flame. Yellow is Day. Green is Ruach. Blue is Aqua. Indigo is Night. Violet is Pasma. White is White Light. At the beginning of the game you draw 7, if you don't like some cards or your hand you may do this once, put any number under the deck and draw that many. There is no hand size limit. There are 5 Phases: Draw: (Draw 1 card, Recharge Reactor by resetting Sparked cards, if you have 3 or less cards draw until you have 5). Main: (Voxelize, Regenerate, Switch Lanes). Combat: (Attack, Parry). Honor: (If you haven't done the things in Main tou may do it here, except Switch Lanes which you can do again). End. When you play a D'R, you Muster it. Playing an O.L., you Deploy it. Still figuring out what you would call playing a tool card, mabey Use. The Reactor is the game's resource engine, every card is a resource, and the limit is 8 cards in the Reactor, you can only add 1 card in your Reactor per turn, and you put it face up horizontally and this is called Voxelize, to play a card, you have to Spark a card in that zone, to Spark you rotate a card in that zone right side up, every card needs 1 spark to play unless the card says otherwise. You can only play a card if the card in that zone is the same as the one in your hand, and if it's white any card can be used, the same goes if it's in your hand too. And every card has a level, this is called a Voxel, it has a number 0-8, you can only play a card if it has the same colour and if you have enough cards in your Reactor, if you 3 cards in your hand with a Voxel of 3, 4, and 5, and your Reactor has 4 cards in it, you can only play the 3 and the 4, but not 5. You can also Regenerate a card in the Reactor by putting it into your hand, you can also only do this once per turn, and simultaneously. Any card can be played as long as you meet its requirements. Your discard pile is called the Recycle Bin, also called the R.B. for short. Your deck is called a Spool. Your Extra deck is called the Overlands. If you don't have any cards in your deck, you do not lose, you instead make a new one with the Recycling Bin by shuffling it and putting it into the Spool zone. If you have neither Deck and R.B. that's when you lose. The banish/exile/remove/"Expel inmy game" from play zone in the game is called the The Overlands. Now for placement, your Deck/Spool will be on your lower right, with the R.B. right next to it from above, and The Overlands is above that. On your far left you have your Reactor. In the middle you have 2 zones, the Command Line and the Battlefield, the Command Line is on the bottom while the Battlefield is on top of it. When you Muster D'Rs and Deploy O.L.s you may put them in either zone, the Battlefield or Command Line. Paras are activated in your hand. In the Battlefield your troops which are called D'Rs (D'realmers) can attack your opponent and only them directly, but they cannot Parry, which is basically blocking. The Command Line can Parry but not attack, there is no limit on how many cards can be on the field. If you wish for a D'R to defend or attack but it's on the field already you may have it Switch Lanes, it can only do this twice a turn but once in the Main phase and once in the Honor Phase.
Chapter 2: Stats Every card has a stat, even the colour, the most recent with a number is their Voxel which is 0-8 where 0 is free but the rest you must Spark 1. Their Combat and Life is next, which says how much health and how hard they can strike. Their Combat is also 0-8, but a D'R cannot live when their Life is 0, in this case they are Erased. A D'R also has sub stats which are located in the middle, these are stats related to the D'R to inform the Melder what type of D'R they have, a human warrior, or another species. There is a symbol to represent the colour of the card for people who are coloured blind. The name is also a stat, and the signets are located in the name bar. The rarity of a card will be a symbol. The flavor text will be located on the button of the ability text.
Chapter 3: Combat To battle, a D'R must be in the Battlefield and they must have not attacked yet, then you must Spark a card in your Reactor to attack, and you must attack your opponent only. You subtract your opponent's life with your D'R's Dynamic Voxel, which is basically the Voxel of a card but is also an attack point reserved for the opponent. Here's how Combat works: If a 5:8 D'R attacks and a D'R with 4:5 Parry's (to Parry, when you are attacked and you have D'Rs in your command line that can Parry then you declare 1 to Parry to block the attack, Parrying also does not cost a Spark, so if they can Parry feel free to do so), then you subtract your D'R's Life by how many Combat Points your opponent's D'R has and your opponent does the same with theirs, like this: 5:8 attacks, 4:5 Parrys, the sum is: 5:8 - 4:5 = 5:4 and 4:0. The 4:5 is Erased and your 5:8 took damage but survived, and cannot attack until next turn. You can declare any number of D'Rs to attack and you must Spark cards per troop. After they attack and if there are any that have not attacked yet they may attack, this is called a Siege and there are no limits to how many can happen. But beware, your opponent's D'Rs can still Parry the next Siege, even the ones who already Parried. They may also attack in groups, to do this you must declare which D'Rs will group up to attack simultaneously, this is called a Raid, with this their Combat Points and Life are combined. After the battle has concluded your opponent uses the points the raid has left and chooses which D'Rs takes the leftovers if there is any, but they can not have more than the same number when they started the Raid, basically your opponent chooses which of your D'Rs survive when they got Parried. You can also combine D'Rs when you Parry using the Raid system, but this is called a Barricade. When a D'R is attacked but they did not Parried then the attacker does not take damage because the one being attacked did not retaliate. Another D'R can block for another too, this is a rare case but can still happen. You can also place "certain" cards face down after you Spark for cost, for D'Rs this is every D'R, in this case the card is Concealed. If a Concealed D'R decides to Parry an attack they may do so by flipping the card face up, this is called an Ambush.
Given one of the most broken strats of the Pokemon games for solo battles is Baton Pass, yeah it's pretty spot on that the TCG comes down to setup a big Pokemon and sweep.
@@jmurray1110 Definitely annoying, although MTG commander has players at 40 life, so that many counters isn't unheard of. Although I find Commander a bit silly as well XD
you can tell hes never actually played Pokemon. its one of the most well balanced games. sometimes its good for your opponent to have a damage lead. if anything pokemon is the best all round game out there! ive played majority of all mainstream TCG games on some competetive level and the only other game ive found that comes close is the One Piece TCG which is super fun!
Pokemon's an interesting case, since there's so much card draw an extra card or two out of prizes doesn't have a huge impact. It was less about the actual state of the game, and more an abstract danger with the core rules. If it has slower draw engines like Magic, or even One Piece, it would be a bigger issue.
Keyforge is really interesting, and I do like it quite a lot (stupid numbers of counters aside). It's interesting as its a Richard Garfield game that manages to address basically every complaint I have about Magic. Past that, the unique fixed deck is also really neat, in that it gives you a tcg-esque game experience without a tcg price tag. Not sure when, but I do want to do a Keyforge video at some point in the future for sure!
A friend of mine (who loves lantern control) described playing it is like treating fun as zero-sum. If you're having fun with the deck, the opponent definitely isn't!
2:28 "makes it axtremly difficult to build a board in yu gi oh that will last more than one turn" its funny because in modern yu gi oh its a meme that duel only last 1 turn per player
Yugioh's such an interesting example of a game that leans into the weak points of its game system so hard they actually kind of becomes a selling point. Like, by any reasonable analysis, the game system is a complete mess, but it somehow is still one of the most heavily played tcgs in the world.
wait.. did you say the extremely large number of special summoning in yugioh was game balancing? At the competitive level it is the shortest game of all. Yugioh isn't balanced, its a game of flash. Flashy cards and most games over in a flash.
While I think you were trying to simplify things fo the context of the video, Isn't the Yugioh part kind of wrong? Nowadays how combat resolves is very different. People don't fight with just vanillas.
While it's true that modern Yugioh combat isn't just two vanilla creatures comparing their stats, the Idea is still the same: the attacker has the advantage and only attacks when doing so is advantageous, even if there are many more considerations than just ATK and DEF. A monster with a large defense could still stall the game, though the amount of strong removal in the game and modern design focusing on offensive play usually prevents board stalls. I think the main point of comparison vs MTG and Pokemon is that it is difficult to run monsters in Yugioh with purely support effects, unless you have a way to protect them. In Yugioh, the initiative is on you to protect your weaker monsters since your opponent can normally attack them to destroy them. Conversely, in MTG and Pokemon, your opponent has to go out of their way to destroy your support creatures, usually requiring a card effect to interact with them.
@@thebigcheese1905 "modern design focusing on offensive play usually prevents board stalls." can you elaborate? yugioh has no board stales but has an unbreakable board problem, doesnt it?
@@goncaloferreira6429 I can't say that I've played enough modern Yu-Gi-Oh to be strongly informed on the subject, but comparing the modern game to the game 10 years ago, it seems like the unbanning of cards like Raigeki and Feather Duster was intended to help prevent those board stalls and unbreakable boards. I wholly agree that competitive Yu-Gi-Oh has revolved around degenerate combos and unfun board states for years now, but I'd like to think the availability of board wipes and counter traps was at least an attempt by the developers to avoid these issues.
The best way to understand what influence rules have on the direction of a game is to look at the game at its most vanilla. So while vanilla yugioh is long gone, it still has an impact on how effects are designed into the present day.
Not sure about best, but it does have an elegant simplicity that's hard to beat. There's a good reason so many other games also use a simple "big number wins" system instead of damage-focused system like MTG.
@tcgacademia4272 the big number wins is simplistic yes, but I really like the mechanic that your attacking monster chooses which opposing monster to attack. Ad far as i know that was the first to implement that system. Duel masters does it similar but not quite the same
Obviously you don’t know the complexity of yugioh battle phases They require so much thought and mind game it had to be divided into 5 main steps and 7 sub steps unless it’s the OCG in which there’s 8
Most tcgs have a ton of subphases in combat as well, just by virtue of combat being an important part of gameplay with a lot of things happening, and timing it all is very important. Yugioh's priority system complicates it a bit, but it's still comparatively simple compared to a lot other tcgs.
@@tcgacademia still 7 And your flip summons are basically a coin flip on if there effect activates This is why I play master duel no thinking for me Also maybe a good point of comparison could be the official simulators you know magic arena, master duel, Pokémon tcg live
Love your channel, but i do disagree with your yugioh take. There are plenty of ways to keep smaller monsters on the field as many have attack reducing or effect negating effects. Or some effects that can activate on the opponents turn. Yes, you often build towards a strong boss monster, but especially modern yugioh loves to build strong boards that wall the enemy from making moves. It added a lot of complexity through the years. And while defence mode is certainly underused, there are some monsters that thrive on it. Imo defence mode should be given more depth, rather than be removed. And the bigger number isn't immediately the winner
My take in this video is more specifically focused on the base rules system. Yugioh especially is an interesting case here, since so much of what makes it work is built into card effects rather than rule text. Yugioh hasn't had 'vanilla' gameplay for a very long time now - I think it's the tcg whose gameplay is furthest removed from its core rules.
This doesn't really work, as neither Pokemon nor YuGiOh really care about 'combat' or 'attacking' in theory they do, in practice both games are just combo games where you generally OTK your opponent.
All of the big 3 are a fair ways away from the core gameplay of their combat systems (Magic also doesn't stall much). Although yugioh is in a class of its own - its gameplay has almost nothing to do with its core rules.
Pokemon very much cares about attacking. You only get one attack per turn so you need to make sure you either oneshot your opponents pokemon, or set it up where your active pokemon/board are safe and your opponents active pokemon/board wont be safe when turn gets passed back to you.
I actually don't hate MTG, but I don't think the core rules are perfect, either. The gravity metaphor is really important to what these videos are trying to say - it doesn't mean the actual games always stall, but the core rules are pulling in that direction, so if a set is a little too simple and doesn't have the right balance of effects, you end up with stalls (core set limited is an example, especially older core sets).
Magic does have a lot of flaws and a lot of other games have had the opportunity to learn from and avoid those flaws, but it's definitely not the worst. For one example on this channel, check out Luck and Logic, and that's without getting into the long history of half-baked tie-in tcgs that were flooding the market in the early 2000s.
![Chlöe - Shake (Feat. Jeremih) [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/aDs_1ufpfv8/mqdefault.jpg)
Link monsters only having attack is likely just because having the cards tilt sideways would interfere with the link arrow mechanic
I hadn't thought of how much weirdness link monsters in defence mode would cause - good point! It's more that they made an entire class of card without defense mode, and the game basically shrugged - less a deliberate point and more just a demonstration the game functions just fine without it.
@@tcgacademia There are a few link monsters that prevent their owner from taking excess battle damage, essentially giving the benefits of defense mode without having to figure out how to make defensive link monsters work.
@tcgacademia Also, late shout out to Rush Duel's Maximum Summoning, which is also a class of monsters that only has an attack mode.
Though I am personally distasteful towards them, as I haven't had any good gameplay experience involving them, they are a beloved mechanic that doesn't use defense modes(probably due to game board ergonomics)
@@froz5551 Haven't played rush duel that much, but one thing that I love about maximum monster is how cool that all of the 3 card images connected seamlessly lol, giving exodia card images vibe.
It's honestly funny to think of the DEF of a YGO card ever coming into play in the modern game. The day of stalling out with Defense position Monsters has been long gone for a decade+
Yeah - I've been following yugioh off and on for years now, and DEF seems more irrelevant than ever XD
@@tcgacademia Yup. It's mainly used as a weakness for Monsters, if it's ever used.
@@SakuraAvalon Yeah, it always seemed a bit of a weird balancing tool. Like, sure, Gemini Elf has less DEF than La Jinn, but there is no world where that is relevant.
@@tcgacademia Well, I imagine cards like Earthquake, Block Attack and Zero Gravity were intended to see more play, at least in Konami's eyes.
It didn't pan out that way, but Book of Moon did see use as a staple card. And one of the key uses, was allowing you to get past Monster's inferior DEF points.
It’s mostly used for searching or flip monsters and flip monsters and worthless in modern day
It was briefly mentioned in the video, but I think the way these games use cards and mechanics to combat the unfun moments created by the rules is an interesting and important extension of this topic.
For example, as it pertains to combat:
MTG has evasive keywords like Flying and the constant threat of board wipes to help alleviate the issues of board stalls.
Yugioh has defensive traps and various protective abilities to protect weaker creatures from easily being destroyed.
Pokemon has cards that punish the player who is ahead, and strong recursion options to help a player recover lost resources.
In some ways, evergreen cards/effects like removal and card filtering/draw in MTG, gust, switch, and ball search effects in Pokemon, and, uhhh... special summons?, floodgates?, counter/hand traps? in Yugioh are often so quintessential to their games that they act as an extension of the rules that every player must consider when building a deck and playing, helping to round out the rough edges of the game's base ruleset.
As i said before, it truly is a mistake to consider the combat of a game independently of the other components.
the premise that mtg has board stales is a bad one imo. even if that was the case, each colour has the tools to break the stalemate and it adds tension to gameplay.
in modern yugioh protecting creatures is not much of an issue either since every cards has so many effects that it doesnt matter. also the games are decided very fast, the opposite of what mtg control decks do.
@@goncaloferreira6429 I somewhat agree.
On one hand, yes, it's important to consider other components of the game when looking at combat, especially when certain cards and effects are important enough to always be taken into consideration. Pokemon is probably the best example of this since Gust and Switch effects are present in most decks, regardless of color. MTG has some similar staples, though they are largely based on deck color, but not to the same extent. I'm not really sure about Yu-Gi-Oh; I think hand traps are popular right now.
On the other hand, the game's core combat rules do exert a "gravity" on all effects, as was mentioned in the video. It's important to look at the ruleset to identify its strengths and weaknesses, then determine what game effects can be used to compliment the strengths and shore up the weaknesses. For example, the combat rules in MTG give no way for the attacker to proactively interact with defending creatures. Thus the developers have had to find ways to deal with that issue (i.e. removal). The exact components used don't necessarily matter.
@@thebigcheese1905 interesting topics.
" example of this since Gust and Switch effects are present in most decks, regardless of color. " This leads to a whole new conversation about the nature of staples in pokemon and yugioh. In the first they are well made(cheap) and in the second not so much( usually expensive). More important staples in both games lead to samey decks and gameplay.
To reiterate looking just to base rules is not enough. all games have 2 basic components, units and one shot effects. their interactions make the game.
@@goncaloferreira6429
Are you talking about monetary costs when you say "cheap" and "expensive"? Card availability and price is an interesting but separate discussion that relates to game design, and is often out of the designers' control.
I agree, though, that there is an interesting comparison to be made in how Pokemon has largely kept the integrity of the restrictions imposed by its rules, and Yu-Gi-Oh has not (special summons everywhere!). I don't think that having popular staples necessarily leads to samey gameplay across decks that use them. That would be like saying that all MTG decks are samey because they play basic lands.
I have to disagree with your last statement, there is no requirement to have both units (persistent effects) and one-shot effects in a card game. The most popular example would probably be Flesh and Blood, which has almost no persistent effects, and is a very different experience than the big 3 tcgs.
@@thebigcheese1905 1st paragraph: i mean that pokemon staples- the professor ´s research, marnie, the balls etc -are all cards that cost 0,20 to 0,50$, making the game less expensive for players.
in yugioh the staples- think the hand traps- tend to be more expensive.
does this relate to card availability? maybe if you want to que the good practices of pokemon and the not so good way konami handles yugioh( that is already a special game) .
2nd paragraph: pokemon is perhaps the game that has change the least over the years. compared to the way yugioh has transformed it is a good point. On the other hand when you played pkm for a long time you can see how the game is frozen in time, reusing the same effects and cards again and again.
3rd: ido not know flesh and blood all that well to comment. are you saying there are no effects in that game?
Sooo... the last part of this video made me realize that the big 3's rules flaws (at least the theoretical caveman versions of them) are ALL about not having enough push and pull:
-MTG: If you can't quite kill your opponent, slowly drawing random cards are not likely to get your over your opponent's defenses.
-Pokémon: If you got blown up, your resources left with your Pokémon and it's much harder to set up a new one that can match your opponent's.
-Yu-Gi-Oh!: If you lose your monsters to a high ATK monster, you don't have time to summon enough monsters to tribute into a more powerful one.
On the other hand, more modern games have systems to counteract these snowball situations (normally comeback mechanics):
-Duel Masters: Player being hit draws a card and has a chance to shield trigger, since it's so difficult to stop attacks without specific cards.
-Weiss Schwarz: A lot of effects pump your field only during your turn, so it's less about board advantage and more about getting small edges each turn. You can also play as many characters as you want so you never fall behind.
-Wixoss: Getting hit and getting your SIGNIs destroyed gives you resources so that you can make a bigger playe next turn. You can also play as many SIGNIs as possible for free.
-Dragon Ball Super: Battle cards are trivially easy to remove so there's never too much permanent advantage. Getting hit also draws but here it gives you cards to combo or counter attack and slow down the game immediately.
-Digimon: This one doesn't have a comeback mechanic at all, but small Digimon often die by attacking, so it's more about counting attacks and hits rather than permanent board advantage. Big Digimon do have a big impact, and especially recently they have very nasty lockdown effects, but at least you have your breeding area where you can safely build to your own big Digimon without them interrupting your evolution line. It does have random shield triggers.
-One Piece: DON!! cards pumping any character or leader means you can always attack a big thing, if you don't mind losing tempo. There's also shield triggers.
Some of these modern games are a bit too overtuned for my taste, they feel like a very strong rubberband where they make sure the game doesn't go too far in one direction, but I wonder what the big 3 would be like with just a little of this. Maybe Pokémon could recoup the energy on your KO'd Pokémon, or maybe Yu-Gi-Oh! could give you an extra normal summon for each 2 monsters destroyed.
Good video as always!
I wonder if I can make a small rubber band that can go either way but won't break to cause flaws.
Basically making my own way to negate the stall, like drawing cards for everytime your opponent attacks, but that's too OP, something else needs to happen to defenders to comeback. Got any ideas?
@@kagemushashien8394 also looking for this lol
@@kagemushashien8394 A lot of games already do something like that actually.
-Dragon Ball Super: Most leaders draw a card when they attack. This encourages you to always attack and keep the game moving forward. This is important because most leaders need low life to "awaken" and without this explicit advantage, players could just stare at each other refusing to lower their opponent's life.
-Weiss Schwarz: Whenever one of your characters attack, you gain one resource, which can also randomly give you a bonus effect (like a shield trigger, but from the top of your deck). This and the general pace of the game make it almost impossible to stall, you're placing three characters and wiping your opponent's board pretty much turn after turn.
-Vanguard: When your Vanguard attacks, you do a drive check, revealing the top card similar to WS. This gives you a card in your hand (similar to DBS) but also might do a trigger effect.
Note that none of these games are like Magic where you can turtle up, none of them have summoning sickness, and they're all pretty much "Attack all the time" kind of games. You should absolutely consider rewarding attacks, but like you're saying, you need to take it into account when balancing the game. Simply adding a "Whenever you attack, draw a card" mechanic to a game that wants you to sometimes play defense can become very unfair to certain strategies.
@@fernandobanda5734 I posted my game's mechanisms, mabey you can pin point where I need to add something to reward attacker's, the Honor phase sounds good, like for every point you give you subtract yours, or every successful attack you draw, something has to happen here.
I think the digimon security system is already comeback mechanic by itself? not really sure how it's going today tho
also the problem with giving good combat mechanic is the danger to make player not willing to attack, like in DM it's not uncommon to go OTK or not attacking at all, then it gives another push to attack like Drive check in Vanguard. In the end it's the nice balance of push and pull
I think the main thing I'm struggling to understand is how boardstate stalling is a negative. I don't see a real issue with Magic's combat system favoring blockers, since the game is built around this fact. Legend of Runeterra, as a non-magic example, gives the defending player an advantage in deciding where damage is dealt, but uses this to further open design space. "Challenger" units forces an opponent's creature to block them, and some cards grant the "vulnerable" debuff to a unit, allowing the attacker to decide who that unit blocks for the defending player. These specific keywords grant specific granular advantages to the attacking player which they can accumulate over many turns (just on the board rather than via card advantage), but this design pattern extends elsewhere in LoR. Favoring the defender clearly opens up design space.
And, as much as you might not enjoy it, control decks which seek to completely control the game over many turns (as with Teferi/Elixir) is a valid archetype and design space to explore, *if said archetype has sufficient counterplay, of course.* And yes, Magic definitely has plenty of counterplay to Control.
Almost every successful trading card game builds itself around its core mechanics and how they function. To that end, Magic's combat system isn't "bad", it is merely different (especially since its other mechanics are meant to allow players to break past the inherent advantage towards the defending player).
Board stalls are dangerous because they are one part of a general game stall - where neither player are taking game actions due to a lack of possible moves. In most cases this is pure negative, and I think games are better when this doesn't happen. Even Magic has gotten pretty good at making sure that even if combat stalls, players still have relevant game actions they can work with - long, painful game stalls are rare these days. I definitely think you have a point with favouring defense opening up design space. Magic's system isn't bad, but it does require a little more nudging than some other games to get to an enjoyable play pattern.
(Also, nothing against hard control as an archetype, as I agree it's a valid part of a functional meta, but win cons like Teferi are pure misery and I would argue are objectively terrible game design.)
@@tcgacademia I'm discovering the video really late but Teferi ult is something you'll only lose once by playing it out (unless you're making your opponent play it out to waste their clock but that's something else), unless you can pull a fast win after the ult it's nothing less or more than a "you win" with extra steps.
I'm mostly playing on Arena and unless it's control versus control I never saw a game go into unintentional stalling.
I would actually have more problem with decks taking wins in the first three turns, not letting most decks enough time to interact with them.
@@SalazarDaraster It is a good point that you also don't want games to be too fast for meaningful interaction. Teferi's an extreme example, and generally constructed formats rarely fall into a top deck war - it's more common in draft formats. Even in constructed formats, though, you can end up in situations where both players are just starting at each other for several turns, waiting for someone to draw something to break the stall.
>control decks which seek to completely control the game over many turns
Nothing about attacker's choice prevents this from being true. Hearthstone has always had strong control decks.
>Favoring the defender clearly opens up design space.
You haven't thought about this for more than 1 second, have you? Just reverse attacking and defending in your previous statement and you'll see just as much design space is opened up by attacker's choice. I'll do it for you if you want.
@@blahthebiste7924 I think I agree with your statements? I don't think they contradict mine?
Hearthstone's cards and systems are designed around the inherent advantage conferred by the attacker choosing the targets of the attack- control decks exist in hearthstone because the game is designed around this fact! You're completely correct, in fact, that was mostly my point there... "control" in hearthstone is designed differently than MTG, and for good reason.
I'm not saying that favoring the attacker or the defender is inherently better. I'm saying that both are agnostic... the mechanics designed for a game are borne of overarching systems. Like you said, favoring the attacker or defender doesn't determine whether the mechanics designed for them are good or bad. Design space is wide for both options.
So yeah, you're right.
This is a great video, and daring, too. I ended up not sticking to Vanguard, because I don't know anyone that plays it, but I absolutely LOVED learning how to play that game in digital formats because its vanilla gameplay is so fun. I remember really struggling to get into Magic because starter products used to STINK and you'd get into slow, slow games. And if you love drafting and you're in a set like Ixalan? RIP!
I love YGO Rush Duels as well because it bakes into the rules what overcomplicated effects in YGO do: draw a lot, spend cards to summon big guys. It is SO much more fun to play casually, and YGO is already pretty fun with kitchen table decks and buddies. Is it gonna be as fun and crazy as high level YGO? Maybe not, but it fills a niche I get more consistent joy out of.
Newer games being over-engineered can be its own flaw (especially with their reliance on decks all of a named tribe), but it gives you a better baseline.
A big part of what inspired this video was Wixoss vanilla gameplay, which like Vangaurd is actually really good! I always liked the idea of going back to the basics of a game, vanillas, starter decks, stuff like that, to really enjoy the game in its most 'pure' form, and MTG is just not very good at that level. There's a ton of extra layers over most tcgs that massages the game away from that core level, but it really does make you appreciate the baseline of the game - glad the video makes some sense! And yeah, rush duels are really fun on a casual level. I really like it!
Just discovered this channel. Easiest subscribe of my life, love this content and will be watching the rest of the videos.
8:16 as a Yugioh Player myself, combat in Yugioh is really simple yes, however, the point you made about the defense values causing stalls isn’t true today, we have many means of removal during any phase including battle that doesn’t revolve around combat. So we don’t really have stall issues except for those poorly designed cards such as Mystic Mine.
don't forget generic omni negates that aren't conter traps or restricted to an specific action(og stardust dragon being ony able to negate destruction based card effects).
I'm not sure it was ever true in the actual game, it was more a theoretical flaw in the game, as well as a little venting about what a weird design Labyrinth Wall / Millennium Shield is - it's like it's designed to create stalls! But yeah, not much of anything yugioh's doing nowadays has much to do with its core rules - most of its gameplay is spelt out as card text.
Two points I greatly agree with on first viewing:
1) Magic has incredibly poor card economy with the single draw per turn. It greatly increases RNG and with decks heavily diluted with lands, creates many non-games or just situations where you lose or win based purely on luck rather than smart play.
2) I love your final point-design games without these flaws rather than having to design cards to try to fix the flaws of the game itself. I think this has been the biggest issue I see with all of the older TCGs. They are in a cycle of trying to fix the games with cards, rather than just rebooting.
The issue I see you commenting on most is stall in games. At first, I thought you just wanted more aggressive games that are always moving toward the elimination win condition. But what it instead sound like is your are looking at how games themselves should always be moving torward the end game, rather than locking up and dragging out (which is definitely due to bad game design). I think what might have helped these videos is if you instead started off by setting your premise of what makes a good combat system, and then analyzing the different games' systems. Of course, this does leave out other games that do not use combat as a win condition, but a lot of the premises are the same.
Thanks for the comment on this video as well! I'm glad it seems like the premise makes a little more sense after the part 2 - I do think I should have released this as one video, rather than separating it into two. Also good point on laying out what I'm looking for in a combat system - I think that would have made these videos a lot more clear. I'm glad you agree on the poor card economy of Magic - it's easy to overlook until you play more modern tcgs that give players a lot more options to draw from. Combat stalls are much less of an issue when your deck isn't stuck firing air.
More games or magic are won by skill than all other factors combined.
One utterly intriguing aspect of Yugioh's combat system is that, other than cards specifically designed around the defense position, it serves functionally zero purpose in combat. An attack position monster will always be a 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘭 than a defense position one, because attack and defense position monsters are both dealt with the same way - the bigger number always wins! This is most evident in the classic monsters, The Spirit of the Harp (800atk, 2000def) and her evil counterpart, Dark Elf (2000atk, 800def). Why would you ever play Harp when Elf has the same 2000 point hurdle to overcome AND has the choice to attack your opponent!
Yeah, I remember noticing that back in middle school when I started playing! One of the reasons I think most tcgs now just use a single power number if they're using a yugioh-style combat system.
Dark Elf has the cost of paying 1000 LP to attack, whereas the vanilla monsters of the period did not, and this at a time where the LP limit was 4000.
So, it makes that is a good offensive defensive wall, if that your point.
It’s easier for cards to have more DEF than ATK. You could easily put a 2000 defensive wall, but there were very few (or none) 2000 attack monsters
@@TheMadVentriloquistthe life points were always 8000 in the actual game, even since the first set came out
The 4000 LP was an anime and duel links only thing (games are much shorted and fit better into a TV episode if both players start with half life)
@@tcgacademia i think other tcgs drop having a secondary non offense stat if they using a yugioh-style combat system is because yugioh doesnt innovate enough when it comes to the defense stat as a whole considering at its core its simply just anorher variable to be interacted with but far too often the only effects revolving around the def stat is simply piercing or forcibly shifting monster to def position that may or may not be paired with def reduction effects which at its core is basically anti-def
as someone who dabbles in icejade its actually surprising how little answers the opponent may have against a pseudo 4000 or even 3000 wall at times along with the other proactive ways they utilize the defense stat and especially so when used offensively too like its always funny seeing the opponent thinking theyre atking into something they can beat over only to be faced with a bigger wall and having to take rebound dmg
i believe that def stat is a largely unexplored territory in yugioh
I think this might be the best video to show my cousin who's been playing magic the Gathering for a long time. I'm personally more into Vanguard, and since this case study isn't one-sided, it's perfect for the both of us.
Board stalling is really only a problem in poor limited formats IMO - even in the midrange heavy standard meta of today, I would hesitate to say that board stalling is a flaw or an issue in MTG's combat for constructed play. I think the premise is disingenuous here from the start.
I agree that most normal situations have this solved but it's not wrong to say that at least theoretically Mtg leads to board stalls without special care in the cards' designs.
That is, Magic doesn't really end with vanillas and no tricks, whereas other games in a similar situation might be boring but at least lead to something.
@@fernandobanda5734 yeah a green vs green kitchen table match with random cards maybe, but calling it a problem in magics design is a false premise - and no it doesn't require "special care", it would really only happen if say like green dominated a particular limited format to the point that decks barely drafted removal spells to fit the meta. It's a complete non issue and the fact that the board CAN stall is arguably a positive feature of magic, it's how certain midrange/combo/control decks can stabilize to meet their win condition, which usually involves breaking the board state. Honestly the only situation I can even imagine this happening in a frustrating way is in a competitive midrange mirror match where both players didn't side for the mirror. without even the possibility of a combat stall, the entire game trends toward turbo to win condition around floodgates. magic is lightyears ahead of yugioh and pokemon in game design. the strength of magic is that the entire variety of deckbuilding and playing concepts (aggro, midrange, combo, control, synergy) have been viable all of these years and while there's an ebb or flow to it, I think it's precisely the color pie/stall potential that maintain that integrity other card games have struggled with.
@@CC-oi9mc I agree that favoring defense makes Magic very unique and even my favorite game. But when I say it needs "special care", I mean that the designers know what they need to design. We don't feel the stall BECAUSE there's flying and attacking first strike and good removal and board wipes and good tempo plays. Like you said, if you just jammed cards together, especially big non-flying bodies that do little else, it becomes a problem. But they design the game so well nowadays that it isn't, if that makes sense.
@@fernandobanda5734 what you’re saying lines right up with my point that the possibility of stalling combat is not a design flaw in the first place
@@CC-oi9mc Correct. I don't see it as a "flaw" like this channel. I understand where they're coming from and don't know what a better word would be, though.
Stall strategies do exist in Yugioh and are usually frown upon by the majority of the playerbase (for good reason) the fact that modern yugioh monsters have crazy effects that can act as recursion, follow-up and combo starter (poplar, circular, nightmare magician,...) but their base stats are lack luster means they can't attack high floodgate monsters that prevent your opponents from doing anything to bring out bigger boss monsters.
The difference is you need card effects to create stalls, they don't just randomly show up if the game is a little too close. Yugioh definitely has some crazy card effect designs to help stalls, though!
I think this is an example of different people getting different things out of games. I see the default of Magic causing stalls as desirable, while the use of dedicated blockers in games like Digimon or Duel Masters as making the game too fast. That being said, the game I'm designing takes a lot from Magic's combat system where the attacker chooses their target, but the defender has the option to use one of their nearby creatures to defend it (I deliberately designed it with important positioning), but attacking comes at the expense of being able to block (it taps them similar to magic), but creatures can usually only block once per round. The biggest difference is that damage on creatures accumulates like in Magic, so as long as some damage is getting through, and you can keep your defences up, you will be able to break a board. But games are long and very tactical.
Or at least that's the design I'm trying to accomplish, I'm still early enough in the design that it's possible emergent gameplay or just future ideas will make the game play differently than I am currently planning.
One of the worst feelings in a game is helplessness, where you're staring at one or no cards in your hand, with a mostly empty board, and you're hoping your next draw at least lets you do something. This can happen in almost any game when you lose, but Magic is the only game I've experienced where both players can be in this situation at the same time. That being said, Magic's system works pretty well most of the time, so as long as you're aware of the danger of where that kind of combat system is puling you, I think it's a completely valid combat system to use.
"Defense position causes stalls in Yugioh", yeah, that's the whole point of defense position.
There's a difference between stalling because you're building to something else, and stalling because there's nothing either player is able to do. It's a bit of a balancing act to let players stall to let slower strategies work, and having the game stall where both players can't do anything relevant. Some games and mechanics balance that better than others.
@@tcgacademia I see this as more of a failure of set designers to build archetypes that teach players to build proactive decks. Even if you aren't tutoring for that OTK combo, you should have some kind of plan that involves winning, not just losing more slowly.
@@FelbloodStreaming In theory that's true. In practice, a lot of newer players will get so caught up in trying to build their own board, that they forget that actually have to use that board to win at some point.
seeing comments from this and prior vid, maybe I agree that "flaw" is quite a heavy word.
But I don't think that's the point of the video, it doesn't mean to say magic is flawed game. It's more of explaining the drawback of the combat system when you plan to take it as reference, what possible issue attached to it.
The way this works in Myths and Legends (a chilean card game very popular in latin america, but mostly in Chile), is that the system is the same as MTG but all cards naturally have trample. This means that if you have the bigger card, there's never a reason to not attack, not like you are gonna get chump blocked. (Also only 1 blocker can be assigned per attacker)
Super straightforward and not complicated at all, but that sounds like a solid gameplay improvement!
I can not express enough how much I like the turn limit in wixoss allowing games to end in a more timely matter. I do wish we had a bit more combo tools to break the flood gate or aggro dichotomy the game is currently in.
It follows the flavour set out in the anime so naturally, it took me a while to really appreciate what it did for the gameplay - it really puts in work setting the pace of the game. The high level of consistency actually really helps this as well - since decks are much more consistent, you don't need to go through best-of-3 to get a satisfying result.
Turn limit? I've played Wixoss very little. Did I miss something?
I love these videos, could you make a video on what would be the best way to play test your own card game and what questions I should ask while play testing? Recently I was asked by someone some interesting questions that I never thought of while play testing and I want to be more prepared
One of the topics I want to dive more into this year is the actual process of designing a game, so play testing is definitely something I'll touch on. Thanks for the suggestion!
@@tcgacademia awesome! I look forward to that, these videos help 😁
A few months ago I did a playtest that showcased the base rules with simple card designs. It really depends on what you're doubting about your design and what you want to prioritize but these are the questions I made after each playtest:
1) Was there a rule about the game that you found confusing?
2) Were the individual cards too confusing or too long to read?
3) Is there something about the rules that you disagree with? Either because of balance or because it's unintuitive to you.
4) Do you feel like deciding what to do was too hard or complex?
5) Any other comments or suggestions?
#1 is about general rules complexity. They got the idea in general but needed visual reminders so I incorporated token cards.
#2 is about card complexity. Changed some word choices that felt unintuitive. Cards were fine, but be careful if your players think a single card is too complex.
#3 is more about game design. Playtesters aren't all good at game design, so take this feedback with a grain of salt, but listen still. My feedback here was much more varied. Hearing what they would change also informed me about what they find unintuitive that they didn't mention before.
#4 is about strategic complexity. This one is easy to hide from beginners, so it's not a big deal unless your players are paralyzed by decision making. Be prepared to make substantial changes (towards simplicity) if there are problems here.
#5 is important because they'll often remember something they forgot to tell you before.
Good luck!
@@fernandobanda5734 thank you very much!
Calling the things that balance a game flaws is a bit much. But I do see the downsides you are pointing out with them. However I do not think a game becomes better by simply getting rid of those things.
if you play mtg for another 10 years you'll get tired of it too.
@@ordinarytree4678 Ive already been playing it for over ten years and I'm not bored yet.
Flaws is a bit harsh, and I honestly wasn't 100% sure it was the right word, but it was close enough to "something in the rules that pulls the game in an undesirable direction that must be counteracted by other means in the game."
Hey man really love this video in addition the last one especially because I am trying to design the combat in my pet card game!!
Wondering what are your thoughts on the combat of Legends of Runeterra since it takes nods from MTG?
Love your work on this channel, keep it up king!
I'm still don't love the defender declaring blockers, but I've not actually played the game, so it could be fine. Legends does look like it does some interesting things with its turn structure.
Ive played a college course of going second yugioh in my time, and man is it rough, but the nice thing is, the fighting was in the mainphase, if i have anything and we hit the battlephase, the speciality of my combat focused boss monster will plow any number of high number sticks.
I'd love to hear your take on the Digimon TCG's combat system.
Between security and your opponent being able to attack your suspended Digimon, attacking has some pretty substantial draw backs. But the card economy and protected breeding area creates a lot of opportunity for game actions. - That said, those disadvantages to attacking do often result in a lack of aggression. Whether that's good or bad, I'm not too sure.
From the (admittedly few) games of Digimon I've played, combat looks very similar to Duel Masters, which is a very well-designed combat system. It can create a lack of aggression in some spots, but with few blockers and only a few shields, it quickly gets to the point where one player can OTK if they're both just sitting there building a board. There's a really good natural tension to the board.
Yugioh essentially avoid board stall by not allowing the second player to even play the game
Power creep is definitely one way to "fix" this problem. Although it feels like even Magic has been pushing power levels a bit in recent years to avoid stall-outs.
Interested in your take on Mindbug, co-designed by Richard Garfield himself.
Because I view the design as a solution to your premise.
It does favor blocker in combat, but simplified to one attacker/one blocker with evergreen keywords of evasion and targeting.
The core rules mandates players to either attack or play to the extreme result of loss if they cannot.
Love your concise and insightful analysis
Haven't tried Mindbug, but I found it really interesting how Keyforge basically corrected for basically every criticism I had for Magic - from the combat system to the card economy. I really do think Richard Garfield is a fantastic game designer.
I feel like this is kind of based on a flawed premise that stallikg is always bad. I prefer the strategic nature of getting past a stall. Chess, for instance, has a lot of stalling potential
Part of this does come down to preference, but a couple of stalled turns as players build up their board is fine, and often even a good feature in a game. Stalling after the build up, though, is what I really don't like - like in a draft game where both players trade off a good portion of their field, and are stuck just waiting for a lucky top-deck to actually make the game do anything. Magic's combat system is especially vulnerable to the later kind of stall, especially in comparison to many other tcgs. Doesn't mean the game itself is bad, but the default play pattern means designers have to be especially careful about the balance of effects they add to the game. In chess pawns can only move forward, and in Magic you may have some late-game mana sinks sitting on your lands or smaller value creatures.
I... very much disagree with your view of "no cost for attscking is good". I think making the decision on whether you should attack important adds a lot of depth to the game.
The rest I think I agree with
Yeah, I actually kind of agree on that. Vanguard, for one example, gives the opponent resources when you attack. You want a bit of tension when attacking so it's not just a free action, but you also don't want attacking to actively feel bad.
I am still a diehard Duelmasters fan, I still have all of my cards from when I was a kid; it's just so dam good!
I know this Video is kinda surface level. But another "big" thing about yugioh combat is the stages. First comes attack declaration any effect can be activated there. Then comes the damage step, only effects which change the dmg (modify atk or def) can be activated there and also some others with specific wordings. This can be relevant, because not every card can be activated as a response, to a card activated in damage step.
It's definitely a very simplified view, but most card games have plenty of subphases within combat as well, so it's not a huge differentiating factor for yugioh. It's still a fairly straightforward combat system in most cases.
5:55 This is a miserable way to play. That's it. For people who like the fast swings and tense endings sitting across from a Teferi feels the worst. The card design is just unfun since it usually if a control player deploys a win con fast, they aren't able to protect it. This piece of junk makes sure that the control can respond after spending all its mana on the 5 cmc win con.
I think the design space opened by some imperfections of the core rules is essential to the longevity of a game.
There are only so many effects that can be added before power creep basically becomes unavoidable.
However, it might be a smart decision to let some things be card effects added with time instead of focusing on making the core rules perfect.
I think it's better for the core rules to be simple and adaptable so that changes could be applied over time in a way that allows for the game to evolve without losing its identity.
With all of its shortcomings on the business front Magic is a perfect example of this. The core rules are laughably simple with most of the complexity coming from the various types of interactions which result from the effects of numerous keywords added through time.
It's a formula that that has allowed the game to not only evolve up to this point but also to be open to basically limitless evolution.
Yeah, that means ever growing complexity but it's either that or a fairly quick fizzle out.
Of course having major flaws in your core rules is also not good because then the foundation of your game would not make sense or at least wouldn't be fun (even though that's subjective).
Overall I think core rules need to at least be solid enough to support an ever growing.number of additions in the form of mechanics and card effects without losing the identity of the game...
It's one of the more interesting balancing acts. I think you have a really good point that the imperfections in Magic's rules gave it a ton of design space, and I do honestly wonder if that has been part of what contributed to its longevity. Tighter rules can much more carefully regulate the game's pace and gameplay - I do think Wixoss has a better core gameplay loop. You can also go too for, though, like Luck and Logic, where the rules were too calibrated and the game had very little design space. Long term, I'm not sure if it's better to lean towards Magic and have more flaws to design around, or Wixoss, which has tighter core rules - mostly because no game has been around longer than MTG to compare it to. It is a really interesting decision point early in the game design process, though: do you fix an issue in gameplay with a card mechanic, or with a game rule?
@@tcgacademia
I think there's no hard rule for which approach is better.
I personally am a fan of the way Magic goes about this but don't see anything wrong with having a really in depth, well developed and possibly rigid rule system from the very start.
I think the more free flowing approach works better for a game with no definitive setting such as a multiverse while the more specific approach works from a lore perspective for a more board game-y type of game, set around a very specific theme.
@@tcgacademia I feel like if you've designed a game so tight that the core gameplay is almost fun without considering the cards, you've created a board game. I feel like the fact that the cards push back against the ruleset is the thing that makes TCGs tick for me. I want my game pieces to feel like solutions to problems, not like pawns with game functions.
@@fastpuppy2000 Fair point. I came down a bit hard on MTG's system here, and given the discussions on this video, I think there are some good points to designing a game like MTG where you give yourself room for card designs to fix relatively static core rules. I do prefer games like Wixoss or even One Piece that have momentum built into their systems, but there is a lot of room to maneuver between a fundamentally messy system, and a straight-up board game.
Yeah. I think that's an especially relevant point with Magic's mana system. It has the drawback of being inconsistent and leading to some non games, but has led to a massive amount of design space.
You have the color pie and the ability to mix and match colors at the cost of consistency. You have a million utility lands with different effects. You have the ability to include mana denial strategies (this one isn't always a positive but has been a thing for most of the games history).
I got a solution to stall:
Don't make cards that stall.
But honestly I'm making my own game and to understand it's combat you need to learn the whole mechanisms to give a good visual and feel of my game, here's the latest installment of my game rules, which I believe is finished, but for now I need critics.
You didn't put any link?
@@fernandobanda5734 I'll be talking about it, give me time to copy and paste it, no need for a link.
My game will be divided into chapters:
1. Rules and layout.
2. Stats.
3. Combat.
4. D'Rs.
5. Paras.
6. O.L.s.
7. Signets.
8. Metaclasses.
Chapter 1. Rules
In my game, you are called a Melder, each Melder starts with 0 LP, the limit is 30, if you get your
opponent to 30, you win.
Your deck consists of 50 through 100 cards, that is the minimum and limit, your Extra deck as
you may call it consists of 28 cards, you are allowed up to 4 copies of a card.
There are 7 colours in the game, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet, 1 is an
exception and represents all of them, and that's White.
Red is Earth.
Orange is Flame.
Yellow is Day.
Green is Ruach.
Blue is Aqua.
Indigo is Night.
Violet is Pasma.
White is White Light.
At the beginning of the game you draw 7, if you don't like some cards or your hand you may do
this once, put any number under the deck and draw that many.
There is no hand size limit.
There are 5 Phases:
Draw:
(Draw 1 card, Recharge Reactor by resetting Sparked cards, if you have 3 or less cards draw
until you have 5).
Main:
(Voxelize, Regenerate, Switch Lanes).
Combat:
(Attack, Parry).
Honor:
(If you haven't done the things in Main tou may do it here, except Switch Lanes which you can
do again).
End.
When you play a D'R, you Muster it.
Playing an O.L., you Deploy it.
Still figuring out what you would call playing a tool card, mabey Use.
The Reactor is the game's resource engine, every card is a resource, and the limit is 8 cards in
the Reactor, you can only add 1 card in your Reactor per turn, and you put it face up horizontally
and this is called Voxelize, to play a card, you have to Spark a card in that zone, to Spark you
rotate a card in that zone right side up, every card needs 1 spark to play unless the card says
otherwise. You can only play a card if the card in that zone is the same as the one in your hand,
and if it's white any card can be used, the same goes if it's in your hand too. And every card has
a level, this is called a Voxel, it has a number 0-8, you can only play a card if it has the same
colour and if you have enough cards in your Reactor, if you 3 cards in your hand with a Voxel of
3, 4, and 5, and your Reactor has 4 cards in it, you can only play the 3 and the 4, but not 5.
You can also Regenerate a card in the Reactor by putting it into your hand, you can also only do
this once per turn, and simultaneously.
Any card can be played as long as you meet its requirements.
Your discard pile is called the Recycle Bin, also called the R.B. for short.
Your deck is called a Spool.
Your Extra deck is called the Overlands.
If you don't have any cards in your deck, you do not lose, you instead make a new one with the
Recycling Bin by shuffling it and putting it into the Spool zone. If you have neither Deck and R.B.
that's when you lose.
The banish/exile/remove/"Expel inmy game" from play zone in the game is called the The Overlands.
Now for placement, your Deck/Spool will be on your lower right, with the R.B. right next to it from
above, and The Overlands is above that.
On your far left you have your Reactor.
In the middle you have 2 zones, the Command Line and the Battlefield, the Command Line is on
the bottom while the Battlefield is on top of it.
When you Muster D'Rs and Deploy O.L.s you may put them in either zone, the Battlefield or
Command Line. Paras are activated in your hand.
In the Battlefield your troops which are called D'Rs (D'realmers) can attack your opponent and
only them directly, but they cannot Parry, which is basically blocking. The Command Line can
Parry but not attack, there is no limit on how many cards can be on the field.
If you wish for a D'R to defend or attack but it's on the field already you may have it Switch
Lanes, it can only do this twice a turn but once in the Main phase and once in the Honor Phase.
Chapter 2: Stats
Every card has a stat, even the colour, the most recent with a number is their Voxel which is 0-8
where 0 is free but the rest you must Spark 1.
Their Combat and Life is next, which says how much health and how hard they can strike. Their
Combat is also 0-8, but a D'R cannot live when their Life is 0, in this case they are Erased.
A D'R also has sub stats which are located in the middle, these are stats related to the D'R to
inform the Melder what type of D'R they have, a human warrior, or another species.
There is a symbol to represent the colour of the card for people who are coloured blind.
The name is also a stat, and the signets are located in the name bar.
The rarity of a card will be a symbol.
The flavor text will be located on the button of the ability text.
Chapter 3: Combat
To battle, a D'R must be in the Battlefield and they must have not attacked yet, then you must
Spark a card in your Reactor to attack, and you must attack your opponent only.
You subtract your opponent's life with your D'R's Dynamic Voxel, which is basically the Voxel of
a card but is also an attack point reserved for the opponent.
Here's how Combat works:
If a 5:8 D'R attacks and a D'R with 4:5 Parry's (to Parry, when you are attacked and you have
D'Rs in your command line that can Parry then you declare 1 to Parry to block the attack,
Parrying also does not cost a Spark, so if they can Parry feel free to do so), then you subtract
your D'R's Life by how many Combat Points your opponent's D'R has and your opponent does
the same with theirs, like this:
5:8 attacks, 4:5 Parrys, the sum is:
5:8 - 4:5 = 5:4 and 4:0.
The 4:5 is Erased and your 5:8 took damage but survived, and cannot attack until next turn.
You can declare any number of D'Rs to attack and you must Spark cards per troop.
After they attack and if there are any that have not attacked yet they may attack, this is called a
Siege and there are no limits to how many can happen.
But beware, your opponent's D'Rs can
still Parry the next Siege, even the ones who already Parried.
They may also attack in groups, to do this you must declare which D'Rs will group up to attack
simultaneously, this is called a Raid, with this their Combat Points and Life are combined. After
the battle has concluded your opponent uses the points the raid has left and chooses which
D'Rs takes the leftovers if there is any, but they can not have more than the same number when
they started the Raid, basically your opponent chooses which of your D'Rs survive when they
got Parried.
You can also combine D'Rs when you Parry using the Raid system, but this is called a
Barricade.
When a D'R is attacked but they did not Parried then the attacker does not take damage
because the one being attacked did not retaliate. Another D'R can block for another too, this is a
rare case but can still happen.
You can also place "certain" cards face down after you Spark for cost, for D'Rs this is every D'R,
in this case the card is Concealed. If a Concealed D'R decides to Parry an attack they may do
so by flipping the card face up, this is called an Ambush.
Pokemon TCG often becomes a game of who can one shot the opponent first, which, is oddly on brand with the rpg...
Given one of the most broken strats of the Pokemon games for solo battles is Baton Pass, yeah it's pretty spot on that the TCG comes down to setup a big Pokemon and sweep.
I do think Pokémon has an issue with the counter counting though online sims help but they can stack especially with current health numbers
Counters are usually not too bad if you have a stack of D6s, but yeah, I've seen some messy boards in my day. Don't even get me started on Keyforge!
@@tcgacademia still something like 270 health can be annoying especially if your counters max at like 50 requiring 6 counters minimum
@@jmurray1110 Definitely annoying, although MTG commander has players at 40 life, so that many counters isn't unheard of. Although I find Commander a bit silly as well XD
you can tell hes never actually played Pokemon. its one of the most well balanced games. sometimes its good for your opponent to have a damage lead. if anything pokemon is the best all round game out there! ive played majority of all mainstream TCG games on some competetive level and the only other game ive found that comes close is the One Piece TCG which is super fun!
Pokemon's an interesting case, since there's so much card draw an extra card or two out of prizes doesn't have a huge impact. It was less about the actual state of the game, and more an abstract danger with the core rules. If it has slower draw engines like Magic, or even One Piece, it would be a bigger issue.
Although admittedly I have played very little Pokemon XD
I wonder if Keyforge could be interesting to make a video about
Keyforge is really interesting, and I do like it quite a lot (stupid numbers of counters aside). It's interesting as its a Richard Garfield game that manages to address basically every complaint I have about Magic. Past that, the unique fixed deck is also really neat, in that it gives you a tcg-esque game experience without a tcg price tag. Not sure when, but I do want to do a Keyforge video at some point in the future for sure!
I don't know lantern controll sounds like a great playstyle
A friend of mine (who loves lantern control) described playing it is like treating fun as zero-sum. If you're having fun with the deck, the opponent definitely isn't!
2:28 "makes it axtremly difficult to build a board in yu gi oh that will last more than one turn" its funny because in modern yu gi oh its a meme that duel only last 1 turn per player
Yugioh's such an interesting example of a game that leans into the weak points of its game system so hard they actually kind of becomes a selling point. Like, by any reasonable analysis, the game system is a complete mess, but it somehow is still one of the most heavily played tcgs in the world.
3:38, i would watch those three videos
I actually have a script already written for them - so they'll definitely get made eventually!
Why would stalls be a problem ?
Why would "not playing the game" be a problem?
@@OdelyxRathere's more steps and phases to the game than just combat.
wait.. did you say the extremely large number of special summoning in yugioh was game balancing? At the competitive level it is the shortest game of all. Yugioh isn't balanced, its a game of flash. Flashy cards and most games over in a flash.
I didn't say it was a great solution! Just that it was a solution to the problems posed by how the combat system interacted with the resource system.
While I think you were trying to simplify things fo the context of the video, Isn't the Yugioh part kind of wrong? Nowadays how combat resolves is very different. People don't fight with just vanillas.
While it's true that modern Yugioh combat isn't just two vanilla creatures comparing their stats, the Idea is still the same: the attacker has the advantage and only attacks when doing so is advantageous, even if there are many more considerations than just ATK and DEF. A monster with a large defense could still stall the game, though the amount of strong removal in the game and modern design focusing on offensive play usually prevents board stalls. I think the main point of comparison vs MTG and Pokemon is that it is difficult to run monsters in Yugioh with purely support effects, unless you have a way to protect them. In Yugioh, the initiative is on you to protect your weaker monsters since your opponent can normally attack them to destroy them. Conversely, in MTG and Pokemon, your opponent has to go out of their way to destroy your support creatures, usually requiring a card effect to interact with them.
@@thebigcheese1905 "modern design focusing on offensive play usually prevents board stalls." can you elaborate? yugioh has no board stales but has an unbreakable board problem, doesnt it?
@@goncaloferreira6429 I can't say that I've played enough modern Yu-Gi-Oh to be strongly informed on the subject, but comparing the modern game to the game 10 years ago, it seems like the unbanning of cards like Raigeki and Feather Duster was intended to help prevent those board stalls and unbreakable boards. I wholly agree that competitive Yu-Gi-Oh has revolved around degenerate combos and unfun board states for years now, but I'd like to think the availability of board wipes and counter traps was at least an attempt by the developers to avoid these issues.
The best way to understand what influence rules have on the direction of a game is to look at the game at its most vanilla. So while vanilla yugioh is long gone, it still has an impact on how effects are designed into the present day.
@@tcgacademia how do you see this being?
Ygo has the best combat system in my opinion. It was called duel monsters for a reason
Not sure about best, but it does have an elegant simplicity that's hard to beat. There's a good reason so many other games also use a simple "big number wins" system instead of damage-focused system like MTG.
@tcgacademia4272 the big number wins is simplistic yes, but I really like the mechanic that your attacking monster chooses which opposing monster to attack. Ad far as i know that was the first to implement that system. Duel masters does it similar but not quite the same
Obviously you don’t know the complexity of yugioh battle phases
They require so much thought and mind game it had to be divided into 5 main steps and 7 sub steps unless it’s the OCG in which there’s 8
Most tcgs have a ton of subphases in combat as well, just by virtue of combat being an important part of gameplay with a lot of things happening, and timing it all is very important. Yugioh's priority system complicates it a bit, but it's still comparatively simple compared to a lot other tcgs.
@@tcgacademia still 7
And your flip summons are basically a coin flip on if there effect activates
This is why I play master duel no thinking for me
Also maybe a good point of comparison could be the official simulators you know magic arena, master duel, Pokémon tcg live
"Yu Gi Oh is good avoiding stalls"
*look at runnick, stun and other floodgate decks*
Fair point! Just because the base rules of a game are well set up to avoid stalls doesn't mean the game can't make them happen regardless.
Love your channel, but i do disagree with your yugioh take. There are plenty of ways to keep smaller monsters on the field as many have attack reducing or effect negating effects. Or some effects that can activate on the opponents turn. Yes, you often build towards a strong boss monster, but especially modern yugioh loves to build strong boards that wall the enemy from making moves. It added a lot of complexity through the years. And while defence mode is certainly underused, there are some monsters that thrive on it. Imo defence mode should be given more depth, rather than be removed. And the bigger number isn't immediately the winner
My take in this video is more specifically focused on the base rules system. Yugioh especially is an interesting case here, since so much of what makes it work is built into card effects rather than rule text. Yugioh hasn't had 'vanilla' gameplay for a very long time now - I think it's the tcg whose gameplay is furthest removed from its core rules.
This doesn't really work, as neither Pokemon nor YuGiOh really care about 'combat' or 'attacking' in theory they do, in practice both games are just combo games where you generally OTK your opponent.
All of the big 3 are a fair ways away from the core gameplay of their combat systems (Magic also doesn't stall much). Although yugioh is in a class of its own - its gameplay has almost nothing to do with its core rules.
How the hell do you otk in pokemon?
Pokemon very much cares about attacking. You only get one attack per turn so you need to make sure you either oneshot your opponents pokemon, or set it up where your active pokemon/board are safe and your opponents active pokemon/board wont be safe when turn gets passed back to you.
So turns out this whole series is just some guy hating on mtg for no apparent reason and that’s it.
I actually don't hate MTG, but I don't think the core rules are perfect, either. The gravity metaphor is really important to what these videos are trying to say - it doesn't mean the actual games always stall, but the core rules are pulling in that direction, so if a set is a little too simple and doesn't have the right balance of effects, you end up with stalls (core set limited is an example, especially older core sets).
Every time I watch a video on card game rules I realize Magic is the worst card game ever made and Duel Masters is the best.
Magic does have a lot of flaws and a lot of other games have had the opportunity to learn from and avoid those flaws, but it's definitely not the worst. For one example on this channel, check out Luck and Logic, and that's without getting into the long history of half-baked tie-in tcgs that were flooding the market in the early 2000s.