Which Card Game has the Best Mana System?

Comments · 1.4K

• WE

  @WenLifeGivULemons · 1 year ago

  I think the closest thing Yugioh has to a resource system is the normal summon and that probably should have been mentioned

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• LO

  @lordsceptile6181 · 1 year ago

  My personal favorite has to be Digimon’s “memory” system.<br><br>For those who don’t know, in Digimon theres the memory gauge that goes from 10 to -10. Anytime you play a card that card’s play cost to subtracted from the memory, but the big difference maker is that you’re allowed to go negative. If you only have 1 memory and play a card that cost 3, you’ll just go to -2.<br><br>But the once you go negative, the cards currently activating will resolve and your turn immediately ends. Your opponent will start with the memory you went into the negative. So in the example above, you went -2, so your opponent will start with 2. <br><br>It creates a fun back and forward game of chicken. You can ball out, but then you’r opponent can ball out for no penalty, or you can play safe and try to choke your opponent out, but you’ll also be short handed.

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• DE

  @delarryle · 1 year ago (edited)

  Digimon mana system is not only very lore accurate, but it also creates a very strategic dynamic of PASSING mana for the opponent to use. Possibly the best system in card game yet.

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• KA

  @KaoruMzk · 1 year ago

  The best energy systems for me were either Duel Masters, which allowed you to play any card in your deck as a mana resource, which in turn led to some interesting resource management or Force of Will, which used an extra deck for your mana, which let you play without worrying about getting screwed/flooded while also not being completely broken.

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• BU

  @ButFirstHeLitItOnFire · 1 year ago (edited)

  The fun thing with YuGiOh is that, while it doesn’t have an overarching cost like most other card games, it compensates by having various cards use just about anything and everything as it’s own personal cost (and also that even THESE costs can chain into other effects.)<br>Tributing/Discarding/Banishing or sending to the GY for cost is pretty common, but there’s also paying LP, shuffling cards back into your deck, needing <i>specific</i> cards in whatever position to get your effects off, etc…<br>…<br>After a moment of thought, I think YuGiOh might just emulate the craziness of its anime and manga A LOT more closely than many other real world games can with THEIR media spinoffs.<br><br>Edit: Mom, Dad, please stop fighting. It’s just a children’s card game (that should have been rebranded as a teenager’s card game by now TBH).

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• MA

  @matomask3574 · 1 year ago (edited)

  I actually think that one of the biggest aspects that I dislike in the energy system compared to mana is the fact that energy can only be attached to one pokemon at a time. Unlike in magic, every turn you&apos;re powering individual pieces instead of your whole board, which means that if you lose a pokemon, you have to start building resources again. It never feels like I&apos;m building to something. Instead, it feels like I&apos;m forced to play voltron more often than not.

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• SA

  @Sabbia00 · 1 year ago (edited)

  I like the system from legends of runeterra<br>I think it&apos;s really nice to bank mana you didn&apos;t spend to have a boost on your next turn, with the rule that it can only be used for spells

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• CH

  @channeltwo7 · 1 year ago

  Bringing up netrunner made me so happy. It needs to be talked about more

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• T.

  @t.estable3856 · 1 year ago

  Big fan of &quot;Force of Will&quot;s Mana Stone system. Basically, you have a secondary deck of Mana Stones (Like Lands) that you can top-deck a resource card off of each turn by tapping your &quot;Ruler&quot;. It purs control of when you get more resources into your hands while also keeping some Luck based twists because there &quot;Non-Basic&quot; and Duel Colour Mana Stones in the randomized deck as well as creating a cost for Mana Stone generation (If you generate a Mana Stone, you can&apos;t use your Ruler that turn.).

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• ET

  @ethn_chey · 1 year ago (edited)

  no one has mentioned it but Flesh and Bloods resource system is easily the best in the tcg space. having cards have 2 uses opens up so much design space whilst not limiting them to being either a dead extra resource or an unplayable card. the draconic, light and mystic talents all prioritising one card colour makes their heroes play super differently (e.g dromai wanting to pitch reds which are the most resource inefficient to fuel her dragons or the mystics making blue cards ,which are typically underpowered to accommodate for their better resource generation, power cards) adds another layer to the game and tonnes of interesting decision points. if anyone is interested in playing FaB I&apos;d honestly say that the resource system is my favourite game feature

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• YU

  @YunHide · 1 year ago

  I can encourage you to check out the resource-system of the Flesh And Blood TCG. It&apos;s the one thing that really won me over and it does things really different than any other tcgs Ive played yet. <br><br>How you use the resources determines what cards you see in which order later in the game

  72

• IA

  @iamabucket13 · 1 year ago

  Another thing I like about Pokemon&apos;s energy is that it often telegraphs your future plays. That sounds like a bad thing, but it means you can react to your opponent mid-play despite being unable to perform actions on their turn. It&apos;s why I don&apos;t mind that you can&apos;t play at instant speed like Magic and Yugioh.<br><br>As for my favorite resource system, it&apos;s Elestrals hands-down. Saying it&apos;s just &quot;life is your resource&quot; really undersells the depth in the spirit system. <br>Like Magic and Pokemon, the different colors mean you have to find optimal ratios in both your main deck and spirit deck, and choosing whether or not you run a really strong off-color staple is a lot trickier of a decision. <br>Because you lose spirits when you take damage, and most staples can use any color, you have to keep in mind your future plays when choosing which color spirits to burn. And &quot;Heal 3&quot; is the best card in the game because it is also both ramp and mana fixing. But skilled players can predict your future plays based on what you choose to spend and what you choose to get back. You can also cast your elestrals with the wrong spirit(s) at the cost of turning them into a vanilla, but sometimes you want that since certain cards check what color spirit is under the elestral and not what color the elestral is.<br>And because spirits exist on the board under your runes, moving them between cards on the board is a major mechanic instead of an occasional effect like Pokemon. You can siphon spirits from your elestrals to pay for your runes. Many elestrals have effects when they receive spirits or effects when you move spirits.<br>There&apos;s a neat combo this allows you to do with a rune that moves a spirit, any elestral with a receive effect, and any other card on field with a spirit. You can siphon the spirit off the receive elestral to pay the cost for Altar, use the effect to move another spirit to the receive elestral, and the receive effect will trigger again, but the game only checks if the elestral has the proper spirits under the card at resolution so it doesn&apos;t die. So you get 2 effects for the price of 1 and without reaching into your spirit deck.<br>Game is sick.

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