BEST and WORST TCG Resource Systems | Talk TCG

Comments · 289

• TE

  @Terminator550 · 2 years ago

  I think people forget about the innovations of Duel Masters TCG

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• AL

  @alexrivera5747 · 3 years ago (edited)

  One thing that is lost in external resources is added effects. You either have mana or you don't. Unlike in MTG where you have basic lands, but you also have nonbasic lands. In Pokémon you have basic energy but you also have special energy. So you are getting resources but also something else which is fun.

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• BA

  @bassheadgg · 2 years ago

  Legends of Runeterra has mana system but with a twist. You can bank 3 unused mana as spell mana. Spell mana can only be used on spells. This adds a lot of depth for example you don’t feel bad not playing a creature on turn 1 and 2. Go into turn 3 to play a 3 cost creature and you still have 3 spell mana to use if you want. Or play a 6 cost spell instead. There’s lot of strategy and it makes the game more deep on whether you need to play for tempo or mana efficiency

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• JE

  @jesusceren1594 · 2 years ago

  Resourcless tcgs can turn on really long turns; that can break the fun of the game itself

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• JA

  @JakeTheJay · 2 years ago

  I've always loved how Inscryption had a separate resource deck for the game. I've been thinking of mixing that with magic's land system to give the player the choice of getting more mana, or cards to play with said mana

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• ZA

  @ZaQ3 · 2 years ago

  The thing about Cardfight Vanguard&apos;s resource system is that as of now, it has not 1, not 2, but 3 explicit resource systems that all decks can utilize. For some quick context, decks are built with like 95% unit cards (like monster cards in yugioh)<br>First is counterblast (or CB for short) and is probably the most interesting of them all. In Vanguard, each attack generally deals 1 damage to the opponent and the one taking damage takes the top card from their deck and puts it into the Damage Zone face up, and a player loses when they reach 6 damage. What&apos;s great about this is that many card effects can use CB as costs by flipping the face-up damage to face-down, so the player has to find the balance of how much damage they want to take to activate their cards&apos; effects while treading the line between life and death. Another aspect of this is that the opponent has the choice to not attack the opponent to try and CB deny the opponent so they can&apos;t activate their cool effects.<br>The second system is the Soul (similar to XYZ Material in Yugioh, using mainly monsters/units), which is kind of similar to a mana system, but is passively obtained in the early turns and can be increased on-demand by certain card effects. The Soul can be used to fulfill effect costs, but some decks can utilize the soul as something like a second hand and call units to the board from the soul. <br>The third system is the newest one, the Energy system. This one is just a simple stockpile one where you passively get energy per turn and it is not reset at the end of the turn. Some card effects let you charge additional energy, though. <br>While not an explicit universal resource system, some decks have effect costs that utilize the units on the board themselves, similar to the yugioh system. You&apos;d have to destroy those units or debilitate them for the turn to activate certain effects.

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• 2S

  @2smallbros711 · 2 years ago (edited)

  Something to add to FaB’s resource system is the fact that because you can choose the order and what cards you pitch before they go to the bottom, one can set up their deck in a vary favorable order for the second round of the deck. In FaB this is a high level technique called pitch stacking, where you pitch some more powerful cards early and remember when that card will come back around to your hand.

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• DI

  @DiegoDeschain · 2 years ago

  Best system I&apos;ve seen so far is Star War Unlimited&apos;s. Not only it completely erases flooding and screwing, it also adds a layer of decision making to the resourcing process (which card do I resource, when do I stop resourcing cards, etc).

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• KR

  @kronusexodues7283 · 2 years ago

  Vampire the Eternal Struggle gives you 30 Life at the start of the game and that&apos;s it. To bring out cards, you have to put a certain amount of your life counters onto that card. then that card can play abilities by paying that life. There are some cards to generate new life counters and to move life between yourself and your creatures, but in essence, you get a fixed amount of resources at the start and then it&apos;s about how you use those throughout the game. By making life your resource and not just your win condition, this also heavily changes how combat is done and what the purpose of combat is, because just burning some life off a creature means now it can play less cards.

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• TO

  @TorbjörnLindquist · 2 years ago

  One of my favourite games use a fixed resource system. It is Start Trek 2nd Edition, and you get 7 points each turn. You have to spend all your points. But drawing cards cost 1 point, so you have to balance card play and card draw in a very interesting way. It is also played in a very different way than most card games, as you fly around in your star ships and try to do missions, in a similar way to the TV series.

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• DE

  @DetectiveThursday · 2 years ago (edited)

  The dual resource system you are describing for your game reminds me of Netrunner. That game has one resource for putting cards into play, another for the action economy. Basically time and money. time is renewable, money is not but if needed you can trade in time for money. And because the game is asymmetrical the way these resources get used are totally different too. Runners are more flexible with time but need to have the up front cash for their rigs. Corps are starved for time but are more flexible in making money. And each archetype and corp specializes in a different way of getting or spending those resources. It’s a shame WOTC screwed over fantasy flight out of continuing the game but null signal has really done a lot to keep it alive with new content. The economy is a bit of a learning curve but it’s also one of its most rewarding aspects and the source of the great mind games that occur when you play this game.

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• ZA

  @Zarren_Redacted · 3 years ago

  With the scaling resource system I think a problem for it is that it allows the game to be &quot;road-mapped&quot; a bit too much. Especially the more game knowledge that you have of your deck or your opponent&apos;s deck. You also know that you&apos;re never really getting anything out early, so that 6 cost card is just sitting there (I do believe there are some ways to temporarily ramp in hearthstone, but that applies to all resource systems). While interaction with your opponent will change this a bit, you probably know exactly what the first few turns will be after looking at your opening hand. <br><br>Not saying its a bad system, just pointing out a downside to it.

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