Player Cards focused on Brawl

[Sleepy]

This is a custom mechanic I've had for a while, meant to be used in a fanfic. These cards are the "starter deck" members of the mechanic, so they are focused on aiding older themes (AKA monsters that do things during battle such as Dark Scorpions, Madolche Puddingcess, Hyper Hammerhead, etc).

 

 

Quick overview on what Player Cards are as a Custom Mechanic.

[spoiler= In a paragraph]

-They are cards that you start the game with, but that you make active by giving them LP out of your own if (and only if) you just gained LP via a card effect.

-While they have LP on them, you can use their effects or redirect battle damage towards their LP instead of yours. Once their LP is fully depleted, they become inactive again, but you can always fulfill the activation conditions again and turn them on.

-You can have up to 5, each on a different column behind the field, but they are not "on the field".

-They all carry their own pile of Extra Decks which can only be accessed while they are active, and running a Player Card will inherently shrink your regular 15 card Extra Deck by a certain amount.

-You can "activate" an already active Player Card to unlock a "Star Mode" which unlocks other abilities. They'll stay Stars until they die or get their Star Mode depleted by you wanting to make another Player Card into a Star (you can only have 1 Star Player at a time).

 

A rule of thumb: You cannot redirect full on LP gain effects towards Player Cards, you have to gain LP yourself (any amount is fine) and then you gain the right to transfer LP to them (what they require to activate, regardless of the amount of LP you gained). However, you CAN direct effect damage directly to any Player Card of your choice (which is recommended because the Player Card's owner is in control of where the battle damage goes between them and their Player Cards).

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Now on to the cards~

Axolotl the Supply Alebrije

[Player Card] LP/ 900   +3   -2   ★/ 400

Activate by gaining LP from a monster or Trap effect.

Once per turn, if a monster(s) you control is destroyed during the Battle Phase: You can draw 1 card.

★Once per turn, if a monster(a) you control is destroyed during the Battle Phase: You can target 1; Special Summon it.

 

^Using this first card as an example and explaining what it means:

This card is accessible from the beginning of the game, so long as you gain LP by a monster or Trap Effect and afterwards you lose 900 LP and give them to this card.
-2 Running this card means your regular 15-card Extra Deck gets a -2, so you have a 13-card Extra Deck instead.
+3 This card however, has its own Extra Deck of 3 cards, so even if your regular ED is 13, you overall have 16 potential cards to play.

★ Is for Star Mode. You must gain LP again while this card is alive following the same rules as if it was activated from scratch, but this time you give it 400 LP (in this case). Then you get access to its ★ Effect.

The next 4 cards follow this same formula so I'm done with the explanations here. If you have any doubts feel free to ask me.

 

Battlefield Customizer

[Player Card] LP/ 500   +4   -2   ★/ 700

Activate by gaining LP from a Spell or Trap effect.

Once per turn, if you take battle damage involving 2 monsters: You can inflict 100 of them to your opponent instead, treated as battle damage from your monster, and your monster is not destroyed by that battle.

★Once per turn, if a monster you control battles an opponent's monster, after damage calculation: You can target 1 Spell/Trap Card on the field; destroy it.

 

 

Spidery Jelly

[Player Card] LP/ 600   +3   -1    ★/ 300

Activate by gaining LP from a Spell or monster effect.

Once per turn, if a monster you control would be destroyed during the Battle Phase: You can switch it to Defense Position instead.

★ Once per turn, if a monster you control inflicts battle damage to your opponent: You can discard 1 card from your opponent's hand.

 

 

Tricky Crab Dragon

[Player Card] LP/ 700   +5   -3    ★/ 600

Activate by gaining LP from a Trap effect.

All monsters your opponent controls lose 500 ATK and DEF.

★ Once per turn (quick effect): You can target 1 face-up monster on the field; negate its effect during the Battle Phase only.

 

 

Hyperactive Steeds Keeper

[Player Card]  LP/ 800   +4   -1   ★/ 500

Activate by gaining LP from a Spell effect.

All monsters you control gain 500 ATK and DEF.

★ Once per turn (quick effect): You can target 1 monster you control; the first time it battles this turn, in which the opponent's monster was not destroyed by battle, the target is not destroyed by battle, and it can make a second attack on monsters each Battle Phase this turn.

 

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[Darj]

Wait what? So now they require specific card Types (Monster, Spell, Trap) as source of LP to activate? Hmm... I guess it works as a balancing factor, but I cannot but feel that it makes the mechanic a bit more unwieldy; I mean, not only you have to play an LP-gaining playstyle to access Player Cards, or adapt LP-gaining effects in an standard playstyle, now your LP-gaining options are limited depending on the Player Cards of your interest.

 

Anyway, onto the cards:

Axolotl: I like this one a lot. Both effects are simple and on the defensive/passive side, but should be effective. And of course bonus points for being an axolotl.

Customizer: I don't really see the appeal or usefulness of the basic effect, and the Star Effect is good, but when only 1 of 2 effects are good, then IMO it is not as desirable as, let's say, the Axolotl above.

Spidery: Damn, that basic effect is really good! Instead of losing the monster, you get to keep it and block more attacks; it can also trigger certain effects that require the monster to switch positions. The Star Effect is good too, and it's more of icing on the cake, which is great. Now I'm wondering why Axololt requires more LP than this... or maybe this one should require more LP due to its goodness?

Tricky Crab: The ATK debuff is good enough, but at the same time feels too dependent on the opponent's cards, rather than supporting your deck's playstyle, unless you are running stuff like Barbaros to negate its effect and "unlock" its 3000 base ATK. Also being limited to Trap effects holds it back a bit. By the way, I have no idea of how a Crab Dragon that is also tricky would look like xD Looking forward into any drawing you make for this card.

Keeper: Kinda sorta the opposite of Crab, and slightly better IMO. Gaining ATK/DEF is better than reducing it because it ensures you get that extra power and damage even if your opponent has no monsters to debuff, and the double-attacking Star Effect can lead to OTKs and finishing games earlier, while also supporting effects that trigger from battle but require the monster to survive.

 

So, I would rank them in the following way:

#1: Spidery

#2: Axolotl - it may be the most expensive and passive of the bunch, but the effects should be defensive enough, and activating from both Monster and Trap effects keeps it flexible. Also the higher LP requirement translates to a better bulk, so it is not that bad.

#3 Keeper - shouldn't be that difficult to activate from at least Poison of Old Man and Dian Keto pro techs

#4: Customizer

#5: Tricky Crab

[Sleepy]

Wait what? So now they require specific card Types (Monster, Spell, Trap) as source of LP to activate? Hmm... I guess it works as a balancing factor, but I cannot but feel that it makes the mechanic a bit more unwieldy; I mean, not only you have to play an LP-gaining playstyle to access Player Cards, or adapt LP-gaining effects in an standard playstyle, now your LP-gaining options are limited depending on the Player Cards of your interest.

 

Anyway, onto the cards:

Axolotl: I like this one a lot. Both effects are simple and on the defensive/passive side, but should be effective. And of course bonus points for being an axolotl.

Customizer: I don't really see the appeal or usefulness of the basic effect, and the Star Effect is good, but when only 1 of 2 effects are good, then IMO it is not as desirable as, let's say, the Axolotl above.

Spidery: Damn, that basic effect is really good! Instead of losing the monster, you get to keep it and block more attacks; it can also trigger certain effects that require the monster to switch positions. The Star Effect is good too, and it's more of icing on the cake, which is great. Now I'm wondering why Axololt requires more LP than this... or maybe this one should require more LP due to its goodness?

Tricky Crab: The ATK debuff is good enough, but at the same time feels too dependent on the opponent's cards, rather than supporting your deck's playstyle, unless you are running stuff like Barbaros to negate its effect and "unlock" its 3000 base ATK. Also being limited to Trap effects holds it back a bit. By the way, I have no idea of how a Crab Dragon that is also tricky would look like xD Looking forward into any drawing you make for this card.

Keeper: Kinda sorta the opposite of Crab, and slightly better IMO. Gaining ATK/DEF is better than reducing it because it ensures you get that extra power and damage even if your opponent has no monsters to debuff, and the double-attacking Star Effect can lead to OTKs and finishing games earlier, while also supporting effects that trigger from battle but require the monster to survive.

 

So, I would rank them in the following way:

#1: Spidery

#2: Axolotl - it may be the most expensive and passive of the bunch, but the effects should be defensive enough, and activating from both Monster and Trap effects keeps it flexible. Also the higher LP requirement translates to a better bulk, so it is not that bad.

#3 Keeper - shouldn't be that difficult to activate from at least Poison of Old Man and Dian Keto pro techs

#4: Customizer

#5: Tricky Crab

 

Unlike Synchros or Xyzs that can play around with different Levels even under generic materials, I think it is boring to have all cards of any given mechanic in the game be exactly the same in terms of how to bring out. It might seem a bit situational because LP gain in general is not too big, but these are not as specific as they could have been xD

Was thinking for a little while on going for specific icons of Spell/Traps, and if I get to make enough of these, it'd go for specific types/attributes/Levels/archetypes of LP gaining monsters, probably created in the future.

 

The effect of Customizer means that your Spirit Reaper, Dark Scorpions, Airknight Parshath, etc, all get to inflict 100 damage to the opponent even in a losing battle, and get their effects triggered as a result. It is for the sake of battle damage inflicting kinds of battle effects.

 

I do agree that I did not put a huge amount of detail in the amounts of LP for activating them in respect to each other. I figured it'd be a bit more significant to see what kind of LP gain effects are compatible with each that is not with the others, and well.... In retrospect I need to edit that double battle. The idea is to allow a "Do X when it battles" cards (Hyper Hammerhead and such) to get an extra trigger per turn. I think I'm gonna make it so that the opponent's monster needs to not be destroyed in the battle......

 

An overlooked bit about the post is the way each alters the Extra Deck size. Some only make a net growth of 1, others 2, and one of them is overall a +3 for the Extra Deck. I need to figure out how to distribute those better because I had it at some point but it kind of got lost in the edits... I re-wrote some of these a few times.....

 

Tricky Crab Dragon's concept has been around for a while:

 

 

 

Thank you for this post xD

I'll take notes on this.

[Darj]

I see. If their activation conditions could be even more specific then these are great xD

AFAIK, monsters like Parshath and Dark Scorpions still need to survive the battle to apply their effects so Customizer won't be as effective on that regard. If you were to make your monster indestructible by that battle, it would make the Player Card much better, rivaling Spidery in effectiveness IMO.

By the way, that sketch of the Dragon Crab is so weird, and I see that sneaky Squidward masterpiece there :v

[Sleepy]

I see. If their activation conditions could be even more specific then these are great xD

AFAIK, monsters like Parshath and Dark Scorpions still need to survive the battle to apply their effects so Customizer won't be as effective on that regard. If you were to make your monster indestructible by that battle, it would make the Player Card much better, rivaling Spidery in effectiveness IMO.

By the way, that sketch of the Dragon Crab is so weird, and I see that sneaky Squidward masterpiece there :v

 

When monsters like Dark Scorpions or Parshath get their effects off, there usually isn't a card that'll prove that because that usually means in the game that they won their battle and are triggering on Damage Step/Damage Calculation, so the only things that can really hinder them at that point are negating effects. Customizer's scenario is kind of unprecedented since they are allowed to lose the battle and still trigger. Is that really how they work? That'd complicate things for me and I'd have to work on some get-around.

 

Well I guess I already made Keeper get a battle protection even though I wanted Axolotl to be the one that battle protected...... I could do it for Customizer too.

 

Forgot to reply to your comment on Tricky Crab's ATK-decreasing effect. It is meant to combo with cards like Ragna Zero. Also, if you get nuked, you are gonna prefer your opponents monsters weaker than a boost to your absent ones ;9

 

 

Gonna make a few tweaks to the OP.

[Darj]

Yeah, Customizer's effect is unprecedented, but still, those effects look like of the kind that require the monster to remain on the field to apply, but IDK for sure.
 

Forgot to reply to your comment on Tricky Crab's ATK-decreasing effect. It is meant to combo with cards like Ragna Zero. Also, if you get nuked, you are gonna prefer your opponents monsters weaker than a boost to your absent ones ;9

 
But effects that help you win are better than "to lose less" effects :v
Fair point there, weakening the opponent's monsters does have its merits. Most victims of True Draco Apocalypse surely know better xD