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[New Mechanic] Power Cards


Doigt

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The concept of Power Cards is one I've been working on for a bit and then forgot for some time until I happened to find an old folder containing the images. Now that I have more experience using editing tools and writing card effects in english, I feel confident enough to give this project another try.

 

Here's how Power Cards work:

 

You put them in the Extra Deck during deck building. To use that type of card, you have to tribute 2 face-up spell and/or trap cards of different types* to add one of the power cards from your Extra Deck to your hand. While power cards are in your hand, the power cards do not contribute to the hand size and are paradoxically treated as not being in the hand**. Also, power cards in your hand must stay revealed.

 

You can only activate 1 power card from your hand per turn and that card you activated can only be activated once per turn (if an effect grants you more than 1 activation per turn, you may still not use the same card that turn). When you activate a power card, it isn't placed in any zone on the field and stays in your hand Likewise, when a Power Card resolves, it stays in your hand, it's effect can then be reactivated on the next turn***.

 

This new type of card's effects are always spell speed 1 and as such can only be activated during your main phase 1 & 2 unless it has "(this is a quick effect)" in the card lore. In the same way, the act of adding a Power Card from the Extra Deck to hand by the normal method can only be done during those phases.

 

In brief:

 

-> Where? Face-down in your Extra Deck at the beginning of the duel. May be added to your hand. Stays revealed when in the hand.

 

-> What? Kind of like normal spell cards which activates in your hand and always stay in your hand for future activation. Does not count as being in the hand, but can still be discarded and activated from the hand.

 

-> How? By tributing two face-up Trap and/or Spell cards of different types, you can add a Power Card from your Extra Deck to your hand.

 

-> How many? You can have as many Power Cards in your hand at a same time, but you may only activate one of them per turn and that card cannot be reactivated that turn if you gain additional activations.

 

-> When? Both adding and activating are done during the Main Phase.

 

-> Other Details: Spell Speed 1. Doesn't go to grave after resolving. Activation is optional, you could have 5 of those in your hand and never activate one for the rest of the duel. They all have a discard condition which will force you to discard them.

 

* For example Spikeshield with Chain and Swords of Revealing Light are both normal types and cannot be tributed to add a Power Card to the hand, but Kozmo Town and Kozmo Lightsword are respectively a field and a equip card; despite them both being a spell card, they can be tributed to add a Power Card from the Extra Deck to the hand.

 

** Technically, you can do whatever you can that you can normally do with cards in your hand except set, summon or activate them on the field. That means you can discard them to pay for costs or for effects which doesn't affect cards in the hand. As such, they do not contribute to the hand size. A Slifer the Sky Dragon would have 0 ATK if all you had in your hand were Power Cards. This is the paradoxical treatment of power cards, they screw the rules because I have no imagination.

 

*** All power cards have a discard condition which will force you to eventually get rid of them, so it's not as if you could keep them forever.

 

Normally, I don't release fully sized templates, but I thought that some may want to play with the concept themselves and as such I have decided to release an already assembled template (I'll keep the pdn file to myself If I need to update the look). You can find that template here: https://imgur.com/a/IoV4b5U (WARNING: IT'S BIG)

 

Here's an example card, which is a remake with better wording (ugly original with incorrect lore on the right):

 

EOgWb6w.png  GuTTKs0.png

 

Card name: Hyperlinks

Card type: Power Card

Card Lore:

If you would conduct a Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum or Link Summon this
turn, you can place the would be Summoned monster(s) on a Main Monster
Zone. During your End Phase, you lose 800 LP for each monster you control
that was Summoned on a non-linked Main Monster Zone. If you do not
control a face-up monster, discard this card.

 

I'll admit, I'm not very satisfied with the font. I followed the wiki's documentation on card layout for the correct font, but apparently the informations were wrong as you can clearly see. I'll try to think of something to fix that.

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kinda thin ice to thread with

 

if the power level is to weak, its an expensive investment of 2 face-up S/T with symbols, which leaves us with Equip Spell, Continuous S/T, and Field Spell and as far as the game goes its usually preferable to keep them. also, unless you make it so it bypass the ED slot number of 15 then it also eat that slot making it even more undesirable

 

but if the power level is really high, its an "continuous" advantage that's really hard to disturb

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Can the cards be retrieved from the GY by cards that do not specify card-type?

 

Yes. But the area they are sent to depends on the wording of the card. Like all other Extra Deck cards, upon being returned to the main deck, they are returned to the Extra Deck instead. If they are added to the hand, then since they can already be added to the hand, they are added to the hand.

 

Can they be banished?

 

Yes.

 

 If they are sent from the GY from the Extra Deck and then added to the hand, can they be normally activated or must they first be "summoned" properly?

 

That's a valid question because it establishes the possibility if a novel, but alien concept; Should Power Cards, which are more akin to Spell Cards, need the same limitations as Nomi/Semi Nomi Monsters do? I suppose there should be Nomi and Semi Nomi Power Cards too. Like the very powerful ones would have such restrictions of being added to the hand properly first to activate its effect while others can be bypassed with one strategem or another.

 

kinda thin ice to thread with

 

if the power level is to weak, its an expensive investment of 2 face-up S/T with symbols, which leaves us with Equip Spell, Continuous S/T, and Field Spell and as far as the game goes its usually preferable to keep them. also, unless you make it so it bypass the ED slot number of 15 then it also eat that slot making it even more undesirable

 

but if the power level is really high, its an "continuous" advantage that's really hard to disturb

a "continuous"*

 

I believe they would take up an extra deck slot and that would help to balance them out as each Power Card used is another Extra Deck Monster not used.

 

Thank you both for raising the interesting point of balance, I thought I had covered it all, but admittedly I overlooked the part about the overall cost of using Power Cards on a deck. Mainly, losing continuous effects on the field and Extra Deck slots being occupied by non-monsters.

 

To be completely honest with you, when I first came up with the Power Card concept, I thought of increasing the Extra Deck size to 20, but I when I really thought about it, I came to the realization that the extra deck probably doesn't need to grow in size: the fact that you need to tribute face-up spells and traps of different types mean that one would likely run 3 Power Cards at most. Let's say you have a 20 card Extra Deck and that you have 10 monsters and 10 Power Cards. 10 PCs would mean having 20 cards in your deck solely for making PCs! Even if we cut down the numbers to a half, there aren't that many good cards with continuous effects which can be splashed into the same deck and apart from monsters treating themselves as spell cards, there are few spell and traps  of that kind which it would be positive to get rid of. Meanwhile, someone who doesn't want to play PCs will have to advantage of having 5 more monsters in their Extra Deck and I do think that it's a bit OP. There's a reason, after all, that the ED is capped at 15.

 

As to the cost itself, I think I can see why one would call it thin ice. As it has been said, having a card that can activated from the protection of the hand, if it has a powerful effect, can be very hard to deal with, however the steep cost means that some cards that could be designed from this could be seen as not worth it. That in itself, however, is only applicable to individual card designs and not the mechanic as a whole. My intent by setting the base mechanics like that is that these mechanics, like all other YGO mechanics, can be bypassed by the cards themselves. Some cards will be easier to add to the add, by including text like "you can add this card to the hand by doing x instead" or reducing/altering tribute costs (like allowing two cards of the same types) which we saw in some Xyz and Fusion monsters. Other cards will be hard to bring into your hand, but once you manage to have them, they have a very powerful effect. I want the mechanic of Power Cards to be a guideline on which I can base my card creation activities and not a hard set of rules; And before you say anything about the spirit of the game/rules, let me ask: when was the last time you Normal Summoned Blue-Eyes White Dragon? Same.

 

In other words, I'll try to design the Power Cards carefully, but without ignoring the flexibility of the game.

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