I'm leaning more and more towards a strict cap on the max size of a deck, as I would want to use the can't-draw-new-card-due-to-deck-is-empty as a lose-condition. My reason is that I want to create a sense of "urgency" and that every card that is somehow removed from your deck brings you closer to your demise.
This is of course also in contrast to the fact that most players will want to have as many cards as possible in their hand and get to the goodies as fast as possible in their decks, creating a slight dilemma. In addition it also relates to pace of decks - suddenly there are real risks playing a very cheap deck that mills through your cards.
Strengthening
Idea
A random idea that I got just now... two ways of implementing it, but with somewhat different results:
Every creature that has a faction belonging (most will have) can get +1 ATK or +1 DEF until end of turn for each card the player discards from hand that a) belongs to the same faction and b) has a loyalty requirement greater than 0.
Example
Let's look at an example to make this understandable. Say we are in combat with our Merman Brawler (I love that critter and graphics).
While being in combat with him, we have a bunch of cards in our hand, among them we have this one:
Since they both a) share faction and are Gaian, and b) the Longing for Peace has a loyalty requirement, we may discard Longing for Peace from hand and choose to give +1 ATK or +1 DEF to Merfolk Brawler, until end of turn.
However, when this happens the Merman Brawlers own loyalty requirement will rise with +1, changing it from it's default 0 to 1, until end of turn.
Strengthening may be repeated any number of times, but due to a player never being able to control creatures or play other cards that have a loyalty greater than what his/her hero brings to the game, it will never result in a creature being strenghtened more than 3 times the most during the one and the same turn (since it's loyalty requirement will hit 3 by the third time it is strengthened).
As seen, all of this also entails that a creature with a loyalty requirement of 3 can not be strengthened, while a creature with the requirement of 2 can be strengthened once, and one of requirement 1 can be strengthened twice, and lasty we have the exact same case as with our merfolk braweler - a creature with loyalty requirement 0 can be strengthened up to 3 times.
is this cool?
Or rather, "what does this bring that isn't here already?". I'm not sure. At least I know one thing - it doesn't add yet another variable. We use one that already exists, but just double it's relevance, and while that on it's own can't be seen as "good" it at least is almost certain it isn't bad.
Question remains though - what does this bring? I can think of the following:
- Somewhat more opportunities to bluff an opponent and to have to guess if you are being bluffed, which relates to the next:
- A reason to try to hold onto more cards in hand instead of playing them directly, be it because they have loyalty requirements and can be used as strengthening or because they can be used to bliff opponent. This creates tension between two opposing interests the player has: Play as many cards as fast as possible to maximize as much economy as possible versus holding on to cards for future combat.
- In any situation a player thinks about using a card as strengthening he/she also has to make a choice: Should he/she use the card now and discard it to win the combat, or should he/she stick to it? In relation to this:
- A tension arises between playing the most faction oriented cards in your deck, versus using them as strengthening.
- Hero choice will have even larger impact on deck building - heroes that bring low loyalty to the game will result in decks that can not be strengthened as much as more loyal heroes. This speaks for mono-heroes, belonging to just one faction and with high loyalty, but, when you choose such a hero you also forfeit your chances to include cards from other factions in your deck. Compare playing with a hero that gives 3 gaian loyalty with one that gives 2 Gaian loyalty and 1 Red Banner loyalty.
- A strenghtening system like this seems to push the game towards more mixed decks loyalty wise, resulting in fewer decks that are loyalty-reqirement-zero or loyalty-requirement-three. Then again, in what way is that good?