[Card Mechanic] Player Cards

[Sleepy]

Player Cards is a new card mechanic I've been developing for a long time. 

Special thanks to Darj and Armz for helping me complete it. You are awesome guys~

 

[spoiler=What are Player Cards?]

Player Cards are Lime Green color coded cards that you can call out throughout the game to help you up. They carry their own sets of LP and Extra Deck cards, but at a much smaller scale. They also come with a variety of effects you can take advantage of on demand.

 

Player Cards are not considered to be Spell, Trap, or Monster Cards, and do not belong to the Main Deck or Extra Deck. Instead, they have their own 5 Player Zones located behind your field (each behind a Spell & Trap Zone respectively). Player Zones are not considered "on the field".

 

Following the above point, you start the game with all your Player Cards in play, and they can never leave their respective zones. However, they cannot do anything until you breath life into them as the game progresses. Throughout the game they'll be able to be turned on and off (sort of speak) to make use of their perks and effects.

 

[spoiler=Points Information]

Each Player Card contains multiple sets of points to account for.

 

LP/ Just like you, Player Cards have their own set of LP. Player Cards are considered Active as long as their LP is not 0. Unlike your main LP, a Player Card's LP is the max amount of LP it can have (this is mainly a safety measure against LP loops).

 

★/ This is a bonus stat that we'll properly explain later on.

 

Capacity, or the max amount of Extra Deck cards it can carry. Like we said earlier, Player Cards have their own mini-Extra Deck, which is place face-down under the Player Card.

This is treated as a separate Extra Deck and can also be the destination of Pendulum Monsters and cards that return to the Extra Deck by any means. However, you can only access these cards while your Player Card has LP.

 

Extra Deck, Stands for your main and regular 15 card Extra Deck. In exchange for carrying some Extra Deck cards for you, Player Cards also reduce the inherent limit of your regular 15 card Extra Deck.

All Player Cards you are running must have a total of 15 or less Extra Deck stat combined, because your regular Extra Deck can't be reduced beyond -15 cards.

 

[spoiler=Activating Player Cards]

Player Cards do not officially "Activate" since they are in play from the beginning of the game. However, they have what I'll call Active (up) and Inactive (sideways) positions.

 

At the beginning of the Duel, all Player Cards are inactive, and while inactive, you cannot use their effects, access their Extra Deck, take advantage of any counters they might have stored up for you, or shield you in any way.

 

When an effect causes you to gain LP, right after your main LP increases, you are given the choice to transfer your LP to a single inactive Player Card, filling up the amount required in their LP points and making it active. This action does not start a chain. In addition, you cannot change multiple Player Cards to "active" with a single LP gain effect. Basically it is +1 LP gain = +1 Active Player Card.

 

You cannot make Player Cards the direct targets for LP gain effects.

 

[spoiler=Damage]

When receiving damage, Player Cards react differently depending on if it is battle damage or effect damage that is dealt.

 

When a monster is inflicting battle damage to you, you get to select either your main LP or the LP of an Active Player Card you currently have. That will be where all that damage is inflicted. 

 

As opposed to how battle damage works, when you are the one inflicting the effect damage, you get to choose between Player Cards or main LP of whoever the Duelist taking effect damage is.

 

For both scenarios, even if the damage goes overboard (example: Inflicting 10,000 damage to a Player Card with 100 LP left), the damage will just hit them like they are a separate player, so they make for relatively effective shields.

 

[spoiler=Star Player Mode ( ★ )]
Returning to the ★/ points from earlier in this thread.
When you gain LP, instead of activating an Inactive Player Card, you have a second choice of selecting an already active Player Card and transferring your LP towards it again. Only this time, you have to transfer an amount equal to the ★/ points (instead of the LP/ ones). This will turn that Player Card into a "Star Player Card".

You can only do this to a card that is not yet a Star Player Card.

 

A Star Player Card's max LP is now increased by the ★/ points.

Example: A player card with ( LP/ 1000   ★/800 ) now will have a max LP of 800.

 

A Star Player Card can now unlock its ★ Effect in addition to its regular effect.

You can only own 1 Star Player Card at a time. You can repeat this process to turn a different Player Card into a Star Player Card, but doing that will cause the previous one to revert to its regular form, and lose any excess LP (if any) that goes over its regular max LP limit.

 

[spoiler=Responding effects]

Star Players's effects are not treated as Spell, Trap, or Monster Effects.

However, they can be still responded to by effects that do not need to distinguish the type of card being countered (example: Stardust Dragon only requires that an effect of any kind "destroys").

Player Cards can be responded to and have their effects countered, but any additional effects such as "negate and destroy" will fail to remove them from their Zone or flip them.

 

 

Sample Card:

Whirl Sauroddon

Ex/ -2    Cap/ +3    LP/ 800    ★/ 600

If a monster(s) you control is destroyed: Draw 1 card. You can only activate this effect of "Whirl Sauroddon" once per turn.

★Once per turn: You can target 1 Token on the field; Special Summon 1 Token with the same name, Type, Attribute, Level, ATK, and DEF.

 

 

 

 

Thoughts/Comments/Suggestions appreciated and encouraged~

[Dova]

Is there any advantage to putting Extra Deck cards under these cards?

[Sleepy]

Is there any advantage to putting Extra Deck cards under these cards?

 

It has a few uses:

-Cards that directly kill a player's Extra Deck will have a harder time if said Extra Deck is spread out among different players.

 

-Decks like Monarchs that typically have effects that demand 0 Extra Deck can fake-out that condition by having them in inactive Player Cards instead that the regular Extra Deck.

 

-Typically, Player Cards carry more Extra Deck than what they reduce from the regular one. For example, the sample card I posted negs your 15 card Extra Deck down to 13, but since it carries 3 for you, you pretty much have a 16 card Extra Deck now. Those values will vary from card to card, but your overall Extra Deck can go 20+, but at the cost of going through this mechanic.

[Dova]

-Decks like Monarchs that typically have effects that demand 0 Extra Deck can fake-out that condition by having them in inactive Player Cards instead that the regular Extra Deck.

This is what worries me. Absolutely no downside for Monarchs. As if they needed a boost...

 

Otherwise, I quite like. Rather unique and interesting!

[Sleepy]

This is what worries me. Absolutely no downside for Monarchs. As if they needed a boost...

 

Otherwise, I quite like. Rather unique and interesting!

 

They technically need to run effects that gain LP, which over time wouldn't be much of a downside, but currently might be.

They got a step closer to become best deck practically today with that emergency banlist from Konami, and I had been working on this mechanic's concept for a couple years now so I just had really REALLY bad timing to end up supporting our new overlords xD

To be fair, details about the "no Extra Deck" scenario are subject to change if it ends up being too harmful. I might end up adding that detail saying no Player Cards of yours can carry any Extra Deck with them for the "no Extra Deck" conditions to work, but I think I need more opinions on the matter.

 

Thanks~

 

 

[NitroX]

very interesting and refreshing new mechanic

[Sleepy]

very interesting and refreshing new mechanic

 

Thank you =3

The three of us that are working on it are actually still editing some details about the mechanic, so some things like the names of stats and whatnot are subject to change, but the mechanic itself is pretty much done.

 

Also, I am trying to incorporate it in a fanfic/comic, at the very least in something short like a duel that showcases the mechanic.

[NitroX]

only thing that worries me is field overcrowding lol but nonetheless impressed