custom-card How to make balanced custom cards

[Surge77754]

It's not what the searcher that makes a card broken, it's what the card searches.  Just because a searcher goes +1 in card advantage, doesn't necessarily mean that it is broken in terms of making custom cards. 

 

[Surge77754]

Keep negates to 0 or 1 on the end board.  These are powerful enough to stop the opponent.  Thing is, any deck if designed correctly, can stand up to 1 negate. 

 

[Surge77754]

If your effects for your archetype are all over the place, it does not have an identity, hence one cannot figure out what your archetype wants to do.  This also causes you to not know what your archetype wants to do, hence the archetype becomes inconsistent.  

Look at Koa'ki Meiru as an exception.  They are an anti-meta deck that if built correctly, can punish players.  Here's why - Guardian is a monster negate, Wall is a Spell negate, Sandman is a Trap negate, and Overload is a Summon negate.  However, they are balanced by the fact that you'd have to reveal a Rock monster otherwise they'd destroy themselves. 

In all cases, to make your archetype have identity (a mechanic is one way to do it), try to look at some idea that was lost to history and bring it to the modern age, or invent something entirely new (as long as it's reasonable when designing your custom archetype).  

 

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Surge77754

[Surge77754]

If we look at Equip Spells, most of them aren't that good, except for the Infernoble one.  In order to resolve the equip spell you have to summon 1 monster and then equip that card to it (-2 for hand advantage, and +2 for field advantage, so the total card advantage is +0).  

 

[Surge77754]

Just because your archetype resists 1 or 2 handtraps does NOT mean it is broken.  Any archetype can resist hand traps if designed properly.

 

 

[Surge77754]

There exists a term in yugioh called Towers.  Towers in my opinion, should be kept at a rare find, because the only out to them is a Kaiju.  Towers are basically unaffected by everything.  

 

[Surge77754]

One needs to know what a cost is when designing cards (as in, the price you have to pay for that).  

[Surge77754]

Here's another scenario of balance ... wonder why you don't make an archetype of Towers? Let's explain this using card advantage - which is the total number of cards in your hand + field. 

If we look at Apoqliphort Towers (the original Towers), its Summoning condition is that you need to Tribute 3 Qli monsters to summon it.  Meaning that it is a -2 in card advantage which results in a protective monster with Gameciel being the only out.

Towers are also very annoying to play against.  It forces the opponent to get creative when they play against you.  

Edited April 3, 2023 by Surge77754

[Surge77754]

Balancing cards can be difficult but here are some tips.  

• HOPTs
• Avoid Towers
• Lock your cards to the archetype so that they don't get abused. 

[Surge77754]

Here's a food for thought regarding custom archetypes (which has a mechanic) - if you want that card in your hand, you must run 3 copies of that card.  This can be a searcher for an archetype, or anything that puts a body on your side, or things that Special Summons from the Deck.  More precisely, most players want cards in their custom archetype that they made in their hands at 3 copies.  

However, the opposite is true if a card has a niche usage.  You run less than 3 copies of that card depending on how it helps with your archetype.  

So, a breakdown as follows:

3 copies: You want this in your hand - ALWAYS.  This can include searchers, things that put a body on the board, or Special Summoning from the Deck (which is very powerful).  Starters are also included as well.  

2-3 copies: This card is somewhat useful to the mechanic of the archetype.

1-2 copies: This card somewhat helps with your archetype, but is somewhat situational.  

0-1 copies: These are the Garnets, as they are best kept in the Deck rather than your hand.  You do NOT want to see this card in your custom archetype in your hand.  

Recyclers can help you gain back what was lost in the long run.  They should be ran at 2-3 copies at best. 

And now for the Extra Deck

A pitfall that people run into when deck building is that they must run 3 copies of ED monsters, if the ED are searchers, then yes, but otherwise, this is mostly false. The Extra Deck should contain cards that help with your archetype for example, and if you have sufficient searchers and recyclers and the Extra Deck helps put an interaction/interruption, those cards should be ran at 0-1 copies, or game changers which are ran at 0-1 copies.  Think of the Extra Deck as the cards you would want in your Main Deck.

Edited December 13, 2023 by Surge77754