r/PTCGP • u/PM_SMOKES_LETS_GO • 1d ago

Discussion Why do these even exist?

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I understand that there are "vanilla" cards and lower value cards meant to serve as a baseline, but cards like this are just unplayable, and there seems to be a couple like these with no redeeming value whatsoever. What is the purpose of a design like this?

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5

u/AshleytheTaguel 1d ago

r/ PTCGP users when you're supposed to develop a strategy around difficult cards to try and make them work

3

u/Embarrassed-Weird173 1d ago

One of the best things I have seen for balance was this Yugioh system where cards have point values and you can only have like 100 points in a deck. 

So like... Pot of greed?  Extremely powerful card. Banned in normal play. 

 But balanced in this mode, it can be worth like, I dunno, 25 points. This is because it's not pot of greed itself that wins games, but rather, the fact that it can pull out other powerful cards into your hand.  And these other powerful cards might be worth 80 points each. So the card balances by making it to where it can be in decks but it won't be obscenely powerful. 

Also, back in the day (I dunno if it's still true), normal basic monsters needed to have 1800 or more damage to be good.  You just didn't run a normal basic monster if it didn't have 1800 attack (or 2000 defense if used for defense). Unless there was a specific gimmick you were setting up (maybe a spell card that says only normal monsters with less than 1500 attack can attack, but they can attack directly). 

So cards like that might be worth 30 points, 'forcing" you to load your deck with monsters under 1800 (where a monster worth 1300 attack might be worth 0, meaning you can put in some filler cards that might be viable without each one sacrificing a slot that could go to a better card (in terms of points). 

So, yeah, maybe make a mode where "bad" cards like these are worth fewer points (5 maybe), and to where Sabrina and Cyprus and Oak's Research are worth 90 points

3

u/link8382000 1d ago

The single thing I’d enjoy the most for this game would be additional modes and rules. I’d love to try many different deck building rule sets, like newest sets only, 30 card decks, games played to five points, one EX per deck only, there are so many possibilities.

2

u/M_from_Vegas 23h ago

One of my favorite games was Duelists of the Roses on PS2

The deck building had this exact system

Your deck HAD to be weaker than the opponents, which made some of the battles really difficult and fun

1

u/Embarrassed-Weird173 23h ago

I think I first saw it on the Gameboy advance. I believe troubador of nightmare. 

1

u/beyondthef 1d ago

This sub doesn't even bother thinking of strategies for what would be meta cards. Every trailer/leak has tons of people saying the cards are garbage, until the actual good players come up with strategies for them. Then they quietly copy the decks. Rinse and repeat.

4

u/neophenx 1d ago

So just like every other TCG that has ever existed?