Design Philosophy

I've been designing games since I was in middle school 30 years ago, mostly as a hobby. I've also been playing TCGs for just as long. With decades of tournament experience under my belt, and having seen several TCGs go through major revisions over time, I have a finger on the pulse of what makes them work and what doesn't.

Building a TCG is a delicate balance between variability and consistency. A player only gets so many cards in their starting hand, and from there is dependent upon their deck to provide answers (or dead draws). For the game to be fun, each player needs to feel like they at least have a chance. To do that means eliminating just enough of the randomness to provide consistent gameplay with variable interactions.

In Battle for Cordragia players use 60 card decks with 8 card starting hands. Each player gets a free "mulligan" where they get to choose up to 3 of those cards in their hand and put them on the bottom of their deck, then draw that many cards. This gives players 11 looks at their deck, giving a 98% chance of drawing at least 2 resource cards in a deck with 24 resources. But we don't want decks to be too consistent, so we cap many card types at only 3 per deck, ensuring that players don't always draw what they need. Some card types, such as Missions, we allow 8 per deck (more below) to ensure that players who want to build around those cards draw them.

Needless to say, not drawing enough resources is a major source of frustration in some TCGs. The opposite problem is equally as frustrating - drawing too many resources. In Battle for Cordragia, we address this by making the most basic resource, the Army, a card that can also be a victory condition. Armies tap for resources, but they can also attack and defend. But (and there is definitely a but) - the attack and defend abilities of Armies require that you pay resources to use them. So they aren't free value, but in the event that you flood on resources they become more useful.

Battle for Cordragia brings sensical boundaries to gameplay that other TCGs lack. For example, if a player draws all of the cards in their deck, they don't take damage or instantly lose. They just don't draw any more cards, which, if you think about it, is almost certainly going to end in a loss for that player. But it doesn't always. Now, in the case that both players draw out of their deck, in order to avoid a stalemate we say at that point the game is a tie.

Another example of a sensical boundary is "Max Health." Player (and unit) health is capped at a maximum that cannot be exceeded unless some card says so. There is no "gain 10 health" card that will instantly put one player way ahead of where they started. So careful is the game about health, that we promise (steadfastly) to avoid introducing some kind of scaling heal (such as heal 1 point of damage for each damage dealt). This type of mechanic really warps the power level of cards such that many cards become unplayable as a result.

In accordance with having sensible Health and Max Health, in Battle for Cordragia damage doesn't instantly disappear out of thin air (a sin for which many TCGs are unrepentant). When a leader in play is damaged - the damage stays on the leader. Now, there is a healing phase at the end of every turn such that some healing occurs, but it is a slow process to bring a leader back to full health unless resources are spent (e.g. deploying and using a Healing Potion). This helps to linearize the power level of more expensive leaders. Consider TCGs where damage evaporates at the end of turn - a 4 attack/4 health card can eat a 3 attack/3 health card with no repercussions, representing a greater than linear power increase for what is often a linear resource cost increase.

Leaders can also attack other leaders (not just players), leading to games where establishing board control feels powerful. That said, there are also options for decks to punch through powerful board states, such as Fiery Revolution which voids all leaders. Counter to this, some of the most powerful leaders in Battle for Cordragia come into play with an immunity counter to give them resilience. Simply waiting for your opponent to overextend into your board wipes will not always work.

Add to this that not all Leaders can attack or defend by default. Many Leaders require attack or defense costs to be paid, which allows for powerful card design while still maintaining counterplay options. For example, Yraba, Mind Channeler has a devastating ability that leaves its controller prone to attack because it cannot actually defend unless the controller pays 5. This makes it a very strong option to finish games where the controller has dominated the board, but less powerful in cases where that board dominance doesn't exist.

There are some TCG players that find standard game modes boring. Rather than win through combat, they want to utilize powerful combos or alternate win conditions. In Battle for Cordragia, missions serve this role.

Missions can either augment a player's strategy or allow them to play an entirely different game. The deckbuilding rules allow for a player to play up to 8 copies of a single mission, meaning that you can build a deck around cards like Poison the World and reliably draw it.

A card like Poison the World gives you a different victory path at the expense of having to pay for the Mission and the expense of drawing unwanted copies. Missions can be removed by cards like Abort Mission, adding a specific element of counterplay to these strategies. The design philosophy around Missions is to keep counterplay cards such as these limited in scope so that they're brought in from sideboards as a powerful answer, rather than a mainboard option. It should also be noted that alternative win missions such as Poison the World can be stopped via regular gameplay with ease.

Many other missions provide a powerful effect for cheap with an added delay. These can be powerful if played early or devastatingly bad if played late. Decks that play these cards can punish control decks by overwhelming them late, or even aggressive decks if they stumble, but fall prey to effective aggressive starts.