Personally, I think best of all time is the Shields system from Duel Master.

Each player puts five cards from the top of their deck face-down at the start of their game; these are their Shields. Whenever a player takes damage, one of their Shields breaks and goes into their hand. Many cards would have “Shield Trigger” effects that would allow them to be played after entering your hand this way. Some, such as Holy Awe, could turn the tide of the match.

HOLY AWE//Shield Trigger(When this spell is put into your hand from your shield zone, you may cast it for no cost.)//Tap all your opponent's creatures in the battle zone.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    51·
    4 days ago

    I can think of a lot of mechanisms that I like, but I can’t think of anything that really “stands alone”. I mean, I think that good games that involve trying to exploit mechanisms like TCGs, cardbuilders, and most roguelikes also involve trying to make use of the synergy between different mechanisms, so how well a mechanism works is heavily dependent upon how the rest of the game interacts with it.