So I was talking about SotM the other day, and specifically about Expat. Don't worry this isn't about her, she was just an inspiration. Anyway I was saying that she could play up to three cards a turn in the right situation but you didn't have any way to get cards back into your hand. As I was talking about it I also thought about the couple heros that have mechanics based on getting lots of draw like NM, Scholar, and Haka and I had a thought:
I wonder if it would be fun at all to have a hero whose deck was themed around not having cards in hand. For example you could have a power that would do 5 damage -1 for each card in your hand. The base power might be able to play a card like Expat, so eventually you could be in the situation where you played down to zero, used your power, and then drew one card. Essentially you would have no cards in hand when resolving your effects. You wouldn't have much choice for playing cards at that point, so I think the character would need a lot of ongoings or equipment that game more options. Maybe you have a card that lets you skip your own draw phase and another hero gets to draw or something wacky like that.
What I think would be really interesting is how the deck is designed to handle limited hand options. It reminds me of the old Squadron Supreme deck for any of you that played Vs. The were a team based on having no cards in hand but had several cards that would say things like "Discard a character, return a different character from your discard pile to your hand" so that you could still get the guys you needed at the appropriet time.
Anyway, just a random idea. I guess its hard to give any opinion without know how that deck would flesh out, but what do you think?
It could be interesting, esp. if you had cards that activated by discarding cards.
Like how nightmist can discard to reflect damage, and you could have ones that bost or protect others, all kinds of stuff, and your damage would be based on not having cards.
So you would walk a balance between having cards to discard for cool effects, and getting your hand to zero for damage. It could be cool
There are M:tG decks themed around cards which are more powerful when you have no cards in your hand, and I've always found them more boring, all because you don't have many cards in your hand. Lack of cards = lack of fun options turn-to-turn, I've found, and games where you draw then play that card then go back to having no options aren't super exciting.
Immediately playing the card you draw sounds like a villian deck which basically plays itself, but I like the creativity. Maybe you could be trying to keep certain cards in hand, like collecting pieces of something which ultimately gives you a large advantage, but at the same time having a zero card hand would be doing the most damage. It would force you to make a choice about if it was really worth waiting for that last card, while you sit with a bloated hand doing minimal damage.
The most famous MtG card I can think of that wants as few cards in hand as possible is Cursed Scroll from Tempest. I stopped playing MtG around 2003-2004, so I don't know of more recent cards.
GtG might already have something like this in mind for a future hero/villain.
Probably want to move this thread to another area.
having no cards in hand is not a bad design. Having no decision in your turn is a boring one.
So something like at the end of turn, get X bonus/penalty if you have less than Y cards in hand and/or at the start of your turn, if you have less than X cards in hand, draw Y cards can be fun. During your turn you take the decision of what you want to do and how many cards you want left in hand.
you're thinking of Hellbent, whre teh object in question got a boost if your hand was empty. And for a hero like this to work, I would suggest a combination of having Ongoings and Equips that do something while on the table but do more things while Hellbent (MTG slang sorry!) and/or allow more draws. Becuse if you need fuel for discards and to get that fuel you need to draw them.
Cursed Scroll wants you to have exactly one card (or multiple copies of one card) in hand, but I think even back in the day there was at least one card that rewarded you for having a completely empty hand, though I can't recall what it was. Around 2004, they made an entire mechanic for red-black decks called Hellbent, which has already been mentioned. That was more fun than it sounds, though not by a lot.