When to draw?

[Ironsmith]

So, it's an aspect of most card games I haven't given much thought before, but in working on this side project of mine, I had an idea that might shift the meta of the game some. Instead of drawing to start your turn, you draw to end it. The purpose of this is to accelerate the game's pacing a bit, as well as reduce emphasis on new cards; if you draw to end your turn, then you know all throughout your opponent's turn what resources you're going to have when yours comes around, which gives you time to plan while they're executing their play. The net flow of the cards will still be more or less the same (one new card per turn unless otherwise specified) and, since the drawing still terminates the turn, the actual structure of play remains more or less intact. It may also help reduce the possibility of cheating, since it's a definitive signal for the players to look for that the turn prior to theirs just ended, as opposed to some vague declaration (which can and have led to double-draws in some cases).

At least, that's the theory. I'm worried some that the sudden change in convention might turn off newcomers or cause disorientation just by nature of not being the standard, or that there might be some other factor I'm not considering, which the original standard was meant to address but this would not. Something along those lines. Thoughts?

[The_Admiral]

Have you played Keyforge yet? It should have some ideas that's relate to what you're pitching.

[Ironsmith]

Never even heard of it.

[The_Admiral]

It's a collectible deck game with the draw at end of turn mechanic.

[spectralphoenix]

I'd think there would be a big risk of making discard effects too powerful. In Magic, you always have a chance to play a card before your opponent can make you discard it. If your opponent had a chance to force a discard before you could ever cast anything, he could shut down your entire deck.

[Olinser]

So, it's an aspect of most card games I haven't given much thought before, but in working on this side project of mine, I had an idea that might shift the meta of the game some. Instead of drawing to start your turn, you draw to end it. The purpose of this is to accelerate the game's pacing a bit, as well as reduce emphasis on new cards; if you draw to end your turn, then you know all throughout your opponent's turn what resources you're going to have when yours comes around, which gives you time to plan while they're executing their play. The net flow of the cards will still be more or less the same (one new card per turn unless otherwise specified) and, since the drawing still terminates the turn, the actual structure of play remains more or less intact. It may also help reduce the possibility of cheating, since it's a definitive signal for the players to look for that the turn prior to theirs just ended, as opposed to some vague declaration (which can and have led to double-draws in some cases).

At least, that's the theory. I'm worried some that the sudden change in convention might turn off newcomers or cause disorientation just by nature of not being the standard, or that there might be some other factor I'm not considering, which the original standard was meant to address but this would not. Something along those lines. Thoughts?

It would probably be a bad idea. I don't know the particular mechanics you are planning to implement, but if you can play any kind of spell/interrupt/instant during your opponent's turn, drawing at the end of the turn in general would give an even more significant advantage to the player that goes first, because you are always playing with 1 more card than your opponent during his first turn. You draw at the end of turn 1, and then go +1 on cards. You are +1 on cards through his whole turn, and will always play his turns with you +1 on cards. As opposed to the current system, where you are +1 in your own turn, but neutral during your opponent's first turn. Any kind of card milling or discard effects could make this advantage insurmountable, as if you force your opponent to constantly discard cards he can never be in a place to actually play them.

It can also leave a significant amount of strategy and anticipation out of the game. i.e. when you know what is in your hand, you know how many resources you have to leave available for any kind of instants/interrupts that you have, and a sufficiently knowledgeable opponent will anticipate that based on the resources you left unused.

Drawing at the end of the turn will turn the game into a topdecking nightmare, as you don't know what actual resources you have to counter your opponent's moves until your turn is over, and makes it much less a game of appropriately using resources and leaving yourself reserves to counter your opponent, and more a game of 'use everything and maybe leave resources open in case I get lucky on the draw'.

Draw at the beginning of the turn is pretty standard for a reason - it lets you examine all resources you have for the turn and use them efficiently. Putting the draw at the end of the turn adds huge RNG element as you are using your resources BEFORE knowing all of your cards available. The only way to avoid that would be to have a game where nothing can be played during an opponent's turn.

[Ironsmith]

I'd think there would be a big risk of making discard effects too powerful. In Magic, you always have a chance to play a card before your opponent can make you discard it. If your opponent had a chance to force a discard before you could ever cast anything, he could shut down your entire deck.

Thankfully, that could theoretically be counterbalanced by treating discard effects as just being that powerful. The ability to nuke your opponent's hand shouldn't be something you can do lightly, yeah?

It would probably be a bad idea. I don't know the particular mechanics you are planning to implement, but if you can play any kind of spell/interrupt/instant during your opponent's turn, drawing at the end of the turn in general would give an even more significant advantage to the player that goes first, because you are always playing with 1 more card than your opponent during his first turn. You draw at the end of turn 1, and then go +1 on cards. You are +1 on cards through his whole turn, and will always play his turns with you +1 on cards. As opposed to the current system, where you are +1 in your own turn, but neutral during your opponent's first turn. Any kind of card milling or discard effects could make this advantage insurmountable, as if you force your opponent to constantly discard cards he can never be in a place to actually play them.

It can also leave a significant amount of strategy and anticipation out of the game. i.e. when you know what is in your hand, you know how many resources you have to leave available for any kind of instants/interrupts that you have, and a sufficiently knowledgeable opponent will anticipate that based on the resources you left unused.

Drawing at the end of the turn will turn the game into a topdecking nightmare, as you don't know what actual resources you have to counter your opponent's moves until your turn is over, and makes it much less a game of appropriately using resources and leaving yourself reserves to counter your opponent, and more a game of 'use everything and maybe leave resources open in case I get lucky on the draw'.

Draw at the beginning of the turn is pretty standard for a reason - it lets you examine all resources you have for the turn and use them efficiently. Putting the draw at the end of the turn adds huge RNG element as you are using your resources BEFORE knowing all of your cards available. The only way to avoid that would be to have a game where nothing can be played during an opponent's turn.

First, I feel I should preface what follows by saying that I don't intend to include interrupts. As entertaining as it can be to pull a rabbit out of your hat during your opponent's turn, they're incredibly annoying to play against in most contexts. Sure, Magic lets you anticipate the use of an Instant by the fact that your opponent mysteriously left a small vein of untapped mana, and Yu-Gi-Oh can clue you into the fact that your opponent set a Trap by making the fact that there's a trap clearly observable on the field, but even then, said interrupt could be in response to anything you do and additionally do just about anything (you would only be able to say otherwise if you had a sufficiently extensive knowledge of the particulars of the cards in this particular game); anticipation doesn't help if you can't use it to plan your moves effectively.

...Actually, given how much of the above relies on the existence of interrupts to begin with, there's not actually much to say after that preface... only that, again, discards would have to be treated as powerful effects.

[Blindfolded Ape]

The one game I can think of at the moment that does this is Sentinels of the Multiverse. It's co-op against a deck that plays itself, but the creators have stated that they put card draw at the end of the turn in order to speed things up, citing that anything you draw at the start of your turn hasn't been factored into your plan for the turn. They also put a mechanic in where if you do nothing else on your turn (no playing cards or activating them, though any passive/triggered effects are fine) you get to draw an extra card

[The Glyphstone]

Exploding Kitten has you draw at the end of your turn. Then again, drawing in that game is a bad thing, so it might not count. It's also not collectible.

[Gray Mage]

I don't think this is as big of a chance as you do. If the player can't play cards on opponent's turns I think it'd be virtually the same. Often enough any plan of what cards to use will chance based on the opponent's actions so thinking ahead is limited and being able to cycle or have card advantage due to extra draws will always put emphasis on getting new cards. Gameplay-wise I think it'd be similar as both players always playing with 1 card less than if the draw went first (also, often enough the second player being able to draw first is part of the advantage/balance for acting late, which would be mitigated by drawing at the end step). If anything it'd make drawing effects be better and more sought after.

It would probably be a bad idea. I don't know the particular mechanics you are planning to implement, but if you can play any kind of spell/interrupt/instant during your opponent's turn, drawing at the end of the turn in general would give an even more significant advantage to the player that goes first, because you are always playing with 1 more card than your opponent during his first turn. You draw at the end of turn 1, and then go +1 on cards. You are +1 on cards through his whole turn, and will always play his turns with you +1 on cards. As opposed to the current system, where you are +1 in your own turn, but neutral during your opponent's first turn. Any kind of card milling or discard effects could make this advantage insurmountable, as if you force your opponent to constantly discard cards he can never be in a place to actually play them.

Most card games have the player playing first not being able to naturally draw during his first turn, I don't see why wouldn't this one be able to do this as well.

[Erloas]

Dominion has you draw your cards at the end of the turn and like 95% of card games that aren't based on MTG are based on Dominion, so yeah, drawing at the end of the turn isn't that hard to work into a design.

Changing the draw time for an existing game could have all sorts of weird issues, but if you're designing a game you just make sure you don't make any cards that would be a huge problem with where you placed your draw step.

[Man_Over_Game]

From what I've read, summarized: If what you draw is relevant with what your opponent does in the following turn, then drawing at the end of your turn is a big deal.

If what you draw isn't relevant, then there's little reason not to draw at the end of your turn, as it speeds up the game.

Making interrupts weaker, discard effects more expensive, will make opponent interaction off-turn less relevant (and so having end-of-turn draw have less of an impact).

Star Realms, a Deck-builder card game, has no interrupt effects and few discard effects, so drawing at the end of the turn has little negative impact. On the flipside, though, you can plan out your turns. An experienced table that knows how to plan out their turn ahead of time can get through 5+ card draws per player, with 4+ players, in a minute.

When me and my wife play against each other, an average round might take 20 seconds. Drawing your cards takes longer than actually playing out your turn.

[Kaptin Keen]

I've played .. a couple of CCG's. Magic, Hearthstone, Faeria, um, I'm sure there's more, but right now nothing comes to mind.

It feels somewhat universal that what you want is to get a draw-engine going. You have certain key cards in your deck, and you want to get to them, preferable sooner than your opponent get's to his key cards.

Is there a game out there with a mechanic to counter this? Such as, maybe, your cards get better the longer you hold them, or maybe there is a cost to drawing.

[Man_Over_Game]

I've played .. a couple of CCG's. Magic, Hearthstone, Faeria, um, I'm sure there's more, but right now nothing comes to mind.

It feels somewhat universal that what you want is to get a draw-engine going. You have certain key cards in your deck, and you want to get to them, preferable sooner than your opponent get's to his key cards.

Is there a game out there with a mechanic to counter this? Such as, maybe, your cards get better the longer you hold them, or maybe there is a cost to drawing.

Mill decks are a common solution to this. Using MtG as an example, there are blue cards that have you draw cards proportionally to the cards your opponent draws. I play Elder Scrolls: Legends and there's a card that lets you draw a number of cards equal to the number of cards your opponent drew this turn.

You could also implement some kind of "tax" effect, where the player with the least amount of cards in hand can draw an extra card.

A really obscure way of doing things is making card draw really easy to get, but have your vulnerability equal to the number of cards in your hand, potentially using some kind of dice roll. For example, when you attack a player, you roll 1d10, and you deal damage if your roll is equal or less than the number of cards in their hand. So having a full hand makes you powerful, but also really easy to take down. In this way, your hand size represents how aggressive/defensive you are.

There are a number of card games that have some kind of benefit to hold onto cards in your hand, where cards receive upgrades over time. Hearthstone is one good example, especially for Paladins during their gang-war set. They'd play a creature that enhanced all of the creature cards in their hand and hit mid-game with some overpowered monsters.

MtG also have Werewolves, which require a bit of finesse determining when to cast spells and when to hold back. It might be in the Werewolf player's benefit to not play a card for a turn, in order for the Werewolf to transform.

[Glimbur]

Dominion has you draw your cards at the end of the turn and like 95% of card games that aren't based on MTG are based on Dominion, so yeah, drawing at the end of the turn isn't that hard to work into a design.

Changing the draw time for an existing game could have all sorts of weird issues, but if you're designing a game you just make sure you don't make any cards that would be a huge problem with where you placed your draw step.

Dominion is set up to make this work, partially becauae it is difficult to make your opponent discard and almost always they get to pick what to discard and there is a limit to how hard you can hit them. Torturer can drop them to 0 cards hut they can choose to gain a bad card instead of discarding and pillage lets the attacker choose what to disciard but it trashes itself when you play it.

Discarding is not always bad in dominion because you do not lose when your deck runs out, unlike MtG. You just reshuffle and keep going, like uno.