Martial art combat card game

the simplest tip for eliminating the "best card" problem is to not make a "best card". If you use a Scissors/Paper/Stone relationship between the various cards then you eliminate the situation of a "Best Card".

Take for example these three moves:
Leg Sweep
Forward Kick
Stomp

In this the Leg Sweep could beat the Forward Kick, The Forward Kick could beat the Stomp and the Stomp could beat the Leg Sweep. In this system, ther is no best move (card) that could be played.

Now this would probably be too simple for a card game and you could use a more complex one (like a 5 or 7 type instead of 3).

You could have each type as a style (Monkey Style, Tiger Style, etc) rather than a specific move (which would be the specific card). And then you could have each move also fit into a S/P/R relationship.

Example
(this might get complext to describe so bare with me)

There are 5 styles: A, B, C, D, E
A beats B and C
B beats C and D
C beats D and E
D beats E and A
E beats A and B
Beating does not nessesarily mean 100% victory, it might just be a reduction in the damage inflicted or some other effect that gives a net advantage to the player who wins.

There are 5 Moves in each style, giving a base number of cards as 25 without considdereing any thing like power levels or other uses for the cards.
The 5 moves are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
1 beats 2 and 3
2 beats 3 and 4
3 beats 4 and 5
4 beats 5 and 1
5 beats 1 and 2
Again, beating does not nessesarily mean a 100% victory.

For a simple system you could have a victory allow a defending player to reduce the power level of the attacker's card, by the defender's card's power level (half for single victories and full for double victories).

You could have special effects that are activated when a card can achieve 1 of the victories and another effect that can be triggered on 2 victories (this will allow up to 3 effects for each card).

I hope this can give some inspiration.

allow these strategies to be in your game:

1. overwhelm & attack the target (need lots of powerful cards, by
far not the most efficient or skilled method)

2. defend and make your opponent deplete their energy & or attacks,
THEN destroy a much weaker opponent (trying to beat him when
they were fresh is too inefficient)

3. flow with go :)
very advanced, you make minor adjustments so that you attack whatever
weakness is presented right their on the spot to defeat your opponent
in the most efficient of ways.
You may have a best move, but it maybe your opponents favorite move
to counter.

4. Your Home
you set a trap, do everything you can to make them fall into it.
usually a very specific game, so if your taken out of your elements
then you have no chance of winning.

one of the things I've noticed about Mortal Kombat & Street Fighter
is the ability to trap your opponent.

This happens in real life combat as well. You can set traps.

You mentioned a hidden card. perhaps that can also be a trap.
But you can only choose or have 1.
They may choose a counter trap card based on your character.

In Street Fighter an example of a trap would be, let's say
when using Ryu or Ken,
you throw fireballs and when they jump your trap is the
super uppercut. You were waiting for them to jump. This works well
when they are in the corner.

Another example is Dhalsim,
he hits you from afar with his long extending punches,
when you jump up he does the Yoga flame, or headbutt and then
throw you.

In your game let's say certain requirements need to be met,
for example, let's say you have a magical fire saw that can
be summoned from the ground, you can only do it if your
crouching down, enemy is jumping towards you from medium range
then they will fall into it.

fighting video game CCG?

it looks cool.

you said you didn't want to involve pen & paper
so no character creation details,

however to let a player customize their own character is a
good feeling to add to the game.

let's say you are using Ken from Street Fighter,
you can have all the Ken specific cards if you want,
Fireball, Super Uppercut, Hurricane Spin Kick, etc.
all of his trade mark moves that nobody else can use.
(the way Ken does his moves are a lil different than Ryu, Akuma,
or anyone else)

but it would be cool to get the same cards where the
illustration is blacked out so you only see the shadow of the
move, and it can be used by anybody.
so if I give this card to my big wrestler Zangief, he now has
a Ken style fireball. (maybe he learned it from Ken)
these should be rare cards.

that made me think of a hard core street fighter card game.
basically, you have
a character card. SF 1 Ryu for example, on the card it lists his
moves and how to do it. fireball = down, diagonal towards, towards
and punch simultaneously.
so when your fighting, you probably want to have a "back"
card most of the time, because back = block in street fighter
when you begin the fire ball command and put down a
down card, you are in jeopardy until the next turn.