I won't lie, I love CCGs (or any game that holds a similar playing style, even if it is not collectible). So when I decided to play around with some CCG game design ideas, an idea struck me, but I have no idea how to make this actually work. Or, rather, if it will work for that matter. So I am looking for some ideas or suggestions here.
First, I want to have a deck design strategy, as most every ccg does. Basically players would build a deck with a theme, combo, or strategy that will ultimately help them to win the game. I find this to be one of the most interesting aspects of card games. There would be creatures, spells, enchantments, and what have you. Much like a lot of other games. There would be different groups / colors / alignments of cards, and a player would construct their deck around such cards.
What I want to do differently, however, is that when the game is played, all player would combine their decks into a single large shuffled deck. Players could have the same cards, so the cards would need to be labeled whose is whose when they are combined into a single large deck (not sure about how to handle this yet besides writing on the card, but I will deal with that later). Thus, all players have other player's cards in which they will play.
I don't plan to have a cost to play the cards, like mana / points, or whatever. I view the round working like this (rough idea):
Each player is dealt a number of cards from the deck.
Phase 1: upkeep or whatever needs to be handled before drawing if applicable.
Phase 2: Draw 1 card
Phase 3: Play card #1 (handle all situations that arise)
Phase 4: Play card #2 (handle all situations that arise)
Phase 5: End phase
Now, since players are only drawing 1 card, and playing 2 cards, they will run out of cards. When that happens, they draw more (whatever the beginning # was probably). But this will force them to eventually play opponent's cards (otherwise they could hold onto them for a very long time, if not indefinitely).
As for the cards, since all players combine their deck into one big deck, players will get other player's cards, as mentioned above. If a player plays another player's card, it is put under the card owner's control. For example if Dave and John are playing, and John casts a creature card that is Dave's, it is put under Dave's control. So a major part of the strategy is trying to balance what you have while hindering your opponent as long or as much as possible.
Any thoughts on how this would work, implications that will arise, or other issues? Has anything like this been done that you know of? Anything else you may wish to comment or add?
