In *need* of community HELP!

So I may not understand everything you are looking for, but let me ask a few questions for a clarity:

1) When you say you want to use Mana, are you referring to the concept that players will have mana tokens that they collect in the game that gets spent, or something more similar to Magic where "mana" is typed and reusable each turn?

2) Are you planning on having the combinations be set aside in the rule book somewhere, or could your combinations and components be in your shared decks. IE: Players draw components that go into their hand, and they can also draw spells, which will require a combination of components to cast.

You might even do something where spells are learned and placed on the board, and maybe mana is used to cast the spells, but the combinations are used to learn them.

Example: Fireball is a spell that I can use on my opponent. To "Learn" fireball and put it in play, I need 3 Sulfur, and a Sheep's Liver. Once I've collected those things, I place fireball on the table to indicate it is now "learned", and discard the components. Going forward, maybe it costs mana to cast it, or maybe it costs components.

Am I thinking in the right ballpark, or am I way off base with what you are looking for?

In reading over this thread one thought came to mind that may satisfy some of the requirements Quest has put out there.

But first, just so I can be sure I have understood correctly, I have recapped what I know about your requirements:

1 More flexible “language” than one card defining what you can do

2 Using combinatorics

3 Can draw components and play face down hidden from other player

4 These components are combined to produce spells

5 Just runes and symbols

6 Having spell categories ie: illusionist, conjurer, elementals etc

7 Serious game

8 Want players to have to study the cards and try to learn more about how best to use them.

9 Play area of six cards

10 Speed Mechanic – sort of Push Your Luck feel, if you wait too long to cast offensive your opponent may already have a more powerful defensive spell to counter.

11 Mana cost between 1 and 5

12 Mana types are based on the five colors like Magic

13 80 Cards

OK, My 2 cents:

What if the spell component cards had symbols on each side that corresponded to different magic effects. These symbols would be half a whole symbol so that if you place two cards side by side the correct corresponding half symbols would complete each other thereby unlocking that symbol's effect. Each card would correspond to a specific mana type (signifying its mana cost).

For example: If you play an "Ice Fairy Wings" (Blue Mana) and "Sulfur" (Red Mana) component cards together to complete a shield rune you have use one blue mana and one red mana to boost your shield.

This gets interesting because you could arrange multiple cards together in creative ways to unlock simultaneous effects. I am thinking stuff like a Flame-Shield combo that could either be used offensively (reduce opponent's shield value and inflict fire damage) or defensively (boost shield with an extra boon against fire attacks)

There could also be a sort of SUPER effect that would be unlocked by placing multiple cards together to complete a larger symbol or rune. if this is getting confusing see the link to a picture of what I am talking about below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxAKO3dysZr5akcyZHJ3dlNGNzQ/view?usp=sh...

You can see how the larger faded markings combine to make a shape once all four cards have been matched up.

You would have to intentionally engineer this so that specific combinations would always create a specific super effect in addition to the normal effects. Or simply figure out all possible combinations and assign super effects to each one. (I say "simply," I am not sure how I would do this but I imagine it is possible to calculate. Though, you could have way too many permutations on your hands if you had a lot of different symbols.)

As far as the push your luck speed mechanic goes, what if you had to form these collections of cards one card at a time in a shared play space which leaves you vulnerable to your opponent stealing or foiling something you are building up towards. It could be an option to use mana to be able to play or draw additional cards on a turn. It could also be that if you complete a symbol you have the option of using its effect immediately or sacrifice the effect to push your luck and draw/play another card in hopes of unlocking the Super effect. Once components have been used they would be removed from the play area.

I can't say I am sold on this push your luck mechanic but it might spark some other ideas from you all.