Trick Taking Game Based Around Summoning Spells

I am creating a trick taking card game based around wizards attempting to summon magical energy to complete a spell. There are 4 suits of 13, standard poker deck size, but the card value only goes to eight, so there are a few double up values of the lower cards. These cards represent the summoning energy of the wizards/players.

There is also a second deck of 20 cards. These are the spells that you are trying to learn/complete. Each spell is linked to a certain suit, effectively the trump suit.

Players take turns playing cards to the table in front of them, trying to summon the most energy to claim the spell. The player first player who completes 5 spells wins the game.

Now there are a few fundamental changes here. Suit doesn’t really matter – it does kind of, but I’ll get to that in a minute, rather card power is important. Players must play cards that equal or exceed the value of the last played card. However, if you play a card that matches the suit of the spell, you can play any value of card, which could be a way to reset the power level.

When someone can no longer play a card, they suffer ‘strain’ (more on this soon) and the summoning phase ends. When a player suffers strain, they take a card from the top of the draw deck and place it face down in front of them. If a player ever has five cards in front of them, they lose concentration. If a player loses concentration, they must immediately discard their current hand and draw the face down cards in front of them into their hand. They must also discard a spell to the bottom of the spell deck.

The winner of the trick, is not the player who played the last card, nor the player of the last trump suit, but the player who has the greatest power value of cards in the trump suit, so you are encouraged to keep the round going as long as you can.

The player who wins the trick takes the spell card and flips it over and places it in front of them. A spell contains a special ability that will break the rules in some way. It is this part that I am kind of stuck. I have some ideas for rule breaking effects. I am trying to work out whether I have 4 card effects x 5, 10 spells x 2 each, 20 unique spell effects, or some other combination.

• You may play two cards of the same value
• Reverse the turn order when you play a (insert spell type here) card of the same value of the last card played.
• When you play (highest value) card, draw cards equal to the number of players and chose who gets what card.
• Look at a strain card in front of you, then may choose to swap a card in your hand for that card
• Change the summoning type of the spell x 4 (probably need 4 tokens to cover spell type for this)
• Swap the same value card of different suits with another player.
• Discard a strain card.

I am trying to tie the spell effect, into a spell type.

Magic types
Chronomancy – These spells effects should have things to do with timing maybe – So reversing play fits perfectly.

Divination – This is all about finding hidden secrets and divining the future.

Transmutation – This change the property of things. For this – possibly, changing the suit of the spell currently up for grabs is the way to go for this. (4 different types – one of each of the suits).

Conjuration – This is about manifesting objects, teleporting and so on.

What I also need to come up with is the trigger effect for the spell. Some will with a simple as playing the highest value card, or playing a card of a set suit, that matches last played value etc. This shouldn’t be too hard to work out though.

So, do people have ideas for card manipulation that could fit these four schools of magic – Chronomancy, Divination, Transmutation, and Conjuration.