One thing that is lost in external resources is added effects. You either have mana or you don't. Unlike in MTG where you have basic lands, but you also have nonbasic lands. In Pokémon you have basic energy but you also have special energy. So you are getting resources but also something else which is fun.

I've always loved how Inscryption had a separate resource deck for the game. I've been thinking of mixing that with magic's land system to give the player the choice of getting more mana, or cards to play with said mana

Out of all the tcg games i have played i feel that FaB is a resource system as close to perfect as can be

I like Yugioh's "the cards in your hand are your resources" since you absolutely can come back from having an empty board with a single card (most of the good Yugioh decks have one-card combos). I also like Hearthstone for "mana" style games, where you only need to play actual cards in your deck. I'm not a fan of actual resource cards, since it feels kinda back to have 40% of your deck being cards that don't actually do anything (outside something like MTG's utility lands...that don't give you resources most of the time).

For me the main drawback of a scaled resource system like Hearthstone for physical game is that in a physical game where a lot of the effects arent automated it can make for a more stale game. Hearthstone works so well because of the digital landscape it uses and automated effects, which often make it far easier to learn that physical tcgs. The problem with porting that into physical tcg is that its kind of boring, little to no interactivity which can be a sore point for people who like removing energy in pokemon, or disruption cards in Yugioh, or other ways to keep your opponent from ramping resources

I feel like a lot of resource systems are left out here and it needs to be a 3 part series video. Like "action points" systems where you can play a number of cards per turn. A "card level" system where the cards cards can only be played after a threshold is met, such as the turn number. Rolling 2 dice could also work as a basic resource system. Grand Archive uses a system where you pay for cards cost by putting cards face down in front of you, you pick those cards up at the end of your turn if I remember correctly. Final Fantasy lets you discard a card to gain resources.

Legends of Runeterra has mana system but with a twist. You can bank 3 unused mana as spell mana. Spell mana can only be used on spells. This adds a lot of depth for example you don’t feel bad not playing a creature on turn 1 and 2. Go into turn 3 to play a 3 cost creature and you still have 3 spell mana to use if you want. Or play a 6 cost spell instead. There’s lot of strategy and it makes the game more deep on whether you need to play for tempo or mana efficiency

You're kidding right? About the Dragonball Super TCG. That's completely wrong, Dragonball Super TCG falls under your #1, except any card can be an energy card and no limit to how much energy you can have. Even just looking at a card gallery or something, some cards cost over 6

For yugioh your card is your resource makes sense now, it allows for combo styles, that you really dont see in other games. Yugioh's problem rn is just power creep, but the way archtypes is really neet, and sometimes you will get really nice cards working with old cards

Star Wars CCG had by far the most elegant resource system. Digimon has the most creative and engaging

I think people forget about the innovations of Duel Masters TCG

Something to add to FaB’s resource system is the fact that because you can choose the order and what cards you pitch before they go to the bottom, one can set up their deck in a vary favorable order for the second round of the deck. In FaB this is a high level technique called pitch stacking, where you pitch some more powerful cards early and remember when that card will come back around to your hand.

Great video. I love this topic because I think the resource system is the fundamental thing that defines the game for each tcg. I wanted to make 2 comments, one on mtg and then the other answering your HS question at the end of the video.

With the scaling resource system I think a problem for it is that it allows the game to be "road-mapped" a bit too much. Especially the more game knowledge that you have of your deck or your opponent's deck. You also know that you're never really getting anything out early, so that 6 cost card is just sitting there (I do believe there are some ways to temporarily ramp in hearthstone, but that applies to all resource systems). While interaction with your opponent will change this a bit, you probably know exactly what the first few turns will be after looking at your opening hand.

Great video explaining this important aspect of game design! Resources are such a interesting fundamental, whether keeping pace, setting boundries, or even promoting diversity. Building a whole game around this mechanic can be tricky. 😅

Great video! I would think the best “mana” resource system is from Duel Masters, every card is a resource! I know plenty have talked about it and many have followed, along with shield triggers being a thing new games picked up!

Another great video, as always your content is useful and fun!

An interesting variant of the Shared Resource system combined with a stockpile system is the Lord or the Rings card game. It was a card game with a short run since there wasn't much more they could do after mining the movies for image stills to use as card art, but it was actually very interesting. The goal of the game was a race to Mordor to destroy the ring which was done across location cards. The interesting thing was that each player had Hero cards and Villain cards. On your turn you would play your hero cards to your heart's content without paying any cost... sort of. As you played your Hero cards you would add glass cabochons to your opponent's Villain resources. The Villain resources was a pool that would stay and fill up over each turn unless you spent it, so when one player is slowly building up their Heroes, the other can be hoarding the resource until they're ready to do a big set battle, or they can use a few on each of their villain turns to whittle their opposing Heroes down over time. This back and forth of who gets to play the Heroes had an unfortunate side effect of the Hero half of your deck feeling a bit samey from player to player, always starting with Frodo, really kind of needing a Sam in case Frodo dies since he's a half as good ring bearer (they had corruption points like health, 10 for Frodo and 5 for Sam).

Would love to hear your perspective on games like Final Fantasy TCG and the original WoW TCG. These two games offer a mix of multiple different systems you discuss in this video and I think they actually did an amazingly elegant job of fixing their inherent problems. In WoW you could play any card in your hand face-down as a resource card if you didn't have a normal resource card to play, but it also had "quests" which were resource cards that you could cash in for additional effects during the course of the game. Final Fantasy uses a mixture of a land-based system like Magic while also using a card-based system that allows you to discard any card from your hand to make 2 temporary mana of the discarded card's color to play any cards from your hand with, but even the "lands" in FFTCG cost mana to initially put into play, with the idea being that the economy that they produce over the course of the game will make up for the initial investment. This lends itself to situations in high level play where if you hand 10 different people the exact same opening hand and the exact same deck, you may actually see 10 different opening lines on turn 1.

I love what Keyforge did. You simply pick a color for that turn and can only control monsters and play cards of that color. So there is no conventional "cost" at all.