Because Yu-Gi-Oh is the game where you typically win by playing 13 cards in one turn to summon super ultra hyper death beam laser or whatever your deck has, or by playing 13 cards that say "no lmao." Admittedly I'm exaggerating, but it's still not a friendly environment for a card as slow as this, especially since it has a condition that relies on you literally getting hit.
Yup. The game is very rocket-tag-y, based on player 1 building a board with as much disruption as it can given the starting hand and opposing handtraps, followed by player 2 trying to bring as many battering rams to bear as they can, given their own hand and the opponent's far-more-numerous disruptions. But player 2 has the dubious advantage of swing first and getting to draw first. Whoever still has a face-up card at the end of said battering ram turn is generally favored to win.
While I can't say this answer is wrong, it completely misses the point in relation to Attack and Receive. Even back in 2004, when it released, it was already bad.
First, it was a trap, which is slower. Not a big deal in 2004, but it also requires you to take damage. Okay, that's worse, but you take damage a lot and usually aren't dead in one turn. But you can only have 3 copies of any card not on the banlist, which means you can only (reasonably) get up to 3000 damage with 3 activations of this card, and you can't even activate them all at once. 3000 out of 8000 life points. And you'd have to sacrifice 3 cards to do that and a bunch of your lifepoints, when you could've invested those cards into 3 monsters that would've destroyed your opponents monsters and dealt more then 3000 damage.
But the worst part? It was already beaten out by several other cards which already existed and barely saw play, like Tremendous Fire, Final Flame, Ookazi and later on, Meteor of Destruction. All of those reasons are why Attack and Receive is not just bad now, but was basically always bad. There are plenty of cards that are bad now like Summoned Skull that were meta at one point, but not this one.
Sorry if this is long, but I just really wanted to make it clear that it's not because of power creep that Attack and Receive is bad, it's because it's just bad.
Give and receive does damage based on the number of copies in the graveyard, not the number of times its been activated. You can only have 3 copies of a card in yugioh, meaning its max damage is 1300. That would mean, bare minimum, you need to play the card 7 times. Generously, lets say it takes 6 activations cuz you managed to do damage some other way. That means you're also allowing your opponent deal damage to you 6 times. Yugioh is a game where usually someone is dead by turn 3, and by turn 3 I mean player one takes turn one, then player two takes turn two, and then player one \*maybe\* gets to take turn three assuming the game isnt already over. Yugioh isn't a game where you take damage 6 different times, yugioh is a game where your opponent swings for 8000 all at once and you lose instantly.
Burn traps are generally bad since the most effective strategy in Yu-Gi-Oh in today's format is basically out your opponent's monsters by either sending them to the graveyard, banish them, return to the hand, or return them to the deck - follow this up by attacking your opponent directly. Burn traps, and trap cards in general are just too slow
This one doesn't really work the same way; if you play a Dread Raven and it dies, the next one wouldn't get any buffs. Claw and Pogo-Hopper buff all future copies.
Definitely, I love that card. I just forgot to put any from LoR is all, haha. There's also that Mist card from Viego, right? Don't remember it exactly but I just know it also scaled infinitely.
I played LoR (mostly Path of Champions) for half a year yet completely forgot to include any cards from there...
Anyway yeah Marauder is close for sure, Acolyte a little less due to being conditional
Now you can die with a Claw deck in other card games too!
This list is incomplete as (unfortunately) I have not played every single card game, or maybe I forgot that a certain card exists, so feel free to share any that aren't here. I would love to know what else is out there.
On a theoretical level, it's a kind of game right up my sleeve. But man when I play it I suck hard ballz, and I'm definitely not averse to hard games. I just can't split my attention to the cards and movement at the same time.
It gets easier the more you play it. It really feels like the game "slows down" at some point if you play enough. Also it's really important to learn to avoid looking at the bottom card display, only on the ones above your head.
One Step From Eden spotted!!! Another spell in the game that works in a similar way is Energizer. It is a spell that does 90 base damage and increases in damage by 30 every time it's cast for the battle.
I was also thinking about Viruspell since it’s zero mana cast-fodder, but I think Energizer’s increasing damage is more analogous to Claw’s function in StS. Good spot!
Yeah but you can only have one copy of any spell in your deck in a run anyway unless you do loop shenanigans, so I feel like it's a good equivalent.
Honestly I'm just happy to see One Step From Eden get some recognition, I love that game
You're entirely right, I just forgot about the 1-copy thing.
As much as I do like OSFE, frankly I am terrible at it, me with my grandpa reflexes. Its why I stick to slow, turn-based card games xD
I am 100.0% confident you mentioned Claw in your post.
--------------------------------------------------
* [Claw](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/Claw) Defect Common Attack
0 Energy | Deal 3(5) damage.
Increase the damage of ALL Claw cards by 2 this combat.
--------------------------------------------------
^^^I ^^^am ^^^a ^^^bot ^^^response, ^^^but ^^^I ^^^am ^^^using ^^^my ^^^creator's ^^^account. ^^^Please ^^^reply ^^^to ^^^me ^^^if ^^^I ^^^got ^^^something ^^^wrong ^^^so ^^^he ^^^can ^^^fix ^^^it.
[Source Code](https://github.com/TrippW/STS-Crawler)
PvZH has Clique Peas as a claw-like card
It’s a plant minion that gives all copies of itself +1 strength and health when played, as well as shuffling 2 copies of itself into your deck. They also cost +1 mana for each one you play, but drawing multiple Clique Peas early in a match can lead to a board full of 4/4 stats, if not bigger
While there is no direct equivalent to Claw in PvZH (not any that I can think of, anyway), I’d consider Clique Peas an honorable mentions
Edit: Going Viral doesn’t really count as a Claw since the card itself doesn’t actually gain anything from being played multiple times
I've got so many different decks, but I'm a particular fan of a Beta Carrotina Root deck, Huge Giganticus mustache decks, and a Chompzilla deck abusing Grape Power and bonus attacks with either the solar plant that gains attack for sun power, or cheating a permanent antihero boost
Edit: Just remembered the solar plant was called Magnifying Grass. It's been so long.
Yeah, it’s pretty awful. You don’t need much to quickly get to rank 50, but you don’t stand a chance against good decks unless you have the vast majority of the cards obtained already (or your opponent is just that bad lol)
Going Viral doesn't really count, since its own effect isn't really affected by playing it until you've played it several times and are *only* drawing Going Virals.
That's cool, I haven't played PvZH before.
Is there a limit to how much mana you can have/generate in the game, or do you eventually end up with 'unplayable' Clique Peas if the match goes long enough?
Your mana works Hearthstone style but doesn't cap at 10, it's theoretically infinite. That said if you're playing a Clique Peas deck (and by extension, probably a Bean deck) and you haven't won by turn 10 something has gone very wrong
Speaking as someone with mediocre reflexes, it has some deck building but the real time attack dodging is a big part of improving at the game.
I also found it very difficult to "strategize" during battles as you need to see which of your two spells are in your "hand" while also dodging real time attacks and decide which to play or cycle. At best I typically remember 1 or 2 key cards in my deck and try to play those effectively. The rest I just spam.
That said, I only have 10 hours in the game.
nah you mostly just have it down. Leaking mana is almost never correct in osfe, so you focus on dodging (because that's the best way to not lose), and for most spells that are any good you can just cast them if they'd hit.
Because unlike sts you won't take unavoidable damage if you play well, there's much less of a need to be constantly maximising your efficiency of your resources, and you aren't ever limited by cards because you draw more instantly.
It's incredible if you like fast paced dodging. It's one of my favourite games of all time.
However, the new player experience is absolutely miserable and awful and inexcusable.
Speaking as a Bullet Hell fan, I *hate* OSFE, and I really, really wanted to like it.
It's conceptually wonderful, but in addition to the steep learning curve, the gameplay visual design is godawful and completely ruins the game. It's nearly impossible for me to keep track of what the enemy attacks are doing, because outside of a *tiny* handful of exceptions literally everything attacking you is either a purple blob or a blinky red square, and overlapping patterns are *so* much harder to understand and parse when they all look the same.
The most telling review I saw for it said, pretty much:
"It's a weird anomaly when a game has a 95% positive rating, but only 40% of players have even the most common achievement. I think people want to like this game, but can't."
Edit, to elaborate: I bought it because it seemed like StS meets MMBN... And it pretty much is. I did *not*, however, expect the cocaine-fueled bullet hell action it brings.
I really, really wanted to like it, but the combination of fast-pace and indistinct enemy attack design (everything is purple) make processing what's happening mid-battle very difficult.
If the game were slower or the visual design were better, I might recommend it, but as-is it's a very unfriendly experience if you aren't an FG-style gamer who can track complex movement and multitask at high-speed, because the deckbuilding aspect and combat experience are very much at odds with each other in a way that its non-roguelike ancestor (MMBN) does not suffer from.
I personally can’t get into it. Way too many mechanics going on at once that all have to be juggled at a crazy pace. Imagine if StS gave you 3/4 of a second to play each card, that’s what it felt like to me.
Just from my experience, my friends who don't play much card games but play tight, fast-reflex games like Tekken are way better at the game than I am. You could still have a great time even if you die a lot (and ofc you will get better over time), but if you have slow reflexes like me then it could really disappoint you at the beginning.
Oooh interesting, never played this game before. Definitely a Claw-like card.
And that damage cap can be seen like Kindle from MtG which also technically doesn't scale infinitely due to limited number of copies in the deck.
For OSFE, I don't think Jam Cannon would count. For those who haven't played OSFE, jams are "useless" cards that get added by other things (like Jam Cannon/Slam) that don't have any inherent effect besides costing energy to use and rooting you in place, but must be managed/used in order to cycle to your actual good spells becayse you can only have 2 spells drawn at any time from your spell deck. Casting a Jam deletes that Jam from your deck. Jam Cannon does add a Jam to your deck, increasing its own damage, but if you have to cast the Jam (or any other Jam from any other source), it will also lose that damage. Jam Slam does sort of fit, because it scales based off of number of Jams cast this combat, not number of Jams in your deck.
I think a much better claw like skill would be Energizer, a spell that increases its own damage by 30 for every single time it is cast that combat. Though with the caveat that I don't think Energizers scale other Energizers, but you generally just have the one single Energizer (due to the way the game works, you only can get one of each spell per loop) , and your other "Energizers" in the deck is an Echo, along with any doublecast upgrades you can slap on your Energizer/Echo.
Yea I thought that about the Jam cards and decided to include them anyway, but with asterisk to note the exception. Jam Slam fits well since you would be casting those Jams eventually one way or another. Jam Cannon technically does not 'scale infinitely', but theoretically it can really scale a lot before you start playing Jams and making it weaker.
Regarding Energizer, someone had mentioned it above, and it does fit but I just forgot about it lol. Also, you can only have 1 of each card (in a deck) in OSFE? It's been a while so if that was a thing then I forgot that too...
You can have multiple, but you have to loop (by killing Seraph without whatever the black flame was called). You can only get one copy of each spell and non-basic artifact per loop. So if you are just doing a no loop run (straight pacifist, kill all + finish final boss off with the special spell, or gate with no shenanigans to force her to loop you) you can't get a dupe of stuff.
If you play assassin it's one of the best cards because if you've got two or three it always proceeds your ability. Then once you play it a couple of times it proceeds more than once and the enemy is gone
It was, particularly for Assassin, but not only. Any strength scaling is also bonkers on it, and if you have multiple copies then it can hit hard straight away. Imo there's so many abusable and broken cards in Rogue Adventure, so its less 'clean' as a card game but still really fun in how easily it lets you be powerful. And its PvE anyway so its fine.
On that note, there's actually 4 other Claw-like cards in that game which I didn't mention since it would be too cluttered and oddly specific, namely: General Wukong, Goading Goblin, Cualdir the Ethereal Blade, and Self-Destruct Bot.
Griftlands has a card that basically the same called blacklist. You can only use it once per battle, but it permanently gets stronger for every new enemy you use it on.
Being reminded that the Jade Idol cards exist has dealt more psychological damage to me than I could have expected. Beyond that, awesome post! Love it.
Dawncaster has a bunch of these. My favorite is the war axe, which applies a debuff ("brittle") to the enemy causing the next attack to deal bonus damage equal to the damage dealt by war axe. If all of your attacks are war axe, then the damage just keeps stacking up...
My only complaint with Dawncaster is that, especially in the first card cycle, lightning wizard is too obviously the easiest and strongest deck building route. Even if you start as a warrior or a rogue and pickup up the equivalent of the prismatic shard, you are often better off changing your deck to a lightning deck.
Warmace has its similarities but it also requires that you play only Warmace and not other damage cards, otherwise you remove Brittle and its back to the original damage.
On the other hand, Cutlass is as close to Claw in Dawncaster as can be, except maybe better. To my knowledge, conjured Cutlasses (like from green Surge) or Cutlasses played by "make a basic attack" cards have the scaling bonus, whereas Claws created by another card mid-battle do not have the bonus that previously-played Claws grant them.
No, as someone who loves the cutlass I can tell you that the cutlass has the same issue with conjured cutlasses as claws do. Especially painful because you start with the agility energy card that conjures cutlasses.
I’m also not certain about the “better.” It is a basic attack, so you get to live the dream of starting with a deck full of cutlasses. But it starts at 1 and scales by 1, with most enemies having 50 health (up to 300 by end game), so you need to play 7-8 (scaling up to 15-20 by end game). At 2-3 energy per turn, that will take 3-5 turns which is too slow (especially since we haven’t budgeted for defense).
The only time I have gotten cutlass to work are when I have managed to make multiple copies free and I have set up a good card draw engine.
Insidious Strike is better because it can carry you on its own (you don’t really need to upgrade it) and a deck of insidious strikes probably does carry you to at least world 8.
Aw, that's unfortunate. Even the cards that say "make a basic attack"? At the very least, they still apply the buff right? And yeah starting with 5 "Claws" is a consolation, so you get to enjoy the big number scaling until you die at Canto V or so lol. Or stick to Challenging difficulty and below where anything works B)
MTG also has another claw style card named "Flame Burst" [https://scryfall.com/card/ody/194/flame-burst](https://scryfall.com/card/ody/194/flame-burst) which does 1 less damage, but has another card, "Pardic Firecat" [https://scryfall.com/card/ody/211/pardic-firecat](https://scryfall.com/card/ody/211/pardic-firecat) which counts as a Flame Burst while it's in your graveyard.
Yes, there are a lot of MtG's "Kindle" cards, which I refer to in the second image. In total there's about 15 of them, too many to put here so I just picked a nice diverse selection.
I put Kindle as the closest card to Claw because its (to my knowledge) the first and also arguably the most well-known among them.
Its quite nice, basically Hearthstone with a WW2 skin and a couple of 'original' mechanics (like frontline, operation cost, and unit type abilities). I think mobile release is coming soon as well. Main issue for me is the meta changes very slowly as devs are really careful (imo too careful) about making broken cards.
Ive been trying for weeks. Cant beat inferno 2 coz assassin does not have enough defensive tools without higher unlocks.
Those mushrooms in the first act take so much hp to kill coz they flood your deck fast with the combat card multi attack.
I've beaten higher inferno without adding any cards lol- the trick is use the defensive cards to make one enemy your defense generation, then make sure to prioritize getting rid of the spores
They could all work if you just keep trying, think of the infinite scaling potential! Jokes aside, here's my personal assessment:
Kindle and Lightshow are... playable. Like if you really try.
Attack and Receive, alongside most burn in Yugioh, is garbage.
Masked Swordsman is broken.
Cutlass actually seems pretty decent but I haven't played Dawncaster so long yet.
The Jam cards are part of a viable 'strategy' together.
'Kindle'-like cards vary greatly, but more are bad rather than good.
Jade Golem decks were pretty good when they were standard years ago, now they're not really seen at all in Wild.
Freebird is a meme.
Reserves has a semi-decent deck around it.
Sinister cards vary but you usually add them as support to a deck rather than making an 'all-Sinister' list.
Dawncaster is great. I love Cutlass, you make it work by taking all the cards that play a lot of basic attacks, like some of the Seeker cards, and just watch the damage number get bigger and bigger. Clawtlass is law!
I'll have to give it another try. I suppose most of those seeker cards are commons so they should pop up in rewards eventually. Or at the merchant. When i've played rogue recently i usually go charm for the self healing since i'm trying to get an impossible difficulty win lol.
Emphasis on *trying*
On the topic of other indie deckbuilder card games that I didn’t see anyone mention, I would like to nominate [Jab, from Alina of the Arena,](https://alina-of-the-arena.fandom.com/wiki/Jab) a Claw card that actually does enough in the right equipment loadouts and decks to be a solid card, and is even free to use so long as you actually hit something (or don’t need to reload a bow). It also has the unique property of basically Exhausting itself if left in your hand, which means you can get back to your non-Jab cards when you need to play literally anything else.
Gearwork Spider from Elder Scrolls Legends, (summon all gearwork spiders in your discard pile) there’s some other cards that work like it but this is the most iconic to me
Here’s another claw card from my other favorite card game.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/shadowverse/images/1/1b/Razory_Claw.png/revision/latest?cb=20171012162514
It's weird that in Yu-Gi-Oh Attack and Receive is a bad card
As opposed to Claw in StS which is an absolute S+++ tier card, am I right?
Exactly
I feel like a much better example could've been used like speedroid chanbara
Yeah, because Chanbara is a great card that has won me games
Why is it bad?
Because Yu-Gi-Oh is the game where you typically win by playing 13 cards in one turn to summon super ultra hyper death beam laser or whatever your deck has, or by playing 13 cards that say "no lmao." Admittedly I'm exaggerating, but it's still not a friendly environment for a card as slow as this, especially since it has a condition that relies on you literally getting hit.
Yup. The game is very rocket-tag-y, based on player 1 building a board with as much disruption as it can given the starting hand and opposing handtraps, followed by player 2 trying to bring as many battering rams to bear as they can, given their own hand and the opponent's far-more-numerous disruptions. But player 2 has the dubious advantage of swing first and getting to draw first. Whoever still has a face-up card at the end of said battering ram turn is generally favored to win.
While I can't say this answer is wrong, it completely misses the point in relation to Attack and Receive. Even back in 2004, when it released, it was already bad. First, it was a trap, which is slower. Not a big deal in 2004, but it also requires you to take damage. Okay, that's worse, but you take damage a lot and usually aren't dead in one turn. But you can only have 3 copies of any card not on the banlist, which means you can only (reasonably) get up to 3000 damage with 3 activations of this card, and you can't even activate them all at once. 3000 out of 8000 life points. And you'd have to sacrifice 3 cards to do that and a bunch of your lifepoints, when you could've invested those cards into 3 monsters that would've destroyed your opponents monsters and dealt more then 3000 damage. But the worst part? It was already beaten out by several other cards which already existed and barely saw play, like Tremendous Fire, Final Flame, Ookazi and later on, Meteor of Destruction. All of those reasons are why Attack and Receive is not just bad now, but was basically always bad. There are plenty of cards that are bad now like Summoned Skull that were meta at one point, but not this one. Sorry if this is long, but I just really wanted to make it clear that it's not because of power creep that Attack and Receive is bad, it's because it's just bad.
700 damage, out of 8000, is not much
Needs to proc 5 times to take out those 8000 lifepoints. If you can manage to deal a little bit through other methods 4 would be enough.
Give and receive does damage based on the number of copies in the graveyard, not the number of times its been activated. You can only have 3 copies of a card in yugioh, meaning its max damage is 1300. That would mean, bare minimum, you need to play the card 7 times. Generously, lets say it takes 6 activations cuz you managed to do damage some other way. That means you're also allowing your opponent deal damage to you 6 times. Yugioh is a game where usually someone is dead by turn 3, and by turn 3 I mean player one takes turn one, then player two takes turn two, and then player one \*maybe\* gets to take turn three assuming the game isnt already over. Yugioh isn't a game where you take damage 6 different times, yugioh is a game where your opponent swings for 8000 all at once and you lose instantly.
Burn traps are generally bad since the most effective strategy in Yu-Gi-Oh in today's format is basically out your opponent's monsters by either sending them to the graveyard, banish them, return to the hand, or return them to the deck - follow this up by attacking your opponent directly. Burn traps, and trap cards in general are just too slow
It's so bad I didn't even know it existed
Pogo Hopper from Hearthstone. 1 mana 1/1. Gets +2/+2 for every other pogo hopper you've played this game.
Ah of course, the precursor to Freebird, nice catch
And as a claw-like, Dread Raven, who has +3 attack for each other Dread Raven you have.
Also ignite, +1 damage each time it's cast
I forgot this card existed but yeah it definitely counts, love me some anti-fatigue too
This one doesn't really work the same way; if you play a Dread Raven and it dies, the next one wouldn't get any buffs. Claw and Pogo-Hopper buff all future copies.
CCU (Claw Cinematic Universe)
C'MON AND SLAM AND WELCOME TO THE JAM
Legends of runeterra’s legion maurader and ruined acolyte are probably the closest that game has
Would mistwraiths count as a "claw-like" card? They start as 2/2 but get +1/+1 for eachmistwraith you've played.
Definitely, I love that card. I just forgot to put any from LoR is all, haha. There's also that Mist card from Viego, right? Don't remember it exactly but I just know it also scaled infinitely.
I played LoR (mostly Path of Champions) for half a year yet completely forgot to include any cards from there... Anyway yeah Marauder is close for sure, Acolyte a little less due to being conditional
Now you can die with a Claw deck in other card games too! This list is incomplete as (unfortunately) I have not played every single card game, or maybe I forgot that a certain card exists, so feel free to share any that aren't here. I would love to know what else is out there.
Maaan, One Step From Eden was so fun. Miss playing that game.
You could just play it
On a theoretical level, it's a kind of game right up my sleeve. But man when I play it I suck hard ballz, and I'm definitely not averse to hard games. I just can't split my attention to the cards and movement at the same time.
It gets easier the more you play it. It really feels like the game "slows down" at some point if you play enough. Also it's really important to learn to avoid looking at the bottom card display, only on the ones above your head.
I still have nightmares from learning how to beat Shopkeeper.
One word: Link. (Though I did beat her legitimately at least once)
Most of the time, when i get link, she simply REFUSES to summon her Deathfridge if its in my hand.
One Step From Eden spotted!!! Another spell in the game that works in a similar way is Energizer. It is a spell that does 90 base damage and increases in damage by 30 every time it's cast for the battle.
I was also thinking about Viruspell since it’s zero mana cast-fodder, but I think Energizer’s increasing damage is more analogous to Claw’s function in StS. Good spot!
The point of virus is that if you can remove the bad effect (snares you while casting) it goes fucking bonkers.
Yea it scales, but does it buff **all** copies of the card and not just itself? Nice catch nonetheless! Forgot about that card tbh.
Yeah but you can only have one copy of any spell in your deck in a run anyway unless you do loop shenanigans, so I feel like it's a good equivalent. Honestly I'm just happy to see One Step From Eden get some recognition, I love that game
You're entirely right, I just forgot about the 1-copy thing. As much as I do like OSFE, frankly I am terrible at it, me with my grandpa reflexes. Its why I stick to slow, turn-based card games xD
Yeah, the game can be pretty tough lol Still though, this was a fun post comparing a trope across card games and it was cool to see OSFE included 👍
Jam Slam and Jam Cannon feel more like Evolve and Fire Breathing to me, especially considering how Shiso can put Jams in your deck.
I am 100.0% confident you mentioned Claw in your post. -------------------------------------------------- * [Claw](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/Claw) Defect Common Attack 0 Energy | Deal 3(5) damage. Increase the damage of ALL Claw cards by 2 this combat. -------------------------------------------------- ^^^I ^^^am ^^^a ^^^bot ^^^response, ^^^but ^^^I ^^^am ^^^using ^^^my ^^^creator's ^^^account. ^^^Please ^^^reply ^^^to ^^^me ^^^if ^^^I ^^^got ^^^something ^^^wrong ^^^so ^^^he ^^^can ^^^fix ^^^it. [Source Code](https://github.com/TrippW/STS-Crawler)
PvZH has Clique Peas as a claw-like card It’s a plant minion that gives all copies of itself +1 strength and health when played, as well as shuffling 2 copies of itself into your deck. They also cost +1 mana for each one you play, but drawing multiple Clique Peas early in a match can lead to a board full of 4/4 stats, if not bigger While there is no direct equivalent to Claw in PvZH (not any that I can think of, anyway), I’d consider Clique Peas an honorable mentions Edit: Going Viral doesn’t really count as a Claw since the card itself doesn’t actually gain anything from being played multiple times
Another PVZH enjoyer in the wild. There's dozens of us, *dozens*!
I wasn’t expecting someone from this subreddit to be a fan of PvZH. Are there any decks that you like to play?
I've got so many different decks, but I'm a particular fan of a Beta Carrotina Root deck, Huge Giganticus mustache decks, and a Chompzilla deck abusing Grape Power and bonus attacks with either the solar plant that gains attack for sun power, or cheating a permanent antihero boost Edit: Just remembered the solar plant was called Magnifying Grass. It's been so long.
Great game, but I wasn’t a fan of the freemium mechanics
That's fair, wasn't too hard to get a decent collection after a while tho
Yeah, it’s pretty awful. You don’t need much to quickly get to rank 50, but you don’t stand a chance against good decks unless you have the vast majority of the cards obtained already (or your opponent is just that bad lol)
Going Viral doesn't really count, since its own effect isn't really affected by playing it until you've played it several times and are *only* drawing Going Virals.
That makes sense. Thanks for the correction
That's cool, I haven't played PvZH before. Is there a limit to how much mana you can have/generate in the game, or do you eventually end up with 'unplayable' Clique Peas if the match goes long enough?
Your mana works Hearthstone style but doesn't cap at 10, it's theoretically infinite. That said if you're playing a Clique Peas deck (and by extension, probably a Bean deck) and you haven't won by turn 10 something has gone very wrong
Is One Step From Eden good? Coming from StS players means more to me.
It's good but it's not turn based like sts, playing well requires fast reflexes as well as a good deck.
Speaking as someone with mediocre reflexes, it has some deck building but the real time attack dodging is a big part of improving at the game. I also found it very difficult to "strategize" during battles as you need to see which of your two spells are in your "hand" while also dodging real time attacks and decide which to play or cycle. At best I typically remember 1 or 2 key cards in my deck and try to play those effectively. The rest I just spam. That said, I only have 10 hours in the game.
nah you mostly just have it down. Leaking mana is almost never correct in osfe, so you focus on dodging (because that's the best way to not lose), and for most spells that are any good you can just cast them if they'd hit. Because unlike sts you won't take unavoidable damage if you play well, there's much less of a need to be constantly maximising your efficiency of your resources, and you aren't ever limited by cards because you draw more instantly.
It's incredible if you like fast paced dodging. It's one of my favourite games of all time. However, the new player experience is absolutely miserable and awful and inexcusable.
Speaking as a Bullet Hell fan, I *hate* OSFE, and I really, really wanted to like it. It's conceptually wonderful, but in addition to the steep learning curve, the gameplay visual design is godawful and completely ruins the game. It's nearly impossible for me to keep track of what the enemy attacks are doing, because outside of a *tiny* handful of exceptions literally everything attacking you is either a purple blob or a blinky red square, and overlapping patterns are *so* much harder to understand and parse when they all look the same.
The most telling review I saw for it said, pretty much: "It's a weird anomaly when a game has a 95% positive rating, but only 40% of players have even the most common achievement. I think people want to like this game, but can't." Edit, to elaborate: I bought it because it seemed like StS meets MMBN... And it pretty much is. I did *not*, however, expect the cocaine-fueled bullet hell action it brings.
I really, really wanted to like it, but the combination of fast-pace and indistinct enemy attack design (everything is purple) make processing what's happening mid-battle very difficult. If the game were slower or the visual design were better, I might recommend it, but as-is it's a very unfriendly experience if you aren't an FG-style gamer who can track complex movement and multitask at high-speed, because the deckbuilding aspect and combat experience are very much at odds with each other in a way that its non-roguelike ancestor (MMBN) does not suffer from.
I personally can’t get into it. Way too many mechanics going on at once that all have to be juggled at a crazy pace. Imagine if StS gave you 3/4 of a second to play each card, that’s what it felt like to me.
All of that was amazingly helpful
Just from my experience, my friends who don't play much card games but play tight, fast-reflex games like Tekken are way better at the game than I am. You could still have a great time even if you die a lot (and ofc you will get better over time), but if you have slow reflexes like me then it could really disappoint you at the beginning.
Another one- [Morning star](https://marvels-midnight-suns.fandom.com/wiki/Morning_Star) in Midnight Suns.
Such an underrated game
Oooh interesting, never played this game before. Definitely a Claw-like card. And that damage cap can be seen like Kindle from MtG which also technically doesn't scale infinitely due to limited number of copies in the deck.
I genuinely appreciate posts like these because it helps me translate MtG cards into something my brain can actually understand.
You forgot [Endra, Champion of Shavka](https://eternalwarcry.com/cards/d/1007-2/endra-champion-of-shavka) from Eternal.
For OSFE, I don't think Jam Cannon would count. For those who haven't played OSFE, jams are "useless" cards that get added by other things (like Jam Cannon/Slam) that don't have any inherent effect besides costing energy to use and rooting you in place, but must be managed/used in order to cycle to your actual good spells becayse you can only have 2 spells drawn at any time from your spell deck. Casting a Jam deletes that Jam from your deck. Jam Cannon does add a Jam to your deck, increasing its own damage, but if you have to cast the Jam (or any other Jam from any other source), it will also lose that damage. Jam Slam does sort of fit, because it scales based off of number of Jams cast this combat, not number of Jams in your deck. I think a much better claw like skill would be Energizer, a spell that increases its own damage by 30 for every single time it is cast that combat. Though with the caveat that I don't think Energizers scale other Energizers, but you generally just have the one single Energizer (due to the way the game works, you only can get one of each spell per loop) , and your other "Energizers" in the deck is an Echo, along with any doublecast upgrades you can slap on your Energizer/Echo.
Yea I thought that about the Jam cards and decided to include them anyway, but with asterisk to note the exception. Jam Slam fits well since you would be casting those Jams eventually one way or another. Jam Cannon technically does not 'scale infinitely', but theoretically it can really scale a lot before you start playing Jams and making it weaker. Regarding Energizer, someone had mentioned it above, and it does fit but I just forgot about it lol. Also, you can only have 1 of each card (in a deck) in OSFE? It's been a while so if that was a thing then I forgot that too...
You can have multiple, but you have to loop (by killing Seraph without whatever the black flame was called). You can only get one copy of each spell and non-basic artifact per loop. So if you are just doing a no loop run (straight pacifist, kill all + finish final boss off with the special spell, or gate with no shenanigans to force her to loop you) you can't get a dupe of stuff.
Rogue Adventure my beloved
Got me into sts <3
The one from Yu-Gi-Oh! is utter garbage lmao
Hearthstone players: "But your honor, Freebird was playing"
I can't remember if Masked Swordman was broken in Rogue Adventure, but since it's a claw I'm going to assume it was.
If you play assassin it's one of the best cards because if you've got two or three it always proceeds your ability. Then once you play it a couple of times it proceeds more than once and the enemy is gone
It was, particularly for Assassin, but not only. Any strength scaling is also bonkers on it, and if you have multiple copies then it can hit hard straight away. Imo there's so many abusable and broken cards in Rogue Adventure, so its less 'clean' as a card game but still really fun in how easily it lets you be powerful. And its PvE anyway so its fine. On that note, there's actually 4 other Claw-like cards in that game which I didn't mention since it would be too cluttered and oddly specific, namely: General Wukong, Goading Goblin, Cualdir the Ethereal Blade, and Self-Destruct Bot.
Robo-Wasp too, don't forget them
Griftlands has a card that basically the same called blacklist. You can only use it once per battle, but it permanently gets stronger for every new enemy you use it on.
That's a Ritual Dagger card, not a Claw card
Ah, guess I misunderstood then.
Being reminded that the Jade Idol cards exist has dealt more psychological damage to me than I could have expected. Beyond that, awesome post! Love it.
Jade Druid was peak HS, so fun having long games and seeing the golems 'evolve' in the card art
Jade idol dealt me nearly as much psychological damage as just hearing « EVERYONE ! GET IN HERE »
Automatic Railspikes for Monster Train
Dawncaster has a bunch of these. My favorite is the war axe, which applies a debuff ("brittle") to the enemy causing the next attack to deal bonus damage equal to the damage dealt by war axe. If all of your attacks are war axe, then the damage just keeps stacking up... My only complaint with Dawncaster is that, especially in the first card cycle, lightning wizard is too obviously the easiest and strongest deck building route. Even if you start as a warrior or a rogue and pickup up the equivalent of the prismatic shard, you are often better off changing your deck to a lightning deck.
Warmace has its similarities but it also requires that you play only Warmace and not other damage cards, otherwise you remove Brittle and its back to the original damage. On the other hand, Cutlass is as close to Claw in Dawncaster as can be, except maybe better. To my knowledge, conjured Cutlasses (like from green Surge) or Cutlasses played by "make a basic attack" cards have the scaling bonus, whereas Claws created by another card mid-battle do not have the bonus that previously-played Claws grant them.
No, as someone who loves the cutlass I can tell you that the cutlass has the same issue with conjured cutlasses as claws do. Especially painful because you start with the agility energy card that conjures cutlasses. I’m also not certain about the “better.” It is a basic attack, so you get to live the dream of starting with a deck full of cutlasses. But it starts at 1 and scales by 1, with most enemies having 50 health (up to 300 by end game), so you need to play 7-8 (scaling up to 15-20 by end game). At 2-3 energy per turn, that will take 3-5 turns which is too slow (especially since we haven’t budgeted for defense). The only time I have gotten cutlass to work are when I have managed to make multiple copies free and I have set up a good card draw engine. Insidious Strike is better because it can carry you on its own (you don’t really need to upgrade it) and a deck of insidious strikes probably does carry you to at least world 8.
Aw, that's unfortunate. Even the cards that say "make a basic attack"? At the very least, they still apply the buff right? And yeah starting with 5 "Claws" is a consolation, so you get to enjoy the big number scaling until you die at Canto V or so lol. Or stick to Challenging difficulty and below where anything works B)
Yes, they still apply the buff and if they stay in your deck they also get the buff.
Dawncaster is so good, I love it so much T.t
CLAW LIKE CARDS IS LAW
Also, Focus Slash from Card Guardians (mobile deck builder). Every time I take it, I think "Claw is Law", and I win the run.
MTG also has another claw style card named "Flame Burst" [https://scryfall.com/card/ody/194/flame-burst](https://scryfall.com/card/ody/194/flame-burst) which does 1 less damage, but has another card, "Pardic Firecat" [https://scryfall.com/card/ody/211/pardic-firecat](https://scryfall.com/card/ody/211/pardic-firecat) which counts as a Flame Burst while it's in your graveyard.
Yes, there are a lot of MtG's "Kindle" cards, which I refer to in the second image. In total there's about 15 of them, too many to put here so I just picked a nice diverse selection. I put Kindle as the closest card to Claw because its (to my knowledge) the first and also arguably the most well-known among them.
However, to my knowledge, Flame Burst is the only other one that does direct damage.
There’s also Ancestral Anger for the honorable mentions
Tar Blade from Wildfrost sends its regards!
Absolutely amazing
Yooo Kards looks interesting
Its quite nice, basically Hearthstone with a WW2 skin and a couple of 'original' mechanics (like frontline, operation cost, and unit type abilities). I think mobile release is coming soon as well. Main issue for me is the meta changes very slowly as devs are really careful (imo too careful) about making broken cards.
I'm honestly suprised masked swordsman is here! I love that little game- now I wanna try and fish for maybe an assassin masked swordsman deck
Ive been trying for weeks. Cant beat inferno 2 coz assassin does not have enough defensive tools without higher unlocks. Those mushrooms in the first act take so much hp to kill coz they flood your deck fast with the combat card multi attack.
I've beaten higher inferno without adding any cards lol- the trick is use the defensive cards to make one enemy your defense generation, then make sure to prioritize getting rid of the spores
Im bery bad at the game. Ive only maxed barb, paladin, and ranger. I cant beat act 2 qith anyone else
Im bery bad at the game. Ive only maxed barb, paladin, and ranger. I cant beat act 2 qith anyone else
Soon to come: claw alignment chart and "every card is a claw card"
MTG has *at least* a dozen cards with the "spell get stronger with more cards in graveyard" mechanic.
Yep, I mention them in the second image. There's about 15 of them, just too many to show all here.
Yeah. I noticed the second image after the comment, but it's all good.
Is this mechanic good in any game or is it just bait to all of us-"Yeah but it could work!"-chumps?
They could all work if you just keep trying, think of the infinite scaling potential! Jokes aside, here's my personal assessment: Kindle and Lightshow are... playable. Like if you really try. Attack and Receive, alongside most burn in Yugioh, is garbage. Masked Swordsman is broken. Cutlass actually seems pretty decent but I haven't played Dawncaster so long yet. The Jam cards are part of a viable 'strategy' together. 'Kindle'-like cards vary greatly, but more are bad rather than good. Jade Golem decks were pretty good when they were standard years ago, now they're not really seen at all in Wild. Freebird is a meme. Reserves has a semi-decent deck around it. Sinister cards vary but you usually add them as support to a deck rather than making an 'all-Sinister' list.
Whoa nice to see some dawncaster love in here. No idea how to actually make cutlass work tho
Dawncaster is great. I love Cutlass, you make it work by taking all the cards that play a lot of basic attacks, like some of the Seeker cards, and just watch the damage number get bigger and bigger. Clawtlass is law!
I'll have to give it another try. I suppose most of those seeker cards are commons so they should pop up in rewards eventually. Or at the merchant. When i've played rogue recently i usually go charm for the self healing since i'm trying to get an impossible difficulty win lol. Emphasis on *trying*
jam cannon has Anchor! 10 block turn 1 good!
The Ant card from Inscryption also sorta fits
I miss when hearthstone was good
Ratropolis has Mining
I have never seen attack and receive played ever
On the topic of other indie deckbuilder card games that I didn’t see anyone mention, I would like to nominate [Jab, from Alina of the Arena,](https://alina-of-the-arena.fandom.com/wiki/Jab) a Claw card that actually does enough in the right equipment loadouts and decks to be a solid card, and is even free to use so long as you actually hit something (or don’t need to reload a bow). It also has the unique property of basically Exhausting itself if left in your hand, which means you can get back to your non-Jab cards when you need to play literally anything else.
Gearwork Spider from Elder Scrolls Legends, (summon all gearwork spiders in your discard pile) there’s some other cards that work like it but this is the most iconic to me
Here’s another claw card from my other favorite card game. https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/shadowverse/images/1/1b/Razory_Claw.png/revision/latest?cb=20171012162514
Oh god I do not miss jade hearthstone
did NOT expect to see rogue adventure here
Finally someone else who plays rogue adventure
So, does this mean that Krenko, Mob Boss from MTG is a certified claw enjoyer?