Roguelike Deckbuilder Tropes, Part 3
Revisiting Card Game Economies
A while back I did a short post about card game economies.
After watching Slay the Spire streamers and fans try the game, I thought a more focused comparison would be interesting to run through.
| Slay the Spire | Flaregate Network | |
|---|---|---|
|
Start of Turn Draw |
Draw until you have 5 cards at the start of each turn. | Draw 1 card at the start of each turn. |
| End of Turn Discard | Discard unplayed cards. | Keep unplayed cards in hand. |
| Start of Turn Resources | Replenish back to full. | Replenish back to full, but also increase the definition of "full". |
| Empty Deck | Reshuffle your discard back into your deck. | Your flagship charges and you get no more cards. |
| Summary | Resources are scarce, cards are plentiful. | Resources are plentiful, cards are scarce. You have to balance costs between two resource types. |
The Slay the Spire system builds on the classic tabletop deckbuilder Dominion, and it’s classic for a reason.
Redrawing back to 5 each turn lets you churn through your deck rapidly, which is awesome for a game about deckbuilding. You are constantly getting large-scale feedback about the shape of your deck, 5+ cards at a time.
And it’s great for beginners, who can intuitively discover the resulting play pattern: keep playing cards until you run out of resources (or cards), then pass to the next turn.
Flaregate Network’s resource system instead traces back to CCGs like Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone. These games have a VERY different feel, where you’re constantly asked to balance two competing styles of play:
| Rush | Sustain |
|---|---|
| Pick cheap cards. | Pick expensive cards. |
| Pick cards that put stuff onto the battlefield. | Pick cards that draw cards and augment future plays. |
| Play as many cards as you can afford every turn. | Hold cards until their value is optimized, even if that means leaving unspent resources. |
|
Failure state: Play through your whole hand and spend the rest of the mission "top-decking", i.e. drawing 1 and playing it each turn. |
Failure state: Skip a bunch of early game turns because everything is too expensive. Spend too many turns doing stuff that doesn't interact with the battlefield, like drawing cards. |
As a player I like solving this problem, and considering the popularity of the source material, other players will too.
But I do have to acknowledge that the inherent failure states can be frustrating, especially if you’re expecting a more Slay-the-Spire-like experience. If you’re top-decking, or skipping every turn because everything is too expensive, you’re not really making strategic decisions anymore.
Tips
So if you’re coming from Slay the Spire, here are my tips for making the jump to Flaregate Network:
It’s okay to skip turns in the early game. Your flagship has a big recharging shield, and weapons of its own—it can hold off small waves with little to no hull damage.
You often want to be a bit greedy with your combo cards, holding them for high value plays, even if that means leaving unspent resources.
You usually want to hold your removal for when it has a good target. You don’t want to waste your Solarburst Laser against a Lancer wave just because you can afford it.
If you play a unit card into an overwhelming force, or a composition that hard-counters it, you can get close to 0 value from it. So once again, it can be better to leave unspent resources and wait for a more favorable matchup.
A lot of these tips circle around one concept: your cards are precious and their value can vary wildly depending on the circumstances. So hold onto them until they’ll perform well.