Card Balancing

[WhiteThunder777]

Ever since the Zenmaity loop was introduced, hard once per turns and super hard once per turns were introduced to prevent cards from being loop able.  Loop able means that the cards can be subject to abuse of any kind.  Card advantage is a key aspect of yugioh, but the key thing to remember is too much advantage can be a bad thing.  Keep in mind, this does not mean that archetypes can't have searchers at all (that depends on the design though).  One way to know balance is to know how yugioh works.  

Most archetypes have 1 or 2 searchers (1 for monster and 1 for Spell/Trap).  This means that when deck building, you must run 3 copies of those cards.  There may be other extenders, but that depends on the archetype design.  

A hard once per turn takes the forms "You can only use this/each effect of X once per turn."  This is most commonly used in custom card design, as it prevents your cards from being abusable.  It is commonly called HOPT for short. 

A super hard once per turn takes the form "You can only use 1 effect of 'X' per turn and only once that turn." This is stricter than a regular HOPT.  You would use this in the case if the card has two really good effects on one card.  

Now here's the other thing, a lot of people say draw 1 is a bad thing, but it's not.  For example, Jar of Greed is a draw 1 on a trap card, meaning you'd have to set it first, and then activate it on the opponent's turn. 

Card advantage can be very useful for link summoning to check in terms of balance.  The actual advantage of a link X monster is -X + 1, where X is the monster's link rating.  However, you better be careful of making stuff that cheats out a higher link monster for no cost at all, as that is very bad design.  Depending on how contact fusion is worded, you'd also want to look at your mechanic, as some archetype(s) use the GY as their resource.  Overall, you'd want to look at your mechanic and see how your card advantage works.  If a beginner, try to think of something simple.  

Keep in mind the more power you have, the stronger the requirements you must have on your cards.  Some boss monsters in an archetype are not easy to summon, and they can use the boss monster to work backwards to derive the theme of their archetype.  Or they could think of a mechanic that they'd like and use that.  One can think of the boss monster as the win condition (i.e. if the boss dies, the deck dies as well).  Keep in mind, not all archetypes have a boss monster.

And another thing, whatever you name your archetype can affect the balance of your archetype.  If you have 1 or more card(s) in the TCG with the same name as your archetype, that card can be searchable and that can lead to balancing problems.  To prevent this, change the name of the archetype if you want to avoid further problems in the long run.  You can type in the name of your archetype on DuelingBook and see if at least 1 card shares the same of your archetype, and if it's the case change the name, if not, great job!! 

Learn basic PSCT and develop a basic mechanic before balancing your cards.  PSCT is like the grammar of yugioh.  There are a lot of things on this site here that can help you.  

 

 

 

[WhiteThunder777]

ATK/DEF plays a minor role in balancing as well.  If you have an omni-negate with 0 ATK/DEF (and it only negates), the opponent can just crash into it by battle OR if they have a Kaiju, tribute that.  Even Kaijus can be used to Tribute monsters with quick effects or monsters that make themselves unaffected.  

If your opponent go minus in card advantage due to that card effect, inflict that onto yourself.  That will see in some cases how balanced the effect is.  Usually cards with absurd effects get rejected on the spot.