Design Space wrt to custom cards

[WhiteThunder777]

Design Space refers to the possibilities of your archetype.

• Monster cards: Types and Attributes of monsters.
• Spell/Trap cards: How these will support your archetype.

Mechanics -> what your archetype aims to do.  This could be from column manipulation, battle position changes, link monsters and their ideas with co-linked monsters or effects when linked,  etc.  Every card must centre around the design space.  Synergy is when every card in the archetype works together.  Avoid making generic archetypes as they are tricky to balance, if you look at these examples.  These can be splashed in your custom archetype causing unintended interactions.

• Ryu-Ge is Dino, Sea Serpent, and Wyrms.
• Tri-brigade is Beast, Winged-Beast, and Beast-Warrior
• Raika is Insect, Plant and Reptile.
• Zombies have a lot of support; avoid making generic Zombies. 
• Dragon has a ton of support, be wary of Dragon link.

Theme and Lore -> There are archetypes with stories.  

Innovation -> This is the key when designing your archetype.  The key is to think of something unique that no one has done before.  This will make your archetype stand out.  For example, Dragon Link but better has zero innovation because you're copying off an existing strategy.  

Here's an example of what I mean by innovation.  the archetype below has Cyberse monsters of various Attributes that use Equip Spells with effects that proc when they are sent to the GY or banished.  Just because an archetype feels incomplete does not mean it has terrible design space, in fact far from it!!

https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=16116239 - original 12 cards 
https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=16238591 - Expansion 1 support 

Adaptability

Now a lot of people confuse design space with adaptability.  Adaptability is when the archetype can play back against forms of disruption, including negates and disruption effects.  Another form of adaptability is when the archetype can break an establish board and then not lose steam.  For example, the Invoked engine is prone to disruption because if you negated Aliester the Invoker, then its end board is very weak, which is why it's played like Invoked Mekk-Knight or Invoked Eldlich or Invoked Shaddoll.