Line #30 GameBreaker/CardBattleGame


1	{{Game Breaker}}s in Card Battle Games.
2	!!Games/game series with their own pages:
3	[[index]]
4	* ''GameBreaker/HearthstoneHeroesOfWarcraft''
5	** ''GameBreaker/HearthstoneHeroesOfWarcraftNerfedCards''
6	* ''GameBreaker/{{Inscryption}}''
7	* ''GameBreaker/LegendsOfRuneterra''
8	* ''GameBreaker/LibraryOfRuina''
9	* ''GameBreaker/SouthParkPhoneDestroyer''
10	* ''GameBreaker/YuGiOhVideoGames''
11	** ''GameBreaker/YuGiOhDuelLinks''
12	[[/index]]
13	----
14	!! Other examples
15	* ''VideoGame/LostKingdoms'' can be broken by ignoring the maximum deck size and instead making a small deck comprised of nothing but the most powerful attack cards you have and "recover used cards" cards.
16	* Online card game [[http://www.elementsthegame.com/ Elements: the Game]]: the Aether element is very overpowered, with such charming things as multiple completely untouchable monsters and a shield that just makes you invulnerable to non-spell damage for three turns, but the real killer has to be the Entropy element weapon, Discord. If your opponent gets out a Discord in the first few turns, you will almost certainly die, because the special power of Discord is to randomly shunt your [[{{Mana}} quanta]] around - typically reducing high ones, like, say, the types your deck is based on. The incredibly rare Shards only make balance worse - the aether-aligned one, the Shard of Wisdom, enables you to turbocharge the already obnoxiously strong immortal creatures (which can't be affected by ''any'' spells or targeted abilities other than the Shard of Wisdom, making them almost totally impossible to kill) so that they become significantly stronger and deal spell damage, which bypasses nearly all the shields in the game. They also have access to Mindgate, a permanent item which, for an upkeep of 2 Aether quanta, effectively allows them to see what the next card in their opponent's deck will be... [[PowerCopying by copying it.]] Finally, they can also spend 7 Aether quanta to activate Parallel Universe, another card which copies any targetable creature on the field. That 10/10 Golden Dragon you brought out? They now have one too, and at 5 less total quanta cost.
17	* VideoGame/{{SolForge}} The game has seen several game-breaking cards come and go, with nerfs and buffs rendering some of them more manageable or less crazy. Some of such cards:
18	** The Savants (Lifeshaper Savant, Flameshaper Savant, Darkshaper Savant and Steelshaper Savant), which played extremely well with the game's level-up mechanic until they were nerfed to benefit only their respective factions. They are also among the very rare non-Legendary cards that managed to get banned in some tournaments.
19	** Zimus The Undying, who just [[WhyWontYouDie won't die, ever]]. First changed so that dying twice in a turn kills him for good because his ability would cause infinite loop against certain cards otherwise, and then reversed now after any infinite-combo chain involving him has been neutered.
20	** Wegu, The Ancient, who gets easy massive buffs from healing, turning it into a breakthrough monster steamrolling everything. Now nerfed to have no breakthrough early on.
21	** Ironmind Acolyte, who benefits immensely from card draws to fill up the board in a jiffy. Now nerfed to not draw additional cards even when its effect triggers from you having too many cards in hand.
22	** Immortal Echoes, which resurrects one of your dead creatures at the end of turn, and this repeats once at lower level and indefinitely at level 3. This card easily enables strategies that require creatures to simply drop into play (such as Restless Wanderers), or worse, creatures who become stronger when coming back from the dead (Tarsus Deathweaver and Indomitable Fiend).
23	* The [[LightningBruiser Elite Barbarians]] from ''VideoGame/ClashRoyale''. After receiving a tremendous buff in stats in December 2016, they suddenly turn from the worst card in the game into one of the most overpowered cards in all of Clash Royale. Basically, at the cost of 6 Elixir, you spawn a pair of them with a good amount of hit points and great attack but the thing that makes them overpowered is their insane speed. Left unopposed, they could very quickly make short work of your tower in just ''one'' deployment. The problem is that you have to react very quickly or else they do tremendous amount of damage to your tower so if your internet is slow or you have a slow reaction time, you're screwed. Its defensive capabilities are just as great as their incredible speed and attack allow them to quickly make short work of tanks such as Golem, Giant, Royal Giant and Hog Rider before they even reached the tower, and their high hit-points makes them quite resistant to spells. In fact, the card is so prevalent that it single-handedly made many decks (Such as Golems, Giants, Lava Hound, and siege cards like X-Bow) useless and forced many players to carry multiple anti-Elite Barbarian cards (Skeleton Army, Minion Horde, Tombstone, Barbarian and opposing Elite Barbarian) just to deal with them, greatly limiting your deck-building and even then, would probably also bring counters to them. Adding insult to the injury, their Common rarity meant that it's very easy to overlevel them in ladder games[[note]]That is not to say that they aren't good in tournament gameplay, in fact they're just as good in contrast to the Royal Giant[[/note]] so you'd probably encounter them in like every 2 games.
24	* ''Mabinogi Duel'' had Hunter: Piollet during the City of Gold Cadir pre-release format. At level 1/2/3 he dealt 4/7/11 damage respectively to the creature in front of him upon being Summoned, which was often enough to destroy a basic or weakened enemy creature. This would not be a problem -in fact, it would be relatively underwhelming for an Ultra Rare card- if it weren't for the fact that he unsummons himself [[note]] goes back to the hand and returns all resources used to summon it [[/note]] upon successfully destroying a creature, which turns him into one of the very few reusable cards in the game without need of discarding, if not the ''only one''. This one card set a threshold of HP that players could absolutely NOT play under in a competitive environment.
25	** During the same format, there was also the Golden Garden Cat. It gives +1 to your least abundant resource every turn, which is a step beyond most other generators already due to its versatility. However, if your Gold (a resource the Cat itself can produce, by the way) reserve is 4 or higher, its production DOUBLES. Its one downside? Its HP/Defense spread put it just 2 points below the Piollet threshold ''at level 3 only''. This little domestic cat essentially ''doubled'' the speed of most decks in the game.
26	** And of course, Succubus Queen: Lilith. Hypnotizes every enemy creature ''every turn'', turning them into a 0 Attack - 1 HP useless board filler that can only return to its original form by being targeted by a spell, and destroys a hypnotized creature at the end of her controller's turn. This made her a perfect partner for cards like Witch:Xena (another bothersome unit) and Mermaid:Sise. Not only that, but she can also transform a friendly unit into a clone of herself before she dies, making her ''hilariously'' hard to get rid of.
27	** There is also the ungodly Double Nao deck. It consists in stalling your opponent (usually through Trap in the Castle and/or the aforementioned Hunter: Piollet) to build up 15 Dark while discarding 2 White Nao (ideally a Dark mutant version) and 1 Black Knight, and 2 other creatures of your choosing (usually high Attack creatures like Red Dragon). Finally, once the 15 Dark is gathered, cast Ultimate: Gates of Hell and watch as your opponent is left with a few very, ''very, VERY'' specific options to counter your board. True Holy Spear and Succubus Queen: Lilith are the most effective, but both are pretty rare and expensive. Not even Seclusionist: Ansili, which otherwise ''literally'' destroys non-CGC decks, can stand to this deck since the Naos will revive everything he destroys. Have fun!
28	* While many overpowered cards and decks have come and gone in ''VideoGame/{{Shadowverse}}'', perhaps the biggest game-breaking deck of them all would have to be Neutral Blood in ''Wonderland Dreams''. To summarize, the brokenness of Neutral Blood came from the massive tempo plays on the first 4 turns followed by playing their win condition by turn 6. The basic Neutral Blood flowchart goes like this: Play [[https://shadowverse-portal.com/card/105611030 Tove]] on turn 2, a very overstatted 3/3 that couldn't attack until you played a Neutral minion, which was barely a drawback in a Neutral-focused deck. Turn 3 you play any 3-cost Neutral to activate Tove, but the best one would be a [[https://shadowverse-portal.com/card/105011030 Goblin Leader]] to put two Neutrals followers on the board, so that you can follow up with [[https://shadowverse-portal.com/card/105041010 Alice, Wonderland Explorer]] to give them +1/+1 the next turn. If you're behind on turn 4, you can instead play [[https://shadowverse-portal.com/card/105611020 Big Knuckle Bodyguard]] to put a big body ''with'' removal on the board. On turn 5, you activate [[https://shadowverse-portal.com/card/104621020 Baphomet]]'s Enhance effect to draw a minion with 5+ Attack from the deck and reduce its cost by 3, and you'll probably be so far ahead the tempo loss wouldn't matter. You use that to play a 5-mana [[https://shadowverse-portal.com/card/105641020 Spawn of the Abyss]] the next turn, and after that turn you Evolve it and attack to deal 8 guaranteed face damage from its card effect plus 8 damage if the enemy's leader is unprotected, removing '''''80%''''' of their health in a single turn. If your opponent doesn't have an immediate answer to your turn 2-4 plays, they'll be too far behind to even stop you from playing your wincon, and unless you can somehow have a Ward minion live long enough to redirect an attack from the Spawn, you're pretty much guaranteed to lose. What should be noted that ''every'' one of these cards mentions were nerfed after release, all of them before the next expansion hit.
29	* ''VideoGame/DigimonDigitalCardBattle''
30	** The Sevens cards, Rosemon's Lure, and Download Digivolve, all of which counts as InfinityPlusOneSword.
31	** Armor Digivolutions. If your partners have enough experience and good equippable Digi-Parts, their Armors can carry you throughout a good portion of the post-game. It's even a viable strategy to make the three partner cards you can get the only Digimon cards in a deck and using nothing but overpowered Option cards to boost them further.
32	* The [[AllegedlyFreeGame free-to-play]] Kongregate game ''VideoGame/{{Spellstone}}'' has a few:
33	** The '''[[OurAngelsAreDifferent Rogue Seraphim]]'''. While this card has a delay of 4 (meaning it takes [[MightyGlacier 4 turns to activate]]), it makes up for this with a greater health pool than similarly slow cards (as the max-level [[TieredByName Unchained Seraphim]], it has a whopping 60 HP), and it [[RegeneratingHealth passively regenerates]] 20% of that health ''every turn''. While this alone would be problematic, Seraphim gets two CounterAttack skills on top of that: Vengeance, which deals 12 damage to anything that attacks it directly, and Emberhide, which applies [[StatusInflictionAttack 10 HP's worth of burns]] to anything that attacks it directly. Worse, Emberhide ''stacks'', which means that any card unlucky enough to [[SpamAttack Dualstrike]] Seraphim will take 24 damage from Vengeance and ''another'' 20 from burns! Also note that in ''Spellstone'' regeneration, Vengeance, and Emberhide are all passive skills, which completely bypasses the [[MightyGlacier speed issue]] of being a 4-delay card, so the only thing it ''can't'' do out of the gate is attack directly. It has an attack stat of ''17'', to boot: more than capable of dishing out serious damage. It isn't even a [[PowerEqualsRarity Champion card]][[note]]Champion cards are special cards, sometimes with [[NominalImportance plot relevance]], that are PurposelyOverpowered. Because of this, a player can only ever own one copy of a Champion card, no matter what[[/note]], so it's possible to find decks that [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer use nothing but Seraphim]]. This card is so powerful, in fact, that "Seraphim spam" (filling an entire 15-card deck with these) is enough to ruin pretty much anyone, whether their cards are bolstered by [[FieldPowerEffect tribe-specific Battleground Events]] or not. Tellingly, it's still a solid defensive card ''after'' its much-needed {{nerf}} in early 2022, which lowered its Attack to 15, its HP to 57, its Vengeance to 10, its Emberhide to 8 and its Regenerate to 11.
34	** Legendary runes, which typically [[RareCandy increase the power of one skill by 1.5 times]], are incredibly useful, but one takes the cake: the '''Rune of Greater Health''' (aka '''[[FanNickname Leg. HP]]'''), which increases a card's max HP by 30 percent rounded up. In a game where HP is the OneStatToRuleThemAll, the Rune of Greater Health is just about the only Rune you'll ever see used in high-level play, as it can turn otherwise weak cards into bulky defensive titans. About the only downside to using this rune is that 1-delay cards don't have enough HP to get the full mileage out of it... but you can easily alleviate this by giving these {{Fragile Speedster}}s the +10 HP runes from Dungeons. It's a ''godsend'' on pretty much everything else, and is best used on the most overpowered Champions to really milk them for all they're worth.
35	** Cards that can [[StatusInflictionAttack apply Hex]], the game's DamageIncreasingDebuff. This applies to direct attacks ''and'' offensive skills like Bolt and Frostbreath. As a result, a common strategy for skilled players is "Hexbolt": setting up for big damage with cards that can Hex everything on the field, then [[ShootEverythingThatMoves spamming Hex-boosted Bolts and Frostbreaths]] until all the opponent's cards are destroyed.
36	** [[HarmlessFreezing Freeze]], by far the most overpowered skill in the game. Unless your card has Invisibility left, Freeze will render it completely unusable for a turn, allowing your opponent to gain a tempo advantage over you. While this skill is normally balanced out by a {{cooldown}} of 2 or 3 turns, there are a few Champions that can use this skill ''every other turn'', making them incredibly frightening to deal with. With enough Freeze cards, it can usually render any deck completely useless, as the cards are too busy being frozen to fight back with any skill whatsoever.
37	** High-level [[PurposelyOverpowered Champions]] tend to have more health and stronger skills than most Legendary cards of the same speed tier, as a sort of reward for [[MagikarpPower grinding 4,000 Champion Stones]] or simply BribingYourWayToVictory. The result is that Champions absolutely dominate the upper levels of the {{metagame}}, particularly [[DamageIncreasingDebuff hexers]], [[HarmlessFreezing freezers]], [[MoreDakka bolters]], or [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs some unholy combination of those three]]. This trend doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon, either, as three new Champions release every four weeks. Even among these, a few stand out above the rest.
38	*** '''Lok'thor, the Reborn'''. In much the same vein as Seraphim above, [[FanNickname Lok]] is a 4-delay Champion with the infamously annoying combination of Emberhide and Regenerate, allowing it to deal tons of passive damage while it waits to activate. With Legendary Health equipped, it's an outright NighInvulnerable monster without a way to deal lots of damage to it quickly. Plus, its ease of use means it can find a home in tons of decks, even outside of its own BGE. Unlike Seraphim, Lok'thor isn't a premium card, so since any player can get Champion Stones for it, it's ''[[ComplacentGamingSyndrome damn near everywhere]]'' as the premier defensive pick for free-to-play players, whether you've reached endgame or are totally new. And once it activates, it starts going on the offensive with Bolt All, which helps it synergize with high-level hexbolt decks.
39	*** '''Kensho, the Aeromaster''' is a foe to fear. Boasting a nasty mix of high [[ResistantToMagic Ward]], [[AnIcePerson Frostbreath]], and [[HarmlessFreezing Freeze]], Kensho is an incredibly versatile choice that can be put to good use pretty much from the get-go. He has a little of everything: a surprisingly strong Attack stat for a wizened old monk, solid defenses that make him pretty much immune to dying from Poison or Scorch without lots of concerted effort, and the dreaded "Freeze every 2", which is absolutely ''obscene'' on a 2-delay card. That's right -- in spite of only being a mid-speed card, a high-level Kensho can cast Freeze ''every other turn!'' The devs have taken note of this and created premium champions with the same gamebreaking ingredients: 2-delay, Ward, Freeze every 2. Have enough Shards to collect them all? Congratulations, your Kensho is now, in effect, ''[[FromBadToWorse spammable!]]''
40	*** '''Leroux, the Macabre'''. Leroux's skills (Valour, Siphon, and Dualstrike) result in a card that reaches an extremely high Attack stat right off the bat, strike whatever card is in front of it ''twice'' for that amount, and then heal off whatever damage it may have taken. At higher levels, particularly once it hits level 7 and gets Dualstrike every 2 (read: ''[[OhCrap every other turn]]''), it's very easy for an unchecked Leroux to blitz through anything and everything foolish enough to come near it. Combine his toolkit with Aria, who gives every card Berserk, and you make him into an IncreasinglyLethalEnemy on top of that.
41	*** '''Nuvis, the Eye Collector'''. On paper, Nuvis's skillset of Invisibility, Empower Goblin, and Empower Mecha is offset by his low base Attack and FragileSpeedster nature, and he looks like he could be a decent fast support for Goblin and Mecha decks. In practice, Nuvis is perhaps the ''only'' Goblin or Mecha you'll ever want to use outside of a Mecha or Goblin BGE, since without other Goblins or Mechas, he's guaranteed to use both of those Empowers on ''himself''. With only 1 turn of delay before Nuvis activates, that means you had better think fast or risk losing a few cards to what amounts to a 30-damage nuke on whatever's in front of Nuvis, ''every single turn''. Even Leroux has a brief {{cooldown}} on its Dualstrikes -- Nuvis has no such limitation. Oh, and in case you missed his description above, it has Invisibility, so he's difficult to defeat with the conventional hexbolt strategy. Your best bet against Nuvis is to pray you draw a card with Nullify, a highly situational skill which pretty much cripples him outright.
42	*** '''Alyel, Rush of Fury'''. What else can be said about a [[InfinityMinusOneSword Champion]] that activates ''instantly''? Just by ''existing'', Alyel can bypass killing anything else and soften up the [[StraightForTheCommander Hero]] a bit, which becomes quite a problem when her [[GatheringSteam Berserk]] increases her Attack from a measly 6 by at least 8 points (with a Berserk rune) on non-Dualstrike turns. Once Alyel gets going, she's quite difficult to stop: she has a solid defensive skill in Invisibility, letting her dodge up to ''4'' skills aimed at her. In what is perhaps the most unfair strategy in the entire game, placing Alyel next to '''Razi the Fallen Light''', who can Empower an Angel card by ''18'' with the proper rune, opens the possibility of getting your Hero '''''[[OneHitKill wiped out in the span of a single turn with no warning]]''''', thanks to Alyel Dualstriking with her souped-up Attack.
43	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNJUp0_kdpg This video]] describes a set of functionally-identical, very overpowered cards in Card-Jitsu, ''VideoGame/ClubPenguin'''s card battle game. The game itself is a simple rock-paper-scissors where each card has a power number that's used for tiebreakers. The cards in question are Water-type, and have a power of 12, the highest possible. Normally, even the strongest Water card loses to the weakest Snow card, but these cards have an effect that changes opponent's card's element from Snow to Water, meaning the round will be decided by power, which they have the highest possible amount of. There are special effects that can help beat this card, but they must be set up one turn in advance and only last one turn, so the opponent can just wait for the effect to wear off. As long as you don't accidentally use this card when one of those effects is active, you are guaranteed to either win, unless your opponent plays a 12 power Water or Snow card, which results in a tie.
44	* ''VideoGame/MarvelSnap'':
45	** Back in beta, Mister Negative was the most stand-out broken card. His effect swaps the Power and cost of every card in your deck, letting you turn high-cost low-Power cards into massive bombs. There was effectively no downside to this, since there were many swap targets that were still good even if not reversed, and Negative himself had a reasonable 4 Power body for 4, letting him contest his location. When the game was officially released, Negative was changed to instead have -1 Power, making him actively hurt the location he was played to and forcing him to be more of a commitment.
46	** For a few months, The Leader was the most despised card in the game. His effect copied everything your opponent played this turn to your side of the board. Many decks hold cards until the final round where they make one gigantic push, and Leader completely invalidated these strategies since you could play normally then just copy everything your opponent did. There was basically no way to play around this other than to pray they hadn't drawn Leader yet. Leader was eventually changed to only copy the opponent's highest-Power card they played, making him counter decks that go big but not decks that go wide.
47	** Two ReducedResourceCost cards proved to be quite a pain. First was Zabu, which makes all of your 4-Cost cards cost 2 less. With two Zabus or doubling Zabu's effect with Wong, this could let you reduce your entire deck to 0 if it was built right. The other, Quinjet, reduces the cost of cards that didn't start in your deck by 1. Combined with Thanos; who shuffles in six 1-Cost Infinity Stones that help you cycle through your deck, and Lockjaw; who swaps any cards you play to his location with a random card from your deck, you could easily cycle through your deck while building massive Power. Both were changed to no longer lower the cost of cards below 1.

Context GameBreaker / CardBattleGame