Draw Extra Cards

Decisions, decisions...

"I play the magic card Pot of Greed! It allows me to draw two cards from my deck."

— Seto Kaiba, Yu-Gi-Oh!, "Legendary Fisherman, Part 1"

A mechanic frequently seen in Card Games, particularly Collectible Card Games and Deckbuilding Games. Most card games give the player a standard ability to draw a certain number of cards at the end of their turn—typically one for Collectible Card Games, and five for Deckbuilding Games. However, many cards will have added effects which allows players to draw more cards than they normally would be able to during their turn, giving them more resources or options to work with. The most powerful examples of this trope have no direct cost, and allow the player to simply thin their decks out faster to get the cards they want. Sometimes they have a cost required to activate their effect, making it more of a gamble.

A dedicated "draw extra cards" effect seemingly would have to give the player more resources to end with to be useful—if a card has the ability to allow the user to, say, draw two cards when played, the player would have an increase in options overall, but if a player only drew one card, they would have the same number of cards they started with. However, a card whose only effect is to draw another card isn't useless—if a player in a CCG has to have, say a 40-card deck and wants a greater chance to draw some specific card that they are only allowed a limited number of, then a "Draw One Card" card is effectively "invisible" turning it into a 39-card deck, increasing the chances of pulling the card the player wants. It may also interact with cards who have effects that trigger when cards are drawn at all.

Such an ability, while normally beneficial, can also be used against a player. In head-to-head card games, running out of cards tends to result in a Game Over. However, there are some games where the win condition involves getting rid of all of one's cards—in such games, forcing card draws makes winning harder for the opponent. "Mill Decks", named after the Millstone card in Magic: The Gathering, the codifier of the offensive use of this effect, are decks that specialize in forcing the the opponent to draw over and over again until they run out of cards to draw, losing the game. Mill Decks can also take the form of forcing the opponent to discard cards from their deck repeatedly as well.

If there's some mixing of drawing and discarding in a single effect, then it goes in the subtrope, Card Cycling.

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Examples

Fan Works

• Elementals of Harmony: The card described at the end of the Epilogue, "Go Postal" has this effect:
  Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player this turn, draw that many cards.

Tabletop Games

• Many cards in Disney Lorcana allow a player to do this. Most of them are Amethyst, but other colors do it with their own spin—the Amber ink Rapunzel - Gifted Artist lets you draw whenever you remove damage counters from one of your characters.
• The Smithy card from 1st edition Dominion. It allowed the player to draw three cards. But it came with the inherent cost of being an Action, which a player can normally only use once per turn, and did not give the player to use another Action—so if the player did not draw non-Action cards, it was effectively a waste. The Moat card had the weaker effect allowing the player to draw two cards, and combined it with a Defend Command.
• Dungeons And Dragons, Advanced D&D. The Deck of Many Things is a powerful magic item that gives strong benefits or penalties depending on which card(s) a character draws from it. If a character draws the Jester, they can draw two more cards. If a character draws the Fool card, they lose 10,000 Experience Points and have to draw another card.
• Expandable Card Game Epic (Card Game): The evil-aligned Scara's Will and good-aligned Angeline's Favor both have this ability, probably due to being diametrically opposed deities in the setting of the game. Uniquely, these both are either/or abilities. Both these cards have second effects that can be picked to use instead (buffing an ally's attack and defense and giving them flight for Angeline's Favor, and breaking an opposing player's champion for gold for Scara's Will).
• Everdell has several effects that let you draw more cards. Most of them have drawbacks like being conditional or costly, since drawing cards not only helps you get the card you want, but also provides fodder for effects that let you discard cards for a bonus.
  • Some Basic spots and Forest spots let you spend a worker to draw cards.
  • The Wanderer is a simple Critter that lets you draw three cards once if you can spare the three berries it takes to play him.
  • The Post Office is a red Construction that has you spend a worker, give an opponent two cards and discard any number of cards to draw up to your hand size. In addition to the aforementioned drawbacks, it also has the issue of being an Open Construction, meaning that other players can use your Post Office.
  • The Scurbble Stadium is a red Construction that lets you draw 4 cards (with a random chance to gain three Victory Points as a bonus) when visited. Like the Post Office, it has the drawback of being Open.
  • The Ruins lets you destroy a Construction to get back the resources you spent on it and draw two card, with the Ruins itself still clogging up the destroyed Construction's city slot.
  • The Historian is a valuable blue Critter that lets you draw a new card whenever you add a card to your city. Its Legendary counterpart Foresight is costlier, but lets you draw two after playing a Critter. (Though you get a resource instead of a card when you play a Construction).
  • The Teacher is a green card that lets you draw two cards whenever it's activated... but you only get to keep one. The other goes to an opponent of your choice.
  • The Bridge from Pearlbrook lets you draw two cards whenever you get a Pearl, a particularly scarce resource.
  • A visitable Spirecrest destination combines card draw with push-your-luck: You can draw as many cards as you want, up to your hand limit, and get one Victory Point for each card you draw to boot. However, if any of the drawn cards match a card in the Meadow, you get nothing. This location also has the downside of being Open. It has three slots unlike a red Critter/Construction—on the one hand your opponents can't really block it, but you can't deny them use of it either.
• Magic: The Gathering: Most card draw effects cost more than just mana to use. In order of cost:
  • Accumulated Knowledge: Instant spell costing 1 blue mana and 1 other mana to:
    Draw a card, then draw cards equal to the number of cards named Accumulated Knowledge in all graveyards.
  • Ancestral Recall: Instant spell costing 1 blue mana to have any player draw three cards.
  • Slay is an instant spell costing 1 black mana and two other mana and a green creature to destroy before it can draw a card.
  • Phantom Strike costs 1 black mana and 1 other mana and the presence of a Spirit in hand to reveal or trading 3 more other mana to remove the reveal cost, along with a creature to destroy, before drawing a card.
  • Dregs of Sorrow costs 1 black mana and 4 other mana, and a player-selected amount from 0 and up. That amount is an additional other mana cost, a requirement of non-black creatures to destroy, and also the number of cards to be drawn after all the destruction.
• Monopoly Deal has the 'Pass Go' Action card, which when played prompts you to draw two cards.
• Some Action cards in Muffin Time can allow you to draw more cards. Like 'Big Bee', 'Desmond the Moon Bear', 'Level up', and more.
• Pokémon:
  • Bill is a Trainer card that allows the player to draw 2 cards. In the earliest days of the game, Trainer cards had no restrictions on their use, so with the maximum 4 copies allowed in the deck, a player could draw 8 extra cards in one turn if they were all in the hand during the same turn.
  • After the introduction of Supporter cards, only one of which can be played per turn, item cards (the equivalent of the original trainer cards) would rarely allow more than one card to be drawn without cost or coin flips. Trekking Shoes allows one card to be drawn when used, but that card may be discarded to draw the next card instead.
  • Many Supporter cards allow drawing three cards. Barry, Cheren, Tierno, Hau, Hop, and Nemona (all rivals from their respective games) just draw 3 cards with no additional effect, while others have extra effects on top of the 3-card draw, such as Bird Keeper switching the player's active Pokémon.
  • Some Pokémon have abilities that allow drawing extra cards. How many cards, as well as any costs or conditions that must be met, vary, but tend to correlate with the Pokémon's stage and Prize Value. For example, the Basic Pokémon Raikou V allows one card to be drawn once per turn, but only while it's in the active spot, while the Stage One Gholdengo ex allows one card to be drawn once during its trainer's turn while it is in play, without it needing to be active, with an additional card being drawn if it is the active Pokémon when the ability is used for the turn.
• The primary purpose of the Portal dice from Quarriors. These dice have a 3/6 chance of allowing the player to draw two more dice, but a 1/6 dice of giving the player 1 Quiddity (the currency of the game) and a 2/6 chance of allowing the player to draw one more die (and since you used a die to do this, did effectively nothing).
• In Root, each faction has different criteria that allow them to draw extra cards at the end of their turn: Marquise de Cat draws one extra card if there are 3+ recruiters on the board, or two if there are 5+; the Eyrie Dynasties draw an extra card for every three nests on the board; the Woodland Alliance draws an extra card for each base on the board; and the Vagabond draws an extra card for each coin stack in their inventory.
• Shadows over Camelot:
  • When Merlin travels to an active quest, every knight on that quest can draw an extra (beneficial) white card at the beginning of their turn.
  • Two knights' special abilities grant this: Sir Gareth gets a bonus white card whenever he arrives at a quest, while Sir Caradoc can sacrifice a life point to draw two cards.
  • The black deck, which creates the challenges the knights are fighting against, includes a Morgana card that forces whoever draws it to draw and resolve an extra three black cards.
• The Pot of Greed, from Yu-Gi-Oh!. It allows the player to draw two cards. In fact, there's an entire archetype, the "Greed" archetype, of related cards, which are all themed around drawing more cards. Another archetype, the Treasure Cards series, allow for drawing even greater amounts of extra cards, but in turn, require more significant drawbacks, from being forced to discard cards or having to skip their turns battle phase wholly.
• The Draw Two, Draw Four, and Wild Draw Four cards of Uno. Unlike most examples, playing this forces the opponent to draw cards, putting them at a disadvantage as the goal of the game is for a player to empty their hand of all cards.
• Wingspan:
  • The game has quite a bit of card draw. Not only does it help you find good birds, it also lets you fuel abilities that require you to discard or tuck cards. The Wetlands habitat in particular is focused on drawing cards—its innate ability is card draw, and many Wetlands birds have card-drawing powers (typically the "when activated" or "when played" flavors). Most of these birds have drawbacks like low point values, restrictions like "draw a bird from the tray with a specific nest type", or also giving your opponents cards.
  • The game has a theme of endangered birds letting you draw new bonus cards.

Video Games

• The Elder Scrolls: Legends: Several cards—most commonly from the Intelligence or Agility attributes—give you the chance to draw extra cards. One of the most useful is Elusive Schemer, which draws an extra card upon being played, and then upon being killed puts a 0-cost copy of itself with the same ability into your deck.
• Genshin Impact: In the Genius Invokation TCG, the card Strategize allows the player to draw 2 cards for a one Dice cost.
• Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: Since the game has mana as a primary resource beyond cards or Hit Points, it allows the game to have a bevy of card draw effects. Some examples include:
  • The Warlock's Hero Power, Life Tap, which lets them draw a card for 2 Mana at the cost of taking 2 damage. As a Hero Power, they can use it once every turn.
  • Mage's Arcane Intellect, drawing two cards for 3 Mana.
  • Coldlight Oracle, which has a Battlecry that makes both players draw two cards. Its double-edged effect made it a staple in mill decks, which aims to waste opponent's card by forcing them to draw beyond their hand limit.
  • Gadgetzan Auctioneer, while in play, draws you a card whenever the owner plays a spell. It was widely used in combo decks using many low-cost spells.
  • Divine Favor is a 3-mana Paladin spell that draws cards until you have cards equal to our opponent's hand size. It was eventually kicked out of Standard due to how powerful it was in aggro Paladin matchups versus control decks.
  • Aluneth, a Legendary Mage weapon that drew three cards at the end of your turn while equipped. While it makes for a strong draw engine, the fact it's uncontrollable and hard to unequip as a Mage meant it puts you on a timer as a downside.
  • Octosari, a 8-mana 8/8 Legendary Neutral minion with a Deathrattle that makes the owner draw 8 cards on death.
  • Myra's Unstable Element, a Legendary Rogue spell that draws your entire deck for 5 mana.
  • Backfire allows a player to draw three cards at the cost of hurting the player for 3 damage.
• In I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, some cards and perks let you draw extra cards each round, giving you more options in the card challenges. The Memory Backpack is an equippable item that has this function.
• Legends of Runeterra features several cards that allow additional draw cards.
  • Glimpse Beyond: Draw two cards at a cost of sacrificing a friendly card, though since it belongs to the Shadow Isles region, there are a lot of expendable cards that can be used on.
  • Twisted Fate's level up condition requires drawing nine cards when he is currently in the field. Fortunately, he has many ways to get those cards out of the hand, which includes his Blue Card skill which gives him an extra Spell Mana and card. His signature spell, Pick A Card, returns one card in the player's hand but will receive 2 more cards on the next round. However, those cards are fleeting so they must be used or else they will be removed from the hand.
  • The Nab keyword draws cards from the opponent's deck like Black Market Merchant and Pilfered Goods. Many of the nab cards require the Plunder effect, which the player must deal damage to the opponent's Nexus to achieve the effect.
  • Targon decks have exclusive set of cards called Celestial cards and cards with the Invoke effect will create one of three randomly generated Celestial cards into your hand.
• Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes, as a collectible card game, contains many cards with the ability to draw more. Two of the most basic examples are Flourish and Fun-Dead Raiser, three-cost cards that each draw two cards when played.
• Poptropica has a Mighty Action Force card game on episodes 2 and 3 of Poptropicon Island. One playable card is Pony Girl, which, in addition to its okay stats, has the special ability of drawing a card after being played.
• Slay the Spire:
  • Relics: Draw two extra cards on the start of their first turn
    • Ring of the Snake
    • Bag of Preparation
  • Classes:
    • Ironclad has a number of cards with this effect, from the Warcry card, who removes itself from the deck after being played, to limit it, to Battle Trace, who draws a heft three cards, but prevents other card draw effects from triggering for that turn.
    • The Silent has several cards from this effect, such as Acrobatics, which allows the player to draw three or four cards, but forces to discard one, and Backflip, which combines this effect with a Defend Command.
• Sonic Shuffle:
  • Speederalds are special Forcejewels that allow the player who uses them to draw more than one card either when they move across the board or fight monsters in card battles. The standard Speederald allows the player to draw two cards, the Hi-Speederald allows the player to draw three, the Turbo Speederald allows the player to draw four, and the Max Speederald allows the player to draw five.
  • In Battle Mode, Tails and Knuckles' special moves allow them to draw two extra cards after selecting the Special card.
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's Gwent minigame has a number of methods for drawing extra cards. Spies allow a player to draw two extra cards at the cost of giving the other player a small boost to their score (except for the Mysterious Elf card). Medics allow a player to play a card they used in a previous round or was eliminated from the board using Scorch. Finally, the Northern Realms has the faction ability of drawing an extra card when winning a round, which makes them an extremely attractive faction to play as.

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