Pokemon Card War

At a flea market yesterday, I bought someone's entire (well, the stuff they didn't want) Pokemon card collection for a mere $10! Most of the several hundred cards were legitimate Pokemon, with a handful of trainer cards, energy, and other random playing cards that must have found their way into the collection through the years.

My girlfriend and I each set aside a stack of cards we wanted, and divided the rest to give to friends for Christmas. I kept several holographic cards including a Pikachu card and Gastly. I also kept a few legendaries such as Latios, Darkrai, and Yveltal.

After dividing up all the cards, only the trainer cards and energy cards were left. Except for a few holographic ones, I decided to donate all the trainer cards to Goodwill but I held onto the energy cards. I am formulating an idea in the back of my mind for a use of these cards.

You know the simple, long, and boring card game War? There have been several variations of this game such as Speed, Slap Jack, and Egyptian Ratscrew. I figure that I could come up with my own variation of this using these energy cards!

The Deck

First I want to total up my deck just to take inventory.

Type	Also used for	Count
Fighting	Rock, Ground	8
Fire		13
Psychic	Poison, Dark, Ghost	10
Water	Ice	12
Grass	Bug	9
Lightning	(Electric)	9
Metal	(Steel)	7
Darkness	(Dark)	8
Total		76

Luckily, my elemental type counts are roughly in the same ballpark. Right off the bat, I have close to double the amount of Fire as I do Metal.

The Rules

I imagine this game to be very similar to War. Each player takes a card off the top of their deck. If one card "beats" the other, then that player takes both cards and adds it to the bottom of their stack. If neither card beats the other, then each player puts down another card. To win the game, one player must have all the cards, or force their opponent to run out of their cards!

However, defining what cards "beat" others is going to be tricky. With a standard deck of 52 cards, that is easy, because each card has a numeric value, 2 through 14 (assuming aces are high.) The higher value card "beats" the lower value card.

For those if you who are not familiar with Pokemon, there is no such "ace" in the game. Each elemental type has strengths and weaknesses against other types. A very common scenario is Fire-Water-Grass. Think of it like Rock-Paper-Scissors. Fire beats Grass, Water beats Fire, and Grass beats Water. There is no "best" type.

In the Pokemon games, there are clear-cut rules for which types are strong against other types. Look up "Type Effectiveness Chart" for the full rundown. Unfortunately, there are no clear-cut rules in the Pokemon card games, so we'll define our own based on common type matchups and common card weaknesses and resistances in the TCG.

Card Matchups

To make a balanced game, I want to define an equal number of strengths and weaknesses for each elemental type.

For example, Fire beats Grass and loses to Water. In the games, Fire also beats Steel, so we'll define that matchup as well in this game. To balance it out, I want to create another weakness for Fire. In the games, Rock and Ground types beat Fire, so I'll use the Fighting type as Fire's second weakness. So here's the summary:

Player	Opponent	Outcome
Fire	Grass	Win
Fire	Metal	Win
Fire	Water	Lose
Fire	Fighting	Lose
Fire	anything else	Draw, play again

I want to define the same set of rules for each other elemental type in the game, and I'll put the results below.

All Matchups

This is my arbitrary table of card type matchups.

You ->	Fighting	Fire	Psychic	Water	Grass	Lightning	Metal	Darkness
Fighting	-	L	W	W	W	L		L
Fire	W	-		W	L		L
Psychic	L		-		L		W	W
Water	L	L		-	W	W
Grass	L	W	W	L	-
Lightning	W			L		-
Metal		W	L				-
Darkness	W		L					-

How to read this table: You play the card on the top row. Your opponent plays the card in the first column. Look at the cell where your row and column meet. If it says W, then you win and pick up the cards. If it says L, then you lose and your opponent picks up the cards. Otherwise, you both play a second card.

This table is an attempt to keep each card balanced, where different elemental types have different numbers of strengths and weaknesses. However, each card has the same number of strengths as weaknesses. This is not tested for balance, especially because I do not have identical amounts for each type of card. It is simply meant as a guide to show how to balance a deck like this.

Explanation

Most of the matchups make sense, being derived from the base game or TCG. However I did have to "force" some for balance; for example the Fighting -> Fire matchup that I explained earlier. I also had to "force" Water -> Fighting (assuming that Fighting encompasses Rock and Ground types) and Psychic -> Grass (assuming that Psychic includes Poison types.)

Some other matchups I considered were Fighting -> Metal AND Metal -> Fighting simultaneously; because in the games, Fighting and Ground does actually beat Steel, but Steel beats Rock too. Plus, if I had included this, then Fighting would have an uneven amount of strengths and weaknesses.

I also considered adding Water -> Metal as Water types resist Steel moves. Same thing for Grass -> Lightning. I also considered Grass -> Darkness since Bug type moves are strong against Dark types. Feel free to use these suggestions in play, but just know that it might make certain cards stronger than others. This might not be a bad thing.

Conclusion

I haven't played this game yet, but I will follow-up once I do. I may make some tweaks to the matchup table if needed. If you decide to break out the ol' Pokemon card collection and try this game, please enjoy, and send me your feedback!