Are there games where unconditional "Draw X cards" is balanced or even underpowered?

Discover cancer

Not card-draw; Discover is good beyond just being straight card advantage.

The Pokemon TCG has an obscene amount of card filtering and draw power, but still feels decently balanced from what little I've played. I don't think cards like Tierno(draw three cards) even see high level play.

In games with enormously high card flow they can be balanced, but offhand, the only CCG I can think of with that sort of effect is the old MECCG one, and even then, things that help you draw lots of cards are considered strong, if not uberstrong.

I'm pretty sure he's not saying

>You get to draw these cards but you get bad effect X

But rather that drawing lots of cards is something you don't necessarily want to do in the rules of whatever game he's alluding to or hypothesizing about.

This is true. Netrunner uses time as a resource; you can only take so many actions a turn, and every card you play eats up one of those precious clicks. The more cards you draw, the fewer cards you get to play.

>ctrl+f 'UNO'
darn

...

Discover is better than card-draw because it lets you tutor cards that you don't own.

This phrase should replace 'kys'

No, he's not saying that user should discover cancer, he's saying that the discover mechanic of hearthstone is cancer.

Hearthstone has a separate problem where a lot of the good cards replace themselves with another card or give you value approximate to another card even if they die.

Instead of "Draw 2 cards" you usually see "Battlecry: discover a card," or some powerful Deathrattle. So value is still powerful. Blizzard just made straight-up draw difficult to set up or Mana intensive.

Wow, you're a moron.

That's less because card advantage is overpowered in general, and more because Hearthstone is "value + tempo, the game." It still satisfies OP's point.

What other element would you like to see emphasized in HS?

Non-creature strategies. I want a viable desk with, like, 3 or 4 creatures in it. Either burn or full-on control.

Do you not play HS? Or by viable to you mean World Championships-worthy? You can get to single-digit Legendary pretty easily with various control decks.

The only game I know of is Hearthstone.

Getting through your deck too fast is bad in long games, and there are
plenty of cards that add cards to your deck or hand instead which is
stronger than drawing.

Honestly, in most games drawing is just ok because while you
waste resources drawing your opponent is doing things.

The ONLY reaosn jar of greed is broke OP in yugioh is because there
is no resource system, no limits to your turn, and more cards = more stuff
to use RIGHT AWAY

Draw mechanics are only broken in yugioh because yugioh is broken.
In every other game they are just a strong move that invests in the late
game, and can cost you the game against agressive decks.

You can get anywhere with luck. HS has never had a control deck that was anything other than a midrange deck in disguise.

He definitely does not play a significant amount of Hearthstone, or he'd know about things like OTK decks and mage Alexstrasza decks. Hearthstone has plenty of control and minion-light decks in the meta.

There's nothing underpowered or balanced about drawing cards on UNO, it's actually so powerful it breaks friendships. It's literally the best thing you can draw on the game.

>complaining about control being mid-range
Oh, you want a meta dominated by mill decks and other decks with no win condition? Yeah, no thanks.

And the whole point of saying something is easy, is that it doesn't require egregious amounts of luck to achieve.

This, 100%. Time is as as important as drawing cards, frequently moreso depending on the situation. Most decks don't actually run very much card draw; some run almost none. You will, however, be hard pressed to find a deck that runs none.

>Oh, you want a meta dominated by mill decks and other decks with no win condition?
Tree of Life mill druid was the funnest deck Hearthstone ever had.

The FFG Netrunner redesign is, frankly, one of the best card games out there right now. It's easily got the most choices-per-game of any card game I've ever played, and the most player interaction. It's in a little bit of a slump just now, mechanically (Sifr is utter bullshit), but fundamentally it's still very good.

Agreed. And a meta filled with it would make the mechanic decidedly less fun.

You can make something viable on purpose without it dominating the meta.
Although, now that I think about it, I doubt that Blizzard has the chops for that.

I think extreme late game control is enough of a niche strategy for having a one-off deck occasionally appear is fine. But, I'm not the one who dislikes the current state of things so I'm not a fun person to complain with/to.

Do you not play Mage, at all? Who plays burn/control and doesn't gravitate to Mage?

In Faeria, there's a draw 2 for 3 card that sees very little play.

Yes, I do. I was so excited when Hemmet Mage became a thing, but that deck ended up being shit :^|

Because it's garbage in the action economy of that game.
They've mentioned, for example, alexstrasza mage decks in this thread, and it doesn't take much effort to think of other ways to build a viable deck with only 4 creatures with mage. And really, burn is just a face race anyway so it doesn't really break the monotony of the meta or anything.

I guess the biggest argument might be that burn and control are collapsed into one strategy in HS; you normally can't have one without the other. No one would run face damage without board wipes and death saves.

>tfw living through the Prince's Plan meta in AGOT 1.0
Fucking nightmare

So, from reading the thread, here's a few thoughts of mine:

Truly unconditional draw would be overpowered, by virtue of being unconditional. If card draw is balanced, there is either some cost attached to it (MTG mana), some disincentive to play the card in the first place (such as limited actions), or a downside to having many cards on hand.

A downside of card draw cards that hasn't previously been mentioned, is the fact that you can't plan ahead. In some games it might be worth more to be certain of one specific card, than to get two random ones. Furthermore, the game might have a "discard your hand at the end of your turn, then draw X" rule, meaning you can't use the cards you'll draw during your opponent's turn.

as in Myths and Legends, if damage is taken directly to the library so that your life points are your deck, drawing tons of cards LATER in the game agaisnt a burnmill opponent becomes a lot riskier
however, having a larger hand is generally better (if you constructed your deck properly for the current meta)
if you had a punishment effect for drawing cards outside of your turn or outside of your particular draw phase or beyond your first draw then that diminishes the value of drawing cards
similarly, punishing players for having over a certain amounts of cards on their hand also limits that. MtG's punishment is almost insignificant since it only affect the end of your turn and many decks abusing card draw can (at least outside of standard) do that whenever they want, for example at the end of the opponents turn
lastly, as in netrunner, having finite slots for doing stuff in your turn (playing cards, activating them, attacking or its equivalent) reduces the benefit of having tons of options. not by much though, even if i can only play one card each turn then the chances of having the right one in my hand at any time is by either drawing lots, manipulating my draws, or directly tutoring for it

DAREDEVIL WYLDESIDE FAUST IN A MOON HOTEL!

DON'T FORGET THE PANCAKES!

The megaman battle network tcg.

Your deck is your life total.

Tree of Life Mill Druid also had plenty of creatures and thus win conditions.