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I’m a little out of the loop here. I always thought these sort of card games were monster against monster (YuGiOh, Pokemon, etc.)
How is Nora receiving dammage before she even plays a card?
(To be fair, the most powerful card I usually play in a game is usually either an Ace or a King. Trading card games usually go over my head by default.)
Yu-Gi-Oh, DuelMasters, Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone (and probably more) are all won by either reducing the life points of the opponents, or by them not having any cards left to draw. I can’t speak for how Yu-Gi-Oh works, as I’ve never played it, but MtG, DuelMasters and Heathstone all had a rule in place that prevented creatures from attacking the same turn they entered the “battlefield.” Of course, they also introduced rules that let creatures ignore this rule, though I’m not sure if Hearthstone was the only one with two such abilities, where ‘Charge’ would let the creature attack anything immediatley, while ‘Rush’ only let the creature attack another creature on the same turn it was summoned (but allowed it to hit the opposing player on subesquent turns.)
In any case, this game either doesn’t have such a buffer rule, or ‘The Twins’ have an ability that lets them ignore it.
DuelMasters was just just a pale Yu-Gi-Oh! knockoff.
Except it wasn’t. It was more of a parody but the rules were actually pretty good.
Fun fact: literally a week before Duel Masters came out in the US, I decided to make a card game. It was almost rule-for-rule and on theme with Duel Masters. I was so mad.
Duel masters is closer to magic
For Yugioh, the rule is you cannot attack in the first turn. However, there are many ways you can damage your opponent in the first turn.
There are numerous Spell cards like that says inflict X amount of damage to your opponent.
The monster card Solar Flare Dragon has the effect that at the end of each of your turns, it damages your opponent by 500 points.
There is Battle damage and Effect damage. Battle damage cannot be done on turn 1, effect damage can.
I guess, this is where the “Digital” type is comes in.
This should explain things. Since everyone in Yu-Gi-Oh is a walking rulebook for Duel Monsters.
https://youtu.be/Yd34q4_umlM?is=mRDqy-PI-oy0ZiAt
In magic, some cards had abilities that let them attack as soon as they were played
So Mikey creates a new headache for the game designers? …AND for Nora.
Heh! I’ve never played one of these games. 99% of what I know I learned following TwinDragons. 🙂
And I -used to- play the aces & kings kind with a dozen guys who would play games with up to a dozen wild cards at a time from one deck. I gave up. Almost had to have a Royal Flush to win, and their definition of a RF was flawed… LOL
Of course Mikey would somehow find a glitch in the matrix to use to his advantage.
I wonder how Nora will respond.
Those are Mikey’s pretties? I hope this doesn’t make him think he’s a ladies’ man, he might make an Ass Hybrid of himself
Seems like Mikey is smarter than he looks with his dorky appearance, I guess I should’ve expected a Raccoon Hybrid to be crafty. I wonder how Nora will counter Mikey’s attack, but given how she’s been caught off guard, she may be in a tight spot. Hopefully she has an EMP in her amalgamation of a deck, that might shave off some of of Mikey’s life points. Maybe even knock off his sunglasses.
I wonder what other Digital Ghosts are in Mikey’s deck, and what other shout outs/references they contain. Maybe Digimon? Ghost in the Shell? What cards will Nora use? Find out on the next chapter of Twin Dragons: Hybridcon!
I’m confused. Is Mikey playing multiple cards before Nora gets a chance to do anything? If he “made them work” through some “workaround”, that sounds like he needs to add one or more other cards before the Twins can attack.
Maybe it’s normal to play multiple cards per turn? I know nothing about how those trading card games are played (except I understand that it’s an unfair game where those with more money to spend can buy more and better cards to win more games).
It’s pretty normal to play multiple cards per turn. It’s usually limited by a resource you have to build up as well. I left the resource building out to keep the story flowing rather than explain every little step.
And on the point of spending money, you can make competitive decks with little money. My brother had a very competitive deck made for less than a dollar because he used cards so common no one was buying them :p
OK. Showing Mikey placing more cards on the table might have reduced the confusion.
If it’s possible to be competitive with only common cards, then I take it that players like Phoebe, who rely on rare cards, choose an unnecessarily expensive strategy.
When you go back one page, you can see that Nora had 7 cards in her hand at the start of the game and Mikey had 6 after playing the twins card. But it’s not clear if he drew a card at the start of his first turn and went 8->6 on his first turn (playing a card that gives him ressources first and then the twins) or if that was just him getting his start hand and went 7->6. But now on this page, both have 5 cards in hand. If Robin keeps track of the cards, we can assume that we are actually on Mikey’s second turn and Nora had a turn in between, but couldn’t do anything about the twins yet.
And yes, many trading card games (tcg) allow to play multiple cards on one turn, although the exact limitations differ from game to game. E.g. in one game you can only a maximum per card type per turn or you have to spend ressources to play certain cards (looking back to page 552, this seems to be the case for this game). And quite often there are combos that let you get around certain rules. Some combo decks might be able to play their whole hand on turn one if they get a lucky draw.
Digital + Ghost? Robin, you realize you’re practically obligated to make a “ghost in the machine” joke at some point during this battle, right?
Oh, I made the joke two pages ago, I believe :p
Ah, so you did. That’s my bad memory.
Panel 3: Maybe add a comma to “theory”?
200 seems a slow start
but he’s only just begin.
Is he going to win the day
or get his bell truly rung?
He’s changed his deck a bit
trying something a bit new.
Testing out Nora’s patience
to see what he can do.
He’s smarter than Nora is
and reacts with a shrug,
agreeing with the fact that
he’s almost twice as smug.
Think you missed the “u” key early on.
Diolch yn fawr iawn.
Twice as smug indeed, but she’s yet to play a thing. Let’s see what unfolds.
Now I REALLY hope Nora hands his arse to him on a silver platter.
I actually like that Nora is genuinely engaged and interested. This isn’t someone she’s emotionally invested in beating. Just ‘Oh hey that’s actually kinda cool.’
Happy your’e treating it like two hobbiests rather than mortal enemies.
I really feel for Nora in the last panel. Good job with her reactions!