- Red - Blood characterized by Nobles and Vampires.
- Orange - Hope characterized by Priestesses and Angels.
- Yellow - Law characterized by Scientists and Soldiers.
- Green - Nature characterized by Barbarians and Spirits.
- Blue - Sorrow characterized by Goths and Ghosts.
- Purple - Chaos characterized by Rogues and Chimeras.
So here's the deal: "Card Type" determines what happens when you play a card. A card is "Type: Spell" if playing it causes it to have an effect and then go to the discard pile. A "Class" is a tag that a card has which determine whether other cards affect it or not. A card is "Class: Soldier" if it benefits from effects like "All Soldiers in play get +1/+0." So "Asset" is a Type, "Goblin" is a Class. These use different words so that you can speak about them without your tongue turning into cottage cheese.
Now let's talk about what a card that's in play might do. In Yugioh, a Monster goes into a battle position and a Trap goes face down. But once a Trap has been activated, it either stays where it is or moves to a different position (or goes to the discard pile) depending on what kind of trap card it is. Magic has Enchantments and Artifacts but those should just be Classes, because those card types aren't different in practical effect.
So here's a fairly exhaustive list of where cards can go:
- Cards can go to the Discard Pile.
- Cards can go to your Vassals who could then be declared as attackers and defenders.
- Cards can to to your Resource pile.
- Cards can go on the table in an attackable location.
- Cards can go on the table in a non-attackable location.
- Cards can attach to other cards.
- Cards can go face down in a manner where they are on the table but haven't been contextualized yet.
- An effect that can only be played when the stack is empty.
- An effect that can go on the stack.
- An effect that takes place immediately and does not use the stack or allow it itself to be responded to.
Now let's talk about restrictions on playing cards. A card inherently:
- Can only be played during your turn.
- Can only be played during the "main phase."
Now MtG links skipping the former restriction to skipping the latter restriction (and also to play speed). That's a terrible idea. The ability to be played on an opponent's main phase but not during draw steps or combat is the kind of ability you'd want on a card - most specifically on Discard spells, which might want to be useable during an opponent's turn but certainly not before they've been given the opportunity to play something while they are in topdeck mode.
And yes, by dividing these concepts you can in fact have cards and abilities that can be used in response to things but can still only be used on your turn or still only used during a main phase or both. This creates a design space for action modifiers - abilities that modify your own major effects but aren't things you can interrupt combat with.
So next up, we can talk about what relevant abilities cards of different types can have.
-Username17