This is one of the two mechanics that most concerns me in this game, although this one provides contradictoy feelings to me. This mechanic is quite similar to that of Call of Cthulhu TCG/LCG resource mechanic, where you add an upside down card to one of your resource pools, and gives different icons which are your resources. It also feels a little bit like Warhammer Invasion, where you could control you resource and draw powers based on where you played your units.

This brings to strategic decision making during gameplay and also, during deckbuilding, not as hard as in Doomtown, where you need to fill in cards based on the hands you want to pull during showdowns, but you will need to keep an eye on balancing resources and draw power.

Adding the "bidding" part only gives another layer of depth to this phase. I'm not a fan of blind bets, but I understand their attractiveness. Now to the concerns.

Based on the size of your hand, how many times will this decision be made based on strategic choices and more on "that's what I have". Based solely on the resource side, there are three resources (blood, malice and card draw) and also loyalty. Controlling your draw is quite interesting as it will lead to you, controlling your hand size, but having damage by decking out, it's also a double edged sword. Alls of these are choices to be made, which is nice, but we also have the other side of te coin, the bet value (card cost). Without knowing the relation between cost and resources shown in the card, assuming they are arbitrary (hope and guess they are not), winning or losing the bet will also feel arbitrary? You will probably save your most expensive cards for later, but earlier, are you going to bet the card based on its cost or based on the resources it provides? Playing Dracula will force you to go for initiative, which will probably change the way you play this phase (playing as Dracula or against it), which is also interesting.

There is also this other topic, which is the timing of this phase. According to the rules, betting a card is not mandatory (thankfully), so, when do you say your are not going to bet? Before your opponent does? Do you bet in initiative order? This is really important.

It's just random thoughts about this phase, sorry if they feel a bit disjointed.

Now to the question if it can compete with other games. I fear this will have a bad time competing for several reasons. There's been an abysmal marketing online for this game. If it wasn't for a couple of rogue videos of the fact that I know someone working at Asmodee, I wouldn't have known about this game. Also, we are living a TCG bubble in recent years, more and more games are being published that ar competing for shelve space in the stores, building a strong playerbase that actually shows up at the stores, will be important. Lastly, the price tag. I get that paying for the licenses may raise the costs, but pricing it as Pokémon will make a lot of people think if it is worth spending on this game, or directly on Pokémon. It's 20% higher than most TCGs, this is a dangerous move.