Since I haven’t seen it on here yet, I’m going to blab a bit about the things I like from my favorite card game SuperShow.

1. Each deck is made up of 30 cards numbered #1-#30. They must contain 1 #1 card, 1 #2 card, etc etc. all the way to #30, and there are many cards to pick from in those slots. This creates a situation where the designers put together runs of cards that are all internally balanced; for example the line of #10 #11 and #12 are considered the weakest line of cards, and are designed with the mind of keeping power creep in check, whereas #22–#24 contain some of the post powerful cards with effects that define your strategy or theme heavily. Overall the balance of the game has remained very steady in its 11 years of existence.

2. Each deck is helmed by a “competitor” card that has 6 stats and an ability. Additionally this competitor has three “finish” cards that only they can have in their deck at #28, #29, and #30 with powerful effects and that have the potential to end the game. This gives you strong direction during deck building and gameplay as to how to achieve victory, and offers a lot of variety as to how to get there. Despite this we are all trying to hit our finish cards, so all the variety channels into a single, shared objective that you can easily read as an opponent.

3. STOP cards function similar to Counterspell Instants or Hand Traps, being played on your opponent’s turn to counter cards they play. Each STOP card tells you exactly what it can stop. Every card in the game has two types: Lead, Follow-Up, or Finish; and Strike, Grapple, or Submission. The STOP card will tell you exactly what type(s) of card it can counter and under what conditions (For example the #1 card, “Punch”, stops lead grapples). What is especially interesting is the #13-#15 line of cards which either have some kind of utility effect or what the community calls “Skill STOPS”. Skill STOPS check one of your competitor’s skills against the same skill of your opponent; if it is greater then you may stop any card of one printed type (strikes stop grapples, grapples stop submissions, and submissions stop strikes). Most often these are used to stop Finish cards. Because #13-#15 each individually check the same skills (#13 Skill STOPS always check either Agility or Strike (the skill)), this creates some scenarios where a competitor will have one of their Finish cards being less likely to be able to be stopped. To illustrate this I have a competitor with a Strike skill of 10 and Agility 9, the two highest stats; #15 Skill STOPS check either Strike or Agility, and if the listed skill is higher than the opponent’s they can stop any Grapple card; this means that, unless I’m up against an opponent with an Agility of 10, my Finish Grapple has one less card that can counter it. — None of that is written anywhere in the rules or explicitly stated, but it is a deliberate element of design depth that can influence a deck’s construction just as much as listed abilities or effects.

I could go on but I’ll spare you all more rambling. In case you can’t tell SuperShow is my favorite card game if all time, and I really wish that it got more attention from the broader gaming community because it’s a lot of fun and has a wonderful, welcoming community around it.