Like Inspiration, DBC on yourself is a zero-sum card. DBC has no effect outside of drawing a card, so assuming your opponent has no more cards to play, at best you've played DBC to draw a card - in essence, it's Inspiraion on the same character - play one, draw one. It doesn't do damage, you don't move, you have so little advantage that it's practically useless. See my previous post for the analysis. DBC only has an advantage in that it lets other characters draw cards. In that sense it's two extra plays. DBC does practically nothing to improve future plays on the same character, since you play one to play one. So this argument is effectively pointless.
LightPhoenix free cycling effects are never zero-sum. The point of cycling isn't more actions but better ones. To keep things simple take a 3 card deck with 1 good card and two bad ones. You have a 33% chance of playing a good card and a 66% chance of playing a bad one. Replace one of those bad cards with a cycling card and now you have a 50% chance of getting the good card and a 50% chance of getting the bad one. That's a much better deck. The strength of cycling is what it lets you get rid of so yes every cycling card improves deck quality by removing your worst cards so you have an increased chance to play your best cards. That said cycling in card hunter is much more convoluted than in most ccgs and hence much harder to judge the effects of. 1) Tempo - In most games cycling or card drawing comes at a cost of tempo. You have limited resources each turn so if you choose to draw/cycle your doing that instead of something else and cycling/drawing has no immediate effect on the game so it cost's you tempo. In card hunter the cards are the resource so the only tempo cost is when you use the card. You have to decide to draw/cycle early and let your opponent have additional actions (ie let him attack twice while you draw) or draw late when the card may be of less use drawing a defensive card after your opponent is done attacking doesn't help much. Without significant testing it is impossible to tell how much of a drawback the tempo loss in cardhunter hurts. 2) The point of cycling is to replace your worst cards. The unusual deckbuilding mechanics of card hunter make that assumption questionable. As cards are associated with specific items and slots I can't just pick my worst card to replace but have to replace a specific card and not only that but have to replace several specific cards. So I would expect it's not a question of replacing your worst card but rather replacing a good card and two mediocre cards with a cycler and two mediocre cards which makes the cycler much less effective. This makes cycling a case by case basis as it will depend on how good the cards being replaced are relative to the rest of your deck.
Very well said. Agree with everything. There is a great deal of tactics in this situation. Personally, Playing out buffs/damage spells and trading blows and then using cycling abilities seems like the logical play. You will also likely give up Initiative, so that is another thing to consider. Then there is also Reaction cards. Things like Mind Maze could inherently protect you while using your cycling abilities, in addition to positioning the opponent/s where you want them ( Fireballs?! ). Between that, and teleport other, you keep any melee damage skills from hitting you, thus negating a great deal of the value you lose if they draw from DBC/Class All Draw. Not to mention they likely would have used there movements already, leaving them now stuck to eat your AoE effects.
I'd like to make a request that skills like this come with amusing text, for dwarves something dwarfy related, for elves something frilly and girly. Infact, quirky text for many skills would be a huge flavor bonus !
