Is there room in the game to add some items with such horrible card selection that they actually GIVE you a token for using them? If games run fast, meaning neither player draws through their entire deck, then this makes your build more of a coin-flip than a strategic endeavor. Either you get all the terrible cards and are destroyed, or you get all of the good cards and dominate. But if you regularly get through the entire deck in the course of a match, then you absolutely will draw the bad cards at some point. So you will feel the backlash from your choice. It could add some very interesting extra character build decisions. Instead of finding the optimal choices for each of your tokens, then filling in with the absolute best non-token items in remaining slots (from a list I am sure already exists somewhere, and if not will soon), you would instead face a choice of filling in some slots with negative tokens (so by definition the absolute worst choices possible, including worse than leaving the spot blank), and then having more to spend on other slots. If this were a thing, it should be restricted to high value item slots. Any elf would gladly take a negative token boot slot, and quite likely be willing to go with a negative token racial skill. These two slots just don't often do much for them. But if the only negative token source for a warrior or mage was the weapon slot... you have to think long and hard about doing that. Weapons are normally where you sink your gold tokens!
It sounds like a cool idea. I'm gonna guess that they won't implement it, though: Consider how you'd make this new idea work across item levels. The game already has some "negativity": drawbacks like Loner, and these drawbacks appear at all levels. So how would these negative items work? Six copies of Loner and now you have a level 1 loot item? Six copies of Obvious Maneuver and now you have a level 18? Or is it more like . . . five copies of Loner plus one Violent Overswing makes a level 1, while including one Almighty Hack makes a level 18? And what about rarity? If they wanted to implement it, I wouldn't say no. I just think that it would have to be outside the current loot tables entirely in order to work. Also, a side comment: I know this wasn't the main point of your thread, but this is a matter of personal priorities, not default gameplay. If you want the awesome armors, specialty items, or literally anything other than weapons, then those are where you "sink your gold tokens" too. I LOVE getting better defensive cards than my enemy with regularity, rendering their every attack futile. I've refrained from commenting in threads on that topic because it is a matter of taste. De gustibus non disputandum est.
I don't often think in terms of item level so far. Outside of rough level ranges indicate token requirement (haven't looked to verify, just saw a post say as much once). If that is the case, then these would all be level 1 or 0 items. Possibly a random item pool which only shows up for the tutorial missions on repeat runs. Or only possible as bonus extra items (rarely) from non-gold chests in PvP. I don't think variable item levels would be needed for these. One per class per token cost should be sufficient (so only 1 negative Blue token Divine Item exists at all. Only 1 negative Gold token Divine Item exists at all...)
