Alright, OverPower Fanatics, unless you’ve been trapped in an alternate dimension without Wi-Fi, you’ve already heard the seismic announcement: Skybound characters are joining the OverPower Universe! That means Invincible, The Walking Dead, Birthright, and Excellence are leaping from the page onto your playmat.

But hold onto your badge because that’s not all!

We’re beyond thrilled to announce that Chicago PD’s meanest and greenest cop, the one and only Savage Dragon, is making his long-awaited return to the OverPower arena! That’s right! Kurr is back, fists flying and fins high, ready to throw down with evildoers, bust heads with Freak Force, and throw a whole Vicious Circle into chaos.

Even better? We’re partnering directly with the legend himself—Erik Larsen—to bring this icon back where he belongs. OverPower started as a game full of comic book giants, and we can’t think of a more fitting return than one of Image’s original heavy hitters.

And here’s where it gets really exciting: if the stars align and schedules allow, Erik wants to create original Savage Dragon art for this set exclusive to OverPower! No promises just yet, but let’s just say we’re doing everything we can to make it happen.

Now, for those of us who were raised on the revolution that was Image Comics, you know exactly how big this is. When the Image 7 dropped their first books, it felt like the comics world cracked open. And for this OverPower fanatic, no title struck quite like Savage Dragon. He wasn’t a brooding vigilante or a billionaire in a cowl.. he was a cop. A super-powered cop, trying to bring order to chaos in a world that breaks the rules as fast as he could enforce them.

From day one, Dragon felt like he’d been pounding around in Erik Larsen’s imagination for years just waiting to smash his way onto the page and when he did? Comics would never be the same.

Erik Larsen is a creator we’ve admired since long before LRG was even an idea. To be working with him now, to bring his world into our game, is one of those surreal milestones we’ll never forget.

So get ready to venture into the streets of Chicago, face down some real villains, and bring justice with finned fury. We’re honored to have the chance to do right by Kurr, Malcolm, and the whole crew.

Venture Well.. and remember… OverPower Lives!

The post Savage News from the OverPower Multiverse! appeared first on Overpower CCG.

This past May, OverPower made its triumphant start to the 2025 convention scene, and what better place to do it than the legendary halls of PAX East in Boston! The Lazarus Rising Games crew is based mostly in Beantown so they came with boxes in tow, cards sleeved, and starter decks ready—and the response? Nothing short of phenomenal.

We’re proud to report that we sold over 300 Starter Decks to new players right on the show floor, and the energy was electric. Folks who sat down for a demo on Friday were coming back Saturday morning to grab full booster boxes, eager to build decks, crack packs, and join the growing ranks of OverPower Fanatics.

We had people who stopped by the booth half a dozen times and bought packs 5 at a time – because they wanted to chase one of the much sought after Ultra Rare and ultra rare foil cards drawn by names like Philip Tan, Jae Lee, Jim Cheung and many more! 

The post OverPower Storms PAX East appeared first on Overpower CCG.

The Vision

When I first imagined OPedia, I saw it as a sort of giant electronic notepad, something simple, yet powerful. My vision included access points functioning like digital sticky notes, helping players to find the information they need, when they need it. Since my days as a core developer are far behind me, I needed a platform that wouldn’t require writing lines of code to bring this concept to life.

Though people see the iOS Notes app as a basic note-taking tool, it’s capable of so much more. Behind its simplicity is surprising depth, including a macro programming language that can automate many tasks. That is why I chose iOS Notes as the foundation for OPedia. It’s accessible, easy to use, and aligns with the following principles that have shaped the direction of OPedia:

• Unify Legacy and Modern in a single format
• Include all card sets sanctioned by the North American OverPower League
• Designed for mobile devices
• Provide intuitive navigation and filtering interface
• Prioritize text over images
• Support keyword searches
• Offer the community an easy-to-use tool without a cost barrier
• Start small but scale gracefully in response to community needs

Buildout

I started the project by exporting the card texts from my old deck builder database and experimenting with different visual layouts in iOS Notes. The navigation went through several iterations, but developing hyperlinks between the various elements was a game-changer. I also yearned for a tool I could control with my voice through my phone, something that could read OverPower information back to me on command. The Notes layout in OPedia and a “Memorize Cards” Shortcut was designed and refined with Siri and text-to-speech in mind: Activate Siri, say a character’s name, and Siri would read out the character’s grid stats, threat level, inherent ability, associated battlesites, and all special cards.

The most significant challenge, and the one that would provide the greatest benefit to players was finding a way to present both the Legacy and Modern cards in a single, unified format. I was brainstorming one day with my son, Tyler, when he mentioned how he was planning to use tags on images for the new NAOL website. I knew iOS Notes supported tags, but I hadn’t previously explored them. They were the silver bullet; an OPedia-specific tagging system could be applied across the entire database! After assigning Legacy and Modern cards with tags, the Notes search function or Tag Browser (which I particularly love) could be used to quickly find thematic information. 

A New Collaborator

Testing Phase

Marcel “The GOAT” Lojet and my son Tyler joined the testing phase, helping to identify data inconsistencies and offering suggestions to improve the formatting of our notes, particularly to enhance Siri’s text-to-speech playback. Their feedback was invaluable in refining the user experience. By mid-March, we wrapped up active development and began introducing OPedia to the NAOL community through Facebook and Marcel’s OverPower Mountain podcast.

For those who remember, the Shadow King made a mysterious appearance in the OverPower scene a few years back. I enjoyed the schtick and the intrigue it created in our community. I thought creating an incognito, Robin Hood-style character as a nod to the ERB World Legends set would stir curiosity and build some buzz around OPedia. Let’s just say… it didn’t quite catch fire the way I had hoped. Sometimes you win, sometimes not so much.

Preview Release Program Feedback

Feedback from our Preview Release Program was very positive, and most consider OPedia an essential tool for competing in upcoming mixed Legacy and Modern events. Players found the tagging system particularly helpful for navigating the vast card library. Suppose you would like to know all characters across the Overpower universe with an 8 Combat, and a Threat Level of 20, you simply tap on the #8C and #TL20 tags, and the result set immediately appears in alphabetical order showing Batman Avenger, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Zealot and Zorro. 

At the request of our Preview Release Program volunteers, we added the following Tags that align with different deck building strategies. They include: #JZJW, #Lockout, #Remove, #GridBump, #Reveal, #Pin, #TeamD, and #Negate. Suppose you are looking for a character with 7 Intelligence, with team defense, lockout potential and a reveal card. Now, that’s a tall order!! Choose the #7I, #TeamD, #Lockout, and the #Reveal tags and immediately Victory Harben appears in the display window as the only character in the game meeting those selection choices.

The Venture Phase

Written by Howard Bertrand (aka Robyn Hode)

Come join our band!

The post OPedia: Bridging the Gap Between Legacy and Modern OverPower appeared first on Overpower CCG.

Written by Sean Ballantyne
Featured in The OverPower Homebase, Issue #3

Joseph Gagnepain, of Lazarus Rising Games, reached out to me and asked me to write this article about my predictions on the forthcoming meta. I’ll confess a little secret, analyzing meta isn’t really my forte, and I expect to be just as surprised as the next guy by what comes – but nonetheless here are my thoughts on the possible shift in the meta after the Edgar Rice Burroughs set release!

I have no doubt that we’ll see draw decks featuring a combo of the Count of Monte Cristo, Deja Thoris, and/or Victory Harben. Drawing cards in and of itself has always been a powerful mechanic and these three each come loaded on top of that! Additionally, I imagine we’ll see tons of Baker Street decks given the plethora of cards that interact with the Baker Street inherent, and, appropriately enough Sherlock Holmes has 2 cards that interact with Baker Street. I wouldn’t be surprised if some big boy Brute Force decks with crunchy heavy attacks show up, especially since Hercules has an 8 AND comes with some global team defense as well. Oh, and don’t count out Intelligence either. While think-tank intelligence decks are woefully underrepresented in the legacy format… some of the options here like Sherlock Holmes (the first and so far ONLY 8 stat character to receive a negate in the history of overpower, AND he gets 2 different kinds at that!), the aforementioned Count of Monte Cristo, and Victory Harben will likely be making several regular appearances on teams. 

A major concern for all players regardless of deck will be the Grim Reaper, formerly known as the Power Leech. This one card will undoubtedly affect the meta, as it’s a powerful tool that every deck will have access to. With the reduction of available negates, as well as defense in general, the Grim Reaper stands to hit more often than not, and it’s almost always a devastating blow that can be hard to recover from. 

Baseline Any-Hero options will give a maximum of 3 actual defensive solutions to the Grim Reaper (Freya, Merlin’s Magic, and 1 of 2 possible defensive Cataclysm options – Heimdall or Fairy Protection). Consequently, it would not be unwise to build a team with a few extra cards that can keep the almighty Grim Reaper at bay. Captain Nemo, Carson of Venus, Deja Thoris, Dracula, Leonidas, Merlin, Mina Harker, Morgan Le Fay, Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes, Sun Wu Kong, The Mummy, and Van Helsing are the only characters with some form of global defense that will protect the team against a Grim Reaper – so using any of these heroes together will hedge your bets. That’s 1/3^rd of the available options. Not too bad, but it does leave a whole 2/3^rds of the field without a global Reaper defense. 

Secondarily, many characters have personal defense that will stop a Grim Reaper if they are targeted. Not as ideal, but better than nothing. Running a Legendary Escape in there to move a hit over to such a character is also worth considering, though you are relying on having both at the same time your opponent launches the Reaper. 

As a possible tertiary option, it’s also worth considering using Dracula’s Armoury or The Spartan Training grounds to protect you against the Reaper by simply tanking the hit and discarding the cards placed to those homebases. The catch being that your opponent must call the icons on those cards. Losing some Basic Universe or Training cards is still better than losing more important cards placed to your team, or in your hand. Canny opponents will try to prevent this by calling the icons they don’t see under your Homebase… but that of course will be situational. 

In short, look to see the effects of the Grim Reaper as a major consideration in upcoming deck builds.

All of that said, I am really looking forward to seeing the early, nebulous phase after the game is formally released. It’s the wild west, a new frontier for the first time in over two decades… and that in itself will arguably be the new meta as anything goes. The diminished availability of negates will certainly factor into things. Meaning cards which directly affect the opponent, as opposed to cards targeting a character, are more likely to succeed and take effect. Likewise, heavy attacks are going to be incredibly strong, as defense is more limited. As David McMillan likes to put it – There will be some real ‘Slobberknockers!’

So, what am I looking forward to trying? Having perused the cards and experimented with a few in mixed format games, I have a couple of things I can’t wait to unleash, but here’s my top pick:

Even before seeing an email from LRG asking play-testers to give it some extra attention, I wanted to try it – and I was not disappointed with it. In fact – it was probably a touch broken in its original iteration, and even with the nerfed update it is really strong.

Worth every penny of that 3 pt threat cost!

I employ a ‘Brawling’ playstyle. I often deliberately take hits in order to set up a devastating counterattack when my opponent has fewer chances to defend. The ability here to take a free shot as my opponent concedes lends well to a style I’ve been trying to perfect over almost 30 years of playing OverPower. 

The 3 point threat cost isn’t super easy to work around, but there are a couple of options. Robin Hood and Billy the Kid being an inexpensive 18 and 17 respectively lets me cover that ground with space for two more 19s quite nicely. Or even a 20 and 18, or 21 and 17. (Hello Zorro and Deja Thoris or King Arthur and Lancelot! How about Leonidas and Korak?)

Mix the Land that Time Forgot with Legacy options and the sky’s the limit given the plethora of inexpensive and crunchy characters. I have a Zeus deck in a mixed format that hits hard, and has become a new favourite of mine.

Aside from that, I love the idea of the literary and mythological characters being added to the OverPower mix. Being a fan of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, adding these guys to Overpower is a real boon to me as it generates that feel of assembling my own League, which tickles an itch I didn’t even know I wanted to scratch.

A new era of Overpower looms… a new tournament circuit, new ideas, new players, new ideas by old players, and a whole new venture. Yeah, let’s get this thing rolling, and we’ll see you on the field of battle in the land that time will not forget!

Sean Ballantyne is a game enthusiast who has been playing OverPower since the 90s. His outbursts and streams of profanity when his decks crap out are well known among the community, and will likely continue to the foreseeable future, heh! Nevertheless, OverPower remains one of his favourite games, 2^nd only to his lifelong love of D&D. If you’re a D&D fan, check out his YouTube channel – Mage’s Musings – wherein the Puppet Archmage Merlinstergandaldore talks shop and recaps games.
(Also note some appearances by none other than LRG’s Joe G., and the OP Goat Marcel L.)

The post Musing on the Looming New Era of OverPower! appeared first on Overpower CCG.

By Lazarus Rising Games | Featured in The OverPower Homebase, Issue #3

WonderCon 2025, held in Anaheim, California, brought together fans, creators, and industry professionals for a weekend celebrating comics, games, pop culture, and entertainment. Organized annually by Comic-Con International, WonderCon is known for its engaging panels, exclusive reveals, and opportunities for fans to interact directly with their favorite creators and companies.

This year, Lazarus Rising Games (LRG) proudly took part in WonderCon, contributing significantly to the event with their participation in two panels. The first one, “You Got Comics in My Games! You Got Games in My Comics,” explored the exciting intersections between comic books and gaming, highlighting the innovative approaches LRG is taking to integrate iconic comic characters into their beloved collectible card games. This insightful discussion offered fans an exclusive peek at how characters are brought from page to playable cards, blending storytelling with strategic gameplay.

LRG CEO Joseph Gagnepain also joined Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. in a special commemorative panel titled “Tarzan Creator Celebrates 150 Years.” Celebrating Edgar Rice Burroughs’ enduring legacy and influence on popular culture, this panel featured prominent industry leaders, including James Sullos (President, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.), Cathy Wilbanks (VP of Operations), and Christopher Paul Carey (VP of Publishing), alongside Wolf Larson—actor, writer, and producer known for his portrayal of Tarzan. The engaging discussion highlighted upcoming projects and emphasized LRG’s collaboration to incorporate Burroughs’ iconic creations, such as Tarzan and John Carter, into the new iterations of the OverPower collectible card game.

In addition to panel contributions, Lazarus Rising Games engaged with fans through insightful interviews hosted by IdeateTV’s Michelle Carney. Carney sat down with Joseph Gagnepain to discuss the exciting revival of OverPower, sharing the journey behind bringing back this beloved game, initially featuring characters from the extensive Edgar Rice Burroughs universe. President Ronald Pozzi also shared his unique experience, detailing his transition from collecting car-themed cards in Italy to becoming instrumental in shaping OverPower’s international appeal, including his vision of incorporating iconic Italian comic book heroes.

The post Lazarus Rising Games at WonderCon 2025 appeared first on Overpower CCG.

Of all the articles we’ve planned for 2025, this is the one I’ve been most excited to write. It gives us, at Lazarus Rising Games, the opportunity to extend our deepest gratitude to a group of people whose contributions have been absolutely vital to the revival of the official OverPower card game: the tournament organizers.

Without these tireless champions—those who have hosted events over the past decade and beyond—Lazarus Rising Games wouldn’t exist. Their passion, commitment, and persistence created the spaces that brought us back to the game as players. Without them, the community wouldn’t have grown into what it is today. They’ve kept the fire alive, and we owe them everything.

Most of you are familiar with the North American OverPower League (NAOL), the tournament league that now anchors major events across the continent. But fewer may know that the NAOL began as something far more grassroots. Before it was a league, it was the North American Overpower Alliance (NAOA). And before that, it was just a scattering of events—fan-organized gatherings sparked by a shared love of the game.

Every person involved along that journey deserves recognition.

Our first formal thank-you came in the form of the 30th Anniversary Mission promo set, distributed at the Champ of Champs event and currently available through The Orange King’s OP website. That set was created specifically to honor many of the event organizers who’ve carried the torch over the years.

But we wanted to go further. This article is our formal, public appreciation—and a brief history of how Lazarus Rising Games and the NAOL came to be, all thanks to these incredible people.

For David and me, it all began on the old Palatinus forum, where we reconnected with OverPower through Jack Truong, who was running the Canadian tournament with Sean Ballantyne. David got involved a bit earlier than I did, starting at one of Phil and John Keffer’s legendary K2 events. Keith discovered the scene around that same time, while Shawn Sawyer jumped in alongside me.

As the community grew, we developed four cornerstone events: Canada and Pennsylvania, Phil Miller’s Ohio-run OP Cup, and the Philly events originally organized by Larry Van Etten. These tournaments rekindled our collective love for OverPower—but we knew it could become something even greater.

David was the first to recognize that in order to grow, we needed consistency. He pushed for the formation of a commissioner role and proposed an alliance that would standardize rules and cards, with major decisions made by organizers and voted on by the players. That idea became the foundation of the NAOA.

Around this time, Ed Kowalewski took over the Philly event and launched a fan-favorite: Peace Bridge. Ed invited players into his home for a weekend of BBQs, bonfires, and cards—creating not just an event, but a tradition and a family reunion. Tragically, we lost Ed to COVID-19—a devastating blow to our community. But thanks to Howard Bertrand, the Peace Bridge evemt lives on. Howard has not only continued hosting it in his home but has also been instrumental in evolving the Alliance into what is now the NAOL.

Under the NAOL banner, we’ve seen tremendous growth. Josh Alexander launched the OKC event, which will be held by Carl Caroffino now in Texas on May 9th, 2025. Doug Taylor introduced a Seattle event, and Larry Van Etten has taken his Valhalla event on the road, bringing OverPower to new players across the country.

Other key contributors deserve special recognition, too. Justin Sadie has jumped in with both feet, helping to run events and pitching in on various NAOL projects. Zach Venneri, our NAOL Chat Group moderator and historian, archives every tournament’s decklists in a fantastic graphical presentation. Ricky Sauceda has consistently supported the community behind the scenes, including proofreading important documents just because he cares.

It’s humbling to witness how much this community gives, expecting nothing in return but the joy of building something great together. New faces like John Beresford, who is taking over the Battle for Boston, and Doug Simms, who returned to the game a few years ago and is now one of its most visible advocates—hosting tournaments, running a podcast, and spearheading the Champ of Champs event—continue to carry the torch forward.

We at Lazarus Rising Games would not be here without the foundation built by these organizers and supporters. Many have donated their own time, money, and even cards from their personal collections to ensure events are special for players. Their generosity is the backbone of this entire community.

As a token of our appreciation, LRG will be giving every person mentioned by name in this article two foil rare uncut sheet from our exclusive OverPower foil sheets that are extremely rare. This will be one of the most rare uncut sheets in all of OverPower and you will be some of the only people who have them!

There aren’t enough words to thank this amazing OverPower community—the best community in gaming. But know this: Lazarus Rising Games will always strive to recognize and honor the people who make this game what it is.

From the bottom of our hearts,
Joseph, Shawn, David, Keith, Ty, Ronald, and Leti
Lazarus Rising Games

The post Thank You to Our Tournament Organizers — The True Champions of OverPower appeared first on Overpower CCG.

By Lazarus Rising Games | Featured in The OverPower Homebase, Issue #3

We’re thrilled to announce that Lazarus Rising Games (LRG) has officially signed an exciting licensing agreement with Skybound Entertainment, marking a major expansion for OverPower!

Beginning in 2026, characters from Skybound Entertainment’s impressive library will join the OverPower universe. Fans can look forward to seeing beloved characters from Skybound’s hit series, including Invincible, Omni-Man, Atom Eve, and Battle Beast, alongside iconic figures from The Walking Dead such as Rick Grimes, Michonne, Negan, and Maggie.

This partnership with Skybound follows our recent licensing agreements with Top Cow Productions, Inc. and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., introducing legendary characters such as Witchblade, Darkness, Cyberforce, Tarzan of the Apes®, and John Carter of Mars to upcoming editions of OverPower scheduled for 2025 and 2026.

Retailers will begin stocking new OverPower products featuring stunning original artwork by some of today’s premier comic and illustration talents—including Jae Lee, Jim Cheung, Raymond Gay, Phillip Tan, and William Santos—in mid-April 2025. Fans in the U.S. can find OverPower through ACD Distribution and GTS Distribution, with Universal Distribution handling availability across Canada.

Additionally, we’re excited to share that we’ve established an advisory board featuring industry veterans Ron Perazza, one of the original OverPower game developers, and Paul Bazakas, Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing for GTS Distribution.

In partnership with Carde.io, we recently launched the official OverPower player portal at https://overpower.play.carde.io/. This platform includes an extensive card library for the upcoming Edgar Rice Burroughs set, a fully-featured Deck Builder, National Elo Rankings, an event finder, and a reward shop, offering players an immersive gaming experience.

We are also finalizing preparations for a series of major North American tournaments, boasting more than $100,000 in prize pools alongside exclusive merchandise—stay tuned for announcements regarding these events!

Moreover, we continue to actively showcase OverPower at major conventions nationwide. Notably, we had an impressive interactive presence at the 2024 New York Comic Con, participated in engaging panels at WonderCon 2025 in Anaheim, and will maintain a significant presence at Origins Game Fair in June 2025, along with other prominent gaming and pop-culture events throughout the year. Our recent soft rollout of new OverPower sets has been met with phenomenal response, rapidly selling out two initial sets within months.

Stay tuned to our channels for more updates on OverPower’s thrilling revival!

The post Skybound’s Walking Dead and Invincible join Lazarus Rising Games’ OverPower appeared first on Overpower CCG.

One of my favorite shows is Breaking Bad. If you haven’t seen it, the premise of the show according to one of the creators was, they‘ll take a typical passive, nice guy (‘Mr Chips’) and turn him into scarface. He begins as a high school chemistry teacher, but gets a cancer diagnosis and handles the existential dread by becoming a drug kingpin. He begins the new career as a small-time dealer but is ruling an empire by the end of the show. 

What does this have to do with cards? Like our protagonist in Breaking Bad, problematic card mechanics begin their life with the same model, but as time passes, they too become broken monsters. And like an ambitious cartel boss, they don’t stop until they’ve taken over the entire gaming environment. Have you ever thought of a fun deck idea but then realized “I need a (insert card here) in this deck”? Whenever the entire competitive scene is filtered through dealing with 1 card or combo first, that’s the sign your game might have a broken mechanic. If players are faced with the deckbuilding ultimatum of:

1. Do we fall in line and join the new order by playing the card or combo?
   
2. Or do I start a rival faction and try to counter it?

…then, it’s a good chance you’ve been taken over by broken cards. Unlike organized crime though, where it’s rarely a positive thing, why is this bad for card games? Does it really matter what a player wins with and why are former competitive players (like me), always whining about the importance of game balance?

That’s what I want to explain here. Broken cards are terrible for card games and will leave a trail of disgruntled players in their wake, forcing some to quit their favorite game altogether.

Player Agency & Choice

Game balance is a subjective concept and cards are always balanced relative to each other. There is no such thing as a perfectly balanced game and even if there was, there’s zero guarantee you’d want to play that version. Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS) which I’ll be referring to later is a very balanced game…but I haven’t met too many people that are regular RPS tournament players or organizers. The general rule we follow for balancing is therefore, whatever is the most fun.

Some of my earliest examples of this type of fun came from my first tournaments (at age 13 and I was terrible!), exchanging stories with my brother about the decks we encountered and how one silly concept didn’t work, while others totally crushed us. Some were so creative, we couldn’t fathom coming up with ideas like these next level players. I didn’t know what I was experiencing then, but it wasn’t unique to my brother and I at all. In fact, it’s so common that it’s actually a fundamental reason a lot of us enjoy playing TCGs. Now picture this same experience but instead everyone we played against had one major strategy they were playing. Those conversations would have turned into complaints from frustration, rather than a sense of wonder or interest in how players were thinking. 

This is why OGs like me push the idea of deck diversity so hard, because we want every player to have that same experience. It is one of the fundamental ways card games are fun. It’s the challenge of not just coming up with a solution to a problem but the creativity and self expression that come with that solution. I get to make my deck, play my way, and use a series of tricks that I came up with. The more options we provide players, especially in an RPG-ish game like OverPower, the higher the chances they’ll find something that feels like it’s for them. 

Broken Cards Break Games

Concepts such as Deck diversity and player choice are the same in that  they all refer to the fun we have when customizing our world of TCGs. Broken cards warp this diversity. They crush it so badly that instead of the innovation coming from the entire card pool, the choice becomes to use the broken cards to level the playing field, or try to win an uphill battle using whatever’s left that might counter it. The second option isn’t always viable either, it depends on how broken the game ended up. Everything else becomes irrelevant. There can be innovation with what’s left of the card pool and dedicated players will find some cool ideas, but it’s usually at the cost of a ton of casual interest leaving out of boredom. You can’t really blame the casuals either because imagine if you’re forced to eat hot dogs for every meal and the options you have to make the 500th hot dogs palatable are combos of ketchup and mustard. Only the most dedicated hot dogs lovers will choose to keep going and most of us will bail long before 500.

What Do We Watch For & What Do We Do About It?

Now that I’ve talked about the why, here are some guidelines on what to avoid in the design phase and signs that a card might have issues. 

1. It Does Too Much…compared to other cards. Cards are balanced relatively amongst each other. If we set a precedent in our designs that an 11 will be the largest attack in our game and it’s a One Per Deck (OPD), giving a character a non-OPD “11, if successful draw 2 cards” would be a hilariously broken card. When most of us think of broken cards and examples, this is the type of design we tend to imagine. Power creep is a valid design tool and the goal is to give players new toys to play with. Good power creep should increase as gradually as possible. When cards like this break a format, it’s usually because the power creep accelerated too quickly and the sudden spike caught the rest of the card pool off guard. 
   
   
2. It’s Too Cheap & Easy To Play…compared to the return on the investment. In general, powerful effects are fine, as long as the player is ‘earning’ them. If a player chose to play with a handicap, they should get a positive benefit from this exchange. Think of it as trading an arm for an extra leg because you need your deck to run faster. Or the idea of a glass canon, trading defense/durability for even more offense. These are all balanced ideas and work. Where this can go awry though, is if the penalty and benefit aren’t of equivalent value. Or if the downside is so niche that it’s not providing any handicap to work around. -Using the same analogy, this would be like trading fingernails for 4 legs in the same race.
   
   Other than a handicap, we can also balance powerful abilities by decreasing the frequency that they work (making it an OPD is an example of this). Similarly, we can force the effects to only trigger when niche characters or weaker cards are played with it. The options for how to balance are only limited by the creativity of the designers. In Overpower specifically, Threat Level can be a decent tool for preventing the stacking of certain effects but only when the interactions you’re trying to prevent, are limited to just a few characters. Otherwise it can limit the characters playability and this in turn can restrict player choice more broadly than is needed to fix the issue. It’s still a good tool, but the goal is to never apply a broad fix to a specific problem. The problem we’re trying to solve is limited player choice, so we don’t want the solution to create another version of the same problem. 
   
   
3. Card Type Locks, Flood Gates, Freeze Effects and Oppressive Control. To be clear, locks are not what OverPower players call “lock out” cards, though some lockouts can be viewed as this archetype. A flood gate (which originated as a Yugioh term, I believe) is a card that prevents your opponent from playing a type, or class of card. If the effect shuts off 3 cards in a 60 card deck, then it’s not a Flood Gate, think more like 70% of the same deck. They’re typically a single (or at most 2 card) action, which renders key pieces of a hand unplayable. Or if it’s less broad but specifically targets cards that are key to the player making progress. This is why, out of any card design, these are among the most hated by players. Devourer of Worlds was the most infamous OverPower example. The hate comes not from just losing, but how you lose. Your opponent plays their broken card, you look at your now unplayable hand and are forced to watch them decimate your deck while you might get to play a card or 2. Being forced to watch a smiling opponent take apart your personal creation, piece by piece, while you’re helpless to do anything – is why many players just opt to forfeit and take the quick and painless loss. Now, if that’s not cartel behavior, I don’t know what is.
   
   
   Here’s a ridiculous Overpower example of this type of mechanic: “Opponent may not play Special cards for the battle and this card is immune to Specials”, what does my opponent counter that with? What makes this example the worst type of failure, is that the only way to stop it is with a Special card, so it blocks its own counter. Believe it or not, there are cards designed like this (Devourer of Worlds, yes Galactus, again this is you). A much better design for this type of effect is to remove the restriction and swap it for a penalty. Your opponent can still play the game, but the card will still have a deterrent effect. So instead of “No special cards may be played…”, we create a venture/damage bonus that could increase each time your opponent plays a Special card. Or another more fair design, is to charge the opponent a couple cards from their Draw Pile for each Special they choose to play. At least these alternatives give us levers to pull and balance with. Your opponent still has agency with these designs and if they manage to eat that first big Venture penalty and still win, now we have a ‘pop off’ moment and a guaranteed story. Which is another fundamental reason we play TCGs, but that’s for a different article. 
   
   
4. No Counter In The Card Pool…is related to the last point focusing on card pool diversity. For every mechanic, you want a counter and in most cases, even the counter should have a counter. This always leads to game design being compared to rock, paper scissors (RPS). Once the counter gets a counter, you’re going in a circle. In reality, a game like Overpower is way more complex and is like RPS but with hundreds of options and varying degrees of advantage, instead of win/lose being the only outcome. The definition of a Hard Counter is when that advantage gained by the matchup is bigger for one player, and is balanced by the matchup not lining up as often as other counters.  The player risks having to guess exactly what the opponent will play and then is rewarded for guessing right. If they guess wrong, they could be in for a rough tourney. The card design we want to avoid with the concept of counter design is the ‘dynamite’ or the counter that has no counter. Negates in Overpower and Counterspells in Magic are so broad, they’ve been dynamite in lots of cases. Counterspells at least have a cost to play due to Magic’s resource system but negates in OverPower, don’t have this limitation. We need counters in every game but they shouldn’t be so broad that they stop every single unique mechanic in the game. There’s also the issue that most players don’t enjoy playing with or against decks that stop every fun card the other player is trying to play. Going back to player choice and expression, while some players do enjoy this design, most of us find it uninspired. Players tend to respect tech that when discovered, nobody saw it coming or by pairing  cards no one expected to go together. Counter deck players get the bad rap (maybe valid) that they didn’t even try to find interesting combos, their goal is to just stop you from playing yours. You can see why an environment that is filled with nothing but negates or defense, can also be broken and anti-fun. Why risk being creative when a counter-deck meta actively punishes it?
   
   
5. Mind The Skill Gap…Skill gaps are great because they prove that you’re running a merit based game. The more you play, the better you get and the more rewarded you should be. Broken cards risk even this basic concept. Let’s say a pro plays a weaker player and has a normal record of winning 70 out of 100 games. That’s a win rate of 7 out of 10 ( 70%). If the broken deck is handed to the weaker player, and their win rate climbs to 50% or more, we might have an issue. There’s no way the player improved this quickly over 100 games, so the issue has to be the cards. The matchup can’t be at fault because the pro’s win rate shouldn’t be that high in a bad matchup to begin with. Could it be variance then? Not over 100 games and especially because good players do everything to eliminate variance as a factor. Let’s say we give the same decks to 2 players that are really close in skill, now what happens? What’s weird is that we went from variance not being a factor, to it being the ONLY factor. Neither player can overcome the other in plays and the variance optimizations will be similar too. All that’s left is the variance and who got the better shuffle. The key factor that’s missing vs balanced environments is the deckbuilding. This gives both skilled players an option within their control and they can get an edge through creativity and deck innovation. 
   
   

Final Thoughts

Just remember that broken cards are a relative problem and there’s no such thing as a broken card without an ecosystem of other cards and interactions it can exploit. There are as many solutions as there are ideas for cards.

What designers hate to acknowledge, is that this process is also reactive. Cards will slip through the cracks and playtesting with the best players and biggest teams still has limits. It’s just as important to listen to player feedback after a release, as it is during playtesting. We never want a large volume of errata but some errata is better than an alternative where players love the game but refuse to play because a rule or card is taking their fun away. Our goal moving forward is to have a watch/ban list and to make sure players are aware if we’re going to take action. We fully understand that changes like bans can affect travel plans to events, investments in cards and your next tournament results, so we don’t take them lightly and there will be a strong data component to back up any bans. 

Weappreciate you taking the time to read and we hope it gives you more ‘behind the scenes’ looks at our processes moving forward. Here at Lazarus Rising Games we love giving our community visibility behind the curtain so to speak.

Thank you and venture well! 

The post OverPower…ed, When Good Cards ‘Break Bad’ appeared first on Overpower CCG.

This season promises new players, old rivalries, new cards and the exceptional streaming coverage that you’ve come to expect from Lazarus Rising Games. Buckle up as the NAOL and LRG takes you on a wild ride! Below, you’ll find all the event dates, locations, and more!

NAOL—Western Shootout

Dallas, Texas

May 9/10

NAOL—Peacebridge Memorial

Niagara Falls, Ont

June 20/21

LRG Regional #1

Location TBD

July 18/19

NAOL—OP Cup

Columbus, Ohio

August 8/9

LRG Regional #2
Location TBD

August 29/30

NAOL—West Coast Melee

Seattle Washington

Sept 26/27

NAOL—Valhalla

Location TBD

Oct 10/11

LRG Regional #3

Location TBD

Oct 31/Nov 1

NAOL—Battle for Boston

Boston, Ma

Date TBD

LRG Regional #4
Location TBD

Nov 21/22

LRG National

Happening at the beginning of 2026Location TBD

It’s going to be a legendary season, so mark your calendars, study the meta, and get ready to bring your deck to the first new season of OverPower in 25 years!

The post NAOL and LRG 2025 Tournament Schedule appeared first on Overpower CCG.

The GAMA Expo is the premier gathering for industry professionals, attracting over 300 exhibitors, game designers, and industry leaders. With seminars, dynamic panel discussions, product showcases, and live demos, it’s where the latest innovations in gaming come to life. Lazarus Rising Games was thrilled to be part of this outstanding event, rubbing shoulders with some of the brightest minds in the industry.

Joseph Gagnepain, CEO of Lazarus Rising Games, and President Ronald Pozzi met with both new and long-time partners, including key retailers like Battlegrounds Game Center and Flying Monkey Comics and Games—who are hoping to have help bring OverPower to shelves across North America. A huge shoutout to Stefan Bridges and Matt Ferrell for their support!

This is just the beginning! We’ve got a full slate of conventions and events lined up for 2025 as LRG gears up to get products into the hands of gamers across the US and Canada once Kickstarter fulfillment wraps up in early April.

Stay tuned to our social media channels to find out where we’ll be appearing and to schedule an in-person meeting. If you’re interested in becoming an OverPower retailer partner, get in touch with us at office@lazarusrising.games.

The post Lazarus Rising Games at GAMA Trade Show 2025 appeared first on Overpower CCG.