Hi! First off, thank you for making this, it’s an incredibly impressive implementation.

I’ve been experimenting with the card/deck data files and I’m trying to understand what level of custom hero design is realistically supported.

From my local testing, it looks like static values in cards.json are read at runtime. I was able to change things like ATK, THW, DEF, HP, hand size, and card cost, and those changes appeared to work correctly in-game.

What I’m especially interested in, though, is whether there’s any supported way to create custom mechanics by reusing existing backend functionality.

For example, Gambit already has a counter-based identity mechanic. In theory, I’d love to build a custom hero that uses similar existing pieces, but with different outputs — something like:

• spend/remove a counter
• take 1 damage
• increase damage from an attack/event
• or trigger a different existing effect

So I’m not necessarily trying to build an entirely new rules engine. I’m wondering whether existing effect components can be reused or recombined for custom card IDs.

A few specific questions:

1. Are custom cards in cards_custom.json intended to be display/manual-play only, or can they hook into automated backend effects?
2. Are official card abilities, like Gambit’s charge counters, hardcoded to specific card_ids, or are they built from reusable effect descriptors somewhere?
3. Is there any supported way to define a custom automated effect for a new custom card ID?
4. If not, is it possible to map a custom card ID to an existing mechanic/effect shell?
5. Are mechanics like counters, self-damage, damage boosts, status cards, and resource generation exposed in any way for custom content?

No worries if this kind of modding isn’t currently supported. I’m mainly trying to understand whether custom mechanics are possible using the existing system, or whether the safest approach is still to reskin existing card IDs and adjust static card values.

Thanks again for all the work you’ve put into this!