Graveyard recursion
Cards or resources sent to the discard pile can be retrieved, reused, or leveraged from there, turning the 'used up' zone into an asset. Magic: The Gathering's graveyard is a whole second battlefield — reanimation, flashback, and delve decks treat discarding as setup rather than loss. Designers use graveyard recursion to create engine and value-generation strategies, to reward long games, and to add depth to resource management (what you spend isn't necessarily gone). Key decisions: how much the graveyard is a public resource (interaction like graveyard hate becomes a counter-strategy), recursion cost and rate (unlimited cheap recursion loops out of control), which effects reach into it, and whether the graveyard is ordered or a pool. Pitfall: recursion loops are a common source of degenerate infinite combos and non-games; designers must build in natural limits (exile-on-use, escalating costs) so 'reuse' enriches strategy without enabling a single unbreakable loop that ends every game the same way.
- Dev effort: Medium
- Timing: Real-time or turn-based
- Common in: card-game