well its just a mental excercise. so there isnt a perfect answer.

but i pictured leavin gear in. see where not playing a card game. were borrowing the random but probable event concept from card games cause it was the most powerful thing going.

imagine your average rpg. then instead of having a cast what ever you want until you run out of mana or a memorize what spells you want burn them system we do something else there.

yes the card base would be by the characters class/level

though equiping gear could add cards to your deck. like instead of having a random chance to vorpal with your vorpal sword. it pushes cards onto your deck while your using it. a magic wand could do that too.

there is no tactics in just playing off the top of your deck but thats where your strategy of deck construction really shines.

i would say add a real shallow mana pull. in fact do mana as a percentage. certain cards would take 50% and certain cards would take 10% but you only got say 10% of mana back per a turn. so your design would be mixing cheap and strong for your level. if you did all 75% mana burn cards then it would take 7.5 turns to replace that mana. so even if you had a hand of brutal cards. they wouldnt be playable. on the other hand if you mixed 75% cards with way less powerful 10% cards then you could lead off with a 75% card then burn 10% every other turn till you got back to where you could do a 75%.

now remember this isnt a card game so this is with D&D style charcter interactions while this is going on.