So trading is a thing I imagine gets requested, or at least talked about, a lot. It's a card game, people trade cards; it makes sense. The trouble is in how to implement it.

When implementing any new feature in any game (or just about any thing) you can't just simply say "Will this let people do what they want to do" and give it the ol' rubber stamp. You also must consider the question of "Can this be abused, and how?" If something can be abused, you can be sure that people are going to.

So how could trading be abused? Well lets look at the simplest approach to trading:

- "Offer any card[s], approve the card[s] you will receive, complete trade"

Sounds fine, that's what trading is; but what's to stop someone from making a new account, choosing Elementalis/Zaladar as their starting deck, offering the entire deck to their original account as a trade, the logging back into their original account and trading away a single card for an entire deck? This would let someone earn the same amount of gold they would for spending 100SC, but for free and in a fraction of the time.

- "Offer 1 card, approve the 1 card you will receive, complete trade"

Better, but still not quite there. This is just a slower more tedious version of option 1. Make new account -> go to old account -> poach high value cards from new account by offering low value cards from old account -> lather, rinse, repeat

- "Offer 1 card, approve 1 card (only if it is of approximately equal value) you will receive, complete trade"

Ok, sure, fine, but now what's the point? This feature would then really only apply to daily free cards and cards you get in packs (which it seems most people don't even bother with). If you have a card of a certain value and want to trade it for a different card of approximately equal value... why didn't you just buy that card/deck containing that card in the first place rather than the card you have? And if that card came as a random free/pack card, just sell it, play a couple games, and you'll have the gold you need to get that other card you really wanted.

Ok, I've spent enough time and pagespace talking about why trading can be bad, thanks for bearing with me, time to get onto my point:

Open up a trading market for only Foil cards

Foil cards kind of defy value. They can't be purchased with in-game gold, thus they don't really have an assigned value, and yet they're still sought after even if its just as a status symbol.

Anyone can get a foil card, even without spending real money. Sometimes you'll find one as your free card of the day, or maybe one will turn up in a pack (assuming you buy packs), or maybe you're the type who really appreciates style and will occasionally spend big on a premium foil pack. The thing is, even if you get a foil card, you won't always wanna use it.

Maybe you got a foil "Thoughtripper's Cutlass" but you mainly run Twilight Aramia and don't have much interest in building a rogue deck. Well there could be somebody out there who likes using a Serena deck and wound up with a foil "Twilight Champion" they don't really have a use for.

How I suggest it could work

Option 1: You could have a trade lobby (like the challenge lobby) that allows for live trades only. Randomly match with a trading partner or setup a trading room with a password to get a specific partner. Once inside, both players will be able to see all of the available foil cards from each player. Each player could then choose whatever foil card from the other player they want and either approve or deny the other player's selection.

Option 2: probably the easier option, have a trading "market" of sorts. Have 2 options: "My Offers" and "Browse offers. "My Offers" would allow you to choose one of your foil cards to offer up to anyone for trade. "Browse Offers" would show a (searchable?) list of foil cards offered by other players; you could then select one of these offered cards and offer up one of your own foil cards for trade. The "My Offers" section would then also show any foil cards other players have offered to give you in exchange for the foil card you posted; if you select one, the trade goes through.

This could even drive more people to save up their SC to buy the premium foil packs just to ensure they can have access to the foil card trading market. In turn, this could also increase the perceived value of the premium foil packs since, even if you pull 5 random cards you don't want to use in any of your decks, you would then have the option of trying to turn those 5 foil cards you don't want to use into 5 foil cards you do want.