Battle Card (Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam)

Battle Cards are items introduced in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, being the spiritual successor to the Badge system in the previous games. They are used in battle and have a plethora of effects: examples include temporarily boosting a certain stat, healing the party, reducing a specific group of enemy's Level, dealing damage to a specific group of enemies and boosting EXP and Coins earned at the end of the battle.

Battle Cards are introduced in Twinsy Tropics' dungeon. After freeing a Paper Goomba, the player receives their first cards. After that, previously unavailable Card Shops will officially open, and they can be also obtained by clearing Lakitu Info Center quests or sometimes retrieved from defeated enemies.

In the menu, the player can set up a deck from his Battle Card collection from the Battle Card option. A deck can only contain 10 cards: no more, no less. First, the player can only make a deck, but as they collect more Battle Cards, they can store three decks, and, by changing them, they can even make unfinished ones (that can't be used in battle). From this menu, the player can also delete the currently set Battle Cards, restore the deck to how it was last time the player edited it, or let the game complete the deck by picking random Battle Cards.

In battle
When a deck is set up, it will show up in the Touch Screen in battle. Their effects can be used in exchange of Star Points: up to 20 of them can be obtained at once (30 with a Rank-Up Bonus). Each card uses a different amount of Star Points, from just one to over a dozen of them (this amount can also be reduced by one with a Rank-Up Bonus). Star Points are obtained by attacking enemies, and obtaining ranks like Great and Excellent gives more of them at once: however, ordinary attacks can only add up to about a third of a Star Point, while Bros. Attacks and Trio Attacks can grant up over one Star Point and a half. If a player doesn't want to use a card, they can turn it over to discard it.

Up to three cards can be dealt at once. If three of them are present at once, no more will come out, and the player has to use one or turn it over. When all ten cards are used, they are shuffled again and the cycle repeats. The status of a player's deck carries over battles, unless the player changes deck: in that case, the cards are dealt all over again.

Various Gears help the player gather Star Points. Filler Gloves (and Filler Gloves DX) increase the Star Points the player obtains after any attack. Counter Change Gloves make the player obtain Star Points when countering enemy attacks, while Filler Brooches give Star Points whenever a Lucky Hit is scored and Filler Wears (and Filler Wears DX) give Star Points whenever the user takes damage. Paper Mario also has his own variants of these Gears, but he doesn't seem to be able to wear Counter Change Gloves, and Filler Wear (DX) is called Boost Wear (DX).

Shiny Battle Cards
Shiny Battle Cards are a variation of ordinary Battle Cards. They are dropped by certain shiny enemies and are never sold in Card Shops. Their effects are the same as an ordinary Battle Card, but cost fewer Star Points. See List of Battle Cards for more.

After Battle Cards are introduced, Shiny Battle Cards can be dropped by enemies at anytime. The player can learn about their effect by talking to the rightmost Toad in a Card Shop.

Character Cards
Character Cards are a system similar to Battle Cards, but work with amiibos. To get started, one must first get a '''? Card'''. ? Cards come in two variations: LV 1 ? Cards and LV 2 ? Cards. The second type is rarer but produces stronger cards. They are rarely dropped by enemies or alternatively bought for 200 and 800 Coins, respectively, in a Card Shop from Toads that have a dialogue box with a ? Card in it. ? Cards can also be sold, for the same price the can be bought for, to the afromentioned Toads. From the menu, the player can make a random Character Card of the ? Card's level by scanning an amiibo. In battle, the player can scan an amiibo, pick a card and use it. That amiibo character can't be used again until the battle ends, limiting the player to 6 Character Cards per battle. The player can't get doubles of the same card: every ? Card is guaranteed to grant a new card. Once all cards of the same level are obtained, the player also can't make another for that amiibo.

Two variations of them exist. The first is Duo Character Cards. If the game alerts the player they can make one by saying "Now's Your Chance!", they can scan a different character amiibo (no data will be written on it) and the card will be obtained. They feature an artwork of two characters at once. If the player doesn't have another amiibo, they can cancel the creation with. If they make a combination that doesn't lead to any Duo Character Card, the card making is cancelled. Bowser doesn't appear in any LV 1 Duo Character Cards (except for its own), while only Mario, Luigi and Bowser are guaranteed to star in an amiibo's LV 2 Duo Card: Yoshi, Peach and Toad are present sparingly.

Sparkle Character Cards are stronger version of Character Cards, but are made differently. If the player has two amiibos of the same character and both of them have at least one shared Character Card, they can both be scanned to make a card with the same effect, but that also grants Star Points (two for LV 1 Cards, four for LV 2 Cards and five for ), and register it on both amiibos. They are shiny too, making them similar to Shiny Battle Cards. However, the player can only make one Spakle Character Card per day.

The first ? Cards are dropped by defeating Petey Piranha: after that, they can be freely bought and used. Mario and Luigi have 26 different cards, while Peach, Yoshi, Toad and Bowser all have 23 of them, having one less LV 1 Character Card, LV 2 Character Card and LV 2 Duo Character Card for a grand total of 144 Character Cards. If one amiibo has all Character Cards, it'll unlock a secret, unusually powerful Character Card.

Enemies' Battle Cards
Ludwig von Koopa, fought in Twinsy Tropics and Neo Bowser Castle, is a unique boss as he has his own Battle Card decks that he uses to aid himself and Larry in the battle. Both Koopalings also have a personal Star Points counter (called Dark Star Points in-game), which works similarly to the player's: if the player fails to dodge enemy attacks and gets hit, the counter goes up. Battle Cards are used automatically as the needed Dark Star Points are reached by spending Dark Star Points. They have different effects, including raising one of their stats or disabling some of the player's attack temporarily. At the start of the battle and after any card is played, a dialogue plays, alerting the player of the next card's effect and the number of Dark Star Points needed. All Battle Cards are used in a precise order, and when the last Battle Card is used, Ludwig starts the cycle over by drawing the first card of the deck.

List of Ludwig's Battle Cards
First battle

Second battle

Morton Koopa Jr. also uses his magic to mess with the player's Battle Deck. All their cards become Battle Cards with Morton's emblem over them. They cost 2 Star Points, but the game obscures their effect. Once used, they either deal everyone 60 damage or give the player either a Max Mushroom, Max Nuts, or Max Candy. Character Cards can't be used while fighting Morton.

List of Battle Cards
There are a total of 154 cards: the original 12 Paper Goomba starts the player with, 53 from the Card Shop, 18 from Lakitu Star Medals, and 71 shiny card variants.

All Card Shop and Lakitu cards have a shiny variant that are dropped randomly by any one of the following paper enemies: Paragoombas, Shy Guys, Bob-ombs, Koopas, Ninjis, Spikes, Fire Piranhas, Dry Bones, and Sombrero Guys. Paper shiny variants of these enemies are guaranteed to drop a shiny card when defeated, while regular paper variants can drop the shiny card, albeit rarely. Each species has a certain maximum of shiny cards that can be obtained from them, after which the drops will become regular items. The sum of all of their maximums is 71.

The shiny variant has the exact same effect but costs half the star points, rounded up.

Trivia

 * Just like Stickers in Paper Mario: Sticker Star, shiny Battle Cards can change the angle of the reflection by the system.
 * Some of the cards have cameos of characters who do not appear in the main game (such as Baby Mario, Rosalina, and Antasma).
 * If the player attempts to use a Battle Card to defeat the party (like 80% HP for Star Points) at low health (i.e. their health bar count has turned red), they will receive a Game Over.
 * The initial card set given by the Paper Goomba appears to be well-used as evident by the torn edges, scratches, and the faded colors.

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