Goddamned Bats/Tabletop Games/Collectible Card Game

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Examples of Goddamned Bats in Collectible Card Games include:

  • Duel Masters, for example, has Pyrofighter Magnus, who comes out of nowhere, gets in a cheap shot, and disappears back to his owner's hand. You can only attack an opponent's monster on your turn, which means you can't kill him. If you have a blocker that can kill him, your opponent probably won't summon him, but he'll show up again once the blocker dies.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! also had them in the form of Spirit Reaper/Marshmallon and Treeborn Frog/Sinister Serpent. The first two cannot be destroyed in battle, and have weak enough stats to make them safe from most of the popular monster-destruction cards, while the latter two are easily able to return to your hand/field shortly after being sent to your graveyard, no matter how they're sent there. Fortunately for players, Spirit Reaper dies the moment an effect targets it, Marshmallon's limited to 2 copies in a deck, only one Treeborn Frog can be summoned per turn via its effect, and Sinister Serpent is outright banned. There's also Tsukuyomi (a Spirit monster that flips a monster on the field face-down upon summoning, and bounces back to your hand at the end of the turn), and Yata-Garasu, a Game Breaker if there ever was one. With the ability to prevent the opponent from drawing cards normally and the ability to return to its owner's hand due to it being a Spirit-type, it was essentially an "I win" card that still causes eye twitches when mentioned around seasoned Yu-Gi-Oh! players. Both are also banned, probably indefinitely.
  • The likely Ur Example in the CCG world is Magic: The Gathering's protection from color ability, which can be bad if you happen to be using the colors protected from. There are auras and equipment to grant creatures protection, as well.
    • Hypnotic Specter makes your opponent discard a card every time it damages him/her. Said Specter has flying, making it hard to block.
    • Stinkweed Imp is the ultimate Goddamned Bat of Magic: The Gathering. Weak p/t-wise, but an evasive little sonofagun that'll kill whatever it touches. Oh, and did I mention it comes back from the dead while accelerating the opponent's plan?
    • Also, blue decks chock full of cheap counterspells. On their own, these cards will never make one win (though they do help make one not lose, a good first step :)). To the opponent, they're Goddamn Bats as every. Single. Fucking. Card they try to play immediately ends in the graveyard.
    • There may be a card specifically built to be this trope: Viashino Sandstalker. And to a lesser degree, Glitterfang.
  • The Star Wars CCG had a similar card- Jar Jar. Besides being The Scrappy, the original Jar Jar could blow up an enemy with a little luck, but die in the process. A few sets later... Brisky Morning Munchen let you recur him. For a fairly cheep activation price, as far as named characters from the movies go. Throw in a couple of equally annoying cards built around him, and... you get the picture.
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