Holde'm Back

YOUR POKER HAND IS THE SPAWN BUTTON
Holde'm Back is a single player roguelike tower defense where you do not place towers, you deal for them.
Five cards, one replace:
a pair brings the cheap muscle, a straight brings a specialist, and the hands that should be impossible bring back the fighters this casino buried deepest.
The House erased its own staff, and their names are your roster. Deal them in, merge two matching fighters into one that hits harder, seat them in the five chairs at the table, and hold eight floors of a rigged casino that keeps changing the rules on you as you climb.
Poker hands are your units. Short deck, five cards, one replace. Kills pay the mana for the next hand, and every summon costs more than the last. A crew of 46. Damage, control, hybrid and support across four rarities. Seat abilities change what a character does depending on which chair they take, so the same hire is a different fighter in a different seat. 43 Jokers that bend the table. They do not add damage. They change what a hand is worth, what the deck is allowed to contain, and what happens when you lose. Eight floors, eight bosses, twelve broken rules. Every boss arrives with a rule signed by the House that applies to you and not to them: your hand ranks lock, your replace dies, your Jokers get confiscated. A floor that fights back. Thirty-one tile effects mark the ground under your fighters, eight of them unique to a single floor of the Tower, some fusing into things the House never sanctioned. Rig your own deck. Between floors you take the deck apart: burn the ranks that never help, duplicate the ones that do, and stamp cards gold, lucky, glass, wild or bent. Lady Luck deals her own games. Dead, bored, and not on the House payroll. Eleven side games, between floors, in the shop, after a boss, and once in the middle of a hand you are still holding. Tonight's Table. One seed for everyone, every day. Red stake, one attempt, and the game keeps your streak.
Crooked, not unfair. A run you lose should be a run you can explain: the simulation is fully deterministic, bad streaks have mitigation, and what you unlock is more variety, never more raw power.
Single player. Premium game, bought once. No energy, no timers, no store.