I feel that 4.0 wasn't as terrible as many made it out to be in the beginning. Honestly, my group has had a lot of fun with it.
The biggest thing we missed from 3.5 was the customization options; 4.0 felt far, far too narrow and "vanilla" for a game that relies on imagination. Where 4.0 was a plain hunk of roast beef, 3.5 was roast beef with parsley, various side dishes, and a crapton of herbs and spices thrown on everything. After numerous 4.0 books, that feeling still hasn't come for my group.
We will be looking forwards to 5.0, without a doubt, though we mostly play smaller games nowadays, like Savage Worlds, Changeling: The Lost (recently have become hooked) and Mouse Guard.
Anyone tried this game? How is it? I saw some decks in my local pharmacy and they piqued my interest. Definitely looks very unique, but I'm interested to see how it'll affect the TCG market as whole.
I hear that the metagame is limited to an incredibly small number of decks that everyone copies. Competitions are rampant with thieves and general rudeness. The game itself is fast-paced and can be fun, but the ban lists come along with decks that cost $500-$800, or even $1,000. The game itself isn't complicated -- it's all the rulings that make it often incredibly confusing.
This is what I've heard. I've also heard that Pokemon is infinitely more enjoyable than YGO, and by this point is just as complex and competitive. If you're looking for something to play on the side of MtG, I'd go with that personally.
The Spoils was originally designed by a group of pro Magic players for the specific purpose of being a better game than Magic.
I love how humourous and non-serious the fluff is. I love how mana screw is mostly fixed (Any card can be played face down for colourless resources and you can pay to play more than one resource a turn) and late game top decking is non-existent. (You can always pay to draw cards) I love how clear the game is about costs and abilities.
It's an enjoyable game and I suggest at least giving it a try with the two-player starter or a couple of precons.
After watching The Definitive Tutorial on YouTube, my interest in this game has infinitely increased. Thank you so much for the post/recommendation!
Out of those, I still love them all except Pokemon and Yugioh. So many great games die. L5R and The Spoils are still alive, but no one wants to play them in my area even though I love them infinitely more than MTG. Heck, Duel Masters, The Spoils and Hecatomb are all just flat out better versions of Magic.
I'd also like to try a lot of other games like Vampire, LBS, 7th Sea, Wars, Berserk, Warlord and WoW. Also would really like AEG to release Phase already. It's hard to get people to play anything other than Magic though, even if it's dead and sells for $10 a booster box. People don't even want to try out FFG's LCG like Game of Thrones, Call of Cthulhu, Lord of the Rings and Warhammer Invasion.
I've also enjoyed several CMGs, such as Mage Knight, Dreamblade and Monsterpocalypse. Man, Dreamblade was amazing. Considering trying out Horrorclix even though it is dead as well.
I've never heard of The Spoils, but I looked it up -- I think I've overlooked an absolute gem. Why do you say that this game is much better than Magic the Gathering? (I'm currently looking for a replacement as I type).
I'm all for getting my local gaming community together to embrace a game that I love and enjoy (or at least, attempt to get them to embrace it). Dragon Dice and The Spoils both look fascinating.
I've played quite a few CCGs over the years. I don't actively play any of them any more (including Magic) but here are some I remember well...
Highlander: This was the first CCG I got into after quitting Magic the first time around back in 1998. The game is wholly unsuitable for multiplayer but provides a really interesting 2-player experience. I know it was recently revived by another games company but I haven't tried the 2nd edition, mostly due to lack of players in the area.
Doomtown: Based on the Deadlands RPG environment. Designed as a multiplayer experience from the bottom up. Lots of fun with the capability to do some very different strategies, but unlike my brief experience with the Star Wars CCG, there's still a lot of interaction between players even if they picked completely different ways to go about winning the game.
Lord of the Rings (Decipher): Really enjoyed the first three years of this where the releases were coinciding with the movies. Strictly a two-player experience but had some very tense gameplay, especially when it's your fellowship's turn and a single miscalculation could very easily turn into a game loss. Decipher restructured the game after the third year and I kind of lost interest.
Dragon Dice: Yes, a collectible dice game. Used to really be into this one too, but the games had a tendency to drag on much longer than they should have, and the learning curve is pretty steep if you're using Magic as there are so many options for spells based on the colors of your magic users, as well as racial spells. Was originally published by TSR, but has since been picked up by a company called SFR and is still being actively supported (they had a booth at GenCon this year).
A collectible dice game sounds... pretty cool. I've never heard of it, and I've never seen anyone play it, which doesn't sound too promising.
I used to play back in the early 2000s, but stopped for a while. I came back recently with M12 and have had a blast thus far with my friends.
Although I'm busy and can't make FNMs, I still enjoy playing and theorycrafting this game with my friends and constructing different types of decks to try out, as well as participating in friendly tournaments at my school when I have the time.
I really love all sorts of CCGs and RPGs, but the ones I play the most right now are MtG and Pokemon (Pokemon more so as of very recently due to budget constraints (Pokemon is much cheaper than MtG)). I play Savage Worlds off and on with my friends for good 'ol group storytelling goodness, and I've recently discovered Legend of the Five Rings CCG, which looks absolutely amazing.
You'll see me lurking around the Casual and Standard forums, as well as the "Other Games" forums from time to time.
Well I finally picked up Pokemon (as of creating my previous thread here), and I must say I'm impressed. What I thought was going to be a dumb and boring card game has turned out to be a fantastic diversion from the ever-so-serious Magic the Gathering.
However, as I was waltzing out of the store with my new Pokemon deck, I nearly tripped over a box on the floor to the side, entitled Legend of the Five Rings.
I'd heard about this before, but I'd never given it a shot, so I picked it up on a whim and decided to have at it with some friends.
Well... sweet Jesus. What a find! I've never been so enthralled by a card game in my life (this includes my first Magic the Gathering encounter so, so long ago). It's a complex and engrossing game of feudal, fantastical japanese clans. This is a CCG at its finest, and apparently it has a pretty substantial player base with a handful of tournaments each month at numerous game shops nearby. I'm completely hooked, and I can't recommend it enough.
Then, I was prompted to make this thread. What are some of your favorite CCG/TCG games to play other than Magic the Gathering, which I'm assuming we all enjoy here to some degree (if you're on this forum in the first place).
Nowadays, Pokemon the TCG game seems completely and utterly broken. Each set screws the previous sets over and one card screws the entire set over. That's my perception of the thing and I'm probably portraying it inaccurately. (But it should be noted that some of the old Trainer cards are utterly devastating or are very powerful.)
Apparently so.
Surely, yes; or, at least to some. I'm not too sure about the demographics, though. Perhaps those that grew up with Pokemon have moved on and moved way on.
Actually, I've heard that it is much less broken than Yu-Gi-Oh, and is about as balanced as MtG (to some varying degree).
The game is still pretty popular; there are weekly tournaments that are very well-attended at numerous card/game shops near where I live. Granted, they aren't as big of a deal as Magic the Gathering (woohoo! :cool2:), but they look like fun nonetheless, and there are often quite a few adults there with their decks, ready to roll.
I feel that Magic the Gathering is a much more complex game that is aimed at adults rather than Pokemon, which is a tad simpler and is aimed at all audiences (with a focus on the young teen category, from what I've seen). Nonetheless, both are pretty fun games, but I find myself taking MtG much more seriously than Pokemon, which sometimes makes Pokemon my game of choice when I'm tired or don't feel like playing an intense game of MtG with some of my friends.
Pokemon as a TCG has changed greatly since the Base Set days. Playing with your Base Set cards would not do the game justice as the feel of the game is nothing like that at all.
Pokemon TCG still sells a lot of cards and is widely available at your local big box retailer, however, the player base is relatively small. Also, the game is a lot cheaper to play competitively than MTG or Yugioh!
A great forum to discuss Pokemon TCG is the Pokegym.
Thanks so much for the link! However, I completely disagree -- Pokemon seems very popular, still.
There was a point in time where big basics made a comeback with like golbat G and the like though. The newer sets are pretty cool nonetheless.
A chunk of the broken trainers have been reprinted in supporter form as well, like Professor Oak (as Professor Juniper). I haven't played much more to give an accurate statement otherwise, though.
Is Professor Oak that Pokemon mentor or something? The bad***-looking guy with the grey hair? I've only played one of the games, hence my lack of knowledge.
The game is entirely different now. I followed it up until the Rocket expansion. When Gym Leaders came the game completely changed. When Neo came the game REALLY changed. Gym Leaders and Neo resulted in the sets that came going the way of Alpha/Beta/Antiquities in Magic. Then Nintendo took over the game from WotC (apparently a vast improvement) and all those sets under WotC phased out. (Depending on the card, though. It's not as clear cut as Magic. Like, the Charizard card from Base Set is apparently allowed, though other cards would not be.)
Used to be the game was ridiculously fast paced with Trainer cards and was extremely biased against evolutions in favor of big basic pokemon (they even had an acronym, BBP, for it). Now every deck favors evolutions, and they made stage 2 evolutions outright badass.
Hmm... I'll take that as a sign that the game has improved over the years.
The biggest thing we missed from 3.5 was the customization options; 4.0 felt far, far too narrow and "vanilla" for a game that relies on imagination. Where 4.0 was a plain hunk of roast beef, 3.5 was roast beef with parsley, various side dishes, and a crapton of herbs and spices thrown on everything. After numerous 4.0 books, that feeling still hasn't come for my group.
We will be looking forwards to 5.0, without a doubt, though we mostly play smaller games nowadays, like Savage Worlds, Changeling: The Lost (recently have become hooked) and Mouse Guard.
Thoughts?
This is what I've heard. I've also heard that Pokemon is infinitely more enjoyable than YGO, and by this point is just as complex and competitive. If you're looking for something to play on the side of MtG, I'd go with that personally.
After watching The Definitive Tutorial on YouTube, my interest in this game has infinitely increased. Thank you so much for the post/recommendation!
I've never heard of The Spoils, but I looked it up -- I think I've overlooked an absolute gem. Why do you say that this game is much better than Magic the Gathering? (I'm currently looking for a replacement as I type).
I'm all for getting my local gaming community together to embrace a game that I love and enjoy (or at least, attempt to get them to embrace it). Dragon Dice and The Spoils both look fascinating.
A collectible dice game sounds... pretty cool. I've never heard of it, and I've never seen anyone play it, which doesn't sound too promising.
That may be true for some of the games you listed, but Pokemon and WoW TCG are still doing exceptionally well.
Collectible dice games?
Although I'm busy and can't make FNMs, I still enjoy playing and theorycrafting this game with my friends and constructing different types of decks to try out, as well as participating in friendly tournaments at my school when I have the time.
I really love all sorts of CCGs and RPGs, but the ones I play the most right now are MtG and Pokemon (Pokemon more so as of very recently due to budget constraints (Pokemon is much cheaper than MtG)). I play Savage Worlds off and on with my friends for good 'ol group storytelling goodness, and I've recently discovered Legend of the Five Rings CCG, which looks absolutely amazing.
You'll see me lurking around the Casual and Standard forums, as well as the "Other Games" forums from time to time.
So... hello!
However, as I was waltzing out of the store with my new Pokemon deck, I nearly tripped over a box on the floor to the side, entitled Legend of the Five Rings.
I'd heard about this before, but I'd never given it a shot, so I picked it up on a whim and decided to have at it with some friends.
Well... sweet Jesus. What a find! I've never been so enthralled by a card game in my life (this includes my first Magic the Gathering encounter so, so long ago). It's a complex and engrossing game of feudal, fantastical japanese clans. This is a CCG at its finest, and apparently it has a pretty substantial player base with a handful of tournaments each month at numerous game shops nearby. I'm completely hooked, and I can't recommend it enough.
Then, I was prompted to make this thread. What are some of your favorite CCG/TCG games to play other than Magic the Gathering, which I'm assuming we all enjoy here to some degree (if you're on this forum in the first place).
Actually, I've heard that it is much less broken than Yu-Gi-Oh, and is about as balanced as MtG (to some varying degree).
The game is still pretty popular; there are weekly tournaments that are very well-attended at numerous card/game shops near where I live. Granted, they aren't as big of a deal as Magic the Gathering (woohoo! :cool2:), but they look like fun nonetheless, and there are often quite a few adults there with their decks, ready to roll.
I feel that Magic the Gathering is a much more complex game that is aimed at adults rather than Pokemon, which is a tad simpler and is aimed at all audiences (with a focus on the young teen category, from what I've seen). Nonetheless, both are pretty fun games, but I find myself taking MtG much more seriously than Pokemon, which sometimes makes Pokemon my game of choice when I'm tired or don't feel like playing an intense game of MtG with some of my friends.
Thanks so much for the link! However, I completely disagree -- Pokemon seems very popular, still.
Is Professor Oak that Pokemon mentor or something? The bad***-looking guy with the grey hair? I've only played one of the games, hence my lack of knowledge.
Hmm... I'll take that as a sign that the game has improved over the years.
Thanks for your input!