What are the best CCGs?

[anvi]

I played MTG for years but I preferred it in the old days, it seemed to get dumbed down with stuff like Allies where you just play a bunch of shit and it suddenly becomes OP. Also I don't like the regular rotations with standard, so you have to pay a lot to keep up with it, especially if you like to play a bunch of different decks. Also I don't like how fast the game became. Each set has more and more OP cards to attract people to keep spending money, but the 20 life never increased. I like formats like Extended/Modern/Classic/Vintage where you get more interesting cards and you don't have as much rotation, but then I don't like losing on turn 1 or 2. And another thing I don't like... When you play MTG:Online or Xmage, people aren't interested in fun matches and theory crafting their own decks. Everyone just wants to win, which means they just copy a tournament winning deck. Retarded.

Basically I love the depth of the game but I don't how it plays.

Hearthstone I was disappointed with mostly because of how expensive it was or how grindy it is to get what you want. And I tried Slay the Spire and some other lesser known ones.

Anyone know anything I might like?

 

[RuySan]

Eternal. It's like MTG but made with digital in mind. It's F2P but very generous.

 

[anvi]

Thanks, downloading

 

[Jason Liang]

As far as onine ccgs go, many are pretty good but lack new content -

Estiah - A mostly solo deck building adventure game, quite innovative and worth a try. System is meant for players to progress from level 1 and completely free to play. No longer developed but the servers still run. Probably only a handful of active players now (50-100).

Animation Throwdown - I recently picked this up. It's based on five Fox network cartoons - Futurama, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Bob's Burgers and American Dad. If you are a fan of any of these shows, you'll probably enjoy this game. If you don't like this theme, then you probably wont. The system is pretty innovative: there are two types of basic cards- characters and objects- and one of each combine to form a new card. System works well, large fanbase, and the card collecting is beginner friendly. Fun and casual as far as these things go.

Urban Rivals - Simple but deep hidden bidding combat system, this game is simple but intense. It's not too hard to progress as free to play but the game is not very beginner friendly despite having card rotation. With over 2000 cards, many of them extremely expensive and exclusive (in terms of the ingame currency), I imagine a player just starting off would feel overwhelmed and hopeless. Still has a large player base but the ingame market is pretty dead.

Cardhunter - fun, flavorful, tactical, good single player campaign to start accumulating cards (beginner friendly). Worth playing through the campaign mode and trying out the multiplayer. Haven't played in years but I assume it has a sufficient player base.

Tyrant Unleashed - recently anounced that official development has been cancelled, although the servers will continue to run and players are going to start developing the game. Somewhat beginner friendly as older cards quickly become obsolete, the best decks contain entirely newer cards and it's pretty easy to acquire cards (new cards are obtained from either fusing together cards from the base set or from rewards from recent events). Probably overwhelming at first but by the time you get through the single player campaign mode, you should have enough cards and scrap (upgrade points) to do pretty well in multiplayer and special events. The game is well worth diving into and the flavor and theme are pretty cool, only downside is the uncertainty of its future. I would say the game has about 2000-3000 active players with about 250 pay players and the rest free to play. If you pick this up let me know and I will give you some advice on what to upgrade and fuse - DO NOT waste scrap upgrading any common or rare card (with the exception of Indebted Veteran). Most Epics and Legendaries are safe to upgrade but do not fuse them until you have a clear plan!

They are all very grindly though. I think that part comes with this type of game.

 

[hello friend]

Shandaral. It's fun, it's MtG, it's vs AI but the AI isn't awful.

Oh and it's also got overland map travel and taking cards off your enemies.

 

[catfood]

Just play Eternal like the above guy said. It's the only f2p game where I gave money to the developers. Not because I needed the cards but because after 100 hours of free gameplay I thought that it would only be fair o give them $10.

 

[Projas]

idk what state is it now, but try checking out Faeria, it was really good when I played it, just kinda dead playerbase-wise

 

[Jason Liang]

So now that I'm on summer vacation I am playing around with my new touch phone, I figure I should get some sort of rpg or ccg game for it.

So I find out that I can't get Eternal or Shadowverse or any game that uses Google Play on my phone (yes I know Eternal isn't on the phone). Grr. The only one that I can actually play on the phone sort of is oddly Animation Throwdown.

Any ideas for cell phone ccgs or rpgs

 

[J1M]

I would suggest the singleplayer hearthstone content. Not as fluid as Slay the Spire, but some good (free) content there.

If you want to spend some money:

Axes and Acres (Single-player, also uses dice rolls and worker placement mechanics)
Pathfinder Adventures (RPG-style progression mechanics, buy it on steam to opt out of the grinding)
Spectromancer (Similar to the old-school MtG adventure games)

 

[Gregz]

Started playing Eternal thanks to this thread, too early to report.

 

[anvi]

I started playing it the other day, really enjoying it! It is basically Hearthstone but with some MTG mixed in. Better, deeper, more fun. And I am enjoying playing the single player. I did all the tutorial things or whatever they are which unlock various decks. Now I started on a big single player Gauntlet which is nice because each match only takes about 5-10 minutes. Looking forward to completing that and then doing some real matches.

 

[ProphetSword]

I played Eternal for a while until I burned out on it. Great game, most of the stuff you expect from MtG but with some additional things that make it interesting.

The only issue (and this is minor) is that there are so few sets that you will eventually see all the major deck themes within a few weeks. That’s what I got bored with, mostly...being able to tell exactly what my opponent was playing based on the first couple card throws.

If you can handle that, it’s worth it. I come back once in a while, especially when they release new sets.

 

[anvi]

That sucks :/ Although Hearthstone was similar and MTG is when limited to Standard. Even in Modern/Legacy it is the same 6 decks every time, and all of them are tournament winning decks. :/

 

[ProphetSword]

It’s more than six different deck types, and you sometimes run into people who do something original and surprise you.

There are some advantages, though, like being able to craft some of the rarer cards you need for your deck and how easy it is to get packs (especially when playing Forge).

 

[anvi]

Sounds promising, gonna keep playing it but also try some others.

 

[Gregz]

Started playing Eternal thanks to this thread, too early to report.

Well, I have to conclude that Hearthstone is the better game. Eternal's UI and production values are just not on par with Blizzard's. I'm not far enough into Eternal to compare the meta, but this game just isn't grabbing me and I doubt I'll keep playing it much longer. According to some reddit posts the Gauntlet was nerfed and it's a real slog to grind now. Deck building is slow and tedious.

Hearthstone is absolutely pozzed and more P2W than ever before, so that's not an option. There's no going back to the game it used to be.

In an ideal world I would find a private server running Hearthstone from the 2015-2017 era, but no such thing exists.

 

[spectre]

What I liked about Eternal was the ability to alter card text and add abilities on the fly that would stay on the card even as it changed zones. I stopped playing when MTGArena dropped, so can't really say what's it like today, but it is an appealing alternative to typical MTG gameplay that is slower and more midrange-oriented. It is also much more single-player friendly than MTGArena. What I didn't like was the balancing of the highest rarity cards together with the rate of their acquisition.

Are we limited to purely digital stuff here? There's plenty of really cool LCGs (same shit as CCG, but with non-randomized card packs basically) out there and some of them you can play online. Some were (prematurely) killed off by Fantasy Flight Games, like Android: Netrunner,
but there seems to be an active community running.

I'm not really keeping up with the recent stuff, but Netrunner is still playable on jinteki.net, just checked it today and there were guys looking to play with starter decks.
I had good fun with Warhammer Conquest (though this one seems dead) and I was presently surprised with the revamped Legend of Five Rings when it launched. They did a pretty good job dredging all the clutter away from the old CCG while still keeping the flavor and depth.
This one seems to be alive, but not sure if you can play it online outside Tabletop Simulator.

Here's some tutorials, FFG did a pretty good job on the official ones.

 

[anvi]

Hearthstone is the better game. Eternal's UI and production values are just not on par with Blizzard's.

WTF... are you really saying that production values of a game are more important than the game itself? That is idiotic.

 

[Gregz]

Hearthstone is the better game. Eternal's UI and production values are just not on par with Blizzard's.

WTF... are you really saying that production values of a game are more important than the game itself? That is idiotic.

No, I'm not saying that, and you're an idiot for inferring it. Learn to read.

 

[anvi]

Hearthstone is the better game. Eternal's UI and production values are just not on par with Blizzard's.

WTF... are you really saying that production values of a game are more important than the game itself? That is idiotic.

No, I'm not saying that, and you're an idiot for inferring it. Learn to read.

It is exactly what you said.... You said Hearthstone is the better game and that you are not even far into this game yet. So you judged Hearthstone to be the better game because of the UI and graphics. Fucking degenerate.

 

[Gregz]

Hearthstone is the better game. Eternal's UI and production values are just not on par with Blizzard's.

WTF... are you really saying that production values of a game are more important than the game itself? That is idiotic.

No, I'm not saying that, and you're an idiot for inferring it. Learn to read.

It is exactly what you said.... You said Hearthstone is the better game and that you are not even far into this game yet. So you judged Hearthstone to be the better game because of the UI and graphics. Fucking degenerate.

That's not what I said at all dipshit. Do you even know what production value means? And of course gameplay is king, do you think I'd be complaining if I enjoyed the gameplay?

 

[anvi]

You barely even saw the gameplay, yet said Hearthstone is a better game. You are a moron and you proved it conclusively with that one post.

Started playing Eternal thanks to this thread, too early to report.

Well, I have to conclude that Hearthstone is the better game. Eternal's UI and production values are just not on par with Blizzard's. I'm not far enough into Eternal to compare the meta, but this game just isn't grabbing me and I doubt I'll keep playing it much longer. According to some reddit posts the Gauntlet was nerfed and it's a real slog to grind now. Deck building is slow and tedious.

Hearthstone is absolutely pozzed and more P2W than ever before, so that's not an option. There's no going back to the game it used to be.

In an ideal world I would find a private server running Hearthstone from the 2015-2017 era, but no such thing exists.

 

[Gregz]

I am the Codex

I spent 10+ hours playing it. That's plenty of time to get a good feel for a game.

I then took the time to post here to inform fellow codexers of my experience. They can infer whatever they want.

The whole point of this forum, and threads like these, is to help each other find games we'll enjoy. I'm not going to apologize for contributing to this community positively, just because you're the idiot who started this thread doesn't mean it can't be useful to others.

 

[anvi]

Not inferring anything, just reading what you said and calling it how it is. Dumb. Also the fact that you are trying to use that stupid tag to try to help your argument makes you an even bigger retard than I already thought.

 

[ProphetSword]

Not to interrupt the argument going on, but one thing I liked about Eternal over games like Hearthstone (and a lot of other online CCGs, honestly), is that Eternal kept an important element from MtG...the ability to choose your blockers during combat. So many online CCGs let the opponent directly attack your summons or ignore them at their leisure, completely removing the ability to get effective combos going or to prevent attacks that would kill you.

I'm aware they are different games, but if they're going to copy so many other things from MtG, they should at least get some of the foundations right. Eternal did that, as it literally feels like an alternate version of MtG...which is probably why WotC hired the people behind Eternal to do MtG Arena.