What are the best CCGs?

[Silentstorm]

Honestly, was looking into it since i have enjoyed games like Slay The Spire and Monster Train a lot, but those are deckbuilding games, and honestly, i forgot about the veteran and netdecker thing, i can see almost every deck having amazing cards and combos copied from what pros use, particularly for stuff like free online clients that give every card to begin with, i imagine originality or variations become a lot less common than you would find in your average game shop where not everyone has all the money or really desire to play meta.

I guess it's the kind of thing that is much better on real life, but since i know no one who plays these nor is there any spot, i don't think i will play anything for long...also not really into collecting since i have come across people who buy and collect cards just to collect and don't play or even know the rules of the TCG's they buy cards for.

 

[spectre]

LCGs (living card games) are a decent solution if you're not into collecting useless cardboard. No random packs, you buy expansions and you know what you're getting each time.
Legend of Five rings is one of those and IIRC it's not dead yet. Pretty nice game if you're into the samurai theme.

There's no escaping metagame and metadecks when playing online, though you might if you manage to find yourself a like-minded playgroup.
LCGs have an interesting way of circumventing this, because you can agree with your opponent to only play starter decks, and a lot of people will humor you.
While starter decks might not sound exactly exciting, in the case of L5R that's 6 factions worth of combinations and interactions to explore, and seven factions with something like Warhammer Conquest (cool game, but dead).

If you're really adverse to deckbuilding, there are cardgames in which you don't bring a deck with you, but develop it as you play. Star Realms is an example of this.
A very simple and fast game. It's also available in digital.

I didn't give you any real recommendations in the previous post, so here's a bunch to consider:
Magic the Gathering - at the same time absolutely the best and worst pick for your CCG. The best part is it's been along for so long and (despite people saying all kinds of things) it's not going away.
You're always going to find someone to play, you're always going to find a playstyle for yourself (as well as a playstyle that annoys the living fuck out of you). There are also many formats to explore,
some intended for people who don't want to mortgage their house to buy cardboard crack.
While MtG Arena is a convenient way to play this game, also lets you keep the expenses to the minimum if you're any good and keep the nose to the grindstone.
It's also a good way to get burned out on this game, because it's not too casual friendly.

Faeria - this was my rebound game when I quit MtG. Haven't played it in years, but it appears to be still around. It has a pretty cool art style and plays differently to other card games.
I'm recommending it specifically because it has a rather accommodating to single player.

Arkham Horror - try this one if you want something new, because the way I see it, it plays like a horror RPG, but with cards.
Banter and atmosphere is important, so you want Tabletop Simulator for this as well as a good group, it also means it doesn't really lend itself to any kind of competitive play.
This might be a good choice if you have some background in RPGs.

Summoner Wars - not a true card game, because it's played on a board, making it closer to card game + chess.
Looks like ass, especially the recent updated version, but mechanically speaking, it's great. There are plenty of factions to choose from,
and they did a good job at keeping them distinct. Deckbilding is possible, but very limited - a good chunk of your deck is fixed.
There is an online client, but last time I checked, it was rather limited.

Flesh and Blood - can't vouch for it personally, but the mechanics are supposedly pretty good and innovative. Also unfortunately, a TCG.

You can also pick an old LCG to play with people online. Some of the good ones were: Androind Netrunner (dystopian future, hackers vs. corporations), Warhammer Conquest, Legend of Five Rings, as mentioned above,
if you're into Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and Star Wars, there were LCGs for those as well.

Out of the bunch, ANR would probably be the most convenient to pick up. The official learn to play videos on youtube are pretty good, and I can see there are still people online at jinteki.net,
though you will probably want to join some kind of a discord channel.
You'll see the mechanics are very flavorful. While there are netdecks and a metagame, because there were tournaments being held, a lot of folks I've played online didn't bother with that,
and they would dig up something interesting. The gameplay is assymetric, which means each player takes on a different role and tries to prevent the other from achieving their goals.
It's only disadvantage is that it's a dead game (i.e. no new stuff being released), but there's still plenty to take in with so many factions, and each deck having potential to do unique things,
even within the same faction.

 

[NoSoup4you]

L5R is dead.

 

[spectre]

Killed by covid, or did FFG pull the plug because running organized play is too much work?
Still, L5R always had a fantastic community, so you should find people to play. They held the fort for quite some time back when the CCG version died.

 

[Jason Liang]

Honestly, was looking into it since i have enjoyed games like Slay The Spire and Monster Train a lot, but those are deckbuilding games, and honestly, i forgot about the veteran and netdecker thing, i can see almost every deck having amazing cards and combos copied from what pros use, particularly for stuff like free online clients that give every card to begin with, i imagine originality or variations become a lot less common than you would find in your average game shop where not everyone has all the money or really desire to play meta.

I guess it's the kind of thing that is much better on real life, but since i know no one who plays these nor is there any spot, i don't think i will play anything for long...also not really into collecting since i have come across people who buy and collect cards just to collect and don't play or even know the rules of the TCG's they buy cards for.

If you enjoy deckbuilding/ drafting, a light but well designed online only 1v1 ccg is Age of Rivals.

If you like something similar to Slay the Spire, I can recommend Night of the Full Moon.

L5R LCG has a corollary to jinteki, which is jingoku.online

Android Netrunner has new cards from Nisei.

Also, I should mention that Konami is soon releasing Yugioh Master Duel, which will be an alternative to Duel Links (using the actual YGO rules, not the faster Duel Links rules). Not sure how it will function but you'll be able to get in on an equal start with other players, unlike Duel Links or Arena.

 

[NoSoup4you]

Killed by covid, or did FFG pull the plug because running organized play is too much work?
Still, L5R always had a fantastic community, so you should find people to play. They held the fort for quite some time back when the CCG version died.

Covid didn't help, but FFG has a long track record of fucking up everything they start. All of their LCGs have ended in ruin except Lord of the Rings, because you can take a co-op game at your own pace and ignore any unbalanced bullshit they print. With L5R in particular, the game was generally considered to be long and boring, and didn't inspire nearly the same fervor as the CCG. It would have been better for the property if the new game had never happened, because this also killed any momentum a fan continuation might have had.

 

[anvi]

all of the online ones have been ruined by sweaty tryhard netdeckers who literally only care about "winning" and "epic esports" which causes 99% of cards to be unplayable

I guess if you have IRL friends and want to get together to play MTG with a random box of cards it can be fun for a short time but honestly only loser manchildren would rather play a fucking child's card game over going to the beach/bar/concert/etc..

This is my problem with them.

MTG seems like the most amazing game ever with millions of fascinating cards that you could combine in an almost infinite number of genius ways. But you could get Einstein to make the most glorious and incredible deck using ideas nobody had ever thought of. But if it wins on turn 4 then it is worthless because everyone is playing a tournament deck that wins on turn 3. And the devs could fix this but they don't. Sad to have such an enormous amount of depth get boiled down to a choice of 5 cookie cutter decks.

 

[NoSoup4you]

It's very reductionist once you're trying to be competitive - these are the best 2 drops in this color right now, these are the best 3 drops, etc. Maybe you have a couple flex cards, and then building the sideboard is actually pretty flexible. The game is 99% won in building/meta and not playing.

 

[Doktor Best]

all of the online ones have been ruined by sweaty tryhard netdeckers who literally only care about "winning" and "epic esports" which causes 99% of cards to be unplayable

I guess if you have IRL friends and want to get together to play MTG with a random box of cards it can be fun for a short time but honestly only loser manchildren would rather play a fucking child's card game over going to the beach/bar/concert/etc..

This is my problem with them.

MTG seems like the most amazing game ever with millions of fascinating cards that you could combine in an almost infinite number of genius ways. But you could get Einstein to make the most glorious and incredible deck using ideas nobody had ever thought of. But if it wins on turn 4 then it is worthless because everyone is playing a tournament deck that wins on turn 3. And the devs could fix this but they don't. Sad to have such an enormous amount of depth get boiled down to a choice of 5 cookie cutter decks.

Thats why we players have to keep bitching until they give us historic brawl. Singleton formats highly diversify the gameplay as you lose on consistency and therefor have to pull your deck into different directions. It is also a slower format with ramp and big haymaker plays being part of every deck. They'd have to further increase the card pool which they are on track with and maybe ban Ugin because that card is slapped into every historic brawl deck right now.

I'm also once again gonna take the opportunity to promote Legends of Runeterra. It recently got a balance patch addressing 48 cards with either buffs or nerfs together with a new set of cards. The big bad evil deck got nerfed sensibly and right now the meta is versatile and balanced. You have control, midrange, aggro, combo decks in various forms. No aggro speed meta, no oppressive control deck that pushes all other slower decks out of the game. The game is extremely f2p friendly and not even really grindy (you can just play like 3 games a week for your free champion card as well as some card packs and dust). It is not as complex as MTG, but it is complex enough and most importantly its match-ups are very often determined by proper resource management, calculation and hand reading/bluffing.

 

[Silentstorm]

all of the online ones have been ruined by sweaty tryhard netdeckers who literally only care about "winning" and "epic esports" which causes 99% of cards to be unplayable

I guess if you have IRL friends and want to get together to play MTG with a random box of cards it can be fun for a short time but honestly only loser manchildren would rather play a fucking child's card game over going to the beach/bar/concert/etc..

This is my problem with them.

MTG seems like the most amazing game ever with millions of fascinating cards that you could combine in an almost infinite number of genius ways. But you could get Einstein to make the most glorious and incredible deck using ideas nobody had ever thought of. But if it wins on turn 4 then it is worthless because everyone is playing a tournament deck that wins on turn 3. And the devs could fix this but they don't. Sad to have such an enormous amount of depth get boiled down to a choice of 5 cookie cutter decks.

To be fair, that is how it always goes with competitive games at higher levels, everyone just uses the best optimal strats or use anti-meta, you see that with every genre, and, of course, there are always those who don't want to experiment and just want to be as strong as possible.

I still imagine at a casual level, the games are more experimental since most players don't have all the best cards or still aren't looking online for the best cards, but put a digital only client and it seems like it only incentives people to experiment less unless they find friends that are willing to experiment too, and put a digital only client that gives every card from the start and looking online for pro decks is something that i imagine becomes only more common.

Also, i think there are TCG players here...or at least a tourist, yesterday went to the beach to swim and in the path there i swear i saw Pokemon cards on the ground...and no one seemingly looking for them, only picked two before leaving them be, some Arcanine and Caterpie cards which i imagine were such trash the player left them on the ground, man, for some reason i always thought trading cards would be bigger than normal playing cards, i mean, just because they have the art, stats and text i imagine they would need the size, but those Pokemon cards were disappointingly small, makes sense i guess, players still need to hold quite a few cards in their hands.

No, i didn't exactly start going around asking for who owns those cards and if they play them, kinda just made a pile and put a rock above, if the owner came back or a kid found them, good for them...still, who brings Pokemon cards to a beach?

 

[Doktor Best]

all of the online ones have been ruined by sweaty tryhard netdeckers who literally only care about "winning" and "epic esports" which causes 99% of cards to be unplayable

I guess if you have IRL friends and want to get together to play MTG with a random box of cards it can be fun for a short time but honestly only loser manchildren would rather play a fucking child's card game over going to the beach/bar/concert/etc..

This is my problem with them.

MTG seems like the most amazing game ever with millions of fascinating cards that you could combine in an almost infinite number of genius ways. But you could get Einstein to make the most glorious and incredible deck using ideas nobody had ever thought of. But if it wins on turn 4 then it is worthless because everyone is playing a tournament deck that wins on turn 3. And the devs could fix this but they don't. Sad to have such an enormous amount of depth get boiled down to a choice of 5 cookie cutter decks.

To be fair, that is how it always goes with competitive games at higher levels, everyone just uses the best optimal strats or use anti-meta, you see that with every genre, and, of course, there are always those who don't want to experiment and just want to be as strong as possible.

I still imagine at a casual level, the games are more experimental since most players don't have all the best cards or still aren't looking online for the best cards, but put a digital only client and it seems like it only incentives people to experiment less unless they find friends that are willing to experiment too, and put a digital only client that gives every card from the start and looking online for pro decks is something that i imagine becomes only more common.

Also, i think there are TCG players here...or at least a tourist, yesterday went to the beach to swim and in the path there i swear i saw Pokemon cards on the ground...and no one seemingly looking for them, only picked two before leaving them be, some Arcanine and Caterpie cards which i imagine were such trash the player left them on the ground, man, for some reason i always thought trading cards would be bigger than normal playing cards, i mean, just because they have the art, stats and text i imagine they would need the size, but those Pokemon cards were disappointingly small, makes sense i guess, players still need to hold quite a few cards in their hands.

No, i didn't exactly start going around asking for who owns those cards and if they play them, kinda just made a pile and put a rock above, if the owner came back or a kid found them, good for them...still, who brings Pokemon cards to a beach?

I keep thinking about how CCGs could emulate the secondary market effect of physical TCGs. In paper magic people are usually more creative with deckbuilding simply due to the fact that chase cards are super expensive so almost everyone is restricted by some form of budget. In digital MTG, every card is worth the same in each rarity slot. A bulk rare costs one rare wildcard just like a shock-land, a bulk mythic is the same as a Great Henge.

Maybe there should be some system in place that gives every card a modifier depending on how much they are played and modify crafting costs depending on that modifier. It would encourage finding off meta strategies. Of course you'd have to work more with non rng rewards as it would magnify the discrepancy between chase cards and off meta cards.

 

[Jason Liang]

I think this is one reason NoSoup4you and I both prefer multiplayer ccgs like VtES and Shadowfist. When you are statistically only meant to win roughly 20% of the games, you would rather make or choose a deck that you enjoy playing over one that is known to be busted. VtES has "infamous" decks but they usually make up less than 10% of a local metagame (i.e. in a 30 player tournament, maybe 3-4 players will play such decks). And power is checked by the multiplayer nature of the game, so even a powerful strategy can rarely overcome an entire table by itself.

 

[NoSoup4you]

Right now in VTES, Emerald Legionnaires are the big (relatively) new thing:

Might not look like much, but there's ways to dump a ton of stuff in your discard for free, and these can flood the board to the point that it doesn't even feel like it came from the same game as everything else. Some of the top players are specifically abusing it as much as possible in tournaments to get it errata'd. I had one such player as my grandprey in the last online tournament, and HIS besieged prey called this vote:

It was for like 10 damage, a massive amount. I was the swing vote here, and passing would mean 1: The Legionnaires player would die, and 2: My prey would get 1VP+6 pool. After some attempts at negotiating, I let him die because I had a better chance of getting a full win without him in the picture, rather than me playing for one point and then stalling out. So basically, my prey got an entirely free VP because the next player's deck was too good. He went on to win the tournament.

 

[Jason Liang]

Weenie swarms are nothing new to VtES though. Since Jyhad era Caitiff/ Pander swarms, there have always been decks like Ravnos Clown Car, Tupdog, Imbued, Third Tradition/ Embrace/ Creation Rites, Sabastien Goulet+Shadow Court Satyr, Antionio d'Erlette+Nephendus, etc...

 

[NoSoup4you]

The difference here is you can have a bunch of guys on turn 2 or 3, and if players don't wipe your board entirely, they might just be out again next turn... Plus their 2 strength and 2 life is highly annoying.

 

[Silentstorm]

I will be honest, i didn't even know there were cooperative CCG's, i only hear about Magic, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh since they are the big three, i do know Hearthstone had some kind of campaign that allowed players to fight bosses, but attributed that to it being a digital game.

Also, looking for digital card games...Legends Of Runeterra does seem to be mentioned a lot, same goes for Gwent and somewhat Elder Scrolls Legends, quite a few mention Slay The Spire, Monster Train and Griftlands which is...yeah, i have bought and enjoyed those three games, but i feel like they are different from the rest due to being single player only.

And apparently there were a TON of CCG's in physical form, a friend on another place directed me to this Youtuber making a video about CCG sins(one of those youtubers that is serious almost all the way through, but sometimes stops to have 1 or 2 seconds of less serious shenanigans) and every video mentions a ton of physical games i never heard of...really, an Austin Powers trading card game?

Not really that interesting for people here maybe:


But it's cool seeing him using cards from various games, the 4th sins video has him showing dozens of card games and again, never heard of those, didn't know the market keeps getting that many games that lose to the big 3 all the time...and yes, a main complaint is that a lot of games just copy Magic but don't change enough and they just remind you of how fun Magic is instead.

 

[NoSoup4you]

Austin Powers was basically made solely to get a foot in the door towards acquiring the rights to Lord of the Rings. LOTR CCG was pretty successful and by all accounts a good game, so that takes some of the embarrassment out of it.

 

[Silentstorm]

Found an almost surely illegal service called Untap which uses Discord to play TCG's, seems to run a lot of games and gives...every card for 27 CCG's, though i am pretty sure quite a few are dead, and look at that, there was apparently a Fire Emblem game...actually, now that i think about it, i am shocked Nintendo has only done Pokemon and Fire Emblem, you'd think they would make a Smash Bros TCG and use every single one of their franchises, that just seems like an easily sellable idea even if the game becomes just a total clone of Pokemon TCG with different characters.

 

[Silentstorm]

Tried MTG:Arena, Legends Of Runeterra and a bit of Shadowverse, i think Magic is the least fun so far, i like that the other games are a bit simpler and i prefer the mana resource system over lands because while i can still get and have gotten screwed with cards i couldn't use in a turn due to not having enough mana yet, i like not having to think about the quantity of lands to put in a deck or hope for more land cards or get annoyed when i get one rather than a card i could use.

I get why it's there, but damn, i can already tell why many games don't copy the land system, i hear obvious clones like Force Of Will even shove lands into SEPARATE DECKS and you just take one land equivalent each turn, it's like being screwed by lands or being forced to put a ton of resource cards into your deck is the one mechanic almost every wants to change for their TCG's.

 

[NoSoup4you]

Land is the most infamous "mistake" of Magic, but on the other hand, other resource systems are often disappointing in some way too... Give players guaranteed resources like Hearthstone/Shadowverse do, and new problems arise that you have to solve. My favorite system is Final Fantasy - I think other games have done this too, maybe VS System - where you can pay for things using a combination of "backup" characters on the board (tap for 1 colored "mana" among other effects), as well as discarding same-colored cards from hand (for 2 "mana" each). You draw 2 each turn to compensate, so there's more choices in paying for things, and also more consistency as far as seeing the cards in your deck.

 

[Jason Liang]

OTOH a lot of the old ccgs have land-like systems, including oL5R and Shadowfist, and still managed to play well. The problem with lands in slower Magic formats is you can be screwed by too many lands, too few lands, or wrong color lands, which is a little too much randomness. Note that land screw is basically eliminated in the older mtg formats that have fetchlands and very, very low mana curves (i.e. any two lands should be able to cast 90% of your deck). It's really an issue in rotating and slower mtg formats that don't have fetch lands and where strategies that try to draw or ramp up into 4+ cmc spells are supposed to be viable.

Note that Richard Garfield solved the issue in his ccgs following mtg. In VtES your basic resource is your life pool, which you start the game with, and in Netrunner spending an action to gain 1 bit is a basic action. Star Wars TCG every player gains a random number of generic resources at the start of each turn. Battletech has a resource system similar to mtg, but every card can be paid with generic costs and can be paid for across several turns, and it has fetch lands (in fact, I'm pretty sure that War Funds predates mtg fetchlands and is the original fetchland).

And probably the best 1v1 ccg, Yugioh, doesn't have a resource system at all, and is far more strategic for it. In Yugioh, knowing when to keep cards in your hand (which is where they are safest) and when to commit them to the board is an art in of itself. Without resources, there's no pressure to "curve out" like in mtg.

 

[good fucking shit happen]

all of the online ones have been ruined by sweaty tryhard netdeckers who literally only care about "winning" and "epic esports" which causes 99% of cards to be unplayable

I guess if you have IRL friends and want to get together to play MTG with a random box of cards it can be fun for a short time but honestly only loser manchildren would rather play a fucking child's card game over going to the beach/bar/concert/etc..

Dats rite. Aint nothin wrong with plain regular old cards tho. You just slap one of them 52 card decks down and gamble. Get some cash flow goin while hanging out with the niggas and smoking weed.

 

[Silentstorm]

I see some games even have cards being resources themselves, like Flesh And Blood, made by a MTG Veteran designer but instead of lands every damn card also has a resource rating, with some cards giving less or more resources, and avoiding some things like beatsticks or creatures with really high stats and requiring huge amounts of resources to use also just giving the most resources when used that way.

It reviews well, but yeah, i have noticed issues with mana resource systems, it's just that so far, i think i like it more than MTG and it's lands, but i haven't used fetchlands, just noticed when looking at other CCG's that quite a few don't copy Magic's system at all, Yu-Gi-Oh being kinda the most extreme case.

 

[Doktor Best]

I like Runeterra's solution to curve compulsion of Hearthstone. You automatically save up to three mana that you did not spend as spell mana which you can use for non permanent spell types. It enables the game to grant you the perfect mana curve while still giving the player who either cannot play on curve or wants to strategize a bit of extra gas to swing the board state. It leads to some interesting decision-making.

 

[[UCHIHA]XxDarkSasuke420xX]

Dats rite. Aint nothin wrong with plain regular old cards tho. You just slap one of them 52 card decks down and gamble. Get some cash flow goin while hanging out with the niggas and smoking weed.

hell yea bro u know wassup