Card Games

[RobRoy]

Card games are something i got into about 18 months ago on visiting the local game shop

I used to play magic the gathering then i got to my first rotation making most of my cards illegal...so i gave up Now i play the living card game format, mainly 'Game of Thrones'.

Basic premise of the LCG format is that you buy a core set which contains cards for most of the factions then you build on these monthly with chapter packs. There is no randomness in this format as you get every card in every set unlike magic where it is random what you get. There is also no rotation which means every card is legal! (barring the restricted list)

At the weekend a new LCG came out called Netrunner which is based in a cyberpunk world and is alot of fun

Does anyone here play any card games?

[MartyG]

If my circle of friends played them I would. Sadly they don't.

Have you watched Wil Wheaton's Tabletop? - missed out on these when I did have the people around that would have played them, it would have been fun. (I particularly recommend watching the Gloom episode).

[RobRoy]

yeah I've seen a few episodes of that and have played most if the games he shows :-)

[averybluemonkey]

Started back in the glory days of the mid to late 90s back before the CCG market crashed and been playing ever since . Started with MtG back in the Mirage era and continued with it until the tail end of the Urza trilogy but felt the power creep was getting a bit ridiculous at that point and didn't like the way decks were increasingly becoming one trick ponies based around very specific combos that becamse hard win or lose based on card draw. My friends and I still played regularly using the older sets though until we discovered Legend of the Five Rings.

L5R has the advantages of a CCG in that it has huge card variety but the advantage of a LCG in that you don't need to spend a lot. Unlike Magic commons and uncommons are often the bedrock of many player's decks, for example a card like Rout is one of the most common cards in the game but is easily one of the single most crucial cards in many decks. It's set in a feudal Oriental setting and based around a number of different clans and plays completely differently to Magic. It's far more involved with multiple methods of winning the game:

-Win through raising your personal honour to a set limit.
-Win by reducing your enemies' personal honour to a set limit.
-Win through destroying all of their provinces in combat.
-Win through passive enlightenment by obtaining all five ring objects.

Each player starts with four provinces which provide separate combat targets and are the means of repopulation. Despite how this sounds it's really basic on the table as you just keep four card positions between your two decks (the game has two card deck types with different coloured backs to identify them). Your units can grow with followers and have equipment attached such as weapons, spells and armour. What's more is that you have a hidden hand like Magic made up entirely of such equipment and the game's equivalent of instants. As a result combat is far more complex, with the attacker able to assign to multiple targets, move forces between targets via abilities and and win/loss result far deeper than simply docking the enemy's life like in Magic.

There are strict rules about who can and cannot use abilities in a battle making positioning very important and just a single round of combat can see players dumping their entire hands of instances, combined with the wealth of unit abilities that cards have in a constant battle to tip the combat one way or the other. Units have types which interact closely with these instants creating deck wide synergies and themes. Combat is so much more about deception and careful planning, you have to think many steps in advance to outwit your opponent.

All in all it's a game with unparalleled variety and depth in the CCG world, with beautiful artwork and it was actually carefully designed to scale well in multiplayer. Cost for effective deck building is the lowest on the market at the moment too. Oh and the game avoids Magic's problem of mana issues by giving all players a decent starting collection of holdings from which to draw revenue. It's far less luck dependant. Our normal games last about 2-3 hours for 3 players as things get pretty intense but the other month we played a 4 player game that went on for 6 hours! The constant back and forth of power was utterly nailbiting.

I'm really looking forward to picking up the new NetRunner. It's actuallyt based on an old CCG from the later 90s that was universally praised, I have the starter set for it and again like L5R it's intricately designed and commons are just as integral as rares.

[RobRoy]

L5R is played alot at the game shop i go to (infact there was a tournament there tonight) and although i like the look of it i'm already commited to 2 card games now so a 3rd would seem a bit of an overkill! but if i was to get another i would definetly be L5R.

Netrunner is very cool. I love the concept of 1 player being the attacker (runner) and the other the defender (Corporation). The first cycle of chapter packs has just been announced for it so it looks like i'll be building some new decks soon

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3553

[Mayhem]

I used to play Decipher's Star Wars CCG in the long and distant past. Was pretty good at it too

[RobRoy]

Been playing Netrunner quite a bit recently and im really loving how the games shaping up with the chapter pack releases.

There was a regional tournament at my local store today and it had over 24 players which for a new card game is amazing. I can see this really taking off if fantasy flight games get their act together in getting stock out there!

[mekanor]

I've played Magic on and off for years. On at the moment and I love it! I only play for fun mind you. The lot I play with aren't really interested in sticking with whatever cards are legal at the time. This is balanced out by none of us wanting to spend silly money on cards so it means we generally use whatever we want but nobody is going to suddenly play a black lotus or something.

I also had a go of the Wizards Star Wars game years back which I quite enjoyed. I had a heap of the decipher cards too but never actually played with them.

[Super Grover]

Been playing Netrunner quite a bit recently and im really loving how the games shaping up with the chapter pack releases.

There was a regional tournament at my local store today and it had over 24 players which for a new card game is amazing. I can see this really taking off if fantasy flight games get their act together in getting stock out there!

It appears you have fine taste sir ...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-06-android-netunner-review

[RobRoy]

Nice review! It is a really fun game and cheap to get into at the moment seeing as its at the beginning

[Super Grover]

Time to give this thread a thorough dusting down seeing as it’s been dormant for over 5 years.

I was in Liverpool today and bought this little lot.

Murder of Crows I’ve never seen before, but after a quick check on Boardgamegeek, it sounded like a game my family would enjoy playing together. Dome Crushers and 13 Ghosts had both been reduced twice before they ended up at 99p each. No idea what either of them are like, but for the equivalent of 2 sausage rolls from the £ Bakery, I couldn’t say no.





Street Fighter CCG was half price. Again, I have no idea how it plays (or even who I can play against) but it’s got Street Fighter and Collectible Card game in the title, so that enough justification for an impulse purchase for me.

[_SD_]

I noticed a pretty cool looking Dragon Ball Z card game when I was in the local nerd emporium getting Pokémon cards for the boy... I have no idea how it plays but the shiny holo cards look nifty. The guys in the shop seem to be addicted to this Cardfight thing.

[wakka]

I played a game of Netrunner recently and thought it was tremendous, really fun. Looking forward to playing again. I'd not played a card game since Pokemon back in the day.

[QualityChimp]

This crosses over with the board games thread a little, but I got a solo Kickstarter this week called Palm Island.



Some of my other fave card games (not board) are Sushi Go/Sushi Go Party, Startups and Mint Works.







I also own, but haven't yet played Mint Delivery, Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game and Space Hulk: Death Angel.







The latter of these has an unofficial Aliens reskin:

https://youtu.be/eyu121MuRCg

[Super Grover]

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the Warhammer Quest game when you manage to play it QC.

It’ll probably be too hardcore for my family to play, but I can always add it to the wants list for a future purchase.