Great virtual CCG

[robvalue]

I've started playing Drakenlords, it's another collectible card game. It's free to play (with optional purchases to speed up getting cards; I've done fine without doing this).

It's basically a ripoff of hearthstone, but I find it more interesting and deep. Each hero has 2 attack usually, and when you hit them with a monster, the monster takes that 2 damage back. This means you can't just attack every turn with every creature, because they get wiped out. This means you have to decide between attacking quickly for damage before your monsters get killed in other ways, or holding them back for later combat. Monsters have activated abilities too.

It's got a decent single player campaign and several varied heroes to unlock. You even get different skills for each hero. These eventually cover 4 different skill areas, with 3 options for each, giving you literally billions of combinations (81).

If anyone does play and wants any help, let me know! You can also get 2 free boosters for saying I referred you. (Put in the email [email protected])

[robvalue]

Also, you can attack with your hero each turn, or else use their activated ability if they have one. You often have to attack and take a load of pain in order to finish off a particularly irritating enemy.

Multiplayer seems fairly well populated, I'm mostly able to get a game. There's also an Arena mode like in Hearthstone, except you pick from pre-made decks. You keep playing until you lose 3 times or win 12. You get rewards based on your wins. I've gone to 12 three times now and each time I earned a super-rare card, plus almost enough gems to play again, and 2 boosters.

[Asmodee]

I was a HUGE fan of Magic: The Gathering until they decided to fuck their loyal fans when they came out with full art lands again.  They chose to help profiteers over fans, and they used deceptive packaging to sell the holiday boxes they had just seriously raised the price on.  Now I'm sitting on my cards until they have value, then dumping them.  I'll likely never play again.

It was getting to expensive anyway.  Even before screwing fans on the full art lands they were slowly upping the set sizes so that you had to buy more and more product to get complete sets, often opting to throw in pointless reprints of even recent cards, each set getting successively larger numbers of "junk" cards that weren't any good under any circumstance, even as "deck filler".  But man, I did love the rules.  If you knew the rules well you could use them to build unusual decks that nobody saw coming.

However, the game had a huge "specialty deck problem".  You could build a specialized deck on a certain theme, elves, zombies, vampires, slivers, etc., which was absolutely unbeatable...UNLESS the opponent knew it was coming and played the appropriate counter-deck to it.  Then it was a piece of cake.

From reading what you wrote about this game I can see it's an online CCG.  I'm not interested in those.  I want physical product and a night with friends.  But I don't want it at $4 for a pack of cards with an average total value of less than $1, which was increasingly becoming a problem with MtG as they started throwing in more and more junk cards to pad the set size.

So, any tips on any other CCG games with physical product as good as, but cheaper than MtG?  I don't do anything with funny Japanese names, though.  No YuGiOh or Pokemon or any other such nonsense.  I want cards with at least semi-serious sounding names.  I'll take Nissa, Worldwaker, which sounds badass, over Pikachu which sounds stupid, any day as a card name.

[robvalue]

I was also heavily into Magic, for about 15 years. I was utterly obsessed. I got seriously into tournament play, but they started releasing sets too quickly and I couldn't afford to keep up with the new cards.

I'm afraid I don't have any recommendations for other physical CCGs at the moment.

[henryp]

I was a HUGE fan of Magic: The Gathering until they decided to fuck their loyal fans when they came out with full art lands again.  They chose to help profiteers over fans, and they used deceptive packaging to sell the holiday boxes they had just seriously raised the price on.  Now I'm sitting on my cards until they have value, then dumping them.  I'll likely never play again.

It was getting to expensive anyway.  Even before screwing fans on the full art lands they were slowly upping the set sizes so that you had to buy more and more product to get complete sets, often opting to throw in pointless reprints of even recent cards, each set getting successively larger numbers of "junk" cards that weren't any good under any circumstance, even as "deck filler".  But man, I did love the rules.  If you knew the rules well you could use them to build unusual decks that nobody saw coming.

However, the game had a huge "specialty deck problem".  You could build a specialized deck on a certain theme, elves, zombies, vampires, slivers, etc., which was absolutely unbeatable...UNLESS the opponent knew it was coming and played the appropriate counter-deck to it.  Then it was a piece of cake.

From reading what you wrote about this game I can see it's an online CCG.  I'm not interested in those.  I want physical product and a night with friends.  But I don't want it at $4 for a pack of cards with an average total value of less than $1, which was increasingly becoming a problem with MtG as they started throwing in more and more junk cards to pad the set size.

So, any tips on any other CCG games with physical product as good as, but cheaper than MtG?  I don't do anything with funny Japanese names, though.  No YuGiOh or Pokemon or any other such nonsense.  I want cards with at least semi-serious sounding names.  I'll take Nissa, Worldwaker, which sounds badass, over Pikachu which sounds stupid, any day as a card name.

Have you considered an LCG like Netrunner?

[robvalue]

I briefly played Netrunner, that's a fun game. I don't know if people still play it.

Nice, I just finished another 12 wins in Arena! I win another legendary card. It's... a rubbish potion I'll never use. Doh.

Although I have previously won an Orc card I'll never use, Alpha Wolf which is peachy ( 3/1 haste for 2) and Medic Tent which fits perfectly into my Knight deck.

[robvalue]

Bam, another run, 12-2 with the knight healing deck.

I won a Sapper, perfect for my deck!

[Asmodee]

I was a HUGE fan of Magic: The Gathering until they decided to fuck their loyal fans when they came out with full art lands again.  They chose to help profiteers over fans, and they used deceptive packaging to sell the holiday boxes they had just seriously raised the price on.  Now I'm sitting on my cards until they have value, then dumping them.  I'll likely never play again.

It was getting to expensive anyway.  Even before screwing fans on the full art lands they were slowly upping the set sizes so that you had to buy more and more product to get complete sets, often opting to throw in pointless reprints of even recent cards, each set getting successively larger numbers of "junk" cards that weren't any good under any circumstance, even as "deck filler".  But man, I did love the rules.  If you knew the rules well you could use them to build unusual decks that nobody saw coming.

However, the game had a huge "specialty deck problem".  You could build a specialized deck on a certain theme, elves, zombies, vampires, slivers, etc., which was absolutely unbeatable...UNLESS the opponent knew it was coming and played the appropriate counter-deck to it.  Then it was a piece of cake.

From reading what you wrote about this game I can see it's an online CCG.  I'm not interested in those.  I want physical product and a night with friends.  But I don't want it at $4 for a pack of cards with an average total value of less than $1, which was increasingly becoming a problem with MtG as they started throwing in more and more junk cards to pad the set size.

So, any tips on any other CCG games with physical product as good as, but cheaper than MtG?  I don't do anything with funny Japanese names, though.  No YuGiOh or Pokemon or any other such nonsense.  I want cards with at least semi-serious sounding names.  I'll take Nissa, Worldwaker, which sounds badass, over Pikachu which sounds stupid, any day as a card name.

Have you considered an LCG like Netrunner?

I had not.  The friend who I played with moved away, but I have another friend who's a huge game of thrones fan and when looking up what the hell you were talking about I saw a GoT card set there.  I bet I could get him to play that at least for a while, though I think it was me who got him to quit playing MtG.  As I said, I like the rules a lot.  Before I came along he could argue rules.  After I came along that became a lot harder to do, even for the long-time players.

[robvalue]

Another interesting feature is that you get to choose your "going second" skill. As usual, it's a disadvantage, so each hero has 3 bonuses to choose from. They are things such as extra life, an extra card, or starting with a monster in play.

In the arena mode, where you pick out from a choice of three pre-made decks (selected out of maybe 20 total), you also get to play as some of the monsters. They have their own unique skill and accompanying deck.

The game appears to be pretty bug-free, which is rare. I usually find bugs pretty quickly.

[robvalue]

In case anyone is interested...

Just completed another Arena run, 12 wins 1 loss, and got a Weapon's Dealer! That's a seriously awesome card that will go in any deck.

Here is my current best deck. Each deck always has 30 cards, and a maximum of 2 of any particular card. You have cards just for the particular hero class, and neutral ones for any class. There are creature and spell cards (both can have subtypes). You also get Mercenary skills later on which let you use other class cards at +2 cost. I have one but I don't use it yet.

Hero: Knight Lord (2 attack, 30 health)
Passive Skill: Forced Enlistment (Humans you summon become knights) [This turns everything in my deck into a knight except for the Hunting Wolf)
Active Skill: Recruit (2 mana: Summon a 2/2 Rookie)
Defense Bonus: Praetorian (If you go second, start with a Rookie in play)

2 Shield Bearer (1 mana, 1/3 Block)
2 Alchemic Blast (2 mana, 1 damage to all enemy units)
1 Hunting Wolf (2 mana, 3/1, Haste)
2 Martyr (2 mana, 1/3, Friendly knights get +1 attack on death)
2 Sellsword (3 mana, 3/3, Block)
1 Vanguard's Sentinel (3 mana, 2/3, Draw a card on death)
1 Blind Librarian (4 mana, 2/4, Draw a card when receives damage)
2 Field Surgeon (4 mana, 2/4, Heal friendly units for 2 when played)
2 Polemarch (4 mana, 4/3, +1 Attack to friendly knights with 3 or less power when played)
1 Weapon's Dealer (4 mana, 4/3, Draw a card when played)
2 Firestone (5 mana, 4 damage and draw a card)
1 Sapper (5 mana, 3/4, When played, enemy creatures with block die at the end of opponent's next turn)
2 Veteran Soldier (5 mana, 4/6)
2 Emergency Draft (6 mana, Summon three 2/2 Rookies)
1 Field Hospital (6 mana, 1/7, Can't attack. Friendly knights go back to your hand instead of dying)
2 Melt (6 mana, Destroy an enemy creature and draw a card)
2 Mercenary Band (6 mana, 6/7)
1 Trenches (6 mana, 4/5, Can't attack. Block. Friendly knights get +1 attack)
1 Molten Gold (8 mana, 8 damage)