Once the preserve of ‘nerds,’ digital card games are back in full swing and they are all the rage. It doesn’t matter where you stand on the nerd-o-meter, the simple truth is collectible card games are awesome.
They take prescience, raw intuition, and a fair bit of theory-crafting. If you are only getting into CGC, rest assured we have shortlisted the best games you will want to play yourself. And the best part?
Once you become a whiz of CGC you could probably walk into any player out there how it’s done. With players now trying to emphasize skill-based games, they have no idea what is coming for them.
Here’s our list of collectible card games to try for yourself. And don’t worry, you needn’t hide anymore because people would poke fun at you– these five gems are wickedly cool.
Check Out Magic: The Gathering
Praise Wizards of the Coast for they have brought the popular trade card game to the digital frontier. Once played only with real, physical cards, today Magic the Gathering is a popular form of competition with millions worth of cash thrown into the game.
While you still need to craft yourself masterful decks and buy a lot of cards, understanding the fundamentals of the game will ultimately determine what kind of a player you will become.
One of the best – or one of the riff-raff.
There is a financial element to Magic: The Gathering, and you will need to commit some hard-currency to get your deck up to speed. Yet, once you develop a decent deck, it will all boil down to a game of cat-and-mouse.
How familiar are you with the meta? Do you know what to expect from your opponent? Is it too early to play your devastating trump card?
While MTG may seem a game of chance, it has an ELO rating closer to professional football and basketball. Therefore, the skill level of a player will yield the same % of victories as when comparing opponents in professional athletic competitions.
As Kevin Parker, a game strategist at Casinosites.us puts it you can compare table games with modern card games you will soon realize that there are quite a few similarities between these activities!
Have a Blast Playing Hearthstone
Perhaps one of the first massive collectible card games, Hearthstone has definitely made it possible for gamers to learn a few tricks about counting cards, bidding your time, and having fun while winning real money.
After all, Hearthstone is so popular that people host multi-million tournaments and bespectacled gamers are treated as kings as they win the next big event. Hearthstone is also very deck-dependent and players will usually burn through an entire deck, laying devastation to opponents.
Yet, Hearthstone teaches all the important skills you could see in classic card games. Just like you know certain cards are coming down the deck, so you will have a fairly good idea what’s in store for you playing against an opponent.
And not surprisingly, winning at Hearthstone boils down to having the correct strategy.
Fan of the Witcher? Try Gwent!
Gwent is one of the latest card games you will see out there. Inspired by The Witcher franchise, this CGC is fairly new and it definitely has a whole lot to offer to players. With every fresh release, the community asks themselves the same question:
Is Gwent luck or skill based? It’s a fantastic question that deserves a proper answer. The fact is Gwent is far more dependent on your personal skill and understanding of the game than anything else.
Of course, the economics of the game will once again play a role, but you got to come prepared into any game. In fact, Gwent is often compared to card game gems, because anyone participating need to be aware of what cards their opponents may hold.
As fans put it, if you play Gwent as if it were a Solitaire, then you would probably lose every step of the way. But where some players base their Gwent final score on the roll of a dice, the pros make sure they are playing chess.
Catch them All: Pokémon Trading Game
There is no way you have missed out on the Pokémon trend. In fact, the franchise has been around for over 20 years now, so we aren’t sure at what point we should start calling it a classic or a tradition.
The simple truth is Pokémon has fascinated generations of players. Even though it has disappeared in some places, the games, card games and figurines have been resurrected elsewhere across the world.
From mobile games asking you to venture into the real world and capture Pokémon creatures to the card game – which is the focus of our attention! Admittedly, playing Pokémon TCG, won’t teach you as much about classic card games.
However, as another Wizards of the Coast product, you can expect a clean competitive edge that definitely lands this game a very distinct vibe. We definitely recommend this TCG not only for the emotional and fan charge, but also for the ability to learn how to play cards better in general.
Yu Gi Oh: The Quest for Exodus
Yu Gi Oh must be one of the first TCG that was released en masse. Original cards flooded rich markets whereas cheap knock-off washed over developing countries. Regardless of the quality of the cards at any one place, the show was an absolute hit, translating into physical card games and video games!
While some people have thought Yu Gi Oh is no more, the game actually has a fantastic and vibrant player base! Yu Gi Oh! Legacy of the Duelist can be tracked via apps, but this is just one of the possible games.
In fact, there were 20,000 played Yu Gi Oh tournaments – believe it or not, making this game one of the most popular ones ever. But this is just the ones we know about. The fact is there are many more communities out there who don’t care about announcing their private showdowns!
It’s nice to see that Magic actually got a proper digital version now!
Pokémon TCG is actually kind of neat; I sometimes tune into their TCG tournaments on Twitch around the time Pokémon does their VGC tournaments. But I think most people just collect the cards mainly for collection these days, instead of for playing with, especially the full art cards and the holographic cards.
Yu-Gi-Oh! still has a pretty good competitive scene though, considering it’s a little more complex with strategies involving spell cards, trap cards, and monster cards. The newer Yu-Gi-Oh! card games are much different than the ones from the early 2000s where people used to main cards like Pot of Greed, Monster Reborn, Polymerization, and powerful monster cards like Blue-Eyes White Dragon.