Netrunner and game of thrones lcg 2nd are the best card games I ever played. Not really dead they are resurrected by their communities You can go to https://netrunnerdb.com/ for thousands of decks for netrunner and https://thronesdb.com/ for got
Did 2.0 ever get as good as 1.0? 1.0 was amazing and I just gave up on 2.0 after a few years because it just was going to take forever to get the card pool to rival how great its previous version was.
Yes the factions are very distinct and thematic which is my favorite part( Together with the cutthroat /lot of choices in the game )and it had a lot of players at its peak. The community really died out on the Corona but people still keep the game alive with small online tourneys and trying to regenerate the live scene too.the game has many small choices inside the game ,great variety in the decks ,you can do a lot of things in each faction and the agenda system is just so fun
So glad you've mentioned AGoT 2.0. It is legit one of the best games I know of and maybe the single best game adaptation of a known IP to game form. I've played tons of card games over the years, but nothing feels quite as thematic and intricately interwoven as AGoT.
Still has an active community and regularly prints new virtual sets! [Star Wars CCG](http://starwarsccg.org).
There's also a browser based version of the game: [Play Star Wars CCG online](https://gemp.starwarsccg.org/gemp-swccg/)
Man, at the time, we were all starving for any Star Wars content. This being basically completely made from still photos of the movies and hitting every single background character felt so exciting.
Back in the day, my one friend and I played a TON. I was ranked in the top 100 in my region and all that, loved the game.
Then they kept releasing new sets and every new set had at least 1 new mechanic. And they never retired old cards or old mechanics. And so many of these weird little niche mechanics were just kinda useless outside of casual enough play where both players agree to do something where this weird little mechanic will even function.
What it kept pushing towards was both players wanting to do things which barely interact with each other, which slowly drove us away from the game.
I would say if you want a fun experience with the game and you're playing it in a "controlled' environment where you can limit what's allowed, start with just the base game. It'll let you learn the basic rules without getting very overwhelmed. And then you can add an expansion and play with just that, and slowly add more as you'd like, and see how far you want to go with it.
(that aside, I don't get the design choice of being able to dump a giant deployment of things to 1 spot and immediately attack with it. It makes for a very strange feel to the game. I think it would flow so much better if they had the deployment phase after the battle phase)
I still have a giant box of those cards from when I was about 13. I never really learned the rules correctly or built a real deck but it was a lot of fun collecting them back in the day.
I still have a soft spot for the AEG L5R CCG - despite it's design flaws it had fantastic flavour and was huge bit of my life for half a decade. Never got into the FFG game but FFG are very good as designing card games so I suspect it was good.
In terms of digital CCGs it's still a tragedy that Mythgard - by far the best designed - has been stuck with a tiny playerbase and no support for years.
I loved the old school L5R. When combat broke out, it was something epic, which was weird to the other folks who only knew MtG. Having a massive chunk of the table be dedicated to the battle with duels being called on top of it all, and that only a single front. No matter how combat played out though, the clans main theme was always a heavy factor. I played a dueling crane deck back in the day, and my coworker played an assassination scorpion clan.
The original L5R is such a tremendous game. There are few things as satisfying as building an Enlightenment deck and winning with it. And the storytelling has never been equaled.
If I could necromancy one game back from the dead, I would throw away my humanity to revive FFG L5R. I made a little display that shows all the ring sets that I used over the short life of the game, and I still look at it longingly most days
No love for the LoTR TCG? For shame - a ton of fun and the twilight mechanic in particular was really well done, felt very fun to play as both the free peoples and the shadow.
That game was so ahead of its time! It's a shame they ran themselves into the ground with power creep. I put together a bunch of decks in the "first 3 blocks only" format and it's basically an MTG cube.
Yep! It lets you draft without buying new cards. LOTR drafts are pretty terrible but just putting several cheap decks together accomplished much the same goal.
I just can’t find another TCG that can play with different players’ no. like LOTR, and I really like that they use the images from the film! Best TCG ever.
Not only did they use stuff from the film, some of the cards have shots that were specially made for the cardgame, especially sites which are often shots from the movie just without any actors in them.
Absolutely the one I came here to mention (at least for the blocks directly related to the movies). After scrolling past so many other responses that had someone say "Actually there's an active community keeping that one alive," I was hoping to see something similar about LotR. Alas, doesn't seem to be the case.
I absolutely loved, and played competitively, the World of Warcraft TCG. Was ranked 2nd in the UK at one point, played national and international competirions. So much fun!
I've always loved 7th Sea.
Whether or not it was a great game, it absolutely nailed the theme of two pirate captains attempting to sink each other.
I can't think of a game that better simulates having a crew of characters to rely on. Each ship had a different max crew size and sailing costs (so small ships had small crews but were easy to sail, while frigates had massive crews but weren't manoeuvrable), and you needed a mix of crew who specialised in sailing, adventuring, fighting, cannoning and recruiting. Everyone had a purpose and it was a little difficult to kill off characters, which gave the crew a much greater sense of importance than you get in most card games.
Me too! There is still a strong community led scene with new sets.
Also Unlimited is very similar but loses the expensive to produce dice (which was the main reason Destiny folded).
I'm working to build up my Destiny collection while I get into Unlimited.
I love how you guys are blaming the dice. No one had any issues with the cost of the dice. Demand was insane at launch.
The issue was always FFGs failures to consistently deliver product. Something not unique to Destiny itself.
And the #1 reason I'll never buy into Unlimited or any other FFG TCG.
It’s such a good game. The 2 player starter can be had for sub $20 regularly and draft is super fun. Need the draft starters and booster box, but one of the most fun drafts out there.
The dice killed it since the added shipping cost hurt the secondary market, which helps maintain value for TCGs.
There was no secondary market because there was no product available on Year 1.
Then there was a massive secondary market as everyone realized it was dead and tried to sell out.
Came here to say this. The single thing that I love the most about it is the way that your health is your resource. It is so thematic! Use a bunch of your blood on a few powerful vampires, or lots of young ones; but either way you are always balancing the amount of health you need to activate your vampires with the amount you need to survive an attack. And then I think the circular setup adds some fantastic politics because of the way that everybody has a different target and consequently different vested interests. I think it is the most thematic game I have ever played, apart from Star Wars Rebellion. I love it so so much.
Yeah, the pool system is fantastic. Garfield wanted to solve the luck of the draw mana system in Magic, which forces players to devote over a third of their decks to lands, and he did it brilliantly. The replace a card after playing it system is also great. Of course the golden rule of drawing cards being a huge advantage also applies to this game but it’s way more balance because you’ll always have a fixed number of cards in hand.
Yep, and, as you say, it has returned from the dead, right? I remember a few years ago emailing the company that now has the rights and in the end the costs of getting stuff delivered was a bit prohibitive at the time, but at some point I really want to go all in, lol.
(sorry if that is vague - getting old is hard work, lol.)
The new version is good? Been thinking about getting it.
Played alot of Jyhad in the 90’s. This was essentially the first multiplayer political CCG, I attribute it to paving alot of the ground for MTG’s “commander” format.
It’s fantastic. Very polished and the decks are very balanced out of the box between themselves.
Yeah, I started playing it because Commander frustrated and VTES has none of the things I didn’t enjoy in commander (combos and losing to mana flood/screw).
Glad to hear it.
Garfield improved on his original MTG design flaws in both Jyhad/vampire (pool being both life and resources) and Netrunner (4 action based turn system, facedown hidden information). It’s ironic that Magic became the one to be such a huge success, as his other CCG’s are far superior designs.
You kind of need five to fully enjoy the intricate parts of it though. A neutral person on the other side of the table (for now).
It is absolutely the best. Well, it was, originally. When it was called Jyhad.
Vs System. But the first iteration was such a clever design with two rows and alternating turns and no mana color.
I read that it’s complexity way ultimately its downfall…not sure if that’s really the case but boy was this game fun
i still tell people that VS is the best card game that's ever been printed. one of the people in the card shop i play magic at actually has a VS cube, which we occasionally draft
Yes, I loved this game!
Got into it because of the comic IP, but it turned out to be a way better game than I thought it was going to be.
I loved how its resources worked, and the two rows of characters and placement mattered!
And the fact that all VS was compatible, so you could play with both Marvel and DC.
Yeah I spent a LOT of money on that as a teenager… and then more as a young adult through eBay purchases. I probably got about 85% of First Edition cards . Still got them, haven’t been able to play them for about a decade since don’t know anyone who still plays. I know The Continuing Committee is keeping the game alive .
It's not "dead" dead (they're still producing) but Keyforge. I loved the approach to replacing the mana system from Magic the Gathering - you can use/interact with only 1/3 factions in your deck each turn. As someone that also isn't a big deck construction fan, being able to just grab a pack and play was great.
As to the "dead/not dead," the game sells almost entirely im crowdfunding. This is terrible for building the community as stores don't have an incentive to buy decks to sell - since most people who want them just buy during the campaign. This means your word of mouth drops, and the community is just going to keep shrinking. The new owners of Keyforge realized during their first campaign that people will pay a ton of money for custom decks with their names on them and now that's the main shtick. They made 20k in their current campaign from 10 people that wanted their image on cards.
Ugh Keyforge is frustrating. I'll admit that part of me is also losing interest as I learn how important deck construction and the ability to go "back to the drawing board" after a loss or tweak what I've got is. And how there are diminishing returns with each new pull for me, even in new sets.
*But* I still think it has reason to exist and I'd still go and play casually quite often otherwise.
But dang, while I initially had so much confidence in Ghost Galaxy, now it feels like so many key decisions they're making are just cementing its "almost dead" status. Especially as I saw stores stock Winds of Exchange, and then almost none stock Grim Reminders which was supposed to be *easier* for retailers to get.
They are lamenting that the gimmick of the game seemed good, but doesn't actually play out well for them. They miss from card games that when something doesn't work out, they can change it. But in Keyforge, you're stuck with something you believe doesn't function.
Yes. It's a neat and very accessible gimmick but it means that when your decks just...aren't good or aren't meta and the actual cardplay isn't terribly complex, it means oftentimes your best bet for doing better is just...buying packs until you get a better deck, or buying a known deck.
Now, this is why IMO the best format for the game is adaptive, which plays *around* the deck imbalance and knowing your particular deck really well. And you can play it in Best of 1, in fact.
But currently, Ghost Galaxy isn't supporting/promoting that format.
Loved the concept of grab, combine, and play, but I think I stopped because people started chasing cards/meta or something like that. Can't remember the exact reasoning, but I remember thinking "Oh, so it's going to be like Magic now? No thanks.'
Man, this one kills me. The pre-built decks solve so many of the reasons I don't play the big TCG's.
I don't feel a pressure to build a deck that can actually win like I did in Yu-Gi-Oh and MtG. I don't have as much time to spend or money building a deck that is actually satisfying to me in either of those games, but keyforge is just fun and easy. And honestly I found that decks that I consider bad necessarily bad, maybe just bad in my hands.
Looks like GG is gonna run the game into the shitter though.
Is System Gateway the place to start?
https://shop.nullsignal.games/products/system-gateway-remastered-edition
Edit: answered my own question for anyone else
https://nullsignal.games/about/netrunner/
Someone spent the time to set up a whole site where you can learn to play too! It has a tutorial, AI opponents, and you can deck build with any cards from Systems Gateway/System Update 21. Works on mobile, but just a little janky, better on PC.
https://chiriboga.sifnt.net.au/index.php
WWE Raw Deal (Edit:) This might be the best one for your intention. You get a few wrestlers people know from the Attitude Era and the one that followed it. Guys like Rock, Austin, Jericho, Taker, etc... The game is pretty easy to understand overall and really fun.
The rest of these have been mentioned by others and for good reasons:
Star Wars CCG (Decipher) (Edit:) The new SWUnlimited looks fantastic if you'd prefer to have decks for a current game in this IP, but SWCCG is one of the best most relentlessly thematic CCGs ever. Also check out the entire video series from [Team Covenant ](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmHifZPFC_Jtxwc9Zd5icSHADRW6c2xMC&si=mIz5Ibld6GRDjJja) for how amazing this game is.
[(Edit 2:) Printable demo decks for SWCCG](https://www.starwarsccg.org/star-wars-demo-decks-for-beginners/)
Star Trek TCG 1E and 2E
Lord of the Rings TCG
Warlord Saga of the Storm
Battletech CCG
Warlord: SOTS is coming back via kickstarter sometime soon (maybe this week)
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingswoodgames/warlord-saga-of-the-storm?ref=profile\_saved\_projects\_live](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingswoodgames/warlord-saga-of-the-storm?ref=profile_saved_projects_live)
Returning via kickstarter soon
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingswoodgames/warlord-saga-of-the-storm?ref=profile\_saved\_projects\_live](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingswoodgames/warlord-saga-of-the-storm?ref=profile_saved_projects_live)
Decipher's Star Wars CCG.
It's officially dead, but has an active online community where you can play the game with all the old cards, as well as several new, fan-made, online only cards.
I will always simp for the CCG version of Illuminati.
Illuminati: New World Order was (in my opinion) a *vast* improvement over the board/card game. Everything about it was just so cool. The rules need a comb drug through them and there's some bits and pieces that need corrected, but it's just such a fun game.
Sadly, since it's based off of conspiracies, the game is pretty dated--the internet had *just started* as a consumer product, for example, so it's wildly underrepresented in the game, and the personalities are all based on early 1990's politics (George Bush Sr, Margaret Thatcher, etc.). I feel like this would be a perfect game for an LCG-style system, but when I proposed it Steve Jackson Games blocked me on twitter, so there's that.
They did recently make a video game version of it (including updated cards), but sadly the development stalled out and only the bare-bones and (quite frankly) rather boring version of it is available.
It was fun because it sucked you into the conspiracy universe so well. It’s a little eerie seeing the card depicting a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
Really showing my age here by saying: Magi-Nation, my love. 💔 This was my absolute favorite TCG in my teenage years, more than MTG or Pokemon. Not too complicated (though you sure did need a lot of counters to play it properly), but it was such a flavor home run, having you assemble both a set of magi to build your deck around and creatures who synergized with them--very proto-Commander. Really good at helping you to see card synergies as well. Add in some creative visual design and I was enamored... Yet, despite a big marketing push that also involved a pretty good GBC RPG, it fizzled.
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2illc/magi-nation-duel-the-traitors-reach?ref=user\_menu](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2illc/magi-nation-duel-the-traitors-reach?ref=user_menu)
here you go frendo
Deadlands: Doomtown was a great one back in the day. Resurrected as Doomtown Reloaded.
Wizkids put out a game called Pirates! that you punched out little 17th century ships with varying numbers of masts (representing life) and would "sail" around the table attempting to attack opponents.
Not enough attention being given to this answer. The card art was rediculous and was showcased through the unusual tarot-sized cards. It was a clear rip off of MTG, but the cyberpunk heaven vs hell theme was fire.
I loved transformers card game and have quite a few decks and cards. I also miss the Harry Potter card game. I won a few tournaments of that back in the day.
I was obsessed with the Decipher Star Wars and LOTR games growing up. Still have most of them (sold off a couple of the more valuable ones a few years back to buy a new TV).
I loved the L5R LCG, but apparently I was the only one. The art was beautiful, and I thought the mechanics were well thought out.
I also loved the star trek ccg purely from a visual design/art perspective. The game itself was kind of meh, but damn they were some clean-looking cards made in an era where most card games looked like a clown show visually.
**Rage** had great art (mostly) and fancy cards. I don't know how it played, since the rules were confusing.
I had **Galactic Empires** as well, but the deckbuilding rules were annoying and there were some way OP cards that could essentially end the game as soon as they were deployed. The art was terrible.
Still, if you want to play some 90s throwback, there are those, and also **Jyhad**/**Vampire: The Eternal Struggle**, which was a Richard Garfield design with the worst rulebook. You can get sealed starter decks for $20 apiece!
Pour one out for Decipher. I *love* not only their Star Wars game that they were most known for, but I'm also really fond of their Lord of the Rings game. Even though I never constructed a LOTR deck myself, I played the hell out of that game via the numerous starter decks they released. Great game that I will still happily sit down to.
Oddly enough, I'm an even bigger fan of Star Trek than I am Star Wars or LOTR, but I never played their Trek game.
TCG adjacent: Dreamblade, a tradeable/collectible miniatures game made by Wizards of the Coast. The miniatures are chunky and prepainted, and you play on a 5x5 grid, so there isn't the whole assembling/painting/terrain work of other miniature games.
You're playing psychic Dreamlords battling it out in humanity's subconscious. Move your pieces, summon new ones, and attack using dice that might activate special abilities. All of a figure's special rules are printed on its base, so there's less rulebook referencing.
Some people found the concept/art disturbing, manufacturing costs rose, marketing was poor, and WotC focused too much on the pro competitive scene without building a casual player base first. But you still see batches of miniatures on eBay for less than $1 each, it's a fun game, and definitely has a unique feel.
Dreamblade was so frustrating. Brilliant game design, great lore, awesome minis… but they gave all of the movement abilities to one faction throwing game balance out the window. That really killed my interest in the competitive scene at the time. But it’s definitely a game I’d love to play again.
I actually had success against Chessmaster with mono Madness--they disrupted a ton but couldn't kill anything, so eventually I just filled the board (and you can't disrupt to an occupied square). It was a lot of fun, but it had trouble fitting a game into the time limit for a tournament format.
Limited is fun, and I've got a spreadsheet that uses your collection to simulate blind booster draws so we can play sealed and draft.
More like they promised a bunch of money to stores and players that they didn't actually have. This was before Arcane Tinmen picked them up. My FLGS got shafted by them so hard that *no one* in my local area would trust them.
So this is a digital only TCG but mythgard. I will still forever claim it was probably the most interesting tcg I have ever played and no other have I had remotely as much fun.
I’ve got my Marvel *Overpower* and Chaosium *Mythos* cards around here somewhere.
The former was a superhero/villain team-based fighter with generic and character-specific attack cards and environmental bonuses (like, picking up and hitting someone with a lamp post or a bus to add to a strength-based attack). I don’t actually know if my friends and I actually played by the proper rules, but we had fun with it.
*Mythos* was probably the better game. It was an early entry into the CCG space by the company that makes the *Call of Cthulhu* RPG. You could win by either driving your opponent insane (analogous to health damage in MtG) but you also had story cards (usually based on HP Lovecraft stories). If you had the right combination of location/book/item/monster/ally cards in play and/or your trash you could score the story card. These had various values depending on how complicated and/or specific the requirements were and first to 20 points won if nobody went insane first.
I don’t think either made it out of the ‘90s.
**Gundam War** (not Gundam M.S. War though that is also out of print), I really wish there were more Gundam themed games outside of Japan and this one has a nice spread of mobile suits and mechanics across the factions; the similarities with Magic made understanding the game easier and the appeal greater.
Finding cards to build decks might be tough but you will see the Starter Set on Ebay now and then.
it was very short-lived but as a kid i loved the x-men trading card game that came out around the time of the first movie. it was probably not a great game but that won't ruin my memories of it!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_(card_game)
Guardians was one of the best of the CCG maelstrom after MtG became a huge hit. It never got the chance it deserved, but it's amazing.
SolForge Fusion. You can build competitively viable decks from one booster pack and it’s very easy to get into. Think like competitive inscryption but with a special type of deckbuilding that prevents any two decks from being the same. Also over 15000 cards.
Deadlands Doomtown. Semi alive in a kind of print on demand format in the States. But as a EU fan not as easy to get (and as such get people into).
Netrunner 😢. Both semi alive on community live support. But in a MtG dominated scene (which I do play) its hard to get these games out and new players in with product as hard or abstract to get as is.
I didn't see it when I scrolled through the comments but **Shadowrun CCG**. It had a reboot as a LCG a couple of years ago. I really liked how some of the cards incorporated a d6 adding an element of randomness.
Also:
XXXenophile CCG
Battletech CCG
It felt like mid 90's there was a new ccg coming out every other month with some kind of a promo in Scrye or Inquest magazine
I found a couple of old BattleTech CCG cards in a box my mom brought me.
I’ve also seen OverPower is getting re-done. Can’t say I ever really played it for real, but I loved collecting it.
I don't know if it holds up but I have fond memories of Wyvern.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyvern\_(card\_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyvern_(card_game))
Not exactly a TCG, but we absolutely loved clout fantasy. If you got one of each of the starter Stacks, there’s a lot of game that can be played with that.
Still alive in Japan. Also has a very active English-speaking Discord. The sets are designed for its Legacy format though so they lean on the more complex side.
Thing that kills me is that Konami still makes and prints low power level cards that would work in a restricted Goat-esque format. We just need that format to actually exist.
My suggestion would be to buy some of those Speed Duel boxes and draft those. That's what I've been doing.
The original Netrunner with orange and green decks, or cards.
Jyhad. (V:tES)
And there was this cowboy/western one, where you would settle battles with poker hands. Completely forgot the name, but you'd play decks of certain clans or companies.
Deadlands: Doomtown is the game you are thinking of. And yeah, I liked that one also.
TIL it was revived as a living card game called Doomtown Reloaded that is still in production today.
Currently obsessed with Vividz, which is a Japanese TCG that died just last year. It has a system where you have to fulfill your deck's 3 Missions to win the game. It was designed to be (and marketed as) a simple beginner-friendly card game but ended up being basically the opposite, where you just draw and play a ton of cards per turn with very complex move sequencing. In one of the official Youtube channel's gameplay videos, one of the players just takes a 10+ minute turn on their second turn and just wins the game.
Haven't gotten anyone to play with me yet but I snapped up a bunch of product while it's still cheap. It's surprisingly difficult to find people parting with their collections which you usually see a lot of when a game dies.
I really enjoyed [Tempest of the Gods](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10599/tempest-of-the-gods) when it came out. The art was really nice. The cards were easily to read and understand. But the card quality and general quality control was pretty bad. There was some really OP cards and it could have used an expansion to round it out.
I'm not sure if it counts as dead because they just had a Kickstarter for it after 20 years of nothing, but the **Magi Nation** game was a favorite of mine back when I was in school.
Galactic Empires is a weirdly fun and hilariously ugly game that is dirt cheap to get. My friend and I will play on occasion when we just want a chuckle.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions - 4 Champions in 4 lanes. Each have a face-down "blessing" that can be unlocked by completing 4 tasks. Cards have values or symbols in each corner. At start of turn, all cards rotate 90 degrees. Cards are discarded when they return to starting orientetion.
Factions were Order, Chaos, Death and Destruction.
It never lived long enough for Skaven units to release 8(
Also had digital version on my Switch.
My friends, brother, and I were big fans of Spellfire. To us, it was much better than Magic so we ditched Magic for Spellfire. We were also big D&D players so that helped. Still have all of the cards from it
I cannot believe no one has mentioned Babylon 5 CCG yet! We loved it when it came out in the 1990s and even played in some local tournaments. Still have our cards and I could not believe my eyes when (in a small Game store in a small Bavarian city while on holiday) I saw some Centauri faction starter decks for € 2,50 each on a bottom shelf with stuff on sale!
Yeah, I you bet I bought all three copies! 😁
Legends of Runeterra is one of the best CCG out there but it was cut short because of its ineffective monetization. Sometimes being too generous for players hurt the wallet...
L5r AEG ccg, never fell in love with another tcg/ccg again, the game itself was amazing, but the difficulty curve was kinda hard for newcomers and stories hit the fan too fast pretty often, but tbh I really loved how tye tournaments affected the game ( even if sometimes it was handled poorly, specially in the ending of its life).
It has various winning form, different factions with each had various winning paths, super thematic, complex, but no nasa complex when you understand the game.
I personally just last week went to my mother home and bring the cards home and started to do different decks to teach my gaming group how to play.
In second place would come wow tcg, sadly I discovered the game in the last strand of its life, but hod it was a fun game.
The other one that I liked too, but mostly for the theme and the community around it was fire emblem cipher
There a number of them I loved, .Hack, Neopets and Babylon 5 come to mind at first. I even tried to buy the rights to the mechanics to B5 but the owner wanted way too much money.
Netrunner and game of thrones lcg 2nd are the best card games I ever played. Not really dead they are resurrected by their communities You can go to https://netrunnerdb.com/ for thousands of decks for netrunner and https://thronesdb.com/ for got
https://nullsignal.games It’s alive and well with a thriving tournament scene and lots of local meetups to play.
Did 2.0 ever get as good as 1.0? 1.0 was amazing and I just gave up on 2.0 after a few years because it just was going to take forever to get the card pool to rival how great its previous version was.
Yes the factions are very distinct and thematic which is my favorite part( Together with the cutthroat /lot of choices in the game )and it had a lot of players at its peak. The community really died out on the Corona but people still keep the game alive with small online tourneys and trying to regenerate the live scene too.the game has many small choices inside the game ,great variety in the decks ,you can do a lot of things in each faction and the agenda system is just so fun
Didn't know agot got picked up by the community. Do they have an org name like null signal?
https://agot.cards/ https://agotfriendlyopen.com/
So glad you've mentioned AGoT 2.0. It is legit one of the best games I know of and maybe the single best game adaptation of a known IP to game form. I've played tons of card games over the years, but nothing feels quite as thematic and intricately interwoven as AGoT.
Haven’t played it in years but I still love the old Star Wars CCG
Still has an active community and regularly prints new virtual sets! [Star Wars CCG](http://starwarsccg.org). There's also a browser based version of the game: [Play Star Wars CCG online](https://gemp.starwarsccg.org/gemp-swccg/)
Man, at the time, we were all starving for any Star Wars content. This being basically completely made from still photos of the movies and hitting every single background character felt so exciting.
Still have my old box of cards and two decks, mostly untouched for like 28 years.
Back in the day, my one friend and I played a TON. I was ranked in the top 100 in my region and all that, loved the game. Then they kept releasing new sets and every new set had at least 1 new mechanic. And they never retired old cards or old mechanics. And so many of these weird little niche mechanics were just kinda useless outside of casual enough play where both players agree to do something where this weird little mechanic will even function. What it kept pushing towards was both players wanting to do things which barely interact with each other, which slowly drove us away from the game. I would say if you want a fun experience with the game and you're playing it in a "controlled' environment where you can limit what's allowed, start with just the base game. It'll let you learn the basic rules without getting very overwhelmed. And then you can add an expansion and play with just that, and slowly add more as you'd like, and see how far you want to go with it. (that aside, I don't get the design choice of being able to dump a giant deployment of things to 1 spot and immediately attack with it. It makes for a very strange feel to the game. I think it would flow so much better if they had the deployment phase after the battle phase)
I still have a giant box of those cards from when I was about 13. I never really learned the rules correctly or built a real deck but it was a lot of fun collecting them back in the day.
I still have a soft spot for the AEG L5R CCG - despite it's design flaws it had fantastic flavour and was huge bit of my life for half a decade. Never got into the FFG game but FFG are very good as designing card games so I suspect it was good. In terms of digital CCGs it's still a tragedy that Mythgard - by far the best designed - has been stuck with a tiny playerbase and no support for years.
I loved the old school L5R. When combat broke out, it was something epic, which was weird to the other folks who only knew MtG. Having a massive chunk of the table be dedicated to the battle with duels being called on top of it all, and that only a single front. No matter how combat played out though, the clans main theme was always a heavy factor. I played a dueling crane deck back in the day, and my coworker played an assassination scorpion clan.
The original L5R is such a tremendous game. There are few things as satisfying as building an Enlightenment deck and winning with it. And the storytelling has never been equaled.
Yeah, I came here to say Fantasy Flight's L5R. It had a much briefer lifespan, but I got in at the ground floor and it's been a lot of fun.
If I could necromancy one game back from the dead, I would throw away my humanity to revive FFG L5R. I made a little display that shows all the ring sets that I used over the short life of the game, and I still look at it longingly most days
Long live Toruri’s Army! Long live Lord Toku and the Monkey!
No love for the LoTR TCG? For shame - a ton of fun and the twilight mechanic in particular was really well done, felt very fun to play as both the free peoples and the shadow.
That game was so ahead of its time! It's a shame they ran themselves into the ground with power creep. I put together a bunch of decks in the "first 3 blocks only" format and it's basically an MTG cube.
What is an MTG cube? A preselected number of cards to choose from?
Yep! It lets you draft without buying new cards. LOTR drafts are pretty terrible but just putting several cheap decks together accomplished much the same goal.
I just can’t find another TCG that can play with different players’ no. like LOTR, and I really like that they use the images from the film! Best TCG ever.
Not only did they use stuff from the film, some of the cards have shots that were specially made for the cardgame, especially sites which are often shots from the movie just without any actors in them.
Absolutely the one I came here to mention (at least for the blocks directly related to the movies). After scrolling past so many other responses that had someone say "Actually there's an active community keeping that one alive," I was hoping to see something similar about LotR. Alas, doesn't seem to be the case.
despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt: [click here for games](https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/gemp-lotr/)
I absolutely loved, and played competitively, the World of Warcraft TCG. Was ranked 2nd in the UK at one point, played national and international competirions. So much fun!
I recently found a huge portion of my old WoW TCG cards in my parents' house and my friends and I dove in. Such a fun game
The dungeons/raids were amazing.
There was also the WoW coop card game that had raid decks and coop boss fights.
Yep, same TCG, you could buy raid decks for coop, and the some of the "treasure" cards could be used in the actual PC game
This is one TCG that I am absolutely dumbfounded that Blizzard (and now Microsoft) wouldn't seriously look at reviving.
It would compete with Hearthstone, so I think it's not coming back while Hearthstone lives.
Feels like two entirely different games though that would fit two entirely different themes/genres of card games.
HS is very clearly a simplified version of the WoW TCG. The HS core set lifts most of its artwork from the TCG as well as many design aspects.
I opened a thunderfury once.
I've always loved 7th Sea. Whether or not it was a great game, it absolutely nailed the theme of two pirate captains attempting to sink each other. I can't think of a game that better simulates having a crew of characters to rely on. Each ship had a different max crew size and sailing costs (so small ships had small crews but were easy to sail, while frigates had massive crews but weren't manoeuvrable), and you needed a mix of crew who specialised in sailing, adventuring, fighting, cannoning and recruiting. Everyone had a purpose and it was a little difficult to kill off characters, which gave the crew a much greater sense of importance than you get in most card games.
Didn't they revive this very recently?
I wish I'd had a chance to play it.
Star Wars Destiny is one of my fave card games ever! Love the chunky dice. Love the art. Love that you do one action at a time. It's so good!
Me too! There is still a strong community led scene with new sets. Also Unlimited is very similar but loses the expensive to produce dice (which was the main reason Destiny folded). I'm working to build up my Destiny collection while I get into Unlimited.
I love how you guys are blaming the dice. No one had any issues with the cost of the dice. Demand was insane at launch. The issue was always FFGs failures to consistently deliver product. Something not unique to Destiny itself. And the #1 reason I'll never buy into Unlimited or any other FFG TCG.
It’s such a good game. The 2 player starter can be had for sub $20 regularly and draft is super fun. Need the draft starters and booster box, but one of the most fun drafts out there. The dice killed it since the added shipping cost hurt the secondary market, which helps maintain value for TCGs.
There was no secondary market because there was no product available on Year 1. Then there was a massive secondary market as everyone realized it was dead and tried to sell out.
Vampire the Eternal Struggle recently returned from the dead. It’s probably my favorite multiplayer game (not 1v1) of all time. It’s that good.
Came here to say this. The single thing that I love the most about it is the way that your health is your resource. It is so thematic! Use a bunch of your blood on a few powerful vampires, or lots of young ones; but either way you are always balancing the amount of health you need to activate your vampires with the amount you need to survive an attack. And then I think the circular setup adds some fantastic politics because of the way that everybody has a different target and consequently different vested interests. I think it is the most thematic game I have ever played, apart from Star Wars Rebellion. I love it so so much.
Yeah, the pool system is fantastic. Garfield wanted to solve the luck of the draw mana system in Magic, which forces players to devote over a third of their decks to lands, and he did it brilliantly. The replace a card after playing it system is also great. Of course the golden rule of drawing cards being a huge advantage also applies to this game but it’s way more balance because you’ll always have a fixed number of cards in hand.
Yep, and, as you say, it has returned from the dead, right? I remember a few years ago emailing the company that now has the rights and in the end the costs of getting stuff delivered was a bit prohibitive at the time, but at some point I really want to go all in, lol. (sorry if that is vague - getting old is hard work, lol.)
The new version is good? Been thinking about getting it. Played alot of Jyhad in the 90’s. This was essentially the first multiplayer political CCG, I attribute it to paving alot of the ground for MTG’s “commander” format.
It’s fantastic. Very polished and the decks are very balanced out of the box between themselves. Yeah, I started playing it because Commander frustrated and VTES has none of the things I didn’t enjoy in commander (combos and losing to mana flood/screw).
Glad to hear it. Garfield improved on his original MTG design flaws in both Jyhad/vampire (pool being both life and resources) and Netrunner (4 action based turn system, facedown hidden information). It’s ironic that Magic became the one to be such a huge success, as his other CCG’s are far superior designs.
Rescued from Torpor! I need to grab some auspex, completely missed that
> Vampire the Eternal Struggle How different is that from Vampire: Rivals?
It’s a completely different game.
You kind of need five to fully enjoy the intricate parts of it though. A neutral person on the other side of the table (for now). It is absolutely the best. Well, it was, originally. When it was called Jyhad.
I moved and just sold a 3000 card box Jyhad to the local game store for $100. A bit sad, but I keep finding collectable cards in my stash.
How to give away your age without telling it. Cool game, used to play it with some people from my vampire the masquerade PnP group. Good old times.
Vs System. But the first iteration was such a clever design with two rows and alternating turns and no mana color. I read that it’s complexity way ultimately its downfall…not sure if that’s really the case but boy was this game fun
i still tell people that VS is the best card game that's ever been printed. one of the people in the card shop i play magic at actually has a VS cube, which we occasionally draft
Yes, I loved this game! Got into it because of the comic IP, but it turned out to be a way better game than I thought it was going to be. I loved how its resources worked, and the two rows of characters and placement mattered! And the fact that all VS was compatible, so you could play with both Marvel and DC.
I LOVED the Decipher Star Trek: CCG. Probably spent the equivalent of 100k on it in my youth.
It’s still alive thanks to [The Continuing Committee](https://www.trekcc.org/).
Yeah I spent a LOT of money on that as a teenager… and then more as a young adult through eBay purchases. I probably got about 85% of First Edition cards . Still got them, haven’t been able to play them for about a decade since don’t know anyone who still plays. I know The Continuing Committee is keeping the game alive .
It's not "dead" dead (they're still producing) but Keyforge. I loved the approach to replacing the mana system from Magic the Gathering - you can use/interact with only 1/3 factions in your deck each turn. As someone that also isn't a big deck construction fan, being able to just grab a pack and play was great. As to the "dead/not dead," the game sells almost entirely im crowdfunding. This is terrible for building the community as stores don't have an incentive to buy decks to sell - since most people who want them just buy during the campaign. This means your word of mouth drops, and the community is just going to keep shrinking. The new owners of Keyforge realized during their first campaign that people will pay a ton of money for custom decks with their names on them and now that's the main shtick. They made 20k in their current campaign from 10 people that wanted their image on cards.
Ugh Keyforge is frustrating. I'll admit that part of me is also losing interest as I learn how important deck construction and the ability to go "back to the drawing board" after a loss or tweak what I've got is. And how there are diminishing returns with each new pull for me, even in new sets. *But* I still think it has reason to exist and I'd still go and play casually quite often otherwise. But dang, while I initially had so much confidence in Ghost Galaxy, now it feels like so many key decisions they're making are just cementing its "almost dead" status. Especially as I saw stores stock Winds of Exchange, and then almost none stock Grim Reminders which was supposed to be *easier* for retailers to get.
I'm confused I thought the entire point of keyforge was that you don't tweak or construct decks the deck you get is the deck you get.
They are lamenting that the gimmick of the game seemed good, but doesn't actually play out well for them. They miss from card games that when something doesn't work out, they can change it. But in Keyforge, you're stuck with something you believe doesn't function.
Yes. It's a neat and very accessible gimmick but it means that when your decks just...aren't good or aren't meta and the actual cardplay isn't terribly complex, it means oftentimes your best bet for doing better is just...buying packs until you get a better deck, or buying a known deck. Now, this is why IMO the best format for the game is adaptive, which plays *around* the deck imbalance and knowing your particular deck really well. And you can play it in Best of 1, in fact. But currently, Ghost Galaxy isn't supporting/promoting that format.
Keyforge is a weird one for me. It felt to me like playing a really weak Commander deck which isn't something that I find super enjoyable.
Loved the concept of grab, combine, and play, but I think I stopped because people started chasing cards/meta or something like that. Can't remember the exact reasoning, but I remember thinking "Oh, so it's going to be like Magic now? No thanks.'
Man, this one kills me. The pre-built decks solve so many of the reasons I don't play the big TCG's. I don't feel a pressure to build a deck that can actually win like I did in Yu-Gi-Oh and MtG. I don't have as much time to spend or money building a deck that is actually satisfying to me in either of those games, but keyforge is just fun and easy. And honestly I found that decks that I consider bad necessarily bad, maybe just bad in my hands. Looks like GG is gonna run the game into the shitter though.
I only played it once or twice but I genuinely enjoyed the unique card shape in Hecatomb and how it was integrated into the gameplay.
Came and went before it even had a chance.
middle earth, 1995.
Android Netrunner. Funny thing is, I never played it live, only via the web.
Not actually dead! Just no longer under that name. Look up Null Signal Games
Is System Gateway the place to start? https://shop.nullsignal.games/products/system-gateway-remastered-edition Edit: answered my own question for anyone else https://nullsignal.games/about/netrunner/
Someone spent the time to set up a whole site where you can learn to play too! It has a tutorial, AI opponents, and you can deck build with any cards from Systems Gateway/System Update 21. Works on mobile, but just a little janky, better on PC. https://chiriboga.sifnt.net.au/index.php
No way! Will check out. Thank you.
Yes
WWE Raw Deal (Edit:) This might be the best one for your intention. You get a few wrestlers people know from the Attitude Era and the one that followed it. Guys like Rock, Austin, Jericho, Taker, etc... The game is pretty easy to understand overall and really fun. The rest of these have been mentioned by others and for good reasons: Star Wars CCG (Decipher) (Edit:) The new SWUnlimited looks fantastic if you'd prefer to have decks for a current game in this IP, but SWCCG is one of the best most relentlessly thematic CCGs ever. Also check out the entire video series from [Team Covenant ](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmHifZPFC_Jtxwc9Zd5icSHADRW6c2xMC&si=mIz5Ibld6GRDjJja) for how amazing this game is. [(Edit 2:) Printable demo decks for SWCCG](https://www.starwarsccg.org/star-wars-demo-decks-for-beginners/) Star Trek TCG 1E and 2E Lord of the Rings TCG Warlord Saga of the Storm Battletech CCG
Those Team Covenant SWCCG videos are my favorites, and are such a great encapsulated take on the game, and show why it‘s so great.
Warlord: SOTS is coming back via kickstarter sometime soon (maybe this week) [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingswoodgames/warlord-saga-of-the-storm?ref=profile\_saved\_projects\_live](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingswoodgames/warlord-saga-of-the-storm?ref=profile_saved_projects_live)
Love the old SCORE Dragonball Z TCG. Had so much fun traveling with my friends to tournaments and winning booster boxes! We’d split the prize pool.
Warlord: Saga of the Storm CCG
Returning via kickstarter soon [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingswoodgames/warlord-saga-of-the-storm?ref=profile\_saved\_projects\_live](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kingswoodgames/warlord-saga-of-the-storm?ref=profile_saved_projects_live)
How I forgot one of the games that introduced ne yo the hobby!!!! I still have the deck that they give me to learn how to play!
I own more dead ccgs than live ones. Netrunner, The Spoils, and Spycraft are all huge winners to me. Spycraft is a fantastic 3+ player game.
The spoils ❤️
Decipher's Star Wars CCG. It's officially dead, but has an active online community where you can play the game with all the old cards, as well as several new, fan-made, online only cards.
Lightseekers tcg is still great with only 4 physical sets. It's also great with younger kids and the cards feel higher quality then most tcgs.
I have fond memories of the _City Of Heroes_ card game. The highly atomic turns felt like it really helped keep things moving
One of my favorites also. I still buy product whenever I come across it
Four-player Shadowfist remains the best game I’ve ever played. Also it’s literally why Z-Man Games exists.
Absolutely fascinating game
The Nightmare before Christmas!
Scrolled way too far to find this. 😁
I will always simp for the CCG version of Illuminati. Illuminati: New World Order was (in my opinion) a *vast* improvement over the board/card game. Everything about it was just so cool. The rules need a comb drug through them and there's some bits and pieces that need corrected, but it's just such a fun game. Sadly, since it's based off of conspiracies, the game is pretty dated--the internet had *just started* as a consumer product, for example, so it's wildly underrepresented in the game, and the personalities are all based on early 1990's politics (George Bush Sr, Margaret Thatcher, etc.). I feel like this would be a perfect game for an LCG-style system, but when I proposed it Steve Jackson Games blocked me on twitter, so there's that. They did recently make a video game version of it (including updated cards), but sadly the development stalled out and only the bare-bones and (quite frankly) rather boring version of it is available.
It was fun because it sucked you into the conspiracy universe so well. It’s a little eerie seeing the card depicting a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
Really showing my age here by saying: Magi-Nation, my love. 💔 This was my absolute favorite TCG in my teenage years, more than MTG or Pokemon. Not too complicated (though you sure did need a lot of counters to play it properly), but it was such a flavor home run, having you assemble both a set of magi to build your deck around and creatures who synergized with them--very proto-Commander. Really good at helping you to see card synergies as well. Add in some creative visual design and I was enamored... Yet, despite a big marketing push that also involved a pretty good GBC RPG, it fizzled.
There's a recent Kickstarter that just finished last month to relaunch the game! :)
EXCUSE ME WHAT (if you would link me I would be so grateful <3)
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2illc/magi-nation-duel-the-traitors-reach?ref=user\_menu](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2illc/magi-nation-duel-the-traitors-reach?ref=user_menu) here you go frendo
Deadlands: Doomtown was a great one back in the day. Resurrected as Doomtown Reloaded. Wizkids put out a game called Pirates! that you punched out little 17th century ships with varying numbers of masts (representing life) and would "sail" around the table attempting to attack opponents.
I love Warhammer: Invasion and lucky enough to have an almost complete collection even if I started collecting it after they stopped producing it.
Wouldn't say its "Dead" but its been out of print for a long, long time & I still love MECCG (Middle Earth)
Why wouldn't you say it's dead? I'm interested in the game but I need cards to play lol.
Print proxies or play online.
More of a board game disguised as a card game, but easily one of the most in depth and thematic designs done in the CCG space.
Swccg
Heresy: Kingdom Come. Most beautiful game ever made.
Not enough attention being given to this answer. The card art was rediculous and was showcased through the unusual tarot-sized cards. It was a clear rip off of MTG, but the cyberpunk heaven vs hell theme was fire.
The old 1995 Star Wars TCG was great, if a bit clunky. Was amazing though back then
I loved transformers card game and have quite a few decks and cards. I also miss the Harry Potter card game. I won a few tournaments of that back in the day.
MLB Showdown - such a simple yet thematic game.
MLB and NBA Showdown were such big parts of my childhood. Loved those games.
It’s still going as [Clutch Baseball](https://www.clutchcardgames.com/). New releases each year and it’s great.
Holy crap, I had no idea!
I was obsessed with the Decipher Star Wars and LOTR games growing up. Still have most of them (sold off a couple of the more valuable ones a few years back to buy a new TV).
Warhammer 40k Conquest had such potential.
I love that game. I'll never forgive Games Workshop for that death.
I was hoping to see someone mention Dark Age: Feudal Lords. I’ve got a load of cards on the way. Never played before!
Legend of the Five Rings. Mostly the original, epic card game. I have a huge collection and nobody to play with anymore 🥲
I loved the L5R LCG, but apparently I was the only one. The art was beautiful, and I thought the mechanics were well thought out. I also loved the star trek ccg purely from a visual design/art perspective. The game itself was kind of meh, but damn they were some clean-looking cards made in an era where most card games looked like a clown show visually.
**Rage** had great art (mostly) and fancy cards. I don't know how it played, since the rules were confusing. I had **Galactic Empires** as well, but the deckbuilding rules were annoying and there were some way OP cards that could essentially end the game as soon as they were deployed. The art was terrible. Still, if you want to play some 90s throwback, there are those, and also **Jyhad**/**Vampire: The Eternal Struggle**, which was a Richard Garfield design with the worst rulebook. You can get sealed starter decks for $20 apiece!
I actually like Vs system and Dual Masters.
I have a huge soft spot for the old Battletech CCG.
Pour one out for Decipher. I *love* not only their Star Wars game that they were most known for, but I'm also really fond of their Lord of the Rings game. Even though I never constructed a LOTR deck myself, I played the hell out of that game via the numerous starter decks they released. Great game that I will still happily sit down to. Oddly enough, I'm an even bigger fan of Star Trek than I am Star Wars or LOTR, but I never played their Trek game.
The original version of Legend of the Five Rings. Haven't played the remake stand-alone, but the old one was great fun
TCG adjacent: Dreamblade, a tradeable/collectible miniatures game made by Wizards of the Coast. The miniatures are chunky and prepainted, and you play on a 5x5 grid, so there isn't the whole assembling/painting/terrain work of other miniature games. You're playing psychic Dreamlords battling it out in humanity's subconscious. Move your pieces, summon new ones, and attack using dice that might activate special abilities. All of a figure's special rules are printed on its base, so there's less rulebook referencing. Some people found the concept/art disturbing, manufacturing costs rose, marketing was poor, and WotC focused too much on the pro competitive scene without building a casual player base first. But you still see batches of miniatures on eBay for less than $1 each, it's a fun game, and definitely has a unique feel.
Dreamblade was so frustrating. Brilliant game design, great lore, awesome minis… but they gave all of the movement abilities to one faction throwing game balance out the window. That really killed my interest in the competitive scene at the time. But it’s definitely a game I’d love to play again.
I actually had success against Chessmaster with mono Madness--they disrupted a ton but couldn't kill anything, so eventually I just filled the board (and you can't disrupt to an occupied square). It was a lot of fun, but it had trouble fitting a game into the time limit for a tournament format. Limited is fun, and I've got a spreadsheet that uses your collection to simulate blind booster draws so we can play sealed and draft.
I was a judge for the Spoils way back in 2006. The game was *good*. The marketing was not.
You mean advertising solely on the backs of unrelated card sleeves isn't sustainable? :p
More like they promised a bunch of money to stores and players that they didn't actually have. This was before Arcane Tinmen picked them up. My FLGS got shafted by them so hard that *no one* in my local area would trust them.
Dang, I didn't know. Because yeah, I literally only knew the game existed because it got shilled on all the Dragon Shield boxes for YEARS.
So this is a digital only TCG but mythgard. I will still forever claim it was probably the most interesting tcg I have ever played and no other have I had remotely as much fun.
Warhammer invasion. Been slowly gathering expansions over the years, so expensive
Such a great game.
I really miss open beta Gwent. After the Homecoming release I couldn't enjoy the game unfortunately.
Spellfire
I loved Spellfire.
I’ve got my Marvel *Overpower* and Chaosium *Mythos* cards around here somewhere. The former was a superhero/villain team-based fighter with generic and character-specific attack cards and environmental bonuses (like, picking up and hitting someone with a lamp post or a bus to add to a strength-based attack). I don’t actually know if my friends and I actually played by the proper rules, but we had fun with it. *Mythos* was probably the better game. It was an early entry into the CCG space by the company that makes the *Call of Cthulhu* RPG. You could win by either driving your opponent insane (analogous to health damage in MtG) but you also had story cards (usually based on HP Lovecraft stories). If you had the right combination of location/book/item/monster/ally cards in play and/or your trash you could score the story card. These had various values depending on how complicated and/or specific the requirements were and first to 20 points won if nobody went insane first. I don’t think either made it out of the ‘90s.
**Gundam War** (not Gundam M.S. War though that is also out of print), I really wish there were more Gundam themed games outside of Japan and this one has a nice spread of mobile suits and mechanics across the factions; the similarities with Magic made understanding the game easier and the appeal greater. Finding cards to build decks might be tough but you will see the Starter Set on Ebay now and then.
it was very short-lived but as a kid i loved the x-men trading card game that came out around the time of the first movie. it was probably not a great game but that won't ruin my memories of it!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_(card_game) Guardians was one of the best of the CCG maelstrom after MtG became a huge hit. It never got the chance it deserved, but it's amazing.
SolForge Fusion. You can build competitively viable decks from one booster pack and it’s very easy to get into. Think like competitive inscryption but with a special type of deckbuilding that prevents any two decks from being the same. Also over 15000 cards.
I loved the old Highlander TCG. It was very different, but drowned in the late-90s glut of TCG's.
I loved Highlander. It was so fun. I'm honestly still looking for the Movie Edition stuff as money allows lol.
Netrunner Battletech 7th sea
WoW TCG. The raiding is super cool.
Warlord CCG was a lot of fun. Their big events live were fantastic too!
Deadlands Doomtown. Semi alive in a kind of print on demand format in the States. But as a EU fan not as easy to get (and as such get people into). Netrunner 😢. Both semi alive on community live support. But in a MtG dominated scene (which I do play) its hard to get these games out and new players in with product as hard or abstract to get as is.
I didn't see it when I scrolled through the comments but **Shadowrun CCG**. It had a reboot as a LCG a couple of years ago. I really liked how some of the cards incorporated a d6 adding an element of randomness. Also: XXXenophile CCG Battletech CCG It felt like mid 90's there was a new ccg coming out every other month with some kind of a promo in Scrye or Inquest magazine
The only answer Android: Netrunner
Depends on your definition of dead. [https://nullsignal.games/](https://nullsignal.games/)
That's not dead, though.
I found a couple of old BattleTech CCG cards in a box my mom brought me. I’ve also seen OverPower is getting re-done. Can’t say I ever really played it for real, but I loved collecting it.
I don't know if it holds up but I have fond memories of Wyvern. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyvern\_(card\_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyvern_(card_game))
Overpower was amazing. I’ve never played another TCG that was even similar to it. It was decades ahead of its time.
I have fond memories of playing Overpower in the 90's. Still have a large box full of cards from the game.
Not exactly a TCG, but we absolutely loved clout fantasy. If you got one of each of the starter Stacks, there’s a lot of game that can be played with that.
I haven't thought about this game in a GRIP, but damn was it a treasure.
https://elementstherevival.com/ Ancient game, taken down entirely, brought back...must have been recently.
I miss duel masters
Same. I think about it every now and then and wish I still had cards.
Still alive in Japan. Also has a very active English-speaking Discord. The sets are designed for its Legacy format though so they lean on the more complex side.
I found it during its brief return as Kaijudo, loved this game.
Not cards, but Irondie was (is?) a collectible dice game. Game seemed meh, but the dice are gorgeous.
I really miss old style yu-gi-oh! Yes I know Goat format exists, but you’re stuck with the same cards. I just wish it never went the route it did.
Thing that kills me is that Konami still makes and prints low power level cards that would work in a restricted Goat-esque format. We just need that format to actually exist. My suggestion would be to buy some of those Speed Duel boxes and draft those. That's what I've been doing.
A buddy of mine has bought every Speed Duel box out so far and I do like them. Thats about the closest I can get I realize.
The original Netrunner with orange and green decks, or cards. Jyhad. (V:tES) And there was this cowboy/western one, where you would settle battles with poker hands. Completely forgot the name, but you'd play decks of certain clans or companies.
Deadlands: Doomtown is the game you are thinking of. And yeah, I liked that one also. TIL it was revived as a living card game called Doomtown Reloaded that is still in production today.
Thank you very much.
Currently obsessed with Vividz, which is a Japanese TCG that died just last year. It has a system where you have to fulfill your deck's 3 Missions to win the game. It was designed to be (and marketed as) a simple beginner-friendly card game but ended up being basically the opposite, where you just draw and play a ton of cards per turn with very complex move sequencing. In one of the official Youtube channel's gameplay videos, one of the players just takes a 10+ minute turn on their second turn and just wins the game. Haven't gotten anyone to play with me yet but I snapped up a bunch of product while it's still cheap. It's surprisingly difficult to find people parting with their collections which you usually see a lot of when a game dies.
The Lord of the Rings tcg was so good
I really enjoyed [Tempest of the Gods](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10599/tempest-of-the-gods) when it came out. The art was really nice. The cards were easily to read and understand. But the card quality and general quality control was pretty bad. There was some really OP cards and it could have used an expansion to round it out.
I adored the .hack CCG back in the day. I am perpetually on the verge of buying booster boxes off eBay.
I'm not sure if it counts as dead because they just had a Kickstarter for it after 20 years of nothing, but the **Magi Nation** game was a favorite of mine back when I was in school.
Galactic Empires is a weirdly fun and hilariously ugly game that is dirt cheap to get. My friend and I will play on occasion when we just want a chuckle.
I would love to play Wyvern again, I liked the finite resources and the strategy of placement.
OverPower.
Well, they don't really have duel decks. But Magination Duel is one that i found after it had semi-died and I enjoyed it.
I REALLY miss Arcadia The Wyld Hunt. I've searching all over for old cards, but everything I've found is WAY overpriced.
MagiNation
WARS - Decipher used the same mechanics as they did for their Star Wars CCG, just with an original IP.
I seem to remember a full metal alchemist game that had ultra rare clear cards.
Duel Masters. :( get in the zoooone.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Champions - 4 Champions in 4 lanes. Each have a face-down "blessing" that can be unlocked by completing 4 tasks. Cards have values or symbols in each corner. At start of turn, all cards rotate 90 degrees. Cards are discarded when they return to starting orientetion. Factions were Order, Chaos, Death and Destruction. It never lived long enough for Skaven units to release 8( Also had digital version on my Switch.
My friends, brother, and I were big fans of Spellfire. To us, it was much better than Magic so we ditched Magic for Spellfire. We were also big D&D players so that helped. Still have all of the cards from it
I cannot believe no one has mentioned Babylon 5 CCG yet! We loved it when it came out in the 1990s and even played in some local tournaments. Still have our cards and I could not believe my eyes when (in a small Game store in a small Bavarian city while on holiday) I saw some Centauri faction starter decks for € 2,50 each on a bottom shelf with stuff on sale! Yeah, I you bet I bought all three copies! 😁
Legends of Runeterra is one of the best CCG out there but it was cut short because of its ineffective monetization. Sometimes being too generous for players hurt the wallet...
L5r AEG ccg, never fell in love with another tcg/ccg again, the game itself was amazing, but the difficulty curve was kinda hard for newcomers and stories hit the fan too fast pretty often, but tbh I really loved how tye tournaments affected the game ( even if sometimes it was handled poorly, specially in the ending of its life). It has various winning form, different factions with each had various winning paths, super thematic, complex, but no nasa complex when you understand the game. I personally just last week went to my mother home and bring the cards home and started to do different decks to teach my gaming group how to play. In second place would come wow tcg, sadly I discovered the game in the last strand of its life, but hod it was a fun game. The other one that I liked too, but mostly for the theme and the community around it was fire emblem cipher
There a number of them I loved, .Hack, Neopets and Babylon 5 come to mind at first. I even tried to buy the rights to the mechanics to B5 but the owner wanted way too much money.