VTES, DBZ, L5R, and other acronyms: The Fringe/Dead CCGs Thread!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > VTES, DBZ, L5R, and other acronyms: The Fringe/Dead CCGs Thread!

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Randalor: Sep 4, 2011

triple sulk posted:

They generally don't run games well and already had a Star Wars TCG up and die within a couple years or so. This is also something like the fourth or fifth Star Wars game they've put out.

When the announcement originally came out a couple weeks ago, most of the reactions were exactly along these lines. No one likes FFG any more as a company.

Fair enough, I was just wondering what they did to garner telling people to not give them money as opposed to just saying "Yeah, don't expect this to last". They just came out with a decent enough deck builder SW game, but for some reason FFG/Asmodee keep insisting on slamming money into the TCG slot machine hoping it'll pay out.

# ? May 27, 2023 22:06

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 22:23

CitizenKeen: Nov 13, 2003; easygoing pedant

For those on the fence about FFG, or curious what the hesitation is, this is a post from someone who started hesitant:

https://wrecknrule.com/2023/05/19/the-case-for-star-wars-unlimited-2/

Magnetic North posted:

Jeepers, this does not look very good at all. My inital enthusiasm for Lorcana has begun to wane as it is clear it will be pretty safe and I was never huge on Keyforge, but it still looks tons better than this.

Okay, the good: the initiative mechanic sounds cool, considering the interleaved turns, though I wonder if there will be a playstyle that always takes it first because your opponent is locked out and can't materially affect things anyway. Uh, that's all the good I can see, here's the bad: You can't get land-screwed, but seemingly you just get "theater-screwed" where you didn't get your ground units so you just get pounded with seemingly no recourse. That rulebook is not very well laid out, and it's partially not the manual's fault; it should start by explaining how to play Resources aka "Resource A Card" but since that is in the Regroup phase it really can't since it's not an action you take. The epic actions seem neat, and I think some powerful Pokemon have once-per-game abilities, but having only one available to you seems like that's a lot less fun. Are all the bases do-nothing planks? That seems like some super wasted design space. The custom deckbuilding feels like it would be so punitive; you would always be playing your splashes two turns behind schedule. The fact that it punishes you per missing additional symbols including symbols in your leader and base (as opposed to a single state of the card, a binary Yes No) is both good because it allows all mixes, but I think that will be more confusing for little timmy (assuming there are any remaining Star Wars fans under 45). Putting the text above the art on Event cards is the most "gotta be different" CCG weirdflex I've ever seen in my life. If it was on Upgrades, then it might almost make sense! Snap it under the card above the top and hide the art, but no. This is on the Instants and Sorceries, the Master Cards, cards that are never 'in play' so what difference does it make?

This game appears to be miles and miles behind the somewhat similar (with interleaved turns and base attacking) Worldbreakers, a game with 30 grand and some moxie instead of millions of dollars and zero soul.

The quick start actually got me pretty pumped.

Theater screwed seems like a thing, yeah.
I think the rule book is pretty clear, but different strokes. To be fair - it's an unreleased quick start. Metadata shows it was last edited in January; what it looks like when it goes to print in a few months, who knows.
You only get to play the epic action once, but there's no reason to believe you only get one.
I highly doubt the bases are do-nothing planks. Again, this is a quickstart. These are the rules for the learn to play box, the rarity below common. It's all wild speculation, but there's very little reason to have bases if they only make six do-nothing planks.
I think most decks will run very little in the way of splash beyond their core three symbols. Probably some tech cards, but those tech cards can be tossed as resources. Tossing as resources makes tech cards more viable, because they're never dead.
Text above art for events just feels like it's meant to make the cards very visually distinct - it's easy from across the table to see which is which.

I'm not stanning or anything, but the quickstart (for me) really nailed the "super easy to teach, but with lots of design space" that you'd want in a card game.

Personally, I'm not in or out. FFG is definitely on my poo poo list, and I'm more of a Trek fan, but I'll probably play a few nights of limited and see what kind of collection I have.

# ? May 27, 2023 22:21

Magnetic North: Dec 15, 2008; Beware the Forest's Mushrooms

Not trying to yuck any yums here, but just one clarification:

CitizenKeen posted:

You only get to play the epic action once, but there's no reason to believe you only get one.

I think the Epic Action is inherent to your leader, and seems to relate turning them into the Unit form. Since you only have 1 leader (in this precon at least), you only get to do it once. Basically, once defeated they stay dead but become a blue force ghost played by Hayden Christensen. It's sort of like EDH except there is no replaying your commander, but they all have an Eminence ability. One slightly weird consequence about this is that, since the game does have rules for uniqueness (see Grand Moff Tarkin), it means named characters can be defeated and come back but only if they aren't the leader.

# ? May 27, 2023 22:42

Railing Kill: Nov 14, 2008; You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

I am going to develop a CCG about developing Star Wars CCGs, given how many there have been. It's the only way to make a game out of this IP at this point.

# ? May 27, 2023 22:53

CitizenKeen: Nov 13, 2003; easygoing pedant

Magnetic North posted:

Not trying to yuck any yums here, but just one clarification:

I think the Epic Action is inherent to your leader, and seems to relate turning them into the Unit form. Since you only have 1 leader (in this precon at least), you only get to do it once. Basically, once defeated they stay dead but become a blue force ghost played by Hayden Christensen. It's sort of like EDH except there is no replaying your commander, but they all have an Eminence ability. One slightly weird consequence about this is that, since the game does have rules for uniqueness (see Grand Moff Tarkin), it means named characters can be defeated and come back but only if they aren't the leader.

Quite possibly. We may see some on bases, or on other cards; there's nothing inherent to Epic Abilities that they have to be on Leaders, other than the fact that that's the only place we've seen the two.

Edit: Never mind, I am wrong.

Railing Kill posted:

I am going to develop a CCG about developing Star Wars CCGs, given how many there have been. It's the only way to make a game out of this IP at this point.

More meta-CCGs, please. Millenium Blades but about the sales process? Yes, please.

# ? May 27, 2023 22:55

Railing Kill: Nov 14, 2008; You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

CitizenKeen posted:

Quite possibly. We may see some on bases, or on other cards; there's nothing inherent to Epic Abilities that they have to be on Leaders, other than the fact that that's the only place we've seen the two.

Edit: Never mind, I am wrong.

More meta-CCGs, please. Millenium Blades but about the sales process? Yes, please.

I wish I liked playing Millennium Blades more because the concept of literally throwing money away is loving hilarious.

# ? May 28, 2023 02:31

neosloth: Sep 5, 2013; Professional Procrastinator

Years ago I picked up a few VTES starter decks hoping to try the game with my local MTG group which, naturally, never happened and I noticed one of the decks I have (Black Hand - Malkavian Antitribu) listed on ebay for over $50. Do the old decks/cards actually have some value or is that just a random high listing? I assume most of the playable cards have been reprinted in the new sets?

# ? May 28, 2023 08:42

Railing Kill: Nov 14, 2008; You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

neosloth posted:

Years ago I picked up a few VTES starter decks hoping to try the game with my local MTG group which, naturally, never happened and I noticed one of the decks I have (Black Hand - Malkavian Antitribu) listed on ebay for over $50. Do the old decks/cards actually have some value or is that just a random high listing? I assume most of the playable cards have been reprinted in the new sets?

That price may be an aberration. The value of VTES cards is weird compared to something like MTG. Decks need a lot more commons to run properly, and rares are often cards that you'll run only a few copies of to trigger key interactions, combos, or to act as the backbone of a deck's resource management. This is all to say that there are some rares that are worth money because they are staples in most decks (Enkil Cog, for example). But outside of cases like that, most of the cards aren't worth that much on the secondary market. You can get whole sets online for approx. $1 per card in the set. You can also print-and-play them through Black Chantry.

That precon is...alright. !Malkavians are a safe bet if you're still looking to try the game out, but there's a few issues. Precons packed one of each vampire in the crypt in order to give you a sampling of the clan and a wide capacity to work with, but generally this is a weak way to build a crypt. It goes heavy on !Malk staples like Kindred Spirits, but like a responsible precon only gives you 5 of them instead of 12+ like a lot of constructed !Malk decks would run. So it does most of what it does in half measures in order to showcase things but not go hard on anything in a way that would be odd for a new player. I mean, it's a precon. It's kind of the same complaint a lot of folks have with Commander precons in MTG.

It also packs a Dramatic Upheaval, which has since been banned, so there's that. :v:

(Side note: RIP to a real one, Dramatic Upheaval, and its big brother Kindred Restructure. Gone but not forgotten. :911:

)

# ? May 28, 2023 11:12

Magnetic North: Dec 15, 2008; Beware the Forest's Mushrooms

Railing Kill posted:

(Side note: RIP to a real one, Dramatic Upheaval, and its big brother Kindred Restructure. Gone but not forgotten. )

My playgroup was so confused when those got banned, except the one guy who ran one in his Inner Circle bleed deck.

# ? May 28, 2023 11:23

Angry Lobster: May 16, 2011; Served with honor
and some clarified butter.

Railing Kill posted:

That price may be an aberration. The value of VTES cards is weird compared to something like MTG. Decks need a lot more commons to run properly, and rares are often cards that you'll run only a few copies of to trigger key interactions, combos, or to act as the backbone of a deck's resource management. This is all to say that there are some rares that are worth money because they are staples in most decks (Enkil Cog, for example). But outside of cases like that, most of the cards aren't worth that much on the secondary market. You can get whole sets online for approx. $1 per card in the set. You can also print-and-play them through Black Chantry.

That precon is...alright. !Malkavians are a safe bet if you're still looking to try the game out, but there's a few issues. Precons packed one of each vampire in the crypt in order to give you a sampling of the clan and a wide capacity to work with, but generally this is a weak way to build a crypt. It goes heavy on !Malk staples like Kindred Spirits, but like a responsible precon only gives you 5 of them instead of 12+ like a lot of constructed !Malk decks would run. So it does most of what it does in half measures in order to showcase things but not go hard on anything in a way that would be odd for a new player. I mean, it's a precon. It's kind of the same complaint a lot of folks have with Commander precons in MTG.

It also packs a Dramatic Upheaval, which has since been banned, so there's that.

(Side note: RIP to a real one, Dramatic Upheaval, and its big brother Kindred Restructure. Gone but not forgotten. )

VTES prices have always been weird, they tend to be related to rarity and edition rather than demand. At one point (before reprints) I remember seeing old Enkil Cogs for 60-70 �, and Elders are Kholo for 20 � which is loving insane. VTES collectors are some of the most brainworm people I've ever met.

# ? May 28, 2023 11:46

TheKingslayer: Sep 3, 2008

Railing Kill posted:

It also packs a Dramatic Upheaval, which has since been banned, so there's that.

(Side note: RIP to a real one, Dramatic Upheaval, and its big brother Kindred Restructure. Gone but not forgotten. )

Well that's sad. I miss the groans of busting those out on a table at the worst moments.

# ? May 28, 2023 11:56

Railing Kill: Nov 14, 2008; You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

Magnetic North posted:

My playgroup was so confused when those got banned, except the one guy who ran one in his Inner Circle bleed deck.

My Stanislava deck hated those bans :negative:

Also, those bans triggered years of furious debate. But I'll spare the thread any of my warmed-over ranting about it.

Angry Lobster posted:

VTES prices have always been weird, they tend to be related to rarity and edition rather than demand. At one point (before reprints) I remember seeing old Enkil Cogs for 60-70 �, and Elders are Kholo for 20 � which is loving insane. VTES collectors are some of the most brainworm people I've ever met.

Absolutely. I never got into the secondary market for that reason. The prices made so little sense, and were often spiking due to the underprinting of a set (Sabbat), or something like rare-rares (Bloodlines).

Black Chantry going all-in on print-and-play has kind of flattened out the market and brought some sanity back to it, though. I don't think Enkil Cog is $80 anymore. One of the folks I play with is still kicking herself for not selling two of her four copies years ago when they were way up there. It's kind of just a player's game now and much less collectible in a commodity sense.

# ? May 28, 2023 11:59

Macdeo Lurjtux: Jul 5, 2011; BRRREADSTOOORRM!

Randalor posted:

Fair enough, I was just wondering what they did to garner telling people to not give them money as opposed to just saying "Yeah, don't expect this to last". They just came out with a decent enough deck builder SW game, but for some reason FFG/Asmodee keep insisting on slamming money into the TCG slot machine hoping it'll pay out.

I think people are just getting fed up with FFG having the attention span of a toddler when it comes to supporting their games.

I imagine there's something going on there considering Asmodee took away the Star Wars miniature games after FFG cratered the golden goose and gave them to Atomic Mass.

# ? May 28, 2023 14:06

Angry Lobster: May 16, 2011; Served with honor
and some clarified butter.

Railing Kill posted:

My Stanislava deck hated those bans

Also, those bans triggered years of furious debate. But I'll spare the thread any of my warmed-over ranting about it.

Absolutely. I never got into the secondary market for that reason. The prices made so little sense, and were often spiking due to the underprinting of a set (Sabbat), or something like rare-rares (Bloodlines).

Black Chantry going all-in on print-and-play has kind of flattened out the market and brought some sanity back to it, though. I don't think Enkil Cog is $80 anymore. One of the folks I play with is still kicking herself for not selling two of her four copies years ago when they were way up there. It's kind of just a player's game now and much less collectible in a commodity sense.

Yeah, I forgot about the Sabbat fetishists lmao. The print-on-demand is absolute the best thing a new player could ask for in a game with so many rare legacy cards, and yet I heard many veteran players bashing it and labeling it as "catering to casuals", some people are just like that.

Macdeo Lurjtux posted:

I think people are just getting fed up with FFG having the attention span of a toddler when it comes to supporting their games.

I imagine there's something going on there considering Asmodee took away the Star Wars miniature games after FFG cratered the golden goose and gave them to Atomic Mass.

How many Star Wars games has FFG started and terminated at this point? I can't remember. All that I hoped for was a succesful L5R game and we all know how it ended.

# ? May 28, 2023 14:32

CitizenKeen: Nov 13, 2003; easygoing pedant

Angry Lobster posted:

Yeah, I forgot about the Sabbat fetishists lmao. The print-on-demand is absolute the best thing a new player could ask for in a game with so many rare legacy cards, and yet I heard many veteran players bashing it and labeling it as "catering to casuals", some people are just like that.

How many Star Wars games has FFG started and terminated at this point? I can't remember. All that I hoped for was a succesful L5R game and we all know how it ended.

This will be the third Star Wars expandable card game. They've had... four miniatures games? I don't know the state of the board game corner. The RPG game is officially ongoing and out of their hands, though I think they wrapped it up pretty well.

# ? May 28, 2023 16:46

MeinPanzer: Dec 20, 2004; anyone who reads Cinema Discusso for anything more than slackjawed trolling will see the shittiness in my posts

In like 1998 when I�d been playing MTG for a while and then I got into the Decipher SWCCG, I distinctly remember thinking that the latter was a more worthwhile investment of my pocket money because, hey, it�s Star Wars, of course it�ll be a bigger game with more longevity than some generic fantasy CCG! Plus, Lucasfilm wouldn�t just grant gaming companies licenses all willy nilly�

# ? May 28, 2023 22:38

Magnetic North: Dec 15, 2008; Beware the Forest's Mushrooms

From BGG: Upper Deck Is Suing Ravensburger and Ryan Miller over Disney Lorcana

The complaint is here. It contains descriptions of the other game, and their comparisons are the flimsiest poo poo. You both made things similar to Keyforge, good job!

I am not a lawyer and I am not your lawyer, but I think Ravensburger is going to absolutely smoosh them for about a thousand different reasons, though Ryan Miller may be at greater personal jeopardy.

# ? Jun 7, 2023 19:20

Redezga: Dec 14, 2006

Kyrosiris posted:

Sure, fair enough I guess! Just got home from locals, so sorry for the delay, but here's...

I Discard Cloud To Summon My Butz: A Primer on the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game

Final Fantasy is a well known JRPG franchise known for a lot of things, but did you know it has a TCG of its own? And yes, you may be thinking "oh, so Triple Triad, right?" (or "oh, so Tetra Master, right?" if you are mad). However, no, FFTCG is a thing in and of itself, and isn't related to any of the various card game minigames in the series. If anything, it's closer to Magic with a Final Fantasy coat of paint, but with some fixes to some of the most obnoxious bits of Magic (see: mana screw).

I have literally never heard of this, what the hell?

Yeah, me either. I only recently heard of it myself when forums poster Twelve By Pies suggested that I come out to the LGS that he works at and enjoy the prerelease for the game's 19th set, From Nightmares. I wasn't aware of the game until he'd been posting examples of cards on the Four Job Fiesta discord, and I was interested by the fact that FFTCG seems to pull from the entire melange of Final Fantasy.

Yes, that means your favorite is probably a card, and your favorite game is represented.

Okay but why should I play this over The Big Three?

One of the best things that FFTCG does different is its resource system. It has the taste of Magic with various colors, but while Magic is wholly reliant on land (and the added expense that rarer lands can be), FFTCG allows you to discard cards from hand to generate two crystal points (CP) of the element that the card is. Let's take a look at an example of Bartz from Opus 15.

As you can see in the upper left corner, he costs 4 CP, and at least one of those four must be Wind (green) CP. The elements are Wind (green), Ice (light blue), Water (dark blue), Fire (red), Lightning (purple), Earth (yellow), and two special ones: Darkness (black), and Light (white). While the six classical elements can pitch for themselves and pay for themselves, Darkness and Light cannot be discarded to generate CP, but can be paid for with any combination of elements. Additionally, without special clauses, Dark and Light are limited to one representative on your side of the game.

<blip> Hello, world. <boop> Get delta attacked.

Additionally, "land" in FFTCG are characters in and of themselves, and have effects all their own! Known as "backups", they are played like any other character, but are not the combat units like Forwards (pictured above) are.

Please go tutor me some Warriors of Light, kthx

Backups enter the field dulled (read: tapped), and only become active after a turn during the beginning of your turn unless activated by an external source. Once they're active, you may dull them to generate one CP of their element, so Sarah above can generate you one Water CP. Costs of cards can be paid with any combination of backup-generated CP and CP generated from discarding cards, unless mentioned otherwise on the card (some cards are undercosted for their power, but have requirements like "Can only be cast using CP generated by Backups", for example).

Worried about not being able to interact on your opponent's turn? Worry not! Summons are the rough analogue to instants from Magic. Playable at any time you have priority, they represent that sort of "I don't want that to happen", "I don't want that to be alive", or "I want to save my characters" kind of effects.

I really wish you weren't $40 per...

Amaterasu up there is FFTCG's Counterspell in a sense - he can stop any auto-ability and also blow up the Forward that generated it if it was a forward. I've definitely had carefully setup plans come tumbling down because I didn't think about Amaterasu blowing them out.

Wait, what do you mean $40 per? Is this some bullshit Magic-expensive nonsense?

Not really. Apparently before Opus 15, Square Enix didn't realize how popular the game was, and as such it was not printed to anywhere near the level it is nowadays. As such, older cards that are extremely flexible or splashable like Amaterasu up there end up pricey. They've apparently been working on fixing that with reprints in side content like anniversary boxes and similar, but it's a slow process.

That said, I have had a lot of fun with decks that have been way closer to the "this is a new video game on Steam" price point (like 40-50 dollars) versus what I was used to when I played Magic. I pulled a full-art Warrior of Light in the prerelease I went to, so I looked at various deckbuilding sites and community resources and found a deck that I liked that was $40 from TCGPlayer to build. I've done decently at locals with it, too! Obviously it's not as optimal as a tricked out and fully invested build could be, but it's doing well enough for what I've invested.

There's also starter deck product that is a great start to playing. I haven't looked too in depth into those, because I'm the sort of player who'd rather have something that reps the FF games I enjoyed (hence my 3/5/Dimensions-themed Warrior of Light deck), but I've absolutely heard that the starter decks (especially the newer ones) are a perfectly viable entry into the game.

What's the gameflow like?

Players start by drawing a five card opener, and opting to mulligan or not. Each player can mulligan once, by putting that entire five card hand on the bottom of their deck, then drawing a fresh five. From there, first turn player draws a card, and proceeds into their turn proper.

Turns start with the Active Phase where you activate all your cards, then flow through a main phase 1, a combat phase, a second main phase, and the usual end/cleanup phase. Characters may be played at any time during main phases, and summons may be played at any time you have priority, with a Magic-like stack.

Victory is earned by dealing your opponent seven points of Damage. Damage happens whenever the opponent fails to block an attack from one of your forwards. This is resolved by taking the top card of the deck and removing it to the damage zone - think Pokemon prizes but in reverse. This can be advantageous for the player taking damage, however, due to the presence of EX Bursts.

Cu Sith here can be cast like any other summon, but if he gets hit as your card for taking damage, his effect triggers anyways. It doesn't go to the break zone - it has to stay in the Damage Zone to represent how much damage you've taken - but his "Choose one Forward or Backup in the Break Zone and return it to your hand" effect fires the same as if you'd spent CP and cast him!

Play proceeds from one player's turn to the other until someone loses for either taking 7 damage or decking out (I've never seen the latter happen). Note that only the initial first turn is a draw one - due to the fact that so many cards get discarded to pay for things, every turn you draw two cards except for that first turn (and only the person on the play).

Okay that's great, but I have no local scene. Now what?

Webcam play and play on OCTGN (a simulator) are both pretty common. I've gotten in several webcam games from the official discord for NA, and I've heard OCTGN is pretty active too (though I've never tried it).

Unfortunately I don't really have insight into how you'd get a local scene going. Apparently I stumbled into face first into one of the hotspots here in North Carolina.

Full art?

Yeah, certain cards per set get variant versions called full arts. They remove all the text boxes (but not the text, this is not Textless Cryptic Command-level bullshit) and allow the full art of the character to shine through. Here's an example!

(timg'd because big)

From left to right, that's a normal WoL, a foil WoL, and then the full-art WoL! Those tend to be your chase cards for bling value, because every pack is guaranteed a foil but not every pack is guaranteed a full-art. For pricing comparisons, I paid $2 for the non-foil, $3 for the foil, and could've sold the full-art for $50.

Okay, I'm interested! Gimme resources!

Sure! There's an official NA twitter account for the game here, as well as the Japanese mothership account here. The game's basic rules document is here, and the comprehensive/competitive rules are here.

There's also a kinda janky interactive demo that gets you used to playing the game here. Note that sometimes it wants you to take Exactly The Line It Expects, even if you can find something else, so it may be frustrating in that regard. Just remember that it's meant to be for first-timers.

FFDecks is the biggest card database and deck information site out there, and the unofficial subreddit has good resources linked too.

So yeah, that's my "been playing for a couple of months and want more people playing this" effortpost! Feel free to ask if you have any questions or I overlooked anything glaring.

Bought a FF7 starter set for this game on a whim last Sunday at my lgs and they mentioned they have a store tournament that regulars show up to every Saturday, so I went to that tonight essentially to learn how to play. Game was really fun and the local scene ended up being really friendly and helpful. A few of them even coached me through my last game, and when I said I was going to come back next week they padded out my little starter deck with a few hundred cards.

As a plus it turned out the people I've been playing Battle Spirits Saga with every Sunday all quietly had individually bought FFTCG decks too at some point purely because they liked the brand but assumed there was no where to play it, so now we're going to start playing it before BSS which means I can get in a few games a week (also unsurprisingly this was how well all learned we have FFXIV accounts).

# ? Jun 17, 2023 17:43

Aniodia: Feb 23, 2016; Literally who?

So hey, quick update on the Magi-Nation goings-on. There is now an official 2i LLC email list that you can sign up for if you're interested in being in the loop regarding the Kickstarter for the previously unreleased Traitor's Reach expansion (and maybe more, depending upon how well the KS does).

Also, from lurking in the discord, Matt Holmberg, one of the original artists, has started doing art streams recently. Seems to be pretty chill streams, so check it out if you're interested.

# ? Jun 28, 2023 05:59

Kyrosiris: May 24, 2006; You try to be happy when everyone is summoning you everywhere to "be their friend".

Redezga posted:

Bought a FF7 starter set for this game on a whim last Sunday at my lgs and they mentioned they have a store tournament that regulars show up to every Saturday, so I went to that tonight essentially to learn how to play. Game was really fun and the local scene ended up being really friendly and helpful. A few of them even coached me through my last game, and when I said I was going to come back next week they padded out my little starter deck with a few hundred cards.

As a plus it turned out the people I've been playing Battle Spirits Saga with every Sunday all quietly had individually bought FFTCG decks too at some point purely because they liked the brand but assumed there was no where to play it, so now we're going to start playing it before BSS which means I can get in a few games a week (also unsurprisingly this was how well all learned we have FFXIV accounts).

That's awesome! That seems to be how FFTCG scenes are - you kinda just stumble into it?

Relatedly, I'm gonna be competing in the Materia Cup in Raleigh in a couple of weeks! Pretty big step up in difficulty from my locals, but maybe not because I've got a couple of nationals competitors at my local store, lmao.

I'm really excited to see how my Ice/Earth/Dark control deck stacks up.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 18:41

Weird Pumpkin: Oct 7, 2007

So I've been playing the one piece card game for a bit now, and it's pretty dang fun

The games are pretty fast and the board states are super complex due to every character being able to get bigger on demand. The game is also super interactive between counter events that buff people in combat, and just being able to pitch a lot of cards for bonuses. Some of the leader cards are just much better than others unfortunately, but that's pretty unavoidable.

Did two pre-releases for the current set and they were both pretty good times. Limited is super weird though, because you can bring any leader you would like outside of the current set ones; which means you end up seeing a few very particular leaders that are just bonkers good in a sealed format. You don't have to play cards to your color either so everything becomes pretty much "good/high power card piles"

People have been pretty chill about it, which is helpful when you learn a new card game. The fact that they have so many chase alt arts and stuff really does seem to help to keep the costs low on the singles themselves which is fantastic

# ? Jun 29, 2023 18:52

Kyrosiris: May 24, 2006; You try to be happy when everyone is summoning you everywhere to "be their friend".

Weird Pumpkin posted:

The fact that they have so many chase alt arts and stuff really does seem to help to keep the costs low on the singles themselves which is fantastic

Yeah, that's something that FFTCG does as well and I really love it. The fact that some of the cards I've gotten were like "full art version is $70, normal version is $3" has been really welcome.

# ? Jun 29, 2023 19:12

Railing Kill: Nov 14, 2008; You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

Man, if I wasn't saving up for a down payment on a house right now I'd blow 200 bux on FF cards in a heartbeat. It's been lodged in the back of my mind since I saw it in the thread. Some day soon, some day...

Played a game of VTES on Thursday. A friend of mine played his third game ever, and won. Again. He also won both of his other games. Dude has won 100% of his games. I think he's sharking us about not knowing how to play this game. :tinfoil:

# ? Jul 1, 2023 13:48

Kyrosiris: May 24, 2006; You try to be happy when everyone is summoning you everywhere to "be their friend".

Railing Kill posted:

Man, if I wasn't saving up for a down payment on a house right now I'd blow 200 bux on FF cards in a heartbeat. It's been lodged in the back of my mind since I saw it in the thread. Some day soon, some day...

Something that was pointed out to me by the players at my locals is that one of the best first purchases you can get is the 2022 Anniversary Box. I hadn't picked one up myself until recently, and it was pointed out when I was lamenting the cost of a couple of staples that come as 2-ofs or 3-ofs in that box (specifically, Shantotto and Mist Dragon) that I'd wanted to improve my Ice/Earth/Dark control deck. Especially at 40 bucks on TCGPlayer, it's a fantastic vehicle to get into the game.

Also speaking of said deck, here it is, ready for the Materia Cup in a couple of weeks!

Once I know what Twitch stream it'll be on, I'll post it here in the thread, but it'll be the weekend of July 15th/16th.

# ? Jul 1, 2023 21:29

CitizenKeen: Nov 13, 2003; easygoing pedant

So I made a thing last week for Star Wars Unlimited. Until it gets its own thread, this seems like the place to tell people about it.

https://www.swudb.com

# ? Jul 12, 2023 03:57

Magnetic North: Dec 15, 2008; Beware the Forest's Mushrooms

CitizenKeen posted:

So I made a thing last week for Star Wars Unlimited. Until it gets its own thread, this seems like the place to tell people about it.

https://www.swudb.com

Smash zoom on Kiryu's face: That's rad.

This type of thing makes me jealous of programmers who don't spend every waking second in the backend.

Is there a place to submit errors? I just randomly clicked around and noticed the illustration credit on Command Center is incorrect and should be for "Stephen Zavala" if I'm reading it correctly.

# ? Jul 12, 2023 08:56

CitizenKeen: Nov 13, 2003; easygoing pedant

Magnetic North posted:

Smash zoom on Kiryu's face: That's rad.

This type of thing makes me jealous of programmers who don't spend every waking second in the backend.

Is there a place to submit errors? I just randomly clicked around and noticed the illustration credit on Command Center is incorrect and should be for "Stephen Zavala" if I'm reading it correctly.

I'm a .NET developer by day who mostly works on database issues and migrating WinForms Apps to modern frameworks. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Also, here. Here is where you submit errors. Or Discord. Fixed. Thank you!

# ? Jul 12, 2023 13:40

Turbinosamente: May 29, 2013; Lights on, Lights off

I've half assedly skimmed the thread; has any one brought up Metazoo? I thought of it recently and wondered if it's doing well or anything at all after the investor hype died down.

# ? Jul 12, 2023 16:59

Kyrosiris: May 24, 2006; You try to be happy when everyone is summoning you everywhere to "be their friend".

Kyrosiris posted:

Once I know what Twitch stream it'll be on, I'll post it here in the thread, but it'll be the weekend of July 15th/16th.

To follow up on this, if you wanna watch some high level FFTCG, the Raleigh Materia Cup will be streamed here: https://www.twitch.tv/rvasnugsy

It should start around noon Eastern on the 15th. No guarantees if I'll end up in a feature match, but it should be a good watch regardless.

You can also see some play on OCTGN tonight (and every Wednesday!) at 7 PM Eastern on the same channel.

# ? Jul 12, 2023 18:28

triple sulk: Sep 17, 2014

Turbinosamente posted:

I've half assedly skimmed the thread; has any one brought up Metazoo? I thought of it recently and wondered if it's doing well or anything at all after the investor hype died down.

Pretty sure it's more or less dead and worthless and that Sorcery is the new investor scam.

# ? Jul 12, 2023 23:01

Turbinosamente: May 29, 2013; Lights on, Lights off

triple sulk posted:

Pretty sure it's more or less dead and worthless and that Sorcery is the new investor scam.

A new investor scam one already? Metazoo's corpse isn't even cold yet. I've got some YouTube investor types on as background noise atm and am currently listening to the cope. So far I've got "the economy's bad, people aren't spending" and "tcg sales are down across the board" as excuses as to why Metazoo prices fell off a cliff. The comments are claiming it will just become niche for a while and get big again.

One of the few serious reviews of the gameplay I could find amounted to it might be okay to play on a camping trip because of the whole 4th wall breaking environment mechanic. Which always sounded like a mess to actually play, and I guess they had to walk that back some with the equivalent of Pokemon's stadium cards?

# ? Jul 12, 2023 23:25

triple sulk: Sep 17, 2014

Turbinosamente posted:

A new investor scam one already? Metazoo's corpse isn't even cold yet. I've got some YouTube investor types on as background noise atm and am currently listening to the cope. So far I've got "the economy's bad, people aren't spending" and "tcg sales are down across the board" as excuses as to why Metazoo prices fell off a cliff. The comments are claiming it will just become niche for a while and get big again.

One of the few serious reviews of the gameplay I could find amounted to it might be okay to play on a camping trip because of the whole 4th wall breaking environment mechanic. Which always sounded like a mess to actually play, and I guess they had to walk that back some with the equivalent of Pokemon's stadium cards?

The art is bad, the gameplay seems bad, and Rudy was really the only driving force behind it.

Sorcery has incredibly bad fantasy novel art and the alpha release boxes (which is actually called alpha because of obvious ways to sucker in investors) are now apparently $800-1000 on eBay because of Rudy and a few others from the FAB boom-bust cycle.

# ? Jul 12, 2023 23:47

Turbinosamente: May 29, 2013; Lights on, Lights off

triple sulk posted:

The art is bad, the gameplay seems bad, and Rudy was really the only driving force behind it.

Sorcery has incredibly bad fantasy novel art and the alpha release boxes (which is actually called alpha because of obvious ways to sucker in investors) are now apparently $800-1000 on eBay because of Rudy and a few others from the FAB boom-bust cycle.

I don't know the Rudy story, quick Google says a Youtube hypeman? I also see people have gotten made at Mike, the creator, over his lack of customer service and something about shutting down the NFT portion of the discord, because of course they sold NFTs for this as well. Also seems like it fell into the too many promos trap, and maybe too much of the wrong side merch as well. Really needed a cartoon show or something to draw the kids into it, not rugs, mugs, hats, pins, and air pod cases. The quick boom/bust of this one fascinates me as it came straight out of the Pokemon hype of 2021 which has also died.

Some of the the art isn't the worst, even MTG had some jank art in the early days, but it ain't great either: too bad this went down in flames before hiring more artists on. At least Sorcery beats it on that front by simply being competently done generic fantasy.

# ? Jul 13, 2023 00:45

RocknRollaAyatollah: Nov 26, 2008; Lipstick Apathy

triple sulk posted:

Sorcery has incredibly bad fantasy novel art and the alpha release boxes (which is actually called alpha because of obvious ways to sucker in investors) are now apparently $800-1000 on eBay because of Rudy and a few others from the FAB boom-bust cycle.

It's a "Magic competitor" named Sorcery and the first set is called Alpha. It's like a product from a TV show where they want to reference Magic but can't due to copyright. The card quality looked alright but the game seems DOA as a ccg, especially a competitive one, because the field of play is huge and it just seems like a pain in the rear end to collect. This is mainly due to how the game plays, how they mark rarity, and the investor element buying everything they can and probably sleeping in a basement full of unsold Sorcery, Metazoo, and FaB alpha boxes. It could honestly work as an LCG or board game but it just seems like too much to assemble piecemeal.

For as much as people poo poo on FaB, honestly justified for how they handled things at launch and buyin being as much as Modern MtG, people actually play it. There's a FAB thread so I don't want to go on a tangent but at least in my area people seem to play and most FLGS's have nights. There's only one store in my area that has a MetaZoo night, as opposed to multiples for Magic and some FaB, but I would not be surprised if they bought heavily into it and are pushing it. It's a store that does "box breaks" on stream with buy ins and they had some KS ccg in a huge pile at their store at deep discount. They were originally a sports card store, they still have one, but it looks like they're speculators who branched into CCG's. The FaB stores are pretty much regular game stores that run everything and aren't that level of, "Please buy this new exciting product we're underwater on."

# ? Jul 13, 2023 01:33

triple sulk: Sep 17, 2014

RocknRollaAyatollah posted:

It's a "Magic competitor" named Sorcery and the first set is called Alpha. It's like a product from a TV show where they want to reference Magic but can't due to copyright. The card quality looked alright but the game seems DOA as a ccg, especially a competitive one, because the field of play is huge and it just seems like a pain in the rear end to collect. This is mainly due to how the game plays, how they mark rarity, and the investor element buying everything they can and probably sleeping in a basement full of unsold Sorcery, Metazoo, and FaB alpha boxes. It could honestly work as an LCG or board game but it just seems like too much to assemble piecemeal.

For as much as people poo poo on FaB, honestly justified for how they handled things at launch and buyin being as much as Modern MtG, people actually play it. There's a FAB thread so I don't want to go on a tangent but at least in my area people seem to play and most FLGS's have nights. There's only one store in my area that has a MetaZoo night, as opposed to multiples for Magic and some FaB, but I would not be surprised if they bought heavily into it and are pushing it. It's a store that does "box breaks" on stream with buy ins and they had some KS ccg in a huge pile at their store at deep discount. They were originally a sports card store, they still have one, but it looks like they're speculators who branched into CCG's. The FaB stores are pretty much regular game stores that run everything and aren't that level of, "Please buy this new exciting product we're underwater on."

LSS is a garbage company and was completely complicit in the entire Monarch debacle. They knew how big the print run was, and Channel Fireball was one of the main retailers who continuously jacked up the price leading up to release, reaching about $600 a box right before release. You could only buy four boxes at a given price point, so it got worse and worse. LSS meanwhile turns a blind eye as investor hype jacks up the prices. When it finally comes out, it quickly becomes obvious to anyone with a modicum of critical thinking ability that the set was wildly overprinted relative to the size of the player base, primarily due to the large numbers of boxes being opened (relatively speaking).

Team Covenant was also complicit because they started dumping boxes eventually once it hit $120 or so. The price of them has basically never recovered. Meanwhile the community is supposed to be absurdly competitive, staples are as much as $250-300, and the average meta deck needed in order to keep up is four figures. In short, gently caress that game and I can't wait until it eventually dies.

Sorcery art looks like 90s garbage belonging on the covers of bargain bin fantasy novels, but that's obviously the aesthetic they're going for in order to pull in the suckers along with the alpha naming. FAB did the same poo poo with its first set. There's a handful of dudes on YouTube who were peddling FAB (e.g. Rudy) and eventually they moved on to Sorcery when that well went dry. MetaZoo was the same poo poo pretty much.

# ? Jul 13, 2023 02:53

Turbinosamente: May 29, 2013; Lights on, Lights off

On a lighter note did anyone ever get into the TCGs for any of the other shonen anime from 2002? Yugioh is what lasted and DBZ/GT was already covered here, but YuYu Hakusho, One Piece, Inuyasha, Naruto, Shaman King, and Zatchbell all had games attached. They used to give away promo cards with issues of Shonen Jump back in the day, which is how I got them, but never bothered to look for packs in stores.

The Shaman King cards were weird: extra thick and double sided because there was a pullout at the top with more symbols for the game.

# ? Jul 13, 2023 13:25

RocknRollaAyatollah: Nov 26, 2008; Lipstick Apathy

triple sulk posted:

LSS is a garbage company and was completely complicit in the entire Monarch debacle. They knew how big the print run was, and Channel Fireball was one of the main retailers who continuously jacked up the price leading up to release, reaching about $600 a box right before release. You could only buy four boxes at a given price point, so it got worse and worse. LSS meanwhile turns a blind eye as investor hype jacks up the prices. When it finally comes out, it quickly becomes obvious to anyone with a modicum of critical thinking ability that the set was wildly overprinted relative to the size of the player base, primarily due to the large numbers of boxes being opened (relatively speaking).

Team Covenant was also complicit because they started dumping boxes eventually once it hit $120 or so. The price of them has basically never recovered. Meanwhile the community is supposed to be absurdly competitive, staples are as much as $250-300, and the average meta deck needed in order to keep up is four figures. In short, gently caress that game and I can't wait until it eventually dies.

Sorcery art looks like 90s garbage belonging on the covers of bargain bin fantasy novels, but that's obviously the aesthetic they're going for in order to pull in the suckers along with the alpha naming. FAB did the same poo poo with its first set. There's a handful of dudes on YouTube who were peddling FAB (e.g. Rudy) and eventually they moved on to Sorcery when that well went dry. MetaZoo was the same poo poo pretty much.

I was not aware of that and that's pretty bad.

Turbinosamente posted:

On a lighter note did anyone ever get into the TCGs for any of the other shonen anime from 2002? Yugioh is what lasted and DBZ/GT was already covered here, but YuYu Hakusho, One Piece, Inuyasha, Naruto, Shaman King, and Zatchbell all had games attached. They used to give away promo cards with issues of Shonen Jump back in the day, which is how I got them, but never bothered to look for packs in stores.

The Shaman King cards were weird: extra thick and double sided because there was a pullout at the top with more symbols for the game.

I had two starters for Initial D but I think it was DOA. I got given them from a friend who worked at an anime store and it was pretty meh. I don't like Initial D the anime but I was familiar enough with it.

I saw it got mentioned a couple times in the thread but that was around the time the WotC Harry Potter TCG came out. It's wild WotC dropped the license but it seemed like there were internal shenanigans around it. WotC seemed to be getting out of licensed CCG's too due to legal spats with the Pokemon Company at that time but I've never found any concise answers to that. With Pokemon they were comically bitter and vindictive about it, for honestly no real reason other than they couldn't make their own Pokemon cards. They flooded the market with leftover stock and did ridiculous prize support for events while they were still running them to crash the value of the cards. I can see the higher ups just walking away from Harry Potter over that.

# ? Jul 13, 2023 20:40

goodness: Jan 3, 2012; When the light turns green, you go. When the light turns red, you stop. But what do you do when the light turns blue with orange and lavender spots?

Official Lorcana App came out this morning, all the cards are revealed now. The app even has a toggle to view the foil version of each card and they look great!

# ? Jul 25, 2023 13:55

Magnetic North: Dec 15, 2008; Beware the Forest's Mushrooms

Some things I hadn't noticed before now:

On the Song cards, on the right side in the black border, it has very tiny text about the copyright information of the song. You can see it here: https://lorcanaplayer.com/card/one-jump-ahead/ I guess that makes perfect sense and I hadn't thought that if you include lyrics in flavor text that it would probably mean you need to indicate who wrote those words.

Still not sure what Storyborn or Dreamborn is but Floodborn seems to mean "Has Shift X as an ability." They all feel pretty expensive, but I guess paying in installments is worth it.

Lefou has an ability named Fan The Flames, and it's identical to the Action card Fan The Flames, and I don't know if I think that is good or bad. I guess it's good since the 'ability name' (for lack of an official term) doesn't appear to have any rules meaning.

Looks like most things that let you ready other characters say you can't Quest again that turn, but characters like Ariel Whoseit Collector can Ready herself. Makes me wonder if there's a deck where Mulan buffs the Lore Value of a character who can ready themselves to reach for a victory

Ruby's ability to bleed lore from your opponents sounds strong. Unlike in Keyforge where Aember is eventually transformed into Keys and is therefore safe, here your pile is ostensibly at risk.

Belle, Strange but Special seems powerful, but maybe 10 in the inkwell is harder than it looks.

I'm almost certainly never going to play this game but it's interesting to see what's on offer. Soon we'll find out if Disney adults can break the two year curse.

# ? Jul 25, 2023 15:15

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 22:23

Randalor: Sep 4, 2011

Magnetic North posted:

Lefou has an ability named Fan The Flames, and it's identical to the Action card Fan The Flames, and I don't know if I think that is good or bad. I guess it's good since the 'ability name' (for lack of an official term) doesn't appear to have any rules meaning.

I actually really like this, and I hope they keep it up. One of the downsides of Magic was that the players use a lot of casual slang to refer to effects that don't make sense on first glance. Who would expect "Mill a card" to mean "put a card from your library into your graveyard, unless you knew that it actually references the old card Millstone, which did just that?

# ? Jul 25, 2023 15:31

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > VTES, DBZ, L5R, and other acronyms: The Fringe/Dead CCGs Thread!

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