Top 5 CCG/TCG Cards

Just like everyone else I figured I would list my top five favorite TCG/CCG cards.

#5 - Unnamed Card - Unnamed upcoming TCG. Just like Girard I'm going to talk about a card that hasn't seen print yet, unlike Girard my TCG isn't even announced yet. This card is great to describe to people we're testing with because it just fits the property perfectly. Jdub and I were talking about a character in the property and I used one word to describe him and it fit. We then made that word a trait (loaded keyword, macro) in the game that fits the game well and the character perfectly. It is fun when it all works out like that. Like Girard I will fill this in later.

#4 - Goblin Scimitar - The Lord of the Rings TCG. When I volunteered and taught people how to play TCGs or even how to be better at TCGs. One of the first things I would tell people is when a card said "Draw a card" it was usually a good card, something worth looking at. Newer TCG players or TCG players who weren't good just didn't get that. This card was the backbone for Moria which made up about 75% of the competitive decks I played. In the south we were all about Moria, faster and stronger than the rest of the player community. I was unlike most players though, I usually used Moria to set up my Free Peoples, I was about the FP win.


#3 - Darth Vader - Star Wars CCG. Man this guy wrecked shop in my play community forever. I never really played in SWCCG tournaments, it was a group of about 7-10 of us for years that played every week or so. I pulled Vader in my first starter deck, the day SWCCG was released. I was the only one with Vader for a little bit, the only one who realized it was all about mains/toys for a bit. Even when I wasn't using him to destroy people, friends were using him to destroy other people. Very unbalanced for a cheap playgroup but man what a good bit of fun.




#2 Lightning Bolt - Magic The Gathering CCG. I love direct damage. I write cards for direct damage, I build decks for direct damage, I love to play it. It is just a lot of fun. This is the original direct damage card and the one everyone else tries to copy.











#1 - Aragorn, Ranger of the North - The Lord of the Rings TCG. I liked the tengwar version best, if you don't know what it says then how are you reading my blog. Anyways this guy was everything that was good and bad about LOTR TCG at the same time. LOTR TCG is probably my favorite TCG of all time, I just loved playing it. I spent much more money on SWCCG but that was more because I loved Star Wars than the game. Tom, Chuck, Mike, Tim, should be very proud, I just loved the game. Anyways back to Aragorn. How people could want to ban HttWC and not this guy, this guy was just busted but on the good side of busted. I played for the FP to win and this guy allowed me to double in situations that I probably shouldn't have because I knew it wouldn't be game. A lot of times those gambles resulted in no damage at all but without ROTN I wouldn't have taken the gamble.

I love TCG, I miss being able to play them for fun. I do like the game we're working on, it is fun again. I do have some honorable mentions though. Both of them are based on fun development stories.

Grond, Hammer of the Underworld - Lord of the Rings TCG. This guy just shows how good cards can get made despite of people wanting to throw it into the shitter. Tom had taken a lot of shit from certain people in the development team for whatever reason. Like most people that had read Return of the King Tom wanted Grond to be a great card and it was. The idiot in development wanted to change this card so many times, oh my god. It was a constant battle, over and over again. The look on Tom's face when he kept winning was all worth it. Siege was the first set I actively took part on development as well so for my part I helped where I could. The remote testers loved this guy, most of us in the office loved it, and when Tom won and it got printed man did the players love it. Great card.


Library of Orthanc - Lord of the Rings TCG. This is my favorite and least favorite card in print. It was the first card I designed (with a lot of help from Brad), it was designed before Reflections but kept not fitting into a product. I can't even remember the original version other than the intent. Basically this was a card that was supposed to bridge the gap between the FP and Shadow sides of the deck, to treat them as one deck and help each side. The same idiot who wanted to fuck with Tom with Grond basically destroyed this card. I remember it being pretty good and I remember testers liking it. The printed version however is shit.