Magic: The Gathering is a tabletop and digital collectible card game created by Richard Garfield. Released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast, Magic was the first trading card game and had approximately fifty million players as of February 2023. Over twenty billion Magic cards were produced in the period from 2008 to 2016, during which time it grew in popularity. As of the 2022 fiscal year, Magic generates over $1 billion in revenue annually.
The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game is an out-of-print collectible card game produced by Decipher, Inc. Released November 2001, it is based on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the J. R. R. Tolkien novel on which the films were based. Decipher also had the rights to The Hobbit novel but did not release any cards based on it. In addition to images taken from the films, in 2004 Weta Workshop produced artwork depicting characters and items from the novel absent from the films for use on cards. In 2002, LOTR TCG won the Origins Awards for Best Trading Card Game of 2001 and Best Graphic Presentation of a Card Game 2001. Decipher's license to The Lord of the Rings expired on July 30, 2007, after which all official promotion and distribution of the game stopped.
Pokémon Trading Card Game is a video game adaptation of the Pokémon tabletop card game for the Game Boy Color. Developed by Hudson Soft and Creatures and published by Nintendo, it was initially released in Japan on December 18, 1998, in Australia on April 7, 2000, in North America on April 10, 2000, and in Europe on December 15, 2000. The game includes the first three sets of the trading card game, as well as exclusive cards not available elsewhere.
Several video games based on the Magic: The Gathering franchise exist for multiple systems. Some have attempted to translate the card game to electronic play nearly exactly; others have taken more liberties and drawn more from the setting than the actual rules of the card game. Benefits of successful video game versions of the card game include convenience, practice, and challenge. However, artificial intelligence for a game such as Magic is an extremely hard problem, and such software usually must be continuously updated to stay current with recently released card sets. Video game versions often expand on artwork, and may include unique cards that rely on randomness, effects which would be difficult or annoying to duplicate in real life.
The Odyssey is a Magic: The Gathering expert-level block. It consists of a trio of expansion sets: Odyssey, Torment and Judgment.
The collectible card game Magic: The Gathering published seven expansion sets from 1993 to 1995, and one compilation set. These sets contained new cards that "expanded" on the base sets of Magic with their own mechanical theme and setting; these new cards could be played on their own, or mixed in with decks created from cards in the base sets. With Magic's runaway success, many of the printings of these early sets were too small to satisfy the rapidly growing fanbase. Cards from them became rare, hard to find, and expensive. It was not until Fallen Empires and Homelands that Wizards of the Coast was able to print enough cards to meet demand; additionally, Wizards of the Coast published Chronicles, a reprint set that helped fix many of the scarcity issues with the earliest sets.
Gameplay of the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering is fueled by each player's deck of cards, which constitute the resources that player can call upon to battle their opponents in any given game. With more than 20,000 unique cards in the game, a considerable number of different decks can be constructed. Each card is designed to have certain strengths and therefore a significant part of the game is determined by which cards a player chooses to include in their deck. Broadly speaking, decks can be loosely classified based on their play style and mode of victory. The game's designers often explicitly create cards which are intended to fuel one or more of these given archetypes, in order to create competitive balance and diversity.
The Harry Potter Trading Card Game is an out-of-print collectible card game based in the world of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels. Created by Wizards of the Coast in August 2001, the game was designed to compete with the Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering card games. Its release was timed to coincide with the theatrical premiere of the first film in the series. The game was praised for the way it immersed children in the Harry Potter universe. At one point the game was the second best selling toy in the United States; however, it is now out of print.
Dragon Ball Z Trading Card Game is an out-of-print trading card game based on the Dragon Ball series created by Akira Toriyama. The game was produced by Score Entertainment and uses screen captures of the anime to attempt to recreate the famous events and battles seen in the anime. Score then sold the rights to Panini which eventually ceased publishing.
The Eye of Judgment is a turn-based card battle video game for the PlayStation 3 platform, which utilizes the PlayStation Eye camera peripheral. It is the first game to use the peripheral, with which it was available in a bundle in Japan, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Once planned for release close to the PlayStation 3 launch in November 2006, the game was eventually released on October 25, 2007 as Set 1 in Japan.
Card advantage is a term used in collectible card game strategy to describe the state of one player having access to more cards than another player, usually by drawing more cards through in-game effects to increase the size of their hand. Although it applies to several collectible card games, the concept was first described early in the evolution of Magic: The Gathering strategy, where many early decks relied on a player drawing more cards than their opponent, and then using this advantage to play more cards and advance their position faster than their opponent. By 2007 it was recognized as one of the most important indicators of who is ahead in a game and has been utilized in the development of strategy for nearly every collectible card game created.
Chaotic is an out-of-print Danish collectible card game brought to the United States by Chaotic USA and 4Kids Entertainment, and distributed by TC Digital Games. It was released along with the open beta version of the online game on October 24, 2007. The card game is also featured in the animated series of the same name. As of 2014, the website is currently closed and the cards are no longer in production.
A dedicated deck card game is one played with a deck specific to that game, rather than a pack of standard playing cards. Educational packs of cards were being printed by the late eighteenth century, initially designed merely to inform, but later becoming playable games. Modern card games are often sold with non-standard distributions of suits and ranks.
Z-Man Games is an American board game company, incorporated in 1999. It was named after its founder, Zev Shlasinger. The company is known for their Pandemic series of board games, as well as being the sole publisher for the English editions of popular Eurogames, such as Carcassonne and Terra Mystica.
Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game is a survival horror board game that was first published in 2007. Players can play on the Hero team or as the Zombies. A modular board randomly determines the layout of the town at the start of each game and there are several different scenarios to play. Seven supplements have been released.
The rules of Magic: The Gathering were originally developed by the game's creator, Richard Garfield, and accompanied the first version of the game in 1993. The rules of Magic have been changed frequently over the years by the manufacturer, Wizards of the Coast, mostly in minor ways. However, major rules overhauls have also been done a few times.
A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards. It was introduced with Magic: The Gathering in 1993.
The Elder Scrolls: Legends is a free-to-play digital collectible card video game, published by Bethesda Softworks for Microsoft Windows, iOS, macOS and Android in 2017.
Magic Duels is a video game based on the popular collectible card game Magic: The Gathering. Magic Duels is a successor to Stainless Games' Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers and its annual sequels, released from 2009 through 2014. The free-to-play title was released on July 29, 2015, shortly following the physical release of the Magic Origins core set.
