What stops other card games from reaching the popularity of MtG,

>>50880454
Mtg is one of the, if not the oldest tcg.
Yu-gi-oh and Pokémon have a whole franchise behind them.

>>50880454
What's stopping MtG or others from reaching the popularity of Go Fish, Black Jack, Texas Hold'em and other, more popular card games?

>>50880502
>Pokemon and yugioh dont' have franchises behind them..
Are you fucking retarded?

>>50880537
Apparently you are, read his post again.

If you mean what's stopping that game in particular from taking off, it's the fact that stores are reluctant to stock it because of its pornographic content, and anime is a niche market where most if not all of its customers download or stream it for free illegally, so why would they buy paper products?

The autistic subset who buy 50 copies of their waifus don't actually play the game with anyone, meaning any sales growth will stagnate fairly soon after release (players teaching and playing with new potential customers is key to card game success).

>>50880454
Not being first
Not being first in Japan
Not being Pokemon (and Pokemon has had two "It's dead, Jim" periods so far)

>>50880454
Usually plain luck and have an autistically dedicated playerbase

>>50880454
>What stops other card games from reaching the popularity of MtG, Yugioh or Pokemon?
MtG, Yugioh and Pokemon (and maybe Hearthstone too). Market saturation is a thing.

Japanese TCGs are just shitty. They exist by the dozen in Japan, because Otaku keep them afloat. Every now and then one washes ashore in the West, where it gathers a following and then dies completely off, because Japanese TCG design principles are retarded. They subsist entirely on waifus and often on licenses, game design-wise they are usually pretty shitty and all of them live 100% off power-creep. Say what you want about MtG, but the powercreep the game lived through in 24 years is still less than what your average japanese TCG sees in four years. Japanese TCG designers also don't seem to believe in Formats, making the games even more unstable. Couple that with completely haphazard reprint policies leading to extreme price bubbles on cards and usually nonexistant worldbuilding and there's simply nothing to keep the game going. A few people latch onto it and then get driven away again.

Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! are their own special beasts. Pokémon has, of course, one of the most successful franchises every behind it, together with good event support with Formats and a comparatively low barrier of entry. Pokémon cards cost a fraction of what played MtG cards cost and sealed product is cheaper to boot. At the same time they still have chase rares in form of holos, full art and other stuff that fullfils the same function as the regular card, but looks fancy, allowing the people that want to spend their Neetbux on pimping out their deck to have that feeling of big-spending superiority, and vendors to sell singles that actually make money. That, coupled with liberal reprinting, keeps the secondary market from going out of control and makes for a very stable and playable game.

>>50881213
Yu-Gi-Oh! has all the problems of japanese TCG mentioned above dialed up to eleven. It's, however, also one of the oldest and most widespread TCGs, giving it extreme staying power. Simply said, people play what people around them are playing, and thanks to cheaper sealed product and extreme spread of counterfeits and of course the Anime way back when made it spread among kids, especially in poorer communities. Hell, I remember fifteen years ago you could get shitty counterfeit cards on the monthly street market around here, in the heart of rural Europe. It was so widespread and easily available, even hungarian and gipsy travelling merchants were selling chinese counterfeits.
That pretty much entrenched the game with the poorer communities and in poorer countries, not to mention countries where it's very hard to even get MtG product. The YGO community of China alone probably dwarfs MtG as a whole, simply because YGO was able to spread their through availability and cheapness.
So, the people playing this game often can't afford playing something else and often don't have the will nor the capacity to have higher standards, so the shitty aspects of the game don't bother them. As long as there are other people around, they'll keep playing it.

MtG keeps existing because there is no real competitor for its niche. In a sense, it's a bit like 40k: Yes, there are other wargames around, but 40k was, for a long time, the only game that was even a nonhistorical platoon sized skirmish game. In the same vein, MtG is now the only western TCG left. Like GW outcompeted the other games back then by producing better games, the competitors of Wizards and MtG were simply ousted by Magic being a better and more accessible game.

>>50880454
Because if they're not waifufag trash, they are mostly pretty obvious ripoffs of the popular ones.

>>50881293
The other games were either worse, less accessible, or plagued by external problems. Jyhad, for example, was a great game, but had vastly lower production values compared to MtG AND was tied to an IP that simply lost traction. World of Warcraft, on the other hand, was a good game, but was terribly mismanged by Upperdeck, Cryptozoic and Blizzard. Blizzard expected the game to overtake MtG by sheer force of the IP alone and when it didn't became an instant smashhit, only payed lipservice to it anymore. It was a decent success by all acounts, but Blizzard was making about a metric billion dollars off WoW at the time, which made the game look a bit pointless. After that WoW started its slow descent into Cataclysm and Pandaria and interest waned, putting the TCG in no better position. It was never really promoted or pushed beyond its initial release, so it never really went anywhere.

I think there really is space for another western TCG, but to pull it off right requires a big investment and some serious skill. When you take a look at LCGs, you see that there's a real interest in more card games. But the rapid appearance and failure of LCGs (FFG or not) show us one thing: These games have no real staying power and the reason, I think, is basic human psychology. It's very easy to get into and start playing a LCG at first glance. Buying every Netrunner product available is cheaper than buying most Legacy and Modern decks by a wide margin and even cheaper than Standard at times. Yet, because it's easy to get into, it's also easy to drop out. You feel a lot less loyalty, a lot less tied to the game, the Sunk Cost Fallacy doesn't stick as hard. The format also runs on a constant stream of smaller releases, obfuscating the "face" of the game and making it less accessible to complete newcomers. The starting boxes offer a good place to start out, sure, but all those little Datapacks just have less prestige than a few big displays.

>>50881366
But, most importantly, people DO value randomness in a twisted way. People value the feeling of buying booster packs and getting random cards. Is it a less pro-consumer than having packs with playsets of every card? Holy shit, yes, cracking packs has that certain feel that draws people in. It's fun for them to buy a pack for three bucks and get junk, because there's also the chance of drawing something "good". Small gambling is fun, that's why people buy scratch tickets.

What a game needs to stick is to look at what MtG does right and copy that and to look at what disgruntles the fans and do the opposite. And that's a lot fucking easier said than done. You really do need good production values: You need a good and distinct artstyle, you need professional looking card templates, you need a decent game and I think you really should go down the road of being a TCG. You also need a story and setting to draw people in, and you need to support events.
However, you should also really play the accessability angle and try to keep the secondary market in check. That's a really precarious balacing act, because you also can't piss off the secondary vendors, since you need them to sell your product and provide venues of play. In short, you need to keep singles prices down while also making the game attractive to sell.
And, most probably most importantly, you need staying power and community interaction. Nothing drives a game more than having evangelists. It's what drove Games Workshop and even Wizards for most of their lifetime: Loyal customers that recruit, advertise and sell for you, so you need to make people feel involved with your company and your game.


All of this would need a considerable amount of cash and talent and I wish I had both around, because I'd fucking love to make a TCG. Well, maybe one day, but till then, theorizing on /tg/ will probably be it.

File: 031P.jpg (98KB, 450x614px)

98KB, 450x614px

>>50881213
>Japanese TCGs are just shitty.
Wixoss is terrific, fuck you (although it is true that japanese tcgs are terrible at creating long-term development models).

Basically, though, what you're saying just sounds like a much more detailed version of >>50880737. The market isn't all that large, and mtg, pokemon, and yugioh (with hearthstone online), there's not much room to maneuver for new games, western or japanese. And from what we've seen from new entries that fizzle quickly, you can't just establish a presence, you need a good long period of steady expansion with minimal fuckups in development. A case study for this is FoW. For a while it seemed to be very much on the rise, but from what I gather, the competitive scene stagnated into a few unfun and unbalanced decks, which killed a lot of its momentum. Even if it recovered, rounded out its design, and had a wide open and well balanced meta, that hit to its momentum is still potentially fatal for a new-ish tcg. I think what you said here >>50881366 about how key the sunk-cost fallacy is to the tcg business model is really the core of why the big three are still the big three, as it creates a more reliable player base, which tcgs live and die on.

>>50880454
Chaotic had a strong online community and alot of potential, but it seems it failed because another company took hold of it and did jack shit with it. shit could've been hotter than hearthstone by converting to a pure digital tcg. maybe they are rebooting it but no word on it for a few years.

>>50881484
>Wixoss is terrific, fuck you
I heard good things about Wixoss, yet it always seemed like the big exception. At the same time, I've never heard or seen something about it outside of /tg/.

Yes, a new TCG trying to muscle into the market would definitely start from behind and should never operate on the assumption to become become a smash hit or as big as the Big Three. I still think there's space for a sustainable TCG with potential for growth, a bit like Warmachine or even Infinity and Malifaux just existed for many years, but steadily grew and ate away at the market. They still aren't huge, but they won't just disappear either anymore.

What you said about FoW shows how important it is for a TCG to have several venues to build loyalty. Having lore, books, merchandise and other stuff to latch on to, and also how difficult it is to maintain a good stride. From lurking on FoW threads over the months, it also seemed that the community was disgruntled for quite a while and that's also where failure of communication comes into play.

What I also forgot to mention is the importance of a good online client, especially for tablets and phones. Of the three physical games, only Pokémon has even a decent online client. A new game should definitely look into having a good online presence from the start, with an connection to the physical game. In Pokémon, you get a free pack online for every pack you buy in real life, so that's what I'd look at at the very least.

>>50881733
>good online client
>you get a free pack online for every pack you buy in real life,
Personally, I think that's one of the biggest holes in the market now. Greater integration between a physical tcg and a digital platform is very possible and largely unexploited. Creating a link between the tactile, physicality of cards and the opportunities for play provided by an online client is the best of both worlds, and I think it could go very far in promoting a tcg that does it right (I hadn't heard of that aspect of pokemon, and it sounds pretty brilliant).

>>50881806
I don't know if it's still the case right now, but at least back when I played, you could redeem a code on every physical booster ingame for free stuff.

Until AEG killed it and sold it to FFG, Legend of the Five Rings had a pretty strong following. Their regional tournaments were big enough draws that they'd fill large sections of a con's CCG play space. L5R's strength was from the interactive fiction portion. People would become hardcore partisans for their clan and with storyline prizes at stake in the big tournaments the draw was huge.

I won a regional one year and the prize was for me to choose a character to protect from or succumb to a bad event called the Rain of Blood. These choices led to the creation of extra-tournament prizes called bounties, put up by players to get events they wanted into the story. Fortunately the character I wanted to save had a fairly large bounty on him so I got a great amount of extra prize support, including some cool knickknacks like a wooden deckbox engraved with my clan's logo on it.

>>50881921
That sounds like an amazing idea and should promptly be stolen by any new card game coming up. Nothing gets people more invested than being able to influence the metaplot.

>>50880454
You don't need to be the best, just the first.
MtG was the first TCG. Pokemon was the first TCG with a franchise attached. Yu-Gi-Oh! was the first non-franchise japanese TCG. Mitos y Leyendas was the first TCG in spanish. Hearstone was the first online CCG. That's why nobody has been able to shove them off their niche, or ever will.

And by "first" I don't mean the literal first, but the first to build a community. No matter how good your game is or how well you market it, so long as people don't have an emotional connection to it and instill that emotional connection into their peers, your game wont grow.

>>50881921
>AEG
I still can't forgive them for what they did to doomtown. Fuck them with a cactus

The CCG model didn't really encourage fanning out. I mean, would you rather have good cards for the most popular game or mediocre cards for 3 less popular ones?

This is incidentally why the LCG onslaught is so awesome. It's like we've been set free. We can sell people on Game of Thrones and Netrunner because there's a finite number of sets to buy.

>>50882043
What happened?

>>50882295
Nothing unexpected. The game just got canned after just two years of life.

Trying to look it by the bright side at least AEG finished the first major arc completely unlike doomtown classic.

I'll miss so much the game

>>50880454
>What stops other card games from reaching the popularity of MtG, Yugioh or Pokemon?
they are almost always just MTG clones or hearthstone clones

>>50880509
MTG can't be picked up with a deck of 52 playing cards.

>>50882367
I was sad about this one not being good at all Multiplayer. It was a miss with our group. 2 player is fun though.

>>50882367
Game has some sort of story? What was the differense between classic and new?

>>50880454
Level of marketing. If foreign market - translations.

Besides, outside "traditional" circles playing games, NO card game is truly popular.

File: shadowfist.jpg (140KB, 285x399px) Image search: [Google]

140KB, 285x399px

>>50880454
I think it's a very difficult type of game to make, and it has to be like a four quadrant movie-- has to hit all the audiences for it so it can be sold in big stores and just nerd stores. You can't just a appeal to a certain play style or genre, and you have to go after the players that play CCG's already (or their younger replacements) uber alles.

Shadowfist is the only good CCG for multiplayer play, and that got taken over and wrecked by 'fans' of the game that took up the mantle after Zman stopped working on it.

I'm surprised MTG is still around frankly, and I'd rather bust out my Revised/Unlimited/Ice Age shit than look at the crap that is out now. Give me clear, powerful cards without a lot of rules text rather than rules puke and chain combos.

Is Pokemon even popular as a card game? I thought people only really collected them.

>>50882410
as new packs are released a new bit of story about Gomorrah's (Doomtown) last events and its townfolks it's shown. even when the card spoilers came with more bits of story giving more depth to characters (mind you Doomtown each "unit" was also a character with a given name and it was very likely it has it's own story to tell).

Classic Doomtown was a bit more "complex"? (I can't tell much about this point since I've never played Classic) while Reloaded was more streamlined but both games shared most of the core ideas like Dudes, Deeds, Poker hands, checking, movement and such.

>>50882500
its actually mildly popular thanks to the online version being actually well done

>>50881887
That is still true. Any pack you open irl has a code for the digital version.

>>50882003
I am surprised that no one else tried to use that gimmick. Though there is a bad side effect, a significant portion of the fanbase turns toxic as hell if anything bad happens to their clan. I have a buddy that worked for AEG for a couple of years and he got see a lot of the dark side of the L5R fanbase. Some was hilarious, like ESL people send shit like "Why for you hate the scorpion big much?" But there was autistic screeching about death threats and the like as well.

>>50882003
It's a good idea, but AEG's implementation was often flawed. Too much corporate meddling and forced directions. They used a completely opaque point system for victories that has been heavily weighed one way or another. Almost always for the benefit of the Spider clan later on, because marketing execs inexplicably decided that the Spider were the biggest draw of the setting. In some of the latest events, the Spider needed something like 1 point for every 4 or 5 that other clans needed for the same level of result.

>>50882746
Not just in the card game either. They had a Winter Court RPG megagame sort of thing, and in that, some of the GMs were biased pretty heavily and the management either never noticed or never cared, since the results were left standing even after being exposed as biased.

>>50882746
The worst excess of meddling was during the Race for the Throne. The Scorpion playerbase got super organized, recruited their traditional ally the Dragon and were running away with it while keep the Dragon in second place even after giving into temptations. Then the last leg was revealed to be a popularity contest worth like 5 times the points of the previous legs and everyone voted for the Dragon because they thought the Dragon's "loser" condition would kill the Spider. AEG lolnope and made the Spider the bestest faction ever and shit all over two player bases hard work.

As a Unicorn player I had no skin in the game for the throne, we were in the running for Shogun with the Lion and Scorpion. The result of the corporate meddling got the Unicorn the Shogunate, but it was a hollow as hell victory. I would have rather seen the "natural" result of a Crimson and Green court (the Scorpion, Dragon, and Mantis holding almost all the positions in the court with outliers like the Lion Shogun and Spider sneaking in as Advisor).

>>50882990
If I remember correctly, they "justified" that by saying that the Spider were not a legitimate target because they weren't a "real clan" at the time, despite the fact that they were a real faction that was fully capable of winning just like everyone else.

>>50883042
Yeah, it was total bullshit. Then the end of Celestial was so fucking bad it made my play group quit the game in disgust.

>>50882746

Cause you fags fucked over the spider at every turn when they first got created so AEG had to step in.

>Make new faction
>Old snobby factions gets buttfurious
>Fuck them over and complain at every turn
>Oh were are all the new players going

>>50883242
>make shitty new faction by fucking an already existing faction and compromising one of the key parts of the setting
>act like everyone wanted it when even its own playerbase didn't because most of them would rather be playing horde
>wonder where all the players went

Spider was decent when it was a hidden subversion attempt. As soon as it came out in the open, it became shit and it only got shittier from there. Tainted Jesus was a mistake.

>>50883242
Spiderfags killed L5R.

Absolute truth.

File: 1481331938027.jpg (15KB, 435x435px) Image search: [Google]

15KB, 435x435px

The LCG model is good, but it's like coffee, whereas Magic is like crack.

Magic is literally gambling. It's fluctuating value and rarity are all because the market is monopolized due to an accessible theme.

It's a fun game, but Standard is literally burning money for the price of admission, and then paying admission.

>>50883242
Maybe they should have listened to what the players actually wanted instead of forcing their snowflake Daigotsu and his band of merry monsters. Fighting against the majority of players is why the game died.

>>50880537
Look at this anon; look at him and laugh.

>>50883329
dont play standard then, EDH is is literally the perfect format for people not looking to spend a lot of money and none of the cards rotate out. its like modern but actually fun and you can start with a 50 dollar deck and upgrade it over time

>>50882390

Hearthstone is a mtg clone.

>>50882487
You clearly haven't checked out Kaladesh.
Clear, powerful cards with much less rules text than anything from Ice Age or what have you.

File: tired gems.png (157KB, 500x405px) Image search: [Google]

157KB, 500x405px

>>50881213
>>50881293
>>50881366
>>50881434
That's a hell of a lot more answer than I was expecting to get in this thread.

File: 1450529356694.jpg (70KB, 250x349px) Image search: [Google]

70KB, 250x349px

>>50881484
>Wixoss is terrific
its a real shame its art means it will never get sold in eng. the game play is amazing, and its very different feeling than other games.

tama best girl

>>50881434
>Loyal customers that recruit, advertise and sell for you, so you need to make people feel involved with your company and your game
I think Wizards is losing a bit of that loyalty. In public Magic appears to still have a frothing loyal following but the people who feel that Wizards has betrayed their love with their anti-consumer practices are seething pretty hard.

If those angry former-players ever get some sort of spotlight, it's going to compound in effect pretty hard. I don't know how they will get that spotlight as all the major news outlets are more or less in Wizards' pocket if not trying to curry favor.

>>50885287
WotC is a retarded company and acts like it wants to die.
Our LGS just lost their WPN status because they don't pay rent.

>>50885684
WPN? Sorry, never heard that term and I´ve been playing mtg for a while.

>>50885684
Well that fucking sucks that your store lost WPN because now they can't get wholesale pricing from Wizards, which is really the only fucking reason why anybody would host FNM and all that other bullshit at a flagrant loss. Any retard who thinks singles sales balance the loss from FNM should be shot or is playing at a massive store with both walk-in and online sales.

But hey, it's obviously your LGS's fault for not marketing the fucking game enough right? Events not firing due to lack of attendance obviously is your LGS not trying hard enough and not fucking Wizards packing every playable card into the Rare and Mythic slot and scalpers making everyone have to play some stupid side-hustle investment game to play the fucking game.

>>50885857
WotC has gone full retard, they don't want anyone to make money with Magic. Not even the big stores since rumor has it SCG has been leaking money all year and CFB was forced to take the money sink GP Mexico City to keep GP Vegas.

>>50880454
Time asymmetry

>>50885725
WPN is basically a wizard associated store. they can hold FNM and get special WPN only stuff like modern masters and shit like that. i hear that being a WPN sore isnt worth it unless you do nothing but push MTG and not much out

>>50886203
Magic has made players treat the store as an antagonist.

Now think about that. Where you play games whether it be football, tennis, bridge, poker, board games, Magic - the field, court, casino, and games store is a home. The workplace is a home; the hobby venue is a home. The home is not there to fuck you.

But look at Magic - it has given players way too many fucking opportunities to hate their store. And it's all on Wizards because they are the regulator. And they are forcing stores to fire at a loss, not setting a fair admission standard ($5 a night and having to provide prize support is not fucking good enough; try running a business off seniors who sit around for three hours and order nothing but coffee), players bitch about a store's singles prices, players order online, players whine when it appears the store breaks MSRP but demands lower than MSRP prices, there's theft, there's conflict over selling cards back to the store because people don't fucking understand stores need to make money and have to buy cards at 30-40% retail.

An anon here from Mexico City says Standard can't fire in a city of 17 stores.

I'm at the point I want to see the game die just for the lulz.

>>50882711
Battletech did this back in the day, with convention tournaments deciding the canon of battles in the lore. Btek is an old mans game now though. Hopefully Harebrained's new vidya will pump some new blood back into the scene.

>>50885684
Maybe they should have paid rent.

>>50880454
What are you talking about? Hearthstone has more players than all those games combined.

File: 1482206363131.jpg (20KB, 243x240px)

20KB, 243x240px

>>50884268
Oh.... I do...

>>50886958
But they own the place.

>>50880454
Low visibility due to lack of lack of funds for marketing, as well the fact that it's harder to sell people on a new thing than on a thing they already like.

But really, it's mostly lack of marketing.

>>50887083
Heartstone is a video game.

>>50887146
Yeah, so?

>>50880454
Physical card games are a living fossil of entertainment. There is no demand for such games anymore besides few hipster /tg/ neckbeards and people who insist living in the past chasing after nostalgia of time when they still had friends. The world moved on, you stood still. That's why you don't see other games "reaching the popularity of MtG".

>>50887083
He obviously means physical card games, dude, try to keep up

>>50881484
>>50885263

Does it have an average lore and hstory over it? I mean, I know there is something, but is it just filling to sell the game or actually interesting enough on itself?

>>50887457
You're the one who should try to keep up. If you don't see digital card games as a natural evolution to tabletop TCGs, you'll be left forever wondering why your silly hobby died off.

>>50887534
Digital card games aren't card games. They're video games. The components could be chits, minis or pieces of shit and the gameplay wouldn't be any different.

>>50887574
That's like saying digital chess isn't a board game.

>>50887632
It isn't. It is a video game.

As per dictionary.com

>>noun
>>1. any of various interactive games played using a specialized electronic gaming device or a computer or mobile device and a television or other display screen, along with a means to control graphic images.
>>2. any of various games played using a microchip-controlled device, as an arcade machine or handheld toy.

>>50887687
That says nothing about board games. A game can be a video game and a board game at the same time. The definitions are not contradictory.

>>50887534

>You're the one who should try to keep up. If you don't see video games as a natural evolution to tabletop RPGs, you'll be left forever wondering why your silly hobby died off.

>>50887115
Did you mean they didn't pay some sort of dues for WPN instead of "rent"?

>>50887534

Maybe if the new wave of digital card games weren't designed for games that last for less than five minutes and let me purchase singles instead of grinding for eons/dropping loads of dosh on packs I'd be more inclined to agree.

>>50887534
You don't have to worry blizzfag, shadowverse will be taking your precious hearthstone place in a year.

Any of you fags want my L5R Spiderclan cards?

File: 1425507217628.png (72KB, 211x244px) Image search: [Google]

72KB, 211x244px

>>50887749
Maybe in 50 years when shadowrun is real and a DM can just think his campaign into the game world fully-formed so he and his players can slot themselves into it, this comparison will make sense. Until then, a TTRPG has options that vidya doesn't. Aside from the "I want to go to a LGS and buy specific cards for my deck" and the "I want to pay someone to have my waifu cards edited" options, there isn't really anything from CCGs that can't be reproduced in a low budget tablet app.

>>50888111
>"I want to go to a LGS and buy specific cards for my deck"
nothing stopping them from adding this to that low budget tablet app either except being jews

>>50888111

Online CCGs still miss out on the ability to tweak/make new formats and trade cards.

> a DM can just think his campaign into the game world fully-formed so he and his players can slot themselves into it

You know Neverwinter Nights is nearly 15 years old at this point. We've had that sort of tech a long ass time.

File: 1480020925885.gif (2MB, 720x402px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 720x402px

>Mentions Hearthstone
>Mentions Yugioh

>>50887632
>>50887720
Yes a video-game can be a board game. Final Fantasy Tactics and Age of Empires are theoretically board games.
But Heartstone isn't a card game. It's a strategy game with randomized components.

>>50887769
A WotC "inspector" complained that they were having a disparate growth compared to other stores and their own expectatives and accused them of doing something shady like buying from unlicensed distributors or w/e. The owner told the cunt they weren't doing anything wrong, he just didn't need to sink money on rent because he owned the place.

Next monday there weren't supported by the WPN anymore.

>>50887855
Shadowverse is one more waifufag shitfest. Those games will never do better than peak grognard market because unlike Heartstone, Pokemon and Magic, you won't have soccer moms wasting disordinate ammounts of cash to get one more activity on their kids schedule (so that the little fuck lets her slut it up on facebook).

>>50888191
There's nothing preventing them from adding user-customizable formats to those games other than lack of interest by the developers or their target audiences. Hearthstone is a shit game made by like 5 dudes in a basement at blizzard and even it supports more than one format, though only the ones the developers have added themselves. Card trading similarly has no technical barrier, it's just that the current games don't support it for whatever reasons they've cooked up internally they're jews.

Even games like NWN or VtM:R with DM modes that have been around forever have technical limitations on what the DM can actually do in the game simply because the developers can not possibly plan for every possibility. You don't have this problem with a card game, there are only so many possible board/hand/deck/sideboard/graveyard/phallus states and no potential to go outside of this design space.

>>50887534
Save it for 2066 /tg/. Until the day comes when we can sit in some pod that seamlessly uploads our thoughts into an online virtual reality space we are capable of freely manipulating then there will always be a distinct difference between traditional games and digital games.

>>50887720
There are tons of "card" games on Kongregate and other shitty flash sites. Hearthstone is the only "digital" card game that ever saw even moderate success

File: 1436470939197.jpg (215KB, 1280x720px) Image search: [Google]

215KB, 1280x720px

>>50887500
The anime series is actually really good as well, although it takes the odd stance of basically saying the only winning move is to not play. The flavour of the cards themselves is pretty weak, and mostly filling. The gameplay is really tight, though. I'd assert out of what I've seen or played (mtg, yugioh, pokemon, weiss schwarz, magi nation, force of will, hearthstone, and cardfight vanguard), its gameplay and basic rules are the most polished among them.

File: Its+an+apc+_60c9c543c09a85f4a0d8aa04ffe8a19a.png (24KB, 200x200px)

24KB, 200x200px

>>50880454
No memeing, I believe it's because they don't have an anime on saturday mornings to go with it.
Look at yugioh. The game isn't very balanced. Yet it's been able to keep itself afloat for over a decade and a half simply because yugioh has been airing for a decade and a half. This also means that the popularity is high enough for walmart and other retail stores to carry yugoih products, because kids see them and want to buy them.
Now look at Vanguard. Vanguard too has an anime to go with it, but the anime hasn't been put on that saturday morning slot like Yugioh has. They even dubbed it, but all the episodes are on youtube, not the TV. It never had that popularity boost so it will never reach the front page of youtube when an episode goes up unless it's a recommended channel. Because of this the support never reached the critical mass required for retail stores to stock up on Vanguard products. It's not popular in the states but I've been told Europe loves it for whatever reason. Also they at least had the brains to have google ads pop up for them.
Now look at Force of Will. Force of Will has no show to go with it, the only way you would know of it's existence is if your LGS tried to shill it to you or you saw the tag on tcgplayer.com and got curious.

TL;DR card games need marketing and japs rarely market overseas.

There's probably something about anime tiddies/aesthetics being a deterrent for non-weebs/neckbeards as well.

>>50884471
And somehow more popular.

Thats like when retards say WoW is an everquest clone

Even if it is, once it's more popular, it doesnt matter what you borrowed influence from.

Shakespeare didn't invent the tragic couple, but he created an iteration that became the most popular ever with Romeo and Juliet

Every person who created something great took ideas from everywhere they could, thats why they were great

>“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to."

>>50888417
To be honest I'm actually happy to hear that Wizards gives enough of a fuck to have people go on the road to see their stores. Because they sure as fuck have not visited my store in over a decade.

>>50888417
Name your store and location. I need third party confirmation of this, namely mine.

>50888677
>Kongregate
Is there literally anything good there?

>>50888453
PTCGO has trading so there literally is no excuse other than jewish tricks

>>50880454
Other TCGs just aren't as good as those three.

>>50882024
>Mitos y Leyendas
Is it popular in Spanish speaking countries?

>>50882500
It's MtG light mechanically speaking. Basically imagine Sorceries: The Main1ing, with both players running combo decks, and you have Pokémon.

>>50885857
>>50886685
My FLGS is tiny and refuses to sell singles during FNM for some reason. Despite this, I know they go close to cost neutral at FNM. I can't remember the last time they didn't sell half a box of Pokémon and EMN.

>>50887855
>>50888443
>shadowverse
Shadowverse has almost zero mechanical depth. It is Creatures: The Trading. That's it. Shadowverse makes Heathstone look deep. If it ever overtakes MTGO and/or HS, I will have lost all faith in the *CG community.

>>50888963
>Force of Will has no show to go with it
IIRC there is one pending.

>>50880537
>When you go 0-60 without reading the "end of road" sign
Kek

>>50888364
Man, that's a lot of hoops to jump through just to justify your personal bias.

>>50892681

>Despite this, I know they go close to cost neutral at FNM

See, the guy who runs the main LGS in a town of 3 has no entry fees for anything other than draft and prereleases. FNM, saturdays and sunday events are all free, with prize support. He doesn't even try to break even on them because he makes more money than the other two stores and can afford to take a loss to strongarm them out of a playerbase. So I'm not so certain you need to try to make FNM a good money-maker for your LGS to run one. You can make money off MTG by cultivating a userbase that will spend money at some point, that outweighs the prize structure you give out at events on average.

I know he makes a profit off the product, and he hates wizards because of their contrived rules of how the supply chain works, but he plays along with it specifically because he makes a sizeable profit in the end.

Its extremely difficult to make a well balanced and fun CCG.

Theres often a large capital investment that players have to make that few people would be willing to try without a great deal of positive feedback and other friends playing.

Its also not very profitable unless you're in the top 3-5. Really.

>>50888963

Honestly the only problem I have with getting into FoW wasn't the lack of marketing, or the anime tiddies. It's not like my LGS had to shill it to me to get me to notice it; the weebs showing up to play it were good enough. But that was the problem with it. They're all fucking weebs.

Bronies, non-ironic fedora-wearing weebs. One of them has a god damned faux-katana-cane for fucks sakes. They yell and scream because they don't understand polite social interaction and they're just all-around unpleasant to be around. Maybe in a bigger city I could find some more, I don't know, normal people to deal with in that scene but in this town it's only the most turbo-weebs who are into it. And that'll drive people away, because nobody likes to sit down across from a guy wearing a naruto head protector and a my little pony shirt to get yelled at because you played an interaction card and removed his resonator.

>>50892681
>IIRC there is one pending.
It'll be too little too late. Every FLGS in 100 miles of me that tried to push FoW has cashed out and dropped the game. The playerbase just died off completely. With the exception of Dragonball (which has seen a surge of popularity in my area), I've never seen a LGS pick back up a game they dropped.

File: image.jpg (199KB, 768x1000px) Image search: [Google]

199KB, 768x1000px

>>50885263
>tama
That's a weird way to spell Tawil.

And yeah, the art will keep it Japan only. Tried to get a cardgame playing weeb friend into it and even he was like, "I can't get over this."

Really a shame, because while a lot of Japanese card games are crap, they have interesting ideas that contrast Magic.
>damage is not always negative
>no dedicated resource cards

>>50887500
Eh, the lore is an interesting idea (monkey paw wish hunting) but not good, or original. And while I disagree with >>50888772 about the quality of the anime (I thought it was terribad with the exception of like one or two scenes), they're right about the core mechanics being super tight.

Each character can potentially feel very different too, while having multiple strategies. Story and lore is a bust, with a focus of the character personalities and play styles.

>>50880537
Were you dropped as an infant, anon?

>>50880454
MtG, Yugioh, and Pokemon already exist. The market is saturated.

>>50882990
People claim the Spider were the reason for the Dragon winning but it was really the combined threat of the Scorpion disbanding the Dragon and no one but wanting a Scorpion Emperor that gave the Dragon the Throne.

The Spider only lost in Spirituality by something like 2 points to the Mantis'. If things had gone slightly different during the last leg Mantis would have been the "disbanded" Clan.

>>50883042
People seriously misinterpreted what was going to happen after the Race for the Throne. The losing Clan was always going to get "disbanded" the Redemption or Destruction Hero storyline in Celestial. Spider just happened to "win" the storyline instead of the Dragon or the Mantis

>>50883120
Goddesses was a total mess. Scorpion had been working for months to funnel the destroyers into the Wasp capital. Suddenly instead of a unified battle with all the Great Clans there the final battle ended up at an unnamed Scorpion temple with the very disliked Gempukku Gang where Shogunate and Spider forces beat the destroyers.

i still dont get why magi nation died.

>>50895333
Isn't it still popular in Japan?

>>50896379
FoW was never popular in Japan. In fact, it died immediately after release you might as well consider FoW a western TCG.

>>50880454
It's extremely simple.

All of Jap TCG's/CCG's are based on anime tiddies and short-term marketing.

They make a profit and drop it, then repeat the process. There's no problem with that because there's TCG's/CCG's of everything in Japan.

They won't market it overseas because of all the censorship that would have to go with it, to put it out to stores and the exclusive weeaboo crowd to boot.

Pokemon and Yugioh have a franchise behind it. Even if both are shit at design, the huge franchisees and popularity among children + hard core fans are enough to push the sales through the roof. Though both could be reviewed in detail for certain factors.

MtG is simply one of the first and has fucking WotC behind them: The moment any real western competitor would arise - they'll take it to the court and kill it straight out, through sheer need of money/resources to deal with all the copyrights.

They also pay a lot of attention to balance and design, much differently than Pokemon and Yugioh, who push the constant sales through powercreeps in new products, so everyone who wants to stay competitive must buy new products.

Hearthstone is simply the old WoW TCG but taken to digital realm and now actually supported. Being digital and having a very very popular franchise behind it guarantees it to be extremely popular.

So, to sum up (TL;DR):
>You need a giant franchise behind your game
or
>You need it to be digital for even remote success (Shadowverse, etc)
or
>You need enough money AND a great design to battle through courts with WotC to put out a new western TCG/CCG.

LCG's don't work because people fucking love opening booster packs, pimping out their decks with shiny shit, having the elitism of being stronger/having rarer shit, etc.

It's a very shitty sales model in general as far as card games go and I'm amazed it still stays somewhat profitable.

>>50880454
i will never get how the majority of the games they introduced in pre duel monsters yugioh were infinitely more interesting than the card game but the card game took off

>>50895680
Only going off of memories playing as a kid, but it was extremely grindy (with few big, exciting swings), and games took a crazy long time, especially if you used the 3 characters per player per game rule.

>>50896595
>All of Jap TCG's/CCG's are based on anime tiddies and short-term marketing.
And yet Japan has brought out two TCGs of relevance and the west only got MTG.

>>50896595
>The moment any real western competitor would arise - they'll take it to the court and kill it straight out, through sheer need of money/resources to deal with all the copyrights.

WotC has nothing of note and what they have COULD easily be taken down, but it's a lot easier and cheaper to just go around it. Doomtown, Netrunner, Ashes, Jyhad and a billion other games wouldn't exist if WotC had any sort of substantial copyright. Just don't call it tapping and don't use that specific arrow and you are fine.

>>50896795
I've never said there's something bad with anime tiddies.

It's just part of marketing/design. Same as collectible cards with sports players, etc.

>>50896884
Copyrights work beyond just the obvious. I know nothing about Jyhad, but the other games you named are quite different from MtG in the base of their gameplay and there's quite some reasons for that.

>>50896966
>I've never said there's something bad with anime tiddies.
Its more the short-term marketing part I objected to.
It seems Japan has a lot more success keeping their TCGs alive than the western attempt are.

>>50896595
>short-term marketing.

Everything this anon said. Also all the Jap TCG suffer from sever power creep, and that's funny comparing it to MTG which have whole meme based on power creep but the comparison is no where close.

Who's using 1st edition Charizard anymore? Who using Blue-Eyes White Dragon anymore? The card that's literally built around the show. Now Pokemon and Yugioh have Monster (Hah) franchises to help suppose them- but they are basically selling baseball cards with sometimes people paying to get together and show off whose got the best rares (A tournament).
Every other anime card game suffers from this a thousand times over. I remember just tossing my Vanguard stuff when it basically because unplayable.
>Actually I will admit Yugioh tends to have good balance within "standard" format sets, but it still suffers from the above.

Magic? You may complain about power creep all you want. But who is still using Time walk or Force of Will? Oh Everyone? Everyone (In formats allowed).

This is important because it allows longer-term players to stick with the game because their cards are still worth sometime.

>>50897030
>Who using Blue-Eyes White Dragon anymore?
Actually Blue-Eyes got a entire archetype centered around it thats pretty powerful, so a lot of people do.

File: 433m12860_p0.jpg (277KB, 650x875px) Image search: [Google]

277KB, 650x875px

>>50895457
>Tawil.

she is ok.

>>50896966
Copyright, by definition, only protects Execution, never Idea. You cannot copy the rules of MtG exactly and you can't take any unique names they have claimed, but beyond that they can't really do anything.

Wizards had a patent concerncing specific parts of the game, but that ran out two years ago.

>>50897055
To be fair, that archetype is very new though and was made as an effort to appeal to nostalgia.

>>50895333
I hate this Death Spiral that CCGs have. I know it's because of the fact that they've had two market crashes (with a few survivors, so not total crashes), but it always goes the same way.
>Game Comes out, is modest success
>Takes even a temporary dip in popularity
>Game stores go "oh no it's not a new addition to the big three!"
>drop support
>Because of support drop, players leave
>more game stores drop support because of leaving players because they dropped support
>repeat ad astra for every single game ever that's not MTG, YGO, PKMN (sometimes), and maybe Vanguard

>>50895587
Found the cancerous Spiderfag. Thanks for contributing to the ruination of L5R.

>>50880537
So excited he had the chance to call someine retarded he didn't even bother to read the post a second time to be sure, have fun with all your worthless (you)'s

>>50896980
I'd say that the jap market makes a hell of a lot more games, but have a much higher failrate. They tend to get dumped after a few years as the power creep tends to run high and players get disinterested. Rather than try to fix the game, they just dump it and start fresh.
Meanwhile the west doesn't even try. I cannot name you one TCG that was made here in the past 5 years.

>>50898265
Say what one will about japanese tcgs, they seem to have a much wider market for them. Part of that is probably a factor of population and population density, but the variety they have over there makes north america look pretty heavily monopolized.

>>50898350
The market isn't wider, it's pretty much Kids and Otaku for franchised games and 100% for non-franchised. It's just that Otaku spend all of their neetbux on their current obsession, which essentially keeps the Anime, Idol and TCG industries running.

>>50898265
i mean. we have plenty of healthy living card games, if that counts.

>>50898528
I'd dispute that. Doomtown is dead, Ashes is dead in the water and so is Game of Thrones. FFG has axed CoC and Conquest. Star Wars and LotR seem to exist on stable ground but I've heard a lot of questionable things about Netrunner a while ago, but I'm not actively playing anymore, so I don't know if it got better.

>>50898782
game of thrones at least is still played a fuck ton. the second edition at least.

if you mean their first one, y thats dead.

>>50881887
It is. It's how I play. My daughter spends her allowance on at least one pack of cards a week, cause she collects them, and she gives me the online code. Works great.

>>50898782
>Ashes
isn't that they met their anual quota of expansions or there's something missing here?

>>50898782
>Doomtown
it still hurts.

also you seem to forget that they released Arkham Horror LCG.

>>50898911
The first one is really dead, yeah, but I was talking about the second one. Might be anecdotical, but at least in my neck of Europe the shoddy change and extreme supply shortage pretty much killed any interest in it. Barely any LGSes are still stocking it and no events are played, even in stores that have regular Netrunner events.

>>50899279
I was actually not aware this existed.

>>50899329
i have 2 lgs's within 500 metres of each other that have like 3 core sets in stock at all times.

>>50899365
Lucky you m8.
here nobody seems to give a single damn about LCGs or any other card game that is not MTG, YGO and Pokemon.

And what about games like Vs System and maybe Mage Wars?

>>50895243
You can literally change Heartstone's "cards" for pogs and it doesn't change the game at all.

>>50892681
>Is it popular in Spanish speaking countries?
Yes, it's the second best selling TCG in Mexico after Yu-Gi-Oh! and as mentioned before Mexico City moves enough hobby money to sustain 10 MtG-only LGS, plus 8 or so MtG+Boardgames+Other TCGs plus 10 or so Yu-Gi-Oh!-only LGS.

>>50895326
This is one big draw (and detriment) of Magic.
It has a lot of old players who've become relatively enjoyable and socially apt through age. But some of the oldest players heired the game to their millenial little brothers that won't stop tumblring up the LGS until nobody wants to go there because they're tired of hearing about their white privilege and how wrong it is to like tits in cards. Not to mention the Spikes.

Every game has a toxic community attached to it, it's up to us to find a decent playgroup to hang out with and ignore the rest.

>>50896966
>>50897150
You can infact copy Magic's mechanics 1:1 and be completely imprevious to legal action so long as you don't use any of the terminology, graphic design or IP material. Rules systems are not protected by copyright and their patent on tapping and color-coded resources expired.

The only reason anyone has "lost" a lawsuit to WotC is because Hasbro are giant bullies and other companies are tiny faggot bitches. If anyone actually took it to court Hasbro would lose.

>>50899460
Mage Wars Arena was a boradgame with cards instead of minis/tokens.
Mage Wars Academy didn't seem to attract anyone despite being pretty fun.

>>50880454
It seems collecting pokemon cards is more popular than actually playing the game. My sister had pokemon cards for years and she only learned how to play last year. She could care less if it is related to a game. Pokemon while popular, the cards will never be popular again I think.

>>50880454
I don't know why Yugioh is popular. The powercreep, non-standardized rulings, and limited archetypes seem like it would be very unfun.

>>50880509
Price

>>50900475
Anecdotal evidence, but the pokemon tcg has been exploding recently at my lgs. So much so that some nights the magic players are shuffled to the corner of the game room to accommodate them. I think you're underestimating how much kids love a place to hang out away from their parents, and game tournaments are one way of doing that.

>>50900592
Well I am glad I was proven wrong. Where I lived NOBODY played the card game.

So. there's future for the LCG/LCG-esque in the market?
how I motivate people from my area dare to try any game outside of the actual behemoths?

>>50902011
As someone mentioned earlier, LCGs will never quite be Magic level, because they don't have a secondary market (can't crack packs to fill the gambling itch, can't draft for the gambling/competitive itch, low resale value). That being said, getting a local meta going is completely possible. One of the benefits of the model is that by buying in, you have enough for 2-4 players, so you can hand someone a completely legitimate deck to try out against you. The only hard part is if your play style differs from something they'd like. So check out the site for the LCG you're trying to get people into and make decks in a few different flavors.

>>50880454
Sunk Cost fallacy. Players already spent $100s on the more popular games and they don't want to spend an equivalent on a new, untested one unless it's a surefire hit.

Switching Costs. If you switch to a new game, even just to supplement what you already play, you're never sure if there's a community, if your cards will see play, or if the game will even get support.

>>50882402
We can fix that. Why can't we houserule playing card MTG?

So people aren't willing to try anything new because

-Comfort zone
-Gambling
-isn't popular

and what else i seem to be missing?

>>50903115
Lower chance at re-sell once you're done with the game.
I mean even with M:tG it's not guaranteed because rotation and banlists, but at least you have a chance.

>>50903165
this is just ridiculous. I mean i like card games, I like when games try play around a new mechanic and such. but awe on me, every time I tried to bring something else new, people shortly ignore me and go back to their old games, heck, I can even bet that japanese games are more likely to become a success where I failed.

yes I'm salty and I can't avoid it.

>>50882711
Magic tried during Mirroden besieged, for what that's worth.

>>50904386
Mirrodin Pure was literally never going to be a thing. That whole event was done entirely to drum up hype.

>>50895333
In Barcelona there's a lot of LGS that push FoW a lot and there's a fuckton of events weekly (like one event everyday), also the community is growing in Spain in general.

>>50880454
>What stops other card games from reaching the popularity of MtG, Yugioh or Pokemon?

>>50882024
>>50896595
>>50897030
>>50897055
>>50902189
>>50903115

>>50880737
>>50881317

>>50881213
>>50881293
>>50881366
>>50881434

Quoting for truth. Worth archiving imo.

I'll add a few things
>MTG
The color pie thing is really strong. It's the Force from Star Wars meets Greek Elements meets D&D Alignment meets "what is your favorite goddamn color?"
It's super simple yet highly engrossing.
It's practically its own religion/worldview.

On top of that, planeswalkers and the multiverse of planes. A whole bunch of knock-off fantasy worlds. It's like living in the Marvel universe but with fantasy shit everywhere. Hyper escapism.

>Pokemon
Well handled, plays like vintage MTG.
If you want to play MTG at vintage power level just play Pokemon. Seriously, check it out.
Also Pokemon has its waifu game on point. All the girls are seriously hot without needing to be half as skanky as the shitty Japanese tcgs.

>Yu-Gi-Oh!
If Magic is middle-aged and Pokemon is the kid, Yu-Gi-Oh is the young adult.
It doesn't give a fuck if its life makes no sense, it's going to have fun.
As broken as the game is, it is very fun and as much as we all love to tease the cartoon - it resonated with many of us.
It remains unique as the only major franchise to actually be about people playing a tcg.
Any card nerd secretly fucking loves that card games are serious business in its universe and would gladly see themselves living in that world.
I think the Battle City part of the series easily finds its way into any tcg nerd's heart.
Yu-Gi-Oh! is an homage to the spirit of the tcg lover and ultimately tells people they can be pros with their shitty homebrews, which is what literally happens in Yu-Gi-Oh!'s canon.
It even manages to have the glorious waifushit without imploding.


Just my 2c, thought I'd spill my guts a little before taking a nap and hoping to return to see the thread still up.

>>50880454
It's mostly a matter of ubiquity, and the inertia that brings. Until one of the big three royally fucks up to the point of driving away customers en masse or an up-and-comer catches lightning in a bottle, Magic, Yugioh, and Pokemon will continue to remain the three most popular card games because they are the most popular card games. You can go into any Walmart or Target and get all three. You can get all three at most gaming shops. (And you can get Magic at virtually any gaming shop that isn't affiliated with a particular game company.) You can get Magic and Pokemon (not so sure about Yugioh) at a lot of convenience stores, even. And it's just about that easy to find opponents for those games.

In contrast, I love some of FFG's card games dearly, but I can only really get those at dedicated gaming shops (and even then I probably have to special order something I want), and I have to actively look for other players or recruit friends to play.

>>50882003
Well, you couldn't implement that in, say, Magic, for the simple reason that most of the highly competitive players don't care about the story at all. In fact, a lot of people base their opinions on characters on how the cards play, which means that getting a good card could lead to a character by which I mean Jace getting the axe.

>>50885287
>anti-consumer practices
like what

>>50905049
>I think the Battle City part of the series easily finds its way into any tcg nerd's heart.

battle city was probably where the series peaked since it's the last time we got anything good from the series until 5Ds which looking at what came after was clearly a freak accident

>>50905360
intentionally designing products that have low value contents.

>>50880537
>typing out what you think the post says instead of just copy/paste'ing it
why

>>50906776
I'm not sure what you mean. Sunstandard cardstock? Cheap ink?

Or are you talking about garbage fires like MM15? In which case, labeling that an "anti-consumer practice" is completely hilarious, absurd, and wrong.

I hope I'm misunderstanding you, perhaps you could clarify.

>>50880454
Similar to how MMORPGs can't really compete with WoW. these card games, by their nature, require an established and active fanbase to be worth getting in to, which for a lot of new people means that the already-popular ones like mtg are better options than experimental new ones. It's like investing in stocks, except you're investing time and effort on top of the money. The fanbase of one of these new games might die out, or there might skmply not be enough players in your area. On the other hand, the huge popular TGCs have proben that they are staying around and you will always be able to find other fans to participate in the game with.
Unless a new tgc does something magical and unheard of, they're doomed to be a cult hit that sticks around, and that's the absolute best case scenario. Most are cult hits that then die out withong a year or two, and some never get off their feet in the first place.

>>50906980
>copy/pasting
Even easier, you can literally highlight and drag text to the reply box. Maybe typing it out is some kind of phone-poster thing?

>>50907067
Even easier, you can highlight the text and click the reply number (in 4chanX)

>>50880454
One thing I think plays heavily into mtgs continued success that is easily overlooked is multiplayer. There are very few tcgs out there that support a group of friends in a circle just playing mtg like older generations play bridge. I think that social aspect is something that has really helped mtg over the long run, and which gets overlooked much more easily than many of the other reasons given in this thread already, which all also help.

I remember when there where four or five collectable card games I was interested in as a kid that were viable in any respect of the word. I dabbled in Star Trek and MtG. Is the market really fucked up these days?

>>50907042
Not all rares are created equal. The 3 dollar pack could contain a $20 rare card that everyone wants or a .50 cent rare that only fit in strange, wholly non-competitive decks, or even just plain useless.

Essentially, the packs are random. That's it.

>>50907086
Interesting. I don't have 4chanX, but that feature works for me as well. Nifty.

>>50907042
Designing things like duel decks or starter decks that are trash so that it will stay on the display/stock at the expense of LGS' money.

File: 14127884_p0.jpg (97KB, 600x847px) Image search: [Google]

97KB, 600x847px

>>50905049
Hey, finally a good explanation of YGO on /tg/.

Hell hath frozen over.

>>50880454
Ansewer: MtG, YGO, pokemon

No one wants to spend more money on a new system. Staying competitive is costly, helps if you have a shit-ton of free cards back from childhood.

>>50880454
Why is bushiroad such a shit company?

Cardfight was the worst TCG I've ever played. I'm not even anti-anime, just everything they've made plays like dogshit.

>>50907206
>Designing things like duel decks or starter decks that are trash so that it will stay on the display/stock at the expense of LGS' money.
No. Just no. WotC does not hurt LGS for fun, just profit, on occasion The DD's are kept low power level so they can be sold at (or below) MSRP instead of being gobbled up by investors and spikes. I'm not sure why an LGS would stock many of them (or why WotC would require them to), they always struck me as big-box-store sort of items.

>>50880454
Nothing. NuDBZ seems to be well on it's way to breaking through.

>>50905284
To be fair magics story has changed to the worse over the last year when they implemented the gatewatch and everything.

>>50907120
This is kind like WoW like some anon said.
companies/groups wants to become the Magic/YGO/Pokemon killer. and they kinda do not satisfy with a moderate success to they butcher the project.

>>50907042
>I'm not sure what you mean. Sunstandard cardstock? Cheap ink?
Yes, haven't you ever bought a precon? The cardboard is thinner and the ink is much darker.

The principal point is that non-Commander precons don't have constructed worthy cards anymore. And before you fag it up with your hyperbole, the best selling card from EMA was Counterspell, followed by Bloodbraid Elf and Peregrine Drake.

Old Duel Decks used to have stuff like Dark Ritual, Swords to Plowshares, Fact of Fiction, Mishra's Factory, Wirewood Lodge, Invigorate, Wild Mongrel, Basking Rotwalla, Golgari Thug, Electrolize. Shit that wasn't worth a gorillion bucks but was very constructed-playable, fun and welcomed both by casuals and old folks who appreciated seeing those cards again brand new. Nowadays Duel Decks are a bunch of shit from the block we just left or started.

Nissa vs Ob has Nissa, Ob, Desecration Demon, Abundance, Crop Rotation and that's it. Elspeth vs Tezzeret had Elspeth, Tezzeret, 2 StP, Crusade, Darksteel Citadel, Mishra's Factory, Seat of the Synod, Frogmite, Master of Etherium, Steel Overseer, Trinket Mage and Triskelion. (inb4 muh scalpers would buy it all!!!! That shit was worth like $70 on release and you could still find it at Wal-Mart six months later.)
There just isn't enough game in modern Duel Decks.

Psychatog, Lotus Petal, Recoil, Snap, Capsize, Flame Rift, Pyrostatic Pillar, Withering Boon, Tangle Wire, Contagion, Spinning Darkness, Dance of the Dead, Seeker of Skybreak, Quirion Ranger, the Mirage Fetchlands, the Lairs, Chainer, the Nantuko, the Nishoba, the Cephalids, the Dauthi, the Shadow Kor, There's a shitload of $0.15-$4.99 cards they could shove into precons and people would be smiling to see again pack fresh and readying their wallets even if they're not Force of Will or Tarmogoyf. But WotC insists on acting like Magic before Theros didn't happen.

>>50907635
The DDs are designed like shit on purpose so they won't sell and will instead shelfwarm creating an illusion of accessibility and granting WotC a big box market presence without needing to pay the much higher P.O.P. marketing fees.