You might know them, Pokemon or Magic the Gathering. Those are the two biggest trading card games. And because of the Lord of the Rings set, I’ve started to look at getting into Magic the Gathering again. Mainly for the Universe Beyond sets like Lord of the Rings, not the standard Magic the Gathering sets. But when you get into a Trading Card Game (TCG) what do you need to know? The TCG hobby is really a lot bigger than it might seem.

What Is A Trading Card Game

Let’s start out with the basics of what a TCG is. Because it’s important to understand some elements of it. A TCG is a game where you build a deck to face off against opponent or opponents. In standard Magic the Gathering and Pokemon, you will face off against a single opponent. There are formats where it might be team vs team or a free for all with multiple players, at least for Magic the Gathering.

But that’s only part of it. The other part is the blind buy system that these games employ. To create a market for trading cards, there are certain rarities for cards. In Magic the Gathering you see common, uncommon, rare, and mythic rare. Pokemon has a similar system. When you buy a pack, most of the cards you get fall into the category of common. Then uncommon being, well, less common. And you get a rare, but you might not get a mythic rare.

This is done to drive up the value and scarcity of some of the better cards. Hence making the game a trading, or it used to be called collectible card game.

Getting Cards

For getting cards, there are two main ways to do so. And I mentioned one above, or really both. But the biggest way is that you can buy packs. The downside to buying packs is that you don’t know what you will get. TCG’s use blind pack buys which means that it’s a random set of cards, the commons, uncommon, and rare or mythic rare, in that pack.

If you open enough packs you can find most of the commons pretty easily. Again, those make up most of the pack. But the mythic rare cards are much harder to find and would require a lot of hunting for them. That means that you, most likely, won’t pull the cards you want, or the number of them you want, without opening a substantial number of packs.

The other way is to buy singles. There are plenty of card shops, and often board game shops or comic shops will also have cards, which sell single cards. That way you can search down the specific card that you want. This method likely will cost more to get that card or playset of cards than buying a pack. But it is going to be cheaper than buying the number of packs needed to complete getting those cards.

Deck Construction

The final big element of the TCG’s is building your deck to play against someone. I don’t plan on going into all the details here. But each system has specific rules about how to build your deck and utilize cards. You use the cards you buy, either from packs or single cards, to complete decks.

You look for synergies between cards when creating a deck. What card will benefit from another card being in there to create an interesting combination. There is a lot that you can do in a good TCG to create many unique deck types and strategies. Some will be better than others, but building your deck, sometimes, is as interesting as playing a game.

Final Thoughts on Trading Card Game

Trading Card Games can be great. There are a lot of cool elements to them. Also trading card games can cost a lot of money. The decks that win tournaments are not cheap and actually a situation where you might be better off buying packs versus the individual cards, at least sometimes.

And one element I didn’t talk about yet is the addictive quality of TCG’s. The idea being that you buy a pack, you pull a great card. Now that $5-8 pack gave you back value of $15-100. Or, in the case of the Lord of the Rings set, I want to get certain artwork or certain character cards. So I might not get the value, but I am still chasing certain characters or cards. It is something that pulls people in to keep buying packs for that dopamine hit.

But the game, themselves, is a lot of fun. I don’t have experience playing Pokemon, but I played a lot of Magic the Gathering. And it’s a great system, sometimes rules heavy, but with a good flow. And I want to play more, it’s a matter of finding time and people to play it with. But Elves vs Hobbits, yes please, or maybe Hobbits vs Warhammer 40k? With the Universe Beyond sets, you play anything you want. And that is the fun of getting into these games. And what is keeping me from getting away from them completely.

Have you gotten into any TCGs? Which is your favorite?

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