EPIC TCG

So I stumbled upon a new C/TCG in card land: Epic tcg (http://www.epictcg.com/)

They are bound to go live around the end of January, I think, and rules + demo decks are up for download on their site.

So after downloading the rules and demo decks, I just have to say: ugh.. absolutely no inspiration at all. It is a trimmed down version from magic, without mana, just one card a turn play (magic type 4). 99% of the rules are directly taken from magic, without a single intend to try to create ones of their own, or combine some rules from other card games that proved successful.

The game looks actually fun to play, but the randomness (and power) of the cards makes it a little bit too much a normal rock/paper/scissors game. There is no restriction in which cards can work together, meaning that we will all end up stacking the same cards in our decks, since they are the most powerful, and don’t have any “costs” assigned to them. If I only get to play one powerful card each turn, I better make sure it IS the most powerful card, right?

They DO have a restriction in place: deckbuilding. If anything you need to keep your hands off, that’s deckbuilding. You are only allowed 18 "free" cards in your deck and 9 so called "gift" cards. Who will check that before I sit down to play each time? I think Young jedi deckbuilding rules taught us designers all a lesson to keep away from a player’s possibility to deckbuild.

You should restrict a player in playing all types of cards, like a player playing all rock/paper and scissors cards. Each deck should have its counterpart/opposite. Since there are currently no restrictions in playing cards, we will all end up with pretty much the same cards, and no real strategy or style to the deck and it will end up being the luck of the draw for the winner.

The rest is all familiar to magic players:
15 card sideboard, tapping, trample, flying, Att/Def stats, Life points, the Stack, etc, etc. Its all there with just a new name..

Too bad, the game actually looks kinda fun, but as I already commented on their message boards, it just does not stand out enough to do it for me.. Sealed and draft might sound like fun though..

I am glad that Wuxia Pian cannot be mentioned in the same sentence as Magic.. oops, I just did :P

After I saw the huge similarities that EPIC tcg has to Magic, I tried to find any similarities Wuxia Pian has with Magic:

1. 5 different warrior types in Wuxia Pian, 5 colors in magic (not counting colorless).
2. Starting hand size is the same.

And that’s it. I am actually pretty proud of that. Only two things similar to magic. Not that I hate magic that much, but I prefer to see new designs over old, proven ones.

I don’t care if Wuxia Pian never makes it past the lackey (lackeyccg.com) stage; at least I know I designed something “original”.

“original” in brackets, because I did take a lot of stuff from other ccg´s out there to improve upon (read: not literally copied).

I really feel sad for some new C/TCG´s out there in card land, why not create something new? Take a look at Dominion for example.

There is your design wonder. Something completely new, something fresh and fun to play. Why do we game designers get stuck on Tapping, att/def, stack and sideboard when designing a card game? Are all options already tried and died? Or do we all just want to ride on the same money bus that Magic is on, for example?

I surely do not (being not in it for the money surely helps), and I think that the rules so far for Wuxia Pian are standing out from other card games enough to be mentioned (and played!)

After all, in the end, I just want people playing Wuxia Pian, not wonder about its marvel (ahem..)