Magic the Gathering and other CCG's and boardgames discussion

[instantdeath999]

So, my brother and I are wanting to try some board and card games over the summer. Looking for some recommendations on great games for two players. I'm personally very interested in trying some strategy games.

Keeping in mind neither one of us has much experience with board games, though we've both got time, and both willing to deal with a learning curve. I'm really wanting to see some of the best the genre can offer.

[Der_Lex]

*cracks fingers* All right, here are some of my favorites. All are playable with just two players:

'beginner' games

- Dominion
Dominion is a so-called 'deck-building game' (which isn't the same as a CCG like Magic, because you buy the whole game in a box, it isn't collectable... although there are expansions). Both players start the game with a small deck of ten cards: three victory point cards and seven gold cards. Victory point cards win you the game in the end (whoever has the most points at the end wins), but are useless hand-filler while you're playing. Gold cards are used to buy other cards from the pool in the middle of the table, which contains victory point and gold cards of different costs and values, as well as ten 'kingdom cards', which have all kinds of special, unique effects. The trick of the game is slowly building a deck that's as much of a well-oiled machine as possible and gets you the most points in the end. It's a really fun, pretty fast paced game, and the sheer variety of different kingdom cards from which you can pick your set of ten (both in the base set and in the expansions) makes for a game that's always at least a little different.

- Small World
This game is comparable to Risk, but it's a lot more fun. Each player picks one of the numerous fantasy races in the game and starts to conquer as much of the map as possible (this is easy at first because there's a lot of empty spaces, but the board fills up pretty quickly, it's a small world after all. After that, there'll be a lot of fighting going on). Once you feel your race's markers are spread out thinly enough that you won't be able to conquer any new territory, you let your race go 'in decline' (markers are turned face down but remain where they are on the board) and pick a new race to start a fresh conquering spree. Each turn you get points for territories held by both your active race and your race in decline (and for several other things, depending on your races' special abilities) and after a set number of turns, the player with the most points wins. Easy to learn, and has a lot of player interaction, which is always fun.

- Puerto Rico
(I'm just going to steal the official description here): The players are plantation owners in Puerto Rico in the days when ships had sails. Growing up to five different kind of crops—corn, indigo, sugar, tobacco, and coffee—they must try to run their business more efficiently than their close competitors: growing crops and storing them efficiently, developing San Juan with useful buildings, deploying their colonists to best effect, selling crops at the right time, and, most importantly, shipping their goods back to Europe for maximum benefit. The game system lets players choose the order of the phases in each turn by allowing each player to choose a role from those remaining when it is their turn. No role can be selected twice in the same round. The player who selects the best roles to advance their position during the game will win.
The theme sounds a bit dry, but it's a lot of fun and takes a lot of careful planning and strategy to win.


'advanced' games

- Arkham Horror
AH is a cooperative game, which means that all players are playing against the game board instead of each other. Don't think this is easy, though. In fact, in a two player game I recommend each player playing two characters instead of one (effectively making it a four player game and using the rules for such), because otherwise the odds of the game winning are very, very high.
Arkham Horror is set in Lovecraft's Chtulhy Mythos universe, in the quiet little town of Arkham in the early 20th century. A Great Old One (horrible godlike monsters from beyond the stars that want to destroy everything) is trying to enter our dimension there and it's up to the players to stop it. You do this by moving your investigators around town, collecting weapons, items and clue tokens and fighting monsters, cultists and undead along the way, and closing dimensional gates before enough are open for the Great Old One to pass through. Even if it manages to pass through, though, you still have a last-ditch attempt at trying to kill it with brute force... but for most of them the odds of that being successful are very slim indeed.
The beauty of this game is that because of the sheer variety of components (great old ones, player characters, items, event cards) no two games are ever alike. It also has a beautiful build-up, going from an easy start to things getting incredibly tense and hectic. It's not an easy game to learn (lots of little rule ensure that you're bound to get at least one rule wrong in your first plays), but it's well worth the effort.

- Axis and Allies
This is a classic, and rightly so. It's basically the game Risk could only dream of being. Each player takes one side of WW2 and starts producing all kinds of different units soldiers, tanks, submarines, carriers, planes) and conquering territory in order to win the war. It's a game that takes a long time to play, but it's well worth it if you're looking for a game that relies more on actual strategy than random dice rolls (my main gripe with Risk. Axis solves this by having different units have different 'to hit' chances against each other. Good luck hitting a plane with a random rifleman).

- War of the Ring
As the name implies, this is a Lord of the Rings game. It's basically a game of two parts: on the one hand, it's similar to Risk and Axis and Allies in that you're moving units around the enormous, beautiful map in order to capture enemy strongholds, which is one way to win the game. However, in the meantime the Hero player(s) is also trying to secretly get the Ringbearer to Mount Doom in order to cast the ring into the fire and win the game, whereas the Villain player(s) are trying to find and reveal the Ringbearer, corrupting him one bit at a time each time he is found until he is fully corrupted and the Villain wins the game.
Do note that this is a LONG game. It takes about 30-45 minutes just to set up the board, and at least three hours to play. It's a gem of a game otherwise, though. It just oozes theme, the components are beautiful and it's a lot of fun to play even if it's quite taxing on the old noggin .
Having two very different ways of winning the game makes for interesting decisions in how to divide your resources, as well as giving ample opportunities to surprise your opponent.


CCG's

Most of the CCG's I used to play have, sadly, gone out of business. However, the best one to start with is still Magic: The Gathering. I recommend either picking up two intro packs from the core set or a so-called 'duel deck' which contains two slightly more advanced set themed decks.

Hope that helps you a little, although I'm sure other board game vets like Sayburr will have more recommendations for you!

[instantdeath999]

For whatever reason, Arkham Horror is really jumping out at me, but I'll probably want to wait awhile for that one, since it does seem a bit more complicated than the others.

I've actually never even played Risk. From the tone of some of your post, I take it you would recommend skipping that one? I've heard a great deal about Puerto Rico as well, and the more I look into it, the more Small Worlds sounds.

On card games, I likely will buy a Magic deck or two. I saw you guys talking about Warhammer a few pages ago, is that still not in print?

Thanks, you've given me a lot to look into

[Der_Lex]

I personally consider regular old Risk to be a poorly made game. It's well known, but it's not particularly good. My beef with it is that the randomness/luck factor is way too high for it to be a good strategy game, but that it doesn't lend itself well to being a good casual game either because it drags on too much. If you're in doubt about Risk, skip it and pick up Axis and Allies instead.

Arkham is not a good first board game to try, I have to admit, but it makes a good second. For a first board game, Small World is nice and accessible. I'm trying to find a copy myself as well before I go on vacation next week (always used to play with a friend's copy before I moved to a different city).

When buying Magic decks, read the descriptors to see what play style seems to suit you. In general, the five colors of cards translate in the following way: White - 'good', lots of healing/protection/buffs; black - 'evil', heavy on discards/messing with your opponent, often hurts you a little in return for hurting your opponent a lot; red - direct damage; green - big creatures; blue - subtle, deck manipulation (helping you draw more cards while blocking opponent's spells). Black/blue and black/white tend to be my favorite kinds of decks.

As for Warhammer, I think we were discussing the miniature game and not the card game, weren't we? Too lazy to scroll back.

[instantdeath999]

You may have been, I only skimmed.

For Magic, I've played a lot of the Arcade game, so I have a general idea of the rules of the game, but at this point I probably couldn't teach another to play. Still confused about how that damn "first strike" effect works.

As for Risk, that honestly sounds a bit like Monopoly. Monopoly is a lot more luck than strategy, but it's great dumb fun. You do make a good point about it going on for a long time, though. I'll likely just try Axis and Allies, and maybe try Risk for myself at some later date. More interested in the ones that you posted.

[Der_Lex]

If you've played the Arcade game, you know the basic gameplay.

First strike is actually quite easy: damage done by creatures with first strike is applied and resolved before normal combat damage is applied and resolved. That means that a creature with first strike can damage and kill a creature without first strike before the latter has a chance to do damage in return. It's basically an additional combat round before the actual combat round.

Creatures with double strike deal both first strike and regular damage (and yes, first strike damage carries over to the regular combat round if it wasn't enough to kill a creature).

[kiggidykev]

Yesterday, I saw a teaser for the new Planechase sets coming out and I'm psyched to add new cards to our Planar deck. Planechase is probably my favourite multiplayer variant because of the randomness and having to adapt to the planes' ongoing effects. One of the new Planechase sets is ninja-themed, so another bonus!

Also congrats to Ellie for making the jump to Magic and getting set with her own cards! Careful of the slippery slope that is deckbuilding.

[instantdeath999]

Lex, yeah, it was actually double strike I was thinking of, and how double strike and first strike work against each other.

[Dangimarocker]

I believe i started magic when i was in 6th grade and stopped about midway through 8th grade.
(Which was over 6+ years ago)
I had all my cards but eventually got rid of all of them (had a deck for each color.)
(Should have sold them at the local card shop instead of a garage sale too.. would have sold ALOT quicker..... dummy me.)

[Der_Lex]

Lex, yeah, it was actually double strike I was thinking of, and how double strike and first strike work against each other.

Well, it's as simple as that creature dealing damage in both the first strike combat phase and the regular combat phase. So if you hit a regular 4/4 creature with a 2/2 double strike creature, he gets 4 damage in total (2 first strike and 2 regular). If a double strike creature fights a first strike creature, they both deal each other damage in the first strike phase and, assuming they both survive, the double strike creature deals his damage once more in the regular combat round.

Hope that's somewhat clear!