As you all may know, I am a huge fan of card games, be it digital card games, trading card games, or even board games that has cards in it. I cannot wait for Wizards of the Coast to release their Transformers trading card game that will be announced later at San Diego Comic Con 2018. For now though, I would like to look back at the wide variety of card games that we had over the years since the first trading card game was introduced to eager players. These games are now discontinued and no longer in print but I still play them occasionally as they are fun and have great gameplay mechanics. So here are my Top 5 Dead Card Games.
1. Anachronism Card Game
Anachronism Card Game was a game developed by TriKing Games in partnership with The History Channel and features a wide mixture of historical figures in history. You play as one of the historical heroes, be it from the west or the east, while wielding historical artefacts and divine blessings from mythical gods. The game is set in an arena where you will be facing off your opponent’s historical hero with his set of armoury and blessings.
The game is fairly simple as you move around your hero around a fixed board to kill you opponents with your moveset and attack position written on your hero card. Although I played the game after the game was dead, it is one of the best arena-style card game there is out there with a simple to pick up rules and the best art depiction of our history.
2. Warhammer 40K Conquest
Fantasy Flight Games has created a lot of card games and board games which unfortunately met an untimely end. One of those card games is the Warhammer 40K Conquest which only lived for 2 years worth of cycle of cards. In this game, you play as one of the factions of either the mighty Space Marines, the overwhelming Orks, the empire of the Tau to other varieties of races found in the Warhammer 40K universe. You set out from planet to planet gathering resources and cards to battle it out and conquer as much planets as you can. This is a great game that I got into at release and would have continued to play if not for its untimely end.
3. World of Warcraft: Trading Card Game
World of Warcraft: Trading Card Game is one of those rare card games that had a chance to topple Magic The Gathering which was the prominent card game at that time. Unfortunately it had to end to make way for Hearthstone which has now become one of the largest digital card games. In the game, you immerse yourself as a hero wielding one of the classes available in the World of Warcraft while calling for allies, equipping weapons and armour, and casting spells to defeat your opponent. It was a great game and was a contender to Magic the Gathering in the past.
4. WWE: Raw Deal
This was truly a surprisingly great game, designed and published by Comic Images. The game had replicated the brutal action and epic scene of the WWE into a card game that can be played by anyone. You can be the Rock, Chris Jericho, the Hardy Boyz or any other WWE superstars smacking down your opponent on the ring. The game had strategic wrestling manoeuvres and on-time reversals which immerses the players as though they were the wrestling champion. I was disappointed with myself for not playing the game while it was still alive but I had great fun playing the game while I could get a hand on them.
5. Versus System
The Versus System (Vs. System for short) was a trading card game developed by Upper Deck entertainment and is my favourite dead card game of all time. The game features a wide mixture of heroes from the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Justice League, Green Lantern or other teams from the DC and Marvel Universe. You will gather your favourite heroes from Spiderman to Wonder Woman, locations and plot twists to build a deck of cards to play with.
Vs. System was a great game that really represent the battle between superheroes at different locations using different gadgets as though the characters had popped out of the comic books. It saddened me when the company announced the discontinuation of this amazing game and until now, no other superheroes games can live up to what Vs. System had brought to the card game genre.
There are other dead card games out there that you can now get for cheap to try out. These games shows the history, development and evolution of Card Games in general and some of them had great game-play mechanics but unfortunately could not survive. So, get out there in the wild and try out new stuff, be it from an old era or games set to be released soon.
Until next time, keep on summoning dragons and slinging those spells.
