Misplaced Pages

#869130

99-632: The WARS Trading Card Game is an out-of-print trading card game released by Decipher in October 2004 with science fiction themes , using game mechanics from the Star Wars CCG . After two releases, the game was officially "placed on hiatus" in May 2005. In 2004-2005, a number of short stories were published in the universe. Although the game continued to be on the indefinite hiatus, starting from 2010 it had received several new publications (three books and over

198-479: A baseball diamond according to cards representing baseball plays drawn from a randomized deck. Like modern CCGs, Topps' Baseball Card Game was sold in randomized packs and were collectible; however, it lacked the necessary strategic play that defines a CCG. Interaction between the two players was limited to who scored the most points and was otherwise a solitaire -like function since players could not play simultaneously. Other notable entries that resemble and predate

297-399: A player will begin playing a CCG with a pre-made starter deck , then later customize their deck with cards they acquire from semi-random booster packs or trade with other players. As a player obtains more cards, they may create new decks from scratch using the cards in their collection. Players choose what cards to add to their decks based on a particular strategy while also staying within

396-778: A CCG was not enough to keep it alive. They also had to support organized players through tournaments. Combined with a new dichotomy between collectors and players especially among Magic players, more emphasis was placed on the game rather than the collectibility of the cards. Plenty more CCGs were introduced in 1996, chief among them were BattleTech , The X-Files , Mythos , and Wizards' very own Netrunner . Many established CCGs were in full swing releasing expansions every few months, but even by this time, many CCGs released only two years earlier had already been terminated. TSR had ceased production of Spellfire and attempted another collectible game called Dragon Dice which failed shortly after being released. On 3 June 1997, Wizards of

495-593: A CCGs run or which have been banned from play can become of high value to collectors, such as Magic: The Gathering ' s Power Nine . There are similar games, usually inspired by CCGs, that should not be mistaken for CCGs: Many CCGs have also been remade into digital collectible card games (DCCGs), taking advantage of the ubiquity of the Internet for online play as well as for the potential of computerized opponents. DCCGs can exist as online counterparts of existing CCGs, such as Magic: The Gathering Online for Magic:

594-559: A cow to his expectations. Howe's school years were complicated by moves which took place with a timing that left the art classes full, and left him in classes like power mechanics. He did find his ability as a draughtsman to be profitable in biology class though, where he and a friend would produce renderings of microscopic organisms for classmates at fifty cents each. As a child, he collected the covers of paperbacks. His collection included items from Frank Frazetta , Barry Smith , and Bernie Wrightson . In his adolescence, Howe read The Lord of

693-571: A deck's content is limited and pre-determined, players select which cards will compose their deck from any available cards printed for the game. This allows a player to strategically customize their deck to take advantage of favorable card interactions, combinations, and statistics. While a player's deck can theoretically be of any size, a deck of forty-five or sixty cards is considered the optimal size, for reasons of playability, and has been adopted by most collectible card games as an arbitrary 'standard' deck size. Deck construction may also be controlled by

792-459: A degree and card art were chosen and cropped for more than 3/4 of the approximately 160 cards. The final version of the playtesting files have since been available on the Internet. Wars TCG cards contain striking original art from numerous professional freelance artists including John Howe , one of the world's best known fantasy illustrators. Another artist, Pamelina H., who is mostly known for her guitar art, also contributed artwork. The images on

891-454: A dozen short stories) first from Grail Quest Books, and then Arcbeatle Press. It was Decipher's only card game not based on a licensed property (the phrase "proprietary science fiction property" was repeated over many news releases). It also partly aimed at a large, pre-existing target market by using game mechanics modified from the Star Wars CCG  – a game itself so popular it

990-605: A few months. Magic continued a steady pace releasing successful expansion blocks with Odyssey and Onslaught . Decipher released The Motion Pictures expansion for the Star Trek CCG, and also announced that it would be the last expansion for the game. Decipher then released the Second Edition for the Star Trek CCG which refined the rules, rebooted the game, and introduced new card frames. Collectible miniature games continued their effort to take market share away from

1089-662: A final logo change the day before Gen Con 2004 and simplified to WARS Trading Card Game . It is most commonly referred to as Wars TCG without the idiosyncratic capitalization of the entire first word; or, simply as Wars and less commonly as wtcg . The first release, Incursion , came out on October 6, 2004, and had 330 cards. The second set, Nowhere to Hide , was released on January 7, 2005, and had 167 cards. Many more releases – three more total, at least – were planned dependent on market conditions, but by April 2005 Decipher had determined that existing sales and pre-orders for set 3 did not justify continuing

SECTION 10

#1732852789870

1188-611: A future Earth administrated by corporations; Gongens, descendants of East Asians living on Mars (renamed Gongen) following a continent-wide nuclear disaster; Mavericks, anarchists in the "Outer Rims" with penchants for cybernetic replacements. The two alien races are the Quay, a chitinous slave race with tribal tendencies and Mesoamerican - and Austronesian -styled proper nouns, and the Shi, an advanced race of floating, psychic aliens with proper nouns styled after Indo-Aryan languages. Meanwhile, among all

1287-536: A layoff of over 30 jobs. The excess product and lag in sales also coincided with an eight-month-long gap between Magic: The Gathering' s expansions, the longest in its history. In Hungary, Power Cards Card Game , or HKK, was released in 1995 and was inspired by Magic: The Gathering. HKK was later released in the Czech Republic. HKK is still being made. Garfield applied for a patent for "a novel method of gameplay and game components that in one embodiment are in

1386-483: A maximum hand size. Many games have rules enabling opposing players to react to the current player's turn; for example, a player may cast a counter-spell to cancel an opponent's spell. Games with such reaction systems typically define rules to determine the priority of reactions to avoid potential conflicts between card interpretations. Other games do not have such direct reaction systems but allow players to cast face-down cards or "traps" that automatically trigger based on

1485-537: A moot point as the CCG Market had hit its first obstacle: too much product. The overprinted expansion of Magic's Fallen Empires threatened to upset the relationship that Wizards had with its distributors as many complained of getting too much product, despite their original over-ordering practices. In early 1995, the GAMA Trade Show previewed upcoming games for the year. One out of every three games announced at

1584-570: A player's deck are considered a resource, and the frequency of cards moving from the deck to the play area or the player's hand is tightly controlled. Relative card strength is often balanced by the number or type of resources needed in order to play the card, and pacing after that may be determined by the flow of cards moving in and out of play. Resources may be specific cards themselves or represented by other means (for example, tokens in various resource pools, symbols on cards, etc.). Unlike traditional card games such as poker or crazy eights in which

1683-402: A prototype for a game called Mana Clash , and by 1993 he established Garfield Games to attract publishers and to get a larger share of the company should it become successful. When designing Magic: The Gathering , Garfield borrowed elements from the board game Cosmic Encounter which also used cards for gameplay, and from Strat-o-Matic baseball, in which players build a team of players before

1782-665: A rebooted Star Wars TCG, by Decipher and Wizards of the Coast. They followed the demise of the original Star Wars CCG by Decipher in December 2001, but they would see very little interest and eventually the two games were canceled. Other niche CCGs were also made, including Warlord: Saga of the Storm and Warhammer 40,000 . Upper Deck had its first hit with Yu-Gi-Oh! The game was known to be popular in Japan but until 2002 had not been released in

1881-501: A second print run called Beta (7.3 million card print run) and then a second core set called Unlimited (35 million card print run) in an attempt to satisfy orders as well as to fix small errors in the game. December also saw the release of the first expansion called Arabian Nights . With Magic: The Gathering still the only CCG on the market, it released another expansion called Antiquities which experienced collation problems. Another core set iteration named Revised

1980-416: A series they called Warsong. Those include: In 2021 Arcbeatle Press launched their WARSONG: Academy 27 series. Designed as a "slice of life" spin-off, it followed character Sang Mi on a terraformed Mars in the future. The stories were posted for free online over a weekly period. The first "season" would later be collected into a print anthology titled, Academy 27: School Days: Volume 1 . A second season

2079-420: A subset of the available cards, much like trading cards. The most common distribution methods are: Because of the rarity distribution of cards, many popular CCGs have a secondary marketplace , with players buying and selling cards based on perceived value. Many purchases are made to acquire rarer cards to help build competitive decks, while others are just for collection purposes. In some cases, early cards in

SECTION 20

#1732852789870

2178-458: Is a type of card game that mixes strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards . It was introduced with Magic: The Gathering in 1993. Cards in CCGs are specially designed sets of playing cards . Each card represents an element of the theme and rules of the game, and each can fall in categories such as creatures, enhancements, events, resources, and locations. All cards within

2277-583: Is considered a failure, along with its follow-up Portal Second Age released in 1998. By February 1998, one out of every two CCGs sold was Magic: the Gathering . Only 7 new CCGs were introduced that year, all but two being Wizards of the Coast product. C-23 , Doomtown , Hercules: The Legendary Journeys , Legend of the Burning Sands and Xena: Warrior Princess were those five, and only Doomtown met with better than average reviews before its run

2376-606: Is further refined as being a card game in which the player uses their own deck with cards primarily sold in random assortments. If every card in the game can be obtained by making a small number of purchases, or if the manufacturer does not market it as a CCG, then it is not a CCG. CCGs can further be designated as living or dead games. Dead games are those CCGs that are no longer supported by their manufacturers and have ceased releasing expansions. Living games are those CCGs that continue to be published by their manufacturers. Usually, this means that new expansions are being created for

2475-533: Is generally defined as a game where players acquire cards into a personal collection from which they create customized decks of cards and challenge other players in matches. Players usually start by purchasing a starter deck that is ready to play, but additional cards are obtained from randomized booster packs or by trading with other players. The goal of most CCGs is to beat one's opponent by crafting customized decks that play to synergies of card combinations. Refined decks will try to account for randomness created by

2574-418: Is not good. Players then take turns. While the turn format is different depending on the game, typically it is broken into distinct phases, and all of their resources are reset so they may be used that turn. Players draw a card, play any number of cards by drawing from available resources, and make one or more attacks on their opponent. If necessary, there may be a cleanup step, including discarding cards to reach

2673-547: Is not known if the game was intended to be a standalone product or something altogether different like Top Trumps . The game consisted of a limited 112 cards and never saw manufacture past the marketing stage. The first pre-CCG to make it to market was the Baseball Card Game , released by Topps in 1951 as an apparent followup to a game from 1947 called Batter Up Baseball by Ed-u-Cards Corp. Players created teams of hitters , represented by cards, and moved them around

2772-570: The Digimon Collectible Card Game . An interesting CCG released by Upper Deck was called the Vs. System . It incorporated the Marvel and DC Comics universes and pitted the heroes and villains from those universes against one another. Similarly, the game UFS: The Universal Fighting System used characters from Street Fighter , Soul Calibur , Tekken , Mega Man , Darkstalkers , etc. This CCG

2871-617: The Pokémon TCG to the mass market (the original Japanese version of the game having been released by Media Factory in 1996). The game benefited from the Pokémon fad also of that year. At first, there was not enough product to meet demand. Some retailers perceived the shortage to be, in part, related to Wizards' recent purchase of the Game Keeper stores where it was assumed they received Pokémon shipments more often than non-affiliated stores. By

2970-482: The École des arts décoratifs . He cites his experience of this period as follows: The first year was spent not understanding much, the second at odds with what I did manage to understand, and the third eager to get out, although in retrospect I certainly owe whatever clarity of thought I possess to the patience of the professor of Illustration. Throughout his first years in Europe, Howe was taking in as much as he could in

3069-499: The CCG are Strat-O-Matic , Nuclear War , BattleCards , and Illuminati . Allen Varney of Dragon Magazine claimed the designer of Cosmic Encounter , published in 1979, Peter Olotka , spoke of the idea of designing a collectible card game as early as 1979. Prior to the advent of the CCG, the market for alternative games was dominated by role-playing games (RPG), in particular Dungeons & Dragons by TSR . Wizards of

WARS Trading Card Game - Misplaced Pages Continue

3168-512: The CCG market being less likely to take risks on new and original intellectual properties, but instead, it would invest in CCGs that were based on existing franchises. Cartoons, movies, television, and books influenced the creation of such CCGs as Harry Potter , The Lord of the Rings , A Game of Thrones , Buffy the Vampire Slayer , Yu-Gi-Oh! and two Star Wars CCGs: Jedi Knights and

3267-520: The CCG market with the releases of HeroClix and MechWarrior in 2002 but saw limited success. The next few years saw an increase in the number of companies willing to start a new CCG, partly owing to the success of Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! . New CCGs entered the market, many of which tried to continue the trend of franchise tie-ins. Notable entries include The Simpsons , SpongeBob SquarePants , Neopets , G.I. Joe , Hecatomb , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and many others. Duel Masters

3366-406: The CCG typically share the same common backside art , while the front has a combination of proprietary artwork or images to embellish the card along with instructions for the game and flavor text . CCGs are typically themed around fantasy or science fiction genres, and have also included horror themes, cartoons , and sports , and may include licensed intellectual properties . Generally,

3465-635: The Coast (Wizards), a new company formed in Peter Adkison 's basement in 1990, was looking to enter the RPG market with its series called The Primal Order which converted characters to other RPG series. After a lawsuit from Palladium Books which could have financially ruined the company, Wizards acquired another RPG called Talislanta . This was after Lisa Stevens joined the company in 1991 as vice president after having left White Wolf . Through their mutual friend Mike Davis, Adkison met Richard Garfield who at

3564-489: The Coast announced that it had acquired TSR and its Dungeons & Dragons property which also gave them control of Gen Con. Wizards now had its long-sought role-playing game, and it quickly discontinued all plans to continue producing Dragon Dice or resuming production of the Spellfire CCG. Decipher was now sanctioning tournaments for their Star Trek and Star Wars games, with the latter also enjoying strong success from

3663-655: The Five Rings , Star Wars , Lord of the Rings , Vampire: The Eternal Struggle , and World of Warcraft . Many other CCGs were produced but had little or no commercial success. Recently, digital collectible card games (DCCGs) have gained popularity, spurred by the success of online versions of CCGs like Magic: The Gathering Online , and wholly digital CCGs like Hearthstone . CCGs have further influenced other card game genres, including deck-building games like Dominion , and " Living card games " developed by Fantasy Flight Games . A collectible card game (CCG)

3762-468: The Five Rings , and SimCity . Jyhad saw a makeover and was renamed as Vampire: The Eternal Struggle to distance itself from the Islamic term jihad as well as to get closer to the source material. The Star Trek CCG from Decipher was almost terminated after disputes with Paramount announced that the series would end in 1997. But by the end of the year, the situation was resolved and Decipher regained

3861-399: The Gathering , as wholly original card games that take advantage of the digital space, such as Hearthstone , or in many other forms. Regular card games have been around since at least the 1300s. The Base Ball Card Game , a prototype from 1904, is a notable precursor to CCGs because it had a few similar qualities but it never saw production to qualify it as a collectible card game. It

3960-525: The Origins Convention. By September, Wizards was awarded a patent for its "Trading Card Game". Later in October, Wizards announced that it would seek royalty payments from other CCG companies. Allegedly, only Harper Prism announced its intention to pay these royalties for its game Imajica . Other CCGs acknowledged the patent on their packaging. 1997 saw a slow down in the release of new CCG games. Only 7 new games came out, among them: Dune: Eye of

4059-601: The Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien . He said he got "a real spark" from the Tolkien Calendars of paintings by the Brothers Hildebrandt , which showed him that Tolkien's books could be illustrated . Howe made drawings of his own versions of the scenes depicted in the calendar. These drawings, according to Howe, may not have survived. A year after his high school graduation, Howe moved to Strasbourg, France to attend college. The following year, he enrolled into

WARS Trading Card Game - Misplaced Pages Continue

4158-446: The Storm , Babylon 5 , Shadowrun , Imajica and Aliens/Predator . Babylon 5 saw moderate success for a few years before its publisher Precedence succumbed to a nonrenewal of its license later on in 2001. Also in 1997, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle ceased production. However, Wizards of the Coast attempted to enter a more mainstream market with the release of a simplified version of Magic , called Portal . Its creation

4257-656: The Tolkien artist Alan Lee served as chief conceptual designers for Peter Jackson 's The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy . Howe illustrated the Lord of the Rings board game created by Reiner Knizia, and re-illustrated the maps of The Lord of the Rings , The Hobbit , and The Silmarillion in 1996–2003. His work includes images of mythological material such as the Old English epic poem Beowulf (such as Knizia's board game Beowulf: The Legend ). Howe illustrated many books in

4356-519: The United States. The game was mostly distributed to national retailers, with hobby stores added to their distribution afterward. By the end of 2002, the game was the top CCG even though it was nowhere near the phenomenon that Pokémon was. The card publisher Precedence produced a new CCG in 2001 based on the Rifts RPG by Palladium . Rifts had top-of-the-line artwork but the size of the starter deck

4455-574: The actions of the opposing player. Specific game cards are most often produced in various degrees of scarcity, generally denoted as fixed (F), common (C), uncommon (U), and rare (R). Some games use alternate or additional designations for the relative rarity levels, such as super- , ultra- , mythic- or exclusive rares . Special cards may also only be available through promotions, events, purchase of related material, or redemption programs. The idea of rarity borrows somewhat from other types of collectible cards, such as baseball cards , but in CCGs,

4554-409: The baseball game itself is played. In 1993 a "new kind of card game" appeared. It was different because the player could not buy all the cards at once. Players would first buy starter decks and then later be encouraged to buy booster packs to expand their selection of cards. What emerged was a card game that players collected and treasured but also played with. The first collectible card game created

4653-586: The cards depicted the science fiction drama unfolding as each expansion followed the planned 10 year story arc. The final version of the playtest files for the Edge of a Sword expansion has since been made publicly available at least as early as July, 2007. Mongoose Publishing released the WARS Roleplaying Game in 2005, based on the card game setting. Originally, Decipher published a number of short stories ( The War Store listed twenty two) for free to promote

4752-427: The cash winners from that event never getting their prizes paid out to them. Its official name was in constant flux between April and August 2004. The game was originally called WARS: The Mumon Rip , then WARS: The Mumon Rift following a player suggestion on Decipher's old Calder forums. The game then went through a logo change and was referred to officially as The Mumon Rift WARS Trading Card Game before undergoing

4851-450: The creature can only be blocked by other creatures with flying. Each card also generally represents some specific element derived from the game's genre, setting, or source material. The cards are illustrated and named for these source elements, and the card's game function may relate to the subject. For example, Magic: The Gathering is based on the fantasy genre, so many of the cards represent creatures and magical spells from that setting. In

4950-420: The development of theme decks. Successful CCGs typically have thousands of unique cards through multiple expansions. Magic: The Gathering initially launched with 300 unique cards and currently has more than 22,000 as of March 2020 . The first CCG, Magic: The Gathering , was developed by Richard Garfield and published by Wizards of the Coast in 1993 and its initial runs rapidly sold out that year. By

5049-568: The end of 1994, Magic: The Gathering had sold over 1 billion cards, and during its most popular period, between 2008 and 2016, it sold over 20 billion cards. Magic: The Gathering ' s early success led other game publishers to follow suit with their own CCGs in the following years. Other successful CCGs include Yu-Gi-Oh! which is estimated to have sold about 35 billion cards as of January 2021 , and Pokémon which has sold over 64 billion cards as of March 2024 . Other notable CCGs have come and gone, including Legend of

SECTION 50

#1732852789870

5148-457: The expansion of Fallen Empires released in November 1994. Combined with the releases of 9 other CCGs, among them Galactic Empires , Decipher 's Star Trek , On the Edge , and Super Deck! . Steve Jackson Games , which was heavily involved in the alternative game market, looked to tap into the new CCG market and figured the best way was to adapt their existing Illuminati game. The result

5247-399: The fabric of the universe, alien warriors emerge to fight an already embattled humanity. The sky is burning. The Gateless Gate has opened. The cosmic rip meanders like a burning string across the galaxy and slices through the asteroid field near the orbit of Jupiter. The great opening becomes known as, 'The Mumon Rift' ...". Humanity has split itself into three factions: Earthers, based around

5346-835: The fantasy genre, such as those by Robin Hobb . He contributed to the film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis , The Chronicles of Narnia . In 2005 a limited edition of George R. R. Martin 's novel A Clash of Kings was released by Meisha Merlin , with numerous illustrations by Howe. Howe has illustrated cards for the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game. For The Hobbit films, original director Guillermo del Toro and replacement director Peter Jackson consulted with both Howe and fellow concept artist Alan Lee to ensure continuity of design. Howe

5445-408: The first new expansion in three years called Sabbat War . Wizards of the Coast introduced a new sports CCG called MLB Showdown as well. Decipher released its final chronological expansion of the original Star Wars trilogy called Death Star II and would continue to see a loss in sales as interest waned in succeeding expansions, and their Star Wars license was not being renewed. Mage Knight

5544-483: The form of trading cards" that includes claims covering games whose rules include many of Magic ' s elements in combination, including concepts such as changing the orientation of a game component to indicate use (referred to in the Magic and Vampire: The Eternal Struggle rules as " tapping ") and constructing a deck by selecting cards from a larger pool. Garfield was granted the patent in 1997, which he then transferred

5643-541: The game and official game tournaments are occurring in some fashion. Each game has a fundamental set of rules that describes the players' objectives, the categories of cards used in the game, and the basic rules by which the cards interact. Each card will have additional text explaining that specific card's effect on the game. Many games utilize a set of keywords to simplify the card text, with keywords referring to common gameplay rules. For example, Magic: The Gathering has about 25 common keywords such as "flying", meaning

5742-475: The game or even to justify publishing the third set. Further planned product releases as of December 2004 were to be called Edge of a Sword (167 cards, 18-card collectible foil subset, May 2005), Motion of Mind (330+ cards, 18-card collectible foil subset, September 2005), and Eye of Insight (167 cards, 18-card collectible foil subset, January 2006). Edge of a Sword was actually very far into its development; most cards were already written and playtested to

5841-401: The game's rules. Some games, such as Magic: the Gathering , limit how many copies of a particular card can be included in a deck; such limits force players to think creatively when choosing cards and deciding on a playing strategy. Cards come in several broad categories. Common categories, in addition to the aforementioned resource cards, include creatures that are summoned into battle who attack

5940-407: The game, a dragon is illustrated as a reptilian beast, has higher stats than smaller creatures, and has the aforementioned "flying" keyword. Flavor text on cards is frequently used to provide a narrative for story-driven games or sometimes as humorous asides. The bulk of games are designed around a resource system by which the pace of each game is controlled. Frequently, the cards which constitute

6039-580: The genre. Pokémon ' s mainstream success in the CCG world also highlighted an increasing trend of CCGs being marketed with existing intellectual properties, especially those with an existing television show, such as a cartoon . New CCGs introduced in 2000 included notable entries in Sailor Moon , The Terminator , Digi-Battle , Dragon Ball Z Collectible Card Game , Magi-Nation and X-Men . Vampires: The Eternal Struggle resumed production in 2000 after White Wolf regained full rights and released

SECTION 60

#1732852789870

6138-438: The goal of a match is to play cards that reduce the opponent's life total to zero before the opponent can do the same. Some games provide for a match to end if a player has no more cards to draw in their deck. After determining which player goes first by coin flip or other means, players start by shuffling their decks and drawing an initial hand. Many games allow for a player to take a mulligan if they believe their starting hand

6237-402: The independent Arcbeatle indie series 10,000 Dawns in the novella And Today, You . The crossover was made possible by the fact that Arcbeatle Press had the licensing rights to WARS and Cwej . It acted as a 10th anniversary special for the company and a teaser for the upcoming second "season" of Academy 27 . In 2010, company Grail Quest Books received the license to publish books based on

6336-420: The industry that originated from the "success of Magic". In early 1996, the CCG market was still reeling from its recent failures and glut of products, including the release of Wizards' expansion Homelands which was rated as the worst Magic expansion to date. The next two years would mark a "cool off" period for the over-saturated CCG market. Additionally, manufacturers slowly came to understand that having

6435-454: The initial shuffling of the deck, as well as the opponent's actions, by using complementary and preferably efficient cards. The exact definition of what makes a CCG is varied, as many games are marketed under the "collectible card game" moniker. The basic definition requires the game to resemble trading cards in shape and function, be mass-produced for trading and/or collectibility, and have rules for strategic gameplay. The definition of CCGs

6534-479: The level of rarity also denotes the significance of a card's effect in the game, i.e., the more powerful a card is in terms of the game, the greater its rarity. A powerful card whose effects were underestimated by the game's designers may increase in rarity in later reprints. Such a card might even be removed entirely from the next edition, to further limit its availability and its effect on gameplay. Most collectible card games are distributed as sealed packs containing

6633-516: The license to the Star Trek franchise along with Deep Space Nine , Voyager and the movie First Contact . The enthusiasm from manufacturers was very high, but by the summer of 1995 at Gen Con , retailers had noticed CCG sales were lagging. The Magic expansion Chronicles was released in November and was essentially a compilation of older sets. It was maligned by collectors and they claimed it devalued their collections. Besides this aspect,

6732-546: The license. Arcbeatle's first book was originally supposed to be published in 2021. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was delayed. Post COVID, the company would re-release the first two novels published by Grail Quest under the WARSONG line, before publishing the final intended book of the saga in 2023. Trading card game A collectible card game ( CCG ), also called a trading card game ( TCG ) among other names,

6831-676: The limits of the rule set. Games are commonly played between two players, though multiplayer formats are also common. Gameplay in CCG is typically turn-based, with each player starting with a shuffled deck, then drawing and playing cards in turn to achieve a win condition before their opponent, often by scoring points or reducing their opponent's hit points . Dice , counters , card sleeves , or play mats may be used to complement gameplay. Players compete for prizes at tournaments . Expansion sets are used to extend CCGs, introducing new gameplay strategies and narrative lore through new cards in starter decks and booster packs, that may also lead to

6930-401: The market was still reeling from too much product as Fallen Empires still sat on shelves alongside newer Magic expansions like Ice Age . The one new CCG that retailers were hoping to save their sales, Star Wars , was not released until very late in December. By then, Wizards of the Coast, the lead seller in the CCG market had announced a downsizing in their company and it was followed by

7029-424: The opposing player and block their creatures' attacks; enchantments that buff or debuff these creatures' attributes and abilities; events, such as magic spells, that may have an immediate or ongoing resolution to one or more cards in play; and locations or story cards that present specific conditions impacting all actions. Each match is generally one-on-one, but many games have variants for more players. Typically,

7128-556: The patent to Wizards of the Coast . The patent has aroused criticism from some observers, who believe it may have stifled growth of other CCGs, and looked to have some of its claims to be invalid. Peter Adkison, CEO of Wizards at the time, remarked that his company was interested in striking a balance between the "free flow of ideas and the continued growth of the game business" with "the ability to be compensated by others who incorporate our patented method of play into their games". Adkison continued to say they "had no intention of stifling"

7227-568: The public that it was losing the Lucasfilm license for the Star Wars CCG ( SWCCG ). In late April 2004, the game was officially announced in a Radio Free Decipher webcast as the spiritual follow-up to SWCCG , and the game immediately attracted massive attention from the hobby industry. For instance, at its public debut at Gen Con 2005, an introductory tournament using free demo decks is still Decipher's best-attended event in its existence, numbering over 200 people. There are still open-ended issues with

7326-405: The public, John Howe conceived the Quay extraterrestrial race, and physicists were consulted to improve the scientific plausibility of the game's backdrop premises (but which were never fully revealed). Immediately before its release, an entire soundtrack was also composed for the game by Kieran Yanner . From Decipher's April 30, 2004, press release: "It is Earth-year 2391. Through a vast tear in

7425-523: The races, individuals with special abilities, called "Kizen", began appearing. Thus far the Kizen are mostly used as a gameplay device, but there were originally plans to introduce an anti-Kizen conflict storyline as well as somehow tie them with wave function collapse quantum mechanics to explain connections between Shi and humans. Its existence was first hinted at in January 2002, shortly after Decipher revealed to

7524-621: The re-released Star Wars Special Edition films. The Star Wars CCG would remain the second best-selling CCG until the introduction of Pokémon to the United States in 1999. Wizards continued acquiring properties and bought Five Rings Publishing Group , Inc., creators of the Legend of the Five Rings CCG, Star Trek: The Next Generation collectible dice game, and the soon to be released Dune CCG, on 26 June. Wizards also acquired Andon Unlimited which by association gave them control over

7623-486: The rest of the CCG market, Magic had recovered and Wizards learned from its lessons of 1995 and early 1996. Players still enjoyed the game and were acquiring its latest expansions of Tempest , Stronghold , Exodus and by year's end, Urza's Saga which added new enthusiasm to Magic's fanbase in light of some of the cards being "too powerful". In early 1999, Wizards released the English-language version of

7722-443: The series under the umbrella title WARS: The Battle of Phobos . Originally, three were supposed to be published, but only two would end up being put out before the series was cancelled. The license was eventually reverted to Arcbeatle Press, who began to publish their own novels under the WARSONG logo. This was inspired by president and owner James Wylder , who is a noted fan of the series and worked with Grail Quest when they had

7821-467: The show was a CCG. Publishers other than game makers were now entering the CCG market such as Donruss , Upper Deck , Fleer , Topps , Comic Images , and others. The CCG bubble appeared to be on everyone's mind. Too many CCGs were being released and not enough players existed to meet the demand. In 1995 alone, 38 CCGs entered the market, the most notable among them being Doomtrooper , Middle-earth , OverPower , Rage , Shadowfist , Legend of

7920-741: The summer of 1999, the Pokémon TCG became the first CCG to outsell Magic: The Gathering . The success of Pokémon brought renewed interest to the CCG market and many new companies began pursuing this established customer base. Large retail stores such as Walmart and Target began carrying CCGs and by the end of September, Hasbro was convinced on its profitability and bought Wizards of the Coast for $ 325 million (equivalent to $ 594.4 million in 2023). A small selection of new CCGs also arrived in 1999, among them Young Jedi , Tomb Raider , Austin Powers , 7th Sea and The Wheel of Time . By 2000,

8019-419: The time was a doctoral student. Garfield and Davis had an idea for a game called RoboRally and pitched the idea to Wizards of the Coast in 1991, but Wizards did not have the resources to manufacture it and instead challenged Garfield to make a game that would pay for the creation of RoboRally. This game would require minimal resources to make and only about 15–20 minutes to play. In December 1991, Garfield had

8118-715: The torch from their Star Wars CCG to WARS . WARS kept most of the gameplay mechanics from their Star Wars game, but transferred them to a new and original setting. The game did not do particularly well, and after two expansions, the game was canceled in 2005. The other new CCG was .hack //Enemy which won an Origins award. The game was also canceled in 2005. Plenty of other CCGs were attempted by various publishers, many that were based on Japanese manga such as Beyblade , Gundam War , One Piece , Inuyasha , Zatch Bell! , Case Closed , and YuYu Hakusho . Existing CCGs were reformatted or rebooted including Dragon Ball Z as Dragon Ball GT and Digimon D-Tector as

8217-407: The trading card game, bringing on Michael A. Stackpole and John Howe to create the universe. The short stories were written by Stackpole (6), Chuck Kallenbach (6), Mark Tuttle (3), Michael O'Brien (2), Tim Ellington (2), Kyle Heuer (1), Erika Stensvaag (1) and Evan Lorentz (1). On the 15th anniversary of the game, in 2020, Arcbeatle Press begun to publish free short stories to mark the occasion in

8316-494: The volatility of the CCG market was familiar to its retailers. They foresaw Pokémon's inevitable fall from grace as the fad reached its peak in April of that year. The panic associated with the overflooding of the CCGs from 1995 and 1996 was absent and the retailers withstood the crash of Pokémon . Yet CCGs benefited from the popularity of Pokémon and they saw an uptick in the number of CCGs released and an overall increased interest in

8415-636: The way of art, architecture and everything that was "simultaneously ancient and novel." He says the only piece of his art work that survived from this period is his "The Lieutenant of the Black Tower of Barad-dûr ", a piece inspired by Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings . He says if this is not his first published piece, it must certainly be the earliest. Howe's earliest commissions included political cartoons, magazine illustrations, comics, animated films, advertising, of which he says were nightmares. He said that he would end up redoing sketches so many times that there

8514-465: Was Illuminati: New World Order which followed with two expansions in 1995 and 1998. Another entry by Wizards of the Coast was Jyhad . The game sold well, but not nearly as well as Magic ; however, it was considered a great competitive move by Wizard as Jyhad was based on one of the most popular intellectual properties in the alternative game market which kept White Wolf from aggressively competing with Magic . By this time, however, it may have been

8613-400: Was Magic: The Gathering , invented by Richard Garfield , and patented by Wizards of the Coast in 1993. The game has remained popular, with Wizards of the Coast claiming it to be the most widely played CCG as of 2009. It was based on Garfield's game Five Magics from 1982. Originally, Mana Clash was designed with Wizards in mind, but the suit between Palladium Books and Wizards

8712-498: Was Peter Adkisson's decision to resign and Lisa Stevens whose job ended when The Duelist magazine (published by Wizards of the Coast) was canceled by the parent company. With Adkisson went Wizards' acquisition of Gen Con and the Origins Convention went to GAMA. Hasbro also ceased production of Legends of the Five Rings in 2000, but its production resumed when after it was sold to Alderac in 2001. The years 2001 and 2002 progressed with

8811-446: Was TSR who rushed their own game Spellfire into production, releasing it in June 1994. Through this period of time, Magic was hard to obtain because production never kept pace with demand. Store owners placed large inflated orders in an attempt to circumvent allocations placed by distributors. This practice would eventually catch up to them when printing capacity met demand coinciding with

8910-454: Was also released this year and would seek to challenge the CCG market by introducing miniatures into the mix. Though not technically a CCG, it would target the same player base for sales. The real shake-up in the industry, however, came when Hasbro laid off more than 100 workers at Wizards of the Coast and ended its attempts at an online version of the game when it sold off the subsidiary's interactive division. Coinciding with this turn of events

9009-417: Was introduced to the United States after strong popularity in Japan the preceding two years. Wizards of the Coast published it for a couple of years before weak sales resulted in its cancellation. Two Warhammer CCGs were released with Horus Heresy and WarCry . Horus Heresy lasted two years and was succeeded by Dark Millennium in 2005. Also, two entries from Decipher were released, one that passed

9108-446: Was nothing left of "his" in them. This frustrated him, and he wondered how he would ever make it in the profession. Howe has worked on projects including The Lord of the Rings , J.R.R. Tolkien 's Books and Merchandise, Beowulf , Robin Hobb 's books, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe , Cards for Magic: The Gathering , The Hobbit , Pan's Labyrinth . He has written and illustrated several children's books. Howe and

9207-639: Was obtained by Jasco Games in 2010 and is currently still being made. Another CCG titled Call of Cthulhu was the spiritual successor to Mythos by the publisher Chaosium . Chaosium licensed the game to Fantasy Flight Games who produced the CCG. John Howe (illustrator) John Howe was born in Vancouver , British Columbia. He was drawing from pre-school age, with his mother's help. Around primary school age he found his mother's ability no longer living up to his expectations, and even got frustrated once at both his mother and himself at not being able to draw

9306-566: Was officially announced in November of 2023. Aidan Mason confirmed his return in a blog post for Virginia Tech's Silhouette magazine, and that his story would be a sequel to The Phantom . Serialization began in July of 2024 and new stories were released in a similar weekly format. In 2023, the Academy 27 series crossed over with the Doctor Who spin-off series Cwej starring Chris Cwej , along with

9405-466: Was released shortly after that. Demand was still not satiated as the game grew by leaps and bounds. Legends was released in mid-1994 and no end was in sight for the excitement over the new CCG. What followed was the CCG craze. Magic was so popular that game stores could not satisfy the market demand. More and more orders came for the product, and as other game makers looked on they realized that they had to capitalize on this new fad. The first to do so

9504-599: Was similar in size to the RPG books. Precedence's other main CCG Babylon 5 ended its decent run in 2001 after the company lost its license. The game was terminated and the publisher later folded in 2002. The release of The Lord of the Rings TCG marked the release of the 100th new CCG since 1993, and 2002 also marked the release of the 500th CCG expansion for all CCGs. The Lord of the Rings TCG briefly beat out sales of Magic for

9603-704: Was still not settled. Investment money was eventually secured from Wizards and the name Mana Clash was changed to Magic: The Gathering . The ads for it first appeared in Cryptych , a magazine that focused on RPGs. On 4 July weekend of 1993, the game premiered at the Origins Game Fair in Fort Worth , Texas . In the following month of August, the game's Limited core set was released (also known as Alpha ) and sold out its initial print run of 2.6 million cards immediately creating more demand. Wizards quickly released

9702-498: Was terminated and the rights returned to Alderac . C-23 , Hercules , and Xena were all a part of a new simplified CCG system Wizards had created for beginners. Called the ARC System, it had four distinct types of cards: Resource, Character, Combat, and Action. The system also utilized the popular "tapping" mechanic of Magic: The Gathering . This system was abandoned shortly afterward. Despite limited success or no success at all in

9801-475: Was the #2 selling trading card game, second only to the original collectible card game Magic: The Gathering , for much of the time between its release in late 1995 and the release of the Pokémon Trading Card Game in 1998. Its development involved people of unusual prominence: Michael Stackpole had a hand in the game's backstory and wrote the first short stories that introduced the background to

#869130