While growing up, or if you’re still living up your childhood, have you ever had that one thing you always looked forward to when you started the day? Perhaps it was playing with your pet, going on a vacation, hanging out with friends or even enjoying your favorite toy or game? Yeah, everybody has or had those moments no doubt.
Of course, when I was a kid, I always looked forward to every coming day no matter what it brought. But as I grew older and began high school, my favorite moments were chilling with my group of friends who were each different and unique in their own way. Though my variety of friends were absolutely amazing and portrayed such differing personalities and habits, there was one kind of thing that we cold easily agree on: TCG games!
Back in high school most of my friends and I would bring our cards to school and “duel” during lunchtime or study hall, depending on the mood. Quite a few rare cards I received, and still have today, are my trophies of winning my duels. It was one of the best times of my teen years, or my “rebellious phase”, as some parents would call it.
TCGs, or Trading Card Games, have been around for as long as I can remember. If you have no idea what TCGs are, I’ll give you a brief rundown. Basically, TCGs are card games in which two or more people “battle”, “duel” or “fight” against one another with monsters, people, animals or other sorts of beings to gain a victory. However, most of the time you can’t win with just the strength of your creatures. You use cards that help one up against your opponent in many ways including: upgrading defenses, blocking attacks, negating or reversing attacks, increasing strength or sometimes you can stop them from trying to win at all.
Sounds like a lot of fun, right? Yep, they certainly are. Actually, I think they’re the most popular type of game seeing as there are dozens of them created. So popular that many local cities, states and countries create tournaments. You know, just being able to collect the cards, create a winning deck and finding skillful opponents is loads of fun. So much in fact that TCGs is one of the few things in my childhood that I continued to enjoy throughout my teen years. And, to be honest, even though I’m an adult, I still play at least one of the more popular trading card games today.
Wanna know some of the ones I got pulled into? Go ahead and check out a few of those famous Trading Card Games that bring out the old school duelist in me:
Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters
What started out as a manga/comic, turned into a fruitful franchise filled with anime, toys, figures, movies and, the best part, a trading card game. Thank you, Konami! Just like in the series, you can duel against your opponents to ensure a victory by using monsters, traps, magic and spell cards either in real life or online. You need a pretty good variety of monster, trap and spell cards that work well for you and against your dueling partner, so make sure you have good strategies handy to bring down their Life Points. You can build certain types of decks like Light, Water, Insect, Dark, Fairies, Spellcasters, XYZ, Synchros and a whole lot more. The best part, tournaments have been made for this TCG! Who knows, maybe YOU can make the World Championship!
For more information on Yu-Gi-oh!, you can visit their website Yugioh.com.
Magic: The Gathering
Perhaps this is not well-known, but Magic happens to be the first ever created TCG beginning back in 1993 thanks to Wizards of the Coast. It’s pretty popular considering the amount of players it draws to it each year in the millions. This game can be played with two or more players, battling it out between wizards, otherwise known as “planeswalkers”. You can use a considerable amount of cards to beat your opponent(s) such as spells, creatures and different artifacts and bring down their HP. Of course this is a game you need to think a bit, but it gets considerably easy with each battle you do. You can become an extreme wizard with a powerful deck under your sleeve. Perhaps even considering joining those great tournaments created.
For more information on Magic: The Gathering, visit their website Magic.wizards.com.
Dragon Ball
The game is based on the manga and anime series Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT. It started back in 2000, then discontinued in 2006. But Bandai actually revamped the game, bringing it back in 2008. In this game you use the Z-Fighters and other characters from the series to battle it out. These cards have many types of cards to help support your characters in the battle such as Physical, Energy, Sensei, Mastery, Personality, Support, Non-combat and more. Considering the series, you can easily redo the battle scenarios, but use your own strategies, characters and support to win save the universe.
For more information on Dragon Ball Z TCG, visit their website DBZTCG.com.
Pokemon
Originally, this TCG was based on the “Pokemon” video games. The TCG was first created in Japan back in 1996 and made its way to the US afterward. This game turns you into a Pokemon trainer! Just like in the video games/series, you need to have your own Pokemon to win the day. Basically, you fight another trainer and take down each of their Pokemon until there’s none left. Each Pokemon you have, if they have the ability, can easily “evolve” and become better. By using Energy and Trainer cards, you and your Pokemon can fight until you either win or lose. It’s a pretty simple game once you think about it, with less strategy needed to win. If you want to become a Pokemon trainer, play this TCG!
For more information on Pokemon TCG, visit their website Pokemon.com.
Duel Masters
Thinking about it, this TCG isn’t really old. It was first released into the “Duel Masters” franchise back in 2002 in Japan. With its popularity increase, the US welcomed the game in 2004. It has a similar feel to Magic: The Gathering seeing as you can play against a single opponent or create a tag team duel. And just like Magic, you are a duelist who summons monsters/creatures using mana to do your bidding so you can win the game. However, this game is quite different seeing as, instead of HP or Life Points, you have shields protecting you. Once all those shields are gone, you lose the duel. This is probably one of the easiest TCGs around, but also a pretty popular one since its relaunch by Wizards of the Coast as “Kaijudo” in 2012. There are no official tournaments for the series, but you can play against locals or even online.
For more information about Duel Masters/Kaijudo, visit their website Wizards.com.
So, what do you think? These certainly sound like loads of fun, right Go ahead and tells us about your favorite TCGs! We’d love to know what you battle!