Trading Cards/ CCG

Collectible card games (CCGs), also called trading card games (TCGs) or customizable card games (a phrase specific to two Decipher, Inc. games), are played using specially designed sets of cards. more...

Home
Advertising
Badges/ Patches
Bottles/ Pots
Breweriana
Cigarette/ Tea/ Gum Cards
Clocks
Decorative Ornaments/ Plates
Disneyana
Ethnographic
Fantasy/ Myth/ Magic
Flags
Household
Jukeboxes
Keyrings
Kitchenalia
Knives/ Swords
Masonic
Memorabilia
Metalware
Militaria
Moneyboxes/ Piggy Banks
Paper & Ephemera
Pens & Writing Equipment
Phone Cards
Photographic Images
Radio/ Television/ Telephony
Religion/ Spirituality
Rocks/ Fossils/ Minerals
Royalty
Science Fiction
Scientific
Sewing/ Fabric/ Textiles
Theatre/ Opera/ Ballet
Tobacciana/ Smoking
Tools & Hardware
Trading Cards/ CCG
Animation/ CCG
Collections/ Mixed Lots
Films
Other Trading Cards/ CCG
Puzzles
Stickers
Trading Card Accessories
TV Series

While trading cards have been around for much longer, CCGs combine the appeal of collecting and strategic game play.

Prior to 2000, most trading card games were named "collectible card games", and Decipher, Inc.—whether to draw distinction, or to denote more elaborate design—used its own term "customizable card game" (whose acronym still resolves to "CCG"). Starting with the Pokémon Trading Card Game in 1998, the phrase "Trading Card Game" was used much more frequently with anime and youth-oriented properties, and is generally chosen from a marketing standpoint to appeal to parents holding purchasing power, or to denote newer game design principles.

While the first collectible card game was The Base Ball Card Game produced by The Allegheny Card Co. and registered on April 4, 1904, the current concept of CCG games was first presented in Magic: The Gathering, designed by Richard Garfield, published by Wizards of the Coast in 1993.

Gameplay

Each CCG system 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. They also generally represent 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 is based on the fantasy genre, so many of the cards represent creatures and magical spells from that setting. In the game, a dragon is illustrated as a reptilian beast, may have the flying ability, and has quite formidable game statistics compared to smaller creatures.

Most CCGs are designed around a resource system by which the pace of each game is generally controlled. Frequently, the cards which comprise a player's deck are also in and of themselves a resource, with the frequency of cards moving from the deck to the play area or player's hand being tightly controlled. Relative card strength is often balanced by the number or type of basic 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 (e.g., tokens in various resource pools, symbols on cards, etc.).

Players select which cards will compose their deck from the available pool of cards—unlike traditional card games such as poker or UNO where the deck's content is limited and pre-determined. This allows a CCG player to strategically customize their deck to take advantage of favorable card interactions, combinations and statistics.

Read more at Wikipedia.org