Cardboard Heroes
I’ve found myself into the WoW TCG a lot recently, largely due to deciding at random to drop by the comic shop on a Friday night just under a month ago.
Things sort of snowballed from there. I am now the area Tournament Organizer, Judge and Specialist for the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.
And- shh, don’t tell my guildies- I’ve actually been having more fun with it than I have with the online raiding.
Some draws-
You don’t have to spend time- weeks or months in my case, as I’m notoriously slow at levelling- doing ’secondary’ content before you get to the cutting edge stuff. Any deck can compete the instant it’s built.
Old content doesn’t stale. Is the Onyxia raid deck easier than the Black Temple raid deck? Yes. Is the Onyxia raid deck trivial enough that you can solo it the way you can in Online? … not even close. You’d get eaten whole- it’s still a challenging fight for a raid group.
You can switch it up in a hurry. If I get tired of playing my main deck (Hybrid caster Horde druid) I can just stick it back in the box and pull out one of my others; the deck I replace it with will similarly be ready to go.
Jerks are rare- and they don’t last long. If someone is being a griefer in the online game, your choices are to log off, /ignore, grit your teeth or some combination of the above. If someone is being an equivalent jerk in the card game- which is unlikely, as people don’t seem to be such jerks offline- you can pop him one (or, more likely, ask the judge to pop him one investigate the matter). Unlike the online game, Judges- the card game’s version of a GM- take ‘good sportsmanship’ seriously, and your griefer could find himself awarded a game loss or even ejected from the premises.
So is it going to replace my love of the online game? No, I don’t think so.
Is it in there reminding me just how good Blizzard is at making compelling properties? Yes.
I will leave you with a picture!
This is Morova of the Sands. There are many Heroes, but this one is mine. She and I beat down a gnome warlock yesterday. It was fun.
And a question! Anyone out there play the card game? Anyone out there want to learn about it? (Anyone out there wish I’d shut up and get back on topic, already?)
I’d like to learn how to play.
I haven’t bothered buying into it because I know how much of a money-hog Magic: TCG turned into when I was playing it.
But, it might not be too bad to pick up a card game again if I don’t have to constantly stay on top of the game since I know that there will not be enough players around here that a tournament scene will be able to suck me into it completely.
Pysnister: I have had much the same problem with Magic in the past. Not least among my troubles with it is that once you quit, organized events of any kind (including the Friday night so-called ‘casual’ games) require you to have a Standard deck… AKA a deck built with fairly new cards…. and if you haven’t been playing for a couple years, the ten pounds of cardboard you have stored in your closet are useless.
WoW? The for-profit tournaments can be- emphasis on possible, not always- Block, which is ‘only cards drawn from certain sets’. The vast majority of organized play, however, is Constructed.
Constructed is: Any card ever printed so long as your deck follows the deckbuilding rules. Much lower investment, which pleases me greatly.
Anyway, looks like I’m going to be writing a playguide in the reasonably-near future!
I have collected tonnes of the cards, for the art and for the chance at a loot card, but I haven’t had the chance to play the game. You’d think I could recruit one of the kids into learning the game with me, but I haven’t found one with the time. Maybe summer is the right time.
I would love to learn how to play, even play in a for fun tournament to meet other people who enjoy the Warcraft universe, but I live in a desert wasteland, and the closest gaming/comic book/hobby shop is at least 45 minutes from here, with the closest Warcraft tournament hosts being in two or three counties over, nearer the beach. Anyone in the San Gorgonio pass area? Palm Springs?
Shawndra: Another good incentive to write that playguide! As for ‘for fun’- most tournaments are! i agree, though, it can be hard to find players until you have an established venue of some kind (comic shop, gaming shop, that sort of thing).