Ah, Trading Card Games, or if you’re me, “The Money Hole.” PAX Unplugged is almost always awash in TCG’s of some sort or another, and this year was no exception.
Alpha Clash
Alpha Clash was the indie TCG of the show for me. Were there other small TCG’s at the show? Yes, but if you can afford a Disney license for your product, you’re not small enough.
It’s also the one I’m probably going to write the least about here. It’s actually interesting, so I’m going to play a bunch more and do a full writeup later. But as a teaser, here are some of the game’s mechanics:
- Every creature effectively has haste. (Okay.)
- All cards are lands. (We’ve seen this before, but still neat.)
- The entire system for resolving combat has been blown up. There’s a secondary system to prevent the game from stalling out in a game of chicken with combat tricks. (Actually very new and interesting.)
As with almost all games, I do have problems with it. I dislike the the rarity system, and I don’t love the American comic book aesthetic. But the game’s actual mechanics are far more solid than pretty much every other indie TCG I’ve run into over the last few years. So this could be one to watch.
If this sounds interesting, here’s a link to the game’s webpage, and the game has a fully functional TTS implementation as well.
Star Wars: Unlimited
I’ve done some thinking about other Disney properties in Lorcana, but I never put my thoughts into writing in my “Future of Lorcana” writeup a while back. I was curious if Lorcana could potentially see Marvel or Star Wars cards, and the answer right now appears to be “No.” Otherwise I suspect Fantasy Flight wouldn’t have shelled out for a license for Star Wars: Unlimited.
I never actually asked anyone what the Unlimited in the name meant. Presumably the amount of money Fantasy Flight hopes to make with the game? Regardless, I did play a demo of Star Wars: Unlimited.
I don’t have much to say on the game itself. It’s not uninteresting, but the starter decks and demos often don’t translate into thrilling gameplay. Meanwhile, Star Wars: Unlimited doesn’t have any incredibly unique inherent systems if you’ve already played a ton of games.
The most interesting part of the game for me is how it handles the ever present “actions on opponent’s turn” problem. Star Wars: Unlimited makes it so that players don’t really have turns, they just have actions. Doing anything: attacking, playing a unit card, using a commander ability, or playing an action card all use up your action, resolve the effect, and then pass priority to your opponent. In addition, one of the actions that can be taken is to pass all futures for the round, and in exchange, get to act first next round, called seizing the initiative.
If I remember correctly, I think this sort of mechanic might have been in Star Wars: Destiny, another collectible game by Fantasy Flight.
My overall thoughts on Unlimited are kind of just “Okay.” Star Wars has negative brand loyalty from me, mostly because I just don’t care about the franchise. Also because I’m petty and billion years ago dated someone who cared too much. There were some elements in Star Wars: Unlimited that felt like fun flavor touches with how certain mechanics functioned, or characters worked together. But while I’d play more of the game, I’m not in any rush to acquire a copy. It launches March 8th, and I suppose I’ll see what state it’s in at PAX East.
Lorcana
The most notable thing about Lorcana for me at PAX Unplugged was that the prices were “within expectations” as opposed to an “arm and leg.” Usually things are not notably cheaper at Conventions. Usually it’s the other way around. But booster boxes and decks were at MSRP. For comparison, single booster boxes are currently $207 dollars.
I was going to say that I didn’t actually play any Lorcana at the show, but that’s not true! While I didn’t play any during the show, I did run into a very friendly group of folks in the hotel lobby Wednesday night, and spent a few hours chatting with them. And also beating them with their own starter decks that they’d just picked up. Because y’know, I’ve played the game before. A lot.
There wasn’t anything in the new set that immediately stood out to me. Looking back at it now, it does have at least one new keyword, and some new typal references. It also had a fair amount of space on the show floor.
Magic: The Gathering
Magic earns a slot on this just barely above Pokémon by virtue of the fact that I actually did play some Magic at Unplugged. It was a grand total of 3 games, they were all two-headed giant Ixalan drafts. Me and the friend I was playing with won every single one, admittedly some by the skin of our teeth. But win we did, and I was able to get a copy of one of the Dr. Who commander decks with our prize tickets.
There’s not too much to say on Magic, really. Ixalan is a fun set. Pasttimes is still running events in a way that makes no sense. You still have to use the terrible MTG Companion app whose one saving grace is that I can log in with my MTG Arena Account.
Pokémon
I didn’t play much Pokémon this year outside of looping by the Pokémon booth to get some pins. At this point, I’ve played those demos enough that I could probably run them. They did add a small raid battle mode which was almost cool, but unfortunately, doesn’t actually have any meaningful strategy.
As such, it’s hard to tell if Pokémon was mostly at Unplugged as a collector’s game, as opposed to a TCG.
Everyone else.
It was an interesting year for PAX TCG’s. There was a lot more support for mid-level entries than I was expecting. The show had at least semi-dedicated areas for Flesh & Blood, and One Piece. I think I saw SolForge fusion over somewhere as well. That said, I didn’t play any of these, and didn’t feel very compelled to.
Unlike last year, with Gem Blenders & Genesis, and last year’s PAX East with Nostalgix, it felt like a very light year for the true indies, with Alpha Clash really being the only one.
Still though. Lotta card games.