Sunday 14 April 2013

World of Warcraft Trading Card Game

   I love trading card games, but I've never played them. But when Blizzard announced Hearthstone, their online "trading card" game, Seeg and I got to thinking. Blizzard, in conjunction with Cryptozoic, have been making the physical World of Warcraft trading card game since October 2006, but I'd never payed much attention to it. The only reason I used to buy the cards was because I wanted to try my hand at getting some Loot cards - loot cards are rare cards you can only get in booster packs, and they contain a code for you to redeem in World of Warcraft for things like vanity items, companion pets, and mounts. Well, I never got any to begin with, and quickly gave up, but I never really even thought about playing the actual card game.
   I then started to buy Collector's Editions of all of the World of Warcraft expasions, and along with the mousemat, gorgeous art book, soundtrack CD and making of DVD, they also (used to) include a full starter deck for the trading card game, with an exclusive Hero card (which is the main card you have to keep alive, once the hero dies, you lose the game).
   When they announced Hearthstone, Seeg and I were quite interested, though him moreso. But once he'd had a look at it, he got out my Cataclysm collector's edition, took out my Warlock starter deck and had a good look at it and the rule book.
   We decided to buy another starter deck, Elderlimb, a monster Druid (monster just means it's not Horde or Alliance aligned), and we tried it out. After 4 hours and 5 games, we stopped playing (with me yet to win one, even when we swapped decks), and then tried again the next day. I managed to finally win a game.
   Well, it was amazing fun. It made a nice change to play something which didn't need the internet, and didn't run on electricity, and we quickly bought two more decks and a huge number of booster packs, as well as the War of the Ancients Epic Collection. And yes, I did end up getting 3 loot cards - Eye of the Legion, which I love to use on my warlock, Spinegrinder; Landro Longshot, which is just a tabard which doesn't much appeal to me, so I might sell it; and the Floating Spellbook, which is just...well, a floating spellbook. I had already camped for the Lofty Libram in game so I wasn't much impressed with it, but it isn't worth selling.

World of Warcraft War of the Ancients Epic Collection, featuring Malfurion, Illidan and Tyrande

   Seeg and I, however, found a website where you can sell your trading cards, it's called tcgmarket.eu, and on there were found a huge number of awesome cards. Once we'd opened all of our booster packs and not found any of the cards we had our eye on, we just bought them from the website - so from other people who had them and didn't want them. Seeg bought the Master Hero, Malorne, and I bought the Hero Medivh to replace my Worgen warlock.
   We've been building up our decks and improving them from the starter decks they originally were. When we bought a load of booster packs, we also bought the War of the Ancients Epic Collection, which gave a guaranteed loot card, 6 booster packs, 5 hero cards, a playmat, a box and dividers, and a deck box, the latter of which was very helpful since my warlock came without a box in my Collector's Edition of the actual computer game expansion.


Our Heros so far: Elderlimb, Jacob Blackcrest, Murkdeep and Arathyen

   I've not had so much fun obtaining booster packs since Pokemon. I used to love Pokemon. I never played it, of course, it was too complex for an 8 year old Kim, but I desperately loved collecting the cards, and I'd get booster packs with my pocket money, and hope to god I got a cool or shiny pokemon. I didn't quite understand trading them, though, I used to think that all shinies were rare and awesome, and I'd trade really awful cards to get them, too. I got quite upset when no one would  trade me Charizard for about ten of my really very mediocre cards. I thought that one shiny was worth 10 normal cards. I was wrong. And I never did get a Charizard.
   Now I can open these booster packs, however, and look at each actual card rather than for a foil picture. Plus, like I said, loot cards are always a bonus. To the left are our current heroes. We have others, but we're not playing with them at the moment, including an abundance of Druid and Death Knight heroes. We're currently using Elderlimb, the monster Druid; Jacob Blackcrest, the Alliance Worgen Warlock (I'm totally pro-Horde, but Worgen are one of the few races of the Alliance that I quite like); Murkdeep the monster Shaman, because Murlocs are awesome; and Arathyen the Sun's Shadow, a Blood Elf Death Knight who looks reeaaalllyyyy awesome.

   Chances are, while you're reading this post, we're probably playing the game right now, since it's one of the few things we have to do while Seeg is recovering, but it's fine when one game takes like 45 minutes. Time really flies ^^



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