MTG Alternatives

[JohnnyDavids13]

I have been a MTG player for a long time now, and I love the game, don't get me wrong, but I would think by now that the issues of being mana screwed/flooded would be more or less solved by now.

Does anyone have any good alternatives to MTG? I am looking to possible get into other games, and try them out, I will probably end up coming back, but I need a break.

[Togath]

Well, Hearthstone is the first thing that came to mind. Very MtG-ish mechanically, minus the mana screw issue.
I've also heard good things about the pokemon tcg.

[Knaight]

How similar does it need to be? If you're good with something pretty dramatically different, you might like deckbuilders, and Dominion isn't that expensive, requiring either the original set, Dominion: Intrigue, or any set plus the base cards, for up to 4 people at once.

[The Glyphstone]

i was going to suggest Ascension for the same reasons. Also a deckbuilder, though of an entirely different flavor. A single 'core' set plus any number of expansions, rather than Dominion's style of interchangable+intermixable standalone games.

[Narkis]

And in addition to the above, I would recommend Star Realms. Very similar to Ascension in its basic mechanics, with the biggest differences being its space theme and the victory condition: In Star Realms players have a life total that gets attacked, while in Ascension you gain Victory Points instead.

[LansXero]

Try Force of Will, which is basically MTG + WoW TCG (the real one, not the oversimplified version that is hearthstone) with the mana in a separate deck.

[Chen]

Dominion, Ascension and the like are somewhat different though. They involve building a different deck each time while the game goes on. The deckbuilding is part of the playing in those games.

For a game where you build your deck outside of the game and the play there's Yu-gi-oh and Pokemon to my understanding that are similar to Magic. Hearthstone for an electronic game is also similar. Something like Android: Netrunner or any of the similar games (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings etc) are LCGs where you do deckbuild outside, but you buy full packs of cards with no randomness in them. Basically as long as you keep up with expansions you have the full library of cards to work with, without needing to hunt or collect cards as in CCGs.

[Eldest]

The one warning about Netrunner is that the core set has a few very important cards that are one or two ofs, and you have a max of 3 per deck of most things, so you need 3 core sets to get absolutely everything.

[cobaltstarfire]

I've also heard good things about the pokemon tcg.

Pokemon TCG gives you situations where coin flips can completely change the flow and outcome of the game.

Also you can be energy screwed in it too, though there are ways to help make it less of an issue. (though I dunno how it compares to MtG cause I haven't played magic in about 10 years now)

edit: Not to say it isn't entertaining to play, it just suffers from some pretty irritating problems of its own. Coin flipping isn't super prevalent in the game last I played a year or so ago, but it showed up enough to make me feel a little crazy at times.

[Gray Mage]

I'll echo another vote for Hearthstone, as it completely avoids mana flood/screw.

[Knaight]

Pokemon TCG gives you situations where coin flips can completely change the flow and outcome of the game.

Also you can be energy screwed in it too, though there are ways to help make it less of an issue. (though I dunno how it compares to MtG cause I haven't played magic in about 10 years now)

edit: Not to say it isn't entertaining to play, it just suffers from some pretty irritating problems of its own. Coin flipping isn't super prevalent in the game last I played a year or so ago, but it showed up enough to make me feel a little crazy at times.

None of this compares to the gigantic problem of how you generally want to make decks of one or two types (or else you start getting energy screwed guaranteed), with normal users thrown in, and then there are type advantages. You can get screwed over entirely because you happened to bring a water deck against a grass deck, and while you can try and avoid this by doing something like a water-fire deck, you still run into the same issue when someone else has done something like a water-electricity deck instead. It emulates the video game well, but it's completely broken as a mechanic, at least in conjunction with the way the rest of the mechanics are designed.

[cobaltstarfire]

Type advantages aren't as big of a deal, most serious decks can be designed to handle serious threats to it, even in an opposing element. Or that was my experience with the PTCG metagame a year or so ago. Most of the time if one deck hard locks the other it's not because of type advantage/disadvantage anyway.

[LansXero]

Type advantages aren't as big of a deal, most serious decks can be designed to handle serious threats to it, even in an opposing element. Or that was my experience with the PTCG metagame a year or so ago. Most of the time if one deck hard locks the other it's not because of type advantage/disadvantage anyway.

Type advantages can be covered, true, but the Standard metagame is stale as crap. As for the OP, if he doesn't like mana-screw / flood, he will definitely hate having tech cards stuck in prizes, having no mulligan, having to forcefully keep crap hands or start with an active shaymin-ex / trubbish, etc. Although Pokemon TCG is the game where you'll draw the most cards (srsly, YGO players would kill for a Professor Juniper / Sycamore equivalent) so starting with a bad hand doesnt necesarily mean you'll lose the game.

But, why no love for FoW? Its basically "Magic without the mana screw / flood", as the OP requested.

[JohnnyDavids13]

Awesome suggestions guys! I will definitely check these out. My brother and I thank you :)

[Bucky]

Awesome suggestions guys! I will definitely check these out. My brother and I thank you :)

The main options that come to mind and that I didn't see recommended earlier in the thread are Duel Masters (WotC CCG where all cards can double as mana sources, not popular in the US), Epic (Sells non-random card packs, you only get 1 mana each turn, everything costs {1} or {0}) and the recently kickstarted Codex (sells complete decks, all cards can double as mana sources, players have much better card selection to deal with curve-based randomness).

[gooddragon1]

I have been a MTG player for a long time now, and I love the game, don't get me wrong, but I would think by now that the issues of being mana screwed/flooded would be more or less solved by now.

Does anyone have any good alternatives to MTG? I am looking to possible get into other games, and try them out, I will probably end up coming back, but I need a break.

Mana screwed/flooded you say? (http://forum.nogoblinsallowed.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=12217)

Still mtg, but that's one of the reasons I made the deck.

(If you want I'll share my BG deck surgery decklist with you that has a good rate with mana screw and flooding but is generally a casual deck)

[Fri]

depend what you mean by mtg alternative (I mean, do you just want alternate tcg, does it have to be fantasy themed, does it have to be physical card or electronic is fine, etc)

But if you want alternate TCG, Android: Netrunner is considered one of the best and most popular card games right now I think. Popularity is important, because you need other people to play. It's cyberpunk-themed though, which is very not fantasy. Also it's an LCG (basically tcg, but you don't buy random booster packs, you always know in a deck).

[Lentrax]

Race for the Galaxy. (http://riograndegames.com/games.html?id=240) Score points, build your empire up, and it doesn't take too long to get the hang of.

Innovation. (http://asmadigames.com/detail_innovation.php) Play technologies. Advance through the ages. DEMAND Victory points from other players! Very easy to play. Very difficult to play well. Do NOT play with the expansions unless you are very comfortable with the core game.