Magic the Gathering (or any other trading card game)

While I'm still trying to get over the fact that there's a sequel to the most oversexed comedy, "The Hangover" I have to focus my attention on something a little less irritating. As a child I loved playing Pokemon. I loved playing on my Gameboy and even playing the card game too! Mostly, I just collected, but once I figured out that you can actually "battle" with the cards, I became elated! I wanted to play this hyped up shit to no end! I bought all the Pokemon booster packs I could and I began my journey of trading card games.

At first, I thought the Pokemon trading card game was just like the Pokemon game - strategy. It wasn't until much later in my life that this wasn't the case at fucking all. You want to know why? Well, imagine if you faced someone in Pokemon (for Gameboy) and they had all the legendary Pokemon against your no-name-brand team. What strategy? Or maybe if they didn't want to use legendaries, they just chose the most powerful Pokemon with the highest stats with all your Pokemon's weaknesses. What strategy? Or say if you were to somehow play fair, the person who spent more time training their Pokemon is obviously going to win.

When I think strategy, I don't think of that infamous board game Risk, because that's just luck. You roll the die to see if you win (strategy? I know it's here somewhere). When I think of strategy, I think of strategy-RPGs for most consoles. In these games, either side is balanced and they all have a strong point and a weak point, and depending on how you play your cards, you may or may not win. Even in dire situations, if you're smart enough, you can turn the whole battle around!

It is because of strategy RPGs that excite me so...but with Pokemon...nah. You don't get that. Your opponent has higher level Pokemon, you're sure to lose, of course, there is the off chance where you might have more Pokemon than them in your party, in which case you MIGHT win, but otherwise you won't.

Like the Pokemon trading card game, there was no strategy at all. The person with the better cards, ALWAYS won. Doesn't matter how good you might think you are - no. You are not going to win. They can have 4 Charizards in their deck, and it's almost guaranteed you'll lose. 

In order to win at Pokemon, or as a matter of fact, ANY trading card game, you need to spend hundreds of dollars to get at least 4 copies of the best cards in the game, or in the particular "block".

I remember when I was older I used to play Magic the Gathering. I thought the concept was neat, and I really liked how the game played out. However, again, as good as I thought I was, I wasn't, because for the simple matter that somebody else had 4 copies of the best cards in the game in their deck.

One guy managed to wipe me out on the THIRD FUCKING TURN.

I don't know how the fuck this guy managed to get these cards, but he must've spent a fuck load of money to get them. I was still waiting to get enough mana on to the playing field to even summon 1 fucking monster, but JESUS!

And then there's the matter where in "tournaments" you can't use cards that are more than a year or two old, for...uh...well, I actually don't know why.

So all the time and money I spent on collecting hundreds of cards, are suddenly invalid. Wow. What a big fucking waste of money. If I'd actually get money from these tournaments to at least cover the costs I MIGHT be persuaded to continue collecting, but honestly that rule is the most obvious marketing scheme to get people to buy more cards.

Say if you went to a martial arts tournament and the judge said, "Yeah, remember those 4 years you spent training? Yeah, you have to do 4 more, else you can't enter tournaments anymore" ANYBODY would throw a shit fit for the sheer hypocrisy, assuming that you aren't good enough anymore by today's standards. 

Now, normally, people wouldn't stand for that, but people who play TCGs or Trading Card Games aren't normal. They get money (somehow) to buy more and more cards, and when they become invalid, they just toss them aside, like they were expired milk cartons and just buy new ones!

These people need to stop and petition a REAL tournament where every card ever made is valid! Even that piece of shit Black Lotus, because then everybody's going to use it!

Imagine, everyone getting 4 Black Lotus' on their first turn, being able to summon monsters of high calibers within the first few minutes of the match. Could you imagine the epic duels that would take place? There would be too many cheap cards to use in a 60 card deck, everyone would be wondering which cards would be the best to use! Since there must be thousands of cards they can choose from, it would be almost difficult to find the perfect deck!

And you know what that might bring up! Unexpected battles! Unexpected card combos! Cheap cards vs. cheap cards! Who will win? Who knows! You know why?

BECAUSE STRATEGY MOTHERFUCKER!

There are literally hundreds of cheap cards I can name off the top of my head, and if these retards who are only allowed like 20 at a time, everyone will be expecting it! There will be no surprise! And then ultimately, the person who has 4 copies of those 20 cards, will be able to destroy you every single time!

However, if there are MANY cheap cards, MANY cheap ways to win a battle, then it won't be about who has 4 copies of the cheapest cards anymore, because there would be too many to choose from!

And of course, then that would mean I'd be able to FINALLY enter tournaments...

'course this will never happen. All good things come to an end, or more like, all good things end, but then are used as a marketing ploy to guilt people into buying more shit.