I recently tried out a number of different TCG’s at Asmodee’s Comic Con stalls and there was most certainly a lot on offer for players looking to try out a new TCG or stick with their gut and expand on what they already know and love. Here’s my experience with some of the games that the publisher-distributor had on display.
First off was always going to be Star Wars Unlimited for me, I know this game well and with the demo decks for Tarkin and Chewbacca from Homeworlds available, as well as the Battle for Hoth starter set also being shown off, there was a chance for new players and veterans of the quickly expanding TCG to get their hands on some of the new cards on offer and snag a great Darth Vader promo for taking part.
As I mentioned in my review of the two pre-constructed decks, Chewbacca’s pacing is much faster and if the draw is favourable he really does cut Tarkin down with the sheer aggression of the included double attacks. However, Tarkin does hold his own from time to time. I played someone who I’d never met and had a great time while my colleague gave the Hoth kit a go, with them later mentioning that they thoroughly enjoyed being shown the game at a slower pace, giving them a chance to get to grips with the mechanics and ask questions to the staff.
My second game, from their Comic Con offering, was actually the brand new My Little Pony Friendship Eternal TCG from Kayou. This is rapidly expanding into the Western market and features a very approachable set up that, honestly, is great for younger and older players alike. With some amazing art cards on the walls – for the more collector focused among players – and a largely accessible set of pre-constructed decks featuring some of the well known characters of My Little Pony it’s likely to do really well.
The mechanics on offer for the MLP TCG were actually surprisingly similar to Star Wars Unlimited, and offered three avenues for combat with pure stats being the best way to win against your opponent. Combinations of some of the cards, as well as being able to buff cards when attacking/defending by using single-use resource points made the game quite tense and what started as a quick game (in my mind) turned into me being thoroughly beaten for expending too much in an aggressive early game.
It was explained that My Little Pony Friendship Eternal is designed to be a much more approachable TCG with boosters and pre-constructed decks generally sitting at a much cheaper price compared to something like Magic: The Gathering or Star Wars Unlimited. The idea here is that it will allow people to focus on being able to create a reasonable and achievable collection of the rarer cards while still being competitive to players.
We were also joined by a nice couple (one of which was also called Liam)who had played the game before and let us watch as they battled it out. Unfortunately other-Liam’s luck was just the same as mine as he was thoroughly beaten by his partner who played a much slower more methodical approach to trading units that led to a much stronger team.
Overall, the My Little Pony addition to the Kayou collection seems to be a lot of fun and I would highly encourage anyone to at the very least give it a shot, even if just for its deceptively simple looking mechanics that are a lot of fun.
The last of the games on offer was Magic: The Gathering with the brand new Star Trek Pre-constructed Decks. Now, admittedly I have never so much as touched MTG, but I thought that when in Rome I should do as Roman’s do, and sat down to play. Honestly, I’m glad I did as I had a blast.
With the sheer scale of what Magic: The Gathering has on offer it can be a bit daunting to figure out where to step in and with new sets constantly on the horizon (and often featuring ever-changing mechanics) I find myself part of the potential player base that fails to see an onramp. The Star Trek decks were interesting and featured a number of unique cards and abilities but, if I’m honest, I was a lot more lost in simply learning the basics of the turn structure at first.
Costs for cards threw me, with you both having to pay mana and have the corresponding correct colour to pay, which took me a moment to get my head around. However, the pre-constructed demo decks were pretty self-explanatory and allowed me to get the basics under my belt.
One thing that stands out for me is that the art on the cards looked amazing, Star Trek is one of those shows that was always on in the background for me as a child and seeing some of those familiar faces pop up as units did make me smile. I think that one that stood out in my short demo game was actually the “Kirk, Enterprising Captain” card that seemed pretty strong in the demo deck and actually allowed me to cleanly win my game (although I didn’t get to trigger his ability unfortunately as we were only playing with 10 Health).
With each of these TCG games having major releases just down the line, with Icons for SWU and the Star Trek Expansion for MTG, there’s plenty to look forward to on Asmodee’s roster in the coming winter months.
If you’d like to stay up to date with any of these games you can find them all on the Asmodee website.
