Another recently popular game which may be of interest to HN is Android: Netrunner. It is an asymmetrical game wherein one player is the corporation who has a set of servers and is trying to advance adgenda cards while the other player is the runner, who is trying to hack into the corporation's servers with a set of programs, hardware and other resources. Like Magic, there is the actual game play, but then also the meta game play of picking cards to customize decks to play each role.
It shares the same designer as Magic (Richard Garfield), but is a Living Card Game rather than a Collectable Card Game. The difference being that in Magic you spend tons of money hoping for the random drop of particular rare cards or buy them individually from dealers. In A:NR, they release a new "data pack" about once a month and then have mini-expansions maybe once a year. It's more like a subscription model, but the net effect is that every card is worth the same as every other card. Still not a cheap hobby, but capped, at least (maybe about $175 to buy every card ever made up to today).
Not only that but the game is completely different to Magic. It comes from an earlier time, before the idea of "turn cards sideways to show they've been used" took hold. It has a very different economy and the two sides play completely differently.
The LCG data-pack model is great for people playing constructed formats, but it does make drafting more of a challenge. Mature LCGs are also quite difficult for latecomers to get into, especially if key packs go out of print.
I didn't say that it predated magic, I said that it came about before the idea of turning cards sideways (as "tapping", "kneeling", "exhausting", "rotating") became an entrenched mechanic.
Luckily it looks like A:NR is at least an order of magnitude more popular than previous LCGs so the cards should stay in print for a while - a bigger issue is that at a certain point, the need to have a 'complete' set is going to be a very expensive proposition. But I agree, the downside of not having a built-in obsolescence/reissue function is that old cards might go out of print.
On the other hand, it's just so much better to play. It actually feels like they made a big list of everything that is wrong about MTG and fixed it.
They also had the chance to undo mistakes and rebalance things from the original Netrunner.
The constant release of new data packs is eventually going to become really tough for new players. I hope they run some kind of restricted tournament format (e.g., only the core + most recent data pack cycle + most recent big box expansion) so that the keen newbie doesn't have so much of a buy-in, but they can grow into the open constructed format later.
Thanks for posting this. Looks interesting. Something to play with my eldest daughter I think.
I ended up being the local card exchange at university for MTG which was uber-popular. Selling cards made me a fortune simply by enforcing scarcity on some of them and auctioning by email (I wrote an auction system in procmail and perl designed to maximise profit). Made £1320 profit in a year!
Edit: just found my old card database. Had 1540 cards at one point! Still have a box in the cupboard as well according to my wife.
It shares the same designer as Magic (Richard Garfield), but is a Living Card Game rather than a Collectable Card Game. The difference being that in Magic you spend tons of money hoping for the random drop of particular rare cards or buy them individually from dealers. In A:NR, they release a new "data pack" about once a month and then have mini-expansions maybe once a year. It's more like a subscription model, but the net effect is that every card is worth the same as every other card. Still not a cheap hobby, but capped, at least (maybe about $175 to buy every card ever made up to today).
Anyways, someone built a RESTy API for it as well: http://netrunnercards.info/apidoc/en.html