I remember the Adventure Time game Cardwars. In the show it was a funny throwaway bit, but then they made an actual game for it. I played it a few times and I remember having multiple situations where we weren't sure if a move made sense / was legal, and the instructions were no help. It was a mess. I think a video on fictional-card-games-turned-real-card-games would be interesting!!
Fun fact: Sim City the card game is actually compatible with Campaign for North Africa: The Desert War 1940-43, if you string exactly 507 decks worth of cards together as custom cities you can make your own new map for CNA to spice up a second playthrough
The existence of a times table card in super deck means there is a genuine chance that some kid out there got scammed by it in a trade with one of their friends. And while I don't want to be rude, that kid probably needed it because they are clearly not the brightest.
@@kamsandwich Yu-Gi-Oh, magic, and Pokemon player here. A basic rare is usually not that rare actually. Using Yu-Gi-Oh as an example, a core set will always contain 1 rare or above with the others being common. At least that's how it was until they retired the rate all together, so it goes straight from common to super rare now.
@@tailsspin621this only really applies to modern card games. Most older card games at most had an ultra or super rare, but elsewise used the standard common, uncommon & rare.
@@M0th3ater Yu-Gi-Oh was doing the one rare per pack since LoB, at least in the TCG. Yu-Gi-Oh isn't that new either, having started in 2002. With that said I don't know for sure if Super fight was the same, so I won't try to argue.
5:10 nancy reagan was famous for her reliance on psychic advisors and horoscope readers to give advice to her husband. reagan would cancel events for her husband if a psychic told her that the day was inauspicious. i wish i was kidding
@@TonesBalones Actually, the assassination attempt on her husband was why Nancy Reagan started to use psychic advisors in the first place. She was so terrified whenever he left the house that she uses this psychic to help her cope.
You'd hear "Star Wars" and "failed card games" and assume those are all 90s to 2000s-era games, but no! One was made in 2016 and finally burned up in 2020! They're still doing it! But hey everyone, be sure to try our Star Wars Unlimited! (I mean that game actually seems pretty good but also I can't imagine being more hesitant to buy into anything more than a Star Wars TCG given that around six or so have failed.)
As a long time tcg player, I can say the main reason Star Wars has had a rough time of it has been because the designers always shoved some gimmick in. Even the recently dead Destiny used custom bespoke dice covered in stickers. The latest attempt, Unlimited, has finally shredded the gimmicks and just made a set of solid mechanics.
In addition to what PlayMadness mentioned, Star Wars also suffers from a notable chunk of its fanbase already dedicated to other tcgs like MTG, Yugioh, and Pokemon. If you're spending money to stay competitive in those games you mught not have the extra cash to buy packs for an additional tcg.
@@PlayMadness ...Arguably. The tokens in the game, though not *required*... are effectively required. Still, the three packs I've been able to source and buy for the game lead me to believe it's pretty fun.
We actually had an Illuminati: New World Order tournament at a card shop I was in at high school. The owner thought it'd be funny to have Redemption TCG tournaments on Friday and Illuminati NWO tournaments on Sunday.. the Illuminati NWO tournaments lasted like a month, Redemption stuck around for about a year up until the shop shut down surprisingly enough.
Fun Fact: there used to be a Skylanders-based card game called "Battlecast". I do not know how to play it, and will never be able to play it, due to the fact that the entirety of Battlecast revolved around scanning them into an app that has since shut down.
Redemption goes hard as fuck honestly. Clearly made by people who wanted to make a good card game and also happened to be hardcore Christians. Great art on a lot of cards
The original Illuminati card game had so much charm in their art style and all the little things like the hidden symbols on every card. The re-release is so sterile and boring looking, yet apparently also the more popular version of the game. It's also a really deep game with some cards specifically made to be vague in interpretation, anecdotally some tournament was won by some guy holding on to the "I Lied" card and playing it right after agreeing to a draw with their opponent. Also, the Sim City card game unironically sounds like a cool concept that needed some more time in the oven, plus it oozes "Corporate '80s Aesthetics" which is pretty damn good, makes me feel like we're playing city planner in an action movie.
Draft packs in the football card game by wizards actually makes a lot of sense beyond football draft. Magic sets are typically designed with a draft format in mind, players buying packs and picking cards from them before passing the rest to the person next to them in a circle. Considering the relevance and popularity of draft in magic is makes sense wizards would try to apply that to a football card game.
5:28 "I am happy, healthy, and would very much appreciate not getting hit with the Classic Clinton Removal Play" For everyone else who was struggling to pause that in time.
I think the oddest TCG I've seen is the MLP: FiM TCG. Not for the rules or the fact it exists, but that each card has little blurbs on them that have little dialogues. Including a blurb where they acknowledge that the ponies are trying to gaslight carnivores into eating veggies with a screenshot of the scene where they're feeding a weasel(?) a salad. That's a pretty abridged description and I'm not certain I got all the details right, but I saw it as a kid and it stuck with me lol Other oddities are that every single pony can be sorted into six groups around the Elements of Harmony so we know which background characters are similar to which main character, and canon-ish names for literally every recolor that appeared in the show.
@@Ludicollision most are just quotes from the show, but some are made up for the game. The one I'm talking about was something like "Hey, aren't these guys carnivorous?" "Well don't tell him that!" I haven't seen it in years though so I may be slightly wrong. That was the gist though. I can't check without knowing the name of the card though.
I have a few decks of MLP FIM TCG. I lost the rules so I never actually learned how to play. There was a point in time where you could buy a box with two premade decks at Dollar Tree lol.
Found the card, it's "Critter Cuisine" from the MLP CCG: "But ferrets are carnivorous!" - Amethyst Star "Shhh, maybe they don't know that yet!" - Twinkleshine
“Krusty Krab Katchers” “Blowin’ Chunks” “Flattened” (via rear cheeks) “Drop The Load” The signs of Nick being a dirty place to work in were always there.
A lot of Usonian landmarks would just be various roadside attractions that are the world's largest whatever, which in all fairness _would_ give a lot of material.
The Austin Powers CCG feels like it needs a mention. The entire game feels like it was designed by throwing a few Austin Powers themed gimmicks in a blender with no regard for anything barring "comedic" potential.
one of my favorite things about that game is there's a card that has 2 choices when played. I forgot what the first choice was but the second choice is OPEN A FUCKING BOOSTER PACK MID GAME and you get an agent from it and add all the evil cards to your hand. (it's once per game so I guess they had some foresight, but that's still nuts.)
@@polocatfan Magic has several of those, actually-- they're all Un-cards, but they do exist! (Booster Tutor, Stocking Tiger, Summon the Pack, and Opening Ceremony.)
I'd love to see you cover Wyvern! One of my favorite failed card games from the 90's - has beautiful art, was fairly successful for it's time & hosted at least 1 world championship, had misprint errors with MTG fronts inserted in starter decks, included incredibly rare ultra rare cards that were 1:1000 pull rates - it's by far one of my favorite nostalgia gems from the 90's.
Bible Battles sounds like it could have failed not just due to being niche, but by having a competitor in the same niche Redemption, another bible based collectible card game that I collected...religiously. Also it even had a video game adaptation. How is Bible Battles going to compete with that?
I hate how much Illuminati: New World Order actually visually intrigued me, solely because of how much the art style looks like the cutscenes in Twisted Metal 2
I remember seeing the Spongebob one in stores and thinking "what," but I never looked into it. In recent times, I've been picking up some dead, possibly forgotten card games; I'm fond of the Cyberpunk card game for its theme and flavor, but it has a number of issues. There's also Drago Borne and its dice mechanics to make things exciting or frustrating. One card game I'd like to revisit is Hecatomb, a horror card game that was an interesting concept but the problems associated with printing pentagonal partially transparent plastic cards held it back.
Here in Mexico, there's a franchise call Huevocartoon that parodies famous IP with egg characters. It became extremely popular thanks to it's dark humor (especially with children 😅), at some point they created their own "TCG" of some kind called "Duelo de Huevos" (Egg Duel) that play exactly like Yugioh and even some cards were copies of existing YGO desings. It never had a competitive scene or anything like that, but it got a special place on various school playgrounds for many children at that time.
Redemption is around and it’s a Bible themed TCG. It’s the second longest running TCG I think. It’s a bit odd but the community is nice. The starters cost 15 bucks.
The game I played as a kid was Overpower. It was a Marvel Comics collectable card game that lasted a few years, and I had a lot of fun with it. I remember getting Iron Man, but I wanted Dazzler, so my friend traded me Iron Man for Dazzler. Considering how rare Iron Man was, it wasn't the smartest move. The game itself had some terrible power creep, making it one of the most unbalanced games I've ever played. If you had any character with even a small amount of rarity, you'd clean up in that game. There were also a lot of unfair cards, like Unlucky In Love: Spurned By Black Widow, which lowered your opponent's defense stat for the entire match, as well as cards like The Brood which combined a powerful character with powerful special moves. The game actually lasted long enough to see several booster packs, an upgrade that added a new stat to the character cards (effectively making older cards useless), a DC Comics set that was fully compatible with the Marvel set (in case you wanted to see Captain Marvel fight Captain Marvel, I guess), and even an Image Comics set (Spawn was the big selling point there) before stopping production. Other games I remember include The Simpsons Card Game, which had you "breaking" scenes from the show by placing characters into those scenes (they would have recommended characters that would make breaking easier), The Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me card game (I have no idea how this one plays), The Killer Instinct card game (based on the video game), and The X-Files card game (my friend got an entire set of this one off Ebay and we haven't figured out how it's played).
The problem with The Simpsons card game was that several characters had useless traits like "Scottish" or "Lunchlady" that had no bearing on the gameplay, so they would be forced into the spoiler role more often. Also, while they sold four starter decks, if you wanted the Krusty deck you had to buy a ton of boosters and hope for the best.
I'm part of that rare crossover between sports fans and TCG fans, and while I never played either of those NFL games, the Showdown games also included MLB and NBA, and I enjoyed both of those a lot (even though I've never been an NBA fan at all, it was a fun game) sports and collectible games don't stop at just cards, though! WizKids, the publisher of Heroclix, did an offshoot of that very miniatures game called MLB Sportsclix! I even had an Ichiro
There actually is a blood bowl card game, well was when Fantasy Flight still had GW rights, however it's Team Manager not playing the matches in 'detail' like the one mentioned here
Wheel of Time was a neat idea, but had way too many accessories and bad mechanics - you could one-turn win OR be absolutely starved for resources the entire game.
OMG, someone other than me remembers Super Deck! I went to a classmate’s birthday party once, and we each got a full deck in our party favors bag. Apparently the birthday boy’s dad was involved in making/marketing the game, which hadn’t released yet at the time, and this was his plan to “generate buzz”. I might still have them collecting dust somewhere.
Hey Kam, did you know the SpongeBob one was responsible for showing a close up on one of SpongeBob's plugged holes in Suds? Sounds unimportant, but that shot never made it into the episode. It was mentioned in a SpongeBob deleted scenes iceberg I watched that i think came out recently. Weird.
While Bible Battle may be hard to scour around, there's one other Bible themed trading card game out there that may peek your interest, Redemption. While Redemption has not gotten much in terms of cards out there after the first few waves, they still have an active tournament scene.
I know people call you "board game scott the woz" but I like how you have enough of your own identity to distinguish yourself. That said, I just realized that you sound a lot like one of the "how it's made" narrators, and it will probably take me a while before I can get that out of my head
NFL Showdown was INCREDIBLE. The play calling was so fun, and the 2003-era playgrid worked really well. I still have a bunch of the cards, maybe I should show up to my LCS on a game night and bring them to play
BibleBattles is a channel dedicated to the game here on TH-cam. So is The Dice Tower. Whether any of them are selling or even still active, l couldn't say.
Beyblade had a TCG back around 2004. I remember seeing packs of them for the first time in a dollar store years after-the-fact. Both players assigned themselves a bey for their deck, and the goal was to reduce your opponent's bey's spin to zero. During a turn you would play cards to give you some kind of advantage and make attacks with your bey. When making attacks, you'd line up the top edges of the defending bey's card to the played card to see if the attack hit. If it hit, then it would do damage, and I think you'd do more damage if you hit a weak spot. Neat game with weird theming since the point of Beyblade is watching cool tops hit each other.
And you could even buy the tops in stores at the same time, so it was kinda weird that they expected a card game to do well when kids could just buy the actual toys from the show instead. Kinda wish I hadn't gotten rid of my old plastic Beyblades, maybe some of them are worth something now.
I am honestly very surprised to not see the Metazoo trading card game here, I guess it would be out of the time period but a game that had cards which require you to have a REAL LIFE meteor shower happening or for you to take off your pants to be at full power is kinda crazy
@ezdispenser Metazoo is all about allowing the environment around you to influence gameplay. I'm just skimming a set of cards I bought on a whim (the art is so fricking cute), and, while I don't actually know much what these effects specifically do, one reads "if there is a Snowman within eyesight, this Beastie gains [symbol, presumably denoting a keyword]" (Beastie, being presumably how the game refers to its monsters). Another reads "If you are wearing fur, this Beastie gains +20 LP". And finally, "If you hear classical music nearby, create a Skeleton Token (&c)." I assume the meta for this game is heavily centered around trying to deduce the nature of your opponent's strategy based on whether or not some off niche article of their appearance is in fact necessary for an effect of theirs. There's a card that literally has no effect if you are not eating a "potato based snack". I think it's all a cheeky gimmick to encourage people to not take these things too seriously, but the artwork is lovely.
Does Metazoo count as failed? I think you can still buy it in card and board game shops. It definitely belongs on lists of worst trading card games and worst looking cards
There were TWO different card games bawed around parts of the World of Darkness. The first one was called Jyhad and then renamed into Vampire the Eternal Struggle based around Vampire the Masquerade. The second one is called Rage based on Werewolf the Apocalypse. The Vampire one lasted for a while, and Rage is now played online with the sort of a wink and a nod from the IP owner.
If anyone here wants an actually good superhero card game (albeit a fixed-deck one), look into Sentinels of the Multiverse. The gameplay is way more engaging, with a team of player-controlled heroes fighting an auto-playing villain with no constant multiplication. There are *some* mathy heroes, but they're very much optional. Plus, you get all the same comic book homage art styles, with Definitive Edition in particular going through every single era from the '40s to now. Which reminds me: not only are there dozens upon dozens of characters on all sides, but they also have their own kayfabe about the comic book publisher they all ostensibly come from, individual books and how they were received by their nonexistent audience, their own version of the DCAU... the works!
I played Illumanti a lot, it's a lot like the Illuminati box game. I also played Sim City, which was also pretty good, but took up a lot of space to play. There was a Monty Python trading card game. Didn't play well but it was very funny.
I got the GI Joe TCG deck thing as a kid after I saw the tutorial video on the Valor VS Venom DVD, it’s a fun game but flawed by it’s insistence on the two factions not synergizing at all
10:43 I... actually recall reading a Shade comic when I was like, eight. I'm not kidding, I found him in the back of an Americomic book for another one of their heroes, Dragonfly. Got the thing for free at a thrift shop or something.
Hey, don't forget Kryptik TCG. Rhe creators waited 2 years between their second and third sets. And then they got offered by a loyal player to be the distributor of the game, but then when he did, they just ended up killing the game indefinitely anyway. Without that player, the games 3rd set would never have been released. They lost thousands of dollars killing the game once the CEO transition happened. Now, there are a few people with the new cards, which makes it unfair. They wasted money on a van tour and released different prints of the same product.
Don't know if it truly counts as "failed" since it lasted for a few years and had a pretty high number of sets released for it, but I would LOVE to see Anachronism, the card game put out by the History Channel in the early 2000s, discussed
I actually had a Spongebob card game deck as a kid when it came out from a convention, I don't remember much. But I got gifted several Spongebob items by my parents and I still use my Spongebob cereal bowl all the time. Anyways, I had that card game, didn't understand the rules (didn't speak much english yet) and just found it cool and gave cards to friends. Thank you for having a video on this mate.
Bushiroad has a few card games that they bring over from Japan and just drop support for; Luck & Logic had like one set before it was completely cancelled over here. There's also a bunch of other obscure Japanese TCGs that bit the dust due to the HUGE amount of competition there. The original Monster Collection also has an interesting history, it was extremely popular when it first launched in Japan in like '97 but when the devs introduced a rotation of the card pool the game collapsed almost immediately.
Would Yu-Gi-Oh Dungeon Dice Monsters count as a submission to the Worst Board Game Tournament? A collectable figurine game based off of the trading card game. Each pack only had one monster and unless you got at least 2 of the same star level / rarity you couldn't use them. (I wasn't able to find the MSRP from back in the day) You also needed to lug around the map path tiles, dice, monster figures, and cards that explained the monster's effects to even play.
i watched the board game mechanics video you made as one of my first videos on your channel and i was almost immediately hooked; please keep making masterpieces
One that sticks out in my mind was the obscure Sonic X card game. I don't believe it ever got any booster packs, because the game itself was basically just War, but with instructions that tried to trick you into thinking it wasn't War.
Games that just tricked you into playing War were quite common. The Dragon Ball Super card game has its own rules and format for battles, but the Dragon Ball Z game a decade prior was just "Here's a shit ton of cards with screenshots from the anime".
I tried to design a Sonic-themed card game back when I was a teenager, it was based off of the Sonic Fighters arcade game where each character would duel; and they each played differently. Sonic would play fast paced with smaller damage cards but could combo well, and Knuckles was slower but hit like a truck and was harder to take down.
5:02 It brings me immeasurable joy to know that there's a card game out there with a card that has "You do not have to pay taxes to the IRS" as rules text.
You could have a series based on failed TCG's alone. Ani-Mayhem, XXXenophile, City of Heroes... endless. Back when Magic popped off in the 90's, my dad thought he was going to hit it big not by buying sealed Magic around the time of Ice Age/Alliances, but instead, a TCG based on...hockey.
Hell, I'll admit it. I played MLB Showdown. I was pretty good at it as well. Took 4th at regionals one year. Unfortunately for me only the top 3 got a free ticket into Nationals. Although if you won Nationals you got seasons tickets to a baseball team of your choice. Edit: I also played a TCG called Rage. It was based on White Wolf's World of Darkness, specifically the werewolves. Fun until I realized you can win a game and not kill a single thing.
Even BGG only has five pictures for Bible Battles. There are three cards kind of visible on the back of the box, but not really legible, and one example card. Traitor, a Babylonian Event that reduces a building's defense by one. After typing this, I saw that Dice Tower did a review thirteen years ago.
Surprised to see Bible Battles mentioned yet left Redemption off your list. Exact same premise but came out in 1994, and is actually still going today.
I remember the Harry Potter Trading Card Game. It had a few expansions with expanding rules (Quidditch, Diagon Alley...) and ended with Chamber of Secrets (This was back when HP was a MASSIVE toy line)
I started my addiction to buying cards in the late 90s. The card shop nearest to me had mostly magic, sports, yugioh and pokemon cards, but also contained some very odd choices of television related trading cards such as Alias. Remember Alias?
Cereal trading cards were the only ones I was exposed to as a kid. Specifically the ones from Coco Pops. Other than that, a local grocery store had mini figures of their groceries along with trading cards for them
Which failed game do you know of that I missed?
Be sure to request your least favorite games for the upcoming Worst Board Game of All Time Tournament!
Now that it’s public I’m curious what the Freaky Patrick thumbnail was
it's lost media @@ODISeth
Freakbob
The strangest is probably XXXenophile which is TCG strip dominos based on a pornograpgic sci-fi comic by Phil Foglio
I remember the Adventure Time game Cardwars. In the show it was a funny throwaway bit, but then they made an actual game for it. I played it a few times and I remember having multiple situations where we weren't sure if a move made sense / was legal, and the instructions were no help. It was a mess. I think a video on fictional-card-games-turned-real-card-games would be interesting!!
Fun fact: Sim City the card game is actually compatible with Campaign for North Africa: The Desert War 1940-43, if you string exactly 507 decks worth of cards together as custom cities you can make your own new map for CNA to spice up a second playthrough
“Second playthrough”
Honestly sounds great, I'll be sure to try that in 5-7 years after we've finished CNA for the first time
I unironically love city sim so this is life changing.
god damn it, wish I'd known about this 6 years ago when we started the campaign. And it'd be generous to say we're halfway done
What weird info for someone to know
“I attack with Spongebob Squarepants” is probably only 16 months away from being possible in Magic anyway
Eyyyy
The existence of a times table card in super deck means there is a genuine chance that some kid out there got scammed by it in a trade with one of their friends. And while I don't want to be rude, that kid probably needed it because they are clearly not the brightest.
Hey at least he got a Rare out of the deal, no matter how useless
Omg another channel member
@@kamsandwich Yu-Gi-Oh, magic, and Pokemon player here. A basic rare is usually not that rare actually. Using Yu-Gi-Oh as an example, a core set will always contain 1 rare or above with the others being common. At least that's how it was until they retired the rate all together, so it goes straight from common to super rare now.
@@tailsspin621this only really applies to modern card games. Most older card games at most had an ultra or super rare, but elsewise used the standard common, uncommon & rare.
@@M0th3ater Yu-Gi-Oh was doing the one rare per pack since LoB, at least in the TCG. Yu-Gi-Oh isn't that new either, having started in 2002.
With that said I don't know for sure if Super fight was the same, so I won't try to argue.
Super Deck is just those mobile game ads where you have to run through a barrier with either -20 or x20 on it
Fun fact: that game exists on Steam. It's called "Arrow a Row".
5:10 nancy reagan was famous for her reliance on psychic advisors and horoscope readers to give advice to her husband. reagan would cancel events for her husband if a psychic told her that the day was inauspicious. i wish i was kidding
I remember that now. Haven't thought of it in 30 years
I'm sure Nancy had some strong words for her psychic on March 31st, 1981
White House wives 😂
@@TonesBalones Actually, the assassination attempt on her husband was why Nancy Reagan started to use psychic advisors in the first place. She was so terrified whenever he left the house that she uses this psychic to help her cope.
"It managed to beat off Gay Monopoly in the first round"
Hey, what happens at Gay Monopoly, stays at Gay Monopoly
He made the same comment in the original video
I hope Gay Monopoly took it to dinner first
@@andreibaciu7518you have to! its all part of the process
It really came out on top.
"I am happy, healthy, and would very much appreciate not getting hit with the classic clinton removal play"
Thank you, I'm on mobile and was losing my mind trying to pause
He's traumatized after the "the Trump game" incident
For the kind of brand it is, there has been an inexcusable number of failed Star Wars card games.
You'd hear "Star Wars" and "failed card games" and assume those are all 90s to 2000s-era games, but no! One was made in 2016 and finally burned up in 2020! They're still doing it!
But hey everyone, be sure to try our Star Wars Unlimited! (I mean that game actually seems pretty good but also I can't imagine being more hesitant to buy into anything more than a Star Wars TCG given that around six or so have failed.)
As a long time tcg player, I can say the main reason Star Wars has had a rough time of it has been because the designers always shoved some gimmick in. Even the recently dead Destiny used custom bespoke dice covered in stickers. The latest attempt, Unlimited, has finally shredded the gimmicks and just made a set of solid mechanics.
In addition to what PlayMadness mentioned, Star Wars also suffers from a notable chunk of its fanbase already dedicated to other tcgs like MTG, Yugioh, and Pokemon. If you're spending money to stay competitive in those games you mught not have the extra cash to buy packs for an additional tcg.
@@PlayMadness ...Arguably. The tokens in the game, though not *required*... are effectively required. Still, the three packs I've been able to source and buy for the game lead me to believe it's pretty fun.
@@StarkMaximum Cross our fingers for SWU! I suspect it will do well until Asmodee and thus FFG goes bankrupt. Thanks, Embracer.
Card gaming in 1999: wow a rare holographic
Card gaming in 2024: wow a rare holographic
Card gaming in 2001: 4:14
TURN THE TV ON
Card gaming in 2001 when they hit the second tower: 11:43
I summon a second airplane in attack mode
THEY HIT THE FUCKING PENTAGOOOOOOOONNNNNNNN
wow a mythical
We actually had an Illuminati: New World Order tournament at a card shop I was in at high school. The owner thought it'd be funny to have Redemption TCG tournaments on Friday and Illuminati NWO tournaments on Sunday.. the Illuminati NWO tournaments lasted like a month, Redemption stuck around for about a year up until the shop shut down surprisingly enough.
11:40 "Mister President, a second 9/11 joke has hit the video"
I wanted to make this joke, but you beat me to it. No hard feelings, though. Have a like.
@@nicholasweaver2374 Well, if you say/do the joke twice, you can bring more people down (with laughter)
The “I attack with Spongebob” after the Secret Lair Announcements from Magic: The Gathering aged like wine.
Deep Sea Duel: "You activated me trap card, Mr. Squidward."
This is a woefully underrated comment
YU-GI-OH IS NOT THE ONLY TRADING CARD GAME.
@@Surg-265But it's the one with the most memes I think.
The cathartic experience of adding 1000 tally marks on a white board simply labeled “Detroit Ls”
Fun Fact: there used to be a Skylanders-based card game called "Battlecast". I do not know how to play it, and will never be able to play it, due to the fact that the entirety of Battlecast revolved around scanning them into an app that has since shut down.
Yo, fellow Skylanders fan!
wait, i remember that! i never downloaded the app, but i had a tree rex card when i was a kid because he was my favorite
if you're looking for a more documented christian trading card game, for some unknowable reason, you could always check out Redemption
one of the LGS I went to for a while had a dude trying to demo test this game to others for a damn long time, so i'm curious how it is.
@@Kuchito08honestly it isn't bad. Subjectively it's an easy card game to learn in comparison to mtg and its crazy rules interactions.
This was about failed games, that one's still going as far as I'm aware.
@@Kuchito08Look up a guy named Kohdok
Redemption goes hard as fuck honestly. Clearly made by people who wanted to make a good card game and also happened to be hardcore Christians. Great art on a lot of cards
The original Illuminati card game had so much charm in their art style and all the little things like the hidden symbols on every card. The re-release is so sterile and boring looking, yet apparently also the more popular version of the game. It's also a really deep game with some cards specifically made to be vague in interpretation, anecdotally some tournament was won by some guy holding on to the "I Lied" card and playing it right after agreeing to a draw with their opponent.
Also, the Sim City card game unironically sounds like a cool concept that needed some more time in the oven, plus it oozes "Corporate '80s Aesthetics" which is pretty damn good, makes me feel like we're playing city planner in an action movie.
Little did he know, this thumbnail is magic the gathering in 2025
i love the idea of raprat becoming a reoccurring badguy character of your videos
Bible battles doesn't really shock me as it's not the only one, there's redemption the tcg which is basically bible the tcg
That's the one with the Angel Wars crossover, right?
@@BirdRaiserE Maybe ?
I only know about it because of a youtube video tbh.
th-cam.com/video/fRTPLJOOxjM/w-d-xo.html
Can I play as Old Testament God? Or Yaldaboath the Demiurge?
Deal with demons the classic way. Human Negligence.
I want a rookie methuselah card
Redemption is still going on. It’s actually one of the longest tcgs still in print lol.
Draft packs in the football card game by wizards actually makes a lot of sense beyond football draft. Magic sets are typically designed with a draft format in mind, players buying packs and picking cards from them before passing the rest to the person next to them in a circle.
Considering the relevance and popularity of draft in magic is makes sense wizards would try to apply that to a football card game.
Ah yes, MtG and draft. What could go wrong.
5:28
"I am happy, healthy, and would very much appreciate not getting hit with the Classic Clinton Removal Play"
For everyone else who was struggling to pause that in time.
I wish I'd seen this before I spent so much time catching it 🤦
No need to struggle, you can scroll frames by pausing the video and pressing "," (backwards) or "." (forwards)
I think the oddest TCG I've seen is the MLP: FiM TCG. Not for the rules or the fact it exists, but that each card has little blurbs on them that have little dialogues. Including a blurb where they acknowledge that the ponies are trying to gaslight carnivores into eating veggies with a screenshot of the scene where they're feeding a weasel(?) a salad.
That's a pretty abridged description and I'm not certain I got all the details right, but I saw it as a kid and it stuck with me lol
Other oddities are that every single pony can be sorted into six groups around the Elements of Harmony so we know which background characters are similar to which main character, and canon-ish names for literally every recolor that appeared in the show.
Omg I never knew about the blurbs. I heard the gameplay was pretty good but never got to try it myself
@@Ludicollision most are just quotes from the show, but some are made up for the game. The one I'm talking about was something like
"Hey, aren't these guys carnivorous?"
"Well don't tell him that!"
I haven't seen it in years though so I may be slightly wrong. That was the gist though. I can't check without knowing the name of the card though.
I have a few decks of MLP FIM TCG. I lost the rules so I never actually learned how to play. There was a point in time where you could buy a box with two premade decks at Dollar Tree lol.
@@Doub1eSpark People read a joke on a kid's card game and go "UHH IS THIS GASLIGHTING????"
Found the card, it's "Critter Cuisine" from the MLP CCG:
"But ferrets are carnivorous!" - Amethyst Star
"Shhh, maybe they don't know that yet!" - Twinkleshine
Gotta admit, "everybody subsidizes Detroit" may be the best sentence of rules text I've seen on a card in a long time.
“Krusty Krab Katchers”
“Blowin’ Chunks”
“Flattened” (via rear cheeks)
“Drop The Load”
The signs of Nick being a dirty place to work in were always there.
behind closed doors
The first one reminds me of the kool kids Klan :)
Okay glancing over the WTC, why are the Sphinx and the Sydney Opera House there? Couldn't they think of enough American Landmarks?
A lot of Usonian landmarks would just be various roadside attractions that are the world's largest whatever, which in all fairness _would_ give a lot of material.
Visually-distinct international landmarks often show up in the Sim City and Civ games as something anybody can place.
The Austin Powers CCG feels like it needs a mention. The entire game feels like it was designed by throwing a few Austin Powers themed gimmicks in a blender with no regard for anything barring "comedic" potential.
It’s probably the only card game where sexuality is a mechanic
one of my favorite things about that game is there's a card that has 2 choices when played. I forgot what the first choice was but the second choice is OPEN A FUCKING BOOSTER PACK MID GAME and you get an agent from it and add all the evil cards to your hand. (it's once per game so I guess they had some foresight, but that's still nuts.)
@@polocatfan Magic has several of those, actually-- they're all Un-cards, but they do exist! (Booster Tutor, Stocking Tiger, Summon the Pack, and Opening Ceremony.)
I'd love to see you cover Wyvern! One of my favorite failed card games from the 90's - has beautiful art, was fairly successful for it's time & hosted at least 1 world championship, had misprint errors with MTG fronts inserted in starter decks, included incredibly rare ultra rare cards that were 1:1000 pull rates - it's by far one of my favorite nostalgia gems from the 90's.
Bible Battles sounds like it could have failed not just due to being niche, but by having a competitor in the same niche Redemption, another bible based collectible card game that I collected...religiously. Also it even had a video game adaptation. How is Bible Battles going to compete with that?
Krusty Krab Katcher has a nice ring to it, not so nice on the acronym though
4:04 Chicago has definitely taken way more than 198 Ls just from entire baseball seasons alone
What’s wrong with being a Krusty Krab Katcher? I think it sounds as great as a Krusty Komedy Klassic!
What….
Ik right? Im telling this to all my friends in the Kool Kids Klub
Nautical Association of Zippy Individuals
I hate how much Illuminati: New World Order actually visually intrigued me, solely because of how much the art style looks like the cutscenes in Twisted Metal 2
I remember seeing the Spongebob one in stores and thinking "what," but I never looked into it.
In recent times, I've been picking up some dead, possibly forgotten card games; I'm fond of the Cyberpunk card game for its theme and flavor, but it has a number of issues. There's also Drago Borne and its dice mechanics to make things exciting or frustrating.
One card game I'd like to revisit is Hecatomb, a horror card game that was an interesting concept but the problems associated with printing pentagonal partially transparent plastic cards held it back.
Here in Mexico, there's a franchise call Huevocartoon that parodies famous IP with egg characters. It became extremely popular thanks to it's dark humor (especially with children 😅), at some point they created their own "TCG" of some kind called "Duelo de Huevos" (Egg Duel) that play exactly like Yugioh and even some cards were copies of existing YGO desings. It never had a competitive scene or anything like that, but it got a special place on various school playgrounds for many children at that time.
Does it have a version of Tearlaments? If so, yugioh players might finally have a game to switch too.
@@wahrtpretty sure its old as fugg, Tear didn't existed back then
Redemption is around and it’s a Bible themed TCG. It’s the second longest running TCG I think. It’s a bit odd but the community is nice. The starters cost 15 bucks.
The game I played as a kid was Overpower. It was a Marvel Comics collectable card game that lasted a few years, and I had a lot of fun with it. I remember getting Iron Man, but I wanted Dazzler, so my friend traded me Iron Man for Dazzler. Considering how rare Iron Man was, it wasn't the smartest move. The game itself had some terrible power creep, making it one of the most unbalanced games I've ever played. If you had any character with even a small amount of rarity, you'd clean up in that game. There were also a lot of unfair cards, like Unlucky In Love: Spurned By Black Widow, which lowered your opponent's defense stat for the entire match, as well as cards like The Brood which combined a powerful character with powerful special moves. The game actually lasted long enough to see several booster packs, an upgrade that added a new stat to the character cards (effectively making older cards useless), a DC Comics set that was fully compatible with the Marvel set (in case you wanted to see Captain Marvel fight Captain Marvel, I guess), and even an Image Comics set (Spawn was the big selling point there) before stopping production.
Other games I remember include The Simpsons Card Game, which had you "breaking" scenes from the show by placing characters into those scenes (they would have recommended characters that would make breaking easier), The Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me card game (I have no idea how this one plays), The Killer Instinct card game (based on the video game), and The X-Files card game (my friend got an entire set of this one off Ebay and we haven't figured out how it's played).
The problem with The Simpsons card game was that several characters had useless traits like "Scottish" or "Lunchlady" that had no bearing on the gameplay, so they would be forced into the spoiler role more often. Also, while they sold four starter decks, if you wanted the Krusty deck you had to buy a ton of boosters and hope for the best.
Let's go gambling!
AW Dangit
Aw dang it
Aw dangit
Aw, dangit!
AW DANGIT
I'm part of that rare crossover between sports fans and TCG fans, and while I never played either of those NFL games, the Showdown games also included MLB and NBA, and I enjoyed both of those a lot (even though I've never been an NBA fan at all, it was a fun game)
sports and collectible games don't stop at just cards, though! WizKids, the publisher of Heroclix, did an offshoot of that very miniatures game called MLB Sportsclix! I even had an Ichiro
MTG players who got this in their recommendations after the most recent Secret Lair announcement: I am so sorry.
The suffering never ends. 😃
Ah yes, NotBloodBowl.
See it's different because it's a card game. Clearly.
There actually is a blood bowl card game, well was when Fantasy Flight still had GW rights, however it's Team Manager not playing the matches in 'detail' like the one mentioned here
Where would I be without my weekly video on terrible games I'll never play? Edit: 1:06 Well that's one way to start us off 😅
Wheel of Time was a neat idea, but had way too many accessories and bad mechanics - you could one-turn win OR be absolutely starved for resources the entire game.
OMG, someone other than me remembers Super Deck! I went to a classmate’s birthday party once, and we each got a full deck in our party favors bag. Apparently the birthday boy’s dad was involved in making/marketing the game, which hadn’t released yet at the time, and this was his plan to “generate buzz”. I might still have them collecting dust somewhere.
The channel The Dice Tower has a videos from 2010 reviewing the Bible Battles game. Shows the cards too.
you joke now but the competitive deep sea duel community WILL rise
Hey Kam, did you know the SpongeBob one was responsible for showing a close up on one of SpongeBob's plugged holes in Suds?
Sounds unimportant, but that shot never made it into the episode. It was mentioned in a SpongeBob deleted scenes iceberg I watched that i think came out recently. Weird.
Well well, a legitimate reason for it to exist!
I play my Patrick Star in slightly offensive mode and tap it for 2 mana to activate my trainer ability: lose 10 int point(s)!
While Bible Battle may be hard to scour around, there's one other Bible themed trading card game out there that may peek your interest, Redemption. While Redemption has not gotten much in terms of cards out there after the first few waves, they still have an active tournament scene.
The commitment of the wall picture and main picture both changing seamlessly is a level of commitment I was not prepared for 😻
I know people call you "board game scott the woz" but I like how you have enough of your own identity to distinguish yourself. That said, I just realized that you sound a lot like one of the "how it's made" narrators, and it will probably take me a while before I can get that out of my head
NFL Showdown was INCREDIBLE. The play calling was so fun, and the 2003-era playgrid worked really well. I still have a bunch of the cards, maybe I should show up to my LCS on a game night and bring them to play
BibleBattles is a channel dedicated to the game here on TH-cam. So is The Dice Tower. Whether any of them are selling or even still active, l couldn't say.
The Desert Storm one not being included here is a crime.
Beyblade had a TCG back around 2004. I remember seeing packs of them for the first time in a dollar store years after-the-fact. Both players assigned themselves a bey for their deck, and the goal was to reduce your opponent's bey's spin to zero. During a turn you would play cards to give you some kind of advantage and make attacks with your bey. When making attacks, you'd line up the top edges of the defending bey's card to the played card to see if the attack hit. If it hit, then it would do damage, and I think you'd do more damage if you hit a weak spot. Neat game with weird theming since the point of Beyblade is watching cool tops hit each other.
And you could even buy the tops in stores at the same time, so it was kinda weird that they expected a card game to do well when kids could just buy the actual toys from the show instead.
Kinda wish I hadn't gotten rid of my old plastic Beyblades, maybe some of them are worth something now.
@@nicholasfarrell5981 And don't forget that the packs also came with stickers TO APPLY TO THE CARDS.
I am honestly very surprised to not see the Metazoo trading card game here, I guess it would be out of the time period but a game that had cards which require you to have a REAL LIFE meteor shower happening or for you to take off your pants to be at full power is kinda crazy
Probably because Rat-Bastard Rudy's stench still lingers on that one, and anyone with a brain avoids that wannabe crypto-bro's mess like the plague.
what
@ezdispenser Metazoo is all about allowing the environment around you to influence gameplay. I'm just skimming a set of cards I bought on a whim (the art is so fricking cute), and, while I don't actually know much what these effects specifically do, one reads "if there is a Snowman within eyesight, this Beastie gains [symbol, presumably denoting a keyword]" (Beastie, being presumably how the game refers to its monsters). Another reads "If you are wearing fur, this Beastie gains +20 LP". And finally, "If you hear classical music nearby, create a Skeleton Token (&c)."
I assume the meta for this game is heavily centered around trying to deduce the nature of your opponent's strategy based on whether or not some off niche article of their appearance is in fact necessary for an effect of theirs. There's a card that literally has no effect if you are not eating a "potato based snack". I think it's all a cheeky gimmick to encourage people to not take these things too seriously, but the artwork is lovely.
Does Metazoo count as failed? I think you can still buy it in card and board game shops. It definitely belongs on lists of worst trading card games and worst looking cards
@@epic4fish they went out of business a little while ago, also I think the cards look really nice
There were TWO different card games bawed around parts of the World of Darkness. The first one was called Jyhad and then renamed into Vampire the Eternal Struggle based around Vampire the Masquerade. The second one is called Rage based on Werewolf the Apocalypse. The Vampire one lasted for a while, and Rage is now played online with the sort of a wink and a nod from the IP owner.
"Do you know how hard it is to find a game that lets you play as a terrorist?" feels like foreshadowing for some reason...
If anyone here wants an actually good superhero card game (albeit a fixed-deck one), look into Sentinels of the Multiverse. The gameplay is way more engaging, with a team of player-controlled heroes fighting an auto-playing villain with no constant multiplication. There are *some* mathy heroes, but they're very much optional. Plus, you get all the same comic book homage art styles, with Definitive Edition in particular going through every single era from the '40s to now. Which reminds me: not only are there dozens upon dozens of characters on all sides, but they also have their own kayfabe about the comic book publisher they all ostensibly come from, individual books and how they were received by their nonexistent audience, their own version of the DCAU... the works!
Did you know that Battletech had a trading card game? My cousin still has a few cards.
there's an active community making their own fan cards now even.
I played Illumanti a lot, it's a lot like the Illuminati box game. I also played Sim City, which was also pretty good, but took up a lot of space to play.
There was a Monty Python trading card game. Didn't play well but it was very funny.
I thought 7:25 was foreshadowing for a mention to the short-lived Simpsons TCG. Boy, is my face red.
ha! Oh the days of playing INOW. I still have my Shangri-La hippy deck somewhere....
So in this episode we have digs at Chicago, Detroit, the Minnesota Vikings, and BountyGate. I'm pretty sure Kam's a Packer fan
@@Mathtron5000 I've been Doxxed Confound it
I got the GI Joe TCG deck thing as a kid after I saw the tutorial video on the Valor VS Venom DVD, it’s a fun game but flawed by it’s insistence on the two factions not synergizing at all
"drop the load" is indeed very rare
10:43 I... actually recall reading a Shade comic when I was like, eight. I'm not kidding, I found him in the back of an Americomic book for another one of their heroes, Dragonfly. Got the thing for free at a thrift shop or something.
To be specific, Richard Garfield PhD was the one who created Magic the Gathering, before selling it to Wizards of the Coast, but ye.
It’s awesome to see you getting a new place! To a bright future! 🤘🏼
4:14 I'm putting this into a MTG deck as a land
Hey, don't forget Kryptik TCG. Rhe creators waited 2 years between their second and third sets. And then they got offered by a loyal player to be the distributor of the game, but then when he did, they just ended up killing the game indefinitely anyway. Without that player, the games 3rd set would never have been released. They lost thousands of dollars killing the game once the CEO transition happened. Now, there are a few people with the new cards, which makes it unfair. They wasted money on a van tour and released different prints of the same product.
Fun fact Spongebob was just a remake of Card-capture Sakura "Game"
I can't state how much I also need to unlock the forbidden knowledge of the Bible Battles game. It's PERFECT for my Party Box.
Don't know if it truly counts as "failed" since it lasted for a few years and had a pretty high number of sets released for it, but I would LOVE to see Anachronism, the card game put out by the History Channel in the early 2000s, discussed
The Rap Rat will follow its summoner to the ends of the universe.
I actually had a Spongebob card game deck as a kid when it came out from a convention, I don't remember much. But I got gifted several Spongebob items by my parents and I still use my Spongebob cereal bowl all the time.
Anyways, I had that card game, didn't understand the rules (didn't speak much english yet) and just found it cool and gave cards to friends.
Thank you for having a video on this mate.
they just announced a set of Spongebob promo cards for Magic the Gathering by the way, no joke
5:30
"I am happy, healthy, and would very much appreciate not getting hit with the Classic Clinton Removal Play"
Bushiroad has a few card games that they bring over from Japan and just drop support for; Luck & Logic had like one set before it was completely cancelled over here. There's also a bunch of other obscure Japanese TCGs that bit the dust due to the HUGE amount of competition there. The original Monster Collection also has an interesting history, it was extremely popular when it first launched in Japan in like '97 but when the devs introduced a rotation of the card pool the game collapsed almost immediately.
Would Yu-Gi-Oh Dungeon Dice Monsters count as a submission to the Worst Board Game Tournament? A collectable figurine game based off of the trading card game. Each pack only had one monster and unless you got at least 2 of the same star level / rarity you couldn't use them. (I wasn't able to find the MSRP from back in the day) You also needed to lug around the map path tiles, dice, monster figures, and cards that explained the monster's effects to even play.
i watched the board game mechanics video you made as one of my first videos on your channel and i was almost immediately hooked; please keep making masterpieces
It’s funny that Upper Deck did the SpongeBob game because, at the time, they also were doing the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG.
NFL Showdown was moderately fun when the scanner worked. When it didn't...
One that sticks out in my mind was the obscure Sonic X card game. I don't believe it ever got any booster packs, because the game itself was basically just War, but with instructions that tried to trick you into thinking it wasn't War.
Games that just tricked you into playing War were quite common. The Dragon Ball Super card game has its own rules and format for battles, but the Dragon Ball Z game a decade prior was just "Here's a shit ton of cards with screenshots from the anime".
I tried to design a Sonic-themed card game back when I was a teenager, it was based off of the Sonic Fighters arcade game where each character would duel; and they each played differently. Sonic would play fast paced with smaller damage cards but could combo well, and Knuckles was slower but hit like a truck and was harder to take down.
I actually had the Deep Sea Duel starter deck as a kid. xD A lot of the cards made my nephew and I crack up laughing.
5:28 I am happy, healthy, and would very much appreciate getting hit with the Classic Clinton Removal Play
5:02 It brings me immeasurable joy to know that there's a card game out there with a card that has "You do not have to pay taxes to the IRS" as rules text.
Crazy how you forgot about the TCG tie in with FATAL
You could have a series based on failed TCG's alone. Ani-Mayhem, XXXenophile, City of Heroes... endless. Back when Magic popped off in the 90's, my dad thought he was going to hit it big not by buying sealed Magic around the time of Ice Age/Alliances, but instead, a TCG based on...hockey.
Hell, I'll admit it. I played MLB Showdown. I was pretty good at it as well. Took 4th at regionals one year. Unfortunately for me only the top 3 got a free ticket into Nationals. Although if you won Nationals you got seasons tickets to a baseball team of your choice.
Edit: I also played a TCG called Rage. It was based on White Wolf's World of Darkness, specifically the werewolves. Fun until I realized you can win a game and not kill a single thing.
I WAS NOT EXPECTING THE GAMBLECORE REFERENCE 😭
Let's be financially responsible!
Even BGG only has five pictures for Bible Battles. There are three cards kind of visible on the back of the box, but not really legible, and one example card. Traitor, a Babylonian Event that reduces a building's defense by one.
After typing this, I saw that Dice Tower did a review thirteen years ago.
Surprised to see Bible Battles mentioned yet left Redemption off your list. Exact same premise but came out in 1994, and is actually still going today.
I remember the Harry Potter Trading Card Game. It had a few expansions with expanding rules (Quidditch, Diagon Alley...) and ended with Chamber of Secrets (This was back when HP was a MASSIVE toy line)
0/10: Failed to mention Beyblade, the TCG that costs more than the toys it was based on.
That illuminati game actually looks amazing. The fact that No Beer is super effective against Germany Texas and Australia has me rolling
I miss when the packaging of SpongeBob stuff was green like the card game. Something really nostalgic about it
I started my addiction to buying cards in the late 90s. The card shop nearest to me had mostly magic, sports, yugioh and pokemon cards, but also contained some very odd choices of television related trading cards such as Alias.
Remember Alias?
Cereal trading cards were the only ones I was exposed to as a kid. Specifically the ones from Coco Pops. Other than that, a local grocery store had mini figures of their groceries along with trading cards for them