Dusting off the CCGs

CCGs (Collectible Card Games) are something that I sunk a whole lot of time and money into at various points in the past.

• From 1995->1998 it was Vampire : The Eternal Struggle
• In 2001 it was Lord of the Rings and a bit of Harry Potter for something a bit lighter :)
  

They are horrible horrible evil things. I cannot stress this enough. Do not get involved with them! The amount of money you put into them is absolutely insane for the amount you play them. Don't even buy a starter deck. That's like a crack dealer giving you your first hit free.

Seriously, it's like if someone tried to sell you a car, but in order to get the most out of it you had to buy individually boxed extra parts, but you can only buy parts in identical looking sealed boxes containing a random part, and the best part can only be found in a few random garages in the UK... You'd just tell them to bugger off in that case, but for some reason in the shape of a CCG the concept is somehow really appealing.

Despite all this I found myself getting them out of the cupboard. At first the Vampire cards as there's talk of a few of the guys from Garforth Tabletop Gaming getting together for a game or two. Then I thought it would be fun to get the Potter cards out for a couple of games with Cat. They originally got put away around 2002/2003 when Cat developed an unbeatable Hermione deck and I got in a strop ;) . Luckily with my new gaming experience I managed to put together a better deck, and we're currently at 1 game each this time (plus I'm a much better loser now :D).

But still, I stand by my original opinion. I'm never buying another card again. These things are pure evil and should never be bought. There's so many great games out there that will cost you far less than getting into these things, there's really no justification for them! For those that really do love building decks try Dominion instead.