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MTG vs Yugioh vs Pokemon (vs other trading card games)
Thought it might be good to have a place to compare and contrast three of the most popular trading card games out there (and move this rather irrelevant discussion out of @GeekBabe123 's MTG card "maker" discussion). So here is a place to comment on the goods and bads of three of the most popular and well-known trading card games as well as any other trading card games you might see fit to make a comparison to.
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They fulfill different markets in terms of who they target in terms of both design and finances. But this is mainly due to the stingy nature of WotC in regards to some of their products. I'd love to defend either name, but any issues they have could've been fairly easily resolved through compromising their methodologies earlier on.
Not to mention the notion that both names are doubling down on their earlier decisions in negative respects.
The Pokemon TCG
As the first trading card game I ever learned to play, I do have a bit of nostalgic liking for the game, however the Pokemon TCG is not without its faults.
The main flaw of the Pokemon TCG is that its two competitive formats, Standard and Expanded (the Pokemon TCG equivalent of Modern) are really, really expensive to play competitively, especially for new players. The standard format right now has two really expensive, rare, staple cards in them that nearly every competitive deck, regardless of the types of Pokemon used or strategies used, runs at least 1 copy of: Shaymin-EX, which is sitting at around $30-$40 a copy, and Tapu Lele-GX, which is sitting at around $30-$35 a copy, not to mention that both these cards have rarer versions of themselves that can sit at excess of $60. The fact that it can cost upwards of $70 for just a single copy each of two cards almost essentially to having a competitive, tournament-level deck is outrageous, even compared to the prices of some widely-played card in MTG's modern format. The main reason that these prices are so high is because Pokemon refuses to come out with promo cards for these widely-played staples to try to get people to buy more of their product, the most infamous example being the announcement of tins for the Tapu GXs featured in their most recent american expansion, Guardians Rising, which came with alternate-art promo versions of either Tapu Bulu-GX and Tapu-Koko GX, but not Tapu Lele-GX, despite being in the same expansion as the two and meeting the theme of the tins, as they knew the card was going to be expensive and they wanted to force players to buy booster pack product to get the rare and valuable card.
Another problem with the Pokemon TCG is the lack of a widespread, weekly, mildly competitive organized get-together for players of the game. Unlike MTG's weekly Friday Night Magic events where organized tournaments for Standard, Modern, and draft are held, Pokemon has Leagues that just get a lot of Pokemon TCG and video game players together in the same place. While this does serve as a way to get players of the game together, the fact that most Pokemon leagues do not host tournaments or drafts on a regular basis can make being player of the game a bit stale and boring. Casual play with others is nice, but if you don't know anyone else at your league, it can potentially make finding someone to play against a challenge. On top of that, the fact that there aren't organized tournaments on a regular basis can make it hard for players to scope out the metagame, learn about competitive decks, and prevent them from having the ability to play more creative and less-known decks in a formal tournament setting (as many people just pay the top decks at large tournaments, creating an environment where it is hard for much else to be played without losing a ton). While I wouldn't say this is as big a problem as the price of standard, it still is a downside to the game, especially when I get a craving to play some matches with a fun deck and everybody else at my league is playing some either way too powerful or way too weak (usually the younger players).
The last major problem I have with the Pokemon TCG is the game almost completely and utterly fails to help new players get into competitive play. One of the worst aspects of Pokemon is that for the most part it is very hard for a new player to get started in the game. For the Pokemon TCG the "best" starter product somebody can buy is a theme deck. These serve as a fantastic way for players to learn the game, but give them absolutely no value whatsoever in terms of the cards it contains, spare one or two copies of a few competitive trainer cards. Now here's the part that's going to surprise a lot of MTG players who have never played the Pokemon TCG: Theme decks are actually WORSE than intro packs and planeswalker decks in terms of a staring product. Why? Well, at the very least the MTG intro packs and planeswalker decks contained so semblance of a strategy that could be upgraded with cards from within the set. Pokemon's theme decks contain no strategy whatsoever and actually PROMOTE bad deck building in the way their decklists are designed. The main example of this is how I, along with many other early Pokemon TCG players, were led astray by the use of "pyramid-shaped" evolution lines of Pokemon in the deck lists. The idea of the "pyramid-shaped" evolution line is to play less and less copies of your evolved Pokemon so that if one of your lower stage evolutions is Knocked Out, you still have more copies to replace it. However, there are two main problems with this idea. The first is if you already have the only copy or copies of your highest stage evolution out, all prior stages of evolution of that Pokemon that you draw are utterly useless. The other problem with pyramid lines is that they put you at an inherent statistical disadvantage to draw your best Pokemon. The fact that every theme deck I've ever seen uses the pyramid-shaped evolution line despite the fact that it is one of the worst "shapes" you can have for an evolution line is only supporting the usage of such "shapes" among new players trying to get into the game. On top of that, the absolutely abysmal count of useful trainers is only going to make newer players think trainer cards aren't that important when they are in fact the most important cards in the game.
Finally, a bit of a smaller problem I have with the Pokemon TCG, the Pokemon TCG provides a generally terrible limited environment and, thus, many cards you get from booster packs are completely and utterly useless. For years now MTG sets have been designed with the idea of creating a good limited environment for prerelease and draft, allowing cards that never see the light of day in Standard or Modern, like Untethered Express, to be all-stars for limited players. Pokemon, on the other hand, designs their sets with generally no clear strategies in mind. That's not to say strategies haven't existed in sets, but they are only about one-per-set (rather than the 5+ limited strategies most MTG sets have) it's very rare to see a player playing a coherent strategy at a Pokemon prerlease, they usually just put the best cards of their most abundant types in their decks. This ends up leaving 95% of the cards in any Pokemon TCG set as useless filler that will never see play anywhere, leaving them with no playable value whatsoever in any widely-played format. And while I admit MTG sets have their Dubious Challenges and Protection from the Hekmas, the majority of the cards in any MTG set serve as at least decent filler for a deck in that set's limited format. Another problem with Pokemon's limited format is the packs contain only 10 cards rather than 15, which means you need 5 packs to draft a decent limited pool rather than MTG's 3. This can put drafting with prize support at $20-$25 a person, which is very expensive. The number of packs to get a solid limited pool is so high that not even a sealed booster box of Pokemon TCG packs can provide enough packs for an 8-man pod.
Though, for all the Pokemon TCG's faults, it does have some upsides that make it such a popular game (which I am getting to).
Another major upside of Pokemon (compared to MTG in particular) is that Pokemon isn't afraid to errata a card's effect if they feel it is too powerful. My main example of this is the popular card Pokemon Catcher. The original effect of the card actually didn't require you to flip a coin to see if the effect worked. However, Pokemon eventually realized the card was too unfair and dominating in its current state and changed the effect to add a coin flip, balancing the card even if it took away from its playability. The fact that Pokemon cares enough about its metagame to actively change the effects of cards after they have been printed helps keep their metagame healthy without needing to ban cards.
Lastly, and most importantly, Pokemon has consistently maintained a very diverse and healthy standard and expanded format. While I won't say Pokemon has perfect constructed formats, outside of price, Pokemon has generally kept a healthy metagame with at least two or three different tier one decks and many tier two decks that can stand up to them. This diverse format makes Pokemon a fun and interesting game to play competitively as the metagame never gets too stale. The lack of a sideboard in Pokemon can make this metagame a challenge to work with, but I actually think that adds to the enjoyment of the game. Not only that, but consistently there have been examples of rogue decks nobody has ever heard of getting high placement at really big tournaments, such as M Audino-EX's first place at worlds and the infamous second place finish of no-energy Wailord-EX at nationals a few years ago. This is where I feel Pokemon has one of their biggest successes. There's no real one or two top decks you must play to do well, there is almost always at least three or four different strategies swimming around that you actively have to work and play against, keeping you on your toes and caring about every single card in your deck.
Now I'll move on to my opinions on Yu-Gi-Oh!
As for the community issues of format variety and new player inclusion, this is due to how the game is marketed and has less depth for specific aspects in terms of interaction between players outside of their turn. Any game with this design issue runs into problems supporting their community, which is why so many card games fall off the radar and can't reach the status to be as successful in terms of TCG elements.
The results we've seen are an almost synonymous opinion upon development studios that they're pressured into free to play and nontradeable market systems. The ability to trade cards from a CCG being important in community building and overall connection among people that may otherwise not see one another's faces. (Referring to MTGO!) Although the notion of drafts being one of MTG's primary formats is what allows it to exist so well on paper. I mainly mentioned MTGO as it's the direct comparison to how the paper market is owned by a small amount of these games, but the online market is dominated by the rest.
Overall Pokemon's issues are inadvertently caused by the way the game itself is designed rules-wise.
I don't wish it to fail as a game, but I think the many ways of summoning were implemented in a way that it always felt contrived. It has been a long standing joke with anybody I've met who knows Yugioh that this is the case. I haven't met a single person that said otherwise. That's a lot of people, including heavy fans who only play the card game.
Casual play with separate collections Is nigh-upon impossible: When I started playing Pokémon, I received a large pile of cards ranging from 2nd to Diamond & Pearl. I played with a kid who had cards from after D&P to X&Y. We built decks in almost the same exact way, and he won every time I used a deck built from my collection. Not necessarily because he was a better player (I actually discovered the concept of energy efficiency before he did), but because his cards were newer. A contemporary Pokémon has more hp, and its attacks do more damage for lower energy costs.
The way pokémon expands is retarted: Gotta say it like it is. One of the hidden upsides of Mtg is that the setting changes. In Pokémon, the only way to discover new pokémon is to discover a new continent. And pokémon has to discover new species to keep the game fresh and provide chase cards. But they have run out of ideas. There are "Chandelier", "Sword", and "Pumpkin" pokémon now. They used to be based off of animals (sometimes a bit loosely, granted) and the trend towards inanimate objects is new. Which brings me to another point. I don't think anyone actually gives a sh*t about the new pokémon beyond how powerful they are. There are deep followings for the old ones, like Pikachu, Eevee, Bulbasaur, and Charmander.
The rules change too fast in seemingly minor ways that have huge impact: I stopped playing pokémon about a year and a half ago at the introduction of M-EXes. In that time span, pokémon has introduced pokémon breaks, pokémon GXes, and Ace-Specs. In this group of additions, I only see a case that can be made for such changes in the case of the Ace-Specs.
The rest are just promotional. (Although I do like the concept of the Pokémon breaks.)
Pokémon is more expensive than Mtg: This builds on my first point and a point that @Arceus8523 made. My statement is very bold, I know, and really, I mean it from a teenaged casual perspective. But Arceus has a point, the cheap beginner product is universally terrible. The theme decks are horrible, and the booster packs are worthless dues to the fact that they do not have a set number of each rarity inside. (If I remember correctly.), and while you can buy a retiring player's collection for dirt cheap, that is because their collections can't compete with the new stuff either.
Geodude Graveller Golem Voltorb Electrode Magnemite Magneton Grimer Muk Koffing Weezing Pineco Fortress Chimecho Nosepass Probopass(god what is Probopass) Castform and Glalie beg to differ
I'm going to be honest, I feel those arguments are a little weak. Here's the counterpoint to each of your arguments in the way they are currently presented.
Argument 1: Casual play with separate collections Is nigh-upon impossible
Well, if you and your friends all started collecting Pokémon TCG cards (whether you all started playing at that time or not) like my group of friends and I did (in fact I was the last in my group to start), all the cards should balance out fairly. What you're actually criticizing about isn't due to collection size or age, it's due to something entirely different all together. Your points are valid, but I didn't bring the argument you have here up in my original criticism of the game. Here's what you're really arguing: The Pokémon TCG has experienced power creep particularly within the Pokémon themselves at such a fast level that casual using cards from a wide variety of sets releasing across a long period is nearly impossible. What is power creep? Well, in an attempt to put it into my own words, I would say power creep is the theory that as a large and successful Trading Card game progresses, their design team begins to design slightly stronger and stronger cards in order to make each new set successful in the current metagame. I won't say MTG hasn't experienced a power creep with its creatures, especially from its early sets, bur MTG's Power Creep has been much more subtle and has only really effected creature cards. If you look at many of the noncreature cards from MTG's early history (Time Vault, Necropotence, Force of Will, the Power 9, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, etc.), the power level on them is a lot higher than good cards today. I think most people will agree Time Vault is a much better artifact than Aetherworks Marvel. Pokemon's power creep, on the other hand, has been insanely fast as Pokemon desperately tries to have players play decks other than the most popular decks. I'm not saying that standard is broken, but even within expanded, which covers the first set to come out when I started learning the Pokemon TCG, Black and White, up to the most recent set, I have already begun to see cards I used in competitive decks become obsolete. The fact that I as a Pokemon player can say "yeah, these aren't as inherently powerful as their newer versions are" after playing the game for only 5 years shows the speed at which the strength of Pokemon TCG cards has grown.
Argument 2: The way Pokémon expands is retarded
As a quick side not, please, for the love of the God-Pharaoh learn how to spell "retarded." I usually don't harp on spelling, but misspelling "retarded" can make you look like a total hypocrite.
Anyway, the main problem with this argument is that it's about Pokémon in general and not about the TCG itself. Simply put, Pokémon are designed for the video games first and the trading cards second. Also, "Chandelier", "Sword", and "Pumpkin" have all had at least one card that has impacted standard to some degree.
Argument 3: The rules change too fast in seemingly minor ways that have huge impact
This coming from an MTG player. You, know, MTG, the game where every first set in the block releases a whole host of new mechanics and abilities? MTG has way more different mechanics and abilities than Pokemon and it makes learning the game a daunting task, especially when you see a block-specific mechanic like Embalm written without its reminder text for the first time. Pokemon may release more new types of Pokemon cards, but learning them is generally pretty simple as they all function the same way mechanically.
Argument 4 Pokémon is more expensive than Mtg:
I've already brought up that Pokemon is generally pretty good at reprinting cards when needed and most of what you said holds up fine, I just wanted to let you know that the rarity breakup of a Pokemon Booster has been 5 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 foil card that can be any rarity except ultra rare (unless it's within a BREAK set, where the BREAK pokemon can take up this spot as an ultra rare), and one rare card that can be replaced by a holographic rare, ultra rare, full-art, rainbow rare, in the latest Sun and Moon sets, or secret rare for quite some time now. Also, I'd only say Pokemon tends to outprice MTG in standard, modern, vintage, and legacy are all very expensive formats to play at the top level.
I'd work on your "no strategy" argument, which I believe is simply invalid, but I am currently out of time, so I will (hopefully) discuss that later today when I get the chance. I do believe your arguments have some valid points, I just feel they could've been better presented.
This is disappointingly true due to Yugioh's issue with inconsistent art choices and the requirement of following the traditional anime style. Especially with how tired the anime is of being run.
https://static1.cards-capital.com/9204/prophecy-destroyer.jpg
As for the anime, it's received many bludgeonings over the years. Needs to be put to rest at some point so they can focus on the game.
Typically most the cards look like really old anime and that's usually for bad reasons, rather than a compliment. The change of MTG artwork is more due to technology boundaries when it came to production, which is understandable
The sheer number of decks the Pokebeach community is designing and putting up for others to critique, the majority with some form of coherent strategy, should show you that Pokemon does have strategy to it.
http://www.pokebeach.com/forums/forum/ptcg-deck-garage.154/
I wouldn't say it's as intricate as MTG's "play a bunch of creatures with the same creature type and a bunch of creatures that benefit creatures of the creature type" strategy (//sarcasm). However, I will agree that MTG is more complex than Pokemon, but that doesn't mean that Pokemon doesn't have any strategy.
Yugioh: Playing a fun game.
Pokemon: Using a enslaved mythical creature to fight for your personal gain. Similar to gladiatorial pit fighting.
Magic: Using and arsenal of magic and gaining the allegiance of powerful entities to defeat your opponent across the infinite planes of existence.
But outside of my group Yugioh is awful. My main gripe isn't how many summon methods there are. I think it's biggest problem is complexity. The reason I play way more magic than Yugioh is that, when new cards are involved, the game is more like reading a dense book than playing a game. I also don't like powercreep since from a competitive stand point, it deletes the rantish second half of the first paragraph. At the point they're at, it would take more than a rules overhaul to fix it, so I think it's just gonna keep going down hill which is why I make my own card games :V
What are their names?