Gaming
Gaming
Picking the perfect digital card game for you
Card games come in many forms. Whether you’re in the market to play the most popular TCGs and CCGs, or want to try out a unique Deck Builder, there’s something for you.
Playing card games with family, friends, and opponents is a time-honoured pursuit, but what do you do if you want to play when no one is around? You go digital. A large selection of card games can be played on basically any computer, smartphone and major gaming console. A lot of them are also free, with easy to master controls, making them super accessible for most people.
Ease of access is nice, but what should you play specifically? Do you want to play alone or with friends and randoms online? Do you want to go on a quest, solve a mystery, or collect and trade characters? Do you want to play offline on your PC or carve out a bunch of data from your phone plan? The list below has some of the best options, with a lot of variety, so you’ll have something to play no matter your lifestyle or interests.
Pokemon TCG Online
Pokémon TCG Online
© The Pokémon Company
If you didn't collect hundreds of Pokémon cards without knowing what to do with them, have you even lived? Pokémon TCG Online is an oldie but a goodie. It's one of the few digital card games that let you trade cards with other people making it a true trading card game (TCG) over a regular collectible card game (CCG). But enough word politics, Pokémon TCG Online is free for Windows, Mac, iPad, Android and very easy to learn, making it a great entry point for new players, especially if they’re fans of the Pokémon franchise.
Similar to Pokémon battles in the anime and other video games, you’ll have one active Pokémon out to battle while the rest are kept on your bench. Pokémon need specific energy cards to use their moves and you can evolve them one turn after they’ve been placed. Assign your energy accordingly to make the best use of your Pokémon’s abilities to win games. You can play in Trainer Challenges against the computer or in Versus mode against other players. Wins get you packs, coins and decks to improve your game. As soon as you can get 500 coins, buy yourself the Soaring Storm theme deck from the shop. It's a super strong Dragonite deck that’s easy to win games with, making it perfect for beginners.
South Park: Phone Destroyer
South Park: Phone Destroyer
© Ubisoft
This game can turn anyone into a mobile junkie and entice even the most frugal gamers with (totally unnecessary) in-app purchases. South Park: Phone Destroyer is a free-to-play mobile game that is entirely online, with a unique real-time strategy game feature that is uncommon in most CCGs. Where and when you place your characters has a huge impact on whether or not you win games. Tanks like Manbearpig go in the front while Ranged characters (Pope Timmy) will serve you best if you keep them in the back. Your other units, Assassins (Four-Assed Monkey) and Fighters (Sexy Nun Randy) are best somewhere in between.
This CCG is split into one long story mode that gets increasingly difficult as the levels go on, as well as a PVP mode where you try and raise your rank by destroying other South Park enthusiasts' phones in a best of three game. The more games you win in either mode will determine the number of rewards you unlock. Whether that be commons, rares, epics, and legendaries or items, coins and cash that you can use to make your characters, traps and spells stronger. There are tons of cards to collect and lots of other added extras to keep you from ever looking away from your phone.
Slay the Spire
Slay The Spire
© Humble Bundle
Finally, something that’s easy to play when you're flying from your place in Vancouver to your second home in Toronto, or maybe that’s just me. Slay the Spire is a single-player card game that is almost entirely offline, apart from accessing the Daily Climb, and is available on mobile, PC and console. It’s a Deck Builder, meaning you build your deck as you advance through the game. Slay the Spire is a roguelike that involves decision-making, adventure and a lot of strategy, making it super replayable.
You play until you win or you die. If you die, you start from the beginning and make a brand new deck. The cards, relics and potions you collect along your journey determine if you stand a chance when you come to the Act 3 boss so make sure to be extra picky. You have four characters to choose from: The Ironclad, Silent, Defect and Watcher. Each one has its quirks and card sets, plus you will have to beat the game with each of them to open alternate endings, further increasing its replay value.
Legends of Runeterra
Legends of Runeterra
© Riot Games
Honestly, you could have never played League of Legends in your life and still really enjoy Legends of Runeterra. LoR, set in the LoL universe, is a free-to-play CCG with cross-save/play for Windows, iOS, iPhone and Android. LoR is still relatively new in the esports world, but it is continuously making its way to being as popular as competitive heavyweights like MTG Arena and Hearthstone.
It is objectively the prettiest game on this list. The card art is beautiful, while the graphics and gameplay are stunning whether you’re just navigating the menus or in the middle of a game. The title is quite complex at higher levels, but is still new player friendly thanks to features like the Oracle’s Eye, which lets you see how your decisions will play out before you lock them in. Great if you’re an overthinker that sucks at math.
LoR is separated into 10 regions, each with their own champions, followers, landmarks and spells that allow you to create various decks. You can combine up to two regions to create some pretty amazing synergies. There are several game modes that can be played competitively like Gauntlet, Tournament and PVP, or casually like Labs, VS AI, and Challenges. Cards are really easy to collect for free and the game encourages you to do that through Region Rewards and the Weekly Vault. This game is also updated constantly, so it never gets stale and there is an active community of content creators and streamers that can help keep you up to date.
Inscryption
Inscryption
© Devolver Digital
Inscryption is another offline roguelike deck builder, but this one plays like an Escape Room with lots of horror elements. You’ve been locked in a cabin with a demon that forces you to play card games until you lose and they kill you. Before you die, you get turned into a card to be used by the next poor sap that gets captured. So, turn your past self into a beast if you can to make the next run easier. At any point before you make a move on the map, you can leave the table to solve puzzles in the room to help you get out of the cabin and progress through the story, making the gameplay feel much more dynamic.
The cards and items you collect and upgrade as you progress on the map are, for the most part, related to real-world things. Bear, cat, wolf, cockroach etc… are all real animals and they require blood and bone sacrifices to be summoned to the field. When you strike the demon directly, points are earned and counted in teeth, which are placed on a scale. You win a round when the scale tips all the way on the demon’s side. Once you escape the cabin, you unlock Act II, a CCG 8-Bit Adventure game that’s not as polished or captivating, to be honest. So to get additional unlocks and challenges for Act I, try out the official expansion, Kaycee’s Mod.
Hearthstone: Battlegrounds
Hearthstone Battlegrounds
© Blizzard Entertainment
Battlegrounds is just one of the many game modes Blizzard’s crazy popular Hearthstone has to offer, but it’s arguably the best thing on this entire list and many who play this CCG won't dabble in anything else.
Battlegrounds was introduced in 2019, 5 years after Hearthstone's initial release, and quickly gained a lot of traction, prying fans of this Warcraft-inspired title away from 1v1 modes to this new wacky 1v7 game that could be played right away with all cards being available to you as soon as you entered the game. Sure there are paid extras if you want perks but you can play and win without spending a cent.
With cross-play and cross-save between your phone and computer, Battlegrounds lets you invite up to 7 friends to play against or pairs you with randoms if you don't know that many people who play Hearthstone. Once grouped, you choose a Hero, all of them have different powers so pick for your playstyle, and enter Bob’s Tavern.
Bob has minions you can recruit for 3 coins each to battle the other seven players. Figuring out how to strategically spend your coins to purchase minions, upgrade Bob’s Tavern and in which order to put your recruits takes practice, but when everything lines up it's a beautiful thing.
Fights in Tight Spaces
Fights in Tight Spaces
© Mode 7 Games
This is the card-based tactical fighting game no one knew they wanted. In Fights in Tight Spaces, you play as a Section Eleven agent that uses a variety of fancy fighting moves to manipulate his surroundings, allowing you to flawlessly massacre a bunch of goons leaving blood spatters in their place. After the fight is over you can hit replay and watch it like a movie, which can look really cool if you played your combos right.
This Deck Builder has over 150 cards to try out, so you can orchestrate some awesome fights. The game tells you how your enemies are going to attack and in which order so you can take all the time you need to come up with the best strategy. A lot of the time, you can manipulate the grid you’re on enough to force enemies to shoot, stab, burn or hit each other. Available on Steam and Xbox, Fights in Tight Spaces is a relatively inexpensive single-player game with a lot of replayability.
Magic: The Gathering Arena
Magic The Gathering Arena
© Wizards of the Coast
MTG Arena is arguably the best digital adaption of the legendary tabletop card game Magic: The Gathering to date. Magic was the very first TCG ever, created by Richard Garfield and released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. It took Wizards of the Coast a couple of tries to really bring this legacy title to the digital realm but MTG Arena is so polished now that it’s the best way to learn to play Magic. It’s free-to-play on PC, Mac, Android and iOS.
MTG Arena stays current with the releases of new expansions to the physical game, so there’s a relatively smooth transition from playing online to in real life. This way, no one is at a disadvantage whether you enter into a digital or a real-life competitive game of Magic. MTG Arena is Hearthstone’s biggest competitor in the digital card game space but, where Hearthstone attracts users for being easy, Magic keeps players by being hard.
