Any CCGs that do free to play as well as Master Duel?

[Papa Smurf]

Looking for a bit of variety and to get in to other card games. I tried Magic Arena but they have an incredibly stale meta there that makes even Yugioh look varied by comparison. Duel Links is too much of a grind.

Are there any other CCGs that do free to play as well as Master Duel?

Edit: I'm starting to realise that my issue with other CCGs is they seem to follow Magic's formula of having different 'colours' or 'types', and that inevitably leads to every deck being some flavour of a goodstuff pile. Great if you think GOAT was the pinnacle of yugioh I guess...I think I prefer the way Yugioh does Archetypes as every deck feels different, so would love recommendations for games that share a similar design philosophy.

[TormentedSalad]

Originally posted by Papa Smurf:

Looking for a bit of variety and to get in to other cards games. I tried Magic Arena but they have an incredibly stale meta there that makes even Yugioh look varied by comparison. Duel Links is too much of a grind.

Are there any other CCGs that do free to play as well as Master Duel?

Pokemons new client does a decent job it will feel abit slow at first but I started on it again with the new client 2 packs have passed and I'm constantly sitting on 10K or more crafting points and I keep crafting the max rarity cards.

Meta there is also abit stale but then it kind of always feels that way the good decks then the ones that beat them then the ones that would be good if they weren't at a type disadvantage to the popular decks.

[Taweret]

Magic Spellslingers if you like hearthstone that game is great, also mtg arena came out on steam recently.

[Papa Smurf]

Originally posted by TormentedSalad:

Originally posted by Papa Smurf:

Looking for a bit of variety and to get in to other cards games. I tried Magic Arena but they have an incredibly stale meta there that makes even Yugioh look varied by comparison. Duel Links is too much of a grind.

Are there any other CCGs that do free to play as well as Master Duel?

Pokemons new client does a decent job it will feel abit slow at first but I started on it again with the new client 2 packs have passed and I'm constantly sitting on 10K or more crafting points and I keep crafting the max rarity cards.

Meta there is also abit stale but then it kind of always feels that way the good decks then the ones that beat them then the ones that would be good if they weren't at a type disadvantage to the popular decks.

I haven't heard good things about the new pokemon client, apparently it was really buggy? Is it better these days? Might give it a try.

[Hoshi]

Originally posted by Taweret:

Magic Spellslingers if you like hearthstone that game is great, also mtg arena came out on steam recently.

MTG Arena is anything but f2p friendly. It's genuinely worse than Duel Links. Months of grinding to get anywhere, and your only real option is to throw yourself into ranked and get stomped by meta decks for that whole time.

Tried it for about a month and it turned me off of MTG entirely. Friends who are into it told me that if you want anything you need to buy packs with cash.

[Papa Smurf]

Originally posted by Hoshi:

Originally posted by Taweret:

Magic Spellslingers if you like hearthstone that game is great, also mtg arena came out on steam recently.

MTG Arena is anything but f2p friendly. It's genuinely worse than Duel Links. Months of grinding to get anywhere, and your only real option is to throw yourself into ranked and get stomped by meta decks for that whole time.

Tried it for about a month and it turned me off of MTG entirely. Friends who are into it told me that if you want anything you need to buy packs with cash.

You can get a bunch of free packs through using codes you can find on the internet - It makes it pretty free to play to start if you don't mind playing mono red or mono blue. Problem is that's pretty much all anyone plays. Even when Tear was tier 0 it was never that bad in Master Duel.

[TormentedSalad]

Originally posted by Papa Smurf:

Originally posted by TormentedSalad:

Pokemons new client does a decent job it will feel abit slow at first but I started on it again with the new client 2 packs have passed and I'm constantly sitting on 10K or more crafting points and I keep crafting the max rarity cards.

Meta there is also abit stale but then it kind of always feels that way the good decks then the ones that beat them then the ones that would be good if they weren't at a type disadvantage to the popular decks.

I haven't heard good things about the new pokemon client, apparently it was really buggy? Is it better these days? Might give it a try.

Its gotten better occasionally the game bugs out and I cant attach energies with garde ex the most common one was a bug with the games battle pass which meant you had to reload the client to go into it after playing a game but none of my friends who play it have experience any except that battle pass one im just unlucky I guess

[SK Elu]

It is not a good start to start playing the game(mtga) playing meta decks.
It's not like yugi that you're obligated to copy/paste a deck memorize the combos and suddenly "boom" platinum, and you don't even know how to build a deck.

If you want to keep trying, play draft(the cheapest one) you'll learn how to build a deck by yourself and also get the cards from the new set, And by the way, from each new set you can build a deck without having to look for its main cards in another one.
There are content creators who explain the new set, every card and how to combine them or just give you some ideas(if you don't want to read the cards). I have had the best and most fun games in this format.
(Also the are content creators who upgrade the decks that the game gave you at the beggining)

What I used to do was to buy the pass, which gives you a pet and various cosmetics. And play "draft" until the collection was almost complete. By that time you will have done the whole pass, you will have the whole new collection and therefore, you will have several decks that you can build.
Advice: open your packs(those from the new set)at the end, because when you already have all the copies from a card when you open a new pack and the same card comes out, you will get a willcard of the rarity of that card.

Mtga it's a grindy game for me, but it feels more rewarding not like DL, because it rewards you for improving, as the better you play the faster you can get new sets. And i'm not even counting the packs you get for ranking.

I always got all the sets, I had gems left over. But you must learn how to play, you can't expect to enter and in a month be competent like the user who wrote above, it doesn't work like that in mtg.

[Papa Smurf]

Originally posted by SK Elu:

It is not a good start to start playing the game(mtga) playing meta decks.
It's not like yugi that you're obligated to copy/paste a deck memorize the combos and suddenly "boom" platinum, and you don't even know how to build a deck.

If you want to keep trying, play draft(the cheapest one) you'll learn how to build a deck by yourself and also get the cards from the new set, And by the way, from each new set you can build a deck without having to look for its main cards in another one.
There are content creators who explain the new set, every card and how to combine them or just give you some ideas(if you don't want to read the cards). I have had the best and most fun games in this format.
(Also the are content creators who upgrade the decks that the game gave you at the beggining)

What I used to do was to buy the pass, which gives you a pet and various cosmetics. And play "draft" until the collection was almost complete. By that time you will have done the whole pass, you will have the whole new collection and therefore, you will have several decks that you can build.
Advice: open your packs(those from the new set)at the end, because when you already have all the copies from a card when you open a new pack and the same card comes out, you will get a willcard of the rarity of that card.

Mtga it's a grindy game for me, but it feels more rewarding not like DL, because it rewards you for improving, as the better you play the faster you can get new sets. And i'm not even counting the packs you get for ranking.

I always got all the sets, I had gems left over. But you must learn how to play, you can't expect to enter and in a month be competent like the user who wrote above, it doesn't work like that in mtg.

The thing I didn't like about Magic (arena) was how stale the meta is. Also, the fact that I can accomplish twice as much in a tenth of the time in Master Duel.

For what it's worth, I do think it's decent at being free to play - it's really easy to make a meta red, blue or white deck and start stomping people. There just isn't enough variety in the meta, and it's a bit rock paper scissors where some matchups are just unwinnable, and some matchups you win or lose on the coinflip e.g. mono blue always wants to go first. Yes, I know people say the same about Yugioh, but here we at least have handtraps and board breakers to contend going second.

Edit: Also, the actually fun formats require resources that as a free to play or low spender you'd be better of spending on packs. All of the ranked rewards are locked behind the worst format.

[Cinnamoon_dragon]

Legends of Runeterra? Haven't played it but heard it's a good and free-to-play alternative to Hearthstone and MTG

[Papa Smurf]

Originally posted by Static-ghost:

Legends of Runeterra? Haven't played it but heard it's a good and free-to-play alternative to Hearthstone and MTG

I've heard good things about it too - would be interested in hearing from others! Only reason I haven't tried it is I've been trying to stick to games with a physical product.

[SK Elu]

Originally posted by Papa Smurf:

Originally posted by SK Elu:

It is not a good start to start playing the game(mtga) playing meta decks.
It's not like yugi that you're obligated to copy/paste a deck memorize the combos and suddenly "boom" platinum, and you don't even know how to build a deck.

If you want to keep trying, play draft(the cheapest one) you'll learn how to build a deck by yourself and also get the cards from the new set, And by the way, from each new set you can build a deck without having to look for its main cards in another one.
There are content creators who explain the new set, every card and how to combine them or just give you some ideas(if you don't want to read the cards). I have had the best and most fun games in this format.
(Also the are content creators who upgrade the decks that the game gave you at the beggining)

What I used to do was to buy the pass, which gives you a pet and various cosmetics. And play "draft" until the collection was almost complete. By that time you will have done the whole pass, you will have the whole new collection and therefore, you will have several decks that you can build.
Advice: open your packs(those from the new set)at the end, because when you already have all the copies from a card when you open a new pack and the same card comes out, you will get a willcard of the rarity of that card.

Mtga it's a grindy game for me, but it feels more rewarding not like DL, because it rewards you for improving, as the better you play the faster you can get new sets. And i'm not even counting the packs you get for ranking.

I always got all the sets, I had gems left over. But you must learn how to play, you can't expect to enter and in a month be competent like the user who wrote above, it doesn't work like that in mtg.

The thing I didn't like about Magic (arena) was how stale the meta is. Also, the fact that I can accomplish twice as much in a tenth of the time in Master Duel.

For what it's worth, I do think it's decent at being free to play - it's really easy to make a meta red, blue or white deck and start stomping people. There just isn't enough variety in the meta, and it's a bit rock paper scissors where some matchups are just unwinnable, and some matchups you win or lose on the coinflip e.g. mono blue always wants to go first. Yes, I know people say the same about Yugioh, but here we at least have handtraps and board breakers to contend going second.

Edit: Also, the actually fun formats require resources that as a free to play or low spender you'd be better of spending on packs. All of the ranked rewards are locked behind the worst format.

The meta decks are few in all the tcgs, 8 decks in MD(mastes duel meta), 6 decks in DL(duel links meta), and 8 decks in MTGA(mtga untapped).

For me its not a coinflip its more like color based mana. But it's true what you said. All the decks have some way to counteract their weakness, but if you don't have the card you need in your hand, you will probably lose. But it is something that is accepted and is part of the game, it's like having a fire pokemon against a plant pokemon, to give you an example, the mana colors have their own weakness. I hate monored because of that xD but even so if monored runs out of resources it loses immediately but it's normal to lose against them if you play mono blue, even though I hate it, I accept it because of the nature of the deck and the weakness of the color I am using.
I guess you play BO1, so you suffer more strongly from the weaknesses of the decks, in B03 at least you have backup, and you can put more cards to help you when you're in a pinch.
Also if you don´t like to spend to much time playing MTGA, don't play it, I understand you and that's the reason why I stopped playing it.

Otherwise try with pokemon, I never play it too much, but looks good for me, or back to DL, the fastest option and if you have some staples already, you don't need to grind to much.

[Papa Smurf]

Originally posted by SK Elu:

Originally posted by Papa Smurf:

The thing I didn't like about Magic (arena) was how stale the meta is. Also, the fact that I can accomplish twice as much in a tenth of the time in Master Duel.

For what it's worth, I do think it's decent at being free to play - it's really easy to make a meta red, blue or white deck and start stomping people. There just isn't enough variety in the meta, and it's a bit rock paper scissors where some matchups are just unwinnable, and some matchups you win or lose on the coinflip e.g. mono blue always wants to go first. Yes, I know people say the same about Yugioh, but here we at least have handtraps and board breakers to contend going second.

Edit: Also, the actually fun formats require resources that as a free to play or low spender you'd be better of spending on packs. All of the ranked rewards are locked behind the worst format.

The meta decks are few in all the tcgs, 8 decks in MD(mastes duel meta), 6 decks in DL(duel links meta), and 8 decks in MTGA(mtga untapped).

For me its not a coinflip its more like color based mana. But it's true what you said. All the decks have some way to counteract their weakness, but if you don't have the card you need in your hand, you will probably lose. But it is something that is accepted and is part of the game, it's like having a fire pokemon against a plant pokemon, to give you an example, the mana colors have their own weakness. I hate monored because of that xD but even so if monored runs out of resources it loses immediately but it's normal to lose against them if you play mono blue, even though I hate it, I accept it because of the nature of the deck and the weakness of the color I am using.
I guess you play BO1, so you suffer more strongly from the weaknesses of the decks, in B03 at least you have backup, and you can put more cards to help you when you're in a pinch.
Also if you don´t like to spend to much time playing MTGA, don't play it, I understand you and that's the reason why I stopped playing it.

Otherwise try with pokemon, I never play it too much, but looks good for me, or back to DL, the fastest option and if you have some staples already, you don't need to grind to much.

I actually really like Pokemon - I feel like it gets the balance right. My only experience with it though is the original meta (rain dance/damage swap/haymaker etc.) or the old client, which wasn't very free to play. I know they have a newer client now, but I've heard nothing but bad things about it.

[Lloyd]

Originally posted by Papa Smurf:

Are there any other CCGs that do free to play as well as Master Duel?

What do you think about Hearthstone?
I played it for many years until today and I have so much fun with this game!

[Daguza]

Only other ones I played is Vanguard Zero, Pokemon and Shadow Verse(On steam). I can't speak for da 1st 2 since every time I play em I don stick for long. But ShadowVerse I believe is very f2p friendly. Has monthly events where you complete mission to earn in game currency. Only thing I think can't buy with in game currency is cosmetic. Also has that cool anime aesthetic since I game is Japanese? But is much more grind heavy than Master Duel for completing mission i think.

[Papa Smurf]

Originally posted by Lloyd:

Originally posted by Papa Smurf:

Are there any other CCGs that do free to play as well as Master Duel?

What do you think about Hearthstone?
I played it for many years until today and I have so much fun with this game!

I tried it a few years ago and it seemed pretty pay to play/win - no idea what it's like these days