What I liked most about Magic: the Gathering, besides the friendship with other players, is this never-ending exploration of new combos, new mechanisms and the excitement of building and trying out new decks. Often just one card in a new set would trigger some interest for me to exploit that, find other cards that would work well with it (every Magic player loves combos), and build a whole deck around that combination of a few key cards. And then taking that deck for a test drive, either online or at the FLGS. But there’s a downside: it is quite an expensive hobby if you keep buying new product – and that is just what the marketing wants you to do. Thanks to the internet, we know all the cards of every set, and there are many traders and platforms where you can buy just the cards you need, instead of trying your luck with booster packs. But as such, there is a whole new economy of new and used cards, with prices ranging from 10 cents to hundreds of dollars. If you know that key cards in a deck are often included 4 times, this can make building just one competitive deck a pricey endeavor. Also, if you want to play competitively in the popular formats building just one deck can set you back a few hundred euros. That is something I never wanted to do. I preferred building a few fun, low-budget decks instead of one super deck. I remember going to the Grand Prix in Brussels in 2010, which was held in the constructed Standard format (so you had to bring your own Standard deck, all made with cards from the most recent blocks) with a somewhat rogue black deck (with a tiny splash of red) built around the card Abyssal Persecutor – a hard-hitting flying demon that could be unleashed early game as it didn’t require a lot of mana to cast. Its downside was that its owner couldn’t win the game as long as Abby was still in play. So I added a lot of other cards in the deck that let players (either me, my opponent or both) sacrifice creatures. I didn’t play to win, just to have fun, and fun I had, all day long!

What is it that made MtG so special for me? The thrill of opening booster packs, the agonizing choices in draft, the joys of building a deck (do I balance offense and defense or do I go aggro all the way, or let’s do something funky and go creatureless this time), finding combos within the limits of the format, and most of all: enjoying the game with friends … It is fun and rewarding. But it takes time, dedication and money to keep the pace, and a community to play with.

In the end, the community I played with at my FLGS scattered: a friend moved to a different city and also moved away from Magic in favor of boardgames (this friend and his wife are dear friends of ours, so we still meet up for boardgames, dinners and life, we meet up in Spiel and travel back home together after Spiel, closing the trip with a great meal in the same restaurant halfway home for years now), a befriended couple of Magic players started a family, and most of the other regular players moved from the limited (draft) format on Friday Night Magic to constructed format – which requires more time, more preparation and a lot more money as you need to bring your own pre-constructed deck to those play nights.

In or around 2012 I moved away from M:tG and into boardgames - only playing Magic a couple of times a year, and by 2014-2015 my Magic playing days came to a full stop - I didn't play at all and didn't check the new cards anymore. It didn't take long for boardgames to fil all of the time that was freed up from no longer playing Magic. Starting out with boardgames, I wanted to find the perfect replacement of Magic and was looking for games that would offer a similar experience. And even now, when a game has something that reminds me of Magic: the Gathering, it's hard for me to resist giving it a go. I’m happy to share some of those games with you in this post.

1. Mage Wars Arena

What’s it about/how does it play: a head-to-head battle of mages in which players play spells from their spellbook to summon creatures, cast instants and enchantments.

What itch it scratches: Just like in Magic: the Gathering you will be building your own deck of cards following certain rules as to how many copies there can be of a single card etc. Your goal is to reduce your opponent’s life to 0. Many of the abilities of creatures will feel familiar when you’ve played M:tG, like flying, first strike, etc.

What it does differently: The most striking difference between Mage Wars and Magic: the Gathering is the use of a board. The board has a grid to move your mage and creatures on. Your mage is a character as well, you can equip him/her with armor and weapons. Because of the addition of a tactical layer with the board mages, creatures and spells have a range to take into account when you want to use them to attack. Also, when you attack, you attack a certain creature or the mage, taking into account the range, whereas in Magic you just attack with a bunch of creatures but the defender decides which creatures will defend each individual attacker. Damage is assigned through the roll of some dice and directly to creatures (or the mage) and doesn’t wear off at the end of the turn like it does in M:tG. There are different types of damage with different effects, like critical damage, but also burn effects and so on. Another big difference is the spellbook. Each turn you flip through your spellbook to get the card you want to use – so no luck of the draw in this one.

What it might miss if you’re going into this as an MTG aficionado: If you’re familiar with Magic, you will pick up on the rules of Mage Wars in no time. In general, a match of Mage Wars lasts longer than a match of M:tG.

2. Challengers!

What’s it about/how does it play: Challengers is a capture-the-flag tournament style card game based on the rules of the card game War (aka Bataille). No matter the number of players, you will play 7 rounds/matches – so ideally you will be a group of 8 players so you will play against every other player once. You start out with a basic small deck of cards and as you move through the rounds you get to add new cards to your deck and remove other cards to your liking. Cards get more powerful as you advance.

What itch it scratches: When playing Challengers I feel like I’m playing a limited tournament, like FNM or pre-release, where I build a deck on the fly and face a number of opponents in one-on-one battles. Battles are fast-paced, light, but a lot of fun. It might seem like a luck fest, but as you go through the different rounds and get to tweak your deck just a bit, you will definitely have a few cards that offer a great synergy. You are depending on the luck of the draw, and sometimes you might not be lucky, for instance when a card has an effect on cards in your bench area (which is sort of a discard area) but at the time you play it, your bench is empty or it doesn’t have the card you really needed to be there for super awesomeness. Cards have suits, each suit has some focus as to what its overall playstyle is, just as the different colors in M:tG have a different focus/playstyle.

What it does differently: Just about everything. You have some, but all in all little, control over your deck. Your deck will grow and take shape over the course of several rounds - at each step (every 2 rounds or so) when you get to add one or two new cards to your deck, you get to choose them from a draw of 5 random cards (with an option to mulligan once).

What it might miss if you’re going into this as an MTG aficionado: It’s a lot lighter than Magic, but because of that it is way more accessible. No upkeep, main phase, tapping etc. in Challengers, just reveal a card one at a time, possibly resolve an effect, until you beat your opponent’s top card and the turn passes to them – on and on it goes until one player has no cards left to battle with.

3. Radlands

What’s it about/how does it play: Radlands is a 2-player card game in which players try to destroy the opponent’s 3 base camps. Up to two rows of cards (people/units) can make up the defense line. Water is the resource you use to play cards or activate abilities, but it is very precious – you usually will have access to only a couple of drops each round and can’t carry over to the next round, so you better make good use of whatever water you have available.

What itch it scratches: It is a head-to-head battle with unit cards, event cards and cool abilities.

What it does differently: there is no deck construction as you both draw and play cards from a shared deck.

What it might miss if you’re going into this as an MTG aficionado: What struck me the most was that when a player plays/uses an ability, the target can’t respond to negate the effect, as instants would do in Magic. My M:tG heart was screaming for a Cancel effect.

4. Ashes Reborn: Rise of the Phoenixborn

What’s it about/how does it play: It’s a card game that comes with preconstructed decks built around a Phoenixborn, a sort of demi-god, that you can pit against each other in a magical battle. Each Phoenixborn has a distinctive feel and playstyle, just like the different colors or color combinations in Magic: the Gathering sets. I wanted to love this game, but so far I have only played this once, with a friend I used to play M:tG with, and even though we both liked it, we didn’t like it enough to put M:tG aside in favor of this game – mainly because it requires a lot of dedication and dedicated fellow players to truly shine. It just felt easier for both of us to stick to Magic. But if someone in my gaming groups would want to play this casually and invites me to the table, I won’t turn it down.

What itch it scratches: By summoning creatures and sending those out to attack your opponent and casting spells you will try to obliterate your opponent. If you are familiar with the game and want to take the game to the next level, you can construct your own deck. The art is stunning, it is one of the most beautiful card games out there for me.

What it does differently: The energy you need in order to summon creatures, cast spells or activate abilities comes from custom dice. Instead of mana combinations you need combinations of certain symbols.

What it might miss if you’re going into this as an MTG aficionado: For me this comes close to the M:tG experience but you might not like the luck of the dice.

5. Allegiance: A Realm Divided

This is the first game I backed on Kickstarter. It was in a time when I was still hanging on to Magic: the Gathering, while venturing deeper into the world of modern boardgames, trying to find a balance between the two. I so desperately wanted to find a game I could just pick up and play and feel like Magic: the Gathering without the steep learning curve. I played it a couple of times and liked it, but hubby was still recovering from my attempts to get him to play Magic: the Gathering and felt reluctant to play any game that felt too similar. I traded my copy away, but somehow regret that now, as I feel it would be something Yves would enjoy more now than he did all those years ago.

What’s it about/how does it play: It’s a battling card game in which players oppose each other and try to annihilate the opponent before they do the same to them.

What itch it scratches: Players represent a powerful character from the typical fantasy lore with unique abilities, like a hunter/rogue, a necromancer, etc. The hero character you play reminds me a bit of planeswalkers in M:tG as they all have unique abilities you can upgrade for more powerful effects. Turn structure is similar to Magic: the Gathering as is the overall feel: playing creature cards to attack, spell cards for powerful one-time effects, etc.

What it does differently: cards are drawn from shared decks, there is no deck construction. There are three decks to draw from: basic units, elite units and action cards. To play cards, you spend money, there is no mana economy or different types of magical power you need to cast different types of spells or creatures.

What it might miss if you’re going into this as an MTG aficionado: There is no deck construction or draft, you are depending on the cards you draw, and the abilities of your hero. But I don’t mind this, it makes it easier to bring the game to the table and can be picked up more easily for casual plays or to play with gamers who aren’t familiar with M:tG.

6. Seasons

What’s it about/how does it play: Over the course of 3 years (and 4 seasons a year) powerful mages face off in a magical battle. The game starts with a draft of 9 cards that you then have to divide in three stacks of 3 cards each – one for each year of the competition. In this pre-game phase you will try to devise some overall strategy you as you build towards the cards you will get in the later rounds. The main part of the game is centered around dice drafting. Each season has a set of custom dice. Dice give access to energy tokens of the different elements (with certain elements being abundant in one season and scarce another season) which is your currency to pay to put cards into play, let you draw extra cards from the main deck, give you straight-out points, or let you transmute energy tokens into victory points. Cards in play give you a one-time effect or an ongoing effect or an activated effect, and vp at the end of the game.

What itch it scratches: With this game it is the general feel of the game that draws me to it and reminds me of Magic: the Gathering. The magical setting, the battle between mages, the card drafting, the interactive effects of some cards,… all of that reminds me somewhat of Magic: the Gathering.

What it does differently: A lot! This really is a different game, but just like Magic it does reward repeated play as you get to know the cards better, and know what cards to watch out of or exploit. Since you start each year with only 3 of the cards you drafted, you will look for synergies.

What it might miss if you’re going into this as an MTG aficionado: Given the fact that gameplay is very different from Magic, you might miss a lot and therefore be disappointed if you go into this one expecting a M:tG clone – but nevertheless I suppose a lot of Magic players are drawn to this game at some point in their boardgame adventure. And as with so many games: some will like it, others will loath it. I hold on to my copy, even though it doesn't hit the table often. I love the combination of powerful cards and dice drafting.

7. Res Arcana

What’s it about/how does it play: Another battle of mages set in a magical world – although I should call it a race between mages, as players race to 10 vp by claiming places of powers (you guessed it: with powerful abilities) and monuments. The beauty of this game is that you do this with a deck of just 8 artifact cards, so you’ll have to figure out a way to create and run an engine with just those 8 cards, the ability of your mage, and a magic item you get to use for one round (so you change it up each round) – these magic items give you essence (the mana in this game), let you convert essences into gold (a resource you need to claim monuments, which are also powerful cards in the race to vp), or let you draw cards.

What itch it scratches: The game starts with a card draft, so right from the start you’ll try to figure out which combination of cards will work well together, similar to finding combos with different cards in Magic: the Gathering. The essences are like mana in M:tG, with different colors, each color representing a certain type of magic (black is death, green is life, etc.). You’ll need this essence to pay for all sorts of things.

What it does differently: It’s not a battle to destroy your opponent, but a race to get the required amount of points in order to win the game. Some cards offer direct interaction with the opponent, but it is not the core of this game.

What it might miss if you’re going into this as an MTG aficionado: You will only use 8 cards per game, so it does feel really tight. Each card is unique. So if you’re used to building decks of 40 or 60 cards in M:tG this games feels somewhat limited – but it does offer great gameplay!

8. Dice Throne

What’s it about/how does it play: A battle of heroes, each with a set of unique skills you can upgrade as you play. A custom deck of cards supports your play with cards that will upgrade skills or let you pull powerful tricks to boost your own play or hinder your opponents or mitigate dice rolls. Attacking your opponent is the heart of the game: bring your opponent’s life to 0 before they destroy you. You have 5 custom dice at your disposal and roll those up to 3 times to form the combinations you need to trigger skills.

What itch it scratches: The turn structure is identical to Magic, with an upkeep phase, an attack phase and two main phases. It uses a personal deck (one for each hero) with skill cards to upgrade your hero, instant-like cards to respond to a card played by an opponent or to boost your own action, etc. It is another battling game, but in this one the dice rolls are more important than the cards to determine your actions.

What it does differently: Dice are your weapons of choice, the cards are in support of the dice. If you hate dice, you will probably not like this game.

What it might miss if you’re going into this as an MTG aficionado: It’s a 1 vs 1 battle of direct attack – apart from a few specific heroes you will not be summoning creatures to send into battle and do your bidding. The defending player gets to defend against your attack. Even though it might seem like a totally different game than Magic: the Gathering, I wholeheartedly recommend this one. It is by far my favorite battle game at the moment.

9. Carnival of Monsters