Trading cards are a great way of having fun and being competitive at the same time. There are many trading card games that you can play today. Trading card games are collectibles which have very interesting artwork on them and are a form of a strategic game which you can play against another player or many more.

Some card games use dice and some use play mats but the cards are the central part. The first actual collectible or trading card game was Magic: The Gathering, released in 1993. After that, a plethora of others came forth, becoming as popular. Here are the most popular trading card games today.

Magic: The Gathering

It was the first collectible card game and remains arguably the most popular one. It is played throughout the world and has around twenty million active players. It is available as a collectible card game with actual cards and there is also an online version.

Over twenty billion Magic cards were printed from 2008 to 2016, only. Magic is played in two modes, limited and constructed. Constructed allows for a minimum of 60 cards that players build from their own private decks, with no more than 4 cards of the same type. The limited mode requires players to build their decks out of a pool of random cards and the minimum number of cards is 40. The game can be played versus one player or multiple ones.

Yu-Gi-Oh!

This game was developed and published by Konami in 1999. Ever since then, it remains one of the most popular card games ever. The aim of the game is to take away all the life points from your enemy, each having 8000 at the start of the game. Your deck is limited from 40 to 60 cards. There are various cards, attack and defense ones, as well as the famous trap card.

Yes, this card game created the “you have just activated my trap card” meme.

Pokemon

This card game follows the popular Pokemon franchise, consisted of video games, anime, manga, books, films, music, and merchandise. Being so popular, it sold over 25 billion cards worldwide. It has basic and evolved pokemons, including baby pokemons. There is also an addition of super rare pokemon cards. An online game exists, as with the majority of popular trading card games.

Trading card games have started a new trend for hobbyists and competitive individuals. They are also a great way of spending time with friends. They also brought to us digital trading card games like Hearthstone and Gwent, which have their own tournaments and a professional player base.

There are plenty more card games to consider like the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, but these are arguably the most popular ones.