World of Warcraft Trading Card Game

The World of Warcraft Trading Card Game (WoW TCG) is an out-of-print collectible card game based on Blizzard Entertainment's MMORPG, World of Warcraft. The game was announced by Upper Deck Entertainment on August 18, 2005 and released on October 25, 2006. Players can play against each other one-on-one, or can join others in order to defeat dungeon/raid "bosses" based on those in the MMORPG. In March 2010, Upper Deck lost the license from Blizzard Entertainment. The license was acquired by Cryptozoic Entertainment later in the month, with the company announcing that planned card sets would be released. On August 23, 2013, Blizzard Entertainment announced that the TCG would be discontinued, and that they would not be renewing the game's license. In March 2014, Blizzard released Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, an online collectible card game featuring many of the same characters, abilities and artwork. Each player uses a hero card and a deck consisting of allies and other supporting cards, such as weapons, abilities, armor, items and quests. Many cards include a trait icon, which limits what heroes can include the card in their decks. Some booster packs also contain legendary rares, or loot cards (i.e. special versions of normal cards) which contain a scratch-off code. This code can then be redeemed in the online game for a virtual prize. The prizes include special tabards, gimmick items, non-combat pets, and mounts. During play, players start with a single hero. Once per turn, players can play any card from their hand as a resource, which enables the payment of additional cards to augment the hero's powers or add additional members to his or her party. Once brought into play by paying the appropriate cost, all cards (except abilities) remain until destroyed or removed from play. As in games such as Magic: The Gathering, the goal is to reduce the remaining health of the opposing hero to zero. Unlike Magic, combat attacks are always directed at individual heroes or allies, rather than simply declaring an attack with a number of creatures.