There's still a group of players holding on to World of Warcraft collectible cards
Ten years after the game’s death, there’s still a group of players holding on to World of Warcraft collectible cards
Earlier this year, Blizzard closed its own Chinese Battle.net servers and withdrew from the Chinese market. World of Warcraft, Hearthstone Legends and other games also ceased operations, goodbye to Chinese players.
For Blizzard’s departure, there are remembrance, regret and abuse in the mouths of players. And kill the pill feel, it is time for the world of warcraft collectible card game (WOW TCG) to recruit a wave of new players.
In early October, Killmonger uploaded the WOW TCG Career Pack new cards Chinese resources in the bar, before that, he also shared a lot of experience in the set in the bar, in the forum released a post to introduce the WOW TCG.
Everything Killmonger did was to attract players who were forced to abandon Hearthstone Legends and those who miss World of Warcraft to try WOW TCG; or even in more ideal cases, to make them become WOW TCG players - as the owner of the WOW TCG Bar and the Warcraft Cards Bar, there is no one who looks forward to this old game more than him to be able to be revitalized.
Unfortunately, Killsumaru’s relentless publicity did not bring significant results. He set up the QQ group “Warcraft card network battle” these days only received a few sporadic applications to join the group, the bar is also still cold, posting back to the post is always a few familiar old faces.
Such a situation in the kill shot expected, after all, in the eyes of outsiders, WOW TCG is a early in the decade before Blizzard pronounced the death sentence of the game - however, the vast majority of people can not imagine, in the WOW TCG death of this decade, but there is still kill shot and a group of players like him, still in the ten years as one day playing the game. This game.
WOW TCG was born three years after the release of World of Warcraft.
In 2007, as World of Warcraft continued to explode globally, Blizzard and UDE (Upper Deck Entertainment) collaborated to launch the WOW TCG, with Blizzard providing the IP, and UDE taking over the design of the card faces, the production of the cards, and the tournament operations. As for the business in China, it is fully handed over to Beijing Xinrui Zone Toys Company.
Collectible card games have always been a niche game in China, and although it is backed by the popularity of World of Warcraft, the number of players of WOW TCG has actually been very limited.
Killsumaru told me that WOW TCG players nationwide communicated with each other in a group called “WOW TCG Warcraft Card Game Community”, and even at the height of WOW TCG’s development, there were only about 400 people in the group, which was far less than the popularity of other popular TCGs today! – such as Pokémon cards.
In stark contrast to the scarcity of players, sales of WOW TCG cards are thriving.
As part of the linkage and promotion, Blizzard designed a coated card for the WOW TCG that could be redeemed for special in-game items and mounts with a code scratched out on the face of the card, which players referred to as a “scratch card”.
Players can purchase sets of cards and receive random scratch cards, which can be used to redeem rare items and mounts in the game with the code scratched out on the face of the card.
The most expensive mounts in all of World of Warcraft come from these scratch cards - the Swift Ghost Tiger, which used to be jokingly referred to as “a square meter in Shanghai,” and the Magic Rooster, which is worth a Ford Focus - are only some of the most expensive mounts in the game, and they’re the ones that can be redeemed for the most expensive items in the game. The most expensive mounts in the game came from these scratch cards - the Swift Ghost Tiger, which used to be known as “Shanghai’s Square Meter”, and the Magic Rooster, which was worth a Ford Focus - all of which were cool mounts that could only be obtained from scratch cards, and were traded for more than five figures back then.
- Swift Ghost Tiger, which sold for as much as 70,000 RMB
The only way to get a mount is to draw a card, which attracts many World of Warcraft players to spend a lot of money to “hold the box”, and whenever a player opens a box in a card store, it always attracts a large number of onlookers to stop by. The scene is like a casino, some people because of a small card fell head over heels, and some people therefore earn a lot of money.
The price of each rare mount stimulates people’s eyeballs and further heats up the card-opening atmosphere, except that no one pays attention to the content of the cards, and opening the cards itself becomes a kind of lottery game for adults.
The frenzy of card removal is not all bad for WOW TCG, at least players can buy the cards they need at low prices and participate in tournaments; agents at all levels are making profits and will continue to invest; Blizzard is making money from it, and on the surface, everything seems to be thriving.
Like the vast majority of people, Killmonger knew about the existence of WOW TCG under such circumstances. However, the difference is that he prefers WOW TCG itself to scratch card mounts.
After six months of learning on MWS, a free online battle platform, Killmonger formally entered the embrace of WOW TCG.
In Killsumaru’s recollection, he and WOW TCG had a rather “sweet” time.
“Mainly because there were official tournaments,” Killsumaru explains. Backed by the popularity of World of Warcraft, WOW TCG has quickly built up a loyal player base since its launch, which has laid the foundation for it to organize tournaments around the world.
China is no exception. Sunrise Zone Toys hosts all domestic tournaments, holding a Darkmoon Faire in each of the spring and fall seasons, and a National Championship and Annual Championship each year. And the tournament prizes are generous, attracting many masters in the card game and other card games to become “bounty hunters”, but also to a certain extent to improve the level of competition in the WOW TCG.
In Killsumaru’s opinion, this is the biggest charm of WOW TCG. Until now, he still often recalls the days when his friends used to play tournaments together, Killmonger told me: “The 2013 National Championship was the most lively, with as many as 400 participants, it seemed that everything was flourishing, but I didn’t think that it was the last show.”
In 2013, the official news from Blizzard came out of the blue that WOW TCG stopped shipping new cards and would no longer continue to maintain tournament operations. The carefully constructed decks in the hands of the players and the boxes of cards in the agent’s warehouse were instantly turned into waste paper, and a bolt of lightning struck everyone’s head like a bolt of lightning in the clear sky.
For the people at that time, this moment was really hard to predict, after all, not only the domestic tournaments were in full swing, but also the world, tournaments were being held all over the world. As the highest honor of WOW TCG, the World Championship is held every year in the U.S., and only players who have accumulated a certain number of points are eligible to sign up for it. WOW TCG players all over the world are all eager to participate in this arena, and look forward to the day when they will be able to compete with the world’s elite players on the same stage.
- 2010 WOW TCG World Championship
Players were still looking forward to bigger tournaments, stronger opponents, richer decks and higher podiums, but on an ordinary summer day, everything came to an abrupt end.
At the end of the same year, Hearthstone Legends, a new Blizzard game represented by NetEase, opened for national service testing, and many of the cards in the game were directly used in the WOW TCG card faces.
The two were not in conflict, just like Magic Online, which is an electronic version of Marvel, and Wisdom adds each new series to the game.
But the WOW TCG’s lack of success has made it hard to convince players that it’s completely unrelated to Hearthstone Legends.
There have been many “Hearthstone killed the WOW TCG” speculations that have erupted in the player community. One of the widely circulated: the reason why WOW TCG ceased operation, because the Legend of Hearthstone to use the original painting of WOW TCG, if not shut down the WOW TCG, Blizzard will cause legal disputes with the painter.
But in fact, the two games have played the player should be able to understand, “Legend of Hearthstone” and WOW TCG game rules are very different, the two can not be like Marvel and Magic Online as parallel operation, to do changes to any of them will only give Blizzard futile trouble.
However, the sales of WOW TCG began to decline in the late stage, and could not bring Blizzard a huge amount of income again, and it seems that it is no longer worthwhile to bother to run a separate business.
Ultimately, Blizzard shut down WOW TCG for one reason - Dad thought it was time for you to put down this old physical deck and play the new Hearthstone Legends.
For commercial reasons, WOW TCG was abandoned. the large group of over 400 people buzzed for a while, and like earlier this year, there were remembrances, lamentations, and tirades, and then the voices got smaller and smaller, until now no one is talking anymore.
Ten years after the WOW TCG went on hiatus, all the buzz from that year has gone cold. Although Killmonger also believes that the Legend of Hearthstone created the collapse of WOW TCG, but before Blizzard left China, he will still occasionally play two games of the Legend of Hearthstone.
One of Killsumaru’s favorite WOW TCG cards has been remade for Hearthstone, only his name is no longer Blade Dance Darth Vader, but Drew Korfe, a Producer card that can’t be manipulated by players.
Speaking of the changes, Killmonger says he just feels nostalgic now:
- “Some well-known characters through this form of obscene earth reincarnation, at first a little sad, after all, a well-played game suddenly said no, and then gradually also look down, see the old Warcraft card deck card face, feel very nostalgic.”
WOWTCG REBORN (Warcraft Cards Reborn)
When Killmonger introduced me to WOWTCG REBORN (Warcraft Cards Reborn), I realized that his name was hanging out at #4 on the REBORN Global Tour leaderboard.
In 2019, a group of foreign players started designing new versions for WOW TCG, drawing new card faces and adding new heroes, and they called the new cards they designed REBORN and uploaded them to a website they set up, so that players could download and print them on their own, or import them for use in the online matchmaking platform MWS.
To date, the REBORN team has updated the WOW TCG with two major releases, one large copy, and a smattering of career packs. Although the team has not disclosed the composition of its staff, it is assumed that there are Chinese players among them based on the card designs and names of the artists.
Killmonger saw the emergence of WOW TCG REBORN as a silver lining to save WOW TCG. After obtaining the authorization, he began to bring REBORN cards back to China, and Constellation Hao, who had participated in the Chinese version of WOWTCG REBORN, was in charge of translating the text, while Killer Maru was in charge of inlaying the characters and packing the PSD files, which were then uploaded to the posting site.
What makes him feel happier is that the REBORN team not only updates the new version of WOW TCG, but also organizes online tournaments once a month, where information about the tournament and the top players’ decks are updated on the website, and he spares no effort to Chineseize the deck information and bring it back to the bar, in order to provide more references for domestic players.
When I exclaimed that Kashizumaru should have put in a lot of time and effort into the Chinese version of the work, he just said “it’s okay”, in his view, Chinese version is equivalent to his own carefully read through the entire list of cards, more convenient to conceptualize a set of plans, which is not only to help other people, but also to understand the environment in advance.
As for what supports his ten years of perseverance in the WOW TCG, Killsumaru himself could not find a clue, and finally he summarized, “It’s still because of the love for World of Warcraft.” In Killmonger’s description, World of Warcraft brought him so many good memories that he later played Marvel, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokémon, and many seven or eight other card games, but WOW TCG is still unforgettable to him.
- Killsumaru’s World of Warcraft account
In the end, Killmonger interrupted his World of Warcraft and WOW TCG memories with a sigh, “If Warcraft cards hadn’t died, I would have kept playing, but history doesn’t have ifs.”
However, in fact, there are many more saddening, such as whether it is the Swift Ghost Tiger or the Magic Rooster, these once tens of thousands of dollars worth of out-of-print mounts, in the operation of the “World of Warcraft” over the years, was sold in the form of a variety of rechargeable goodies, mall gift packs many times, has long since ceased to be an out-of-print rare mounts.
For example, whether it is the year to exchange the sky-high price scratch card mounts, or in recent years the mall to buy the “cheap” mounts, has now been put into the same “electronic urn”, I do not know whether it can still usher in the day of the sun.
But the WOW TCG, which once depended on the popularity of World of Warcraft and the value of rare mounts, has shown a calm, natural and thriving posture after the carnival has receded. Killmonger told me that until now, players in many regions still organize their own offline tournaments.
Interestingly, while Blizzard’s games have completely withdrawn from China, there is a group of players who are still holding on to a game that died a decade ago, but will never go away.