Hi everypony! My name is Cups, sometimes known as Rob, and I’m here today to give an overview of the My Little Pony Collectible Card Game. I used to be a pre-reader here on EQD back in the day, but for now I'll be helping out with Equestria Daily's CCG section for at least the next couple months. I’m pretty nervouscited to be sharing some pearls of wisdom about the game with all of you, so before I totally embarrass myself we should dive right in!
Problem Solving
The goal of the My Little Pony CCG is to be the best problem solver of the day. You’ve probably noticed that the average day in Ponyville ranges from nuts to completely bonkers, so there are plenty of problems where friendly ponies could lend a helping hoof. In the game, these problems are represented by Problem cards. As you meet the requirements on Problem cards you will score points, and the first player to reach 15 points is the winner.
Here is an example of a Problem card, “Mean Meanie Pants.” Each player will bring their own deck of 10 Problem cards to play. Two Problems are revealed at any time, one per Problem deck, and both players can work to solve their own Problem, the opponent’s Problem, or both!
Meeting the requirements on a Problem card earns you 1 point and is known as “confronting” the Problem. These requirements are different depending on who played the Problem. For example, if YOU played Mean Meanie Pants you’d need 2 Pink power and 2 non-Pink power to confront it, represented by the numbers at the bottom. Your opponent would need 5 power of ANY color to confront it, represented by the upside-down 5 on top. The first player to confront a Problem also gets the bonus points, which for this card is 2 points!
And how do you get this “power?” Mostly from your Mane Character and your Friend cards!
Mane Characters
Each player starts the game with the Mane Character of their choice already in play. Mane Characters provide a color and power value, represented by the icon and number in the top right corner of the card. As you can see, the Start side of “Twilight Sparkle, Faithful Student” above has 1 Purple power. However, when you fulfill the “turn this card over” condition on the card, Twilight will turn to her Boosted side and become quite the little workhorse!
The majority of your power will come from Friend cards, like “Fluttershy, Animal Team” above, who provides 2 Yellow power.
Playing Cards
To play a card from your hand, you have to pay its cost. Fluttershy's cost (the white symbol on the left side of the card) is 3 action tokens. You also need to meet the card's color requirement, which is how much power of that color you must already have in play. This power is provided by your Mane Character and/or other Friends already in play, and isn’t “used up” when you play Fluttershy or other cards.
So for example, to play “Fluttershy, Animal Team” you would need to have 2 Yellow power already in play, then pay 3 action tokens.
Along with the Friend cards in your deck, you’ll also find Events, Resources, and Troublemakers!
Event cards have sudden effects that happen once and are then discarded, such as “Swing Into Action” above. Different Event cards can be played at different phases of the game, sometimes even on the opponent’s turn!
Resource cards provide ongoing effects that can be played on your characters, on opponent’s characters, to your home... the sky’s the limit! (Sky is good.)
And finally we come to the big leagues: Troublemaker cards. Even this little Purple Parasprite can spell big trouble for your opponent! While this Parasprite is buzzing around on their side of a Problem your opponent can’t confront that Problem for any points! And to add insult to injury, the Parasprite’s game text goes off every turn, in this case “exhausting” one of your opponent’s characters so it can’t help out their team.
So if your opponent plays a pesky Parasprite, or something much more menacing, how do you defeat it? You challenge the Troublemaker to a faceoff! And what, you may ask, is a faceoff? That’s a topic for another article
Conclusion
That’s all for now, everypony! Stay tuned for more articles where we’ll take a closer look at some of the mechanics you saw here. Next time we’ll see a fun card combo you can pull off with cards you’ll find right inside the starter decks you’ll find in the wild starting on December 13th!
Finally, here’s a little reveal I’m sure some of you are interested in seeing... That’s right, it’s the long awaited Twilight Scepter card! Now everypony can lord over Equestria in style with their very own... No? It’s just Dr. Hooves? Oh well! (Happy 50th, Doctor!)
