What's the cheapest CCG to be competitive in?

[yamas11]

Being competitive in CCG's is always expensive, so does anyone know of a CCG that doesn't take a huge amount of money to make a top tier deck?

[Tokimo]

Ones that people don't play...

Unfortunately, popular CCGs have expensive top-tier decks.

Mahoujo if successful will fit your criteria, but it won't be in print for 1-3 years.

Edit: To elaborate further, Mahoujo will not be painfully expensive in theory because singles will be price capped from a primary store (a strong second hand singles market won't establish because there won't be a profit margin for it).

[greasontim]

only way to have a good deck and not pay out a good sum of cash is to print the cards out yourself problem being your printer probaly wont be able to print the cards out to look the same as the real thing.
not to meantion its against the law and frowned upon useing fake cards while playing.
Your best beat would be a CCG that someone made and not a big company CCG/TCG
such as Mahouja (Tokimo) or World Divided (greasontim)
Hopeing I can start selling World Divided by the end of the year, currently 70/300 cards in the first set and 2 artists doing the card art. Which i'm looking to have atleast 5+ artists by the summer.

[Howl]

Actuallyyy ..magic the gathering and yugioh I have found to be incredbily succesful in and spent little to no money in.. You just need to learn how to look and be willing to look.. For example usual tins in yugioh are 20$ butttt if u are willing to wait you can get a tin for 10..12.. Even 7 dollars..  Along goes with magic.. Stores like walmart sell cycled out decks for 7$ or soo in which you can trade with others for what ur looking for. Along goes with booster packs..and if you are not into looking you can always get fat packs for magic.. Or Tins for yugioh.. Or print out cards for your own game or games made for ex. Here just to play with friends competitively

[Cyrus]

Depends on your definition of "expensive" (if your budget is 20 bucks, it seems that you'd barely be able to compete in ANY game, let alone a ccg), but Magic doesn't have to be as expensive as most people think.
To get Magic cards cheap, however, you do already have to be playing at a pretty high level, or at least high level for your area. Go to Friday Night Magic exclusively for Drafts (or tournaments of the format you want to be competitive in, mostly for trades at first). Don't necessarily only pick rares, but if something high value comes your way, definitely take it. Then, if you can place high enough in the tourney (usually top 3 isn't too hard to pull off in most areas if you have even the slightest idea what you're doing) you'll get packs or store credit as a prize as well. I'm sure this varies by region but when I was playing more seriously that's what I was doing, and what I plan to do again pretty soon, and I was able to put together $500-$800 decks with as little as $100-$200.

[Turonik]

It depends on what your definition of "competitive" is. If you mean being able to put up a decent fight then many CCGs have at least one deck that can. However "top tier" decks are all about making your deck as consistent and efficient as possible, so while the're always cards that are commons and uncommons that are "like" some rares, players will use the most efficient card. Sadly, the tournament scene will also dictate the price of a card. so if the game has very competitive tournament scene like magic or Yugioh, then except to pay for those key rares that certain decks just need in order for the deck to work.

However if you're just playing in small local tournaments with friends and the like then you can usually make do fairly on the cheap. I have a WoW deck that's really nothing more than a bunch of commons and uncommons that I've been able to stand up against some of the more advanced decks. But part of that is play skill too.

So if you want the biggest baddest deck around in the more popular games, be prepared to pay. However if it's just local tournaments and just for fun you can get by with being cheap and often times get  many of the commons and uncommons for them for free by veteran players willing to help out a newbie.

[chriscone]

wow cards are generally cheap in comparison with magic or Yu gi oh and a number of others. Lackey is a good tool to get to know how to play a game and see if you like the mechanics of it before doing any investement in the cards themselves.

[Turonik]

I've played cheap decks in magic before and done alright with them too. my favorite, or rather on of my favorite decks to play when I used to be in magic only had 4 uncommons, the rest where commons.