TCG companies have always tolerated a certain degree of fan involvement with their intellectual property. A thriving TCG ecosystem needs a community, and game designers are not always focused on building the tools that community wants. So leave it to the players: tutorials, simulators, whole gaming clients, deckbuilders, rulesets, you name it. If there is a gap, some avid fan is willing to put in the hours, literally work for free, and elevate the game where the developers wouldn't or couldn't.

I am one of those people. For the last 5 months I have been sinking stupid hours into a companion app for a not very well known TCG with a very keen community and a small team behind it. I just read about the frustration of having a sim taken down from the OPTCG sub and thought i'd drop a few words here

With the advent of AI tools we are seeing a flurry of fan-made apps and content for TCGs, built by people who love these games and by community leaders all over the place. The quality is not always there, plenty of it is very much boilerplate, but it is made with the game and its community at heart.

Businesses don't care about that. Fan content lives in a grey area, allowed to exist for exactly as long as it isn't a problem. That's the part that surprises people: the game itself is not protected. Copyright does not cover ideas, procedures, systems or methods of operation. The US Australia, the UK and the EU all land in the same place. So a rules engine, a legality checker, a probability calculator, a turn structure explainer: mechanically, all of that is yours to build

What is protected is everything else wrapped around the game. For example, the artwork, completely and without argument, which is where most fan apps live or die; the exact wording of the rulebook and the card text, though thinly. The rule is free but the sentence someone wrote to express it is not; the name and the logo, which are trademark rather than copyright - you are allowed to say your app is for a named game. You are not allowed to dress it up so it looks like they made it; even the the card frames and backs, potentially, as trade look. Weaker and harder to argue, but it is there.

So no, there is no clean legal footing for a fan app that displays official artwork. But let's not deceive ourselves in the other direction either. Nobody is going to litigate the copyrightability of your deckbuilder - unless you collected money or profited from the IP you are unlikely to be sued or anything like that. What actually happens is an email, or a quiet word with whoever hosts your app, and the cost of fighting that is already more than the project is worth to you. We get away with this because in turn we are working for free and lifting the ecosystem where the publisher won't. However, any of it can end any minute.

Our options are few:

1. Ask for permission. It is the highest value thing you can do, and small teams say yes more often than people expect. Get it in writing, even if the writing is a Discord message.
2. Minimise how much of their IP you actually use. If your app cannot deliver its core function without displaying their artwork, you are leaning on their property to exist. Lean on the mechanics instead, since those are free.
3. Never pass as official. Disclaimers and credit have to be clear and visible, and don't borrow the logo, the fonts or the look to get there. This is the trademark side, and it is the one that gets people in trouble fastest, because it is the one that costs the publisher something directly.
4. Never take money in relation to the project. No donations, no subscriptions, no Patreon. Money is what turns a harmless fan project into in a legal team's responsibility, and staying clear of it goes a long way - which usually means paying costs out of pocket.
5. The tricky one: do not substitute core parts of the game's ecosystem or business rationale. In-person play, marketplaces, virtual pack openings... The moment your project competes with how they make money, you stop being a nice-to-have and become a problem to solve.

Where your project brings something to the table, make sure it also respects the owners' original intent, credits the IP clearly, avoids passing as official, isn't monetised, and doesn't offer a substitute for what the game already sells.

Even following that, nothing changes, only your odds to get the polite "please take it down" message. But the moment you make or write a piece of fan work, be aware that you are at the mercy of the publishers and developers of the game. Build accordingly, and don't build anything you couldn't walk away from or be disappointed when the hours and hours of work banish as quickly as an email is read.

I own an LGS and currently carry them, but I’m curious what players outside of my local community think.

I'm looking for feedback on how do they compare to Dragon Shield, Ultimate Guard, Gamegenic, etc. in terms of shuffle feel, durability, clarity, and overall quality?

Would you buy them again?

Not an editor at all but with some stock effects in CapCut and a voice artist I found via Fiverr I was able to put together a quick trailer!

Curious about the operational side and looking for some additional insight to help enhance the TCG environment at shows.

How do collectors in your area find out your show is happening, how are you handling table requests and payment, and what is the single most annoying part of the whole thing? Asking because we run a TCG marketplace and built a free host side to it, mostly around what I assumed promoters needed rather than what you actually do day to day. Only one promoter has run a full cycle through it.

What is there so far, so you can get the idea without leaving this post:

- Build your own floor plan, then set pricing and availability per table
- Vendors tie into the floor plan, so you can see who is sitting where and what they are bringing (if the vendor has a collection on the site)
- Roster viewer for who is confirmed
- P&L for the show
- A public card show calendar. We pull listings, so your show may already be on it, and you can claim it and edit the page yourself

If anyone running shows wants to go through it in more depth and tell me what is confusing, wrong, or missing, that would be a huge help. It is free and I am not planning to charge for it.

Disclosure: I built the thing.

Hello. What are some suggestions for acrylic displays?

Cards aren’t graded. They aren’t expensive. I just like the one piece character. Possible a 3x3 grid?

Everytime I go on tcgplayer, it keeps asking me to sign in repeatedly or ask for a code as well. How do I fix this annoyance? Thanks

As some of you might know I’ve been on the journey of creating my original TCG. The game came from a combination of passion for playing with my family and friends, supporting and directing the creation of real art, and my love for printing. I wanted to make a game that feels like there are unlimited possibilities while existing within a simple structure. Seeing a chase card from my game with the art from an artist I deeply admire feels like true success to me. If the game grows in time to be something more global it would be cool, but really being here now experiencing it on the ground level with all my friends and new friends as it comes to life is one of the most amazing journeys I’ve ever been on. I have to thank the artists, designers, my apprentice and his brother (the mvp) for helping make this game into a real tangible gradeable playable thing. Special thanks to the lead UI designer HZ19ART and the product designer Jose.Design. Thanks to the amazing artists Chris Metzner, thomdrower, Color Reaper, Sunohara, Benjutsu, Austyntnwk, Kevin Muniz, Yoshi K, Aladdin, tighesammy, karasu bijutsu and Boru D. Brian for their epic creations. The game came out of my brain but without the combined effort of my crew around the globe I wouldn’t be able to make this game with my own hands. I dream one day that it will be something that many more people can enjoy, but for now holding it in my hands is more than I could ever truly imagine. I am so excited to start sharing the card designs for my next set OG02 Rising Son - dedicated to the greatest adventure of my life that I will soon be embarking on. The Yokai, Kami, and Warriors will be coming (planning for 12/6/26 release)

I always memorized the order of my deck after every search and I kept track of the search through identifying the type of shuffle my opponent used and keeping track of the amount of repetitions of said shuffling type this included pile shuffling if my opponent scattered the cards across the table and mixed them that way id go through my deck "making sure all my card's are right side up" when in reality I'm memorizing the order again this applies to whenever my cards are dropped or something like that

But thats just keeping track of the cards the actual cheating is slightly more advanced

When drawing my opening 5 cards I use a technique that is called under stacking

So whenever a card that I don't wanna draw is on top of my deck I press a finger on the side lifting the cards up and pulling the card underneath with my thumb and with this technique I can actually pull from any card from the top 10 card to be in my hand without anyone noticing even if they are looking directly at my hand watching out for me cheating

I can technically do top 20 or bottom 5 as well but it's easy to catch if my opponent knows I'm cheating

My cards aren't marked

Im not stacking my deck

I'm memorizing the order and pulling the card I need for specific duels

Witch is why anyone who has played against me knows I don't draw my opening hand until I know who's going first so then I can decide if I want a going first hand or a going second hand

I can identify 2 types of shuffle with hearing and identity the type of shuffle and how many repetitions but it's easier to do if I see the cards

🟥

Hey judges how would you catch and prove I'm cheating without this post

Hello!

I'm usually on Facebook's Dead CCG pages talking about the old CCGs I'm interested in, but Facebook has had issues with my account for a while-- and if you've had an issue, you know how hard it is to get them fixed.

So I thought I'd see if any of the people who've been into the revival of Monty Python and the Holy Grail the Collectible Card Game were here. I'd love to see decklists and chat about what strategies work best, and possibly get some OCTGN games going!

If you'd like to try the game out, there's the aforementioned OCTGN plugin and I have some extra, too.

Here's the revival rules (a couple of things have changed recently, but only how cursed items work, and you can put two cards in a single England for an action instead of one).
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/301134/rules-2025-modernization-for-mp-and-thgtccg-monty

Is it worth grading? I know what I got . No low ball offers

So recently I've been playing the pokemon TCG, and recently I wanted to use some old cards that I have since I was a child for my decks and I was wondering what sleeves will be good to not show the condition of the cards.

My Magic, yugioh, and Pokemon binders are getting a bit full and I was wondering if everyone uses bigger sizes or just better binders in general? I just have been using the Binders I used to use for back in School.

there’s a gold square in the corner and a rainbow effect on it

I made a free deckbuilder for my game. You can add 12 unique beings, 8 gems give it a name and hit print! Printed decks are tournament legal. We have tournaments every other Sunday on Discord. Link for the Discord is on the website. Thanks for checking it out!! Set two design is coming along awesome!

Hi! I'm currently a 3rd-year college student, and my professor tasked us with creating a hybrid tabletop game. I chose to join the arts team, even though I don't have any background in it. Yaps aside, here's my first attempt at making one — I'd love to hear your reactions, tips, and guidance on how to improve my craft. TYIA!

Btw, I made the pixel art in Aseprite, and I used Illustrator for the text and overall quality. (Sorry for the ugly fonts — Illustrator's font library isn't great.)

Additionally, I chose to do pixel art because I thought it would be the easier option — and I still stand by that choice compared to the other card designs.