Like a deck of Poker playing cards, trading card game's (TCG's) can be enjoyed in multiple ways, by applying different rulesets (formats).
TCG formats come in two main varieties: Constructed and Limited.
Broadly speaking, players bring preassembled decks to Constructed events, whereas in Limited formats they assemble a fresh deck from a pool of cards.
Lorcana, Magic: The Gathering (Magic, MTG), Flesh and Blood, One Piece, Shard Bugs, and even some miniature games like Warhammer (40K) often support both Constructed and Limited, depending on the particular competitive event. Most older games like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! lack support for Limited formats.
Constructed events have players bring some already assembled deck(s) to the event. These may be preconstructed ("precon") decks by the game maker, or Internet deck lists ("netdecks"), or other custom decks.
Players may buy, sell, or trade cards, booster packs, preconstructed decks, and other merchandise between competitive events.
In Magic: The Gathering, Constructed is further broken out into an explosion of sub-formats, including Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Commander (Elder Dragon Highlander), Pauper, and PDH (Pauper Dragon Highlander), Star, Three Card Blind, Two-Headed Giant, some cooperative formats, and many others.
Constructed Magic decks include a special Sideboard section of 15 cards, or 10 in Commander. The Sideboard helps the main deck to become flexible, enabling the player to alter the main deck contents between matches to work around tough opposition. Most players tune their Sideboard to counter the prevailing metagame deck opposition.
Lorcana Constructed events primarily use the ordinary card legality rules, though local communities continue to experiment with alternative Lorcana formats inspired by other games.
In Constructed, TCG's like Magic encourages players to choose a smaller subset of available card colors in order to provide decks with focus, and from focus, power. For low power 60 card Constructed formats, Magic recommends a maximum of 2 colors. Higher power Magic Constructed formats vary among 3 or more colors. Lorcana Constructed rules normally prohibit more than 2 colors.
Most TCG's have a rule with a minimum of 60 cards, and up to 4 copies of each unique fully qualified name. This mitigates problems concerning overly narrow metagame options and play-to-win behaviors.
Limited events have players assemble a fresh deck just before beginning their matches, based on a random pool of cards. The pool of cards normally comes from some bundle of booster packs provided by event organizers.
Limited involves many of the same skills as Constructed, with the addition of having to pick the best/synergistic cards on the fly, and building a deck without resorting to copying other decks wholesale.
Most Limited formats have a rule with a minimum of 40 cards, and as many copies of each unique fully qualified name as the player picks.
On a game design note, the randomization of Limited inherently solves many problems that Constructed requires explicit, brightlight rules to address.
In Magic, the remainder of the cards picked serves as the Sideboard.
In Lorcana, color restrictions are removed to account for the fact that the deckbuilding card pool is random.
Limited is further broken out into three main subcategories: Draft, Sealed, or Cube.
Draft has players exchange their current booster pack around the table after each pick. This specific process provides sufficient access to a more competitively viable spectrum of cards than Sealed. Draft represents the heart and soul of trading card games like Lorcana and Magic: The Gathering. (Pokemon often carries custom event rules to accommodate Draft.)
Like Draft, Sealed players still build their deck just before matches, but they do not exchange booster packs. In execution, Sealed is simpler than Draft, with fewer social elements. However, by not exchanging booster packs with other players, Sealed tends to decrease card variety, with luck playing more of a factor. Magic: The Gathering offers specialized bundles of booster packs may be purchased to provide the player with their pool of pickable cards for the event. But any Limited friendly / draftable trading card game can be played in Draft/Sealed using plain booster packs. Don't ask about the different types of booster packs that Magic or otherwise have experimented with over the years.
A conventional Limited event may take hours to complete, and cost the player 3-4 booster packs. In the interest of saving time and money, TCG's often include even wilder Sealed variants.
Magic's mini Sealed sub-format is Winston Draft.
Lorcana's mini Sealed sub-format is Pack Rush. Lorcana's unique resource rules may not translate well to Pack Rush, due to the exceptionally narrow card pool. In order to ensure that players can actually play their cards, some Pack Rush event organizers remove inkability restrictions.
Cube has an enthusiast create a custom set, and players use that set much like an official one in Draft/Sealed events. The Cube designer assumes the role of a trading card game maker, tuning their personal set. To the desired power level, supported deck strategies, themes, and budget. A cube can be as simple as a bunch of boosters from your favorite real set, or as complicated as an Ascension clone atop Lorcana rules.
Unlike typical Draft/Sealed, a cube is designed to be replayed many times over, and beloved cubes may be kept in protective sleeves at all times. Cubers can even ask a question about how newly released cards interact with the rest of a cube, as yet another tool to analyze power level and other aspects of trading cards.
- Deckbuilding card games like Ascension, Dominion, Sushi Go, Star Realms, and Texas hold'em Poker behave similarly to TCG Draft format, except the picks are done directly within the normal course of each match.
- Living Card Games like Netrunner are sold in the form of an entire set, as opposed to booster packs.
- Real Time Strategy (RTS) video games like Starcraft share elements of Constructed and Limited gameplay, including resource optimization, pacing, tactics, and intricate metagame behaviors.
- Host your own events and explore yet more games.