Back Issues: Scrye 12

This issue released in January 1996.

Scrye Readership Awards (for 1995):
Here are the results of the first Annual Scrye CCG Awards.

Best Collectible Card Game:
1. Magic: The Gathering
2. Jyhad (Vampire: The Eternal Struggle)
3. Shadowfist

Best Expansion:
1. Ice Age (M:TG), The Umbra (Rage)
2. Legends (M:TG)
3. Homelands (M:TG)

Best Playability:
1. Magic: The Gathering
2. Wyvern
3. Rage, Jyhad, Overpower (tie)

Best Graphic Design:
1. Magic: The Gathering
2. Star Trek: The Next Generation CCG
3. Rage

Best Art:
1. Magic: The Gathering, Guardians (tie)
2. Rage

Best Art for an Expansion:
1. Ice Age
2. Homelands
3 The Umbra (Rage)

Best Card Artist:
1. Anson Maddocks, Melissa Benson, Richard Kane-Ferguson, Quinton Hoover, Douglas Shuler (tie)

Best Rulebook:
1. Magic: The Gathering 4th Edition
2. Wyvern
3. Overpower

Coolest Chase Cards:
1. Ancient Fighting Arts of China
2. Gridiron Fantasy Football

Wildest Cards:
1. Guardians
2. Gridiron Fantasy Football, Illuminati NWO

Best Player's Guide Book:
Illuminati NWO

Most Underrated CCG:
Legend of the Five Rings
Wildstorms
Ultimate Combat
Battlelords
(Tie for all)

There are not many surprises to the winners.  The first, oldest, and best-selling CCG dominates the awards in a fledgling market.

Other Things
These early magazines always have articles on reader submitted card combinations.  Many such combos are dated or less efficient than similar combos are now, but I do find them charming to read.

In addition, I love that many of the standard articles of the time are very multi-game.  The card combo section had combinations for the Star Trek CCG, and the rules questions section had some Shadowfist questions.

According to one of the news articles, Fantasy Adventures was going to have "Robert Jordan's book series" as one of the expansions.  I wonder if that was going to be the Wheel of Time?  Hard to believe, but then again, I do not think Fantasy Adventures ended up having any expansions to begin with.

Back in this era, there were so few CCGs that they actually could, as a "Card Collector Compendium", list all of the expansions for every game in the list.  I will not bore you all with that, but it is interesting seeing which games were listed that never made it out.  Daemonstorm from Caliber Game Systems, for instance- these were the makers of the really crappy Powercardz CCG, so this probably is not a big loss.  Same goes for One-on-One, from Playoff/Cardz... makers of Hyborian Gates, which was probably an even worse CCG.  Donruss had plans to release Fire on Ice, 24 Seconds, and Versus CCGs.  I assume these would have come out had Top of the Order and Red Zone done well enough.

A lot more checklists made these magazines.  Checklists for Gridiron Fantasy Football, Middle-Earth: The Wizards, Battlelords, Kult, Tempest of the Gods, Quest for the Grail, Red Zone, and the Netherworld Expansion from Shadowfist are included.

For Red Zone, an article detailing advice on running tournaments and tips for how to build your first deck are included.  For Quest for the Grail, two variant ways to play the game have an article.  There is another article talking about tournament rules for Shadowfist, and another one talking about some tricks to playing Gridiron effectively.  Finally, Highlander gets an article covering Advanced Rules from the Movie Edition.

That's right- a whole issue without a single deck list.  Good reading overall though.