Bigger than Magic the Gathering

It's Time to Catch 'Em All...

Collectable card games are great.  While games like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon are popular and continue to be successful, the original and biggest game is Magic the Gathering.  Other collectable card games have come and gone, failing to recreate the success of Magic.  That got me thinking, even if you were able to create a wildly successful collectable card game, how could you possibly match the size of Magic?  It has thousands of cards across dozens of expansions.  What theme could compete with that?

That's where my madness come in.  Here are my attempts to come up with a theme for a collectable card game that could be Bigger than Magic.

1) The Galactic Expanse: The clearest option.  Magic is a fantasy-based game.  So, to contrast, have a sci-fi-based game.  There would be countless opportunities for alien species and technologies.  There could also be a mechanism similar to color in Magic (white, black, blue, green, red) that revolved around the four fundamental forces (gravity, electromagnetism, strong force, weak force).

2) Multi-Multiverse: Magic already has multiple planes of reality.  How to outdo it?  More multiverses!  Each expansion could be a different multiverse.  You could even set up the game as having only a set number of core cards, but then in each expansion, those core cards would have different variants.  A lot of potential for humor too.  Whale multiverse.  Hipster multiverse.  Antimatter multiverse.

3) Taxonomy Extraordinary:  Want almost endless card ideas?  Create creatures that are stylized versions of the over 1.7 million described species.  Flamethrower Australian bombardier beetle.  High-mage salmon shark.  Mecha American elm.  Think a blend between Pokémon and Phylo.

4) Speculative Evolution: Why stick with jazzing up real species?  Weird and wild species of fictional creatures could be generated across speculative evolution subsets: extraterrestrial life, alternative evolution, and future evolution.

5) Alternative History: Just like speculating on natural history, a game could focus on human history.  Each expansion could be based around a different historical event that was changed.  The Allies lost WWII.  Christopher Columbus never discovered America.  Nicola Tesla succeeds in developing wireless communication.  A major game mechanic could be influencing time periods and the flow of temporal events.

6) Literature Clash: Crack open the great literature of the world and turn the characters and events within into a rousing card game.  Each expansion could be a book or author.  The Odyssey expansion.  The Jane Austin expansion.  The 1001 Nights expansion.

7) Mythology Meld: Magic the Gathering finds a multitude of inspiration from mythological stories.  Minotaurs, dragons, elementals.  What would set this version apart would be a deliberate mixing of mythological beasts into new forms.  Like a game version of Myth Match, or the Yu-Gi-Oh! polymerization card made into an entire game.  

8) Tiny Hands of Fate: This game would have simple, generic mechanics.  The difference would be the card identities.  They'd be creatures drawn and described by children, then made into custom cards.  So, each child would have an unique deck filled with their own creations.  The rules would be the same for all cards, so they could be traded and switched out as normal.

9) Word Warriors: This idea is straightforward, if a little wacky.  Each card is a different word that is stylized into a creature or character.  It might be hard to make each word card interesting, but you'd never run out of words.  Even if you somehow got through every relevant word in English, you could switch to another language.  Prost!

10) Domain Dominions: Want to combine flashcards with a card game?  Enter domain dominions, where every expansion is a specific subject.  Organic Chemistry.  Introduction to Astrophysics.  Business Writing.  The major mechanism would be to play cards with content questions that your opponent can't answer.  There could also be levels of rarity.  Rarer cards are harder questions.