Daniel (@dungeondive) cracks open his collection of the Tomb Raider Collectible Card Game—a late-90s relic that tried to ride the Magic: The Gathering wave with Laura Croft as the hook. The game features competitive dungeon racing where players construct location decks, draw action cards dictating which alleyways they can shoot down, and press their luck deeper into the void while opponents play obstacles on them.
The tragedy? It’s a CCG when it should have been a complete card game. Want solo cards? Hope you don’t pull a booster pack full of competitive take-that actions. Want specific characters? Keep buying blind packs. Daniel opens several boosters on camera and watches duplicates pile up while solo-usable cards trickle in. The silver lining: nobody’s collecting this, so you can amass a decent haul for cheap on eBay. The action card system is clever—your hand dictates which lanes you can attack—and Daniel sees the seeds of something Dungeoner would later do better. A fascinating archaeological dig into the hobby’s CCG fever dreams.
What dead CCG do you wish had been released as a complete boxed game instead?