As the holiday season draws to a close, you may still be on the lookout for some inexpensive, bang-for-your-buck games to serve as last-minute stocking stuffers or to simply play with friends and family on your extended vacation days. We’ve got you covered! Check out these inexpensive and highly entertaining games that will easily fit in your travel bag or a loved one’s stocking.

Transformers Trading Card Game

The hottest new card game from Wizards of the Coast isn’t a new Magic: The Gathering expansion but something based on a group of characters that are more than meets the eye.

The Transformers Trading Card Game has you and a friend building a team of Autobots and Decepticons, creating a deck of power ups and abilities, then going head to head, transforming between modes to gain access to new abilities and special powers, while using the synergy between the bots on your team to heal, defend, damage, and even resurrect characters. The Autobot Starter Box comes with four oversized hero cards, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ironhide, and Red Alert (all rare quality and all available in the starter box only) and 40 power up and ability cards. It’s just enough for one player to play the full game or two players to play with a set of simplified rules.

If you’d like to add more characters to your collection, or you’re ready to get serious about the game, there are blind booster packs available as well. Each contains one additional character and 7 battle cards.

The booster pack cards are all of varying rarity, from super rare to common. There’s only maybe one super rare character per booster box, so if you’re a completionist, be prepared to dish out some serious money to get both Legendary Warrior Bumblebee and Nemesis Prime.

But you don’t have to complete the collection to play. There are 40 characters to collect, all that have their place in more advanced strategies. That Dinobot Sludge that you just pulled out of a booster will be the perfect damage sponge for your dino-themed team, since his ability lets him take damage off of other Dinobots. The rare Starscream is perfect you want to create a deck of Jets that pepper the opponents entire team with a barrage from above. There are all kinds of strategies to discover when you start pulling together cards of the same type. Half the fun is figuring out exactly what works well together.

If you don’t want to blindly collect more cards, you can also pick up the awesomely impressive Metroplex Deck! The Metroplex Deck is a complete deck for one player. It contains one 8-inch tall Metroplex card, three oversized character cards, and a 40-card battle deck with three new cards for use with Metroplex and Titan-class characters. It also contains a printed copy of the Advanced Rules.

This deck definitely isn’t for basic play. Your team starts underneath Metroplex as he tears through your opponent’s characters. But he can transform to city mode each round and deploy one of three bots: Scamper, Six-Gun, and Slammer (all companion characters and drones included with the original toy). It’s a fun twist but it makes for a longer, slower burn game as you fight to get your team fully deployed (at which point you’re practically unstoppable).

The fun of a deck like this isn’t just how much power you bring to the table. It’s being able to slap down a nearly one-foot card, add three more characters to him, and saying “This is my deck,” then watch your opponent quake in fear. The Metroplex deck is $20 while the Autobot Starter Set is only $15. Together or separately, these The Transformers Trading Card Game sets make a great gift.

Review by Anthony Karcz

Magic: The Gathering – Guilds of Ravnica Guild Kits

Despite Anthony’s unbridled enthusiasm for anything Transformers-related as displayed above, the newest Magic: The Gathering release is still a worthy holiday purchase. After having only recently gotten back into playing Magic after a near 20-year hiatus, I was somewhat overwhelmed by the vastness of the new 2019 Core Set. My playing chops were not what they used to be, and so building a deck from scratch was daunting and frustrating. Thankfully, the new Guilds of Ravnica Guild Kits are prebuilt heavy-hitters that are ready to go against even the most skilled Magic decks.

Currently there are three guild kits to choose from: Izzet (pictured above), Dimir, Golgari, Boros, and Selesnya . Each kit pairs two compatible colors together to play on their greatest strengths, but no one kit wields too much power. I received two kits to play with: the red and blue Izzet kit and the green and black Golgari kit. While it certainly took me a little while to get comfortable with the cards in each deck, what I instantly noticed was how balanced the decks were. Never did I feel like I was too easily defeated nor too easily victorious. It was always a calculated tit-for-tat battle.

Each kit comes with 1 ready-to-play 60-card deck, a spindown life counter, a guild pin and sticker set, and a foldout insert with artwork and a card inventory list on it. What the set didn’t come with, however, was an instruction booklet. This makes it difficult for me to recommend to someone who has never played Magic before as it doesn’t even offer up a QR code or link to take players to the M:tG website to learn the rules and mechanics. Even as someone who knew how to play, my hiatus from the game meant I had to look up what several of the cards meant and even (apparently) long-standing mechanics such as trample and fused cards.

The compact nature of game and the low cost to entry ($19.99 MSRP) makes this a great stocking stuffer for the Magic fan in your life. An experienced player would love to have these guild kits to fill out their arsenal or have on hand for guests to have a balanced deck prebuilt that’s ready to go. Whichever guild you choose, these 60-card sets will renew your love for Magic: the Gathering!

Cinco Linko

My favorite go-to game for normies (not hardcore gaming fans) lately is Cinco Linko. Want a game that you can learn in less than a minute and play in less than ten? Then you’ll love Cinco Linko.

Despite the numerous individual tokens, Cinco Linko was developed with both easy playability and portability in mind. Designed for 2-4 players, the playing mechanics are perhaps most similar to Connect 4, but so much more enjoyable. Each player has a set of colored tiles and take turns laying them out in order to form a consecutive row of five tiles to win. See? Easy to learn! It’s advertised as suitable for ages 8 and up, but I think even a 4 year old could easily learn this game with a little help.

The only rules are that you can only place tiles on the borders of another piece and not on the corners diagonally. Run out of tiles? No problem. Just start moving a piece for the outer edge to another strategic location. The compact and portable design (each color set locks into a post which are then secured together and paired with a caribiner for easy transport), ease of accessibility, low cost ($14.99) and competitive nature make this game a must-have entry-level game to have in your collection.

Christmas Lights: A Card Game

The most seasonally-appropriate game on our list has to be Christmas Lights. I first learned about this game during its Kickstarter launch when I met the designer at the Southern-Fried Gaming Expo in Atlanta. While I wasn’t necessarily in the Christmas spirit back in June, I am now, and this game is a perfect addition to your holiday mix.

In this one, you are trying to complete a string of Christmas lights in a specific colored sequence. And while you have a number of cards in your hand, you can’t see them, but every other player can. You have to strategically use other people’s cards, event cards, wild cards, and broken bulbs to complete your strand and light up the sky! While not too difficult to learn, it does take playing it through at least once to get the hang of it. I recommend watching this explainer on YouTube to get the hang of it.

While I agree with the criticisms that some of the card types need a differently designed back to help distinguish them from others, my only real complaint is that it gets tiresome holding your cards outward for everyone to see at all times. Minor quibbles aside, Christmas Lights: A Card Game is illuminating and would shine brightly in your game collection.

(Disclaimer: We received review copies of all the games above except Christmas Lights. All opinions are our own.)