Played this originally back when it was new, I was never into any card games other than pokemon, and even that I never really played it, just collected the cards. Etherlords is a lot of fun even if you're not familiar with the physical card games it's heavily inspired by, it's something of a light turn based strategy with some RPG elements and a heavy emphasis on the combat system. You can see the card game influences on the mechanics, but you don't really need to know anything about card games to figure out how to play and do well. The lore and atmosphere of the universe is really enjoyable and well presented, like a lot of RTS games from this era, and it has a banger soundtrack that I still listen to after ripping it out of the CD version of the game.
