by Scott Alden

As part of the celebration of BGG's 25th anniversary, we are pleased to announce the next five of 25 inductees into The BoardGameGeek Hall of Fame, listed in order by release date.

For background on The BGG Hall of Fame, the reasoning behind which games were eligible and which were chosen, and the first five inductees by chronological order, please see this introductory post.

The rest of the inductees will be revealed throughout the week. Stay tuned!

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6. Magic: The Gathering — 1993
In 1993, mathematician Richard Garfield took inspiration from Cosmic Encounter and Dungeons & Dragons to craft the world's first and most successful collectable card game: Magic: The Gathering. Themed as a head-to-head duel between enemy wizards, Magic established many of the mechanisms and business models that dominate the board and card game space today. Card rarity, deck-construction, and regular expansions ensured that Magic's many fans embraced it as a lifestyle game that they literally invested in while crafting a personal deck that reflects their identity. The unprecedented success of Magic cannot be overstated, bringing millions of players into the hobby.

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7. CATAN — 1995
Hobby gaming became a mainstream phenomenon in 1995 thanks to Klaus Teuber's The Settlers of Catan. The game features multiple design elements still emulated today: constructive gameplay, variable set-ups, player interaction on every turn, and a family-friendly setting. Players start with modest settlements on an island, and gain resources — wheat, sheep, wood, brick, and ore — that they use to build roads, establish new settlements, grow cities, and acquire development cards that grant points or special powers. Don't have what you need? Trade with other players on their turn or yours. CATAN, as the game is known today, has now sold more than 45 million copies, and it remains an entry point into modern gaming around the world.

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8. El Grande — 1996
In Wolfgang Kramer and Richard Ulrich's El Grande, players bid for actions and place caballeros in nine regions of Spain. Bid high, and you'll get the action you want, but no new caballeros — and if you run out of caballeros, you will have no influence on the game board. To get more caballeros, you must bid low, which might land you a useless action. To score a region, you must outnumber others, and to score as many regions as possible, you must spread yourself thin, putting you constantly on the edge of winning and losing. Thirty years after its debut, El Grande remains the ideal "area control" game.

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9. Tigris and Euphrates — 1997
Reiner Knizia's Tigris and Euphrates is both an abstract tile-laying game and an immersive battle between dynastic powers building kingdoms in Mesopotamia. With only two actions each turn, players use their tiles, four leaders, and disasters to develop and control kingdoms that spread across the game board. As the game progresses, conflicts arise both internally from conflicting leaders and externally from merging kingdoms. Having leaders in kingdoms allows you to score, and each player's lowest score among four categories determines the winner. This scoring system prevents over-specialization and rewards balanced strategies, with players discovering new strategies with each game.

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10. Ra — 1999
At first, many people loathe the bidding game Ra, coming to love it only with experience. On each turn over three rounds, you either add a random tile to the display, or call for an auction on displayed tiles. You can bid only of your few bidding tiles, with a winning tile becoming part of the next lot up for grabs. Tiles come in eight types, including disasters that can wipe out your holdings, making every lot varied and hard to assess. The time to do this is limited as the embodiment of Ra, the sun, races across the sky, forcing the round's end and scoring. Reiner Knizia's Ra is quick to learn and play, but the subtleties of bidding, second guessing others, and judging lots make it a complex simple game that demands multiple plays. Additionally, Ra launched the influential alea game brand that quickly spread from Germany to the world.

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