Okay, so far we got these games already in the other thread:
Duelyst (https://duelyst.com/)
Solforge (http://store.steampowered.com/app/232450/)
Chronicle (http://store.steampowered.com/app/205890/?snr=1_4_4__tab-PopularNewReleases)
I want to add some other games to the list.
Magic Duels (http://store.steampowered.com/app/316010)
Basically Magic the Gathering as online game. they had this before but it wasn't very popular except for hardcore players for mutliple reasons. It wasn't free. That's not entirely true, the client was free, the cards just weren't. You either had to buy cards in the store for real money relating to the current market value of cards. People who know printed TCG very well, esspecially MtG, will know that buying specific printed cards can be very expensive.
Magic Duels is now finally the free variant of the game, its engine is based on the "Duels of the planeswalker" game series they released once each year. Peopel who own these games know that they are very well designed in terms of gameplay but (except the last game) lacked a real deck builder, you had pre-defined decks with some minor card customization options. I haven't played Magic Duels myself but i believe it removes the deck restriction and is in its core more true to the real MtG. the reason why they suddenly release a free online TCg should be obvious. With the rising tide of online tradign card games there has been created a huge market that you can profit from. Also the interest for real TCGs gets lower since you can have your daily fix on card games faster and cheaper on the internet. Real hardcore fans will of course stay, but if you want to make big profit you have to increase the market. I think for people who want the MtG experience without the need of buying real life cards this is a good replacement.
Pox Nora (http://store.steampowered.com/app/201210/)
Pox Nora can be seen as the "ancestor" of Duelyst if you want to put it like this. it features similiar mechanics but is a LOT older. The first version was released around 2006 and was previusly owned by Sony Online Entertainment. 2011 it was closed down until 2014 it was sold to Desert Owl Games and rereleased with a better marketing system. Similiar to Duelyst it is a cardgame mixed with boardgame mechanics. Each player has runes (cards) that he can play. Cards can be only played in casting range which is first near your shrine. Your shrine is a giant building that generates Nora (mana) for you and has to be protected. If it falls, you loose.
To play cards you have to pay the Nora costs, stronger cards cost more just like in any other game with a mana mechanic. To get additional Nora each turn you can capture Nora fonts that are present on each map. Your enemy can do the same but if both players stay in the capture range of the same font, the font is negated for both. Capturing and holding fonts is a very important aspect of the game and if you cannot hold the position you will probably loose the game.
I could descripe stats and abilities of cards but the problem is, Pox Nora has TONS of these. So I will put it simply to give a basic understanding. Every card can be a champion or a spell (and some other minor cards like equipment which basically also counts as spell). Champions have different movement lengths, attack ranges and other stats. Additionally every champion has abilities, the most basic ability of every champion is an attack. It's importnant to know, the attck counts as seperate ability and can be different from each creature which means it can also have different effects.
Additoonally to the attack a champion can have one or more spells or other special abilities. And some champions can also have passive effects on them that are either pemanent active or active when a certain condition is met.
When a champion dies he leaves a Nora globe worth half his initial Nora costs in its spot. Both players can collect the globe by moving with another champion over it. This is important to know because a player that lost a champion can still manage to get half the costs back and with this not losing advantage.
Champions can only be placed aroudn the shrine or captured Nora fonts. Spells can however be casted in cast range. Cast range is generated by shrines, fonts and even champions. Everything outside the cast range cannot be targeted, so you cannot snipe a creature next to the enemy shrine if you have no creature nearby.
Every rune can be used multiple times however with a limit. When a champion is destroyed or a spell played, the rune goes into "cooldown" which is basically the graveyard in other games. After a number of turns you get the rune back to your hand. This allows unlimited use of runes.
The game is very complex and needs a lot of tactical awareness at all time. Therefor I see Duelyst as the "casual" version of Pox Nora which is easier to learn and master.
There are 8 different factions in the game that belong to either the "good" side or the "bad "side. Each fation has additional to its runes a special ability that affects the game. For example the undead faction has lower cooldowns on their runes, meaning they can "reanimate" dead champions faster. You can also mix two factions as long as the faction ratio is 50:50. If you mix two factions, you get a weaker version of the special ability of both factions.
The game is really interesting and worth to check out as long as you are not afraid of deep strategic games with a lot of factors and stats to keep in mind. I had a lot of fun with it and will probably pick it up again soem time soon since a new set has been released recently.
Okay, so far we got these games already in the other thread:
Duelyst (https://duelyst.com/)
Solforge (http://store.steampowered.com/app/232450/)
Chronicle (http://store.steampowered.com/app/205890/?snr=1_4_4__tab-PopularNewReleases)
I want to add some other games to the list.
Magic Duels (http://store.steampowered.com/app/316010)
Basically Magic the Gathering as online game. they had this before but it wasn't very popular except for hardcore players for mutliple reasons. It wasn't free. That's not entirely true, the client was free, the cards just weren't. You either had to buy cards in the store for real money relating to the current market value of cards. People who know printed TCG very well, esspecially MtG, will know that buying specific printed cards can be very expensive.
Magic Duels is now finally the free variant of the game, its engine is based on the "Duels of the planeswalker" game series they released once each year. Peopel who own these games know that they are very well designed in terms of gameplay but (except the last game) lacked a real deck builder, you had pre-defined decks with some minor card customization options. I haven't played Magic Duels myself but i believe it removes the deck restriction and is in its core more true to the real MtG. the reason why they suddenly release a free online TCg should be obvious. With the rising tide of online tradign card games there has been created a huge market that you can profit from. Also the interest for real TCGs gets lower since you can have your daily fix on card games faster and cheaper on the internet. Real hardcore fans will of course stay, but if you want to make big profit you have to increase the market. I think for people who want the MtG experience without the need of buying real life cards this is a good replacement.
Pox Nora (http://store.steampowered.com/app/201210/)
Pox Nora can be seen as the "ancestor" of Duelyst if you want to put it like this. it features similiar mechanics but is a LOT older. The first version was released around 2006 and was previusly owned by Sony Online Entertainment. 2011 it was closed down until 2014 it was sold to Desert Owl Games and rereleased with a better marketing system. Similiar to Duelyst it is a cardgame mixed with boardgame mechanics. Each player has runes (cards) that he can play. Cards can be only played in casting range which is first near your shrine. Your shrine is a giant building that generates Nora (mana) for you and has to be protected. If it falls, you loose.
To play cards you have to pay the Nora costs, stronger cards cost more just like in any other game with a mana mechanic. To get additional Nora each turn you can capture Nora fonts that are present on each map. Your enemy can do the same but if both players stay in the capture range of the same font, the font is negated for both. Capturing and holding fonts is a very important aspect of the game and if you cannot hold the position you will probably loose the game.
I could descripe stats and abilities of cards but the problem is, Pox Nora has TONS of these. So I will put it simply to give a basic understanding. Every card can be a champion or a spell (and some other minor cards like equipment which basically also counts as spell). Champions have different movement lengths, attack ranges and other stats. Additionally every champion has abilities, the most basic ability of every champion is an attack. It's importnant to know, the attck counts as seperate ability and can be different from each creature which means it can also have different effects.
Additoonally to the attack a champion can have one or more spells or other special abilities. And some champions can also have passive effects on them that are either pemanent active or active when a certain condition is met.
When a champion dies he leaves a Nora globe worth half his initial Nora costs in its spot. Both players can collect the globe by moving with another champion over it. This is important to know because a player that lost a champion can still manage to get half the costs back and with this not losing advantage.
Champions can only be placed aroudn the shrine or captured Nora fonts. Spells can however be casted in cast range. Cast range is generated by shrines, fonts and even champions. Everything outside the cast range cannot be targeted, so you cannot snipe a creature next to the enemy shrine if you have no creature nearby.
Every rune can be used multiple times however with a limit. When a champion is destroyed or a spell played, the rune goes into "cooldown" which is basically the graveyard in other games. After a number of turns you get the rune back to your hand. This allows unlimited use of runes.
The game is very complex and needs a lot of tactical awareness at all time. Therefor I see Duelyst as the "casual" version of Pox Nora which is easier to learn and master.
There are 8 different factions in the game that belong to either the "good" side or the "bad "side. Each fation has additional to its runes a special ability that affects the game. For example the undead faction has lower cooldowns on their runes, meaning they can "reanimate" dead champions faster. You can also mix two factions as long as the faction ratio is 50:50. If you mix two factions, you get a weaker version of the special ability of both factions.
The game is really interesting and worth to check out as long as you are not afraid of deep strategic games with a lot of factors and stats to keep in mind. I had a lot of fun with it and will probably pick it up again soem time soon since a new set has been released recently.
Didn't we also have a Shadow Era thread at somepoint?
I just want to show the rewards of the July season of Chronicle and Solforge for those who don't play these games.
Chronicle:
(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/266095116622980607/9382021AFB52A2E8B5CA9FEADA358F53BBB0076E/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|1024:578&composite-to=*,*|1024:578&background-color=black)
Chronicle gives away each Season a new card back for people who achieved silver or higher. You also get a free booster pack (which is good since booster packs are really expensive and hard to come by in this game) and a new card. the card this time was sheep penguin who removes one base attack from your character but you get 5 gold for it. This may sound bad but in some deck it is good to have less attack than your opponent. In my opinion this card back looks a lot better than the one of the last season.
Solforge:
(http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/266095116622999294/6BC69DFD46F12ED039DB6A8073736FA4866ECB14/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|1024:531&composite-to=*,*|1024:531&background-color=black)
Solforge gives away a lot more but Solforge lacks the cosmetic options that other TCGs have. It had client skins earlier but they weren't included when the new client came out. Instead you get a card with an alternate art (Ambriel Archangel, legendary Alloyin card). Alternate Art cards are basically what foil cards are to real card games. They have an alternate appearance, most are simply recolored versions of the original card but soem have also a complete new artwork.
This is how Ambriel Archangel looks normally: http://sites.cdn.stoneblade.com/cardart/combined-low/ambrielarchangel-combined-std.png
This is the alternate Art: http://solforgegame.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ambriel.png
As you can see, they've added soem kinf of glow effect to the card. This sin't very impressive but it's a free alternate art card, normally they cost gold (premium currency), so I don't except them to put that much effort into it.
Additionally you get 8 boosters, 4 basic and 4 raider unchained (last expansion) plus 15.000 silver to buy additionally booster packs or forge your cards.
Okay, so far we got these games already in the other thread:
Duelyst (https://duelyst.com/)
Solforge (http://store.steampowered.com/app/232450/)
Chronicle (http://store.steampowered.com/app/205890/?snr=1_4_4__tab-PopularNewReleases)
I want to add some other games to the list.
Magic Duels (http://store.steampowered.com/app/316010)
Basically Magic the Gathering as online game. they had this before but it wasn't very popular except for hardcore players for mutliple reasons. It wasn't free. That's not entirely true, the client was free, the cards just weren't. You either had to buy cards in the store for real money relating to the current market value of cards. People who know printed TCG very well, esspecially MtG, will know that buying specific printed cards can be very expensive.
Magic Duels is now finally the free variant of the game, its engine is based on the "Duels of the planeswalker" game series they released once each year. Peopel who own these games know that they are very well designed in terms of gameplay but (except the last game) lacked a real deck builder, you had pre-defined decks with some minor card customization options. I haven't played Magic Duels myself but i believe it removes the deck restriction and is in its core more true to the real MtG. the reason why they suddenly release a free online TCg should be obvious. With the rising tide of online tradign card games there has been created a huge market that you can profit from. Also the interest for real TCGs gets lower since you can have your daily fix on card games faster and cheaper on the internet. Real hardcore fans will of course stay, but if you want to make big profit you have to increase the market. I think for people who want the MtG experience without the need of buying real life cards this is a good replacement.
Pox Nora (http://store.steampowered.com/app/201210/)
Pox Nora can be seen as the "ancestor" of Duelyst if you want to put it like this. it features similiar mechanics but is a LOT older. The first version was released around 2006 and was previusly owned by Sony Online Entertainment. 2011 it was closed down until 2014 it was sold to Desert Owl Games and rereleased with a better marketing system. Similiar to Duelyst it is a cardgame mixed with boardgame mechanics. Each player has runes (cards) that he can play. Cards can be only played in casting range which is first near your shrine. Your shrine is a giant building that generates Nora (mana) for you and has to be protected. If it falls, you loose.
To play cards you have to pay the Nora costs, stronger cards cost more just like in any other game with a mana mechanic. To get additional Nora each turn you can capture Nora fonts that are present on each map. Your enemy can do the same but if both players stay in the capture range of the same font, the font is negated for both. Capturing and holding fonts is a very important aspect of the game and if you cannot hold the position you will probably loose the game.
I could descripe stats and abilities of cards but the problem is, Pox Nora has TONS of these. So I will put it simply to give a basic understanding. Every card can be a champion or a spell (and some other minor cards like equipment which basically also counts as spell). Champions have different movement lengths, attack ranges and other stats. Additionally every champion has abilities, the most basic ability of every champion is an attack. It's importnant to know, the attck counts as seperate ability and can be different from each creature which means it can also have different effects.
Additoonally to the attack a champion can have one or more spells or other special abilities. And some champions can also have passive effects on them that are either pemanent active or active when a certain condition is met.
When a champion dies he leaves a Nora globe worth half his initial Nora costs in its spot. Both players can collect the globe by moving with another champion over it. This is important to know because a player that lost a champion can still manage to get half the costs back and with this not losing advantage.
Champions can only be placed aroudn the shrine or captured Nora fonts. Spells can however be casted in cast range. Cast range is generated by shrines, fonts and even champions. Everything outside the cast range cannot be targeted, so you cannot snipe a creature next to the enemy shrine if you have no creature nearby.
Every rune can be used multiple times however with a limit. When a champion is destroyed or a spell played, the rune goes into "cooldown" which is basically the graveyard in other games. After a number of turns you get the rune back to your hand. This allows unlimited use of runes.
The game is very complex and needs a lot of tactical awareness at all time. Therefor I see Duelyst as the "casual" version of Pox Nora which is easier to learn and master.
There are 8 different factions in the game that belong to either the "good" side or the "bad "side. Each fation has additional to its runes a special ability that affects the game. For example the undead faction has lower cooldowns on their runes, meaning they can "reanimate" dead champions faster. You can also mix two factions as long as the faction ratio is 50:50. If you mix two factions, you get a weaker version of the special ability of both factions.
The game is really interesting and worth to check out as long as you are not afraid of deep strategic games with a lot of factors and stats to keep in mind. I had a lot of fun with it and will probably pick it up again soem time soon since a new set has been released recently.
Shadow Era! *rabble rabble*
I played Pox Nora little more to see how the rewards are. they are actually very generous, I don't get what people want more.
You get 200 gold for each of the two daily matches plus 200 if you can beat both, makes 600 gold.
You always have 4 daily quests that give 350 gold each 8some give less but are easier to obtain), this gives around 1500 per day. This means you can get up to 2100 gold each day plus several more for normal games against other players. A new core card pack costs 2100 gold. So you can get at least that one each day. An extended card pack (contains cards from newer sets) costs 3510 gold. You might not get one each day but you can get one every two days at least. You can also save your money and buy a full box that contains ten booster packs (but you pay only for 9). This would take you around 9-10 days and you are guaranteed to get an exotic in the first pack you open, all other packs have the usual chance of 10% for an exotic and 5% for a legendary cards. Rarities include common, uncommon, rare, exotic, legendary.
And additionally you can also solve the monthly quests. These can give you 1500-3000 gold each and you have four each month. If you can solve all four, you get 500 shards. Shards are used for crafting specific cards like in other online card games. You can get shards also from scrapping cards you don't need or have too many from.
Now let's get to ranked. For reaching the first rank in ranked you get 1000 gold after the season. And you don't have to win. That's right, you can imrpove your rank by simply playing. Winnign a match gives you two points, losing one gives you only one point, so you get faster to higher ranks if you win. I don't know if this changes in higher ranks like in other TCGs where your first rank does not feature a penality for loosing but in higher brackets you loose points. You can simply reach the first rank by plaing 5 games, no matter if you win or loose.
Does this sound unfair in any way? Maybe for players who win because they don't get that much more compared to players that have lost. But except that I don't see why a f2p player has no chance of getting a lot of cards.
I also want to show something from Solforge.
I'm currently using this deck for ranked and it is surprisingly very effective.
AN Abominable Defenders
3x
Abyssal Maw
Citadel Guard
Death Current
Dr. Frankenbaum
Ebonbound Warlord
Graveborn Glutton
Howl of Xith
Vault Welder
Xithian Direhound
Xithian Rotfiend
The deck does not contain a single legendary or heroic card, most cards are easy obtainable and many are included in the starter cards. The idea behind the deck is to spam your abnominations and debuff enemy creatures with -attack/-health. Death Current is used to remove some of the more annoying creatures or to pinpoint a single creature for your debuffs. Additionally Graveborn Glutton and Dr Frankenbaum will eventually wear the enemy out because they do damage to him whenever they or an Abomination dies. Howl of Xith is both a damaging and healign spell, it does 3 damage to the opponent multiplied with your current rank, you also get healed the same amount of hp.
Current weaknesses are decks with "Vengeance: Spawn this", in other words, decks that have reanimated creatures. Zimus teh Undying is your worst nightmare because he comes back no matter what you do. To coutner this, put at least one Nanoswarm in the deck because that card removes all abilities and turns him to "Zimus keeps dying". Will you dominate wit this deck? No, because it lacks any heroics, you lack utility. However, you will have an easier time until you reach silver rank. From there upwards it gets however harder and harder.
The deck was taken from this post about good decks with only common cards and uncommon cards, however most decks are outdated, I foudn this however still viable.
https://solforgegame.com/forum/strategy-discussion/best-budget-deck-thread-6-or-less-legendary/#p182161
So there's a new card game that everyone's been raving about called Shadowverse.
At first it didn't seem like my cup of tea. For one thing it's mobile only, but I guess it's going to be released to Steam on the 26th, so in 2 days it will be a PC game.
It's made by a Japanese developer, so most of the playerbase at this point is Japanese. The pop Asian influence is well...obnoxiously apparent. Many of the cards and characters are scantily-clad anime girls with huge proportions, innocent faces, and usually a weapon of some sort. It's not just the anime characters though, the entire theme screams Japan.
If you can get past the art style (who I am kidding, some of you neckbeards will like it):
(https://i.imgur.com/A0xajaU.jpg)
The gameplay is supposed to be pretty good. I say supposed to because I've only seen people play it, I haven't actually tried playing it myself (not the biggest fan of mobile games).
What I will say is that some of the mechanics I've seen seem pretty neat. The unique claim to fame of the game is the "Evolve" mechanic (run Creationists!).
Essentially, every card in the game has 2 forms - its basic form and it's evolved form. The basic form usually has no abilities (though sometimes it does), but when you evolve a card, its stats increase and it sometimes unlocks a special ability of that card. In addition, when you evolve a card you can immediately use it to attack, so it can be used for that purpose even if you played it that turn and would otherwise have summoning sickness.
This leads to scenarios where, when playing and evolving a powerful card, you can completely alter the course of the game. The catch is that each player has a limited number of 'evolutions', and once they use them all they can't evolve again for the rest of the match. So you want to use them sparingly, and for maximum effect. There may be some cards which restore your evolution charges, but from what I understand these are pretty rare.
The heroes themselves are pretty unique from what I can see as well. The developers seem to have done a good job of giving each class a very specific mechanic that is unique to them, much moreso than say Hearthstone where the game obviously takes some inspiration from.
For example, there's a class that the cards have a kind of 'incubation time', where after being played it takes several turns (sometimes up to 5 or 6) before they finally 'hatch'. But when the cards hatch, they are extremely powerful for their cost. So the entire class revolves around this mechanic. There's another class that is spell-based. It has many expensive spells (way more expensive than you could ever hope to play), but everytime you cast a spell, it reduces the cost of all the other spells in her hand by one. So if you play enough spells, even the massively expensive spells that do insane things (like being able to take another turn) become playable.
So there's plenty of really interesting stuff like that. Personally I find the art style a little annoying, but if I like the gameplay enough I may still enjoy it. I guess we'll find out soon!
(https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/plantsvszombies/images/0/00/Galacticgardens.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/360?cb=20170607210644)
Plants vs Zombies Heroes released their first expansion set, Galactic Gardens. And this at a time when I never excepted it. I thought they would only introduce new cards through the vent card system (which is nice to get soem free cards here and there but terrible to introduce a constant stream of new crads). Anyway, new card set and oh boy, it is awesome. Season 1 (which runs like... forever) will also finally end and people will get rewards depending on their rank, new seasons won't take multiple years anymore, now any season will last exactly 5 years from 2 ongoing.
Back to the set, it's space themed with the title "Galactic Gardens".
There are multiple new keywords, some exclusive to one of the factions.
Conjure gives you a card of the same tribe ont he hand and adds a special ability to it. An excellent way to get a replacement for a card just played and keep pressure on the enemy.
Double Strike was in the game before but didn't had a keyword because only the Repeater and the Bananasaurus Rex had the ability. It allows you to attack twice per turn unless you die after the first attack. Exclusive to Plants.
Hunt moves a plant or zombie to a free lane if an enemy card is played there. Basically it allows you to block lanes, even if your opponent tries to evade it. This is of course more useful to zombies than to plants and because of this, zombies have more cards with this trait.
Overshoot is zombie exclusive and gives an amazing buff to the crazy class (in which this originates). Overshoot deals damage to ots value to the enemy hero before the actual fight int he lane happens, this means you can deal guaranteed damage. If the lane is not blocked, you deal damage a second time (with your attack value). Crazy tribe always had the problem that they have very high attack power but very little health and therefor are way to easy to block and remove, overshoot gives you unblockable damage.
In general the set buffs crazy tribe a lot, which means this could finally bring Electric Boogallo and Z-Mech back into regular ranked gaming.
A cool new feature of the game are the new environment cards. These cards are played liek tricks but change any of the 3 ground lanes into a new lane type that adds new effetcs to zombies or plants played there. The only way to remove an environment is to play an environment yourself there, kinda like field spells in Yu-Gi-Oh. Problem with this is, there are no cards that destroy environments besides environemts themselves, which means a deck without them has no counter against them. Having these cards in your deck is now required. There are some cards that benefit, when being in an environment, even if it's fromt he opponent, but these won't change the fact, that you have a disadvantage in the lane.
If you have sparks, the first thing you should do is craft some environments for all class tribes.
Here's a list with all new cards: http://plantsvszombies.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Gardens
Additionally, you can get now for a limited time 2 free packs from Galactic Gardens which enables you a nice head start and gives you the much needed environment cards.
I keep my eyes open on what cards are currently excellent in the new patch and what you should definitely get.