Online Card Games Thread

[TheVampire100]

Humble Bundle offers free cosmetics for Duelyst: https://www.humblebundle.com/
You get a card back, an emoji and an alternate art of a legendary card (along with the card itself).
If you register a new account, you also get 20 free booster packs (spirit orbs) which translate to 100 cards. That's a lot to start with, a decent amount for new players to design a competetive deck. Older accounts cannot get the 20 packs however, only the cosmetics and the free legendary.

[Wingflier]

I've been playing Elder Scrolls: Legends again.

I had tried it before and for some reason I didn't like it. I guess it just seemed a little too generic, a little too much like Hearthstone and with not enough new mechanics to justify itself as its own game.

However, I started looking into it again because I saw a popular streamer (Kripp) playing it the other day.

They've changed a lot about it since I last played, and I think there's a lot of reasons to like it or at least to be interested in it compared to other popular games.

For one thing, there are essentially 5 classes of card (Agility, Endurance, Intelligent, Strength, Willpower), which is neat on its own, but what makes the game a lot deeper than say Hearthstone is that there are cross-class combinations. I guess in that sense it's similar to Magic, but it retains much of the fast-paced nature of online card games like HS.

So you kind of have the deck-building depth and complexity of a game like Magic the Gathering, but the action and intuitive fun of a game like Hearthstone.

There's a lot to like about this game, but the specific thing that got me back into it was that they added a "Solo Arena" feature, which retains all the awesome Arena mechanics of other card games (for those who didn't know, Arena is one of the best ways of earning cards and rewards in any game that has it), but Solo Arena is against the AI, so you get all the benefits of playing Arena without all the stress and frustration of playing against other people.

So like I said, I've been getting back into it. I'm pretty excited to see what it will be like once I have a large enough pool of cards to make an interesting constructed deck.

[Wingflier]

The rewards are just ridiculous. 3 packs and 120 gold just for playing against the AI which you can do over and over.

There's no other card game that is nearly this generous.

[TheVampire100]

The rewards are just ridiculous. 3 packs and 120 gold just for playing against the AI which you can do over and over.

There's no other card game that is nearly this generous.

That's actually not a good sign. They probably had to do a 180° turnaround because people said the game wasn't very good. They had to do the same to TESO.
It may mean that the game is now better but at what costs? Giving out good rewards for free means always that they cut their own profits. This could mean ina  long run less support for the game.
This does not mean that this will happen but it can happen.

[Wingflier]

That's actually not a good sign. They probably had to do a 180° turnaround because people said the game wasn't very good. They had to do the same to TESO.

Elder Scrolls Legends is still in beta, and it's made by a different company than TESO. Just because it's part of the Elder Scrolls Franchise doesn't mean it has any association with the MMO. The Warhammer franchise is huge spanning dozens of developers. Many of the games have done well, and many of them have done...not so well. But it's not fair to judge the success of one by the failure of another, or vice versa.

I haven't seen anyone saying anything negative about Elder Scrolls Legends, then again it's still in beta so most people hold their opinions until a full release of the game. It's more likely that the company creating the game is trying something new to distance itself from other, very similar card games, like Hearthstone and Magic the Gathering, both of which it takes obvious inspirations from.

It's also not necessarily the case that making packs easier to obtain ruins any kind of financial model of the game, it could just be that the companies that have been doing this before are being excessively greedy by giving such limited rewards even after their players have invested an immense amount of playtime. I think the cost for having the full Core Set of Duelyst cards averaged out to be around $800, and God only knows how many thousands it would be for the Hearthstone set. I don't want to think about it.

That's excessive, and I think these companies are well aware of that. Could be that Dire Wolf Digital is being a lot more fair than their competitors. Having said that, we'll see how long this lasts.

[TheVampire100]

Here's another one that features a card game about a well known franchise: https://www.pvzheroes.com/

In this case it's Plants vs Zombies. For people who don't know this, PvsZ is a good tower defense game with wacky characters where you fight zombies that invade your house with plants that you plant on your lawn. Plants shoot in one line at the zombies that move in that lane. Both plants and zombies can have various special abilities and like normal tower defense games, some plants counter specific zombies, some zombies counter plants.
The game was well praised for both the funny cartoon style and the deep gameplay.

The game got a (rather disappointing) sequel and two third person shooter spin offs (who are surprisingly good). Plants vs Zombies Heroes is now their attempt to get their (EA's) greedy hands on the card game market. The game is basically Hearthstone with plants and zombies, but also with a big twist: It's asymmetrical.

In best PvsZ manner you have the zombies on one side, the plants on the other, any side can be represented by players, you have different decks (and heroes) for zombies and plants. The plants and zombies have their own cards that are not a pure variation of te cards of the other side, they have totally different cards with different effects and a different playstyle.
Another thing that is untypical is, that both players share the same round. The zombie side starts and can play zombies (creatures), then the plant side can play plants (creatures) or powers (spells), then the zombie side can play again, but this time they can play tricks (spells) only to react on the enemy cards. After that the battle begins, creatures battle automatically what is in the same lane (or the enemy hero directly), you cannot choose what to attack.

Hero abilities work also differently here. Each hero has four abilities, but you cannot ast them like you want, instead you get one at the start of the game on your hand (as card) and the other three are randomly placed as "shields". Every time you take damage, the shield bar goes up, if its full you block the next attack and get one special ability and can play it either instantly or take it on the hand.
There are (like in the td game) five lanes, three in the middle and two side lanes. the side lanes are special in that way that one is elevated and one is water. You can only place aquatic cards on the water lane but anything on the elevated lane, however, some cards get a bonus on that one, for example the catapult plants from the td game.

There are some side specific differences that make the game more assymitrical, the plants can on one side play two plants in one lane (however, this has to be allowed by the card), for example you can place a torchwood in front of peashooters to get a damage bonus for the pea shooter. Or you can place wallnuts to protect your damaging plants. Its pretty much just like in the td game.
Zombies on the other hand can place "tombstone" zombies. These are hidden during the plant stage and cannot be targeted by spells. This allows you to surprise the enemy with unpreditcable zombies.

Now let's get to the most important point: Is it pay to win? Yes. Deeply. Like any free to play (and even those you have to buy) from Electronic Arts. You have two currencies, coins and gems. Coins are the normal currency and gems the premium currency that has to be bought with real money. You also get them from quests, a quest can give you 10-100 gems (depending on the difficulty). You also get them after a ranked season ends as reward (like the usual chests from any other trading card game).
Other than that? Tough luck, you cannot get them from matches.
Coins on the other end are rewarded after a match, regardless if you win or loose, but you get more for a victory of course.

So, what's the big problem? Well, you see, there are packs that can be bought only for diamonds, so called premium packs. These contain of course rare cards and are the ONLY way to obtain new heroes. You cannot unlock heroes via fighting them, you have to be lucky and get them from a booster pack. But that's not the worst. I could live if the cance of getting rarer cards would be higher ir anything but that's simply not the problem.
The problem is, the premium pack and the basic pack (the later is the only thing you can buy with coins) do not even share the same cards. The premium pack has entirely different cards, most likely more powerful cards, to divide the player base more than they should. It's a bad design t sort the "free to play peasonts" from the "paying customers". And the worst? Basic packs do not contain any rare cards. None. Only common cards. It's not that you have a "low" chance to obtain anything rare. You have no chance, not even a slight. They simply eliminate the risk that non-paying players might build up a strong deck and never consider buying gems.
Now, even if you can get gems from quests and ranked play, you need 100 for one pack and you will get STOMPED in ranked if you don't invest money. It's... really aweful.
I never play ranked because of this, I prefer to play single player (which allows you to fulfill the quests unlike other games) only.

It's funny however, that the game itself is very interesting and good. I had a lot of fun so far, however, the fun is only in single player matches. Aside fromt he huge pay to win aspect in this game, you should consider it.

However, there is no pc version at this point and I don't know if there ever will be. They promised one for plants vs zombies 2 and this was 5 years ago. So, you have to play it on your mobile phone.

[ptarth]

re:Sentinels
You can play 4 hero solo play. It's argued that the game is most balanced with 4 heroes, regardless of the number of players.

[Wingflier]

Once again, the rewards in this game are absolutely incredible.

For example, in the Versus Arena, which is the version of Arena you play against people, you only have to get 7 wins in order to get the maximum rewards:



4 packs for 7 wins? Holy cow. In the other games you'll be lucky to get 2 packs for 12 wins, which is much, much harder to achieve.

Did I mention the rewards are insane for this game?

When you win 3 constructed games, you get not only gold, but a free card everytime, and it can even be a legendary card.

When you level up your hero (there are 50 levels) you get an extremely generous reward, and some of these even include extremely powerful legendary cards.

This game just throws good things at you. It's not that you don't have to make a time investment, but the payoff is vastly, vastly better than any other card game I've ever played. I don't even want to play Duelyst anymore because of how cheap it feels in its rewards compared to this.

[Logorouge]

Such a generous online card game could be fun to try. But I'm wondering, since it's in Beta does that mean you'll lose all your cards at full release?

[Wingflier]

Such a generous online card game could be fun to try. But I'm wondering, since it's in Beta does that mean you'll lose all your cards at full release?

No you keep what you have.

[Logorouge]

No you keep what you have.

Thank you. Looks like I have some downloading to do.

[Wingflier]

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):

Spoiler for Hiden:

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!

[TheVampire100]

Okay, I played some more time in PvsZ Heroes. I think I overestimated the impact of rare/premium cards. To rule one thing out of the way, you can get plenty of premium packs from simply doing ranked mode if you are good enough. Quests, which also give gems, can also be solved with bot matches, however, while they claim these can rank from 10-100 they actually rank most of the time from 10-20.
You get also 3 special premium boosters if you finish the last hero quest on a hero (every hero has it's own quest line that you can finish, they don't level up like in other games). This booster contains only cards hat can be put into that hero deck but they are premium cards.

Heroes work differently like in hearthstone and its many clones. Instead of having a single class that is assigned to that one hero and only that one, you have multiple different classes and every hero consists of any two of the classes. That means you can put any cards of those two classes into the deck. For example, the zombie hero "Super Brainz" is made of the "brainy" class and the "sneaky" class.
The first class uses a lot of control spells and scientist zombies, the later one uses gravestones and antihero cards.

Bot zombies and plants have each 5 different classes and 10 different heroes. The classes mirror each other, but they still have their own individual traits that remain on them (since the game is assymetrical).

Ranked is easier than I first imagined. I win against opponents that have rarer/better cards than me and I see where the problem (for them) lies: The game requires a good amount of skill. The players I meet are so bad not because they have bad cards but because they play really dumb.
Plants vs Zombies needs you to outhink you opponent a lot, probably because it is so assymetrical. You have to know what the enemy could play on their turn and manage your resources (sun/brains) so you can still play something as response.
If you are playing plants it's also advised to look at the brainscounter of your opponent. Since zombies get another turn where they can play spells, if you don't manage to look through them your powerful plant will just crushed by a kill card. I mean, it's obvious if he saved 5 brains that he will play locust swam which kills any plant. and if I can foreseee it I won't play my best card that turn.
That amoutn of intelligence, that you need int his game, lack many players and people tht pay with real money are more often those that lack that. Because tehy cannot play good, they pay to get the good cards to fill the gap. Sadly tehy still get crushed in this game because even with worse cards you can simply outsmart your enemy. That's however good for tactical players like me, for the first zime like... forever I feel encouraged that my skill outshines my cards. I got two legendaries btw but I rarely get to play them because if you are good, you can end a game in the first 5 rounds. That's why people with rare cards struggle most of the time: They have high cost cards and cannot keep their defenses alive long enough until hte play their win cards.

That are the legendaries I have btw and I have to say, legendaries int his game are most of the time op:
http://plantsvszombies.wikia.com/wiki/Zombot_Plank_Walker_(PvZH)
http://plantsvszombies.wikia.com/wiki/Zombot_Sharktronic_Sub_(PvZH)

Zombot Plank walker is a 8 cost 6/6 card. The stats are bad at that point but it creates two other (random) pirate zombies which makes up for the cost. It also has the strikethrough ability which means even if it is blocked by a plant it still will hit the enemy hero for full damage. Unless it getskilled by squash, which probably is liekely to happen after eight turns.

Zombot Sharktronic Sub is probably the stronegr of the two, with 6 cost and 5/5 stats it isn't that great either (gargantuas are most of the time stronger) but it has the ability that anytime a plants takes damage, no matter how hight the damage was, the plant gets destroyed. The Zombot gets also a +1 attack boost if this happens. Even if the sub gets destroyed the next turn, if you pull this off right you can destroy a lot of plants with weak zombies in one turn. The source fo damage is irrelevant, it can be from other zombies, it can be from the sub itself or it can be from tricks but the plant will always be destroyed. To make it worse, the sub is (of course) amphibious and therefor you can play it on the water lane, which means you have a very strong water card that your opponent hs to counter. Most players underestimate the impact of the water lane. If your opponent has nothing to play on water, you simply can crush him every turn.
Like all big creatures the sub is a good target for removal/kill cards but liek I said before, I rarely even get at the point to play this card because matches never last so long.

The worst card is this anyway: http://plantsvszombies.wikia.com/wiki/Zombot_1000
For 9 costs you get a complete enemy remover. The additional 9/9 creature is just the topping on that. It's C'thun all over again. Never saw this card in play to be honest but if i would I probably would rage about it. The plants have also a counterpart to it btw.

http://plantsvszombies.wikia.com/wiki/The_Great_Zucchini

[Wingflier]

I've been meaning to update this thread for ages. I've been primarily playing two card games recently, Shadowverse and Elder Scrolls: Legends.

Shadowverse is actually a really well designed game, and has an elegant simplicity but also a hidden depth with its interesting evolution mechanic. It's a really good game and the developers are super generous with their rewards. They'll just give everyone dozens of packs for nothing, it's insane.

Elder Scrolls: Legends is just...I don't even have words for this game. lovably amazing. Definitely the deepest and most balanced card game I've ever played. The amount of classes and archetypes that are viable in that game is absolutely insane. The strategy, the counterplay, the mechanics. It's just incredible.

Finally, Duelyst just dropped it's second expansion, and this one's a doozie. One thing I really like about it is that (unlike their last expansion) it isn't luck-based. You can buy the entire thing for $20 or 3900 gold. It's actually a pretty incredible value because you're guaranteed to get the cards, and the cards themselves are a huge game changer.

I actually quit Duelyst for awhile because I felt like the developers didn't know what they were doing but they've done some major balance overhauls so now that this expansion has dropped I may go back and give it another chance.

Anyhow, try Shadowverse and Elder Scrolls Legends, especially ESL.

[TheVampire100]

Uh, I don't know what to say about the last Duelyst expansion. While I like that you basically get all cards for 20$, I don't like some of the cards int he expansion itself. They are too strong and if this isn't pay to win, than what?
The fact that everyone can get these eventually without any luck factors does not help this at all, it just means you will see these overpowered cards even more.

On of the worst cards is Grandmaster variax. It's a 7 7/7 card that has Opening Gambit "Your bloodborn spell costs now 3 Mana and is AWESOME".That "awesome" aspect is a little too strong actually. Even for a seven mana card this is ridiculous since you cannot stop Variax. If he is played, you get the bloodborn spell and keep it for the rest of the game.
Now, the spell itself. Variax is an Abyssian card and tehrefor can only be played there. He transforms the spell according to the general you play. The Shadowcreep general gets now a spell that creates 4/4 creatures on every shadowcreep you own.
The Wraithling spammer get's instead now two 5/5 wraithlings and transforms your other wraithlings as well.

For a 3 mana cost spell this is HUGE and you can spam this spell every turn without needing another card. Even if you have many strong group removals, eventually you will run out of cards whiel your opponent does not need any. That's Cthun all over again, but this time in Duelyst.
For a game that features so many removable effects I think it's a disaster to have a card with such big impact with NO REMOVAL CHANCE at all. I made the suggestion that the card effect should turn to dying effect or that it should only count as long as Variax is on the field. as it is now, you don't need himself to protect, play him and the rest is history.

Variax is btw not the only card that is so strong at this point,t here are others as well. Magmar got a card that deals 4 damage and let's you (and your opponent) draw a card. People now paly this together with Flame Warlock to deal a combined damage of 21. That keeps the plaer left with 4 HP and since you draw cards with this card, it is liekly that you draw all 6 cards you want. This card is played most often with Starseeker for obvious reasons. Healing is now required in any deck to counter this, but how often have ou played healing decks? I almost never. But you see now Abyssian decks with the sworn sister all the time because otherwise you just die too soon.

I hope ther ewill be some sort of balance very soon.