Preface I am not that good at the game yet, so some of this might not be valid. Overall Impression I like the game. It has similar levels of polish that Hearthstone does. The gameplay is, of course, similar to Hearthstone, but complexity wise it sits between MTG and Hearthstone - allowing for more than Hearthstone but nowhere near the level of MTG in terms of interaction between cards. "Power" Cards Power cards are their equivalent of land cards. Initially, it seems like there is no real interaction with these cards other than "draw a Power card" type effects, but there are actually some Power cards that turn into champions, and there are "dual lands." While this is very similar to land minus the direct interactivity of land that MTG has, it does have some important distinctions. Cards have a Power cost and an Influence threshold - influence, once accrued, is not lost (that I know of). Thus, it means that even if you have enough Power to play a card, you may not be able to play something you do not have enough Influence for. But then, as soon as the Influence threshold is reached, you can play as many of those as you want (while in MTG, if you play a mountain, you still only have one Red mana, and can realistically only play one Red card a turn). So basically, imagine if all MTG cards were colorless, but Red Mana symbols indicated how many mountains you had to have out to even try and play it. This reduces the potential for mana screw... but it still happens. I personally seem to have an issue with mana screw or flood every 4th game or so - and it's just as unfun as it was in MTG to play a whole game and only getting to play 2 or 3 cards. Deckbuilding The base set seems to allow for a quite a bit of potential variety, but in the current beta there appears to be 2 decks that standout: Red/Green rush with combat tricks (think Giant Growth and the like), and Control (think little to no creatures and just kills everything while waiting for their wincon). Strangely, there are very few of these, and even still control works. The only counterspell I know of only counters spells (which doesn't include weapons, relics or creatures here, unlike MTG), so it only affects a limited subset of cards. But even still, Control decks work because they are designed not to interact and force half your deck to be useless, and it's no exception here. They also work because the game has a built in win-con with Relic Weapons (explained below) Relic Relic are items that can be equipped on your Avatar. Some are weapons, which allows you to attack. This means that even if you have zero creatures, you can still deal damage. And it can be a lot of damage especially if you are playing a control deck that removes all of your opponent's creatures and gives you free reign to swing for 8 damage over and over (you start with 25 life). That said, outside of its use in Control decks, I rather like these as they have a variety of effects but is counterable by damage (they "break", essentially) unlike MTG where you have to have specific counter cards. Abilities There are some neat abilities here, and the fact that many of them can affect cards you haven't drawn creates new facets to play around - and also means the exact board state isn't as critical as it is in MTG - as you can play for a longer game in some cases by augmenting/modifying future cards instead. Some abilities, like First Strike in MTG, appear with modifications (in this case, only works when attacking) and seem to be an improvement to their MTG counterparts by allowing for more counterplay. Another example is Hexproof, which is Aegis here and only counters not only spells but also effects... but just once. Final Thoughts I always get annoyed when I lose because of bad draw (mana screw/flood) - and it's why I stopped playing MTG. And while that happens too often in this game for my liking, when I do get to play a "real" game, it is enjoyable and the game themselves are short enough that I don't feel like I wasted too much time. That said, it is a bit different when playing their Draft/Gauntlet modes since you only have so many losses you can accrue before it "ends"... but that's something else to discuss another time. I plan on playing it for awhile during beta, but unknown if I will continue to play after the full launch wipe.
Got my key and trying it out... So far Sok's review is pretty spot on. I'd like to add that the mana 'system' is basically Hex but the game play is way smoother in my opinion. I usually get annoyed at MTG where you have to pass priority multiple times making games really jilty while hearthstone is too streamlined. This one is right in the middle basically allowing you to instances to pass priority in a turn (combat/end). While this does make it harder to do stuff like deal damage to a champ before they equip it I find it much more enjoyable and faster without sacrificing too much interactivity. I do think that weapons are a little powerful right now though. Aegis basically acts as a built in protection against destroying the champ so you don't lose card advantage and relic weapons can be devastating. Will need to play more to get a handle on the balance though as I don't have much cards at the moment. Rewards are pretty generous but we will see what the final rate is once the beta is over. At the moment I rate it as a much more polished, friendly, smoother, and easier to get into Hex.
I started playing this game last week and I enjoy it a lot. One tip I have for anyone who is put off by mana screw is make sure you change your custom options in the settings tab to allow you to tweak the mana card allotment in your decks. I think my biggest issue right now is I don't have quite enough of the rarest cards to build optimally yet, but that should be relieved over time as the rewards seem pretty generous. I like it more than Hex or Hearthstone.
Humm, since card games are my thing, I think I will probably look this game up. Where can I find beta keys?
While this is about ECG, I'm surprised nobody brought up Spellweaver. Has nobody played it here or? Also signed up.
I got one just by signing up on the site and waiting about 2-3 days. It seems like they're pretty eager to get the game into players' hands.
I was on for a bit right before and after the server downtime. Still getting the hang of the environment.
am I the only one who has been playing a ton of this game? I have been loving it Gaverion+3989 if anyone wants to add me
doubt and I stopped playing it awhile back. I got annoyed at the RNG of land (and my own being bad) and he just got bored of it for now.