f13.net

Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX0MdD_tt-o

Website and Beta sign ups: http://www.eternalcardgame.com/

For everyone interested in card games, this looks like another possible contender. Hex-like resource system, Hearthstone-like slick-UI, Magic-like everything else.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of information floating around about this yet, but it looks pretty slick from the video. It is free to play, but I can't tell if it is going to be a Hearthstone-style CCG, or if it will have full trading and an economy. That's the biggest question I have at the moment.

The AI already looks a damn sight better than Hex's.

Having a blast with this & it's weaned me off Hearthstone.

It is a meld of Hearthstone & MtG (improving upon Hex handling of Mana/Shards/Power/Play Points), but chooses MtG style of Attacker/Blocker v. Hearthstone/Shadowverse/Etc.

Various Single Player formats like Gauntlet where you beat 7 AI in a row, & score rewards on how far you make, each progressively tougher. Good for grinding good, at least until you hit Master (every time you beat it, you "rank up" -- Silver -> Bronze -> Gold -> Diamond -> Master) where "rank up" rewards are very generous, including packs.

Forge, a single player format similar to Hearthstone Arena, where you are presented with 3 cards & you pick 1. 25X (and then your deck will be filled with necessary Power/Mana cards). The 1st 2 colors you pick then will narrow your selections down to only cards of those 2 colors. You go until you win 7 or lose 2. You add the cards you pick to your collection.

Draft, similar to MtG, though packs are presented asynchronous -- you draft from 4 packs, and then play until you win 7, or lose 3. You keep the cards you draft, like Forge. Rewards are greater, but so is entry cost.

It still in Beta, but they do 2 Set releases per year and 2 campaigns that are like mini-sets, ~20 cards. Plus Promo cards & Events.

Here is a referral invite that will net you 3 free packs and a Theme Deck. (https://www.direwolfdigital.com/eternal/register/?ref=6d1c41d2-9247-4f22-b175-0e5cdc402ea3)

I put together a list of online resources for the game here, on this Tumblr:
https://eternalemporium.tumblr.com/linklog

Hope this succeeds -- I really dig the lore, the gunslingers, outlaws, dragons, dinosaurs, mystics, elementals, etc. theme.

i can't play eternal and elder scrolls because Dire Wolf made some questionable hires

Why were they "questionable hires"?

Design team? CS team?

I played this briefly a while ago and just really hated the land mechanic. So many games where you have too many lands or no lands at all. I felt pretty powerless to draw RNG moreso than hearthstone or shadowverse.

Is that really relevant?

Well you give an amorphous comment, and it just seems so vague.

"Questionable hires"?

Because of a personal animus (a beef with an individual or because they didn't hire you or they hired X)?  Or because they hire wife beaters, pussy grabbers, puppy killers, etc.? In other words, like is it a reason that players should boycott DWD?

Yeah, it, like MtG/Hex, does the card as resource/mana/power/shards/play points.

But it is mitigated a bit here as on a Redraw you are guaranteed to get 2-4 Power cards. Still, in these games, you can always get starved (or flooded), but at least you're set for first couple of turns/draws.

Is there an "Arena" or random deck drafting mode? When I played MtG, I always preferred virgin deck play to that of built decks.  I'm not really into the Pokemon aspect of these games. 

Yes, there is an multiplayer "Arena" mode.

You pick from 4 booster packs and pack is passed along after you pick a card, so you pick from a pack of 12, then 11, 10, etc., 4X to get 48 cards and build a 45 card deck (you'll use 25-30 of them, depending on how many Power card slots that you get for free -- standard is 18, +/- depending on deck composition and if you've taken some cards in the draft that provide Power, like Banners or Seats or Transmuted cards that are Power when you are <5 Max Power, but turn into a different card after you have Max Power >= 5) -- a little different than MtG where you're playing against the people you draft with -- here, you get passed picked from packs from the same person, but it's done asynchronously. You play until you win 7 or lose 3, and rewards progress up. You do get to keep the cards you draft, which means some players are just grabbing Rare/Legendary cards (a pack contains 12 cards -- 8 Common, 3 Uncommon, and 1 Rare/Legendary, with 10% chance of Rare being upgraded to a Legendary).

Just some folks I don't consider to be in the top 50%. I do love LSV tho.

Its good, far better than SV or HS in terms of gameplay but they are too small and the playerbase is too small and the result is new cards are really slow to come out. Also the grind as f2p to get to constructed is insane compared to SV or HS. Draft is great though and you keep the cards.

I may give this a try.  Thanks for all the info naum! 

I'm not hating this. I forgot how much I hated land-screws in M:TG though.

I bought the founders pack because it seems a nice alternative to Hearthstone

Is this better than Hex? Is it available on mobile?

No. You will be sorely upset if you even compare it to Hex. None of these games should be compared to Hex/Magic. They're all literally 50% as much game in various ways.

I think so.

I tried Hex, made it through the single player content, and game was OK, but the client made my eyes bleed. And it desktop only. Hex has a bigger card pool because it's been out longer, & Eternal improves upon Hex handling of Mana/Shards/Power.

It's available on mobile -- has PC / Mac / iOS / Android, and a better client (UI) than all of these games IMV.

And while the player base on here is a fraction of Hearthstone (& is trailing Gwent, Shadowverse, MtG Online, it's steadily growing (got an infusion of new players when Hasbro/Wizards announced they were ceasing support for Magic Duels), whereas Hex is a *dying* (along with Faeria, Duelyist) game, with a shrinking & tiny player base.

Yes, none of these games are MtG. But then they don't make you click 5X+ a turn either, as they're streamlined for digital play.

Playing Hex just made me sad I wasn't playing MtG. Playing Eternal I get that I'm playing a streamlined MtG knockoff that lifted the pizzazz & polish from Hearthstone, but it's enjoyable for me. It's not perfect, there are flaws in the game that make it inferior to MtG and the card pool is still relatively small, but it's the best of these IMV.

Clicking serves a purpose. Saying you want something easier and less fiddly is fine. Knocking the exact thing that mimics depth, however, is absurd. Without the clicking, you get Hearthstone. Which is objectively garbage.


This I agree with. Playing Hex makes me miss Magic, though they could fix that pretty easily. As for Eternal, the card pool will never, ever be as good as Magic - nor will the mechanics. They're not equipped to produce at that level.

Yes, but the challenge for a digital MtG client is to incorporate this in best way you can to make UI decent. They took a (partial) stab at this with Magic Duels (& they still continue to truck along with the awful Magic Online that is subpar even by 2007 standards) client & will still retain that monster when MtG Arena launches, which will only be for new set(s)). Eternal has *Fast Spells* so you can interact on opponent's turn (besides unit blocking), but it's streamlined (and critics will lambast that it's a *tell* when game pauses, you know opponent is holding a *Fast Spell* of some sort though it may not be relevant to the context of gameplay at that turn juncture).

Eternal also does away with the hero power features of Hearthstone (& Hex too).

I like the lore of gunslingers, outlaws, dinosaurs, dragons, mystics, shadow, etc. in Eternal whereas Hex just struck me as a washed out MtG, in terms of lore.

But the striking contrast is client -- Hex doesn't even offer mobile client (though it is multiplatform on desktop) and the client looks like ass -- my eyes hurt after playing Hex for an hour or more. We can debate about intricacies and deepness of strategy in gameplay, but polish & pizzazz in the visual/audio presentation is just as impactful (I know, this is coming from someone whose favorite strategy game is Dominions 3/4/5 :D). It's why Hearthstone is the colossal beast (well, also because of Blizzard past dominance & Warcraft lore) in this genre. But even Hearthstone client (and game platform) starting to show its age compared to Eternal, Shadowverse, Gwent (which I've not played but now might be #2 after Hearthstone), that offer more features and gameplay modes.

I don't see your problem with Hex's client (other than lack of mobile). It plays and looks fine to me, although I would like a game with LESS flashy shit that just ran better. Your comment that you played Hex's single player with no mention of multiplayer says that maybe we're looking for different things in TCGs.

Nah, just didn't make it past single player (especially coming late to a game where multiple sets been released and you have no cards) to do MP. Played through opening campaign & some of the single player nodes (or whatever they call them, it been a few months). Single player in these games is just to get you up and running (and actually may be a hindrance for experienced players that have to trog through silly opening campaigns. Still, Eternal has a Gauntlet mode that players use to grind gold (and even see how fast they can reel off 7 wins).

In Hex, had difficulty reading the text on the cards (maybe it way my system rendered fonts), & the UI so washed out, had to really focus to see what was going on during gameplay. Even in card collection / deck screens, had to squint to see clearly & experimented with a bunch of different display settings to no avail.

Granted, I am cursed with poor eyesight, so maybe not even noticeable for many players, but my eyes *hurt* after playing Hex for more than an hour or so.

I have shit eyesight also, this is very much a YMMV thing though. Not sure why you'd try to read the text on any cards without zooming in. But anyway, yeah, judging it based on the single player is ridiculous. The single player shouldn't even exist.

The single player in Hex isn't really designed to introduce the multiplayer; it's a wholly separate experience and only the account levelling and the occasional common really tie the two together.

Giving this a shot; I finished the 20! PVE matches and still don't appear to have the ability to play PVP. Ranked and Casual are still locked. Trying gauntlet now.

Lol

Watching this discussion, I reinstalled MTGO, found my old login and waited for the game to unload. Fuck it looks shit now.

Eternal looks polished by comparison, Hex and Gwent look good and HS takes a huge shit all over it in terms of jump in and play.

I miss MTG (I still have folders and folders of cards) but I think Eternal could teach Wizards a thing or two.

MtG doesn't want a good online implementation.

They're like book publishers. They make money from printed material.

MtG online being shit is pretty much the reason Hex came about.

It certainly helps that every set they've released since Return to Ravnica has been hot garbage and even that (and Innistrad) were exceptions ot the rule since Scars of Mirrodin set their trajectory to "further than the bottom of a dumpster."

Having fun with this. Forge seems easy enough to basically win every time and get a lot of packs and your gold back for another run...maybe this wont be the case once I'm higher than silver.

Is Ixalan included in that *garbage* list?

Pirates dinosaurs and vampires

You tell me

(But for real, yeah, but I'll never draft it to be able to confirm)

I don't know -- following some Eternal streamers that also still active with Magic rekindled my desire (seeing Twitter updates on Ixalan release) to play MtG so I ordered a couple of Ixalan bundle boxes with hopes I can coax family & nearby IRL friends to do this League thing (http://media.wizards.com/2017/docs/XLN%20DMA_League_Csmr_Instr_EN.pdf).

Haven't purchased *physical* MtG cards in over 15 years. And I think it's been 10 years since last MtG Online gameplay (though I did, a few months back, play a bit of Magic Duels on iPad).

Went 5-3 in my very first draft.  A few of the wins were even power starved. 

Enjoying this game in short bursts.  Thanks for letting me know about it.

I've given up on it. It's a better Hearthstone, that's for sure... but it's still Hearthstone. It just makes me wish Hex had a mobile client out.

Much better Hearthstone than Hearthstone ever was.

The  way in which they throw free packs at you is great, the mechanics work really well and the screw/flood isn't too bad at all. The PvE campaigns are great and the PvP is good at casual level (all I've done so far). Forge is a lot of fun as is Gauntlet.

I bought the Jekk's expansion - all of a sudden it got tough!

Why did they have to go and fuck with the Gauntlet payouts?  My draft habit is too expensive!

If you win 7, no nerf for that reward.

Yeah, not a wise move on their part. On Discord, one of the developers popped in & said they wanted to incentivize PvP and that too many players were doing single player (they bumped slightly the Ranked rewards and gave a nice boost to Casual rewards). The bonus to Ranked wins is not in evidence until your 13th win of the day (you get a pack on your 1st win, a small chest for subsequent wins & a chest that nets you 200+ gold and an Uncommon on 4th, 7th, 10th wins that also has a small chance of upgrading to a bigger chest).

Haven't hardly touched Hearthstone since discovering this -- though Ranked probably is one of my least favorite modes -- not that I don't like Constructed play, the Ranked format that these games have just replicated from RTS/MOBA makes it a grind & incentivizes aggro decks, even though, in this game, they're not as dominant as in Hearthstone, where aggro rules. Still, *games per hour* means even a slightly less win % is better in the long term. Contrast to tournament mode decks (https://eternalwarcry.com/tournaments/details/ZJq6cfIxD7A/ets-season-6-invitational), where best of 3 (or best of 5 in finals, or even later rounds) where you bring a Sideboard (just like MtG) and can swap out cards after game 1 (or game 2 in bo5). There it mostly midrange decks, but control decks too, and aggro least present.

Still, aggro decks if they draw the nuts still can close out games quick, no matter.

I believe early on, it was best of 3 on ladder but queue times were so long, that got scrapped.

My favorite modes are Draft (which I'm not that great at, but improving) and the Events they have, once or twice a month -- there, you bring a constructed deck and play like Draft mode, until you win 7 or lose 3. You get rewards for each run and even for your Leaderboard rank after 1st *N* runs. Most of these feature a special rules wrinkle (this weekend, "Midnight Ride", you start with 31 Health, and at start of turns 7 & 13, you put a Pale Rider, a 4/4 Unit with a random combat ability into play) like you see in game 7 of Gauntlet or even more interesting. There was one a few weeks ago after campaign where there was no special rule. This weekend, your 1st 5 runs count for Leaderboard rank and there are a progression of rewards.

Legendaries (not all, but a lot of them) are OP, but I don't mind that -- Legendary cards should be OP IMV. But there are budget decks that have been piloted into Master rank too.

Winning 7 seems almost random since they don't allow you to adjust your deck to the conditions of the match.

I want to play Draft almost exclusively and was grinding gauntlet to fund it.  Now, you pretty much have to grind for 2-3 hours to make enough to play one draft.  While I understand that this is their incentive to buy gems, it's really a bit to overt to make me spend money.  I'm more likely to just quit the game and go back to Hearthstone where I can infinite in Arena.

well

welcome to ccgs? they cost money

not sure what to tell you on that one

What didn't work for me is that unlike Weebstone(Shadowverse) the state of play is super stale, there just isn't enough new cards or card changes going on. That and getting into constructed in Eternal is so much slower than HS or SV. So. Much. Slower. I was playing it for dailies and the like but I wasn't progressing at all in terms of collection and nobody was playing anything that was new because nothing new comes out.

I'm fairly certain I was playing Magic before you even heard of it.  I know all about ccgs.  I just didn't happen to like this particular change. 

That would be literally impossible unless you were playing at 1993 gencon (before it's existence was publicised to the rest of the world).

I've only been playing the game for a month but in that time I've seen a release of a new campaign and ~25 new cards & a promo card cut a few weeks ago. There was a major set release in July & another set coming out by end of year.

Plus periodic balance changes and one coming this week, probably addressing this card that warped the meta.

(https://cards.eternalwarcry.com/cards/full/Tavrod,_Auric_Broker.png)

I assumed you were like 10 years old back then.  You win.

Ten year olds play CCGS. But no, I was I think either 12 or just turned 12 when I started playing.

You have to understand that I enjoy the virgin deck type competitions in ccgs rather than the Pokemon card collecting.  If I could find a game that focused on developing the virgin deck/draft mode to a fine art, I'd likely stay with that game for a while.

I like the draft mode for Eternal FAR FAR more than Hearthstone's version.  I just wish that it wasn't so prohibitively expensive to dabble in.  By changing the payout on gauntlet, what was a 1-2hr grind to play a single draft became even longer.  I do realize that this is a business and they need to get some of their money back.  I'm happy to financially support any game that provides solid entertainment value, but their monetization scheme is just a bit too punishing for my personal tastes.  

If you can recommend a game with a better draft mode, I'd be happy to give it a shot.  The one in Eternal is pretty solid, just expensive.

They're all between $4 and $12 per draft. Though each draft lasts longer than a movie. I'm not sure how you value your time, but I don't feel there's a single draft mode on the market that's "too expensive." At least, not when I'm enjoying a game.

It wasn't a question of my value being the same as yours.  It was a question asking if you knew of a better draft mode.

I have no issue with the Gauntlet costs. When I think of how much I spent on MTG from 1994 onward a few dollars here and there for virtual cards that you get to keep isn't an issue. Unlike fucking Hearthstone.

Hex?

You could buy 2200 Gems in Eternal for $20 (better deals on Founders packs).

A Draft costs 500 Gems or 5000 Gold. So that's 4.4 Draft fees for $20.

But if you go 6-7 wins, you make it back (on 6, you might be ~200 short).

5 wins nets you 3-4K Gold.

Gauntlet still good if you can go 7 wins consistently -- theres a dude, kcbandit, who's accumulated a million gold just playing Gauntlet and he's claimed he earns 1500 Gold per hour. But he loves Gauntlet mode and it not just winning but how fast he can go to 7.

For most players, Ranked mode probably is better deal. You get a free pack on 1st win of day, 50 Gold for each win, 4th & 7th & 10th wins of day get you a Silver chest which nets an Uncommon card and 200-250 gold. After that every win is 50 gold with every 3rd one double that. And those chests have (1/10 I think) chance of upgrading to a bigger chest -- where you would get ~500 Gold and a pack.

Has any of you tried the Smite Card/Tactics game? It's called Hand of the Gods and beside the obvious Smite theme, it blends Heartstone (not MtG), with a generic "Tactics" game, like Duelyst. I have to say, while there are not enough cards out yet and it is once again a very simple game due to its Heartstone nature, I enjoy the extra layer given by the map and positioning. Also, it's Hi-Rez and to me that's a good thing. Free on Steam.

I bought the Founders Pack for Tactics. It's pretty meh at the moment. Nothing to write home about. In fact it would be better as a mobile app.

I guess I enjoy the fact that it's a huge improvement over Hearthstone.

Literally everything is a huge improvement over Hearthstone.

New expansion of 300 cards coming out. Teaser legendary can be won x4 from first win of the day in casual or ranked or made from dust later.

For the core and first expansion I'm now at 100% common, 100% uncommon, 82%/75% rare and 25% legendary mostly from playing although I did buy the top of the line founder's pack.

Looks like they boosted rewards from gauntlet back up. Draft is great for grabbing the rarer cards you need although the best I've done is 4/5

Just deleted Hearthstone off my mobile as I don't play it anymore due to this game (and its occasional frustrating mana screw/flood  :awesome_for_real: )

Eternal is a huge improvement over all of them but the progression is glacial and the metagame felt stale.

Shadowverse is a huge improvement over HS esp now that it got through a stretch of really really bad balance and has settled on a monthly nerfing of top cards in top decks, which results in being able to "dust/vial" said cards for full value for that month. Oh they are adding an entire new class in the next expansion and have announced rotating cards out ala mtg, which I'm mixed about.

tl;dr

fuck HS. Its complete shit and anyone playing it should feel bad. The entire 30 card deck 1 legendary thing would make it a bad rng highroll/draw setup and then you add that they go out of their way to add skilless high roll cards every chance they get. That shit is aids.

I want to try Shadowverse but the art puts me off. I'm just too old for anime T&A

garbage

SV is the most HS-clone of them all. So like HS there's no trading cards, no value/market for them. Its a digital game so honestly a monthly pass through of -1/-0, -1/-1 or +1 cost type shifts to the 2-5 cards powering the more abusive engines leads to at least variety and they needed it because they go with the whole on release powercreep the legends hard so that whales spend $$$$ to get them.

Its far from ideal or righteous game design but the end result is more fun to play games and less shit games.

https://shadowverse.com/news/?announce_id=453

here's the post on the November nerfs, which are pretty typical and indicative of how they've started to do it in the last 3 months. I mean I'm much more of a let the players sort it out instead of LoL style micro patching everything all the time.

BUT

this is a casual braindead virtual card game, so honestly in terms of making me willing to play this shift has been a major improvement.

garbage

Played Shadowverse, for a while, last year, over a couple of expansions. They are far more generous than Hearthstone in giving you cards & packs. One of the expansions (neutrals) tilted me bad (& the previous one was *interesting* in that they released some OP cards that just couldn't be answered), just ridiculous. Haven't gone back since.

Loaded up Hearthstone for 1st time in a few weeks (& it was a like 2nd time in past 3 months), & it felt weird, being a passive spectator on opponent turns. And drawing 3 cards felt funny too as well as the card animations that seemed to take longer than I could recall. Looks like it will be 1st Hearthstone expansion I skip since I started playing Hearthstone.

Made Master rank last season (November) in Eternal (Ranked, not in Draft where I couldn't hurdle past Diamond). Never made Legend in Hearthstone, though I came close a few times -- it seems playing 20-40+ games of Eternal in a stretch, I'm having fun, & just need to break to give poor eyes a rest. Whereas in Hearthstone, after a dozen or so games, win streak or not, I just would be tired of the game, even when I was real active playing.

I see players complain about the grind to get a collection but I've not spent much money (bought a Founders Pack, maybe threw down $20 for Gems & haven't spent anything since, though when new expansion launches probably will pony up for a set of gems) yet I've got full collection of Rares and a lot of Legendaries -- missing mostly the memeish ones (though Meme decks, while not T1, are actually competitive in this game) but I've got enough cards to make a number of excellent/fun decks.

Yeah the neutral expansion was awful, but that is all fixed/gone now, its quite playable atm. with a decent variety of decks.

Eternal is just too stingy with cards, I got so burned out of playing Eternal pauper for my dailies day after day after day without getting any closer to being able to build real decks. Its by far the worst payout from packs and the packs come at best as often as they do in SV plus you need 4 copies of a legend instead of 3 plus the card crafting is insanely stingy compared to SV it felt like to me, I don't think I checked the actual numbers.

Thing is, once you start to fill out your Rares, the Shiftstone just comes -- it's like ~338 per pack (assuming Rare & not 1/10 Legendary roll). And you get a lot of packs -- you get 1 just for winning 1st Ranked game of day. Then you get Gold for Ranked wins -- easily, I can pull down 1-2K in gold in a session. On top of quests, some of which give you packs and each daily is like 500-1000 Gold -- & sometimes you get lucky with chest upgrade & get packs there. If you do decent in Draft, it's like 7 packs (including cards you draft). I got Premium Legendary for making Master, 2 Rares for Diamond in Draft, plus like 5 or 6 packs at end of season.

A comprehensive study on which CCG is free-est to play from among Hearthstone, Shadowverse, Eternal, TESL, Gwent:
Going Deep – Free-EST-to-Play (https://rngeternal.com/2017/10/01/going-deep-free-est-to-play/)

(https://i1.wp.com/rngeternal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/screen-shot-2017-10-02-at-12-22-06-pm.png?resize=655%2C201&ssl=1)

They're all cheaper than MtGO:

tl;dr higher numbers are better, so Eternal is "best" cost-wise according to an, uh, Eternal fan site.

I have 100hrs in Eternal and 350hrs in SV on Steam.

Eternal is much much much much much slower to build meta decks for constructed.

What does Eternal do well? The gameplay is the best, because it actually has instants so its an adult card game not a kids card game ala SV and HS. Can't speak to Gwent or TESL because both failed to appeal on any level to me so I never tried them.

What else? Drafting, where you keep the cards feels a lot better than Arena in HS or Take 2 in SV.

I like both games. SV has better art and is more rewarding if you don't feel like playing well because children's card games are easy to play halfass while basically ignoring your opponent's turns while you watch netflix or read f13 or whatever. If Eternal hadn't dickpunched me so hard when it came to actually building a collection I'd probably still be logging in for my dailies. But the reward was so bad I couldn't justify it over just playing Pauper on MTGO.