Draconian Wars

Worth a try to see if you like it.

Draconian Wars is a preaty complex CCG. There is a lot of rules to remember but once I got the hang of it, it was preaty fun and challenging game. It also has alot of stratagy involved with some luck too.

This is one of the few games in which I recommend going through the tutorial. The mechanics are a bit more in depth than they first appear, so it is very easy to get lost if you just try to jump into it. Once you understand the mechanics, the game becomes very rich in play style and possibilities.

Feels a lot like I'm playing MTG but with the mechanics spelled out a bit more clearly! The tutorials are great and walk you through the gameplay really easily. Looking forward to exploring more of the cards!

Horribly complex. Poor tutorials. Shoddy interface.

A MTG-like collectible card game with two exclusive factions (you can't make a deck with cards of both factions) and a pool of neutral cards. Draconian cards are generally more straightforward with better high-cost cards. Mechanical cards are generally more nuanced with abilities with better low-mid cost cards. Other notable differences are that instead of land/mana there is a resource pool system where you cycle cards from your deck (which also serves as the only way to draw cards), there are 3 air and 3 ground areas to play units in (combat only occurs when your units and enemy units are in the same place so there is a cat-and-mouse element), there is a fate combat system (combat compares values of all units in the area instead of one-on-one combat and excess damage forces the enemy to discard or damage units, fate (if involved) deals damage to units based on the top card of the deck), and there are no life points (you win by forcing your enemy to discard until their deck is gone). In MTG terms, Units are Creatures, Gears/Weapons are Enchantments (global and creature-attached), and Disrupts are Instants (but can only be cast in the specified phase). Single-player: Play against 6 premade decks or a mirror against your own deck. Or do four challenge puzzles which are preset scenarios to win in one turn. You get currency for playing games that you use to buy individual cards (including foils), avatars, and card sleeves. There is also multiplayer but you'll have to bring your own friends. Gameplay:[list] [*] Start the game with a hand of 8 cards and a production/pool value of 4 resources/turn. Decks are always 50 cards. You win when the opponent's deck is reduced to 0. [*] Production: At the start of your turn, move cards from your deck to your resource pile (up to your production/pool value). Resources are used for playing cards/abilities and declaring attacks. [*] Extraction: If you have creatures in an area (and your opponent doesn't) you can force your opponent to discard cards from their deck/resource pile/consumed pile/hand. [*] Summon: Play cards from your hand (like playing units/creatures to one of the 6 areas). When you spend resources, the cards in the resource pile move to the consumed pile. [*] Combat: If you want to attack an area, spend one resource. First, there's the Fate step where you add up the tactics values of all creatures on both sides. As long as a side has 4+ tactics, they reveal the top card of the deck (and move it to the consumed pile). Then the enemy has to distribute damage equal to the Fate value of that card (For example, if the enemy reveals a fate value of 5 and you have 3 creatures/units with defense values of 2, 3, and 6 then you have either damage the 2 & 3 or the 6). Note that damage is lethal so any damaged unit will be removed at end of combat. Second, there's the actual combat step where you add up the attack values of all creatures on both sides and the fate values from the previous step (For example, a fate value of 4 and units/creatures with attack values of 2, 4, and 4 would give a total of 14). Whoever loses has to discard the difference (which is why you don't want to fight bad battles). Note that instead of discarding cards, you can shift the damage to units/creatures (even ones that are damaged) based on their defense value. Both players can play disrupts/abilities to affect combat between every step of combat. [*] Combat example: You have two units: a 2/2/3 (attack/tactics/defense) and a 4/2/2. Your opponent has a 5/1/4 and a 3/2/4. Someone initiates combat. First combat step (Fate): Because you have a total of 4 tactics, you reveal the top card on your deck and get a fate value of 5. Your opponent is forced to damage both units to accommodate 5 damage. Next combat step (Combat): You add up unit attack (2+4) and your fate value (4) to get a total attack value of 10. Your opponent adds up their unit attack (5+3) and fate (0) to get a total value of 8. You win by 2 but the damage is automatically soaked by the damaged units' defense so your opponent discards nothing but removes the two damaged units from play. To force the opponent to discard you would have had to won by over 8 (the units' defense value). [*] Move: You may spend one resource to move a unit/creature to another area. If you're notably stronger, you may want to chase a favorable fight. If you're notably weaker, you may want to move your units away. [*] Pool: You can discard one card from your hand to permanently increase your production/pool value by one (meaning you have a bigger resource pile to do things like play cards and draw cards each turn). [*] Draw: If you still have cards in the resource pile, you may draw them into your hand (the only way you draw cards in this game). Cards in the consumed pile automatically go back to the deck. [/list] Worth a look if you like the idea of a MTG-style card game and are fine with limited single player options (or have someone you can play multiplayer with). Other thoughts:[list] [*] I mainly played using the draconic deck so I'm not as familiar with the mechanical deck playstyle (it feels harder). [*] The first time I played this game I floundered about, losing and didn't quite get a grasp of how to play/win consistently and lost interest. This time around I took the time to understand the mechanics and did much better. [*] The tutorial explains a lot but I didn't truly understand until I got a enough games in and things sink in. I can understand things in retrospect but there's only so much information I can digest without jumping in and playing. [*] Until you get the hang of the game (the decisions you have to make like balancing your cards/pool/hand and figuring out how to get control of the board) you'll probably see the loss screen quite a bit (or at least I did). At least you get 3 random cards and some currency after a loss (though 7 cards and more from a win). Note that the first skirmish just mirrors your own deck so you'll probably keep losing even if you add cards as long as you don't have a better grasp (and better luck) than the AI. [*] The AI isn't perfect and often does things just because it's possible (instead of helpful). It can summon a card that requires a sacrifice (Rabid Old Dragon) alone so that it sacrifices itself. It can also summon a few cards in the same area as yours and then decide it didn't want that and waste resources moving them away. It can activate abilities that do nothing for it. It can assign damage in a way that it damages more units than needed (like damaging both a 3-defense and a 4-defense units to deal with 4 total damage. It can debuff on its own unit (Altar of Dawn) when I also had a unit out (no combat was possible anywhere though). [*] You should be able to enter the deck-edit screen directly from the deck-selector thing on the bottom-right. It's annoying to have to return to the main menu every time you want to adjust your deck. [*] Single player is not really deep enough to collect all the cards, you have to keep grinding games. You get 7 cards and around 600-1400 gold on a win, 3 cards and less gold on a loss. Individual cards cost somewhere between 250 and 3000 (and 1.5x more for foil versions). [*] The shadow enemy lets you play against any of your decks (not just mirror mode) so you can grind currency. [*] It would be nice to be able to click on your deck/piles to see the possible cards you can draw. It's more important in this game because you have to decide whether to discard from your deck or hand. [*] It keeps track of your win/losses against AI decks in skirmish mode. If you care about that then just make sure to play first against the mirror deck (where wins/losses aren't tracked). My first time around I lost four games against a certain deck and many win later I still haven't won enough to bring the win/loss ratio high enough to lower the enemy (difficulty?) rating to half a star.

Its learning curve is so meaty that after 3.8 hrs i still dont get it.

I like card games, but I really cannot reccomend this one. Although it is always great when a card games has complexity in it, here... I really think it is way too complex for a card game. I want to outsmart and outplay opponent, not the game mechanism. Visuals are nice though. :)

If you are a fan of MTG and looking for some similar experience then buy this on a huge sale, because most likely the complexity of basic rules is just too much for an average MTG player

dont even know how i got this game