The game gives out enough materials to craft a few powerful cards to finish up a pretty decent deck, or if you're fine scraping a lot of cards you can get enough to make a moderately expensive deck.
You start off with 40 (10 per expansion so far) packs with 8 cards each. Around 5 legendaries. This is amazing compared to Hearthstone. The daily rewards, quest rewards, etc. are also a lot more generous.
You got 50 free pack (@10 pack for 5 newest pack) as a new player today, a pack fill with 8 card with 1 card have silver-legendary guaranteed meaning you will have 400 card as a stater, even you if you get bad cards you can destroy the card to get material for your favorit card
they also have many event with free pack as a reward
The game's reward structure understands that players want to be competitive without spending tons of money. Rewards can even randomly upgrade to higher tiers.
This game is not as complex and deep as MtG, but still it requires a lot more of strategic thinking and deck-building skills than HS. At the same time, a game of Eternal can usually be finished within 10 minutes.
Draft allows you to keep the cards you pick and earn some extra rewards. Unique mechanics allow signalling and signal-reading in draft while still allowing you to draft on your own time (no waiting for pod or passing).
Eternal's subreddit and discord server tend to be mature and respectful. People you friend in game are more likely to talk about how cool your deck is than to give you salt.
You can win with weapons, spells, units, and strategies of all kinds. Brewers and casual players can explore a near-infinite variety of fun decks without tanking their win rate.
Rewards for playing vs AI help new/inexperienced players not get obliterated in constructed, and keeping cards you draft helps you build the collection you want without simply opening packs.
Instead of trading cards with other players, there is a recycling/crafting system for handling duplicate cards and obtaining cards you want. Every pack gives you "shiftstone" on top of whatever cards you open, making it easier to craft expensive cards than in other games.
With the addition of the casual play option this is where most of the play seems to happen. Most of the decks you will face in casual play are the exact same decks you will face in the ranked play and many will be the same masters and tournament decks you will see in ranked. With fewer players playing in Ranked more players are playing in casual so new player with limited card inventory will face decks stacked with legendary cards in casual play.
Unlike in many other CCGs, luck doesn't play too noticeable of a role in Gwent.
The cards you play and decisions you make create a lasting impact on the outcome of a match. When you lose, you know where you went wrong, and you learn. Matches feel rewarding and fair, knowing you won or lost because of your own decisions.
The mechanics of Gwent are different from other CCGs in which you need to destroy your opponent. Instead, you carefully build your army, while trying to prevent your opponent from doing the same.
Every keg gives 4 random cards, and a choice from 3 cards. This makes the card pack process significantly less RNG-based, allowing you to more easily get the cards you need without having to craft them.
The community is usually not toxic and nice to everyone. There is also a lot of discussion about game and strategic aspects from pros, streamers and gamers.
The devs are incredibly generous with the rewards for playing daily and achieving ranks in ranked play. Also the ingame skill and the deckbuilding is decisive for success, and not RNG (there is some, but not that oppressive usually).
"Oh, few more games and I'll level up and get a reward. Oh, a new rank is close, I should keep playing. Oh, the daily tier is almost done". You get the idea.
Although you can "technically" play for free, Hearthstone is very stingy on rewards. To get the limit of 100 paltry coins free a day, you have to win 30 games vs mostly players who have much better cards than you. It can take a new player 6 to 8(or more) hours to accomplish this. And after all this you get a pack of 5 cards that are often completely worthless to any viable deck. It's possible to get cards like "Angry Chicken"(worthless card) as the "Rare" card several times. You can also get a bunch of cards you already have a lot of.
When you lose a game in Hearthstone you don't learn anything because you generally can't play around most of the cards, most of the cards have random effects you have no control over it whatsoever.
The Hearthstone team is always looking at their data and community reaction towards cards and the state of the game, and they have made many card and game changes/updates to balance and improve the game for all players.
There is a bit of a grind in earning new cards, so for those that do not want to spend the large amount of time needed to earn quality cards they will need to be purchased, which can get expensive.
Hearthstone's reward system is very lackluster, providing little to nothing of significance to the casual or excessive player. There will be times when you feel heavily rewarded by the game, but these times are few and far between and if you are driven by rewards you will likely lose attraction to this game quickly.
You can take advantage of weekly brawl events that give you a certain set of cards (so no need to pay to stay competitive). It keeps the game fresh, fun and fairly "casual".
Yes it's free to play, but it's designed to easily continue to play and have fun without having to feel like you HAVE to pay. At the same time, after playing a while you'll probably want to.
Available on mobile and on PC. This makes a great commute companion (provided you have internet) as well as a game that is easily picked up where you last left off no matter the device being used at the time.
Interaction with opponent limited to simple pre-made phrases, so you don't have to see how many 1337 gamers had their way with you or your mother. Or deal with the spam about free decks, new hacks etc.
Hearthstone has a friendly learning curve that makes picking it up and getting started easy for people who don't want to spend a lot of time learning rules and tricks.
There's no significant first-turn or second-turn advantage in Hearthstone. The player going second gets an extra card from his deck as well as "The Coin", a card that gives one extra mana crystal for one turn. This subverts the advantage that would be gained otherwise by the player going first.
Interaction with opponent limited to simple pre-made phrases, so you don't have to see how many 1337 gamers had their way with you or your mother. Or deal with the spam about free decks, new hacks etc.
The play field is divided into multiple lanes, with different mechanics. Creatures are summoned to a specific lane, and can only attack within the same lane. This is augmented by a "move" mechanic which shifts a creature from one lane to another.
Standard games have a "normal" lane (no rules) and a "shadow" lane (creatures that enter it gain stealth). Outside the campaign, nearly all games are standard games.
Unlike in Hearthstone, there is a lot of interaction and choices with the cards and your opponent. Pirate Warriors, face hunter, solitaire/miracle rogue, to name a few.
Each card has zero, one, two or three attributes associated with it. Your deck may contain up to two attributes and 50 cards or three attributes and 75 cards. This creates a similar card pool restriction to Hearthstone's classes, but allows a wider range of deck archetypes.
ES: Legends obviously started as a direct Hearthstone clone. It has some great new ideas added on top, but if you're looking for fresh core mechanics it doesn't offer much.
Gameplay has some really unique features. You start the battle with all of your deck in hand, so you can reliably put your strategy in play. You can re-use your cards from graveyard (with paying HP and increasing its cost). During the battle you gain XP and can level-up, to increase your hp, resources and cards' strength. A lot of cards have some good combos with others. Also you can pick one of many unlockable heroes, which give bonuses to your decks.
Game have 90-mission singleplayer campaign; besides from plot and challenging missions (from simple battles to puzzles), it rewards player with basic cards and provide a nice tutorial - from basics of game to some more complicated mechanics and card combinations.
You need only 12 card to assemble a deck; with only starter, singleplayer-campaign rewards and few boosters you can easily make a playable deck for pvp.
The game is free to play but all cards in the game can be earned with free play. There is no need to buy cards if you don't want to, though purchasing them can help you build a better deck much quicker.
Each turn the player has the option of sacrificing a card. These sacrificed cards have the ability to add up so that mid to late game they earn the player the ability to spend more power per turn.
Whatever platform you register on, you can grow and access your collection and decks on any of the platforms, so you can use whichever you prefer at the time.
Shadow Era tests its players by having them decide which cards to sacrifice in order to gain resources (mana) one time at the start of each turn. No easy buildup of resources (mana) here. When you want to make plays, you have to plan them out strategically.
Many TCGs often have unbalanced decks where one specific deck can trump most others, with devs being slow to correct this. Shadow Era does not have this issue as the devs spend a great amount of time making sure all the deck combinations have good balance.
The card pool has grown to a very decent size, spread across Neutral, two factions (Human/Shadow) and seven classes (Warrior, Mage, Hunter, Priest, Rogue, Wulven and Elemental). Each of the 32 heroes belongs to a faction/class combination, where they can use Neutral cards and cards from the faction or class. This gives each hero access to approximately 250 cards, which allows for great variety of decks.
Aside from a handful of cards from the original set that had "at random" on them, the developers have gone out of their way to bring more control into the hands of players. Effects will specify they damage "the ally with the lowest health", for example, and on a tie there is a Standard Resolution Order (the ally closer to the hero takes priority), so you always know which one will be affected.
Sometimes in other games you might think the RNG is skewed/faked, but that can't happen in Shadow Era. This means the main element of randomness and luck is the shuffle of the deck, which is how a card game should be.
In all modes, all your cards are legal. No cards are rotated out of Standard play and the developer has said they have no intention to ever bring in rotation.
The main developer, Gondorian, often comments on questions on the official forums, and interacts with the player community on the Telegram messenger app.
There are a variety of player and developer organized tournaments, with prizes rewarded by devs, in both competitive and casual formats provides opportunities for players of all skill levels. It all culminates in the annual World Championship, a brilliant display of skill and deck building.
The graphics often seem like they are a less priority over other aspects of the game. The UI often falls into this problem too, which can make for a frustrating experience in that it can be difficult to know how to do certain tasks due to a poor layout and graphics.
There are already 120 missions to play through with dialogue, telling the story from the very beginning, for 10 Human heroes and 2 Shadow heroes (at the time of writing). Over time, more dialogue is being added to other missions for the remaining 6 Human heroes and 14 Shadow heroes, and then more maps with more missions will be added in future. The campaign mode is completely free and gives generous rewards for playing.
The deck customization in Shadow Era - Trading Card Game is lacking many useful features that other card games do utilize, such as sorting cards by types.
The graphics often seem like they are a less priority over other aspects of the game, the UI often falls into this problem too, which can make for a frustrating experience in that it can be difficult to know how to do certain tasks due to a poor layout and graphics.
This may not be a con for everyone, but the game has been out for less than a year (released 04/2020). Its not as established as some of the others and there aren't as many cards yet.
Even though the game is free to play, some cards are pretty much locked behind a paywal, forcing serious players to eventually spend real money on the game if they want to compete
The only way is to invest in an event which costs thousands of gems and will give you back the same amount plus an extra, and some premium random cards. Having in mind that there are a LOT of premium cards and that you need several copies to make them worth it, it is pretty impossible to make a decent deck, even if you try hard.
There are four different factions the player can build their decks with, Faen, Humans, Neanders and Mortii. Though most factions work best when using them and them only.
By forcing the player to use a shuffled deck the most powerful cards may not be able to be used at first. This means the deck needs to me more balanced overall as well as the player needs to be more watchful of the opponent's plays to counter adequately.
Cards can be won and bought with won in-game currency but you don't buy currency with real-world money like other games. Instead when you buy cards in the real-world you get a code for the equivalent amount of cards in-game, theme decks give you the exact same cards, and promo boxes gets you those promo cards.
Really you can only enjoy this game if you're loaded. If you can't afford putting in thousands of dollars into this game then have fun getting absolutely destroyed on the ladder.
Graphics and sprites are rendered for most cards in isometric 3D, along with crisp anime graphics for characters and cards makes for a visually appealing game.
Thanks to player Platinum:Gold market, While grinding in HEx you will net around $1/hour whereas in Hearthstone the same time will only see a return of around 20¢/hour.
The majority of good cards are extremely difficult to earn in the game through gameplay, they will need to be purchased, which makes for a game that is often considered pay to win, as those with money will be able to spend it on better cards than those that play for free.
High end players who have purchased cards with cash will have a better chance than those that play for free as their earned cards will never be as good.
I want to help people find this awesome game through millions marketing investments of other card games(seems like they have more donate money in marketing).
So lets play Interesting intellectual games, not games of luck and money.
All gameplay based on mindgames with your opponent.
If you can trick your opponent - you win. Deck can impact your game - but you will always have variant to win, there are always some win condition that you can realize.