When comparing HEX: Shards of Fate vs Shadow Era, the Slant community recommends HEX: Shards of Fate for most people. In the question“What are the best digital Collectible Card Games on PC?” HEX: Shards of Fate is ranked 11th while Shadow Era is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose HEX: Shards of Fate is:
PvE Campaign with a lot of AI encounters and RPG depth.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro PvE campaign
PvE Campaign with a lot of AI encounters and RPG depth.
Pro Depth
Complex interactions between cards and several game phases add a lot of depth to this game.
Pro Cash tournaments
5000$ every two months, 1000$ every weekend.
Pro Will be familiar to Magic the gathering players
Similar to Magic the Gathering but deeper because of digital interactions that are impossible to do in MTG. So those familiar with MtG should feel pretty at home and familiar with the gameplay.
Pro Easy to learn, hard to master
The most rewarding games often share this: it takes some dedication to fully appreciate the depth of the game. There's lots of fun to be had while discovering all the layers though so in my mind it's one of the pros.
Pro True TCG
Cards can be traded with other players and have real-world value.
Pro More complex than other TCG's
Offers many things to do. See also: "Easy to learn, hard to master" in Cons below.
Pro It's basically M:TG for the 21st Century
As in, it uses the digital format really well with mechanics that cannot be reasonably (or at all) be done in a paper game.
Pro Cheap compared to any other TCG/CCG
5 dollar for 500 plat , 1 booster = 17 cards and you can buy for 200 plat, you also get a chest with which you can earn more cards and loot by opening it with a small gold fee.
Pro Solid community
Very friendly community, almost no trolls or bad manner.
Pro Beautiful art
Pro Communicative developers
The CEO posts a forum thread every week, developers give interviews on stream, and community managers are very responsive.
Pro Utilizes the digital aspect completely
For example, changing your own card and enemy cards while they are in there deck.
Pro An ingame chat to talk to other players (instead of basic emote's)
Pro Easy tournament style, you can finish your tournament over multiple days/weeks if its needed
Pro Change the way cards work by adding gems where possible
In PvE you can use equipment to change how cards work. A Johnny player's paradise.
Pro Auction house to buy and sell cards
A huge amount of cards for just a few pieces of ingame currency.
Pro Large variety of gameplay and formats
Between the cash tournaments, the ladder with rewards for both limited and constructed play, draft gauntlets, sealed and evolution gauntlet, as well as the single player campaign, playing the auction house, and the 'sandbox' Frost Ring Arena, there is a lot to engage in.
Pro The feel of your LGS from the comfort of your house
Trading, tournaments, guilds, ingame chat. But you can play whenever you feel like, with the asynchronous modes and even participate in big tournaments wearing your pyjamas.
Pro Can easily maintain 100+ creatures on the board incase its needed (like with vennen)
Pro Good tutorial
There are tutorials in the game that are pretty extensive in teaching one how to play the game. For many TCGs may seem pretty complicated, luckily HEX helps new players get accustomed to the game.
Pro Very profitable compared to other games
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.
Pro Good deck balance
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 and even have a player run team for testing before new releases.
Pro Unique Sacrifice Mana system
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. You want to make plays, you have to plan it out strategically.
Pro Over 600 cards (approx 250 legal per hero)
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.
Pro Free-to-play done well
The game is free to play but all cards in the game can be earned with free play, there is no need to purchase cards if one does not want to. Though it can speed up being able to build a better desk.
Pro Amazing artwork
The card artwork is of a very high standard and all cards are available in a full-art foil version too.
Pro One account usable across Android/iOS/PC/Mac
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.
Pro Truly free to play if you want
The in-game currency rewards for playing are very generous and card prices in that currency are low.
Pro No rotation of sets (all cards still legal)
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 bring in rotation ever.
Pro Very limited RNG
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 always know which one will be affected. Sometimes on 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.
Pro New free Single-player Campaign mode being updated regularly
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.
Pro Vibrant Tournament scene with prizes
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.
Pro Devs listen and interact with community
Main developer, Gondorian, is often commenting on questions in the Official forums as well as interacting with our player community on the Telegram messenger app.
Cons
Con Most people will need to spend money if you want to have a robust collection
With new PVP sets planned to hit every 4-5 months, plus new PVE cards throughout the year, it may be hard to keep up as a "Free to Play" player.
Con You'll probably never own everything
Each card has real value. Rare items are EXTREMELY rare. And there have already been one-of sleeves that won't be returning. If one wants to own every card and item that exist in the game and can be traded, they must pay a hefty price.
Con Clunky deckbuilding interface.
While they are updating the deck builder frequently, search mechanics and sorting could be better. Such as the ability to make new decks in campaign, instead of just clicking a button and starting from scratch, you must manually remove all the cards in the deck and then remember to save as a new deck.
Con Animations are lacking
The game board often feels like it is not active enough with animations and movement, this makes for a very static feeling while playing the game.
Con Questionable long-term viability
At this point, hard to see the game ever really taking off. Balancing and card development is increasingly questionable, especially in limited formats (such as the current set emphasizing RNG in the Conscript mechanic as a game decider). The game developers have essentially conceded they can't deliver much of what was promised on the PvE side while also struggling to translate efforts there into income.
The client interface (e.g. chat, auction house, etc.) remains atrocious. Multiple featured tournaments have been compromised by bugs. This seems like a classic case of reach exceeding grasp, and investing heavy resources into the game is probably not the safest play.
Con Boring
It's hard to get excited about any of it.
Con Very long matches
Con It's too MTG-like
The mechanics, type of card, curve of resources.. everything can be related to MTG.
Con Easy to learn, very very hard to master
No instant gratification, which some specific type(s) of players seek in their games. You have to go deep to reach a point where every play will feel like a personal win.
Con Paths on the campaign are hard
Con Poor design
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.