
It’s an added layer of strategy that really changes the rhythm of the game. When playing a resource, folks will have to decide if they are going to play it and apply it toward their mana pool or their level. So, how does a player gain levels? By making a choice with resource cards. So, what players must do to effectively put a creature on the board is they have to have the required mana and also the required level.

There’s an extra step in here.Ĭards now have levels to them. But, it’s not as easy to accumulating enough mana to then summon a creature. So, it’s just like the system used in Magic resource cards here just aren’t called “mana” but they operate in the exact same way. When building a deck, it’s a pretty standard affair: each card has a fixed cost, which is paid using resource cards that folks must include in their deck composition. The cards are random, of course, and can be paid for via in-game resources or purchased with real money. Each play-deck is built by the player, put together from cards obtained through booster packs that range in size from four to ten cards. Sounds pretty basic, right? Yeah, it’s not. These cards are summoned to a playfield, giving way to a back-and-forth cadence between opponents until one is out of hit points. Like Magic before it, cards here are broken down into items and spells of various types, attacking and defending creatures, damage-dealing spells, enchantments, artifacts and the like. Talk about setting a particular tone.Īt its core, Spellweaver is a PvP-centric card game in which two players forge decks of cards so as to square off against one another. Nothing makes this more apparent than the forty-five-minute time limit each match has. It’s safe to say that with Spellweaver, there isn’t going to be much cross-pollination with games like Hearthstone, which is the king of the “easy to learn, difficult to master” design philosophy.

The game uses Magic as something of a foundation, and then builds on it, mixing in additional systems that will delight those looking for high-level, super nuanced play and absolutely madden, and then subsequently isolate, those wanting something a bit more accessible. This is an involved, strategic card game that is going to require expert analysis to outwit opponents. This is not an easy game to simply jump into, learn, and then be off to the races. Right off the bat, Spellweaver is working against itself. So how does Spellweaver fair when put next to the handfuls of great games in this burgeoning market?

Because there are so many solid titles fighting for players’ time these days, developers have to knock it out of the park with their design and execution to get people to leave the heavyweights, like Hearthstone and Magic, and flock to their product. The problem this all presents, though, is that it is hard to stand out among the crowd as a digital CCG.

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But thanks to the popularity of Hearthstone - and other titles like HEX: Shards of Fate, Ascension, Legends of Norrath, even Pokemon TCG - the genre has found itself as one of the more popular ones around (of course, the dozens on iOS and Android devices have certainly helped its cause as well). For a while, the pool size of available CCGs, especially digitally, was about one: MtG. These days, collectible card games are a dime a dozen.
