Poor me. I ran out of money at the start of last semester and sold my Hex account. But the upside is that I got the urge to find a replacement and I found Eternal.
And so I will now put enough effort into creating a post that will not be closed by administrators.
What is Eternal?
It is a digital card game that is in early access. You can find it on steam. It had a closed beta, which is now over. It is free to play, using a payment model that is similar to hearthstone, though perhaps a little more forgiving about grinding out cards without spending money.
What kind of gameplay does it have
It's basically a compromise between hearthstone and magic the gathering. It's has a lot of the streamline of hearthstone, but puts in a little more complexity like magic the gathering. So, if you don't like how slow and convoluted playing magic (or Hex) is online, but you find Hearthstone to be a little boring or repetitive, then this may be the game for you.
Is it PvE or PvP
Both. You can grind out cards in 2 different PvE modes, or you can play drafts / ranked matches vs other people.
To be honest, I don't know everything about the game. It's still early access and my research is limited. But I am really, really enjoying it. And I will say that for being early access the AI isn't completely stupid which is actually somewhat impressive.
I've been playing Eternal for maybe a couple months now and I'm extremely impressed with this game. I think some of the creators are old school MTG players (some of them pros as well) and it shows.
This is basically what mtg online should have been all along. It has most of the basic mechanics of MTG, like blocking, flying and fast spells, in a hearthstone UI. Gameplay wise it's basically an mtg clone with some HS hero weapons thrown in. The mana system is better and less punishing than in MTG, but there's still mana screw. I think that is the price to pay to have deep deckbuilding. It also has less phases than mtg so the turns don't take too long. And it's free to play, which is of course huge compared to mtg.
For all the old school card players, this has a fantastic draft mode that is just pure love. If you are good enough, between the draft win rewards and the daily quests you can go infinite on draft. The tutorial is a bit long and boring, but it's worth beating it to access such a great game :D I recommend this game A LOT.
For a great twitch streamer I enjoy watching Sir_Rinho. Watching him is a perfect way for new players to learn the game.
Oh and the game is avaliable for free on Steam, but you can also download and play it on Android/Tablet which is cool.
I like cardgames with skill. I have played heartstone and that game isnt for me, it has way to much rng for my taste. I want a cardgame that has alot of skill involved while also is ...fun to play... More tactical and strategic i suppose as well. In heartstone, you play against the meta which is just sucky at best.
Reading descrptions like this doesnt tell much at all. If you can link some videos with good inforamtion, that would tell alot more for a human like me.
looks interesting, like how it is more magic than hearthstone with blocking and 'instants'. cross platform play is also cool, going to give it a download
How does this fare in terms of complexity, card pool, balancing and p2w? Is there a realistic chance to field t1 decks after 50 hours of playtime without investing lots of money?
On January 19 2017 01:00 Archeon wrote: How does this fare in terms of complexity, card pool, balancing and p2w? Is there a realistic chance to field t1 decks after 50 hours of playtime without investing lots of money?
If you are decent at picking cards in draft I would say yes. Draft is the easier way to build your cardpool after achieving the highest rank in gauntlet (a free to play mode vs AI). At the start I personally tried to balance picking rares with actually trying to build a good deck to get wins with. But at the first few drafts you can just easily pick up a good number of bad rares from draft that get passed to you, then destroy them to build those you want for constructed. And of course you pick every legendary card you see even if it's unplayable, then destroy it for "dust value"
Regarding constructed/p2w: There's a few legendaries that are really strong, and if you face some at bronze after just starting the game you can feel cheated because they will look just unfair (Sandstorm Titan is a perfect example). But in general most people in bronze also have limited cardpools. There's also a few high tier decks that can easily work without a single legendary, like Rakano or Stonescar Burn (both aggro). Rares are the bread and butter of most decks, and those you can get fairly fast since there is one in every pack (unless you get a legendary) and their dust cost is not that high.
I personally think that building a strong deck with a limited cardpool is also more fun and challenging. And draft is just the better and more fun/challenging format in every card game imo.
Regarding the rest of the questions: Card pool is decent and hopefully grows soon with a new mini-set. Balance is pretty much perfect afaik, there is all kinds of aggro, midrange, combo and control decks. Complexity wise it's higher than HS/Shadowverse, mainly because you can play spells on your opponent's turn and you can combine colors for deckbuilding instead of being forced into a class. It's slightly less complex than MTG mainly because there's way less keywords to learn (obviously) and less phases.
Honestly the biggest draw of this compared to HS and other digital CCGs is that they've clearly put some effort in making limited play interesting. And given that it has its own ladder, they clearly see it as a "legit" format.
Constructed isn't particularly interesting at the moment (particularly on ladder where deck diversity is awful) but for pretty much anyone who enjoys drafting or limited play in general, it's a breath of fresh air compared to other CCGs where stuff like Hearthstone's arena is a complete afterthought.
Limited is what makes this game interesting and is also basically required if you want to build a card pool at all. If you don't enjoy limited play, grinding through drafts to get your 4x Sandstorm Titan for constructed is going to feel brutal. But if limited is your cup of tea, there's no F2P digital CCG (MtGO and Hex don't count as F2P in this regard) that really compares.
On January 19 2017 09:59 TheYango wrote: Honestly the biggest draw of this compared to HS and other digital CCGs is that they've clearly put some effort in making limited play interesting. And given that it has its own ladder, they clearly see it as a "legit" format.
Constructed isn't particularly interesting at the moment (particularly on ladder where deck diversity is awful) but for pretty much anyone who enjoys drafting or limited play in general, it's a breath of fresh air compared to other CCGs where stuff like Hearthstone's arena is a complete afterthought.
Limited is what makes this game interesting and is also basically required if you want to build a card pool at all. If you don't enjoy limited play, grinding through drafts to get your 4x Sandstorm Titan for constructed is going to feel brutal. But if limited is your cup of tea, there's no F2P digital CCG (MtGO and Hex don't count as F2P in this regard) that really compares.
Have to strongly agree with this. The average wait time to find a game in draft is fairly shorter than in constructed, which means a lot more people play it. That's impressive because draft costs in-game gold while constructed is free. Even the most competitive streamers play about as much draft as constructed, and people value much more getting the #1 rank in draft.
This is basically F2P Magic with a much smaller card pool. It's made by Magic pros and designers and the UI and gameplay is a million times better than Magic Online ever managed.
It's hard to get a super competitive deck together without dropping some cash, but it's possible to go nearly infinite in Draft and keep expanding your card pool, as well as a crafting system to fill holes. All-in-all great CCG.
On January 21 2017 00:51 Trozz wrote: This game is the best. Second only to broodwar. You keep cards you draft.
OMG TROZZ IS STILL ACTIVE!?!?!?! <3 <3 <3
*ahem* on topic, Eternal is great. I come from a competitive MTG background (used to write for StarCityGames.com regularly circa 2011), and I've been doing pretty much nothing but play Eternal for the last 6 months. It combines the strategic depth of Magic with the convenience of Hearthstone. What's not to love?
Idk, I'm starting to strongly dislike the mana system. Most of the games I loose I loose because the balance between my cards is way off, which feels needlessly gambly and frustrating in times when Duelyst gives you a free 1-card mulligan each turn and MMDoC has shown how to make mana comfortable and keep a decision involved. I love MtG, but that part was always wonky.
Having the mulligan restricted to one doesn't help, I'm praying every time I hit the redraw button. Even WotC has recognized that their mulligan system isn't great and buffed it, Idk why Eternal has a system that is even worse for the most part.
5k gold has so far kept me away from draft, I'll give it a shot when I get the money.
I like most of the new mechanics though.
Also wow some legendaries. Let's put a good ability on a good body and make it cheap, because reasons.
On January 23 2017 11:15 Archeon wrote: Idk, I'm starting to strongly dislike the mana system. Most of the games I loose I loose because the balance between my cards is way off, which feels needlessly gambly and frustrating in times when Duelyst gives you a free 1-card mulligan each turn and MMDoC has shown how to make mana comfortable and keep a decision involved. I love MtG, but that part was always wonky.
Having the mulligan restricted to one doesn't help, I'm praying every time I hit the redraw button. Even WotC has recognized that their mulligan system isn't great and buffed it, Idk why Eternal has a system that is even worse for the most part.
5k gold has so far kept me away from draft, I'll give it a shot when I get the money.
I like most of the new mechanics though.
Also wow some legendaries. Let's put a good ability on a good body and make it cheap, because reasons.
you don't really need to pray when you hit redraw, on a mulligan you are always given 2-5 resources
that said, the resource system isn't perfect and you will definitely have a fair share of lopsided games because of it
5 resources is pretty much gg and having only two of the same kind can be very bad as well. If they made both draws 2-4 mana and 1+ of each color people could do mulligans for cards and not mana :/
Mana system is indeed the weakest part of the game, nobody likes losing to mana screw and it's bound to happen by simple math. To lower those odds you should always slam 4 Seek Power in every deck, and pretty much every fixing sigil you have plus Diplomatic Seals. Some Favors can be really good too, specially the shadow one. I'd only consider going 3 or less seek power in the super aggro decks that have 0-2 five cost cards (and not a single 6+).
In constructed I'm pretty sure newer players cheat themselves because of not wanting to cut cards and they skip on power. In draft mana screw just happens and you learn to move on
EDIT:
Regarding the F2P aspect of the game, rngeternal has posted a thread which tries to crack the economics of both Eternal and HS to calculate which is more "free to play" (hint: It's Eternal). Some conclusions I think are interesting:
- Hearthstone is cheaper when making deck purchases with money, though the price of the average deck in both games is fairly close. - Eternal is much cheaper when trying to build decks via game wins. - Hearthstone has significant savings when buying all the decks in the metagame. This is a result of cross-deck Neutral Legends. Eternal sees fewer savings in this regard. - Eternal has a sizable bonus from playing Draft rather than just opening packs. If you maintain a 50% win rate you are able to functionally “buy packs” at 645 Gold each. The Arena bonus for Hearthstone is just under 10%, and does not offer significant savings over just cracking packs.
EPT
