Eternal, Free-to-Play CCG

I think he means that you can woodchipper the cards you earn into dust.

ah, ok, that makes more sense.

Yes. Sorry. I’m bad with words. What Adam said. For example, I’m probably going to destroy all four copies of the five-color legendary. I don’t see myself using it.

Whoa, that last stage in the current campaign is not easy. Looks like it requires a perfect deck with a perfect card order.

Yeah, the next-to-last mission was pretty rough, but the last one has proven neigh impossible with any of my standard decks.

Which begs the question… what are they thinking locking cards we paid for behind insanely hard missions?

There’s a reason that Hearthstone’s adventures were trivially easy, but offered a harder mode for those that wanted a challenge.

7-0 tonight with a deck originally intended to be a Fire/Justice hate deck, because omg it’s all you see in bronze. I am amused.

By which I mean to say 10-6. The RNG taketh away.

game 1
Deal 1: unit unit unit spell spell spell unit
Deal 2: power power power power power power power

game 2:
Deal 1: power power L3unit L3unit L3unit L3unit L3unit
(ok, fine, sigh)
Draws: unit unit unit unit unit unit unit…

Hmm…I am playing Hex because right now it just seems more fun and more polished overall (7 hrs there compared to one in Eternal, so I am a complete noob in both lol) but I rarely get such bad card deals.

I do get what seems like too many silly enemy powers, like cards that instantly kill any exhausted units, in my last game…quite clever though I suppose, letting me attack then wiping out my frontline like that.

But yeah, luck…

Variance is a huge point of contention when talking about card games, but it’s a really tricky thing to solve, and I don’t think any one answer makes everyone happy. Eternal swings a little higher on the variance scale because of larger deck sizes and the single “guaranteed proportion of power” mulligan. You get to draw seven cards out of 75, and you’re expected to have a good number of power, in the right colors, with a couple of decent plays for the first few turns.

I’d like to see them either remove the 2-5 power restriction from the mulligan, or give you the option for more mulligans after the free one for a cost – something like Magic does where you get one fewer card each time.

But I don’t believe there’s anything fundamentally wrong with the resource system itself. It’s better than something like Hearthstone, and I think the idea of influence (like Hex’s threshold) is a step above Magic.

I tend to agree with @SadleyBradley above, with the caveat that I’d like to see various kinds of curve-smoothing as “cheaper” (in terms of card power budget) mechanics.

Things like the Champions (bonus when you reach Influence thresholds) and Ultimate cards are reasonable and interesting, in that they have A effect when you have their basic cost, and A+B when you have their “advanced” cost down.

Seek Power being a gimme one-cost is decent, and the cheaply available ‘dual lands’ are a good implementation there. I like the Sigils (I think) that are basically man-lands (activate to become a creature at some relatively expensive cost after you’ve played it as a land).

The problem is that “pure” cards are always more efficient, so curving out a “pure” draw is generally going to win against even a good draw with a “smoother” deck. Solution: Make smoothing cheaper and ubiquitous.

There, I fixed it! ;)

Man. I’ve been seeing a ton of this blue/black heavy removal deck, and it’s super annoying to play against. Runs a ton of Annihilate, Deathstrike, Lightning Storm, Suffocate, etc and then tries to draw into a win condition (Recurring Nightmare seems popular).

I may need to add some more Aegis into the green/red thing that took me up to silver just to hate on it. Plus side, that also hates on Torch, which is an automatic 4x in any red deck, so that’s fine.

Speaking of Torch, man do I love the 4-mana red 3/1 who draws a Torch when she dies. <3 <3 <3.

Protect is a one-cost Justice fast spell that gives a unit or player Aegis. It very much strengthens your matchups against blue/black and black/red decks, which rely on a lot of early-game spot removal. For me, it replaced Inspire.

Hmm, that’s not a terrible idea even if I don’t love the top-level of a reactive card only going 1:1 with an enemy card.

I may end up replacing Warcry Quickdraw lady with Warcry Aegis dude. I like how the curve has been going so I don’t think I want to adjust it much, but that would improve me against red/black/blue at the cost of worse performance in the mirror.

Honestly I don’t run many weapons anyway, so the Quickdraw isn’t blue-chip awesome. Likewise 4-mana flying/double-damage lady, I think she’s going to get tossed for maybe like a Fourth-Tree Elder or Valkyrie Wings or something. I could use just a little more high-end.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention guys. I’ve always liked the idea of CCGs but never been able to get into them. I’ve tried Magic, Faeria, Hearthstone and Shadowverse (as well as a few other, older ones) and none has grabbed me the way Eternal has so far. I’ve beaten the first two campaigns so far and I’m looking forward to playing more. By the by, does every unit card have the ability to block? ( so long as it’s not exhausted or defending against a flying unit)
Does it sometimes make sense to not attack with a unit and let them block the next turn? Sometimes I’d like to take out an opponents card but it seems you can’t target other units directly unless you’re blocking.

Yes, everything can block (assuming the thing to be blocked is a legal choice - flying and unblockable can affect that). Creatures with Reckless are forced to attack though.

Yes, if you want to kill a specific unit, you may need to stay back and hope they attack, or attack with a smaller unit and use a combat trick if they block with it.

My friend tempts me with this game. He says it has very limited random elements and focuses on board control, i.e. little direct board cleaners a la Hearthstone. It also looks as if playing this game I’d wonder what other person would do instead of just wondering what deck is he using and what’s in his hand now.

Is it correct evaluation of the game? Only played single player campaigns for now.

It has much less RNG than Hearthstone, that’s for damn sure.

I’ve only seen two board clears. Well, three.

2 damage to all for 2
-1/-1 to enemies for 3
Kill all for 5
0/-4 to all for 5 (jekk’s bounty reward)

[e: fixed, thanks guys]

So far through mid silver league the first is played regularly, second is unused, and third I’ve seen exactly once. Eternal is very much about board control.

My personal opinion is that it leans toward combo a little more than aggro or control, but not so heavily as to be a problem or anything.

Don’t forget 2 damage to all units for cost 2.

The kill all (for 5, not 6) is pretty commonly played when you get higher up and run into weird three-color control decks. They also added a new -0/-4 to all creatures for 5 in the expansion. But yes, board clear is a lot more unusual in this game than in HS.