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[Infinity Wars], the Best Digital Card Game You've Never Heard Of
Raiden333
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, F2P online TCGs, there sure as hell are a lot of them, am I right? I saw the Giant Bomb crew pull this up for like 5 minutes on the most recent unprofessional fridays, thought it looked interesting, and decided to check it out. I promptly lost my whole weekend. I have no idea how this game doesn't have more attention (but I'm sure having the most generic name ever doesn't help it), the last thread on the forums I found about it hasn't been posted in since March, when it was apparently still in beta. So without further ado...
What is Infinity Wars
Infinity Wars is a Free-To-Play digital TCG on Steam that reminds me most of Hearthstone and Magic The Gathering, but IMO a lot more complex than both of them due to the way it uses the play-fields, and the way turns work, which I'll get to in a moment. There are 8 factions represented by different colors that have different focuses and strengths, and you can mix up colors used in your deck to a degree. There's a short singleplayer campaign for each of the factions to introduce you to their playstyle and unlock most of their basic cards for you. The card art is animated and it's BEAUTIFUL (most of the time, some of it is hit and miss including one I'm about to link, even though I love it), going to link these because they're a bit too large to inline:
http://i.imgur.com/5kqVQNm.gif
http://i.imgur.com/KgRrZOJ.gif
and the best card ever: http://i.imgur.com/maddyPi.gif
Wow, that does look great, so how does the game work?
If you've played Hearthstone you'll be familiar with the game's Resource system, each card has a resource cost to play, and your Resource Cap increases by 1 each turn. What makes this game super interesting that I haven't seen in any other card games I've played, is that both players plan their turns simultaneously, and then hit the ready button, and their plans are executed. Sort of like Frozen Synapse if you've played that.
Here's what the play-screen looks like, I've labeled various elements to easily talk about them:
1. Here's the status of each player. The little yellow dot next to me on the left means that I have priority for this turn. So even though we're both planning and executing at the same time, any abilities I use will fire off first on this turn. One thing I love about this game is you'll see I have both a health bar and a morale bar. Health is pretty standard, but each creature in the game has a Morale Cost separate from its summoning cost. If that creature gets killed, its Morale Cost is deducted from your Morale bar, and having your Morale hit zero is the same as having your health hit zero. So you'll come across some cards that are super cheap to play and have strong abilities, but are relatively defenseless and will cost you a huge hit to morale if killed, leading to some good risk-reward decisions.
2. These are the main play-zones for creatures. When you're done planning your turn and hit execute, any creatures in your assault zone will attack, and any creatures in your defend zone will defend. Obviously, you have to break through any creatures in you're opponent's defense zone before you can attack their fortress and reduce their health at the top of the screen. One interesting thing to note is that their placement order in the zones DOES matter, if you have 3 creatures in the assault zone, they will always attack from left to right. Same for your defenders in the defense zone. Also, most creatures are not locked to a particular zone, you can freely swap them back and forth each turn if you want to.
3. This is your Command Zone, and one of my favorite parts of the game. In the singleplayer campaigns, your deck including your Command Zone slots will be pre-determined, but when you get into the PvP stuff you pick 3 creatures to be your commanders, and they start the game in this zone. You have to pay their card-cost to actually get them onto the battlefield, but you can play their active-abilities from the command zone just fine. The command zone also determines the "purity" of your deck, which determines which cards you can use. In that screenshot, I'm in a campaign mission where my commanders are 2 white creatures and 1 red creature, which means my deck could include most of the white cards, and the basic red cards. Super powerful cards will have a purity of 3, which means you can only include them in your deck if all 3 of your commanders are the same color, which will prevent you from utilizing other colors. So again, trade-off decisions. Additionally, when you do pay the card-cost for one of your commanders, you can deploy them directly to the Assault Zone or the Defense Zone rather than forcing them to take a stop in the...
4. Support Zone. This is this game's version of Summoning Sickness, with a twist. When you pay to summon a creature, if it's not in your command zone and it's not a creature with Haste (or one or two other special skills), it goes into the support zone and is Exhausted until next turn. However, you can move creatures from the assault and defense zones back to the support zone if you wish to. Some cards can only target creatures on the actual battlefield, so if you think your opponent is about to play a "Mass Death", which kills all creatures on the battlefield, you can pull all your creatures back to support, and his Mass Death won't kill any of them.
5. Your deck and your graveyard. 'nuff said.
6. Your hand
7. The Trading Post. Here's another thing I LOVE about this game. The Trading Post has 3 options: Pay 3 resources to reshuffle one card in your hand back into the deck and draw a new card, pay 5 resources to just draw a new card, or pay 9 resources to permanent increase your resource count by 1. I haven't had a game run long enough to use the third option yet, but the first 2 have helped me out a lot in some games.
The game's tutorial is pretty damn good and will explain everything better than I did, but there's the basics.
What are the factions like?
I'm going to be both pasting the description from the Infinity Wars wiki, and giving my personal impression. The game seems to take the DotA approach to balance, "everything is so OP that it all balances out", in my experience so far.
Red - Flame Dawn
"Flame Dawn cards are very aggressive, aiming to win the game quickly with a swarm of characters before other, lumbering strategies can come fully online, or at least deal so much damage in the early turns of the game that the enemy is always on the back foot. The cost for their speed, however, is a lack of staying power, as their removal abilities are all temporary, providing a window for victory that they must quickly seize."
Have you ever played a Goblin deck in magic? Same basic idea. Overwhelm your opponent with sheer numbers.
Purple - Cult of Verore
"Verore relies on a mix of "Kill Cards" and soldiers to finish their opponents. They start out slow and build their troops up over time, usually ending with Demons. The kill cards are used to keep the field clear and strategically remove of any threats to your fortress. Playing Verore will require a strategic mind- bluffing the enemy and sacrificing your own followers."
I really like Verore. They focus on really efficient threat elimination, and having your own creatures become stronger when you take out enemy creatures. When I finish the campaigns and get into deck construction, I definitely think I'll have at least a splash of purple.
Green - Warpath
"The Warpath Relies on boosting their resources through various means and playing heavier creatures to relentlessly hit the oppenents as hard as they can. They use abilities to boost their forces but are not focused on them as verore or genesis are. A well built warpath army can crush all in their way with their use of unstoppable troops!"
Just like it says. If you like green-ramp-decks in magic, you'll probably like warpath.
Blue - Genesis Industries
"The Genesis industries focuses on the unity and synergy that cards have with other cards. Having access to utility cards can disrupt tempo, given the right timings. Characters are generally improved and strengthened to the point of being nearly unstoppable. There is a heavy risk-reward ratio as you funnel cards, resources and turns into powerful killing machines. If you protect your investment, you will receive a bountiful return. Playing Genesis requires a mechanical mind, and one willing to atempt to bluff your oppenent."
Do you like cards that buff other cards? Then Genesis is for you. They're all about synergy.
Orange - Sleepers of Avarrach
"Zombies. Robots. Everything you could want from a faction like this is here. Recurring characters, Graveyard manipulation, fear, death and assimilation. The Sleepers of Avarrach feature a host of stall effects, creation and reanimation tactics and card control. Crush them with endless hordes of Zomborgs!"
I like this faction a lot too. A lot of your creatures will become stronger when your own creatures die, and you even have cards that say "put the top 2 cards on your deck into your graveyard" and that's a positive thing for you. Pretty fun.
![Cyan - Descendents of the Dragon "You can win games without this faction even attacking, due to the morale mechanics of this game. Cards within this faction support each other synergistically as the utility cards accessed in this purity increase your staying power long enough to win the day! Daode relies on its fast and consistent defence to put up a barrier that few can pass, killing all who try. This effectively reduces their morale without attacking and can cause them to route when it runs out." Really interesting faction that relies on putting up a wall and starving your opponent out, draining their morale. Haven't played with them much, but I like them a lot. <I CAN'T GET THE FORUMS TO MAKE A NEW LINE HERE FOR SOME REASON SO PRETEND THERE'S A NEW LINE>](Cyan - Descendents of the Dragon "You can win games without this faction even attacking, due to the morale mechanics of this game. Cards within this faction support each other synergistically as the utility cards accessed in this purity increase your staying power long enough to win the day! Daode relies on its fast and consistent defence to put up a barrier that few can pass, killing all who try. This effectively reduces their morale without attacking and can cause them to route when it runs out." Really interesting faction that relies on putting up a wall and starving your opponent out, draining their morale. Haven't played with them much, but I like them a lot. <I CAN'T GET THE FORUMS TO MAKE A NEW LINE HERE FOR SOME REASON SO PRETEND THERE'S A NEW LINE>)
Pink - Exiles
"A rather chaotic faction, The Exiles focus on death, sacrifice and anything that disrupts what players feel is 'normal' when a game is being played. There are discard effects and synergy that exist alongside sacrifice mechanics. Do the unexpected, destroy the best laid plans. Worship Chaos."
I don't really get the exiles. And I like them even less than I get them. From their campaign, a lot of their cards seem to depend on random chance, or getting a lucky card that lets you discard your whole hand and summon them from your discard pile next turn as more powerful versions. If someone likes them and wants to give a better write-up, go ahead.
White - The Overseers of Solace
"The Overseers rely on the ascension mechanic, combined with the synergy of their cards. The vast majority of their cards have the ability to fly built into them."
Overseers are really good at putting down creatures you can't block. The vast majority of creatures I've seen with flying are white, and unless you have some form of threat-elimination other than a powerful defense zone, you're gonna have a bad time fighting a white deck. But that's kind of the one trick white has.
So who all is playing this
Hopefully, you soon. Tag me in your post with your game name and I'll add you to the list. The game seems to do that dumb double-friend system where both people have to add each other, FYI.
Forum Name - Game Name
Raiden333 - Erisian
Stabbity Style - Stabbitystyle
StrifeRaZoR - Striferazor
I heard this game has star trek cards or some shit
Yeah man, I dunno what's up with that. Shit be crazy I guess. I haven't bought anything in the store yet so I couldn't tell you about them.
Guys, this game is free. If you like card games, you should give it an hour of your time, it's super quick to download. I fucking love it.
What is Infinity Wars
Infinity Wars is a Free-To-Play digital TCG on Steam that reminds me most of Hearthstone and Magic The Gathering, but IMO a lot more complex than both of them due to the way it uses the play-fields, and the way turns work, which I'll get to in a moment. There are 8 factions represented by different colors that have different focuses and strengths, and you can mix up colors used in your deck to a degree. There's a short singleplayer campaign for each of the factions to introduce you to their playstyle and unlock most of their basic cards for you. The card art is animated and it's BEAUTIFUL (most of the time, some of it is hit and miss including one I'm about to link, even though I love it), going to link these because they're a bit too large to inline:
http://i.imgur.com/5kqVQNm.gif
http://i.imgur.com/KgRrZOJ.gif
and the best card ever: http://i.imgur.com/maddyPi.gif
Wow, that does look great, so how does the game work?
If you've played Hearthstone you'll be familiar with the game's Resource system, each card has a resource cost to play, and your Resource Cap increases by 1 each turn. What makes this game super interesting that I haven't seen in any other card games I've played, is that both players plan their turns simultaneously, and then hit the ready button, and their plans are executed. Sort of like Frozen Synapse if you've played that.
Here's what the play-screen looks like, I've labeled various elements to easily talk about them:
1. Here's the status of each player. The little yellow dot next to me on the left means that I have priority for this turn. So even though we're both planning and executing at the same time, any abilities I use will fire off first on this turn. One thing I love about this game is you'll see I have both a health bar and a morale bar. Health is pretty standard, but each creature in the game has a Morale Cost separate from its summoning cost. If that creature gets killed, its Morale Cost is deducted from your Morale bar, and having your Morale hit zero is the same as having your health hit zero. So you'll come across some cards that are super cheap to play and have strong abilities, but are relatively defenseless and will cost you a huge hit to morale if killed, leading to some good risk-reward decisions.
2. These are the main play-zones for creatures. When you're done planning your turn and hit execute, any creatures in your assault zone will attack, and any creatures in your defend zone will defend. Obviously, you have to break through any creatures in you're opponent's defense zone before you can attack their fortress and reduce their health at the top of the screen. One interesting thing to note is that their placement order in the zones DOES matter, if you have 3 creatures in the assault zone, they will always attack from left to right. Same for your defenders in the defense zone. Also, most creatures are not locked to a particular zone, you can freely swap them back and forth each turn if you want to.
3. This is your Command Zone, and one of my favorite parts of the game. In the singleplayer campaigns, your deck including your Command Zone slots will be pre-determined, but when you get into the PvP stuff you pick 3 creatures to be your commanders, and they start the game in this zone. You have to pay their card-cost to actually get them onto the battlefield, but you can play their active-abilities from the command zone just fine. The command zone also determines the "purity" of your deck, which determines which cards you can use. In that screenshot, I'm in a campaign mission where my commanders are 2 white creatures and 1 red creature, which means my deck could include most of the white cards, and the basic red cards. Super powerful cards will have a purity of 3, which means you can only include them in your deck if all 3 of your commanders are the same color, which will prevent you from utilizing other colors. So again, trade-off decisions. Additionally, when you do pay the card-cost for one of your commanders, you can deploy them directly to the Assault Zone or the Defense Zone rather than forcing them to take a stop in the...
4. Support Zone. This is this game's version of Summoning Sickness, with a twist. When you pay to summon a creature, if it's not in your command zone and it's not a creature with Haste (or one or two other special skills), it goes into the support zone and is Exhausted until next turn. However, you can move creatures from the assault and defense zones back to the support zone if you wish to. Some cards can only target creatures on the actual battlefield, so if you think your opponent is about to play a "Mass Death", which kills all creatures on the battlefield, you can pull all your creatures back to support, and his Mass Death won't kill any of them.
5. Your deck and your graveyard. 'nuff said.
6. Your hand
7. The Trading Post. Here's another thing I LOVE about this game. The Trading Post has 3 options: Pay 3 resources to reshuffle one card in your hand back into the deck and draw a new card, pay 5 resources to just draw a new card, or pay 9 resources to permanent increase your resource count by 1. I haven't had a game run long enough to use the third option yet, but the first 2 have helped me out a lot in some games.
The game's tutorial is pretty damn good and will explain everything better than I did, but there's the basics.
What are the factions like?
I'm going to be both pasting the description from the Infinity Wars wiki, and giving my personal impression. The game seems to take the DotA approach to balance, "everything is so OP that it all balances out", in my experience so far.
Red - Flame Dawn"Flame Dawn cards are very aggressive, aiming to win the game quickly with a swarm of characters before other, lumbering strategies can come fully online, or at least deal so much damage in the early turns of the game that the enemy is always on the back foot. The cost for their speed, however, is a lack of staying power, as their removal abilities are all temporary, providing a window for victory that they must quickly seize."
Have you ever played a Goblin deck in magic? Same basic idea. Overwhelm your opponent with sheer numbers.
Purple - Cult of Verore"Verore relies on a mix of "Kill Cards" and soldiers to finish their opponents. They start out slow and build their troops up over time, usually ending with Demons. The kill cards are used to keep the field clear and strategically remove of any threats to your fortress. Playing Verore will require a strategic mind- bluffing the enemy and sacrificing your own followers."
I really like Verore. They focus on really efficient threat elimination, and having your own creatures become stronger when you take out enemy creatures. When I finish the campaigns and get into deck construction, I definitely think I'll have at least a splash of purple.
Green - Warpath"The Warpath Relies on boosting their resources through various means and playing heavier creatures to relentlessly hit the oppenents as hard as they can. They use abilities to boost their forces but are not focused on them as verore or genesis are. A well built warpath army can crush all in their way with their use of unstoppable troops!"
Just like it says. If you like green-ramp-decks in magic, you'll probably like warpath.
Blue - Genesis Industries"The Genesis industries focuses on the unity and synergy that cards have with other cards. Having access to utility cards can disrupt tempo, given the right timings. Characters are generally improved and strengthened to the point of being nearly unstoppable. There is a heavy risk-reward ratio as you funnel cards, resources and turns into powerful killing machines. If you protect your investment, you will receive a bountiful return. Playing Genesis requires a mechanical mind, and one willing to atempt to bluff your oppenent."
Do you like cards that buff other cards? Then Genesis is for you. They're all about synergy.
Orange - Sleepers of Avarrach"Zombies. Robots. Everything you could want from a faction like this is here. Recurring characters, Graveyard manipulation, fear, death and assimilation. The Sleepers of Avarrach feature a host of stall effects, creation and reanimation tactics and card control. Crush them with endless hordes of Zomborgs!"
I like this faction a lot too. A lot of your creatures will become stronger when your own creatures die, and you even have cards that say "put the top 2 cards on your deck into your graveyard" and that's a positive thing for you. Pretty fun.
Pink - Exiles"A rather chaotic faction, The Exiles focus on death, sacrifice and anything that disrupts what players feel is 'normal' when a game is being played. There are discard effects and synergy that exist alongside sacrifice mechanics. Do the unexpected, destroy the best laid plans. Worship Chaos."
I don't really get the exiles. And I like them even less than I get them. From their campaign, a lot of their cards seem to depend on random chance, or getting a lucky card that lets you discard your whole hand and summon them from your discard pile next turn as more powerful versions. If someone likes them and wants to give a better write-up, go ahead.
White - The Overseers of Solace"The Overseers rely on the ascension mechanic, combined with the synergy of their cards. The vast majority of their cards have the ability to fly built into them."
Overseers are really good at putting down creatures you can't block. The vast majority of creatures I've seen with flying are white, and unless you have some form of threat-elimination other than a powerful defense zone, you're gonna have a bad time fighting a white deck. But that's kind of the one trick white has.
So who all is playing this
Hopefully, you soon. Tag me in your post with your game name and I'll add you to the list. The game seems to do that dumb double-friend system where both people have to add each other, FYI.
Forum Name - Game Name
Raiden333 - Erisian
Stabbity Style - Stabbitystyle
StrifeRaZoR - Striferazor
I heard this game has star trek cards or some shit
Yeah man, I dunno what's up with that. Shit be crazy I guess. I haven't bought anything in the store yet so I couldn't tell you about them.
Guys, this game is free. If you like card games, you should give it an hour of your time, it's super quick to download. I fucking love it.
There was a steam sig here. It's gone now.
Raiden333 on
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Posts
I know of two big reasons people have tried and then went back to Hearthstone:
- The production values just aren't there. Sound assets are quite bad, the art is hit & miss. It's nice that everything is animated, but some of the fundamental art just looks amateur. The presentation of the board & UI elements look almost placeholder.
- The game is extremely complex, and this creates a high barrier to entry. I'm not saying that as a criticism - just saying that no game with this depth of strategy & skill ceiling is going to be extremely popular.
I still play off & on, but the weak sfx / play area presentation just diminishes the experience for me after an hour or so.
Purple/Red - Basically a rush deck that ramps itself up the more you punish yourself and the enemy. It's very easy to get the first few swings with Aspirants, then hold back with Death Worshipers and let them ramp up as the fight goes on. The best part about running purple is the abilities. They have some of the best flat out removal abilities in the game. Just nuke a defender or command zone card that's giving you trouble, then watch all your Death Worshipers get beefy. It's a simple concept that works basically like a Black/Red burn deck in MTG.
Purple/Genesis - This is my newest deck that I've been playing around with. Genesis has a very basic 2/2 drone creature that helps other drones revive every turn. You can use those as fodder to defend or do quick assaults while also using them as ability bait to boost up your Death Worshipers. Another good thing about having Genesis with your purple beefy creatures is that even if the fight isn't very physical, you can sacrifice your own drones to get some juice flowing to the Death Worshipers. Also, you default with a Veroren Hydra (if you do their campaign) which makes a FANTASTIC commander. Getting him out early to take a few hits in the defense zone means he can just get beefier and beefier. When he's in trouble, just manually boost him with bots, or pull him back for some rest.
My next build is probably going to be a Genesis/Green mana ramp flood deck. It's hard not to talk about this game in MTG terms. So far I'm liking it. Can't wait to start trading with people. I need more Hydras...lots more Hydras...like...at least fifty eleven more.
Edit: Almost forgot. Every deck you make should be running 3 Assassinates. ALL decks should run those, no excuses. Those cards allow you to take out pesky command zone cards that are spamming abilities and making your life a pain in the ass.
Dat Hydra, tho.
Commander: Master of Demons
Commander: Vah'Nash, The Ritual Master
Creatures
10x Verore Death Worshiper
10x Demonic Disciple
3x Unstable Demon
3x Hungry Devil
2x Battlefield Scavenger
1x Verore Magic Siphoner
1x Aether Acolyte
Abilities
2x Called Shot
3x Winds of War
3x Assassinate
2x Lightning Blast
3x Death Ray
2x Heat Wave
1x Demonic Corruption
1x Demonize
3x Gather The Weak
Basic premise: Start out with zero assault. Do NOT load up your support zone with creatures. Only play what you need to defend. Try not to play Death Worshipers in the defense zone if you can help it. Let them sit in support. Use Vah'Nash to boost your support, hydra, and master of demons. Try to use Vah'Nash when the majority of your hand is Disciples. Discard a Disciple, then next turn pay the Exile to get a cheap Demon in support. Keep your abilities rolling to thin out their assault field. Use Assassinate on pesky creatures in the back, and nuke any heavy attackers with Death Ray. The bonus to all this is your Death Worshipers should be gaining in power every turn. When you need heavy defense, or if you need to build your Hydra quickly, put your Hydra in Assault by himself. He'll attack each turn and just grow silly strong. When you get about 6 or 7 demons in play (support of defense), drop your Master of Demons in Assault along with your Hydra and watch things explode.
Overall I like IW a lot. I actually like the art style and animations, the cards look and feel cool. There are exceptions though, and the flavour texts tend to be bad, which is a pity. The game mechanics are great too, and there's a lot of interesting cards. Quite many horrible vanilla/filler cards too.
For f2p game though.. yeah, Hearthstone does it way better. Getting enough IP for a booster back takes *ages*, rift runs give shitty rewards unless you win like 10+ games. Finishing 5-3 barely breaks even IP-wise, and you get a few crap common cards. 7 wins, still bad. Seems you'd have to buy boosters worth a new AAA game, or more, to have a shot at getting a good constructed deck. With just IP, probably months and months of grinding constructed with a crappy deck, since you can't really farm IP from rift runs. Shame really, I do want to play this game
With the campaign cards and boosters I got from playing to lvl 10 (and finishing the quests) I got enough cards to do a halfway decent Overseers/Overseers/Verore - deck. Basically lots of basic angels that are crappy by themselves, and commanders to boost them, most importantly getting them to fly. I usually just end up doing a damage race, which angels are nice at (since flying over blockers is dickish and damn powerful), and using my Verore kill cards to nuke opponent's key characters.
A popular opinion on the game's forums seems to be that angel decks are sort of cheap way to win, and uh.. yeah. Pretty much the same as playing some tribal rush deck in MtG: obvious deck, easy to play, powerful unless countered. Not many options though, all the fun decks need rares I don't have (well, means I don't have Sol for angel deck either!). I could probably do Warpath/Warpath/Verore, which would work out pretty much the same, but angels look neater.
Decks I'd actually like to play would probably be a Sleepers deck that has more things going besides Endless Horde spam, and Verore with Oblivion and other cool stuff they get. Blargh
@StrifeRaZoR Have you tried the Exile deck in practise? Seems it would have a few problems, like Vah'Nash being 0/2, so it's really easy to kill, and a rather obvious target too. Also, I find this game is very much about tempo and you usually can't afford to play cards that won't be useful during the next few turns. Death Worshippers are sort of ok in command (though being 2/2 initially often means they die before getting a chance to grow, Aether Acolyte is probably better), but so very slow otherwise. They *can* get to be monstrous, but they're a dead draw when you want power in the field now. Which is usually the case, unless you got a set of Mass Deaths and suck so you can stall