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World of Warcraft: Trading Card Game
4rch3nemy
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
How to play:
Choose a side (horde or alliance). Choose a class (druid, paladin, rogue, priest, shaman, warrior, mage, warlock). Now choose between numerous amounts of heroes with their own health totals, professions, talent specs, and unique once-per-game ability. Now you get to build a deck by adding equipment (for every item slot, if you choose!), items (potions), quests that you get to complete, allies, and abilities. Now you get to fight.
This collectible card game plays a lot like Magic:The Gathering with a few twists. As such you should feel right at home when you recruit your first ally (creature cards), use your first ability (sorceries/instants), or lay your first quest/resource (lands with one-use abilities). Combat is a little different, but very intuitive and simple.
If you haven't played M:tG (what's wrong with you?) then it's still really easy to get the hang of the game. They have demo decks and rules that you can print out on the official site. There's even an interactive flash-based tutorial that you can try out. It's straight-forward and explains everything you need to know to play the game.
Raids are another matter entirely. One person uses a special deck called a raid deck, and this boss player faces off against any number of players using their own decks. At the end of the raid, players get to open up treasure (flip over cards etc) to be used in the next raid. I haven't gotten the chance to play any raids yet but it sounds like it captures the "raiding" feeling quite well (minus the asshole raid leaders, ninjas, timesink, and strict attendance policies). There are 4 raids so far: Onyxia's Lair, Molten Core, Magtheridon's Lair, and Black Temple.
Tournament rules and formats
(all info is stolen from this document: official WoWTCG policies)
Constructed VS Limited
-Each tournament format supported by UDE is either a Constructed or a Limited format. Players can also participate in events as part of a team.
-In Constructed formats, players bring their own decks. UDE supports two variants:
-Constructed—All cards are legal.
-Block Constructed—Only cards from a specified block are legal (see Section C-8).
-In Constructed formats, players construct their own decks using their own card pools prior to the tournament. A Constructed deck must adhere to the following rules:
-A deck must include at least 60 cards, not counting the hero.
-A deck can’t include more than four copies of a single card unless that card has “unlimited” in its type line. You may include any number of unlimited cards in your deck.
-In Limited formats, players build decks from a limited card pool at the tournament using sealed product. UDE supports two variants:
-Sealed Deck (including Team Sealed)—Players open several WoW booster packs and build decks from the opened cards. For Team Sealed, players share the boosters they open.
-Booster Draft (including Team Draft)—Players open several WoW booster packs and pass them around the table, picking cards to add to their decks. For Team Draft, players do not share the drafted cards.
-In Constructed formats, players bring their own decks. UDE supports two variants:
-Constructed—All cards are legal.
-Block Constructed—Only cards from a specified block are legal (see Section C-8).
-In Constructed formats, players construct their own decks using their own card pools prior to the tournament. A Constructed deck must adhere to the following rules:
-A deck must include at least 60 cards, not counting the hero.
-A deck can’t include more than four copies of a single card unless that card has “unlimited” in its type line. You may include any number of unlimited cards in your deck.
-In Limited formats, players build decks from a limited card pool at the tournament using sealed product. UDE supports two variants:
-Sealed Deck (including Team Sealed)—Players open several WoW booster packs and build decks from the opened cards. For Team Sealed, players share the boosters they open.
-Booster Draft (including Team Draft)—Players open several WoW booster packs and pass them around the table, picking cards to add to their decks. For Team Draft, players do not share the drafted cards.
Legality of sets:
Heroes of Azeroth block wrote:Heroes of Azeroth - SET
Through The Dark Portal - SET
Fires of Outland - SET
Onyxia's Lair - TREASURE
Molten Core - TREASURE
Feast of Winter Veil - COLLECTOR
Burning Crusade block wrote:March of the Legion - SET
Servants of the Betrayer - SET
Hunt for Illidan - SET
Magtheridon's Lair - TREASURE
Black Temple - TREASURE
Darkmoon Faire - COLLECTOR
Crafted Cards 1-14
Where to play:
Tournament locator. Real life tournaments are teh best!™ Your local card/nerd shop is also a great resource to find some face to face games.. just ask the owners and have a look at their message board/calendars. At sanctioned tournaments you could win loot cards, Badges of Justice (send in 3 to redeem a rare card) and moneys. Also the official forum at the official site is a good place to ask around and get some feedback concerning events in your area. Stick your location in your sig and ask around.
Online. Experience with the cards is recommended. Using a program called Magic Workstation you can create a deck out of any cards released thus far, and play against other people online. The only problem is that more people play M:tG on the servers than they do WoW:TCG so it can be hard to find people to play with. Still, it's free and often new patches for WoW:TCG come out before the physical product does, so you can dick around with unreleased sets and get the edge on locals.
Click the spoiler for instructions which were shamelessly stolen from elsewhere on the internet.
Installing MWS and the World Of Warcraft patch
1) First download the Magic Workstation (MWS) file *click here*
2) Unzip\Extract the MWS folder then install MWS
3) After you Install MWS download the World Of Warcraft patch *click here for the latest WoW patch*
4) unzip\extract the WoW Patch and install it
5) Load MWS and press ok on both windows that pop up
6) Go to "File" then "open libraries" and select WorldOfWarcraft.mwBase
Building a Deck
1) Go to "view" and choose "edit deck"
2) go to File and press New Deck. You will be asked what you want your deck saved as.
3) select a card in your deck library and press the blue arrow to add it to your deck, or the green arrow to add it to your side deck. The Red Arrow takes cards out of your main deck\side deck.
4) Once your deck is done save it with the disk above your deck ( or go to file, save deck\library )
5) Deck size is minimum of 60 cards with no maximum deck size. Side decks must be exactly 10 cards ( 11 if you put your hero into your side deck )
Finding an opponent
1) go to Game then click on " Connent To Opponent "
2) Select MWSGames.Net or MWSPlay.net or enter your opponent's IP Address.
3) Find an opponent on the server you picked and press "Join"
MWS game controls
Shuffle: Ctrl + S
Draw: Ctrl + D
Roll Dice: Ctrl + I
Mulligan: Ctrl + M
Untap: Ctrl + U
Tap\Exaust: Double click the card you want to tap
*almost every other action can be done by right clicking on either something in play and choosing the action you want to do*
What you get:
This game is quite big so far and only getting bigger. There have been 8 sets, 4 raids, and 2 collector's sets (minisets with unique/fun cards). I *think* that everything is tournament legal. They want you to buy everything..
Sets:
- Heroes of Azeroth
- Through The Dark Portal
- Fires of Outland
- March of The Legion
- Servants of The Betrayer
- Hunt For Illidan
- Drums of War
- Blood of Gladiators
- Arena Grand Melee 5/5/09
- Death Knight Deluxe Starter 6/16/09
- Fields of Honor 6/30/09
- Onyxia's Lair
- Molten Core
- Magtheridon's Lair
- Black Temple
- Feast of Winter Veil (the christmas set)
- Darkmoon Faire
- Drums of War: PvP Battle Deck (8 exclusive cards)
When you open a booster pack you get:
• 13 commons
• 4 uncommons
• 1 rare or epic
• 1 hero
• 1 UDE Points card
Heroes of Azeroth, Through The Dark Portal, and Fires of Outland only contain:
• 10 commons
• 3 uncommons
• 1 rare or epic
• 1 hero
There's also a chance that you may open up a valuable loot card. These cards have a code on them with which you can redeem in-game loot like mounts, cosmetic trinkets, and vanity pets. If you take a look at ebay some of these things sell for hundreds of dollars. They're pretty rare.
Along with loot cards, on the UDE points cards theres a chance that you may get a trade good (khorium bar, primals, heart of darkness, etc). Upper Deck has a redemption program where you can mail in your trade good cards for a crafted item.. highly sought after cards which are, as far as I know, tournament legal and pretty powerful.
The UDE points cards give you 100 points each and you can cash in those points for in-game tabards, a fireworks trinket (reusable), and little fun goodies.
All those things make me sweat at night, my urge to buy more is always at peak levels.. and I've only played since yesterday. *shudder*
Useful Links:
• WoWTCGdb - A database of all the cards in the game. Sortable, linkable, awesome.
• Tournament Locator - Locates sanctioned events near your city so that you can get your geek on.
• Starcity / TCGPlayer / WoWTCG News / WowTCG Scrub- Event coverage, tournament deck lists, strategy articles and general WoW:TCG information.
Post if you have an interest in playing online, wanna discuss deck lists, tournament happenings, loot, raids, how cool I am, etc.
4rch3nemy on
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Fianna Spellbinder
I asked my friend and he said it sucked. Great.
So I also ordered a box of Heroes of Azeroth booster packs (24 packs per box, 15 cards per pack) that I'm going to split with my buddy who also just started playing.. should be interesting.
'Course, those special loot cards would be useless to me now, as i play WAR instead of WoW.
There are allies (creatures) that are horde only, alliance only, and some that are neutral. Items are all neutral but there are class restrictions. Abilities for the most part are class-based but there are ones for every class. Some abilities require a specific talent spec to be present on your chosen hero. Some allies are like that as well, requiring demonology or beast mastery..
I'd say your best bet, if you wanted to buy a deck, is to get a starter deck. It'll give you some staples for your (randomly opened) class as well as a couple booster packs to bolster your deck with.
I opened up a mage (Ta'Zo) deck and with those few boosters that I bought, made a full 60 card deck to play with. I beat my friend, who runs a shaman deck, twice in two games.
EDIT: Example of a neutral ability.
EDIT2: Here's a great link to browse cards, heroes, etc.
some of those loot cards can be sold for real cash monies in excess of one thousand dollars.
just keep that in mind.
The starter kit comes with a premade 32 card deck and a hero that complements said deck. It also comes with 3 oversized hero cards (mostly for collecting, but can be played with.. since heros aren't shuffled or anything like that) and 2 booster packs of the set you got your starter kit from.
There are 3 starters as far as I know:
Heroes of Azeroth
Through the Dark Portal
March of the Legions
So choose one of those and get a few booster packs to supplement your deck with allies/equipment/quests. You need a 60 card deck (not including your hero).
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Here's the other halfway.
Hail SATAN!
They recommend buying 2 starter kits and playing with a friend who's done the same to learn the game.. a tutorial of sorts. It's just easy to buy the kit and THEN start doing the booster thing since you'll at least have some combinations of cards that actually work together. Both me and my friend did this. Works well, actually. He got lucky and got a warlock deck.. I wanted to play warlock.. they seem almost like the "black" from magic.
Question:
Am I itching to buy another box of boosters behind my friend's back for a strictly numerical advantage?
Answer:
yes
EDIT so I don't triple post: Has anyone fiddled around with Magic Workstation yet? I haven't, really, but I'm going to make a deck right now. That means I'll be ready for my very first online game today. Hopefully one of you will pop my MWS cherry.
I've got a group setting up to try out the game, and the general idea is to each take a starter (from whichever set it takes to match faction and preferred class) and split a Heroes of Azeroth booster box (quite cheap nowadays) to get up to 60 cards. The hope is that this is enough to get us through Onyxia's Lair.
Think we'd have a shot with that little?
Steam - Wildschwein | The Backlog
Grappling Hook Showdown - Tumblr
One thing I would recommend is buying some of the Onxyia treasure action cards online. They'll get you abilities for each class that will be useful against her. For example, priest gets a mass heal.
All of the raid decks are designed to be played by multiple people. Obviously the strength of the decks determines how many people would make a balanced match.
My friends and I have played Onyxia a number of times. We also have done Molten Core a time or two, and we've done Magtheridon once.
The thing that all these raid decks have in common is that they have lots and lots of "trash mobs" for you to kill. That means your player decks must have lots and lots of allies to be able to compete. I don't think you'd have enough good allies to manage a raid deck with only starters. The other thing is that the raid deck has a huge advantage. It takes a good amount of game experience to figure out how to beat it. If you're just starting out and learning the ropes, I would suggest playing a few normal games first to get a handle on the game mechanics. Raid decks are definitely a step above normal play.
The only other CCG I ever played was the old Decipher Star Wars game, and that game had a perfect release schedule. They took their time with each set and I never felt rushed by it at all. I was able to build up a fairly complete collection, slowly but surely over time.
With UD's WOW TCG its nearly impossible to collect if you aren't hardcore, because their sets are out of print and sold out almost as soon as they are released.
Retail booster box = $112 or so.
Online booster box = $52 and that includes shipping.
That's a bit more than 4 packs a month (24 packs / box) but you could buy one booster box every 2 months and still pay nearly the same price as 8 packs (again, in Canada). It's not as horrendously tough to collect if you spent just a touch more money on it. The game came out Nov 11th 2006 so it's been out nearly 2 years. At 6 full sized sets so far, that's only 3 sets/year. With another coming out in november I guess that number climbs to 3.5. That doesn't include raid decks and collector sets, of which there have been 4 and 2 respectively.
3.5 sets
2 raids
1 collectors
per year
At 4 boxes a year (one every 3 months) you're going to collect a whole shit load of cards. You're buying half that much now (in single booster packs).
PS: Jeeze I sound like a shill
But buying boxes just doesn't suit the setup I'm in. Like I say, its extremely casual. Some months we play a bunch, other months we don't play at all. 4 packs a month is more of an average than anything.
Also, buying just a few packs here and there spreads the cost over time. Whereas buying a box front-loads the cost. None of us are really at a point where we want to spend 100+ dollars at a time. Its a lot easier to buy a pack here and a pack there.
Steam - Wildschwein | The Backlog
Grappling Hook Showdown - Tumblr
A new set every four to five months is "fast"?
Must be glad to have missed "Rolling Thunder," then.
(Cookie to anyone knows what I'm talking about.)
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
(I didn't know what it was, but I found a site with a quick google.)
Lucas: Buy a box and split the costs with your friends (when you guys decide to play).. still a heckuvalot cheaper than buying the boosters one at a time..
But damn, it looks good. Its such a brilliantly conceived idea.
Sometimes it was faster, *every* month.
Granted, it did have a interesting idea in that some of the sets/games had flat rarity.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
WoW is probably a tighter rules-set than Magic is and there is absolutely zero chance of mana flood/screw
Not having to manage mana curves during deck building alone makes it superior in my opinion.
So my buddy told me he built himself a warrior deck. I'm expecting a solo warrior (massive amounts of equipment and armor) .. and not knowing the metagame that well.. I'm going with a warlock deck.
TIME TO BURN.
edit for top page zazz.
i would get this, but i really shouldn't even be spending my money on magic cards...
Which is a huge plus, mana screw/flood is the worst part of Magic. Also having to spend hundreds of dollars to properly set up mana bases is the other worst part, they should print fetchlands/painlands/shocklands as uncommons, not rares. Having to spend $80 on 4 fetchlands and 4 painlands for a good mana base for any 2-color deck is retarded.
This on the other hand I disagree with, properly managing mana curves is a good part of the advanced strategy behind deckbuilding, and its good to know that a game has such a depth of possible investigation (from total newbie play to advanced mathematical modeling of mana curves and draws).
While I really like the setting/lore/fantasy concept of Magic, I also really love the idea of playing a "rogue" deck or a "warrior" deck, it has so much flavor.. especially since I've played WoW enough to get a rogue to 70 and a priest to 54 and hugely enjoy the mechanics of the game.
On top of that I have a bunch of friends who play magic so they're totally into CCGs but who also played WoW (a lot more than I did actually).
The real problem is money, playing CCGs you really have to devote yourself to one only, because its so money and time intensive. Also, Magic is so old and has such a vast card pool that it really supports an immense variety of playstyles.
And the Merciless Gladiator's Greatsword is pretty smexy.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Steam - Wildschwein | The Backlog
Grappling Hook Showdown - Tumblr
But the problem with never trying out other systems is that you miss out on all the other interesting TCGs that play nothing like Magic. Vs is nothing like Legend of the 5 Rings is nothing like WoW is nothing like Game of Thrones, etc. But then I've been someone who always loves to try out the new games, unlike most of the people in the Dallas area who only want to to play Magic. In fact, lately I've been on a kick picking up some great old out of print CCGs (Doomtown, Babylon 5, 7th Sea) just because they're so unlike anything out today and such great fun games.
I think that the massive amount of success that the TCG has had, though, will drive more and more people to "try it" and when they do they'll see the sweet-awesome-cool game that lies behind the smexy coat of wow-paint.
I mean.. $100,000 first place prize at worlds last year? That's the highest payout at any ccg tournament. Ever. Just goes to show how big this game can get.
Hopefully more competitive players rally behind this game because I'm ready to give my magic collection away for it.
1.5 boxes Heroes Of Azeroth
1 box Through The Dark Portal
1 box March Of The Legion
... oh god why did I get into a CCG?
When (if) my friends and I get serious about the game we have a few raids to buy before we even do tourneys (which are a 3+ hour drive) too.. sigh.
You're right though, block constructed is probably the way to go.
EDIT: $30 for heroes/dark portal, $115 for fires of outland (ZOMG 1/12 BOXES HAVE A SPECTRAL TIGER LOOT!!), $60 for the others
..yeah whoever came up with this pricing scheme can DIAF.
I too really enjoy this game, and was suckered into it by some terrible, drug waving friends of mine. But that first smell of sweet, sweet WoW-laced-cocaine has suprised my senses, and encouraged me to try more.
I am worried about spending money on this game, without a community. So as such, I'm going to take it on myself (and force my friends and family in the process), to build a community in my city, so that I don't have to be pummeled by the same people over and over, and new people can experience the thrill of beating up on my 4-year-old like card playing ability.
price per box has to be about on par with the price of that fucking tiger (which still sells for high hundreds of dollars (IE, $700+)
otherwise it'd be cheaper for them to keep all of the boxes and just dig through them for the loot card.