Just attended the release tourney here at Rainy Day Games in portland, OR.
You get a starter box which is randomly one hero and a deck that's pre-constructed for him and two boosters. $20 and we all got an extra booster for prize and some got some little dice bags if they did well.
I got the troll fire mage and the two boosters added about 5 cards to the preconstruct 30 card deck (in draft/sealed its 30 card minimum decks) that were actually useful so drafting is going to be hard to do unless people don't pick the same hero's as everyone else and not everyone goes one alliance/horde.
One thing that became apparent in sealed is that mages = godlike. I went 4/0 and my games never made it past the 10th turn, yes, really. Now here comes the science!
Decks consist of abilities/creatures/equipment/quest. For mages at this point in the game, equipment = ass except maybe a few epics that you aren't likely to get in sealed. Our bread and butter is our spells that we just cast and then they hit the graveyard and currently there are no counterspells from what I have seen. So we get to just go crazy with damage spells to remove their creatures, and our creatures come across like a football team sacking a chess player.
So right now it seems that mages have the upper hand in just their un-reliance on armour/weapons which can eat up critical slots for creatures and abilities. They are also easily delt with by spells and creatures who have the ability to remove armour and weapons, yet there isn't anything to stop non-"ongoing" abilities so our spells are given free reign. Just make sure you have some card draw/ability grab quest and you will do very well.
The only thing I haven't been able to do yet is play vs another mage class, I imagine the mirror match would be ugly in mage vs mage since no one is going to have much in play at any time. priest/warlocks both will be nasty, especailly priest who seem to have discard effects built into many of their cards, not sure yet what warlocks really do, haven't seen much of their cards.
So yea, word of warning to those who want to play rogues/warriors/paladins; Creatures > equipment, don't go crazy when building your deck.
Otherwise though, this game is shaping up to be pretty kick ass and I can't wait for the onixya dungeion and to get some more friends into it and do some 3v3 team games.
God yes, the "DPS" of that troll mage. I got him too.
Flamestrike, you say? 3 damage to the enemy hero and ALL his allies? And then just stack some Fireballs on the enemy hero.
I think Flamestrike even hits ALL enemy players in the game in a 3+ player game.
I've seen some allies that can destroy abilities, as can the classless Burn Away ability, but the allies that can do it tend to have a hefty cost - the Besh'iah can destroy a target ability by also destroying an ally in my party.
And I agree on the equipment sentiment. Sure, there's some nice stuff, but you want some allies to soak damage for your hero first. And you're more likely to get allies into play way before your equipment, due to the rarity of items.
This game is pretty whacky. I agree with Scosglen that those who are willing to drop a lot of money on boosters will dominate the game. My brother and I bought two starter decks, and a booster box. Sorting through all the cards, we have several heroes we can't build decks for because there's a measley amount of associated cards.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited October 2006
I'm willing to bet they built this game with the assumption that as more expansions are released, the ability to build decks will go up. For now, we are limited... but that will get better in the future.
for the most part if you want to build a hero deck, you need the starter for that class of hero it seems, otherwise yea, you gotta buy a shit ton of boosters.
For the most part me and my friends are each going to buy a box and split the commons/uncommons for our hero's initially so we can get some decks for atleast one of each hero put together (not one of each hero for both sides...god that would take alot of commons/uncommons).
From what I have seen of the epic/legendary stuff I don't think a person playing with just commons/uncommons/rares will truely be at that disadvantage as long as they make sure to have some burn away's and armour/weapon removal, along with decent ally's. Most of the epic/rares are expensive and so won't make a huge difference in play if you've beaten the person down early on.
I'm willing to bet they built this game with the assumption that as more expansions are released, the ability to build decks will go up. For now, we are limited... but that will get better in the future.
Extra expansions don't help limited play at all. Also, in the instruction book, it repeatedly mentions they are going to add more requirements for compatibility with heroes in future expansions.
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ZephosClimbin in yo ski lifts, snatchin your people up.MichiganRegistered Userregular
edited October 2006
there isnt a ton of class specific cards, and i think there is maybe 1 or 2 cards per class that are talent specific.
but nonetheless, through 3 starter sets and an entire box of boosters, me and my buddies dont have the cards to build a rogue deck.
and we didnt even get a single ranged weapon (there is only one, though i guess)
There's two ranged weapons actually, bone bow and dwarven hand cannon. Doesn't make a hunter deck any easier to make from scratch though.
ADDENDUM: I found a modular TCG application called OCTGN which has been tweaked to play the WoW TCG. There are full card lists available with the card art for every card, xml sheets for all of the starter decks, over-the-internet play support, and it just generally kicks ass.
no walmart near me, and target is too far out i think too.
I already have a starter.
i'm trying to decide if i want to pick up a 2nd starter, or just go for boosters though.
The only reason why I wouldn't get a second starter, price aside, is that there is that chance, howebeit slight, of me getting the same pre-constructed. and I doubt I can return it once its been open.
On the other hand, I do want an oversized version of my pally, as I love me those oversized cards...
ADDENDUM: I found a modular TCG application called OCTGN which has been tweaked to play the WoW TCG. There are full card lists available with the card art for every card, xml sheets for all of the starter decks, over-the-internet play support, and it just generally kicks ass.
COuld their draft rules be any more vague? It says you can pick any hero in the game for the draft... Is that any Hero you draft, or can you just pick a Hero from your collection?
Also, since someone asked, this game is very much like versus. A few of the big differences are the fact that all card use resources, like in Magic, as opposed to having threshold costs on abilities. Also, you have a hero to represent life total instead of a base life.
I'm gonna try building a constructed deck with the box my brother bought.
Also, the deck boxes posted are U-Deck boxes. They are pretty nice boxes.
Things people need to keep in mind when thinking about this set in limited and for collecting.
Its a large set of 330+ cards, not a 150 expansion like magic, chances of getting cards you want is much slimer.
cause they went the yugioh route of one rare slot that can be either rare/epic/legendary we are all going to be taking it in the pooper to get the epic/legendary cards, I hate this style, but the games too fun for me to not buy it on the hopes they stop (which they won't, have you seen the $$$ they make of yugioh???).
building decks that contain 4's of epics/legendaries is going to be EXPENSIVE and really, not that necessary if you consider what the epics are, most are situational and expensive, putting 4 of in your deck means your going to be putting one into the mana zone early since its useless in your hand. All the class abilities are Rare or lower, so its just a few equipments and characters that hit the epic/legendary scale and with the easy removal this game provides (4 to just kill a creature as a base ability anyone can take, and 4 to also just kill any armour/weapon as a base ability) trying to build a deck around these high-cost things I don't think will be viable.
personally I would of liked to see a limit of 2 of the same epics in a deck and no duplicate legendary's as part of the deck building rules, but they know they can make more money this way, so yay capitalism and greedy companies! I for one welcome our new EA / Upperdeck overlords (so long as they give me a free Onixya raid deck).
Ok, so after playing a number of games, these are my thoughts;
My local card shop cracked open the plastic off of the starters so that people knew what characters they would be getting, though you were limited to 1 starter per class.
I picked up a Lock deck for myself, hunter and mage for one friend and a
warrior for another, plus a box of boosters.
The starters themselves come with a number of the classes' spells, which is a good thing, since just about every ability for a hero is either uncommon or rare. Its almost impossible to build a solid deck from a starter, to be honest you can't even come close.
Box-wise, it was full of mage/hunter love, only one Curse of Agony, but 4 epics, Chromie (6 cost ally, can be tapped and removed for another turn, Hand of Edward the Odd, (Awesome, makes all your cards instant) Magni Bronzebeard, and Wall of the Dead. (For every ally you remove from your graveyard it gets a +1 armor counter)
As for deck construction, I've messed around with a few different builds. At the moment I'm treating quests as lands/plot twists, since thats all you really want to be putting in your resource row. I'm leaning towards card drawing/cycling ones like Donation of Wool, Torak's Assault/Defias Brotherhood and Brainstorm-esqe searchers like Shocked Giants/Kibbler's Pets and Master of the Hunt. I would say anywhere from 15-20 in a 60 card deck.
Allies, for the moment, seem to be the most important part of the decks, choosing ones that shore up weaknesses in your class. A few, such as the Horde one that lets you pay 1 resource to bump an allies attack by 2 for the turn, the 6 drop that has attack and health equal to your face down resources and the 3 drop protector for Alliance that lets you draw a card when it comes into play will most likely see a lot of play.
Equipment, I find is vital for some classes while almost useless for others. Casters have no real use for armor, other than ones like Mooncloth robe for card drawing. Caster weapons, I haven't seen many of, just Rod of the Ogre Magi, Hypnotic Dagger and Gift of the Magi. All of them are cheap to use, but very expensive to attack with. Hypnotic Dagger I find excellent in my Warlock deck, discarding is always a good thing, while the Gift is excellent in ability heavy decks like mages for restocking you hand.
For Warriors and Rogues however, weapons are pretty much mandatory. You need to get a weapon into their hands as fast as possible, since almost all rogue abilities need one to be effective, with the bigger warrior ones like Cleave also needing one. There is a lot of armor for warriors right now that is very solid, Golem Skull Helm, Wall of the Dead and Truesilver Breastplate are all nice pieces of armor, with a relatively cheap
cost.
Abilites, which is probably the weakest part of the game design wise, are going to be fairly few in your deck till you start picking up some boosters, since almost all class specific abilities are either uncommon or rare, with perhaps two or three common ones. And even in the boosters, you get around 15 cards, but only 4-5 abilities which then can be of any of the 8 classes, making it a pain if you're only creating the one deck.
I'll post later with what I've done on the decks I've built so far.
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ZephosClimbin in yo ski lifts, snatchin your people up.MichiganRegistered Userregular
edited October 2006
thats pretty awesome of them to crack the plastic off so you could pick.
the guy straight up told me "Its all random."
which i knew, but still, just sucks i got the same starter as my buddy.
My brother bought a box of these today, which is awesome because I think he just wanted the codes for his WoW Characters. THis means free reign over the cards (my personal Kryptonite)
He did pull the Turtle, so he is all sorts of excited about that.
I am gonna build a couple of random decks to learn the rules until the local store gets the starters. Then I will try something with a little more cohesion.
This game is looking pretty sharp though, and I don't think I have to worry too much about the playerbase being small like it was with VS. I definitely can see it being the next big hit.
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ZephosClimbin in yo ski lifts, snatchin your people up.MichiganRegistered Userregular
edited October 2006
if any of you blokes live in Chicago we should talk.
Zephos on
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited October 2006
I live in Rockford.. not close enough, and I'm moving in 2 months, but eh.
My bro's friend got some decks. And in appreciation for my insane druid (and because I really wanted a druid deck for my first deck), my bro's friend gave me Moonshadow, Alliance Resto druid with Alchemy and Herbalism, and 27 HP.
What she's doing in the PVP gear, I'll never know.. but her ability's nice.. shuffle your hand into your deck, and draw that many cards. I could use that.
Am I right to guess that Quest costs can be payed at any point in time?
yeah. Any card can be played as a resource (1 per round). Most cards are played face-down. Quests are played face-up if you so wish. When the quest is completed and the bonus provided, they are turned face-down.
yeah, never play a quest face down, never know when you'll have the mana or whatnot to complete it.
Eh, there might be a time when it is worthwhile to play a quest face down. There may be cards in the future that allow resources to be turned face-up or returned to the hand, or who knows. It's an option.
I played a friend tonight who picked up a Horde Priest deck. When we did the thirty card starter matchups, my Paladin deck easily one, mostly because of my armor. When we slapped together sixty card decks though, I didn't have nearly enough equipment, and lost twice.
I've noticed quite a few holes in my deck, although I don't think card-cycling is one of them, but now at least I have someone to play against, and it's a pretty fun game. Although Priest vs. Paladin is never going to be a short game. Ever.
Posts
You get a starter box which is randomly one hero and a deck that's pre-constructed for him and two boosters. $20 and we all got an extra booster for prize and some got some little dice bags if they did well.
I got the troll fire mage and the two boosters added about 5 cards to the preconstruct 30 card deck (in draft/sealed its 30 card minimum decks) that were actually useful so drafting is going to be hard to do unless people don't pick the same hero's as everyone else and not everyone goes one alliance/horde.
One thing that became apparent in sealed is that mages = godlike. I went 4/0 and my games never made it past the 10th turn, yes, really. Now here comes the science!
Decks consist of abilities/creatures/equipment/quest. For mages at this point in the game, equipment = ass except maybe a few epics that you aren't likely to get in sealed. Our bread and butter is our spells that we just cast and then they hit the graveyard and currently there are no counterspells from what I have seen. So we get to just go crazy with damage spells to remove their creatures, and our creatures come across like a football team sacking a chess player.
So right now it seems that mages have the upper hand in just their un-reliance on armour/weapons which can eat up critical slots for creatures and abilities. They are also easily delt with by spells and creatures who have the ability to remove armour and weapons, yet there isn't anything to stop non-"ongoing" abilities so our spells are given free reign. Just make sure you have some card draw/ability grab quest and you will do very well.
The only thing I haven't been able to do yet is play vs another mage class, I imagine the mirror match would be ugly in mage vs mage since no one is going to have much in play at any time. priest/warlocks both will be nasty, especailly priest who seem to have discard effects built into many of their cards, not sure yet what warlocks really do, haven't seen much of their cards.
So yea, word of warning to those who want to play rogues/warriors/paladins; Creatures > equipment, don't go crazy when building your deck.
Otherwise though, this game is shaping up to be pretty kick ass and I can't wait for the onixya dungeion and to get some more friends into it and do some 3v3 team games.
Flamestrike, you say? 3 damage to the enemy hero and ALL his allies? And then just stack some Fireballs on the enemy hero.
I think Flamestrike even hits ALL enemy players in the game in a 3+ player game.
I've seen some allies that can destroy abilities, as can the classless Burn Away ability, but the allies that can do it tend to have a hefty cost - the Besh'iah can destroy a target ability by also destroying an ally in my party.
And I agree on the equipment sentiment. Sure, there's some nice stuff, but you want some allies to soak damage for your hero first. And you're more likely to get allies into play way before your equipment, due to the rarity of items.
For the most part me and my friends are each going to buy a box and split the commons/uncommons for our hero's initially so we can get some decks for atleast one of each hero put together (not one of each hero for both sides...god that would take alot of commons/uncommons).
From what I have seen of the epic/legendary stuff I don't think a person playing with just commons/uncommons/rares will truely be at that disadvantage as long as they make sure to have some burn away's and armour/weapon removal, along with decent ally's. Most of the epic/rares are expensive and so won't make a huge difference in play if you've beaten the person down early on.
Extra expansions don't help limited play at all. Also, in the instruction book, it repeatedly mentions they are going to add more requirements for compatibility with heroes in future expansions.
but nonetheless, through 3 starter sets and an entire box of boosters, me and my buddies dont have the cards to build a rogue deck.
and we didnt even get a single ranged weapon (there is only one, though i guess)
Here are images of every single card though
http://www.zyeye.com/sets/heroesofazeroth.htm
ADDENDUM: I found a modular TCG application called OCTGN which has been tweaked to play the WoW TCG. There are full card lists available with the card art for every card, xml sheets for all of the starter decks, over-the-internet play support, and it just generally kicks ass.
Check it out: http://www.wowrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=419
Now i have to decide if this week i'm going to buy a 2nd starter deck or just go with 4 boosters.
was the most awesome thing ever.
O_O
That's a 5-damage, 0-cost weapon that your hero can weild. That is some strong stuff there.
although gamestop should be getting theirs monday/tuesday....
my personal store is just getting a box of boosters (24 packs) and 6 starter decks.
Or even Target might have them.
I already have a starter.
i'm trying to decide if i want to pick up a 2nd starter, or just go for boosters though.
The only reason why I wouldn't get a second starter, price aside, is that there is that chance, howebeit slight, of me getting the same pre-constructed. and I doubt I can return it once its been open.
On the other hand, I do want an oversized version of my pally, as I love me those oversized cards...
The problem is:
A) L5R is a very established cardgame, where players fall into specific camps.
It got posted on once here, and then faded away, along with many of the early experiments in posting styles for this sub-forum.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1073834366
Basically, it's one of the best CCG's on the market. And a lot of what is in the WoW CCG, to be honest, appears to come from it.
It looks interesting, but nothing happens when I try to run it. :x
Leeroy Jenkins
Lt. Capt. Dudefella
A Gnome warlock hero
Also, since someone asked, this game is very much like versus. A few of the big differences are the fact that all card use resources, like in Magic, as opposed to having threshold costs on abilities. Also, you have a hero to represent life total instead of a base life.
I'm gonna try building a constructed deck with the box my brother bought.
Also, the deck boxes posted are U-Deck boxes. They are pretty nice boxes.
Its a large set of 330+ cards, not a 150 expansion like magic, chances of getting cards you want is much slimer.
cause they went the yugioh route of one rare slot that can be either rare/epic/legendary we are all going to be taking it in the pooper to get the epic/legendary cards, I hate this style, but the games too fun for me to not buy it on the hopes they stop (which they won't, have you seen the $$$ they make of yugioh???).
building decks that contain 4's of epics/legendaries is going to be EXPENSIVE and really, not that necessary if you consider what the epics are, most are situational and expensive, putting 4 of in your deck means your going to be putting one into the mana zone early since its useless in your hand. All the class abilities are Rare or lower, so its just a few equipments and characters that hit the epic/legendary scale and with the easy removal this game provides (4 to just kill a creature as a base ability anyone can take, and 4 to also just kill any armour/weapon as a base ability) trying to build a deck around these high-cost things I don't think will be viable.
personally I would of liked to see a limit of 2 of the same epics in a deck and no duplicate legendary's as part of the deck building rules, but they know they can make more money this way, so yay capitalism and greedy companies! I for one welcome our new EA / Upperdeck overlords (so long as they give me a free Onixya raid deck).
Wyneth Harridan
Dizdemona
And the 2 you named.
3x arcane shot
2x eagle eye
2x track humanoids
3x ravenous bite
2x marked for death
PETS
1x rayder
2x Bloodclaw
1x old bones
INSTANT ABILITIES
1x on your feet
1x sudden reversal
1x face smash
WEAPONS & ARMOR
2x Krol Blade
1xDevilsaur leggings
22 various allies
14 various quests
playing a few games with this i found it pretty good, I'd love a fucking ranged weapon but ya know....
I think if the gamestop near me has starter decks in tomorrow I'll pick up one of them.
I desperately want a warrior or rogue deck, so i just may take my chances. and buying 4 boosters isn't any sort of guarantee of anything.
12 abilities
25 allies
15 quests
4 weapons/4 armor
My local card shop cracked open the plastic off of the starters so that people knew what characters they would be getting, though you were limited to 1 starter per class.
I picked up a Lock deck for myself, hunter and mage for one friend and a
warrior for another, plus a box of boosters.
The starters themselves come with a number of the classes' spells, which is a good thing, since just about every ability for a hero is either uncommon or rare. Its almost impossible to build a solid deck from a starter, to be honest you can't even come close.
Box-wise, it was full of mage/hunter love, only one Curse of Agony, but 4 epics, Chromie (6 cost ally, can be tapped and removed for another turn, Hand of Edward the Odd, (Awesome, makes all your cards instant) Magni Bronzebeard, and Wall of the Dead. (For every ally you remove from your graveyard it gets a +1 armor counter)
As for deck construction, I've messed around with a few different builds. At the moment I'm treating quests as lands/plot twists, since thats all you really want to be putting in your resource row. I'm leaning towards card drawing/cycling ones like Donation of Wool, Torak's Assault/Defias Brotherhood and Brainstorm-esqe searchers like Shocked Giants/Kibbler's Pets and Master of the Hunt. I would say anywhere from 15-20 in a 60 card deck.
Allies, for the moment, seem to be the most important part of the decks, choosing ones that shore up weaknesses in your class. A few, such as the Horde one that lets you pay 1 resource to bump an allies attack by 2 for the turn, the 6 drop that has attack and health equal to your face down resources and the 3 drop protector for Alliance that lets you draw a card when it comes into play will most likely see a lot of play.
Equipment, I find is vital for some classes while almost useless for others. Casters have no real use for armor, other than ones like Mooncloth robe for card drawing. Caster weapons, I haven't seen many of, just Rod of the Ogre Magi, Hypnotic Dagger and Gift of the Magi. All of them are cheap to use, but very expensive to attack with. Hypnotic Dagger I find excellent in my Warlock deck, discarding is always a good thing, while the Gift is excellent in ability heavy decks like mages for restocking you hand.
For Warriors and Rogues however, weapons are pretty much mandatory. You need to get a weapon into their hands as fast as possible, since almost all rogue abilities need one to be effective, with the bigger warrior ones like Cleave also needing one. There is a lot of armor for warriors right now that is very solid, Golem Skull Helm, Wall of the Dead and Truesilver Breastplate are all nice pieces of armor, with a relatively cheap
cost.
Abilites, which is probably the weakest part of the game design wise, are going to be fairly few in your deck till you start picking up some boosters, since almost all class specific abilities are either uncommon or rare, with perhaps two or three common ones. And even in the boosters, you get around 15 cards, but only 4-5 abilities which then can be of any of the 8 classes, making it a pain if you're only creating the one deck.
I'll post later with what I've done on the decks I've built so far.
the guy straight up told me "Its all random."
which i knew, but still, just sucks i got the same starter as my buddy.
He did pull the Turtle, so he is all sorts of excited about that.
I am gonna build a couple of random decks to learn the rules until the local store gets the starters. Then I will try something with a little more cohesion.
This game is looking pretty sharp though, and I don't think I have to worry too much about the playerbase being small like it was with VS. I definitely can see it being the next big hit.
My bro's friend got some decks. And in appreciation for my insane druid (and because I really wanted a druid deck for my first deck), my bro's friend gave me Moonshadow, Alliance Resto druid with Alchemy and Herbalism, and 27 HP.
What she's doing in the PVP gear, I'll never know.. but her ability's nice.. shuffle your hand into your deck, and draw that many cards. I could use that.
yeah. Any card can be played as a resource (1 per round). Most cards are played face-down. Quests are played face-up if you so wish. When the quest is completed and the bonus provided, they are turned face-down.
Eh, there might be a time when it is worthwhile to play a quest face down. There may be cards in the future that allow resources to be turned face-up or returned to the hand, or who knows. It's an option.
I've noticed quite a few holes in my deck, although I don't think card-cycling is one of them, but now at least I have someone to play against, and it's a pretty fun game. Although Priest vs. Paladin is never going to be a short game. Ever.
Really.
Man, if only I could find it somewhere.