As quite possibly the only person on Giantbomb to care about SolForge, I was extremely excited to hear Drew bring it up on the podcast. What he didn't realize, however, was that today the game exited the early access phase and entered its open beta on both Steam and iPad. It is a F2P DCG (digital collectible game) and you can create your account here, although their servers have been up and down all day as they've been dealing with the myriad issues a small developer faces when launching an online game.

Of course, getting into a game of this sort can be incredibly intimidating regardless of your experience with other TCG/DCG's, so I thought I'd go ahead and open up this thread in hopes that a few of you might be curious enough about the game to want to ask some questions. It's fast-paced, fun, and a lot more straightforward than games like Magic or the WoW TCG. If you have even the slightest interest in collecting cards and building decks, this game is worth checking out.

Hm, I'm going to look into this. Is there any info at all about an Android version?

Just heard Drew talking about it and am downloading it right now.

@turtlebird95: My internet went down immediately after making this thread. The Android version is supposed to be promised for this year but right now their focus is on getting the PC and iPad launches stable. They've been silent on the subject outside of the random token mention here and there.

How fucked am I if I decide to spend zero dollars on this.

@lordxavierbritish: It depends on how dedicated you are.

Each play cycle should last about 3 months until the next set is released. If you are earning your daily rewards, and taking advantage of trading once it's implemented, you'll might be able to become T2 competitive after a month and T1 competitive after two months.

Of course it's hard to say for sure since the game literally just came out, but that's the pattern that some of the more seasoned players are saying is likely.

Was this the digital card game I recall seeing on Kickstarter, or was that something else?

It might have been SolForge, but it was probably Hex: Shards of Fate. Hex was a bigger profile game that had more marketing behind it since it's being made by Cryptozoic, a much larger company. Hex follows a more traditional DCG model akin to the template set by MTG, but it takes full advantage of the digital format with crazy effects and abilities that wouldn't be possible with physical cards.

@starvinggamer:

Ah ha, found it here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1965800643/solforge-digital-trading-card-game?ref=live

I'm actually glad to hear you didn't even really know about it though. Sometimes kickstarter games end up feeling like you might as well not even bother if you didn't pledge to them to get started. So it's encouraging that you enjoy it despite not having contributed back then.

@brg9000: Oh no, don't misunderstand me, I have been on the SolForge train since the beginning. But since you said there was a Kickstarter DCG that you were only tangentially aware of, Hex seemed like the most likely candidate.

Ohh I see, I did misunderstand. Follow-up question then: Is the early access/beta limited to or made significantly better for backers? Will I feel like I'm missing out by not being part of that club right now?

@brg9000: Well, the backers put money in extremely early and got a lot more bang for their buck, so to speak.

That said, if you're willing to put in the time and/or money, there's nothing stopping you from reaching an equally competitive level. Also keep in mind that the open beta is going on right now and any cards/currency you earn will carry over to the full release. Since the F2P part of the game follows a daily rewards structure, the sooner you get in the better.

IIRC the daily rewards are for:

• First log in of the day
• First win of the day
• Play 3 online matches

and they operate on a 22-hour reset timer.

@starvinggamer: I've been playing a lot of Scrolls recently, and have been looking to get into more card games.

Is it worth trying out? And how is the Games for Windows Live on PC? And what sets it aside from Magic and other TCGs? I liked Scrolls because it made use of the hex based board and had a strategical element to the placement of your units.

@chavtheworld: Well, it's free so I'd say definitely yes. Again, caveat, their servers are slammed right now and everything is on fire. This is like a team of probably a dozen and half of them are designers so they're stretched a bit thin.

I'm not sure where the GFWL question is coming from, this is a Steam release.

As far as what sets it apart from most other TCG's, well, almost everything. Here's a general breakdown of play:

You start with a hand of 5 cards from your 30 card deck. Cards consist of creatures and spells and can level up 2 times to a maximum level of 3. Each player has five lanes where they can play a creature. Creatures generally only interact with the opponent's creature in the same lane, attacking each other or, when the lane is clear, attacking the other player directly. However, because of the various abilities creatures have, there's a lot of nuance in choosing the positions you place your creatures in.

Each turn, you can play any 2 cards from your hand (or 1 on your first turn if you're going first). The cards you play then enter your discard pile as leveled up versions of themselves. At the end of your turn you discard you entire hand and draw another 5 cards. This goes on for 4 turns, at which point you shuffle your entire discard pile back into your deck and draw another 5 cards.

So for example, if I go second, I will play a total of 8 cards over 4 turns. On my fifth turn, I am drawing 5 cards from my reshuffled deck that now has 8 level 2 cards and 22 level 1 cards. This cycle continues until a player manages to reduce their opponent's life total from 100 to 0.

The level up mechanic provides for some extremely deep strategy, both on the deckbuilding level and in actual play. Some cards have extremely powerful abilities at level 1, but drop off significantly by comparison when they reach level 3. Others are essentially useless at levels 1 and 2, but by the time they reach level 3 are practically unstoppable powerhouses.

For example, the Deepbranch Prowler is a beefy 7/7 at level 1, immensely powerful when you consider that the average strength of a level 1 creatures typically falls around 4/5. However, at level 2 it only goes up to 8/8 and 9/9 at level 3. By comparison, the average level 2 creatures is typically around 9/10 and at level 3 this goes up to ~15/16.

On the other hand, Chrogias comes out at level 1 as a measly 1/1. At level 2 it's not much better as a 0/15 creature that doesn't attack, even if you buff its power. But when it reaches level 3, it hits the field as a 40/40 with trample and regenerate 5.

@starvinggamer: Oh right, I saw the Games for Windows logo in their trailer and thought it was GFWL >.> Derp.

Hmm, that sounds pretty interesting. It sounds like the lane mechanic is somewhat akin to what Scrolls has, but the levelling seems interesting. I might look into downloading it. Thanks!

@chavtheworld: NP, my Steam ID is catbond if you want to ask me any more questions, and my SolForge ID is StarvingGamer if you want to play some games.

Holy 76 hours played.

Is it fun?

Another question not related to the topic: Why are you always on at 3 A.M. playing Animal Crossing?

@joeyoe31: I think so

Also, I don't know what time zone you're in, but I usually dink around in Animal Crossing with my Beyoncé after our daughter has gone to sleep, typically around 10PM PDT or later.

It's a game that's very easy to leave on in the background while you're doing other things like cooking dinner, caring for a child, sleeping, that sort of thing.

Still, I've probably played it a ton.

This game is awesome.

I played ~3 matches yesterday and it seemed simply okay. I know it's a rough open beta, but a lot of the menus are realllly bad and pretty obviously ported from the iPad version.

My main questions are about how deck-building, card unlocks, and the F2P work, especially if I don't want to spend any money on it. I looked through a few of the menus but they were so convoluted that I couldn't really gather any information from them.

Deck-building is pretty straightfoward. There are only three restrictions:

• Must include 30 cards
• May only include cards of up to 2 different factions
• May only include a maximum of 3 copies of a single card

In the Deck Building menu, where your collection is displayed, there's a button on the top right you can click to toggle between a slideshow or text list of your cards. The text list is significantly more useful as it allows you to sort cards based on numerous criteria. There are also various toggles on the top if you want to filter by faction, card type, or display different card levels.

Cards fall into three rarities, Common, Rare, Heroic, Legendary. Unlocks can be handled in a traditional manner, bought with real money (or rather buying Gold with real money then buying packs with gold because we all know that adding layers of abstraction increases the likelihood of spending money) in three different pack types.

• Basic Booster ~$0.25 includes 3 cards, minimum 1 Rare
• Normal Booster ~$2.15 includes 8 cards, minimum 2 Rare and 1 Heroic
• Premium Booster ~$12.50 includes 10 cards, minimum 3 Rare, 3 Heroic, and 1 Legendary

The reason the card designations per pack are listed as "minimum" is because there's a chance for any of them to be upgraded in rarity. This means that it is possible for a Basic Booster to contain 2 Rares, a Heroic or even a Legendary if you're lucky enough. Initial findings seems to suggest that the chance at upgrading rarities falls somewhere around 1/8 per card. This would make it around 1/64 to pull a Legendary from a Basic booster, meaning that Premiums would still be the way to go if you weren't looking for Commons or Rares.

If you're interested in F2P there are three daily tasks you can do to expand your collection.

• Log in
• Win one match (vs. AI counts)
• Play 3 online matches

These tasks are on individual 22-hour timers and. Each time you complete one, you are guaranteed to earn a random amount of Silver (the range seems to be something like 600-1600 or so) and anything from a single card to a Premium Booster. If it's a single card it can be of any rarity, and if it's a booster you open it and it allots you cards as usual. Right now Silver can only be spent on Basic Boosters at a cost of 900 Silver each, so after an hour's worth of play can get you anywhere from 9-20+ new cards for your collection.

They are also working on a single-player campaign for the full release which will likely be a way to earn additional cards. It's hard to know for sure, but some people are estimating that dedicated F2P players should be able to become competitive in a set within 2 months. Given the planned 3-month cycle for sets, this will give F2P players one month of top-level play before new cards are released.

@turtlebird95: Apparently there's an Android version in the works though they said the same thing about Ascension for almost 2 years now.

I've been enjoying the game, but crashing has been a nightmare lately.

@starvinggamer: After reading this thread just tried it out playing against my brother, which was really fun! A few questions: based on your experience with Magic: The Gathering - how does the strategic depth compare...... or what my brother and I were wondering - How much does luck play into matches? Because the first few games we've had, it's hard to judge with such limited experience (and decks!)

Good shout out though, this game seems really awesome!

@el_tajij said:

Yeah, I'd like to know that too; from the ~10 matches or so that I've played, it seems like there's little to no depth in deckbuilding when compared to Magic. Curious to know what high-level Solforge is like to know if I should keep playing or just uninstall and forget about it.

I'd say that luck is as much a factor as it is in MTG, but for different reasons. Because of the draw-discard style of play, you can't sit on answers to specific threats. You have to draw into them. However, because you're seeing 2/3 of your deck every 4 turns, the chances of reaching an equivalent to mana-screwed/flooded is much more unlikely. Unlike Magic, even if you're drawing shit, you can still play cards every turn and try to stall until you pull what you need.

As far as depth goes, well, you have to remember that this is the first release of only ~180 cards. That said, the wide variety of amazing abilities that cards have allows for really interesting synergies and it can be excruciating trying to decide which 3ofs I can sacrifice and make 2ofs so I can squeeze another few cards into my deck. Not only am I building my deck for the meta, during each game I am having to decide not only which cards are best to play right now, but when I should take a bad trade in order to play a card that I may need a higher level of on a later turn to deal with the deck I'm playing against.

We just had our first official/unofficial constructed tournament and there was a lot of deck variety and a lot of interesting ideas. For example, the deck that was winning before the servers crapped out on us was this out of nowhere Nekrium/Tempys shaper deck. Shapers are creatures that, starting at level 2, have effects that proc every time you cast a lower level card. The idea was to level a bunch of shapers during A1, then play them during A2 along with a spell that let you cast extra level 1 spells on your turn to have them keep going off, putting your opponent into a major deficit. Not only did this catch everyone off guard, it was a deck most intelligently designed to deal with variance and overcome the best-of-1 format by mitigating the problems drawing a bunch of level 1 cards during A2 can normally cause a player.

Ok, for example, look at these cards and think about the synergistic possibilities building a deck around them would afford you:

Keeper of the Damned Creature - Zombie Necromancer

• L1 - 5/4; Activate: Another Target Level 1 creature gets "When this creature is destroyed return it to one of your available spaces at random."
• L2 - 9/8; Activate: Another Target Level 2 creature gets "When this creature is destroyed return it to one of your available spaces at random."
• L3 - 17/15; Activate: Another Target creature gets "When this creature is destroyed return it to one of your available spaces at random."

Zimus the Undying Creature - L1 Soldier; L2/3 Zombie Soldier

• L1 - 5/2
• L2 - 10/5; When Zimus, the Undying is destroyed for the first time, return him to the field in one of your available spaces at random.
• L3 - 14/7; When Zimus, the Undying is destroyed, return him to the field in one of your available spaces at random.

Grave Pact Spell

• L1 - Destroy target creature you control. Destroy target level 1 creature.
• L2 - Destroy target creature you control. Destroy target level 2 creature.
• L3 - Destroy target creature you control. Destroy target level 3 creature.

Note: Darkshaper Savant's ability now gives -3/-3 at L2 and -5/-5 at L3; Grimgaunt Devourer is now Creature - Grimgaunt (not that it is relevant here)

EDIT: And that's 9 cards that all compliment each other insanely well. If you wanted to shove 3ofs of all of them into your deck, you would only be able to fit three more cards in. So now you have to start weighing the advantages of other spells you might need for specific threats, and which of these cards you can afford to sacrifice to make room.

@starvinggamer: Yeah, that actually looks pretty good as the main focus of a deck. Having only seen the two starter decks and the very few cards that I've pulled, I didn't see much deck synergy other than "hey you have a card or two that lower's attack and then another card or two that can kill an enemy with low attack" that seemed incredibly tame compared to MTG.

I guess the best way to start pulling cards like that to put together a deck is just to keep playing? Is there any other way to get silver than just the 3 daily things?

@ajamafalous: Not yet but there is a single-player campaign coming which I'd assume will allow you to earn more cards. Also there's going to be an achievement system of some sort. Coming soon will also be draft tournaments which you may be able to trade your way into using the packs you get from the F2P stuff but I'm not sure on that one. If not, theoretically a good enough player could still "go infinite" after buying their way into a single draft.

Also if you keep your eyes on the solforgegame.comtournament forums, you might find some community events with prizes. Yesterday there was a constructed tournament run by the main SolForge fan site that gave out $5 credits as door prizes and next friday will be an UnHeroic (only commons and rares) constructed tournament run by the same guys.

@starvinggamer: Thanks for the super informative reply and the insight into deckbuilding. I guess the problem i'm having so far is looking at it from a Magic the Gathering perspective. I've been playing a few games online and keep kicking myself for playing a hand and suddenly realizing as an afterthought there were better combos available or not using combos and positioning to it's full potential. The adaptive nature of it is really interesting - and that shaper deck sounds........ like a nightmare to deal with!

I'll check it out at some point. Seems like a novel idea. Just hope it doesn't go the way of Battleforge.

@ajamafalous: Ok, just a quick update in case you were still wondering. Apparently one of the possible rewards for doing your dailies is a free draft, and if you're earning your dailies every day you should be getting about one free draft a week.

EDIT: Drafts are not in the game yet but they're going to be added soon.

@starvinggamer: If you're playing on PC I'd be interested in playing with you; bizarre number of technical issues aside.

Tried this out today, it's pretty fun in the same way Magic 201X is fun. Seems like the card (Stag?) that heals you when you play it is super broken considering the stats on the monster aren't too bad and you could draw them infinitely due to how decks work (5/10/15 hp). I won a match earlier against a guy that drew level 3 stags about 5 or 6 times leading to winning on the final turn, -8 to -5; but I did about 200 damage to him and he did merely 105 to me. Haven't really seen a reason why you wouldn't just stack up your deck with as many identicals of great cards as possible (Storm bird with haste, Undead Knight hero guy (non Zombie), and so on) since there's no resources or limitations from doing so. Synergy decks can win but you do have to sort of draw the right sequence of cards. Since decks don't run out luck plays a much larger role than it does in traditional deck building simulators. 2 matches I had were super close and the third I just had bad draws; though I did revamp the deck after that to incorporate the bullshit stag.

@fredchuckdave: Actually it's cross platform play so your games sync from iPad to PC. That said, yes I do play primarily on PC as that's the only way to actually finish games right now o_O

Glowstrider Stag is decent, but you have to consider what you're giving up to play it/put it in your deck. Early on it trades decently with some creatures, but that becomes less and less true as the game goes on. Incremental card advantage is the name of the game, and it doesn't matter if the Stag is gaining you 30 health or 300 health if your opponent is slowly gaining board position on you and filling it with 25/25 creatures attacking you on his and your turn.

It's true that you generally want to have full playsets of your most powerful bombs, but that becomes less the case when looking at the remainder of your deck. You can try to go non-interactive and just steamroll the other guy and in a best of 1 it doesn't really matter, but at the top levels it's going to come down to the players that can win when drawing worse than their opponent. In order to do that, you need answers to effectively stall/stop your opponent's biggest threats so you can survive long enough to turn the tide. It might be worth turning a few of the cards less central to your deck's core strategy into 2ofs just so you can squeeze in a few copies of whatever deals with the current meta.

Anyways, if you want to play, feel free to add me on Steam. My ID is catbond and my SolForge account is under StarvingGamer. Be warned though, I leave the game open a lot whether or not I'm tabbed into the game or even at my desk. If you want to challenge me, send me a message over Steam to make sure that I'm there.

Got the game on PC and played 2 matches against the AI and its fun. Really wish the iPhone version was out right now, but oh well.

@starvinggamer: Right, well I've no intention for paying for this at present so I have no capacity to stack my deck and am more or less screwed against people that can; standard free to play experience. It would be alright if you made like 25 silver off each match played or something but it's just an abortively small amount through the daily rewards. That said I'd still be down to try it out, I'll be on in about 4.5 hours. Playing against the hard comp is really quite fun though, alongside the fairer matches I've played against other people.

@fredchuckdave: I dunno, you can typically earn enough silver to buy 3 or 4 packs, plus a few cards and typically another pack for the hour or so it takes to complete the dailies. That's a better acquisition rate than the other F2P card games I've seen.

Is anyone else getting a bug where it says "You Lose" no matter what? I should have won 3 games in a row but in each game right as i clicked battle to win, the game said it lost connection with the server. When I clicked to go back in on the game menu it says "game over" and when i go into the game it said I lost. All 3 losses happened right as I was about to attack and win the game. Then I was about to attack and win but the person I was facing would not finish their turn for about 10 minutes. I decide to go to the menu to just check it out and see if the game just hadnt updated and it was actually my turn but the menu says "game over" and when I go back into the game it says "You Lose" even though his timer is still ticking down and im up by about 50 life. WTF. It is so annoying and making me not play even though I think the game is awesome.

Also why the fuck is the timer 30 minutes? It's way too fucking long and easily abused. I have had multiple times when I'm about to win and people sit there and dont finish there turn, in what I awesome is an attempt to get me to concede because otherwise I have to wait 25 minutes to win the game. Anyway I'm done ranting, but has anyone else encountered this bug?

@cjduke: Yeah, that seems to happen to me when I'm not actually in the game when I win then try to reload it. It doesn't really matter because your wins/losses don't count for anything right now outside of earning your daily reward for your first win of the day and if you're having trouble getting that, just stomp the comp instead.

As far as the timer is concerned, well, they're looking into ways to deal with people who just idle out of their game but you have to realize that because wins don't mean anything, there's just as much of a chance that the player in question errored out in some way instead. There's a really nasty hitch on the iPad version that causes players to get repeat disconnect errors. When that happens to me I just concede because who the fuck cares.

I am definitely interested in trying this, the cross platform stuff really intrigues me as well, thanks for all this info man.

I've never played a CCG before. I'm digging the hell out of this, though the iPad issues are definitely a bummer. Still, playing the computer is a bit of fun.

Anyone know what's the little number on the top right of your portrait mean?

If it's during battle, it's your level. You level to second level at turn 5 or so and can play level 2 cards. If it's another number you are referring to, I apologise.

Personally I found this game to be a little barebones and underwhelming at the moment. I can see the potential though, I'll play it plenty after they release a few major updates for it. This, Hex and Hearthstone looks really promising.

That's not exactly true. Every four turns, you shuffle your discard pile back into your deck, including all the cards you played and leveled-up during turns 1-4. As your deck is now more powerful, you player level goes up as well.

Of course in 99.9% of cases, a player that is level 2 will only be able to ever draw cards that are also level 1 or 2. However, with a very specific set of cards and a very specific board state, it is possible to start drawing level 3 cards as well while still level 2. In that situation, you would be able to play those level 3 cards if you wanted to.

Been having fun so far but I'm getting absolutely destroyed by people who have Savant cards in their decks. I had the most trouble with Darkshaper Savant and still sort of do but currently it's Lifeshaper Savant that's really causing issues. They definitely feel overpowered.

@strangestories: Yep Savants are broken and one of the Grimgaunt cards is also broken, definitely takes a long, long time to develop a deck without paying for it and you'll be getting buttfucked right up until then. Comp is still fun to play though and they revamped the 3 matches daily so its 3 wins offline or online.