Mythgard
Let me tell you about Mythgard
Hey, folks! I actually wanted to post this in the Video Games subforum yesterday (or earlier today, depends on your time zone) in order to bring some attention to the game, but something went wrong with the upload. So instead, I'll just post here. I'm going to go over the mechanics, settings and economy of the game, then share with you 3 Quality of Life features this game has that, in my opinion, blows everyone out of the water. Cool? Cool!
Mechanics
Before we go any further, some general info about the game:
- The game is out on PC and mobile, as well as browser, in Open Beta
- Both players start with 20 Health
- To win, bring you opponent down to 0
- There's fatigue, but instead of a constant growth (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ...), it's exponential by doubling every turn (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, ...)
- There's no mulligan, but each player starts with 7 cards.
Combat and deck-building
The game is pretty similar to both HS and Magic in many respects, but very different in others. (they even ask you about both games during the tutorial). The board is divided into 7 lanes per player, each lane allowing you to play one minion. A minion can attack in the lane opposite to it, or in any of the two adjacent lanes. Here's what the board looks like:
My guy is the 2/3, while my opponent has the 2/2. My guy can attack in front of him, front-left or front-right. Attacking an unoccupied lane deals damage to the opponent directly, but you can't do that unless all 3 lanes in front of a minion are free (aka the lanes are blocked, and the minions are called blockers, like the 2/2), or your minion has a special ability that lets you bypass that. You can also move your character on either adjacent lane, but you won't be able to attack anymore.
In terms of decks, you have 6 colours - Blue, Yellow, Red, Green, Orange, Purple - that you can combine however you like in a deck of 40, but realisticly you can only go with 2, mayyyyybe 3 colours for reasons I will explain in the next section. The amount of duplicates is tied to rarity, there are for rarities, Common (to which I will be calling Bronze from now on), Uncommon (I'll call Silver), Rare (I'll call Gold) and Mythic. You can have 4 Bronzes, 3 Silvers, 2 Golds and 1 Mythic of the same card in your deck.
Some minions also have abilities that can be activated for a certain cost (mana, gems, part of their life etc.), and you can still attack afterwards. A minion activating it's ability looks like this:
Hand size in Mythgard is 10, but instead of discarding cards when you go above that limit, you can draw to your heart's content, then discard at the end of your turn until you only have 10 left in hand.
Mana... and Gems
This is where things get VERY different from other card games. Here's what a card looks like in Mythgard:
Pretty standard, right? You have your Attack and Health at the bottom and the cost in the upper-left corner (the 4 dots in the upper-right corner represents the rarity, as well as the number of duplicates you can have in your deck of that card). If that number up there makes you think "oh, like Magic", you're wrong. Mana and Gems are two different resources in the game. Here's what the mana bar looks like:
The big number is the Mana you have left, the small one is the total amount, and the 3 symbols are your gems. When you play a card, you spend that card's amount of Mana, and consume the required Gems. Here's what the bar looks like after I play the Thane:
As you can see, I've spent two Mana and one of the Blue Gems is grayed out.
You can also see that my temporary Mana circle isn't glowing, and the flames above it are gone. The first one is an indicator that I haven't "Burned" a card yet, while the second is an indicator that I have. This is how you gain resources in the game.
To Burn a card, simply drag it over the Gem bar, and it will be shuffled back into your deck, giving you one Mana and a Gem of the same colour as the ring around the card's cost. If you draw the card again, it will be "Burnt", and you can't burn it again. Here's what a burnt card (right) looks next to an unburnt one (left):
Cards can have between 1 and 3 gems, and there are dual color cards that have 2 or 4 (1 or 2 of each color). Youc can have a maximum of 10 gems.
Enchantments and Artefacts
Now that we've covered the basics, let's get into some of the more unique aspects of the game.
Enchantments are special cards that you play over the lanes that grant special abilities to the minions occupying it or affect the board in other meaningful ways. Here's how an enchanted lane looks like(from left to right: not enchanted, enchanted, enchanted and occupied):
Artefacts are cards that you play once in order to gain a passive ability, or an ability that you activate under certain conditions. They don't occupy a space on the board and have a certain durability that decreases as you take damage. (they do NOT offer extra protection). Here's what it looks like in game (next to my profile picture), as well as an artefact card:
As you can see, Artefacts only have a single number at the bottom representing durability. If you have multiple artifacts, your most recent one will be the one taking damage.
Powers and Paths
Powers are... basically the same as in Hearthstone: small abilities that you can use anytime for a certain Mana cost (most 2, one of them 3). They don't require gems, and are noticeably weaker than their HS counterparts.
More interesting are the Paths. Those are passive abilities that just do stuff on their own, and some of them can get REALLY convoluted. Most of them require a deck to build around. Here's an example of a Path:
This is probably the most straight-forward and general-use of all Paths in the game. All of them give you a bonus life at the start, and all have a Pursuit effect, that activates if you go second.
Both Powers and Paths are independent of your colour, and you can combine them however you like.
Setting
So, we've talked about the mechanics, but what's the setting of the world? Where does all this happen?
Best way to describe it: ancient myths and legend in a modern world. You have giants sinking ships and towering over gas stations, a biker gang of Valkyries, military werewolves, dragons flying next to commercial airplanes, undead vikings at docks, aztech space destroyers and, if you're playing purple, everything anime.
Quality of Life
Finally, let me tell you about the quality of life in this game. There are a few nifty ones that are cool (being able to rearrange cards in hand, you can see the full art of the cards in you collection, deck importing and exporting, a really good Twitch overlay etc.), but there are 3 that I feel are just incredible:
Featured Decks
In the game client, under the "Decks" menu, when you go to the far left, there are two decks with an Orange border. Those are Featured Decks: a couple of community Decks that change every Monday and Friday that you can play even if you don't have all the cards. This is amazing for new players, as they have a new deck to play even with a small collection. Just a fair warning, those aren't necessarily the BEST decks, just the most interesting ones. (at the moment of writing, one of the decks is a highlander, despite there being no cards that benefit from that)
Built-in Deck Tracker
Yes, you've read that right. The game has a deck tracker built into itself. All you have to do is press the arrow on the far right side of your screen, and BOOM!, you can see all your cards, as well as your opponent's (that you know of).
Built-in Replay
Finally, there's the replay function that you can find in you profile. If you go to history, and click on the little eye, you can rewatch the game you've played. And if your opponent played a particularly interesting deck, you can see HIS ENTIRE DECKLIST in the aforementioned tracker. It's not perfect (there's no timeline, and it'd be nice to be able to favourite matches or export your opponent's deck), but it's better than most offerings.
Job's Done
And that's about it for me! If you want to try the game yourself, you can do so in the browser version as a guest before you make an account, but I do suggest playing on a client afterwards. If you want to learn more about the game, WathsUpWoody has a few very good guides on his channel.
Hope you enjoyed this read and I'll see you on the Mythgard battlefield.
Leave a Comment
You must be signed in to leave a comment. Sign in here.
Hey, folks! I actually wanted to post this in the Video Games subforum yesterday (or earlier today, depends on your time zone) in order to bring some attention to the game, but something went wrong with the upload. So instead, I'll just post here. I'm going to go over the mechanics, settings and economy of the game, then share with you 3 Quality of Life features this game has that, in my opinion, blows everyone out of the water. Cool? Cool!
Mechanics
Before we go any further, some general info about the game:
Combat and deck-building
The game is pretty similar to both HS and Magic in many respects, but very different in others. (they even ask you about both games during the tutorial). The board is divided into 7 lanes per player, each lane allowing you to play one minion. A minion can attack in the lane opposite to it, or in any of the two adjacent lanes. Here's what the board looks like:
My guy is the 2/3, while my opponent has the 2/2. My guy can attack in front of him, front-left or front-right. Attacking an unoccupied lane deals damage to the opponent directly, but you can't do that unless all 3 lanes in front of a minion are free (aka the lanes are blocked, and the minions are called blockers, like the 2/2), or your minion has a special ability that lets you bypass that. You can also move your character on either adjacent lane, but you won't be able to attack anymore.
In terms of decks, you have 6 colours - Blue, Yellow, Red, Green, Orange, Purple - that you can combine however you like in a deck of 40, but realisticly you can only go with 2, mayyyyybe 3 colours for reasons I will explain in the next section. The amount of duplicates is tied to rarity, there are for rarities, Common (to which I will be calling Bronze from now on), Uncommon (I'll call Silver), Rare (I'll call Gold) and Mythic. You can have 4 Bronzes, 3 Silvers, 2 Golds and 1 Mythic of the same card in your deck.
Some minions also have abilities that can be activated for a certain cost (mana, gems, part of their life etc.), and you can still attack afterwards. A minion activating it's ability looks like this:
Hand size in Mythgard is 10, but instead of discarding cards when you go above that limit, you can draw to your heart's content, then discard at the end of your turn until you only have 10 left in hand.
Mana... and Gems
This is where things get VERY different from other card games. Here's what a card looks like in Mythgard:
Pretty standard, right? You have your Attack and Health at the bottom and the cost in the upper-left corner (the 4 dots in the upper-right corner represents the rarity, as well as the number of duplicates you can have in your deck of that card). If that number up there makes you think "oh, like Magic", you're wrong. Mana and Gems are two different resources in the game. Here's what the mana bar looks like:
The big number is the Mana you have left, the small one is the total amount, and the 3 symbols are your gems. When you play a card, you spend that card's amount of Mana, and consume the required Gems. Here's what the bar looks like after I play the Thane:
As you can see, I've spent two Mana and one of the Blue Gems is grayed out.
You can also see that my temporary Mana circle isn't glowing, and the flames above it are gone. The first one is an indicator that I haven't "Burned" a card yet, while the second is an indicator that I have. This is how you gain resources in the game.
To Burn a card, simply drag it over the Gem bar, and it will be shuffled back into your deck, giving you one Mana and a Gem of the same colour as the ring around the card's cost. If you draw the card again, it will be "Burnt", and you can't burn it again. Here's what a burnt card (right) looks next to an unburnt one (left):
Cards can have between 1 and 3 gems, and there are dual color cards that have 2 or 4 (1 or 2 of each color). Youc can have a maximum of 10 gems.
Enchantments and Artefacts
Now that we've covered the basics, let's get into some of the more unique aspects of the game.
Enchantments are special cards that you play over the lanes that grant special abilities to the minions occupying it or affect the board in other meaningful ways. Here's how an enchanted lane looks like(from left to right: not enchanted, enchanted, enchanted and occupied):
Artefacts are cards that you play once in order to gain a passive ability, or an ability that you activate under certain conditions. They don't occupy a space on the board and have a certain durability that decreases as you take damage. (they do NOT offer extra protection). Here's what it looks like in game (next to my profile picture), as well as an artefact card:
As you can see, Artefacts only have a single number at the bottom representing durability. If you have multiple artifacts, your most recent one will be the one taking damage.
Powers and Paths
Powers are... basically the same as in Hearthstone: small abilities that you can use anytime for a certain Mana cost (most 2, one of them 3). They don't require gems, and are noticeably weaker than their HS counterparts.
More interesting are the Paths. Those are passive abilities that just do stuff on their own, and some of them can get REALLY convoluted. Most of them require a deck to build around. Here's an example of a Path:
This is probably the most straight-forward and general-use of all Paths in the game. All of them give you a bonus life at the start, and all have a Pursuit effect, that activates if you go second.
Both Powers and Paths are independent of your colour, and you can combine them however you like.
Setting
So, we've talked about the mechanics, but what's the setting of the world? Where does all this happen?
Best way to describe it: ancient myths and legend in a modern world. You have giants sinking ships and towering over gas stations, a biker gang of Valkyries, military werewolves, dragons flying next to commercial airplanes, undead vikings at docks, aztech space destroyers and, if you're playing purple, everything anime.
Here's some art.
Quality of Life
Finally, let me tell you about the quality of life in this game. There are a few nifty ones that are cool (being able to rearrange cards in hand, you can see the full art of the cards in you collection, deck importing and exporting, a really good Twitch overlay etc.), but there are 3 that I feel are just incredible:
Featured Decks
In the game client, under the "Decks" menu, when you go to the far left, there are two decks with an Orange border. Those are Featured Decks: a couple of community Decks that change every Monday and Friday that you can play even if you don't have all the cards. This is amazing for new players, as they have a new deck to play even with a small collection. Just a fair warning, those aren't necessarily the BEST decks, just the most interesting ones. (at the moment of writing, one of the decks is a highlander, despite there being no cards that benefit from that)
Built-in Deck Tracker
Yes, you've read that right. The game has a deck tracker built into itself. All you have to do is press the arrow on the far right side of your screen, and BOOM!, you can see all your cards, as well as your opponent's (that you know of).
Built-in Replay
Finally, there's the replay function that you can find in you profile. If you go to history, and click on the little eye, you can rewatch the game you've played. And if your opponent played a particularly interesting deck, you can see HIS ENTIRE DECKLIST in the aforementioned tracker. It's not perfect (there's no timeline, and it'd be nice to be able to favourite matches or export your opponent's deck), but it's better than most offerings.
Job's Done
And that's about it for me! If you want to try the game yourself, you can do so in the browser version as a guest before you make an account, but I do suggest playing on a client afterwards. If you want to learn more about the game, WathsUpWoody has a few very good guides on his channel.
Hope you enjoyed this read and I'll see you on the Mythgard battlefield.
Thank you very much for your efforts! I read your suggestion to add a section for Mythgard yesterday and looked it up. I will sure try it out once I find the time to do so. It looks more complex than Hearthstone but f2p friendly at the same time and with great art. I also like the setting a lot.
Maybe this will become my new guilty pleasure :D Hearthstone has become a little stale since I've reached legend for the first time, but I'm reluctant to leave it because of the money I put in over the years. Maybe I'll main Mythgard and play some wild Hearthstone from time to time...
If you don't mind, would you please elaborate further about the factions (colours)? Are they related to archetypes or something? Why is it you shouldn't mix more than two or three in a deck? Thanks again for the overview!
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
Glad you enjoyed the overview! I'll make a more detailed guide about the colors soon. I wanted to add it here, but that'd make the article a little too bloated. (ass soon as I figure out why I keep getting a "Not Found The requested resource was not found on this server." error when I try to post)
As for why you shouldn't have more than 3 colors in your deck, it all comes to consistency and how the game handles resources. I didn't mention it in the thread (I've since edited it), but cards can have between 1 and 3 gems, and you can have a maximum of 10 gems. The more gems a card has, the more powerful it is (compared to cards that cost the same mana).
If you were to run, let's say, 4 colors, either two of them would have no 3 gem cards, or 1 would only have 1 gem cards. And if you burn a high gem-cost card of, say, Blue color in the early game, but then you don't draw any other Blue cards to burn and generate gems, you redraw that Blue card, it will effectively be a dead draw, since you can't play ir, even if you have the mana.
Hope this helps.
Very nice of you to try and help me and hopefully other people getting started. Thanks again!
Ressources management sounds like something you have to experience to fully grasp it, but your explanation was helpful nevertheless. So two more follow up questions which already came to my mind reading your initial post:
1) Can gems only be generated by burning cards or are there other ways to obtain them? Is mana growing by turn from 1 to 10 like in Hearthstone?
2) From what I gathered from the FAQ on the Mythgard homepage, burning cards results in a) getting gems and b) drawing another card while shuffling the burnt one back in your deck, thus compensating for not being able to mulligan at the start of the game. Is that correct? And what exactly can be done with burnt cards which are drawn again? I asume they can't be burnt a second time, but played if you have the ressources to do so?
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
When you burn a card, you get 1 mana and 1 gem of that card's color. AFAIK, there's no way to ramp gems, but there are a few cards that let you ramp mana, mainly in Green.
You don't get another card when you burn, you misunderstood that. It's worth noting that you start with 7 cards in hand.
Thanks for the overview. I will probably take a look at this game. :)
interesting, might give it a shout
"Soon we must all make the choice between what is right and what is easy"
Looks like shit
Just a small mistake, you wrote "If you draw the card again, it will be "Burnt", and you can't use it again" in the mana/gems/burning section. I think you meant "and you can't burn it again". Great job nonetheless
Good catch, thanks!
Hi.. I am looking into it. Lets see if it´s a good one. Already like that it has a 2:2 mode.
Hey, guys! Added a small paragraph about hand size, right before "Mana... and Gems".
interesting!!
pity it's on steam :(
I'm not online
it's just your imagination
It's also on mobile and it has a browser version (though the clients are better). I've also heard the devs are working on a console version.
I see large effort and professional setup in this game. Its more complicated and tactical and thats good. If they can manage balace and diversity this one is intresting. Setup reminds me on shadowrun. I am there as Wolfric.
Love the game.. I would've never tried it and missed out.
Im trying to make a spell centered deck around Bald Mountain and had some funky turns I didn't expect with it.
ARES summons Erymanthian Huffer.
ARES declares attack with Huffer .
Adonis' hp reached 0. ARES wins!
Glad you enjoy it! Send me a decklist when you get something functional.
I don't know where to go with it .. I just know it works really well with Academy recruitment.. got a wall of blocks for three turn straight
ARES summons Erymanthian Huffer.
ARES declares attack with Huffer .
Adonis' hp reached 0. ARES wins!
Try to find a promo code if you haven't already. You can try on Reddit, or find a streamer with a few. What's Up Woody is one I know for sure has, check his schedule to the page I linked earlier. Those aren't available any more, sorry.