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What does $100+ and 60+ hours get you in Mythgard?

Short Answer

A lot of fun and a ton of experimentation. I basically did the faction quests and made unique decks for each challenge. It wasn't until Norden (the last faction I did) did it feel tedious.

2v2 was a lot of fun. I just stuck with mono yellow delay cards, draw, and then the best card in the game: volition! I apologize to every person I randomly beat and every person who was teamed up with me before I had the best grasp of the rules.

Shout out to Minmaxer, if you're here, to recognizing I had 4 Volition in hand and played a 12 in an empty lane for a bullshit come from behind victory!

Disclaimers

1.   I finished all of the faction quests
   

2.   I played a lot of 2v2s
   

3.   I have a positive win ratio on the 1v1 ranked ladder
   

4.   I accidentally dusted a small part of my collection before I started writing this.
   

5.   I crafted 1 or 2 rares for my janky mono-yellow rainbow deck.
   

6.   Once I get my deck somewhere where I like it, I will likely buy another chunk of Mythril to prestige the entire deck.
   

Collection Pool Totals and Essence vs Dust Thoughts

If I auto unmake my collection I will break down over 500 extra cards and have a total of 14220 Essence. A Mythic card is 2400 essence which means I have enough dust for about 6 Mythics or 28 Rares, alongside the wild-cards that I have been given. I am confident that I could craft a number of good meta-decks without ‘unmaking’ a full color to do so but the cost jump from Rare to Mythic is really quite substantial. I keep reading how friendly the monetization is, but when you compare the crafting costs in the two games you arrive at a model that looks like this:

Hearthstone: 40/100/400/1600

Mythgard: 50/100/500/2400

Those are some pretty brutal leaps. Now, hearthstone has a much less friendly common dusting (1 to 8) compared to Mythgard’s 1 to 5. When you compare the next step up, they are equivalent at 1 to 5. The next level up, however Hearthstone edges Mythgard out by leaping to 1 to 4 while Mythgard remains at a constant 1/5. Finally Mythguard bumps its dusting/unmaking to be on par with hearthstone at the highest level, 1 to 4. This is remarkably deceptive. In hearthstone you have to dust/unmake 16 “epics” to get 1 “legendary” equivalent dusting in Mythgard? 24 to 1. If you want to make a competitive deck in hearthstone then you can stick to one hero but it seems that Mythgard has designed itself so that you, the players, are forced to craft Mythics of multiple colors to create something competitive at the highest levels. Hell, I could be wrong though. I haven’t played at the highest levels, maybe my “budget” mono-yellow deck will go the distance.

Why do I keep reading how their monetization is fair when it seems a lot harsher than something like hearthstone? Someone ELI5.

Core Collection: 928/1095

95% Common

93% Uncommon

83% Rare

19% Mythic

45% Overall (I think this number is a bit distorted because it must include premiums while the others don’t.)

Prestige

As a new player, I can only guess that Prestige was a later addition because it seems off and the instances of it seem really low. On the plus side, it works exactly like hearthstone in that a prestige card gets unmade for the same amount of essence as it costs to craft a regular card. Here is the list:

Cairnhenge, 1, Norden

Honed Edge, 1, Norden

Ravine Guardian, 1, Norden

Forked Lightning, 1, Norden

Tailroot Wurm, 1, Norden

Giant’s Stairway, 1, Norden

Beast of Plenty, 1, Aztlan

Riot Guard, 1, Aztlan

Striking Viper, 1, Aztlan

Meso Libre, 1, Aztlan

Enchanteater, 1, Aztlan

Goliath’s Web, 1, Aztlan

Ollama Ring, 1, Aztlan

Recklass Vulcanist, 1, Oberos

Mister Snuggles, 1, Oberos

Vilja Windfury, 1, Dreni

Dune Cat, 1, Parsa

Storied Martyr, 1, Parsa

Xerxian Saboteur, 1, Parsa

Quicksand Hourglass, 1, Parsa

Parsa Clarion, 1, Parsa

Scion of Pride, 1, Parsa

Cataphract, 1, Parsa

Kite Glider, 1, Harmony

Decoy, 1, Harmony

Spirit Away, 1, Harmony

Jade Puma, 1, Harmony/Aztlan

I honestly didn’t realize how poorly my green pulls were until writing this, later on you’ll see I didn’t get a single green mythic. Anyways, let us examine the raw data here. I opened over a 150 packs, looked through over thousand cards and received 27 total prestige cards. What is that, ~2%? Okay, sure. Of that 27: 1 Mythic, 4 Rares, 8 Uncommon, 15 Common. That looks suspiciously like a drip-feed formula: ~16, 8, 4, 1? I almost want to take the time to retroactively apply this to my whole collection and see how accurate it would be. At this point in writing this, I am trying not to be cynical because I genuinely like the game. Maybe RNG just burned me on prestige cards, maybe the distribution was random. No, if that was the distribution it would actually be more fair; because that is less than 500 cards to get to my current list of 18 Mythics and I’ve definitely seen more than 1000 random cards.

An Examination of My Norden (Blue) Pool

I chose Norden for three reasons: it is the first on the collection list, I knew I didn’t craft anything for this colorblock, it is one of my least favorite colors, so I wouldn’t be bitter talking about a good mythic I didn’t get.

I am genuinely confused at how a free to play player could enjoy opening at this distribution rate. I can’t imagine opening 1 to 2 packs a day, seeing that rare animation and hitting a 5th Lore Broker. Do I sigh and be content that I only need to dust 2 more to get a rare I need? Or, even more scarily, 21 more to get a mythic I want? While I mentioned it earlier, but the amount of essence I have (14220) is certainly enough to finish any mono-blue Valkyrie deck or any splash decks. I am also not bitter, I am going to spend more money and build my collection further. It just doesn’t seem friendly to new free-to-play players.

I am going to list out every blue card that I have in my collection. I bolded the Rares because I don’t think people realize how many Rares there are and how powerful a lot of them are. (See how I didn’t get a play-set of Road Queens? I just need to dust the excess Rares I got to make one.) But look I scored some sick Mythics, like Bragi Runesinger. I know I got 3 (Junkyard, Kara, Rider of Edda) that could be used for a strong tribal deck and only Ingrid Stormdottir remains at the mythic – but I am not even sure she’s worth playing because I am such a new player. I am not super interested in playing Norden but my pulls at all reasonable. Until you consider the viewpoint from someone who can’t spend a couple hundred a month on digital cards. Maybe I am missing something, but it looks pretty brutal. The List is as follows:

Cairnhenge 8/4 (+1 Prestige)

Fey Plagiarist 4/2

Field of Poppies 8/4

Freki Scout 7/4

Grease Monkey 7/4

Honed Edge 6/4 (+1 Prestige)

Jaunt 2/4

Singing Stone 3/2

Berserkr Sickness 4/3

Breath of Winterride 7/4

Brising Necklace 0/1

Demolition Speedway 8/3

Draupnir Band 1/1

Einherjar Thane 9/4

Eir Healing 7/4

False Mjolnir 4/3

Ice Spike 5/4

Jorthsong 1/3

Lore Broker 5/2

Norn Datacore 2/2

Ravine Guardian 3/3 (+1 Prestige)

Root of the World 5/3

Sons of the Pack 9/4

Valkyrie Tough 8/4

Black Hatter 0/1

Brainstorm 7/4

Daughters of the Forest 9/3

Earthslide 2/2

Einherjar Berserkr 6/4

Ensnaring Serpent 8/4

Forked Lightning 5/3 (+1 Prestige)

Fossegrim 1/2

Freki Sidecar 1/3

Godsblud Transfusion 4/3

Loki’s Veil 1/1

Maelstrom 4/2

Road Queen 1/2

Seahaven 2/2

Skilled Hacktivist 5/3

Stone Mother 4/3

Stormdottir’s Chosen 2/3

Bragi Runesinger 1/1

Bridgeway Troll 4/3

Jumkyard Valhalla 1/1

Kara Morningwives 1/1

Odinthrone 0/1

Rider of Edda 1/1

Rune of Denial 4/3

Tailroom 4/3 (+1 Prestige)

The Long Winter 1/1

Thundarclap 2/2

Timberland Troll 9/4

Valkyrie Enforcer 7/9

Winter Wolf 6/4

Blackened Jotun 4/3

Draugr 1/2

Giant’s Stairway 4/3 (+1 Prestige)

Jotun Shatterfist 5/2

Magnus Thorsson 0/1

Tyr Monomund 0/1

Allfather’s Horn 1/2

Cataclysm 2/2

Hyperborean 4/3

Triassic Kraken 1/2

Ingrid Stormdottir 0/1

Volcanic Risi 5/3

Living Mountain 0/1

Bulwark 1/4

Eirsdottir 2/4

Headless One 0/1

Fire Eater 2/4

Brass Bouncer 4/3

Mani, Queen of Tides 0/1

Canine Cavalry 2/2

The Recursionist 0/1

Stab Crab 4/3

Herald of War 0/1

LLort 0/3

Waystone Garden 0/1

A Comprehensive List Mythics

This section isn’t designed to ‘brag’ but instead to contextualize what opening a massive amount of packs feels like and to note average distribution. I will also discuss the things I pulled that make me want to build around. If I looked at over 1000 cards (over 150 packs) and I got ~18 mythics then that is a dip-feed rate of less than 2%.

Norden, Blue: Draupnir Band, Loki’s Veil, Bragi Runesinger, Junkyard Valhalla, Kara Morningwives, Rider of Edda, The Long Winter

I will probably just dust all of these, except Bragi and maybe the Long Winter. As I write this, I just realized I pulled more Norden mythics than anything else and I am a bit salty, lol.

Aztlan, Yellow: Xelhua, The Builder, Bob “Banzai” Vaquero

I had the most fun playing this color-block when I was doing factions and 2v2s. I love so many of their cards but these two are a little underwhelming. I do, however want to build an artifact deck based around Xelhua because I think Forge path is really fun. I was really underwhelmed when I pulled Bob, but he is quite fun in my ramp enchantment deck. I am sure, after I write this, I will be creating a sacrificial alter.

Oberos, Red: Sea Lord’s Trident, Cognate of Eratos

Neither of these cards are particularly awful. But if I make an artifact deck, that trident will probably be included.

Dreni, Green:

Until I started writing this, I didn’t pull a single green mythic? Huh. Now I guess I gotta go look at them.

Parsa, Orange: Spear of Destiny, Scion of Pride, Treasury of Petra

My mono yellow deck looks at this and wants to include it. I seriously want to splash orange just for this. The token generation plays well with the enchantments and artifacts provided by yellow, too.

Harmony, Purple: Grandma Meng’s Tea House, Rogue Idolon

Grandma Meng’s was my first legendary and I sat there and reread it half a dozen times trying to understand what I was looking at. Playing it, however, it sort of made sense. So I dropped a beast of plenty on it, used my Maze of Iyatiku to draw a card – it happened to be a harvester, then played the harvester. I am pretty sure that a player paying attention could figure out that the stealthed unit was a harvester, due to the life gain, but if someone isn’t paying attention, that is trolly af.

Multicolor: Revolutionary Totem, Herald of Pestilence

That Herald seems fun. I don’t know if it is broken or not, but when you hit something in the game with blight it keeps going down every turn, while the blight given by his power only affects units when they’re in his sphere of influence. You can give three units blight 1, and then shift him to the left. They’re retain the initial -1/-1 but it won’t go down further on additional turns. It probably works as intended, but it isn’t intuitive.

Final Thoughts

I really like this game and I am going to keep playing. The mechanics are better than Hearthstone and I feel like I have to think as hard as I do when I play Gwent. The lore is cool and I feel tension when I am playing long games with my janky control deck. The games I’ve lost I can attribute to not understanding my deck, my opponents deck, the mechanics, etc. I watch replays and think “that was a bad trade, I shouldn’t have burned this. That is a good feeling. I do not think the way mythic and prestige cards are distributed is healthy to a FTP or new player; I find crafting Mythic cards is even more daunting. I think the sheer amount of “necessary” rare cards make things even trickier. I said it in my main write up, but pulling that 5th copy of a rare you’re not interested in has to burn a little if you’re opening 1 or 2 packs a day. Unmake that fifth copy for one that you want. It has to hurt.

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