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So, I just started playing this game after seeing Trump post a few videos about it. It seems to be less aimed at the casual gamer than Hearthstone is, with a heavier focus on positioning than either that game or Magic. Archers can be protected behind melee troops, particularly powerful minions can do AoE damage, immobilising enemies can let you attack past them or set up chain reactions with the right spells, and so on. I also like how spells are treated, with seven schools of magic that are limited by hero rather than by faction. For example, the starter hero for the Stronghold faction uses Earth and Air magic, and Neutral and Stronghold minions and fortunes. Another hero for that faction uses the same minions and fortunes, but has Air and Fire magic instead of Earth and Air. While I have not unlocked any more heroes yet beyond the original six, the two overlapping alignment systems look like a cool way to differentiate different heroes within the same faction.

I started out with the Stronghold faction - a faction I would describe as jungle-dwelling barbarians. If you've played Magic, think Naya and Jund from the Alara block. The other factions are Haven - a Paladin-y bunch with angels; Inferno - fire elementals, demons and fire demons; Necropolis - undead, obviously; Sanctuary - naga of water and desert varieties; and Academy - wizards with a South Asian twist. So far I think I like Inferno best for gameplay, and Sanctuary best for style.

Edit: Oh, and if you are watching Trump's videos, there's something important you should know: your minions don't counterattack ("retaliation damage") if they get killed. Two 1 attack / 1 counterattack / 1 health guys do not trade one for one - whoever attacks first, wins.


I downloaded the game through Steam rather than from the website, since they were giving 404 errors earlier this morning. If you do it this way you need to sign up for a Uplay account, but you do not need to install Uplay itself.

If you do decide to try it out, I recommend you use a referral code. Doing so gives you an extra copy of all six starter decks on top of the one you choose which is a great help, both to get a ton of gold quickly and in case your first choice turns out to not be your cup of tea as mine was. Trump posted a link with his first video but the referral code didn't work for me, so if you want to do me a favour and use mine, I'd get some rewards out of it too:

When you get into the game and start making an account, enter this code when it asks for your referral code: 37VPZN. Once you do so, go into the campaign mode and try out the first mission with each of the starter decks. It's not too difficult, and it's a good way to get a feel for each faction while earning a bunch of booster packs. After playing Hearthstone with its rather stingy 5 card boosters, it's nice to get three boosters of twelve from that first mission alone.

I definitely think Sanctuary is my favourite now. My last game I got a nice little three-card combo working, with an archer that stops enemy minions in her lane running away, a spell that stops anyone in her lane from attacking, and another archer who can relocate enemies when she enters the battlefield. Between them I had one lane locked down so nobody could move and nobody could attack, then shoved the biggest, nastiest enemy I could find into it.

I like the idea of the Inferno more than how it's worked for me in practice. The faction uses positioning in three ways - Sweep and Charge attacks (attacks that hit enemies next to or behind their target), Area Blast (attacks hit all positions adjacent to the target, including the attacker itself if it's a melee minion) and Attack Anywhere (you can hit them and they can't hit you back). I found one card which seemed like an awesome basis for a deck which gives Fire creatures Area Blast, but the minion I most wanted to use it with isn't a Fire creature.

I'll try it, does it have all the factions or is it HOMM6-7 ones?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I'll try it, does it have all the factions or is it HOMM6-7 ones?

It's just those six factions* - others like the Sylvan, Dwarves and Dungeon are not in the game. They might be at some point - I believe that two of the current six have been added in expansions since the creation of the game - but they aren't there now.

*
Academy - Arabic/Indian wizards
Haven - Angels, crossbowmen and knights
Inferno - Fire demons and discard
Necropolis - Undead, with both life drain and stat sapping attacks
Sanctuary - Naga and sharkmen samurai
Stronghold - Jungle dwellers

Not even the Dungeon? Ah well I've been playing and it seems fun.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Not even the Dungeon? Ah well I've been playing and it seems fun.

The game does have a few Dark Elves in it, but they're not their own faction (yet).

I've changed my opinion of Inferno again. I created a 1 hero, 58 creature deck just to try to get an achievement, only to discover it's actually quite effective. About half a dozen of the creatures stop the enemy from attacking in one way or another, while the rest focus on hitting as many things as possible, as hard as possible. It's actually a lot like a Zoolock deck, come to think of it, complete with the focus on Might giving me more free turns to draw cards instead of increasing my resource caps.