Duelyst: CCG Meets Tactical Turn-Based Combat

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I want to turn your attention to a gem called Duelyst. As the title suggests, Duelyst blends two genres into a seamless package - a beautiful game that rewards in equal measures careful deck building and sound tactical plays. Still under a year after official release, Duelyst already boasts more than 300 different minions, spells, and artifacts spread across 6 distinct factions.

Well played matches tend to be deeply tactical, full of considerations over card management, mana management, and unit placement, among others . Surprises are rare. The player who controls the match throughout is usually the winner. This, IMO, is as it should be. I've never been a fan of MtG decks that strive to win in a turn through some obscure chain reactions.

Duelyst is pay to skip, with features typical of such offerings. Card packs can be purchased either with gold earned through in-game victories, or more quickly with cash. Card advantages can be severe. Those with higher rarity cards tend to hold a significant edge over those without. Curiously, the game does not restrict the number of rare cards that can be placed in a given deck. It is a blemish in an otherwise beautiful game.

As the game is free to play, I highly recommend anyone interested to try it out.

This game is great, played a bunch this weekend! I have been mostly focusing on the Abyssian Host, with Magmar as my second favorite.

Heck yeah! But I don't think we can be friends. Abyssian Host gives my Vetruvian so much trouble. The flood of Wraithlings feel downright cheap sometimes

It is annoying how it is labeled a "gameplay" trailer and yet it only has maybe 15 seconds of gameplay in it's 1:08 length and shows almost nothing about how the game actually plays... I wanted to see some actual detail, not flash cuts!

Does it have a story/campaign mode?

I thought this guy gave a decent intro into what the game is actually like. I played it for an hour or so and I'm diggin' it.

Puce Moose, there is no story/campaign mode. You have practice mode against AI, puzzle missions, and that's it as far as single player goes. The game could lend well to a campaign mode, but I don't think any is planned.

I added a couple review video with a fairly thorough introduction for anyone interested in learning more. There's no doubt that this game suffers from poor/underfunded marketing. As one can see from that gameplay trailer. Just not a lot of buzz out there, which is a damn shame. I only recently found out about it through Indieformer's video, months after release.

Below is a good video by Noxious. It shows you the thought process of a veteran player during a match.

Looks and sounds cool, but there's no way I'll find this satisfying sitting at my PC. I'm looking forward to the iOS release.

I just started playing this week and I'm pretty impressed with the amount of complexity generated by just the free basic cards.

I'm also impressed with the number of players down at the bottom of the ladder. I've had no trouble finding matches quickly and everybody is as bad as me, which has been fun.

Ooooo...then I better start playing the multiplayer now. I was intimidated but sounds like a good time to start!

Thirteenth wrote:

Heck yeah! But I don't think we can be friends. Abyssian Host gives my Vetruvian so much trouble. The flood of Wraithlings feel downright cheap sometimes

Man, I have had a couple Abyssian vs Abyssian matches and they are awful. They just drag on forever.

Anyone do any deck building yet? I want to build 2 abyssian decks one creep and one summons based. I want to try and squeeze a mechazorg build into the summons if possible.

quasiChaos wrote:

Ooooo...then I better start playing the multiplayer now. I was intimidated but sounds like a good time to start!

I've started off 6-0 on the ladder, and none of the games have been close. Some of that is surely luck, but it feels good to keep winning.

I made the mistake of googling tips for getting started and was immediately overwhelmed with all the different opinions on which factions are easiest and how to make the cheepest competitive deck. After a bit of reading, I decided I'd rather stay naive for as long as I can and just went back to playing.

NathanialG wrote:
Thirteenth wrote:

Heck yeah! But I don't think we can be friends. Abyssian Host gives my Vetruvian so much trouble. The flood of Wraithlings feel downright cheap sometimes

Man, I have had a couple Abyssian vs Abyssian matches and they are awful. They just drag on forever.

Anyone do any deck building yet? I want to build 2 abyssian decks one creep and one summons based. I want to try and squeeze a mechazorg build into the summons if possible.

My first two legendary cards are Magmar, so that's what I'm building first. Grow, baby, grow.

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/duelyst.gamepedia.com/c/cd/Chrysalis_Burst.png?version=880e4ad3b1e224134301eda5247c0f21)
IMAGE(https://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/duelyst.gamepedia.com/b/bb/Vindicator.png?version=501e0e23cecee1376c28f733ba8dd564)

I am greatly enjoying playing this and reading some strategy sites when away from the PC. The wiki has a great description on its main page:

DUELYST is a competitive strategy game focused on tactical combat, squad building, and ranked ladder play. Each battle is a 1v1 match between two online opponents. Gameplay in DUELYST is turn-based, with players taking turns to play cards from their hand to cast powerful spells, equip mighty artifacts, or summon deadly minions to move and attack on the battlefield on their behalf. Each match is fast-paced (less than 10 minutes) with a simple winning objective: reduce the enemy General's health to zero before they can do so to you.

So far I like Vetruvian and Vanar the most, although I haven't played a lot of them, yet. The subreddit for Duelyst has a lot of helpful links for new players and some budget and free-card-only deck suggestions.

One of the things I really like about this game is how social media and community interactive they are. There is a discord chat that players and devs hang out in, a lot of streamers and tournaments going. It's really well-polished for something that hasn't been out for too long.

I was a backer on the project but I've been kinda burned out on digital CCGs lately so I never really got a chance to really fire it up once it launched. I'm glad this is starting to get some publicity and people are really enjoing it!

Mixolyde wrote:

It's really well-polished for something that hasn't been out for too long.

Not necessarily. It's been publicly available since April, and the beta started August 2015 with alpha running for a good 10 months or so before that even.

I gave this a whirl, and just like Hearthstone, the lack of text chat during the game makes multiplayer so much more approachable.

When you're new to a CCG or just suck in general like I do, text chat with random opponents can completely ruin the game. I hate trash talk. HATE it. If a competitive game allows it, that pretty much guarantees that I won't play that game in multiplayer (there have been rare exceptions to this, but it has to be a really damn good game with a strongly compelling reason to play in multiplayer).

So kudos to the devs for the way they've set up matches. I like that you can tip your opponent after the match too, that's a cool idea!

As for the gameplay itself, it's an interesting take on CCG's that I'll continue to play and see how it holds up. I like it so far; reminds me a bit of Phantasy Star Online Episode 3, which is one of my favorite CCG's ever.

Add me to the list of folks curious but pretty much super noob at this game!

Farscry wrote:

So kudos to the devs for the way they've set up matches. I like that you can tip your opponent after the match too, that's a cool idea!

I'm about 25 games into the multiplayer and just got my first tip. Dude with a bunch of legendary cards wiped the floor with me, then gave my a pity tip. Friended him up and had a short, pleasant exchange. It was lovely.

That's the only match I've played so far where I felt obviously outclassed by the expensive cards I don't have. I've been blown out a few other times, but those were against decks that I matched-up poorly against and piloted by better players.

Next up is a run at Gauntlet mode, I guess. With me luck

Nice, Bob. I have received a tip as well. I am only about 6 matches into ranked Multiplayer. I have found a few budget/pauper deck lists online that I am studying and figuring out what to DE/craft. 2 Blood Tauras and Bastion? F*ck no! I think the best card in my collection at the moment is the Makantor Warbeast inMagmar, so I may craft toward that.

I really like the 5 gold chess problem challenges, they provide a nice break from the games and are really good at showing interesting combos between mechanics. Especially things like sacrificing your own creatures to some effect.

I've only played a couple matches against other players. Last one I played, I just got flat out annihilated. Crazypants "how the hell do I even counter any of this stuff?" style annihilation. I wonder if the multiplayer matches are matching starter deck players against custom deck players.

Solid game design though. I like it!

I played this a bit over the weekend and something hasnt clicked yet for me. Maybe it's just the lower ranks with the janky decks but the opening moves seem pretty 'rote', and I'm not sure I like that.

It is interesting though and I may come back to it.

Humble Bundle is giving away 20 free packs for new accounts in exchange for signing up for their newsletter.

If you're on the fence about trying out the game, it takes five minutes to download on steam and make an account to claim the packs and they'll be there waiting if you ever decide to try it out.

Sadly, my account is about three days too old to take advantage of the offer.

ThingumBob wrote:

Humble Bundle is giving away 20 free packs for new accounts in exchange for signing up for their newsletter.

If you're on the fence about trying out the game, it takes five minutes to download on steam and make an account to claim the packs and they'll be there waiting if you ever decide to try it out.

Sadly, my account is about three days too old to take advantage of the offer.

Thanks for the tip. If you're wondering if you can make it for the promo, the 20 Spirit Orbs code is only valid for accounts created after September 15th, 2016. The cosmetic part doesnt seem to have a deadline. If you havent spent any money on it it might even be worth just creating a new account just to get this.

Edit: Hmmm... and when I logged in I had a legendary that I didnt have before (keeper of the vale) not sure why.

Second edit: nvm, the keeper is part of the cosmetic bundle. Sweet.

Tyops wrote:

I played this a bit over the weekend and something hasnt clicked yet for me. Maybe it's just the lower ranks with the janky decks but the opening moves seem pretty 'rote', and I'm not sure I like that.

It is interesting though and I may come back to it.

Even as a fan of CCGs in general, some rule sets just don't work for me and I can't always explain why.

I think experienced Duelyst players spend the first turn or two thinking about how to use positioning to take or block Mana Springs. For example, if player 2 can walk a minion onto a Mana Spring on Turn 2, they can plonk down a very threatening 5-drop.

I've also run into some cute antics like player 1 using a cheap Air Drop dude on the first turn to steal the Mana Spring in front of player 2.

I tried this out after getting 20 packs in the Humble Bundle giveaway. I'm surprised how much I like it! RPS also just reviewed the game:

Duelyst is Hearthstone’s child. You can see the shared DNA everywhere, from the menu layout and free to play business model to specific minion abilities and hero powers. Almost everything Hearthstone does, however, Duelyst does better. I’ve spent years grinding away at the Hearthstone mill, but now I’ll never go back.

I, too, was struck by how much of Duelyst is straight cloned from Hearthstone. The economy, the game modes, most of the mechanics, and some of the card designs are almost exact copies. But that's a good thing! I love Hearthstone, and Duelyst manages to add to the formula.

I especially like the number of things you can do on any turn. In Hearthstone, it seems like a lot of the time you really only have one play, or you have a choice between two or maybe three distinct lines. In Duelyst, because of the game board and the "replace" mechanic, you usually have a whole lot more choices. The turn timer seems to be a little shorter too. So I rarely feel like I'm making a move in a solved game. And there's more room to think my way around my opponent, to give them opportunities to screw up.

Of course, I just started and I'm playing around with my own naively thrown together deck (Vetruvian, midrange-y, based on ranged and blast with a smattering of interesting tricks from the packs I opened). Maybe higher up the ladder everyone knows what everyone's doing and it feels more rote.

But I'm very pleased with what I've seen!

I'm playing on Steam, so Steam friend me and we can play together (is that in the game?). Steam name: Grobstein.

A lot of the digital CCGs have emulated Hearthstone's economy and graphical flourishes in the wake of its success. Faeria, for example, is a lot different now than it was during the pre-alpha that was running during its initial Kickstarter funding period.

ThingumBob wrote:

Humble Bundle is giving away 20 free packs for new accounts in exchange for signing up for their newsletter.

Thanks for the heads up!

grobstein wrote:

I, too, was struck by how much of Duelyst is straight cloned from Hearthstone. The economy, the game modes, most of the mechanics, and some of the card designs are almost exact copies. But that's a good thing! I love Hearthstone, and Duelyst manages to add to the formula.

It has a bunch of small improvements that all add up to a better experience, imho. You start with 2 or 3 mana, so it's unlikely you won't have a card to play the very first turn. You draw a new card at the end of your turn, so you have time to think how/whether you are going to use it. New cards are added to your starter decks, so don't have to do this yourself while you are still learning ropes.

A very enjoyable game game overall.

That 20 Spirit Orbs deal is way nice. A little jealous of the newer players here.

I'm sitting on around 1200 spirit and I'm not sure how to spend it. There are many Vetruvian decks online, but none seems all that appealing. I'm sort of interested in an artifact deck, but that build is expensive. Most Vetruvian artifacts, and their synergy cards, are either rare or legendary.

Anyone have experience with a magmar egg build?

NathanialG wrote:

Anyone have experience with a magmar egg build?

I don't have the cards to build a focused rebirth deck, but I've opened a pair of Chrysalis Bursts that have been a ton of fun. I'd love to get my hands on Silithar Elder and Egg Morph.

I like the look of this list:
http://m.imgur.com/a/Cqvmj

I did not realize that legend cards werent limited to 1/deck in this game.

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