Competitive strategy game

Card game/turn-based board game mix

Exciting fast paced combat

Pixel graphic

Note: This game is its early stages (v0.58.1), so you can expect a lot of upgrades in the future.

Duelyst is one of few games that got me really excited recently.

Card games are my favorite type of games. The game that really got me into card games was Yu-Gi-Oh, and there was nothing better than hearing those magic words: „it’s time to d-d-d-d-d-duel“. Oh boy, I spent so many months, even years watching it, playing it, and eventually competing in the tournaments.

After that I played all sorts of card games, but the game I sticked to was Hearthstone. I played it for over a year, got really good at it, and eventually, got bored with it. The problem with Hearthstone is that when new expansion comes out meta changes, and you will get from 5 to 10 decks that work, while the rest of them just suck. And if you want to go places in the game you just need to play one of those decks for about 3 months, until new cards come out.

And then I found out about this game. Let me tell you, I was very skeptical when I first saw it. I am not a fan of pixel graphic, I like my graphic nice and shiny, and when I saw that the game itself was a combination of turn based board game and a card game I was thinking to myself: “What the hell have they done?!”. However, now that I played it for about 10 hours, I must say that those things are the best features of the game, because they made it quite unique.

So what exactly is Duelyst?

Like I already said Duelyst is a strategy game. It is a mix of standard card games like Hearthstone, and turn based board games like King’s Bounty. In my experience it really takes best of both worlds. And when you add pixel graphics to the mixture you get really unique and to most players pleasant experience.

Card game aspect

The game takes mana curve system from Hearthstone, first player starts with 2 mana while second player starts with 3 mana. Each turn player gets mana refill + 1 extra max mana available until he hits a cap of 9 mana. Cards are divided into 7 categories. 6 of those are faction categories and the last 1 is a neutral category. Faction cards can be used only by that selected faction while neutral cards can be used by any faction.

Cards are divided into 3 categories: minions, spells and artifacts. Minions are creatures that take physical form when you summon them, they can move across the map and attack other minions and enemy general.

There are many different types of spells in this game. You can use them to summon minions, to give them health and/or attack or deal damage to minions and generals.

Artifacts are boosts for your general. They usually give you extra attack, however some of them have other abilities, dependable on the class you play. One transforms your general from mele to ranged, other summons 1/1 minion whenever your general gets hit. Every artifact has 3 durability, and it is losing 1 every time damage is dealt to your hero. When durability reaches zero, artifact is destroyed.

Board game aspect

When you start the match, your and your opponents general are being summoned on the board. You start by choosing your starting hand. Both you and your opponent draw 3 cards and if you want, you can choose to replace some or all of them to redraw the same amount of cards.

This brings me to one of the coolest features in the game. Every turn, you can return 1 card from your hand back to your deck to draw a new card in return. It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, however, it really increases the amount of skill you need, first as a deck builder to build a deck, and second as a player to play with it the right way. Instead of focusing on creating a deck with no big weakness with a cost of its overall performance you focus on utilizing on synergies so you can make more of a big impact decks. I will use Hearthstone as an example.

In Hearthstone, most of decks are built to utilize on early game by having over 80% of their decks filled with early game cards. That results in having a weak late game, so if your opponent manages to deal with your board until late game, you almost certainly lose that game. If you make more of a balanced deck, with 50% early and 50% late game cards, you in theory have bigger chance of winning, however, you also have 50% chance to draw late game cards, cards you can’t play until it is already too late. That is why your choices as a deck builder are very limited to say the least, and you will normally see only 5 – 10 decks competing in the higher ranks.

This way, the % of rng is greatly reduced, which opens a lot more space for exploring all of the possibilities. You draw 2 cards every turn by default, and there are also cards that let you draw more cards, so replacing a card each turn is really valuable.

If you want to know more about Hearthstone, you can check my Hearthstone review here.

Let’s get back to board game aspects. Once you pick your opening hand, you will find yourself facing enemy general on the opposite side of the board. Board is 9 spaces long and 5 spaces wide. It has 3 mana pools in the center of the map, each giving 1 mana for a turn to the player that steps on it either with his general or creature. Once the player steps on it, the pool disappears.

All generals, regardless of which faction they belong to, have 2 attack and 25 health when they start the game. Your goal is to bring enemy general down by reducing its health to 0 before he does the same to you. It is easier said than done, and there are few things you need to know before you attempt to destroy your enemy.

First thing you need to know is a counter attack feature. Every creature or general that attacks another creature or general in mele range will be counter attacked. This way, you need to be careful when attacking with your general, because you will lose health too. Counter attacking brings another dimension to strategizing. When trading, you want to attack with a creature that has more health than enemy creature has attack so it can survive that trade and potentially attack again next turn. However, that plan can backfire because there are some spells that deal damage to all creatures.

Another thing you need to know is that based on their attack range, there are few different types of creatures. First type is a mele creature, it attacks only in mele range and it always gets counter attacked. Second type is a ranged creature. Ranged creature can attack anyone on the board, only being counter attacked if it attacks in mele range or is attacked by another ranged creature. Naturally it is a lot weaker in terms of health and attack, but it can be valuable asset to your team. Third and final type of creatures is blast creatures. It is neither mele or ranged, rather something in between. If it attacks in any of 4 main directions (up, down, left, right) its radius is as long as the number of spaces until the edge of the board and on attack it deals damage to all enemies in the radius, being counter attacked only by enemies in its mele range and ranged enemies. However, if it wants to attack in one of the corners, it can only do it in mele range.

Creatures themselves have a lot of different abilities. Some gain bonus stats when they are near your general, some heal a friendly character or general, other teleport nearby enemy creature to any empty space on the map. Instead of me naming them all, if you are interested in learning more about it, you should try the game and see for yourself.

The game has a very nice tutorial. Every time it puts you in an already started match and tells you that, with the help of your cards in hands as well as minions on the board, you finish your opponent off in one turn. Tutorial is really well made, interactive and easy to understand, so if you had any troubles understanding what I wanted to say, worry not, you will learn the game mechanics in no time.

Overall impression

This game is, at least for me, something special. I love its style and its graphics. Even though this game is in its early stages, it makes a well developed game just as it is right now. Cards are, as I have seen so far pretty balanced, and the gameplay is smooth, fast paced and, at least for me, really enjoyable. If you strongly dislike pixel graphic this game probably isn’t for you, otherwise, there is no reason for you not to try it right now! All foundations are set for it to be next big eSports game, and I am looking forward to seeing the state of the game in the next few months and even years.

Look mom, I can spam emotes at my opponents 10/10

For a card game 6/10

For a board game 6/10

However, it takes best of both worlds so,

Overall impression 8.5/10

Game page

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