The rather engaging card battling game has recently gotten a massive new update that changes up the game significantly. Most importantly, the title is no longer free-to-play with new players having to buy into the experience.

I’ve had a load of fun playing Faeria [Official Site] casually every now and again. The game manages to combine the inherent potential for different combinations found in card games with simple rules and a cute art style that’s pleasing to experience. It also helps that it has a fair bit of content you can do on your own as well as ranked and unranked matches and tournaments you can partake in if you ever feel like it.

It’s safe to say that this latest patch, dubbed “2.0” or “Fall of Everlife”, is one of the biggest changes the game has experienced. The old F2P model is gone entirely—replaced by a buy-in for new players. Players who played during the F2P period had their accounts automatically brought forward, so they don’t have to buy into the game in order to play. There’s a new in-game economy that is worth looking at closely if you’re an avid player but the short of it is that unlocking new cards will come mainly from just playing the game; real money can no longer be spent to buy battle chests with cards. The in-game currencies that remain are earned through gameplay and used to unlock cosmetic items or Mythic Chests.

There’s plenty of new cards in the update as well, though they must be purchased as part of a DLC pack. There's a new “Corrupt” mechanic introduced whereby an ability is triggered when that creature enters enemy land for the first time. Alongside these cards, players are now able to further customize the appearance of their decks and avatars, as more than 70 new cosmetic items have been added to the game. Couple that with new animations and there’s more to look at and enjoy. All of that is nice, don’t get me wrong, but my personal favorite new feature is the addition of Lore Pages which are little unlockable snippets of the game world’s setting and cards.

For those of you who care more about actual PvP instead of fluff and cards, there’s new developments on that front as well. There’s a new play format called Crucible that has players submit several decks, with the opponent banning one, and then playing with their selected deck until they lose. It’s intended to become the default Faeria tournament format going forward and you can try it out privately as well if you want. The private lobby and Pandora (drafting) aspects have also been updated so tehre’s new things to discover there for veterans as well.

There’s also many balance and bug fixes that made it into the 2.0 update and you can read the full patch notes here.

You can find and play Faeria on Steam.