Birth of NFTs

Collectibles has been a hot topic in the crypto world ever since CryptoKitties exploded onto the scene in December 2017. Combining the power of the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) technology, the mainstream adoption of creature catching/breeding games thanks to Pokemon Go, and the soft-spot we all have for just about anything with kitties, CryptoKitties became an overnight success. Its disruption was so significant that it not only congested the Ethereum network, using 20% of its computing power at one point, it also had some of its kitty tokens sell for over $100,000. Seeing the immense potential ERC-721 NFTs, many blockchain developers entered the space with their own Dapps – one of those being Gods Unchained developer Fuel Games.

Fuel Games

Fuel Games’s first foray into the field happened in March with a game called Etherbots. Etherbots allowed users to create their own bots with parts of varying rarities (ERC-721 tokens) randomly dropped from purchasable crates, and ultimately battle others’ bots – all on the Ethereum network. At its much-anticipated launch, more than $1 million worth of parts were sold, accounting for 5% of all Ethereum transactions, while some parts were selling for as high as $18,000. With the success of Etherbots, Fuel Games were able to secure $2.4 million in funding in July from various Capital ventures, including Coinbase, for their next title: Gods Unchained.

What is Gods Unchained?

Gods Unchained is a Tradable Card Game (TCG) with a unique IP that borrows some gameplay mechanics from industry leaders like Hearthstone and Magic the Gathering while also mixing in some of Fuel Games’ own innovations. Players choose one of six God, each with their own unique God Powers, and build 30 card decks to do battle (see the Gameplay Trailer – revealed on November 15th – below).

The first innovation Gods Unchained brings to the table is the ability for each player to choose and lock one of 5 God Powers at the very beginning of each game. This allows for players to somewhat adapt their deck’s strategies on the fly according to their expected match-up. Here are the Gods along with their revealed Powers:

The other innovation that sets Gods Unchained apart from the other card games is the game’s very own Mana Lock resource system. In Gods Unchained, you will unlock one mana lock at the start of each of your turn and refresh all empty mana gems. There is one lock on each of your first five mana gems, so you’ll be unlocking one gem turns 1–5, just like any other traditional automated system. The sixth mana gem, however, starts the game with two locks on it, and won’t be accessible until turn 7. There will be two locks on your seventh mana gem (accessible turn 9), three locks on your eighth mana gem (accessible turn 12), and four locks on your ninth mana gem (accessible turn 16). Designers hope this unique system will create snappier games with more interactions between players while they have the leeway to print much more powerful cards at higher mana costs.

The other aspects of the game are made up of the tried and true characteristics of successful TCGs of the past. Cards are obtained via opening randomized packs. Packs contain 5 cards, which are all unique ERC-721 tokens, that come in 4 different Rarities (Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary) as well as 4 different Shine – or cosmetic – levels (Standard, Shadow, Gold, Diamond). Each card even has its own Purity value within each Shine category and the highest ones actually have shinier in-game graphics. The probability of each Rarity, Shine level, and Purity value is hard-coded into smart contracts while the scarcity of each and every card is visible for all to see thanks to the transparency of the blockchain. You can check the Purity values of your cards by inputting your Eth address here.

True ownership of their cards is something TCG players had never achieved going from the paper card days to the modern era of digital card games – until Gods Unchained. In fact, the hype for this unreleased game is so high that $2 million worth of Genesis Set packs have already been pre-sold on their website. A Mythical card (one-of-a-kind, with only 4 unique ones released per year) was auctioned off for over $60,000, making it the second most valuable card in the world behind Magic the Gathering’s Black Lotus.

Why Invest?

The game is expected to release its Beta in Q4 of this year and purchasing any amount of packs will grant you access to the Beta. The Limited Edition Genesis Set, made up of 380 unique cards, will be sold until either the hard-cap of $15 million is reached or the game launches in Q1 2019 and will never be available again. There is also still 1 ultra-rare Mythic card that have yet to pulled from the Genesis Set packs. There will be a separate non-tradable Core Set of 250 cards that is fully unlocked with Free-to-Play, with which one can make decks good enough to compete. However, having access to the Genesis Set cards will give an edge through the flexibility of being able to craft the most powerful meta decks of one’s choosing. The rarer Genesis Set cards are therefore expected to fetch hefty prices in the secondary markets.

Another good reason for backing this project is that Fuel Games have established a good track record with the success of Etherbots and are known to reward their early adopters handsomely with goodies in their future titles (see Etherbots promotion below), already mentioning having plans for Genesis card owners. Last but not least, the importance of the design team having the influential mind and streamer “ADWCTA” from a game whose playerbase is being targeted (Hearthstone) cannot be understated.

What Packs to Buy?

There are currently 4 types of packs on offer at different price points: Rare Pack, Epic Pack, Legendary Pack, and Shiny Legendary Pack. Which pack has the best value? How much of each pack should you buy? We’ve done the math and here are the results:

If your goal is to complete a Set of all 380 cards:

Rare Packs + Legendary Packs

Rare Packs are the best source of Rares + Epics and should be prioritized over the Legendary packs (Epic Packs are terrible value and should not be touched). Once you reach the desired amount of Epics – as you will collect all Commons & Rares way before Epics – you can switch to cracking Legendary packs only.

If your goal is to complete a Set of all 380 cards in Shadow, Gold, or Diamond Shine level:

Rare Packs + Legendary Packs

It’s not really feasible to collect a Shiny Set of any level from solely opening packs as their drop rates are very low (5% for Shadow, 1% for Gold, 0.2% for Diamond). For Commons, Rares, and Epic Shinies, Rare packs are still the best source because you’re giving yourself the maximum chance to proc the Shinies for the least amount spent. For Legendaries, regular Legendary packs offer better value than Shiny Legendary packs. Shiny Legendary packs at first seem great due to having 25% Gold and 74.8% Shadow chance (Diamond is still 0.2%), increasing your Gold chance by 25 times and Shadow Chance by 15 times while only being 9 times more expensive than regular Legendary packs. However, when we factor in plain Legendaries and our ability to forge them into higher Shine (5 Regular –> 1 Shadow, 5 Shadow –> 1 Gold, 5 Gold –> 1 Diamond), the regular Legendary packs end up giving the better deal.

Forging along with Trading will be the best way to complete your Shiny collection once the game launches.

If your goal is to pull the undiscovered Mythical card from packs:

Rare Packs

The chance for any card in any pack to be Mythic is one in a million – literally. “So you’re saying there’s a chance?!” Yes! And Rare packs are once again your best bet.

If your goal is to achieve maximum value now so you can trade your cards for whatever you want later:

Rare Packs

Every Rare Pack gives you 1/40 of a Legendary, 1/5.7 of an Epic, and 1.1 Rares, not to mention the greatest chance at Shinies and Mythic per amount spent. If we assume some of the most played and sought-after cards will be Rares and Epics (as Legendaries will be limited to one per deck, compared to 2 for every other Rarity), you will be able to trade your duplicates for great value in the secondary markets.

Note: If you’re unfamiliar with Metamask or don’t know how to get some Eth, you can find full instructions on how to buy a pack here.

Championship Tickets

As Gods Unchained labels itself an E-sports game, the competitive scene will be heavily supported. Sometime in Q1 2019, the first Gods Unchained World Championship will take place. The prize pool is set to be $100,000 + 10% of all card pack sales, capping at $1.6 Million if the project hard-cap is reached. Entry into the tournament will require a Championship Ticket, which are ERC 20 tokens that were inserted into the first 20,000 Legendary Packs sold. They have long since sold-out but can be purchased second-hand in exchanges such as Emoon, Idax, Radar Relay, and GUdecks.

Other Ongoing Promotions

Gleam Giveaway (now concluded)

Until the end of October, the Gods Unchained Gleam giveaway gave you a shot at winning $10,000 in prizes. You could increase your entries by spreading the word through different channels, with 5 Entries guaranteeing a Gold Legendary (Blessed Chimera) prize. Prize winners were chosen and pack prizes were sent. Chimeras will be distributed right around the time Beta is released.

Etherbots

Each Etherbot part that has existed before July 17th can be used to receive 1 random card in the Etherbots Promotional Set – a special Set made up of 16 unique cards. Shadow or Gold parts used will earn you Shadow or Gold cards. Parts will be turned in sets of 5 to redeem a pack of 5 cards, and if one of those parts happens to be a Lambo or an Ancient Protector, you will receive an exclusive Etherbots Promotional Legendary card.

Etherbot parts can be purchased second hand in Fuel Games’ official Etherbot Marketplace (look for parts with the “GU Eligible” label). The promotion contract will launch in November, and will be available for at least two weeks.

Marketplaces

OpenSea and Rare Bits are 2 marketplaces where users will be able to trade Gods Unchained cards. Special Promotional cards Open Sea Raider and Rare Blitzer will be made available through these 2 marketplaces, respectively. Details on how to obtain these non-tradable cards have not yet been disclosed.

Community Tools

Global stats of all cards in existence & global collection ranking & detailed collection browser with stats, including packs bought, referrals used, and estimated collection value.

Visual card browser, including all cosmetic versions & deck editor, importer, browser with draw-test tool & multiple-pack-opener tool.

Deck editor, browser & card, collection browser.

Rough card pricing estimates based on rarity probabilities and scarcity (Note: we do not endorse their “buyer’s guide”).

Further Official Info (from Discord)

Status & Beta

– Beta will roll out in several stages. The Closed Beta has been released to about 130 active community members on November 28th. The next big wave of invites will go out around the time of the next Beta build (0.8) on December 10 to other users who have purchased packs (and registered on apollo.gg). Smaller waves are also going out between patches as the engineering team sees fit. An Open Beta period of around three months will come next, followed by full launch.

– Gods, Genesis Set Cards and Core Set cards will all be released gradually over the course of the beta to give each God and card more analytic attention. You’ll always be able to play the game once you’re in Closed Beta, but there will be time windows where PvP is enabled for stress testing which will gradually expand as beta goes on.

– In Beta, you will have access to the Genesis Set cards you have purchased, and all the Core Set cards (the Core Set cards will be earned through gameplay once the game launches).

– The 1st build of the Closed Beta includes 131/377 Genesis Set cards, 50/250 Core Set cards, 4/6 Gods, and 8/30 God Powers. The 2nd build will have around 400 cards total (around Dec. 10).

– The Beta’s computer spec requirements are quite high for now and does not run well on Mac. Optimization is important to the Devs but it is at least one major update away – they’re focusing on getting all the core functionality into the game first, so the can optimize at the right time.

– Streaming the game and sharing videos is permitted. Devs would just ask at the beginning of any stream or video to share how this is a closed testing beta, with limit cards and features in play, where the point is to gather initial feedback and find bugs.

– Sound effects for individual cards is on the roadmap but may be a couple of releases (builds) away. Voicing is being worked on and casting for it is most likely already finished.

– Shiny cards will get a new animation in a future build (targeted within December) + more cool stuff after that.

– In its current form with most cards not being in the game, Beta gameplay is naturally not balanced (the two most aggressive Gods are not out yet, and the board clears are barely there. So, midranged tokens is going to be dominant). Devs have an internal target for when balancing will kick in and that’s when they will actually start reviewing things from that perspective in terms of beta analytics and feedback.

– The current Mulligan system is not the one Devs designed and the first/second mechanic is just a placeholder that is not designed to be balanced.

– Beta roll-out priority can be summarized as: 1.Fun & competitive gameplay, 2.Missing cards, 3.QoL features (such as chat/friendlist), 4.Missing game modes (such as Battle Royale).

Genesis Set

– The Genesis Set is aimed to be evergreen (will not rotate out of Standard play). Also the Genesis cards will never be re-printed (there may be functional re-prints depending on the meta, but the exact same card will never be released again).

– Prometheus and Atlas are the 2 Mythics in Genesis packs. Prometheus was opened on November 23 but Atlas is still waiting to be found. If it never gets opened, Devs have not confirmed whether it will ever exist. A pack-based lottery is the first system they discussed as it seems the best way to do it, but nothing is finalized.

– The 4th Mythic will not be in packs, will also not be auctioned off.

Game Design

– The God Powers are a little higher impact than Hearthstone hero powers and have varying mana costs (1 to 6). They are designed to be evergreen and the goal is for them not to change or rotate out in any fashion after game launch. God Ultimates are designed to not really be played around (or else they wouldn’t be powerful enough).

– Devs want to create classes (Gods) that play drastically differently in their goals, but are forced to interact with each other repeatedly. Comparatively, MTG’s deck construction aspect is amazing, but its interactions are clunky. And Hearthstone’s decks feel on rails or gimmicky, but interactions are good. GU aims for Lego-like design, but to still retain the Hearthstone levels of interaction (and make those interactions more meaningful).

– Devs have a set power level for all cards, and they won’t be printing cards that are intentionally above the power level of cards that see play.

– There are no “Color-mechanics” in the game because the new player experience wasn’t great with it. For deck-building, GU cards are a lot more modular than Hearthstone. Devs wanted the cards to feel like Lego blocks, as opposed to in Hearthstone where they feel more like puzzle pieces.

– Generally, Deception is the RPS (Rock Paper Scissors) heavy God, Nature is the RNG heavy God, War is the math heavy God, Magic is deep strategy heavy God, and Death/Light are more middle ground.

– Devs’ approach to RNG in GU is to avoid absolute randomness (which is rampant in Hearthstone) and limit it to strategic randomness and/or give players ways to reduce or remove randomness. Controlling RNG of resource generation is one of the top levels of skill to master in a card game, and Nature is the class that will explore it the most. Variance will always be high, but overall, GU’s variance will be significantly lower than Hearthstone, but still present. It will be nowhere near chess.

– Balancing is taken very seriously as GU aims to be an esports game. A lot of math in the form of formulas and processes is used to balance the mechanics and stats of cards. Devs also have a pro Hearthstone player to help with light deckbuilding for basic archetypes of each God to make sure they’re relatively balanced.

– In terms of depth, GU will be more strategic than Hearthstone which is designed for a wider audience. GU cards will have a lot more text space than Hearthstone, but still nowhere near what MTG allows for.

– When comparing GU card power to Hearthstone cards in terms mana cost, the design wants 1 and 2 mana cards to be more powerful than Hearthstone, 3 and 6 mana cost cards to be on the same level, and 4 and 5 mana cost cards to be less powerful than the Hearthstone cards. GU’s removals are also more costly than Hearthstone (Arcane Explosion is where removal options are balanced around, not Twilight Flamecaller).

– All the cards that aren’t blatantly super RNG/meme-y have been designed with archetypes (not specific decks) in mind, that works with God Powers and Core Cards. The goal is any time you think “my deck needs a bit more X”, that you can do that without destroying your whole deck. Subgoal is for the vast majority of cards to be usable by at least 2 God Powers

– There will not be another re-balancing at anywhere near the scale that happened right before Beta. But individual cards will be adjusted through beta, so catching them early means the correct version will get more testing time which would be super helpful. Devs appreciate feedback if anything looks out of balance.

Game Mechanics

– Starting deck size is 30 and the starting hand size is 3 cards. Max creatures on the board is 6 and max cards in hand is 9.

– Runes (a set of small spells), Anims (small creatures), and Enchanted Weapons are are all properly valued (same as if they were independent cards) 2 Mana cards.

– The mechanic “Delve” lets you choose a card at random (not from your deck). All Delve effects from your deck will specifically say so.

– The mechanic “Foresee X” lets you look at the top X cards of your deck and choose whether to keep any of those cards on top or send any of them to the bottom of the deck.

– The mechanic “Ward” blocks one effect that originates from a Spell or a God power (including friendly ones). It does not block Weapons, creature Abilities or Roars.

– The mechanic “Backline” means the creature cannot attack. The creature also cannot be attacked until all friendly non-backline creatures are dead.

– The mechanic “GodBlitz” means the creature or weapon can attack any target the turn it is played (Weapons without this keyword cannot attack right way, just like creatures cannot).

– The mechanic “Flank” allows you to attack any target (including Backline) as long as one other attack has been made this turn.

– Any mechanic appearing more than once in a class (God) is probably a core class concept that will occur in its pure form in the Core Set.

– Gods cannot go above 30 health with the Heal mechanic.

– The order of things when a creature dies is as follows: creature dies, afterlife effects trigger, then it goes to the Void (or is removed from the game if Soulless). Buff effects do not remain when a creature is moved to the Void, unless specified.

– Discards do not go into the Void unless specified. The Void is for cards that have been played from your hand or from the board.

– For any card that has “obliterate cards in the void”, if you have less cards in the void than the amount specified on the card you will not be able to cast the spell. Obliterating specified number of cards in the void is part of the casting condition.

– The God “replace” Legendary cards all have God powers that are stronger than your starting God powers. If you have picked and already used an Ultimate God Power, you cannot get the stronger God power as you have no existing God power to “replace”.

Game Economics

– One does not need to Activate their cards (turning them into ERC 721 tokens) in order to play the game. This is just for selling/trading/transferring your cards once trading is enabled with game launch. Developers have also hinted at implementing a way to only activate the cards/packs of your choice and recommend waiting on activation till Gas prices are low.

– There are plans to support the bundling of cards/sets/decks so they can be transferred in large amounts with one transaction.

– There are no plans for an in-game currency. Although there will be a progression tier where you unlock untradable cards, earning tradable cards/packs through gameplay will not be easy. They will be reserved for winning tournaments / Battle Royales.

– Forging (turning 5 identical cards into 1 of higher Shine) is essentially a burn and mint process, as you’re exchanging old tokens for new ones.

– The upcoming version of the Activation tool will allow for activation of individual cards and will make it possible to forge cards before activating them (you also will be able to forge without doing the activation step at all).

– Unopened packs will not be sold due to legal purposes. Although Devs don’t think they would be classified as securities, they lack the utility to make the team comfortable enough to sell them in such a grey space.

– The official GU marketplace that is being developed with 0x tech is targeted for release sometime between Beta and game launch. It will at first be web-based (as opposed to having an in-game interface) and will allow GU cards as well as Etherbots parts to be traded.

– The goal is to have 4 Seasons per year (new Set every 3 months) with Rare packs for each Season priced around $5 and pegged to USD.

Game UI

– There will be many customization options including Card Backs and custom board items (things which show up on your side of the board which the opponent can also see).

– A deck builder with a share button + an easy way to import decks into the game is in the works.

– In the game when you mouse over cards, you will get an explanation of the relevant keywords to reduce confusion.

– The Tribe info will be on the cards in the game.

Game Modes

– There will be an Elo/Ladder-based Standard competitive (Constructed) mode besides the Battle Royales (Limited mode). Battle Royale may feel a little like “a PvP Slay the Spire”.

– There’s no set date for the World Championship but the target is March – April 2019. In terms of what cards will be legal for it, Season 1 cards most likely will also be in play besides the Genesis Set and The Core Set.

– After about 2 years, Devs will likely create 2 play modes: Standard and Extended. All the cards printed in the last 2 years will be legal in Standard (along with the evergreen Genesis Set) and all the cards in existence will be legal in extended.

– “Single player vs the AI” mode is in the game. However, some type of PvE Story mode will not be in at launch, though the Devs plan to have it eventually.

– There could be content/modes allowing for “dual-god” gameplay in the future (like Hearthstone’s dual-class events). But the early days testing will first make sure the vanilla constructed experience is well-balanced.

Regulation

– Card bans, if necessary, will be done in a decentralized and community-driven manner.

– One is allowed to have more than 1 account. Devs feel they can’t do much to stop that & won’t bother – they’ll leave it trustless.

– Each Eth address can use only 1 World Championship ticket.

– Devs are forbidden from selling their cards on the marketplace.

Wallets

– It is possible to buy packs on mobile using Coinbase Wallet (old name: Toshi), though desktop MetaMask extension is recommended. You cannot transfer the cards from Coinbase Wallet to MetaMask Wallet until the game’s launch, but you can export your private keys from Coinbase Wallet and import into MetaMask to have access to them on your desktop.

– imToken wallet has rolled out support for NFTs and is officially endorsed by GU.

– You will be able to change your email address associated with your card wallet once the game launches.

Miscellaneous

– Devs have plans to support the game in Japanese, Korean, Chinese (simplified), German, and Spanish with plans to support additional ones based on demand.

– When you buy super quickly with two separate purchases of same size, same user, same type on the same block, it is possible to get duplicate packs. Can be avoided by spacing out transactions.

– As of September 12th, Fuel games has 15 full-time employees. Lots of devs are working on the Apollo platform which underpins all their games, as well as the games themselves.

– GU team overseas about 70 different artists from different studios who have all come together to create the beautiful card art. Each artist is sent a description for each piece of art which are commissioned exclusively for the game.

– The concept of renting/lending cards as well as distributing prize winnings in a trustworthy way (with blockchain contracts), and this in turn enabling an E-sports team ownership infrastructure has been acknowledged as “awesome” by devs. They will try to push this concept forward.

– The Etherbot promotional set and how to claim the cards (for part owners) will be revealed at the same time as the GU in-house marketplace – because this will be the marketplace for both GU and Etherbots.

– In terms of blockchain code security, an external contract developer was hired to perform an audit for the Genesis contract (it’s also been reviewed by MANY people). Additionally, Devs will be deploying new contracts for Season 1+ to add functionality such as single card activation. All these contracts will also undergo an external audit.

– There will be no rush to try and reserve the desired in-game username as they will not be required to be unique.

– Game APIs (including image API) are being moved around in preparation for Beta and will receive a large update soon. Fansites relying on these APIs may experience repeated downtimes as a result.

– The game will eventually be released on mobile/tablet, but launching on PC first is the priority.

To interact with the Gods Unchained community or dev team, make sure to drop by the official Discord.

Disclosure: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. If you’ve found this guide helpful, feel free to purchase Gods Unchained packs using our referral code (at no extra cost to you).