Posts with tag WarcraftTcg

The TCG launch date is not far off -- you should plan on hitting up your local gaming store on October 25th if you want to pick up your cards immediately -- and with all previews thus far suggesting that playing is a blast, I'm certainly going to be there. But for those of us who haven't had a chance to play yet, the question is how, exactly, a card game could replicate the fun gameplay experience of the online game. Well, in search of that answer, the Escapist interviews Brian Kibler and Danny Mandell, lead developer and lead designer of the TCG.

[Thanks, Dan]

Druids -- so versatile! Jumping from one form to another, tanking, dealing melee DPS, casting damage spells from afar, and even healing in the blink of an eye. The TCG seems to mimic the online game's playstyle well in this regard. Bear Form is instant cast, costs a single resource, grants you the "protector" ability (think of it as an anytime taunt), and whenever it is removed from play you can pay two more resources to put it back in your hand -- allowing you to shapeshift back later. And being in an animal form allows you access to numerous unique feral abilities -- like the also-previewed Predatory Strikes, which gives your hero +2 ATK while in cat or bear form.

This preview highlights the shadow priest ability Mind Blast. In the online game, we know that Mind Blast provides a burst of direct damage at the cost of increased threat -- but in the TCG the spell is a bit different. Mind Blast costs a high amount of resources (5) in exchange for its scant 2 damage, but it also forces your opponent to discard a card for each damage dealt. And, with the right timing, this sort of forced discard could be devastating -- causing your opponent to get rid of his best cards.

With the World of Warcraft trading card game due for an October release, we're starting to get more and more information on it. Today, WoW TCG News posted scans of the eight different UDeck covers, each one done by a different artist. The UDeck is a plastic card case that you'll get when you purchase a starter deck and the outer artwork will be customizable with the options you see here (and, no doubt, more to come). And even if the idea of a trading card game isn't your thing, Upper deck has a great line up of artists on the project.