Hearthstone is the current king of digital CCGs, but it’s by no means the only place to get your fix. The genre as a whole is booming, in fact, with plenty of cool and innovative projects, and one of those is Faeria.
I’ve spent the last few days getting to know it (and barely scratching the surface), so consider this a basic primer to the game.
According to developer Abrakam, the earliest concepts for Faeria were workshopped way back to 2005, and the game “has been in constant development” since 2010. Faeria made its public debut in 2013, however, with a public beta in September, followed by a successful Kickstarter in November, which raised more than USD $94,000, exceeding the initial goal of USD $70,000. It’s been a very long road since then, but is now available in early access on Steam and G2A.
Forest cards focus on growth.
You face off against your opponent (known as gods), with a blank hex grid between you. Each tile can be transformed into either a prairie (neutral) or one of the game’s four land types – Mountain, Forest, Desert and Lake. Much like Magic the Gathering, your deck will contain cards of one or more different land types and to play these cards onto the board you need to control enough land of the requisite type and pay the Faeria cost of the card. The card to the right (or above on mobile), for instance, requires the player to have three Forest tiles.
Instead of having land cards in your deck, each turn you get to use the game’s “power wheel,” and this allows you to create a land tile of your choosing; either one Mountain, Forest, Desert or Lake tile, or two prairie tiles. A Forest-aligned creature must be played to a Forest tile, whereas a neutral minion can be played to any tile you control. A creature that requires control of two different land types can be played to either. The power wheel can do more than just create tiles, however. You can also choose to use it to draw a card or to gain an additional Faeria point. These options can be invaluable as the game progresses, either to draw into an answer, or to have enough Faeria to play a particular card.
Faeria's power wheel.
You get three Faeria points at the beginning of your turn, but you can also use minions to harvest Faeria from any – or all – of the four Faeria wells on the edges of the map. Controlling these resource points means more Faeria to spend, so you can do more than your opponent and build a board advantage. Unspent Faeria points carry over from turn to turn, meaning you can wait and build up enough points to play something big if you want to.
I’m sure you can already start to see the potential in this system – Faeria is a game of positioning and turn-planning, with gratifyingly flexible core mechanics. There are a lot of decisions to be made, regardless of your overarching strategy, be that aggro, control or combo.
With another land tile beneath it, the 2/5 on the right could harvest from two wells each turn.
Each of the four land types has its own mechanics and themes. Forest creatures, events (spells) and structures, for instance, are all about growth, whether that’s with time, actions or via buffs. These aren’t creatures that move quickly or flood the board, but instead can grow to make value trades, and protect the board with taunt.
A dangerous drawback.
Faeria has a number of pretty interesting keywords that’ll give you a further idea of gameplay possibilities. There’s Production (does something at the start of your turn), Charge (can move up to X spaces in a straight line), Combat (does something when this creature fights another creature), Jump (can move up to two spaces, jumping over anything in its way), Flying (can move over the ocean), Activate (once per turn you can click this structure to activate its effect), Ranged (attacks the first enemy in a straight line, unless blocked by a friendly unit) and Aquatic (can move in the ocean and lakes, but not on other lands) to name a few. Hearthstone players will also recognise equivalents to Deathrattle, Battlecry, Taunt, Divine Shield and Charge.
I really like how deck-building is handled in Faeria. So often in CCGs – at least for someone like me who was basically new to the genre going into Hearthstone – it can be really hard to come up with a vaguely coherent deck when you’re starting out, because you’re still feeling out the classes (or equivalent) and cards, and how they’re meant to work. That’s where Faeria’s Codex system comes in.
Codex building blocks.
Each tile on the Codex screen represents a set of three cards (x2) that are grouped according to a particular theme/land type. The four Mountain sets, for instance, are called Combat, Tactics, Ogres and Vicious; the idea being that the three cards in each will complement each other or contribute to a particular strategy. The Combat set, for instance, has three cards that all have the keyword “Combat” – i.e. you get a reward, such as additional Faeria, when they attack an enemy or are attacked. There are neutral Codexes too, such as “Borderlands,” which has two low cost minions that can be stationed next to a Faeria well on turn one, so if harvesting resources is part of your strategy, these cards might be worth including.
Once you’ve chosen enough Codexes and have 30 cards, you can play with the deck you’ve created or make adjustments – exchanging cards you might think might be weak or tweaking your potential strategy. It’s simple and feels good to use. And while the Codexes will become less relevant as your experience and card collection grows, you’ll get more comfortable building your own decks too.
The cards in the combat codex.
You earn the Codexes – and unlock the relevant cards - by winning games in the solo Campaign – of which there are three Red, Yellow and Blue missions (in addition to the Forest-focused tutorial), thus giving you a good feel for the strengths and themes of each land type.
As mentioned, Faeria is in early access so you can start playing right now. The business model is a bit of a mish-mash. While you have to pay for early access (USD $9) or an early access bundle (USD $25 – which includes 20 booster packs and 10 Pandora tickets), once you get into the game it’s a very familar free-to-play model – spend in-game currency or real-world currency on packs, dust or craft cards, etc. In a neat touch, though, you also have the option to simply drop USD $50 and own the entire collection. If you love the game and just want to play with everything immediately, there’s a way to do it! And you get refunded gold for any packs you’ve opened up to that point.
Faeria has fantastic art throughout.
So that's Faeria. It's been a long time coming, but I think it has a bright future. Go check it out!
Cam Shea is senior editor in IGN’s Australian office. He's a Hearthstone player and indie game enthusiast. You can tweet at him here.
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