Elestrals is a whole lot of enjoyable. In case you missed it, Elestrals is a brand new buying and selling card sport (TCG) that piqued my curiosity. The staff was type sufficient to ship me a few starter decks and a ton of booster packs and I’ve spent the final week or two making an attempt it out.
If you wish to see me open up the entire booster packs, you possibly can try my pack opening video on the backside and maintain studying to listen to my ideas concerning the sport. Whereas all of the playing cards had been offered to me without spending a dime, all of the ideas beneath are my very own.
Let’s begin our dialogue by speaking about one of many first belongings you turn into acquainted with in Elestrals: the artwork. It feels very cartoony. It’s playful and vivid. It feels imaginative. After all, some gained’t prefer it, however I feel it’s good and really inviting.
Most of the Elestrals have cute designs like Kryoling and the spirits, however there are additionally loads like Arctaurus and Emperowatt that look cool.
My subsequent level of debate is the cardboard design. Total, I feel the playing cards are very nicely designed. The title is up high with the image instantly beneath. Then, in the course of the cardboard is the price of the cardboard.
Then, on Elestrals you’ve gotten the assault and protection stats on both aspect of the price with symbols clearly outlining which is which. Then you’ve gotten the impact of the Elestral.
The underside of the cardboard has details about the set it got here from, the rarity, and the subclass. Runes are the identical, however as an alternative of getting the assault and protection stats on both aspect of the price, the kind of Rune is indicated with an emblem. Total, it’s principally straightforward to determine find out how to play a card and what it does.
I do have two critiques concerning the design of the playing cards although. First, the symbols for the several types of Runes should not very intuitive. I’m positive as I play the sport extra it’ll make sense, however for now I’m continually having to reference the reference card that comes with the starter decks to verify I do know what sort of Rune is being forged.
Second, the subclasses are exhausting to see. Actually, the symbols for Runes and the stat symbols on Elestrals might additionally use some assist, however they’re larger and due to this fact simpler to see. The subclass icon is basically small and only a lighter shade of grey. I want the coloring was larger distinction.
If it was simply taste, that might be one factor, however there are methods that may make the most of subclasses akin to if you’d like an Ursa deck. I think about extra of these methods are going to occur as the sport evolves too. I feel a pleasant gold would do wonders or a vivid white can be good. Only a thought.
I’m not going to elucidate find out how to play the sport fully, however I do need to speak about gameplay. My primary TCG in the mean time is Yu-Gi-Oh!, however I’ve additionally performed Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, Digimon (positively in my high three), Harry Potter again within the early 2000s, Naruto within the 2000s, Duel Masters, and possibly a pair others that I’m forgetting.
The short and soiled is that to me, Elestrals feels prefer it took about 65% inspiration from Yu-Gi-Oh!, 10% inspiration from Pokémon/Magic, after which added its personal 25% to create a extremely strong sport. I need to breakdown the place I see every inspiration.
Actually, for those who simply have a look at an Elestrals board, it appears to be like like Yu-Gi-Oh! with one fewer column. You additionally draw 5 playing cards initially of the sport, can solely Forged as soon as per flip except you employ a Particular Forged, fight is sort of an identical, and you’ll set Runes face down for use in your opponent’s flip.
In the meantime, the spirits act quite a bit like Vitality in Pokémon and Lands in Magic by serving as a price to play your playing cards. One other similarity to Pokémon is that you could Ascend your Elestrals which is analogous to Evolving.
The wonder is that Elestrals took many of those ideas although and did make some features their very own. As an illustration, I discussed that Ascending is like Evolving. Nevertheless, if you ascend you aren’t having to undergo a particular line.
You may Ascend your Kryoling into any Elestral! You need to use any Elestral to Ascend into Emperowatt. There are strains and playing cards that information you to particular ones akin to Penguwatt whose capability particularly Particular Ascends into Emperowatt, however most are typically extra like Snowattle which searches for a Frost/Lightning Elestral which might be used to get Penguwatt however provides you extra flexibility.
One other means that Elestrals is its personal is that your major useful resource for enjoying playing cards (spirits) additionally function your life. In Pokémon, you possibly can run out of Vitality after which simply wait to get playing cards that allow you to cycle them again.
In Magic, you possibly can have all of your Lands destroyed and the one drawback is that your tempo is misplaced. In Elestrals, you’ll lose for those who run out and need to spend one, similar to the way you lose for those who can’t draw anymore playing cards out of your Primary Deck. It positively makes useful resource administration really feel much more essential.
I additionally admire how spirits don’t need to match the Elestral forged, nevertheless it does imply that the Elestral doesn’t get their capability. Because of this for those who simply want a physique out for one purpose or one other, you don’t have to fret about not having the best spirit typing.
Returning to fight, I like the way in which Elestrals handles injury quite a bit. As I already mentioned, fight total is an identical to Yu-Gi-Oh!. Nevertheless, injury relies on the variety of spirits that every Elestral is enchanted with.
This implies that there’s a purpose to play larger Elestrals as they’ll usually lead to extra injury, nevertheless it additionally signifies that one thing with an enormous assault stat gained’t simply wipe out half of your spirits in a single assault except your opponent has put a whole lot of assets into that Elestral.
One other design characteristic that I admire and hope they preserve is that playing cards would not have novels of textual content on them. Some Elestrals have fairly a little bit of textual content on them, however you don’t want a magnifying glass and their talents are normally saved to about one or two issues.
As a Yu-Gi-Oh! participant, that is incredible and shouldn’t be modified. A card ought to have at most three results and solely in uncommon circumstances. The textual content measurement needs to be uniform throughout all playing cards in my view and if it needs to be shrunk to slot in the field, there’s an excessive amount of.
It’s issues like this that make Elestrals really feel distinctive and at occasions extra enjoyable than different video games. There are nonetheless some areas that I both need to see occur or am simply curious if modifications will occur.
In my earlier piece about Elestrals, I discussed that spirits appear to all simply present a single useful resource with no talents or something. I do surprise if particular spirits shall be made that present a couple of sort, have a capability, or one thing else.
I don’t suppose that might be a great way for the sport to go, however I’m interested by it. I do hope that higher Stadiums are made. Proper now, the Stadiums all seem like the identical, only for differing types. Because of this in a mirror match it at greatest serves as a device for Nexusing (aka shifting) spirits round which in my view lowers their worth total. That mentioned, there are some playing cards that do require a Stadium to be enchanted, however that doesn’t lengthen to every type.
I’ve actually loved enjoying Elestrals and my spouse loved it greater than I imagined. I’ve tried getting her into different TCGs, however the one ones that she seems to really take pleasure in are Pokémon (which she performed as a child) and Elestrals.
I’ve tried tweaking the starter decks and I feel I’ve been pretty profitable with Kryoscorch (final time we performed with the edited decks, my spouse walloped me) however I’ve been having a tough time with Emperowatt and I feel that I need to deliver in additional non-Frost playing cards which is difficult with Frostfall as a result of it was the introductory set for Frost.
Guess I have to both rethink my deckbuilding or get extra units. I do hope that Dawn is the final set for a very long time to introduce new varieties in order that extra units generally is a bit extra balanced for the different sorts.
I’d positively suggest making an attempt out Elestrals for your self. They’ve a really lively Discord neighborhood and a free cell app in case you might be involved concerning the funding. They’re additionally continually searching for sport shops to work with, so for those who’re a fan you must discuss to your sport retailer about probably carrying the sport.
I feel Elestrals is off to an unbelievable begin by way of being a enjoyable TCG. Hopefully, it could proceed to develop and be a a lot larger presence within the TCG house.
