I was pleasently surprised with how this game mixes Hearthstone and Magic, resulting in a game that has the flow of a Hearthstone match and the strategic thinking of playing Magic.

That's achieved by having the Hearthstone mana system and part of the turn structure and keywords, while most of the battle mechanics and keywords are taken from magic directly.

To best understand the feel of this game, we can take the battle phase as example:

- first of all, there is a battle phase, unlike Hearthstone/Shadowverse, where creatures can attack at any moment;

- like in Magic, the battle phase is composed by declaring attackers and then blockers, this means that creatures can have keywords like flying and trample, and the strategical thinking about who to attack with depending on who can block is similar to Magic, with some differences;

- unlike Magic, creatures don't regenerate health at the end of the turn and don't tap when attacking, which means you can block with a creature that attacked, so concepts like blocking a big creature with a small creature have a different meaning in this game;

- a mixed mechanic is how traps work (instant spells): like Magic, you set aside the mana for the instant you want to cast and your opponent will only see that you have mana available, but doesn't know if you've set it aside for something. This means that you also don't set the trap on the field like Hearthstone, instead, like in Magic, you'll cast the spell from your hand, and depending on the spell, it may be cast on your turn, usually during the battle phase. Like Hearthstone, though, the traps activate when the condition is met, so you don't have control over when they activate. Also, they stay prepared only until your next turn, meaning that if you don't activate them, the mana has been wasted, the spell stays in your hand and you can use it again, similar to Magic, but since you don't have control over when or which spell to activate, it's more penalizing. It's a bit more suspenseful than Hearthstone, since you never know when or which spell could be cast, but it's less strategic than Magic, since the traps can be baited if they're not used at the right moment.

In conclusion, of all the Hearthstone inspired games, this is the only one, other than Shadowverse, that feels to me like it has it's own identity. I understand there are many things that can drive away a person from this game without even trying it, even just from the art style. And I haven't talked about the monetisation or the meta because they are quite complex and I guess the community might shape it with time. At the moment I found enough different matchups once passed the lowest tier and a higher than expected variety of deckbuilding even with the starting kit, since you can add a splash of any color in your starting red deck.

I was pleasently surprised with how this game mixes Hearthstone and Magic, resulting in a game that has the flow of a Hearthstone match and the strategic thinking of playing Magic. That's achieved by having the Hearthstone mana system and part of the turn structure and keywords, while most of the battle mechanics and keywords are taken from magic directly. To best understand the feel of this game, we can take the battle phase as example: - first of all, there is a battle phase, unlike Hearthstone/Shadowverse, where creatures can attack at any moment; - like in Magic, the battle phase is composed by declaring attackers and then blockers, this means that creatures can have keywords like flying and trample, and the strategical thinking about who to attack with depending on who can block is similar to Magic, with some differences; - unlike Magic, creatures don't regenerate health at the end of the turn and don't tap when attacking, which means you can block with a creature that attacked, so concepts like blocking a big creature with a small creature have a different meaning in this game; - a mixed mechanic is how traps work (instant spells): like Magic, you set aside the mana for the instant you want to cast and your opponent will only see that you have mana available, but doesn't know if you've set it aside for something. This means that you also don't set the trap on the field like Hearthstone, instead, like in Magic, you'll cast the spell from your hand, and depending on the spell, it may be cast on your turn, usually during the battle phase. Like Hearthstone, though, the traps activate when the condition is met, so you don't have control over when they activate. Also, they stay prepared only until your next turn, meaning that if you don't activate them, the mana has been wasted, the spell stays in your hand and you can use it again, similar to Magic, but since you don't have control over when or which spell to activate, it's more penalizing. It's a bit more suspenseful than Hearthstone, since you never know when or which spell could be cast, but it's less strategic than Magic, since the traps can be baited if they're not used at the right moment. In conclusion, of all the Hearthstone inspired games, this is the only one, other than Shadowverse, that feels to me like it has it's own identity. I understand there are many things that can drive away a person from this game without even trying it, even just from the art style. And I haven't talked about the monetisation or the meta because they are quite complex and I guess the community might shape it with time. At the moment I found enough different matchups once passed the lowest tier and a higher than expected variety of deckbuilding even with the starting kit, since you can add a splash of any color in your starting red deck.