Introduction
This post is about ideas for games with different rules or based on a recurring calendar of themed events. It would help bring some variety and freshness to the game and help keep things interesting in between expansion releases.
This is part of a series of posts that collect ideas for game features that have yet to be implemented and I believe would be very beneficial to the game.
Seasonal events
Create a regular, predictable event calendar themed around the most important worldwide holidays. Include themed achievements and reward tracks that can only be chased during the event duration. Enable thematically inspired cards exclusive to each event. They could be
- Account bound, non-NFTs, or
- Mintable as part of a reward track and forgeable. They could be banned outside of the event period
The seasonal events could be
Winter Wonderland
Chinese New Year, themed in red and leaning heavily on luck and wild swings in the game state depending on luck
Halloween. Spooky cards could appear in your hand at any time and make a mess of the meta.
Summer in the North
Summer in the South
Zoroastrian New Year
But also GU lore related events, like a regional festival or a commemoration of a World changing event
Temporary changes to Core cards inline with the seasonal event to shake up the meta
Story mode and puzzles
Re-live the major events of each Expansion in a special card battle against the AI or another player
- The siege of Raneko
- Atlants vs Dragons at the Spire
- Trial of the Gods
- Lysander vs Thaeriel
There could be special decks for each side and queue up players to play either randomly, perhaps in limited time events. In this mode perhaps the players wouldn't have to own all the cards and new special cards could be created to give flavor and tell the story in more detail.
Other game modes
Tribal skirmishes: Olympians vs Olympians, Amazons vs Vikings, etc
Can't attack before turn 6 (build board)
Player team skirmishes (like the Dragons vs Atlanteans during Tides of Fate) with temporary and exclusive cards available to each team. These cards could be tweaked as the event progresses and tied to lore, to try and balance out the event
Only Anims can attack Gods
Only Poison creatures do damage
Other game modes: The Polyhymnia Festival
As part of a yearly ceremony to ward off extreme weather events caused by mythical creatures, the peoples of Eucos would create a Polyhymnia replica by applying buffs to a dummy creature until it attains the exact same stats and effects as the real card, ie, 6/10 Frontline, 4 Armor, Ward and Protected.
This mode would probably require creating a few exclusive cards for this game mode, perhaps with effects that re-occur at the end of each turn. The first player to get the stats right wins. Combat would be disabled, or at least the dummy creature could not be attacked.
Other game modes: Apex Mayhem
Rules:
- Ban cards with 4 mana cost or less.
- Mana wheel starts unlocked at 5.
Goals:
- High power and fast game experience where we skip the early game and give a new life to high mana cards that see almost no play (like high mana Atlanteans or Guilds, for example).
- 9 mana creatures would become great again.
- Most Combo decks are no longer available.
Banned cards:
- Replicating Ratification
- Aurora Oblivion
- Tendrils of Dread
- Lost in the Crowd
- Hortuk
- Arrandion - possibly, but there are just a handful of high mana cost draw cards. We're actually curious to see if an Arrandion deck would work. We'd leave Arrandion in with a caveat that it could require some testing.
Other game modes: Make Your Own Cards
In this game mode there wouldn't be any pre-made cards. The player would start with blanks and add in stats and features from the pool of effects in existing cards. Each component would have a fixed mana cost and adding more components to a card would add to its mana cost.
Card effects would generally be restricted to their typical God domain, i.e., War wouldn't be able to add sleep to their cards. Or it could be a free-for-all where all cards are neutral.
The components could be for example:
Fixed mana thresholds for stats: 4 points of stats adds 1 mana; 9 stat points cost 4 mana (Wetlands Ogre), etc.
Blessed keyword, 1 mana
Each armor point, 1 mana
Protected or Ward, 1 mana each
Sleep 1 creature, 1 mana
Spell effects that affect the entire board, 1 mana; if they affect only the opponent's side, 2 mana
Board wide 2 damage, 2 mana. This would create a 4 mana Crystal Rain without Forsee 2
Each unrestricted single target spell damage point costs 1 mana, so slightly weaker than Wyrmbreath
One of the fun things people would be able to play around with such a mode is to turn a spell they like into a creature, adding to the cards' mana cost. Or reduce the mana cost of an underused creature by reducing it's stats.
The list of components could be made limited to those in the player's card collection. This would be particularly meaningful for unique effects like Blade of Whiteplain. A player could make a version with protected or ward, or change the stats to 5/1 for example. the payer would also be able to decouple the draw effect from the roar, and when selecting only one of these effects the card cost would be reduced.
To prevent abuse of powerful effects there could be a rule where effects from Epic cards could only be used twice in a deck and effects from rare cards could only be used 4 times for example.
I think it would be nice to also support effects from Legendary cards, but that probably requires more balancing.
In the end this would create an unexpected and diverse player experience where it would be difficult to anticipate what the opponent's next moves are going to be.
Premium game mode: The Lost Mythics
Players pay 2-3 $GODS to play with the lost Mythic cards: Hyperion or Thethys
The player going first chooses which Mythic card will be in play. Without further testing, only one Mythic can be active in these matches. Both players should enter with a deck tailored to this game mode. It could be a hit and miss depending on the particular combination of the decklist and Mythic, but choosing a well rounded list of cards could be also part of the strategy.
When building a deck, players could be offered the option of selecting which card is removed from the deck if they go first (because they'd need to include the Mythic card in their decklist).
Active owners of the remaining Mythic cards could be offered the possibility of having their Mythic cards added to the list and receive royalties every time their card is chosen to be played.
If the owners of Hyperion or Thethys ever mint the cards on L2, they would be removed from this mode (or start receiving royalties).
New exclusive Mythics owned my the GU team could be added occasionally. If a rotation of Mythic cards ever happens, the cards being rotated out could be auctioned off or distributed as a tournament prize.
Rewards are themed around the lost Mythics - alternate card art, card backs, trinkets. Rewards could also include account-bound new art for the Blue Whales - since these are not minted cards (and Atlas' Burdens, Promethean Flames if the respective Mythics ever get added to the mode).
Rewards for winning could include Core packs (as they are more interesting rewards now, with the new DPE rules) and Star Points. Each win could have a decent chance of yielding a free ticket to play again. The roll outcome could be revealed during the end-of-match info screen.
Monthly leaderboards. Winners (top 3-10) receive randomly one of the new exclusive rewards. I suggest these rewards should be made very scarce. Perhaps the winner could pick their reward instead, but the others would be random.
Seasonal leaderboard lasting 6 months. At the end of the season the top players receive a prize in $GODS and the winner gets to pick the next Welcome Meteorite and Shadow cards to become available in the Star Store.
Why would people continue to play after the novelty factor wears off?
The ongoing exclusive rewards.
Fresh art for cosmetics could be introduced with every new Season. With this setting the distribution of each cosmetic could be more abundant.
After you score at least 1 win each week, the winning animation in the other modes switches to a new animation themed around the last Mythic you won with. So for example an animation for Hyperion would be a White or Black Star consuming the opponent's God portrait; for Thethys a blue whale could smash and splash on top of the opponent's God portrait.
Matches would count for DP&E with maximum multiplier. The Mythic card would count as Mythic quality for the winner.