Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Shadow Era: Worlds 2012 Overview

As many reading this will know, worlds was a thing. This past weekend, the 32 best in the world competed for their claim to the title of World Champion. We saw a lot of decks, a lot of upsets, and a hero that nobody thought would take the whole thing.

I had the honor of hosting live coverage of the event on Shadow Era TV alongside tournament organizer and design team member GondorianDotCom, another designer Mojumbo, lead tester Soothslyr and the occasional voice of Kyle Poole himself, lead designer and CEO of Wulven Studios.

In today's post, I'll recap some of the games, decks, and players that showed up over the weekend, the expected and the unexpected, and some insight on how the results may affect the quickmatch meta.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Shadow Era: Advanced Drafting

Last week, I went over some simple drafting techniques and etiquette for those new to the format. Today, I'll go over the official formats as described by Wulven and then expand on some draft strategies from the week before.

Wulven has announced three different formats for sanctioned limited events, two draft and one sealed. The two draft formats are as follows:

1. SIX packs (minus the hero and code) drafted, 30 card decks with normal restrictions
2. EIGHT packs (minus the hero and code) drafted, 40 card decks with normal restrictions

The sealed, called Meltdown, is where you open four packs and build a 30 card deck without any class or faction restrictions. So you can have a Feedback, Tidal Wave, Earthen Protector and Shadow Knight all in the same deck if that's what you pull. As fun as this may be for some, this article is about the two draft formats.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Shadow Era: Drafting Basics

As physical cards are being shipped out, more and more players will be looking to grab a group of buddies and open up a box, and the best value you're going to get from a stack of packs is using them for a draft.

What is drafting? I see this question a surprisingly large amount in the official forums, especially from those not used to physical card games. Don't plan on playing the physical version? That's fine, drafting will eventually hit the digital client as well, so you'll want to listen up. Or maybe you don't because you're a cheap whore who refuses to support wulven and pay for the packs. I don't discriminate.