Deviants’ Factions, a new trading card game using the Immutable X marketplace, is currently offering a free-to-play alpha version to everyone. This deck-building game runs in a web browser and has some interesting mechanics.
Signing up for the Deviants Faction The alpha is fairly simple. It’s hardly an inconvenience! All you have to do is connect your portfolio to the Deviants site and link it to the IMX marketplace (or sign a message if you are already linked to IMX). New players are given a random username and avatar. Players choose one of twelve preset decks to use for their match. All that’s left to do is click “Play” and off you go!
Deviants plans to open deckbuilding to its players on August 30. Players will be able to purchase packs on the official website. The game will offer some sort of play-to-earn option via tournaments with their own tokens, but for now, nothing like that is implemented yet.
Since the game is free to play and doesn’t require any downloads, NFT ownership or anything else, it’s definitely worth a look for anyone interested in TCG-style games.
Deviants’ Factions is a typical TCG in some respects. Two players assemble a deck of cards and battle it out on the battlefield until only one is left. But Deviants has some interesting differences. First, each deck has only eight (8) cards! Also, the board has slots, or lanes, that are automatically assigned from left to right as players add cards to the table.
How to play Deviants Faction?
Each character card played has attack and hit point statistics, as well as various abilities. In addition, there are Tech cards. These cards bring improvements to your team and/or improvements to the other team.
Each player also has an HQ, based on their chosen faction. Not only does this HQ function as the player’s avatar (when the HQ’s health reaches zero, you lose), but it also has its own buffs and effects.
The game starts with a blank board, and both players start with three cards. Each player has the opportunity to return his hand to his deck, reshuffle it, and draw three new cards before the game begins.
The game is played in four phases, or stages – the draw stage (skipped in the first round), the development stage where cards are played, the combat stage, and the ending stage. Everything except the Dev stage takes place simultaneously for both sides, with attacks starting in the leftmost column and moving to the right. So placement is important! Some cards even have abilities that only work if they are in certain lanes.
Deviant Factions features an interesting mechanic where no attacks or abilities occur for the first three rounds. This gives players a chance to set up their board before the action begins. And there’s certainly plenty of action – with buffs, debuffs, angle attacks, explosive attacks, column moves, and more. Usually every turn!
Deviants’ Factions has a lot of interaction with the cards. Technology and character abilities can be triggered during any phase of the turn! In fact, there’s so much going on during a game that it’s sometimes hard to keep up! I highly recommend checking out the tutorials before planning a game.
With only eight cards, it is very possible to play all your cards during a match. When this happens, the game automatically runs to the end. Which is both interesting and a bit strange at the same time.
