Friday was the UK release of Solforge Fusion, the new card game from Richard Garfield (Magic, Keyforge) and Justin Gary (Ascension and Shards of Infinity).
Experience the first ever Hybrid Card Game with over 15,000 cards in the base set alone!
In SolForge Fusion, all decks are algorithmically generated so no two decks are alike, then you take two decks and shuffle them together to battle!
You and your opponent compete in strategic lane-based combat. When you play a card it levels up, allowing you to access new powers and abilities to defeat your opponent and damage their creatures. The first player to bring their opponent down to zero health wins!
(Source: Publlisher description on BGG.com)
It takes the idea of the uniquely-generated half decks (30 cards with 10 each on Bronce, Silver and Gold level) from Keyforge and the upgradeable cards from SolForge, the old app-based card game from Stone Blade Entertainment. Upgradeable means that every time you play a card, the next level of the card goes into your discard pile and can get played once the discard pile gets shuffled into your deck. Full decks (2 half decks of your choice from the starter kit or the available booster kits) only include 20 cards, so upgraded cards will return quickly to your hand and because more powerful will have a strong influence on the ongoing battle.
The game is easy to learn, here is a short video with all the rules you need to play:
I played the game a few times last weekend and I enjoyed it a lot. I used to play a lot of Magic, but stopped when I didn’t want to spend crazy money on new cards and sets all the time and I didn’t have time anymore to research and build working decks. When Keyforge came, I hoped that it would be the Magic replacement for me because I liked the idea of buying a few unique ready-to-go decks and sitting down to play a few games. But in the end the game itself didn’t interest me at all. So along comes SolForge and for me it takes the ideas of KeyForge I liked and combined it with a much better game. So for me it is a winner.
And for everyone who is concerned about not having someone to play it nearby: the game comes with an official Tabletop Simulator mod and all the decks can get imported into TableTop Simulator. How does it work? Watch and learn 🙂
It is pretty amazing and should help with the problem all new trading/collectible card games have: a lack of local players to get into the game.