Hello Duelysts, my name is Mike. If you played Magic Tactics before SOE pulled the plug you might remember my name as lordmantis (assuming I’m not alone). I’ve been playing for a week or two and the game seems fun enough. Not overly fond about the crates being behind a pay wall but I guess they have to do what they can. Currently enjoying most factions really with a tendency towards Songhai. Abyssian is the one I want to like most but just can’t since it currently seems super fragile. Also wish there were either gender skins for all generals as well though that’s a minor issue. I definitely need to beef up my collection and my skills in gauntlet.
Anyway, thanks for looking!
M:TG Tactics player trying to find a home
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Hello Mikey, I’m LEL7 =D
Songhai main for the longest time myself. Crate keys can be obtained by 12 gauntlet win runs or placing in tournaments.
The Duelyst wiki has all the resources a Duelyst player needs
https://duelyst.gamepedia.com/Guides
Thanks lel… out of maybe a half dozen Gauntlets I have gotten 1 win. Wish there was maybe a weekly quest to get a key with a very low chance to getting something higher than common. Right now Gauntlet for me feels like a major uphill battle. The people playing it know the cards inside and out, the strategies, the picks, etc etc… and I’m still struggling to remember not to line up my stuff against Vanar… Not trying to whine, just hitting frustration with this a lot earlier than I do with most new games. Very very steep curve for Gauntlet. If the game is only for diehard players or p2w types, then I honestly don’t see myself hanging around that long unfortunately 
. I love deep strategy and building a collection but have very little time or patience for much past casual at the moment… and the forum topics I’ve just read and many posts have me feeling like this game is geared much more towards meta players and tourney types… which isn’t my scene.
EDIT: When you say tournament… do you mean Gauntlet? I am not sure what else that would mean…
While the crates themselves are behind a paywall, everything in them is not and is available via spirit. They do on rare occasion put out a quest that gives a key. There is also gauntlet, and you can get a couple free here:
https://news.duelyst.com/free-common-crate-keys-for-social-media-follows/
There are also usually a couple tournaments a week with one of the prizes being keys. They are usually hosted on battlefly, and are advertised here or on reddit. I recommend joining the TCG esports channel, and the official tournament channel on discord.
Abyss is a ton of fun although not the most budget friendly of factions. As for gender skins, each general has a bit of lore attached and their gender is pretty important to that, or they have one female and one male general for the faction. Abyssians are all female as the male ones of their species are called Inyxkree and are all monstrous.
I am always happy to help out a new Abyss player and I am a bit biased against songhai so always happy to steal one of their players :P. Anyways you can check out my stuff here:
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Hello, I hope you will have a great time
Please check out the general chat meme thread here This thread's title has finally been decided on
(the frequent posters is actually broke as I post the most with 700+ posts.
I actually built (and tested) a budget burn abyss deck, tag me if you want it.
A truly MTG player, indeed.
Welcome to the comunity!
I think Gauntlet pros usually play full control, trying to play until late and summoning a strong wincondition -usually a big minion whit huge impact on the board, even if its not inmediatly, because there are lack of removals on that gamemode- to end the game, which is really different on how pros play ladder. You should visit the wiki to get more info about both gamemodes. But choosing your cards whit a late flood tactic in mind may help you play Gauntlet.
Also feel free to take @deathsadvocate and @lel7 advices, theyre really good players here.
EDIT: Also about your doubts about paywalls. Game isnt pay2win and you can build a comp deck reasonably fast, which its a good idea to learn the basics and farming gold-spirit. Anyways, as deathsadvocate said before, Abysian are one of the most expensive Factions. Also Shongai its very unstable and requires deep knowledge of the game to play whit, so its not a good idea to start whit. I Think playing Magmar (agro) or Lyonar (control) are way better starting decks to learn about positioning and farming, and you should have no problems by reaching gold league whit those decks, whick grant you free spirit, gold and legendary cards at the end of the monthly season.
I had a similar experience with gauntlet.
When I started with it, i only lost. I did not touch it for months after that.
But it simply is another game and you have to learn it before you can become good.
The cards may be the same, but their power level is different. Hand and board play a more important role. You don’t learn that by playing ladder.
And since the rewards are great for good players and worse than ladder for bad players, only the good remain for long. So yeah, it has a steep curve.
Ignore the crates. There’s occasionally a way to get a key for free, but otherwise I just pretend they don’t exist. They’re mostly just for cosmetics, anyway. You don’t need them.
My advice getting started on building your collection is to save up the 300 gold for the “Rise of the Bloodbound” and “Ancient Bonds” sets. Those packs give you 3 of 3 different cards (so, 9 cards total in each pack) that you don’t already have. There’s 39 different cards in each set, so after 13 packs, you own the entire set, legendaries and all. Look up a spoiler list for each online to see which one has more cards you want and then go with that set until you have the ones you want, then switch to the other. Personally I’d go with Ancient Bonds since there’s golem synergy there, and it makes the golems you start with actually worth playing, although that would mean switching to Magmar, Vetruvian, or Lyonar (the other 3 factions got Arcanyst synergy, which was really good for Vanar).
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Basically, you do need cards to have fun. I’m sure everyone will l trip over themselves to tell you it’s f2p and it is if you do dailies everyday, all the boss battles and general grinding you can amass a collection (there’s also guantlet, but you know about that). You’ll definitely need luck tho as getting cards you want with the disenchant rates are unjust (but I come from a card game with a market and so disenchanting to me is super mega inefficient). But if you want to try many of different cards and decks and as f2p, this is a long dream.
As far as gameplay goes, I generally enjoy duelyst anyway. There’s a steep learning curve that misses people where you have to stop playing your hand out and start reading your opponent, and once you’ve here cards start making less of a difference and its more about skill, but again I feel this is more for a competitive experience as opposed to an explosive one. I saw a steam just today of a guy in bronze running a fault deck who should have lost but ultimately won as his opponent was a beginner. This will frustrate you at first, but I think it’s quickly overcome with research and practice.
As far as Guantlet goes, you shouldn’t start there, it isn’t beginner friendly. While the upper tiers of the game may be very meta centric, in bronze, silver and gold you may run into those kinds of decks, but whatever deck you have generally can compete because good decks don’t just win you the game. I was told you really shouldn’t get into guantlet until you’ve reached gold on ladder.
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Thanks everyone. I’m currently floating around rank 14 on ladder. Mostly that’s with a removal heavy Magmar deck. When I mentioned Songhai, they’re perhaps not my favorite but I find their card interactions to be the most interesting. Vetruvian is really neat at face value and Lyonar and Vanar seem exceptionally strong. Abyssian is that pretty lady that has a bad personality… I want to hang… but… I got things to do…
I definitely get why people say Magmar is new player friendly. Again, not really new to the genre and quickly keyed in on the removal and tempo cards. I just find that the interactions are extremely blunt and on the nose. Nothing wrong with that but sometimes it seems more rewarding to drop a Calligrapher and suddenly have an evil genius plan to kill all the things.
I’ve been watching Gauntlet Academy and my biggest downfall was what I understood to be tempo was incorrect and my understanding of creature’s values was based on a flawed understanding.
Currently I am rotating Gauntlet participations… As I earn gold, I open 2 spheres then play a Gauntlet. I might move it to every 4th expenditure is a Gauntlet until my abilities are up to speed.
Thanks again everyone for the feedback, advice, help, etc.
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