World of Warcraft TCG  

The World of Warcraft tradeable card game, designed by Upper Deck Entertainment, is a TCG very similiar to Magic: The Gathering, but themed within the Warcraft universe. There are some very noteworthy differences between M:TG and WoW, despite the obvious similarities, and many WoW players have referred to the game as "Magic, improved."

One of the most renowned parts of the game is the inclusion of Loot Cards that have scratch-off codes for items in the MMO.

Basic Gameplay

Each player starts with their Hero in play and draws seven cards. They flip a coin to decide who takes the first turn.

On each turn a player may:

• Ready (aka untap) all their cards. (required)
• Draw a card. (required)
• Play a card as a resource. (max once per turn)
• Attack with their allies or their hero.
• Play ability cards.
• Complete quests.

The objective of the game is to destroy the opposing hero by dealing more damage over the course of the game than they can withstand.

There are five types of cards in the game: Hero, Ally, Ability, Equipment, and Quest. A sixth card type, Location, is not actively a part of the game yet, but will be added with an upcoming expansion.

Heroes

A deck only has one hero, and it starts in play at the beginning of the game. A hero will be a particular class and belong to either the Horde or Alliance. This restricts which cards can be used in a deck considerably, since ability cards are almost always usable by only one class, and most allies are either Horde or Alliance. The hero also has a health total in the bottom-right corner that determines how much damage they can take.

Heroes also have a "flip power" that acts as a bonus card. Flip powers have a cost and require the user to turn the hero over. Unlike other cards, heroes have their artwork printed on the back, along with their health total. Flip powers can only be used once per game, and the act of flipping signifies that the power has been spent.

Resources and Quests

Each turn, a player has the option of playing one of their cards into their resource row. These resources can then be "exhausted" (aka tapped) to pay for the costs of other cards. Resources are "readied" (untapped) at the start of each turn, and can be used any time they are readied.

Any card can be played into the resource row. A card in the resource row will remain there for the length of the game, so it is usually not wise to use critical cards for your infrastructure instead. When a card is played into the resource row, it is placed face down to indicate that it is nothing more than a resource.

A critical exception to this rule, however, is quests. Quests are cards that are designed just to play in your resource row, and work just like a face-down resource, except that you can also pay a cost printed on the quest to gain some bonus. Most of the time, this bonus involves drawing a card. This is important, because most players want to add a resource each turn, and also want to put a card into play each turn with those resources, but they only normally draw one card each turn. Eventually they would run out of cards! Quests help make sure each player has options as the game moves forward.

When a quest is completed, it is turned face-down.

Allies

The easiest way to deal damage to the opposing hero is by using allies. Allies are your helpers, that do battle for you and very often run off to die. Allies have a health total in the same corner as heroes, although they have much less of it. In the bottom-left corner, they also have an attack (ATK) value. Once an ally has been in play for an entire turn, they are able to attack another target. Assuming all goes well, they will deal damage to their target equal to their ATK. The hero or ally they are in combat with also deals damage back to them. If either the attacker or defender have more damage on them than their health, they are destroyed and removed from the game.

Allies have a cost to play in the upper-right corner, which represents the number of resources that must be exhausted to play it. Because only one resource can be played each turn, an ally that costs 6 resources would not possibly be playable before turn 6. Cards that are useful early in the game are not very helpful late in the game, but the game can end by turn 4 or 5 if you do nothing to stop your opponent, so it is important to have cards for different cost levels.

Abilities

Abilities are the cards that represent class skills. Greater Heal, Mortal Strike, and Chain Lightning can only be played by the proper classes, but can have a tremendous impact on the game when they are used. Abilities can only be played on your own turn unless it has the word "Instant" printed on it. Instant abilities can be played at any time, and can be used to react to your opponent's actions on their turn. Abilities usually just have an immediate effect, and then go to the graveyard. Any ability designed to do something as the game progresses, like Mark of the Wild, is labeled "Ongoing."

Equipment

Gear can play a role in the game as well. Allies can get into combat and deal damage equal to their ATK. However, heroes have no ATK of their own, and just have to stand there and take hits. If a hero has a weapon, however, they can strike with that to deal damage. Weapons are much harder to remove from the game, but they have a cost to activate, which is in their lower-right corner where the health would be for an ally. When a hero swings with a weapon, the hero gains ATK equal to the ATK on the weapon. With a 3-ATK weapon, a hero would do 3 damage.

Because the game is over when a hero takes too much damage, reducing this damage using armor can also sometimes be a good idea. When a hero takes damage, a piece of armor can be exhausting to reduce the damage taken. This is only done as the damage is taken, and is only good for that single source of damage. A shield that can stop 4 damage can't block an attack for 3 and then also an attack for 1.

Strategy

Most decks rely on attacking the hero with allies. If the game were as simple as who could get out the most allies to hit their opponent with, the game would not be much fun. However, allies can attack each other to remove each other from play. An ally with 2 atk / 1 health can still kill an ally with 3 atk / 2 health. Because the 3/2 ally is much better than the 2/1, making this trade is going to help out the player with the 2/1. For this reason, players almost always prefer to play first so they can have the advantage in making these decisions.

The attacker always chooses who he is going to attack, however some allies come with the word Protector on them. These allies can be exhausted to jump in the way. Consider the situation above, where the 2/1 is attacking the 3/2. If the player with the 3/2 also had a protector with 1 atk and 3 health, they could fight the 2/1 instead. If they did, they would live through to the next turn, and the 2/1 would still perish.

Another important line of reasoning in the game is "card advantage." Both players start with 7 cards, plus their hero. Any time you do something to add an extra card to your side, or remove a card from your opponent's side, you are gaining an advantage. Most of the time, winning a war of attrition will lead to your opponent having very little they can do to you.

Which cards are in your deck is also an extremely important part of the game. Most decks have some kind of general theme they are built around. Sometimes this is to have a ton of low-cost allies to "rush" the opponent with. Sometimes it is to hold back and "control" the board. Most games fall into a situation where one person is the aggressor while the other person is trying to regain control of the game, even when decks are not built as one of these two styles.

Differences from Magic: the Gathering

Magic: the Gathering relies on playing specific cards, Land, are resources. A player that has the unfortunate disposition of not getting any of their land will not be able to play anything and watch as the player hits them. By contrast, WoW lets any card be used as a resource, even though quests are the preferred choice if they are available.

Card drawing is also much more widely available in World of Warcraft. Quests are known for drawing cards, and many other cards in the game are played at least partially just to add more cards to your hand. Because players can keep more cards in their hand, and will usually be playing a resource every turn, higher cost cards are actually much more meaningful in WoW than MTG. A seven-cost card becomes a pivotal game-deciding card in World of Warcraft. In Magic, such cards are usually laughed at.

In Magic, when attacks occur, a player must announce everything that will be attacking for the turn all at once, and simply declare they are attacking. The defender then chooses to use whichever creatures they want to "block" with, and any ready creature can block. This can often make removing troublesome creatures very difficult. By comparison, WoW allows the attacker to choose who they are calling out, and unless there is a protector that can get involved, they will hit who they want. While many players feel this is a good thing to make the game more robust, it also has the downside of making it very hard to establish any kind of footing when an opponent manages to clear your side of the board. This is usually the one thing devoted Magic players complain about with regard to WoW. It also means that going first in WoW is almost always the right choice if you win the coin flip.

World of Warcraft has a "hero" that represents the player, as opposed to some nameless faceless "wizard" with a generic life total of 20.

Damage is counted up in WoW while life is counted down in Magic. This is a subtle, but important difference. It is possible to gain life and have more than your maximum in Magic. In WoW, you cannot remove damage that isn't there. However, much more importantly, damage that is on a target in WoW stays there. At the end of each turn in Magic, all damage is healed, meaning a player with an army of 1/1 creatures would probably never be able to eliminate a 3/3 target.

Throwbacks to the MMO

Overall, World of Warcraft the TCG exists independently from the MMO. The heroes and allies are mostly invented, and are designed to make the game more playable. In fact, the game has progressed to the point where there are almost no in-game abilities remaning that have not been put on a card, so many of the newer abilities are also fabricated as well. What is important to the WoW design team is that the overall feel of the game resembles that of Blizzard's world.

However, there are a good many cards that have been designed specifically because of their presence in the game. Some are NPCs like Thrall, Gamon and Instructor Antheol, while others are built around internet jokes like Leeroy Jenkins, Kralnor, and Lt. Commander Dudefella. Many others are just designed to be silly. Pugg is an ally that makes all the other allies in your party underperform, much as a bad PuG player would be a detriment to his team.

Game Expansions

The World of Warcraft TCG was originally released in late 2006 with the set "Heroes of Azeroth." Since then, the game has added a new release every few months, including:

• Through the Dark Portal (Q2 2007)
• Fires of Outland (Q3 2007)
• March of the Legion (Q4 2007)
• Servants of the Betrayer (Q1 2008)
• The Hunter for Illidan (Q2 2008)
• Drums of War (expected Q3 2008)

Other products have also been released for the game, including raid decks, which allow several players to work cooperatively against a common foe such as Onyxia or Magtheridon. The only other side product released so far was Feast of Winter Veil, a small 10-card release featuring special cards themed around the seasonal events. A similiar set is slated for release later this year based on the Darkmoon Faire.

• Upper Deck's WoW TCG home page

World of Warcraft Wikibase™