I stopped playing Diablo 3 not because of the AH or anything (I actually liked the AH) but because all my friends quit. Once I was playing alone it was more or less a one way stop to quitting.

Been playing Gwent again (it is the card game with the best mechanics imo) and magically I'm winning some games now, with a nerfed weather deck no less. Either I've gotten better or there's a larger player population so they can match new players with other new players. Still not playing it that much, but six won rounds a day is achievable for now.

Ok, so Eternal is basically just Hearthstone. Aside from removing the ability to hit creatures with your own creatures and having the chance of even better mana screw than Duels did. Wonderful. I'm still set on Spellweaver being the best mechanically outside of MtG itself, shame no one plays it.

Yeah I was a bit bored of Eternal but still having fun with Shadowvrse and even started building proper, albeit not top tier yet, decks.

I am telling ya, you guys should really give Elder scrolls Legends a shot. I think if given the proper chance you could like it as much as duels IMO. Its free on steam and you dont need to spend cash on anything like in duels unless you want to buy packs or entry tickets into the arena. You can play on the ladder, casual, 1v1 vs a friend, vs ai etc..

^ The problem with ESL is that it's got the minions-as-removal mechanic, which makes it hard to be a Timmy. Compare Magic with Dark Confidant for example. How good would Confidant be in a situation where the opponent can just attack it? How do you gain infinite mana off Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies if the opponent can just attack the combo pieces? In the same way, if you fall behind on the board your opponent's big minions are going to kill all the new ones you play and you'll never catch up. In Magic, you can take some damage, and then double block. You still get blown out by removal or combat tricks, but it's better than getting minions eaten for nothing.

I might take another look at Spellweaver ...

Up to 24-3 in Gwent. The decks I am seeing are jokes.

Although Spellweaver allows creatures to attack other creatures as well, you can move any creature to your support row where they are protected from such attacks. They won't be able to attack from the support line (unless they have flying) but you can definitely use this tactic to protect key strategic cards that form part of your engine from combat. You can move small, aggressive cards back to the front row once you have enough board presence to multi-creature-block against whatever large threat your opponent has.

If you are thinking about checking it out I'd urge you to do it sooner rather than later. The promotion that allows you to use every card in the game for free will be ending shortly. If you end up checking it out after the promo ends though, the other bonus code I mentioned in my original post on page 6 (for the free 75,000 gold for new accounts) has no expiry date, so you can still take advantage of that if you're interested.

I like the way Spellweaver handles Mill. Everycard that decays (mills) says "each player decays X card" unless its attached to a creature that replaces its damage dealt as decaying cards. The way you ensure you do not mill yourself out whilst the opponent does, is through a creature like Infernal Vultures which you can pay to put a card from a GY onto the bottom of its owners library and give said creature a +1/+1 counter. Feels immensely more fair than Tutelage ever did.

The discard deck is a pain to face though. Does Magic have a 2/1 flyer for that forces your opponent to discard a card on etb? A turn sequence of said flyer, Mind Rot equivalent, then 2 more of said flyer is basically game ending by turn 4.

Another thing on my to-do list! I'm not particularly picky about the promotion though so this will probably take some time, especially since I'm also playing Gwent again.

divinevert what's a good starter deck to build around? I've opened several kegs already, but have not gotten any gold cards, so the starter decks should still be the most suitable starting point for me.

A friend that I introduced to the game was also getting frustrated facing discard/mill decks. When he stormed into his deck manager in a huff, I asked him what he was doing. He responded with all the smugness of someone who had just outwitted a baby mouse for a piece of cheese, "I'm going to put 100 cards in all my decks!"

Monsters is super straight-forward and easy to run. Northern Realms is another deck that does alot of its damage with bronze cards. Either deck you can probably fill in the top end with the generic gold cards you start with (Triss and Geralt)

Queensguard is always good for F2P players because all the major power-plays come from the bronzes. Operator and ADC are pretty important silvers to get that 4th Queenaguard consistently, but the rest is pretty flexible.

Almost didn't post this because you will all come kick my butt, but you all really need to try Eternal (not a shill). It is NOT just Hearthstone because creatures aren't removal and there ARE instants that matter. It also has just about the most generous F2P structure I've seen. I like it much better than Gwent (very lopsided games win or lose) and ESL (way too grindy).

Other Pros:
- library shared across Steam and ios and android clients (it's on ipad in the Canadian ios store - easy to make a separate canadian account to get it)
- PVP Draft mode - with GENEROUS payouts
- single player draft mode (forge) - with GENEROUS payouts
- single player F2P grind mode (not found in gwent)
- if you get a terrible mythic rare, then the breakdown economy basically gives you 1/4 of the mythic rare you really want. so 4 bad mythics = the exact mythic you want

Top Eternal critcisms:
- 75 card decks and mana screw - true, but they do make it easier with a twist - using MTG speak - you can play 1 mountain and 2 swamps (over 3 turns) and then play A) 3 spells costing a single R each, or B) a R and a RB spell, etc.

- lack of depth - NOT true. this game has 1 set with set 2 due any day now. I'd argue it's at least comparable to MTG at only the Alpha/Beta set. Eternal has hexproof, graveyard manipulation, a spell stack, timing and combat tricks, etc. Think of it in terms of MTG Alpha set and you will see what others mentioned about it's potential

- matchmaking is fairly swift (10-30 seconds), but will sometimes match newbie vs much higher ranked, but of course Duels did that too

If you still aren't convinced, I'd say ESL is the next best game if you are ready to shell out the $$$. I really liked gwent, but I think it will get stale quick.

Checked out Spellweaver and the battlefield feels kind of far away like you NEED to keep checking what everything is and the 2nd tutorial was annoying as ****.
There was no proper indicators of what it was fully expecting of you and at one point it said I should try and block where only one guy lived, however I blocked in the only way possible and that guy died and I was lost until I did the same block again after a few times and the AI divided damage differently.

In current meta draig -bon -dhu more important then ADC for this deck. Operator, of course, core of the deck.
Rank 16 reached btw. Starts gwent last week of cbt. Looks very good for me even in current state.

Well, ADC is your second Operator so that's pretty core I my eyes. You don't *need* Draig and Decoy, but they would be pretty high on the list of silvers to go for.

OK so playing monsters (since I opened a gold card for the first time - picked Succubus over Cahar and Gaunter) and this is what I got, any suggestions on how to improve it and / or what to spend my meteorite powder on? From my play experience all the cards are good except the silver cards. Scorch and Fiend are good, Manticore is OK, Nithral is situational (great against minions with 3/6/9 etc health) and the others are rather lackluster. At one point I was actually running with 5 silver cards instead of 6, for that reason.

If you have the scraps for it, the Crones are Godsend at the early ranks and great filler for the silver slots. Thinning + 20 power in spot.

Finally able to play Hex. It's probably the closest to MtG. It has priority and stack. It has instants which I really like. The mana system works the same as Eternal. I'm currently playing the campaign. It's huuuge! I don't even feel like I'm already halfway through it but I've already completed lots of quests.

I have roughly 1000 scraps, could craft the Crones but do you find them rather inconsistent? As in, the deck is already looking to mulligan all its Biting Frosts, and Crones just add more cards to the "must mulligan" list. For similar reasons I have mixed feelings about Royal Decree. If you believe the "if people could run 40-card decks in Magic they would do it!!" idea, then Royal Decree is great since it's effectively a 2nd copy of your best gold card. On the other hand there have been times when I have nothing to fetch with it, and I can't easily mulligan it either, since I have drawn cards like Biting Frost or my opponent gave me a useless card, etc.

Thinking of using the scraps on Geralt: Igni instead given that I'm already running cards that move opponent creatures ...