Recently, Gods Unchained introduced a new set of free cards called the Welcome Set. Along the way, they also removed the old Starter decks, and replaced them with ones that use only the Welcome cards.
There was much discussion on Discord about whether the new starter decks provided a better or worse experience for new players. So, I decided to set off on a journey and discover what it would be like to play Gods Unchained as a new player.
Now of course, this won't be exactly like a new player, as I have 18 months of Gods Unchained experience behind me and I also have a fairly deep knowledge of the cards available, playstyles, meta, etc. But nonetheless, I forged onward!
I created a brand new account, with a brand new, shiny Ethereum address. The address is completely empty. It has never had any cards in it, and in fact, doesn't even have any ETH. I chose to use the in-game name of Mr Marbles (bit of a Seinfeld shout-out if there are any fans in the audience) and dove in!
My plan from the beginning was to play the starter decks as-is, and then once I had acquired a few packs from leveling up. This first day out I played the War starter deck for five matches and decided to wait on trying to craft my own deck.
I didn't realize this until the end of my stream, but new players are given a number of free packs. However, there is zero notification of this. You don't even get to open the packs yourself, the cards are just thrown into your inventory! I have to say that this is a pretty crappy way to introduce new players to the game! Opening packs to get new cards is half of the fun!
I imagine that they have some sort of plans for creating a tutorial and awarding these cards as part of that experience, but at the moment, it just feels sloppy. (disclaimer: the game is still officially in beta status)
Match One
My first match pitted me against Sonick10, a Rank 2, level 10 player who was playing the Light God and using the Heaven's Light power. I chose Onslaught for my God Power, and that seemed to be a poor choice. I wasn't able to really make effective use of my Blitzing power and lost this match.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/667853411
Match Two
Starting with the second match, I decided to switch to the Intense Training God Power. This match was against Rajha Therma, another Rank 2, level 10 player who was playing a Death / Soul Burn deck.
This one was a close match but I managed to pull off a win.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/667853413
Match Three
Ran into a brand new player on this match - -Ghost999 who was Rank 1, Level 0! And from the way that they played and hesitated on making decisions, it seemed that they are a true newbie to the game. Won this match though I played a little sloppily.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/667853408
Match Four
Match four was against sinhead83, a Level 11, Rank 1 player running a Nature deck with Animal Bond. This was a pretty quick match and I felt in control of the game the whole way through.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/667853407
Match Five
Ended the stream with a game against a more experienced player -- Allaunthefox who was Rank 5, Level 50. My opponent played a Nature Forage deck and managed to defeat me fairy easily. Looking back at the video, I probably should have been more aggressive at the beginning.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/667853410
Overall, a 3 win, 2 loss record for this outing. Not bad for a newbie using a starter deck!
Intense Training definitely seemed to work much better than Onslaught and I didn't try out Slayer or Enrage. The starter deck has quite a few spells in it. Since War doesn't really have as many removal spells that other Gods do, they generally have to make up for it in Creatures. And I think that being a little creature heavy would be good in general for most of the starter decks.
I mentioned during the stream that I would try tweaking the starter decks with the cards I received from packs, but I think that first I will give each of the starter decks a spin on their own. I haven't decided on which one to run with next, so if anyone has requests, I'm open to hearing them!
You can view the full stream on my Twitch channel - https://www.twitch.tv/cryptoznewb
I will be uploading the matches to Youtube and Lbry when I get a chance.
