Why You Should Try: Eternal

Hello and welcome to Team Rankstar, in partnership with Inked Gaming’s newest series, where we will be discussing the pros to each of the card games we have teams currently representing. I’m NotoriousGHP, long time Eternal player, former streamer and the team captain of our Eternal Tournament Team. I’ll be going over the reasons why you should check out Dire Wolf Digital’s digital card game Eternal. But first, what if you don’t already play card games?

Digital and collectable card games have been popular for the last 25 years, originally popularized by Magic: The Gathering, which has since been the fundamental foundation for plenty of other card games such as Eternal, Hearthstone, Mythgard and The Elder Scrolls Legends. Card games offer a different take on the gaming genre, satisfying both the competitive and casual audience easily as an easy to pick up, nearly impossible to master genre of games that allows the player to explore their own ideas at there own speed. Card games have been my personal choice of game for many years now, satisfying my competitive itch while also allowing me to try new things, create new strategies and test them at my own speed. Card games don’t have one correct answer, and as many of these games constantly update, strategies keep fluctuating, rewarding players who want a dynamic environment. Now, the question is: what game do you want to try?

Why you should try Eternal:

1. The Economy: A controversial topic in many games, Eternal’s economy shines above basically all others. Being an entirely free to play game, Eternal generously helps new players get into the game early with packs, competitive theme decks, a pack for your first win of the day and more such as player vs AI mode. One of Eternal’s goals is to make the game accessible for a new player, while many games push players away when they can’t build a strong deck quickly, Eternal doesn’t have this problem. We’ve had numerous players do challenges such as fresh account to masters in less than ten hours, showing both how cards are earned and how cheaper decks are also very viable. This is something that separates Eternal, and is something many games should strive for.

2. It’s incredibly easy to pickup: Eternal’s mechanics are designed to be interesting, yet easy to comprehend. Dire Wolf has succeeded here massively, creating typically fun to play mechanics that give the players many options such as Twist (You may pay a cost, to give a unit 1 more attack, and 1 less health to gain an effect) that in their most basic applications, are easy to use. At no point have I found Eternal difficult to pickup or grasp, the card’s are typically intuitive enough that you can follow their basic idea, and then define what you want to do with them yourself.

3. The community: Another controversial topic in many games, Eternal has an extremely passionate community who aren’t afraid to let their voices be heard. Although some may consider this a con, this is a big draw for myself personally because it shows that players care about the game want to see it succeed. With this in mind, the community produces a ton of content for both new and experienced players, alongside always being willing to help with things like Drafts, Sealed or a new deck your working on. Top players are usually easily approachable and there are community run tournaments such as the Eternal Tournament Series (ETS) or the Eternal Community League (ECL) who dedicate their time each week in order to bring members of the community together and give players an opportunity to test their skills against one another.

4. Reasoning: This is more of a point about card games in general, but Eternal has helped myself and many others develop skills besides purely card game oriented ideas. For me personally, Eternal has helped me on a social level, interacting with new people and conveying my ideas to others, it has helped me learn to think more logically towards probable outcomes, how to approach daunting problems and how to rationalize my ideas. We see many players who also bring their skills from their real life to the game, and use it to excel in certain features. Primarily, there are a lot of players involved with Maths, Programming, or Data Analysis in our community, and all of these strengths can be used in Eternal to help develop your game in some manner. Card games in general challenge the player, and at the end of the day, they are just a game about solving problems in your way to try and win.

5. Mobile: Mobile games have taken over the market in the last 5 or so years, and surprisingly, not every card game has made it onto Mobile. Eternal has a solid mobile client, kept up to date with its desktop version that allows for players to play where they see fit such as on the bus, at their computer, on a stationary bike (No Eternal and driving please) at the airport, or my least recommended idea, in class. Eternal being on mobile gives it an edge over other card games such as Magic: The Gathering or a game like Hearthstone, which has a weaker mobile client. A strong mobile client let’s any game be even more accessible, and as a free app, there’s no excuse not to check it out.

As a long standing member of the Eternal community, I can honestly say Eternal is a game that has kept me captivated since I started playing two and a half years ago. With constantly changing meta games, new sets, campaigns and balance patches, Eternal continues to develop and I highly encourage you to take the time to check it out.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll see you in Myria.

NotoriousGHP