After tabletop RPGs, video video games, and board video games, Cyberpunk 2077 is hacking into the TCG area with Cyberpunk TCG, a brand new card recreation that is getting nearer and nearer to the launch of its Kickstarter marketing campaign on March 17. Revealed again in December proper right here on IGN, we have now had a while to shuffle via some playing cards and find out how this newest adaptation of CD Projekt RED’s and Mike Pondsmith’s creation performs, courtesy of an alpha set that the oldsters at WeirdCo despatched our manner.
Having performed some matches with the 2 included trial decks, let’s check out how precisely Cyberpunk TCG hopes to win some avenue cred and declare some territory within the already crowded card recreation market, alongside taking a primary have a look at a number of new playing cards within the thrilling TCG.
This “Merc Triptych” that includes Jackie Welles, V (Company Exile), and Viktor Vektor seems phenomenal. I like how a lot it leans right into a gritty, watercolor aesthetic that particularly nails the Cyberpunk vibe. I’m additionally significantly enamored by V’s corp look. You would possibly even discover her sporting a specific silver hand, which is an excellent additional contact. Not solely are these playing cards enjoyable to take a look at, but it surely’s additionally an important have a look at the sport’s core mechanics and deckbuilding construction.
Whereas Cyberpunk options many acquainted features to different TCGs – utilizing sources to pay for playing cards you play, attacking and blocking with summoned creatures, normal gameplay types tied to a coloration, and so forth – I’ve been stunned how a lot it additionally manages to really feel fairly not like every other I’ve performed to this point, not simply from taking a look at V, Jackie, and Vik, but additionally with enjoying round with the aforementioned alpha deck. A lot of this I owe to how WeirdCo and the sport’s designers have managed to infuse the supply supplies’ RPG-DNA into the TCG area, incorporating cube into the movement of the sport, however in a manner that, if you first hear about it, chances are you’ll not have anticipated.
Cyberpunk TCG: Alpha Deck – Preview
Every participant has a pool of six cube, known as “Gigs,” put aside in the beginning of the sport, and on every flip, you’ll decide one in all your cube, roll it, and set it in entrance of you. These values act as your avenue cred, whose complete worth (from all of your obtainable cube) will unlock extra perks for some playing cards, with some results even letting you modify the cube. Different results, similar to “Jackie Welles – Pour One Out For Me,” can help you manipulate the values of cube, too, triggering extra goodies and tips so that you can reap the benefits of. In Jackie’s case, you may modify one in all your cube’s values by 2, and whether it is as excessive as it’s going to go, it enables you to draw a card. Managing your avenue cred cube holds a much more vital issue to your recreation of Cyberpunk The TCG – these math rocks function your life, too.
To win a recreation of Cyberpunk, not like many different TCGs, you are not making an attempt to take an opponent’s life to zero; as an alternative, you’re taking the W everytime you begin your flip in possession of six complete cube. Everytime you assault your opponent and the assault lands, you may decide and steal one in all their cube, and add its avenue cred to your personal. You may even steal a number of cube, relying on how massive an assault your card’s assault has, letting you steal even two or three at a time, turning every recreation of Cyberpunk into an intense recreation of tug-of-war that I discovered myself reasonably enamoured by. Having change into a bit burnt out on the usual lifepoint or prize/protect direct of a overwhelming majority of its friends.
Being a buying and selling card recreation, ripping packs, setting up decks, and turning cardboard rectangles sideways are nonetheless entrance and heart right here. Cyberpunk options its personal coloration system for its playing cards, much like Magic’s coloration pie or Riftbound’s rune dominas, and closely impressed by the talent bushes featured in CD Projekt Purple’s Cyberpunk 2077. Along with the 4 colours featured, Purple, Blue, Yellow, and Inexperienced, playing cards additionally are available 4 sorts. Legends (the leaders of your deck who you construct your deck round, not too dissimilar to a deck’s Commander in Magic), Models (your grunts on the bottom, doing the preventing), Applications (Cyberpunk’s equal to spells, one-time results), and Gear (tools you connect to enhance your items).
Cyberpunk TCG – Key Artwork
Beginning with the Legends, every deck contains three playing cards which are positioned, face down, in a particular space. These legends, with the preliminary choices together with the likes of V, Goro Takemura, and Yorinobu Arasaka, function a coloured RAM worth that may dictate the power and colours of playing cards you may embody in your deck, with the overall values and colours of your whole Legends collectively supplying you with your limits. Decks themselves should fall inside 40 and 50 playing cards (not together with Legends) with not more than 3 copies of the identical card (no duplicate Legends although).
Astute TCG lovers might have picked up on the truth that I didn’t point out any kind of useful resource card, like mana, in my listing of card sorts, and that’s as a result of one of many Cyberpunk’s attention-grabbing features is that as an alternative of enjoying a Unit or Gear card, you may as an alternative “promote” or place them face down and use them as a useful resource used to spend (i.e. tapping) to forged different playing cards, together with your Legends.
Alongside the inclusion of the cube facet, the ingredient I’ve discovered most attention-grabbing about enjoying Cyberpunk has to do with the Legends, extra particularly, the way you deliver them onto the board. As talked about earlier, these leaders begin the sport face down in a devoted Chief space. As soon as per participant’s flip, you may spend sources to flip them face up and, in essence, summon them, unlocking their card skills. Crucially, that timing is just not restricted to your personal flip, which means you can too reveal a Legend throughout an opponent’s flip, similar to in response to an assault.
The factor is, nevertheless, until a card enables you to have a look at them, you don’t have any manner of understanding which of your Legends you might be bringing out till you flip the cardboard. Granted, you solely have three Legends to select from, however this form of blindly casting a card as a serious mechanic is one thing I can’t recall seeing in every other TCG I’ve performed, and I’m nonetheless not fairly bought on it. I’m all for the occasional infusion of chaos in my card video games; heck, I play “Chance Storm” and “Chaos Warp” in one in all my Magic decks only for the hilarity, however having it’s a relentless consider each recreation, I haven’t landed on fairly how I really feel about it but. I don’t know if I like the concept of together with playing cards amongst my reasonably restricted 50 deck slots for the aim of enjoying the reminiscence recreation of seeing the place that Legend I wish to deliver out may very well be.
I’m no stranger to TCGs, having been a Magic participant for almost 30 years at this level (gosh I’m previous), and have performed all kinds of others from the Last Fantasy TCG, trendy Digimon, dabbled in Pokemon, Yugioh, and even performed a pair video games of the previous My Little Pony one, and the upcoming Cyberpunk TCG is already pulling off some surprises which have me excited.
I’ve discovered myself particularly intrigued by the tug-of-war nature of the gig cube, with video games feeling extra tense, frequently, than a lot of the others. Moreover, whereas there are playing cards in each of the decks that take care of altering the cube and triggers out of your Road Cred worth, I’m excited to see full spoilers for the set and people past to see how this mechanic is actually utilized and in what artistic results it’s going to make the most of.
Whereas we don’t have lengthy to attend for Cyberpunk TCG’s marketing campaign to start on March 17, if you wish to give the foundations a deeper dive, WeirdCo has the alpha ruleset obtainable on the corporate’s web site.
Followers of each Cyberpunk and buying and selling card video games ought to have this one on their radars, particularly when you’ve got felt that each one the cardboard video games popping out currently really feel a bit samey. For myself, I can’t wait to get my palms on extra of those playing cards and actually take these techniques for a trip and see what they’ll do.
Scott White is a contract contributor to IGN, aiding with tabletop video games and information protection. Observe him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.
This text additionally options contributions from Robert Anderson, Senior Commerce Editor for IGN.
