If you enjoy card games, Gods Unchained is a must-try. Gods Unchained is a popular blockchain-based collectible cards game that allows you to buy, collect, and play digital collectible cards using non-fungible tokens (NFT).
What’s more, Gods Unchained is “Free-to-Play-to-Earn”, or F2P2E, which means that you could profit from playing the game with zero starting cost. It has a governance token called Gods Unchained token (GODS).
Read on to learn more about how to play Gods Unchained.
How to Get Started?
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Complete the account registration on Gods Unchained Website.
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Download and install the application on your computer.
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Confirm your account by clicking on the link sent to your email.
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Run the application under “Immutable” and log in to start the game.
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You are ready to play the game!
How to Play Gods Unchained?
A new user will be prompted to complete a simple tutorial when you launch the game for the first time. Once done, you can play the other game modes.
If you are good at digital collectible card games like Hearthstone and Legends of Runeterra, you should be able to pick up this game very quickly. If you are not, follow this guide to understand the basic mechanics of Gods Unchained gameplay.
Currently, there are a total of three game modes:
- Solo – Play against the computer to test your skills and decks
- Ranked – Win to raise your rankings and earn rewards
- Direct Challenge – Invite your opponent for a friendly duel
Step 1: Select your card deck and loadout
Gods Unchained is free-to-play. Every new user is eligible for a welcome set containing 70 different cards, with two copies of each card. Hence, each player will start with 140 cards in total.
Cards are used to build decks. A single deck requires 30 cards, and it has to be aligned to one of the six distinct gods - Light, Death, War, Nature, Magic, and Deception. You can add up to 2 copies of the same card to your deck and only one copy if it is a legendary card. Simply select “Choose Deck” to edit your decks.
If you don’t know how to build a strong deck yet, don’t worry! You will be assigned 6 different preset starter decks, each built with the free cards and aligned to a different god. If you are not satisfied with the starter deck, you may customize it by swapping the cards and clicking “SELECT” to save.
Click “SELECT” to choose a deck. Once done, choose a loadout and click “Play” to start a game.
Step 2: Choose a God Power
Each god has four “God Power”. You can pick one at the start of a match to use during the game, but choose carefully as your God Power cannot be changed throughout the match. It can be used once per turn, and it requires a certain amount of mana per usage. You can choose your God by aligning it to your card deck before a game match.
Step 3: Replace the cards that you don’t want (Mulligan)
You have four chances to replace cards for your starting hand. The selected cards are replaced randomly. You are recommended to replace any cards that require higher mana costs (generally 4 mana or more) because you won’t have much mana to use in the early rounds.
Step 4: Start the duel
To summon creatures, drag and drop the cards onto the board. To use powers or cast spells, hold-click the cards and drag them to your desired target.
God Powers can be used once per round and it works the same as using a card.
Your hand can hold a maximum of 9 cards, while a maximum of 6 creatures can be summoned on the game board.
Mana cost is associated with every card, which you can find on the top left corner of a card. You can find the strength and health point of a creature at the bottom of a card. Strength is the amount of damage that a creature will inflict on an opposing creature when attacking or defending. Health points are the amount of damage a creature can take before it dies.
Mana
Each player has a total of 9 mana gems. Mana gems are associated with a number of mana locks. At the start of each round, one mana lock will be unlocked, all of your mana gems will be refreshed, and one mana is given for each mana gem that is fully unlocked. The first 5 mana gems have only one mana lock each, while subsequent gems have 2 or more locks.
It is recommended to fully utilize your mana every round because saved mana won’t add up to the next round!
Bag of Tricks
Bag of tricks is used to balance the advantage disparity between two players, which is inherently caused by the play order. The player who goes first will receive one bag of tricks, while the player who goes second will receive three bags of tricks.
When using a bag of tricks, it will unlock a mana lock and refresh one mana for this round. The bag of tricks is not counted as a card. However, do note that the extra mana might not be added if all of your unlocked mana gems are full. It is a common mistake for new players to use the Bag of Tricks hoping to fill up the next mana gem that has two or more locked mana locks, especially in the later turns of a match.
Turn Indicator
On the right side of your board, you would find the turn indicator. The direction of the arrow indicates which player is playing the round. When you finish all your moves, you can press the turn indicator to skip your turn.
The Void
The void is where your cards go when your creatures die or when you cast a spell. It is known as the “card graveyard”. It is an important aspect of the game as certain gods can bring back “dead” cards from the void. In some cases, dead creatures can be directly summoned onto the board from the void.
Do note that a card being ended up in the void is completely different from being “obliterated”, which removes the card completely from the game.
God Health
Each player’s god has a maximum health of 30 HP. You can attack your opponent’s god by simply hold-clicking your creature and dragging the chain to the target. A player wins when the opposing god’s health is reduced to 0.
Basic Status Effect
The cards in Gods Unchained each have their own various effects that can be used in tandem with your other cards to form synergistic combinations or stall your opponent long enough to steal the win. Below are just some of the many effects that a card may bring to the table.
Blitz: Creatures with blitz can attack opposing creatures the turn they are summoned.
Burn: A guaranteed amount of damage will be inflicted to the creatures with burn at the end of the turn.
Confused: 50% chance of missing the chosen target. Instead, it will attack another random opposing creature.
Deadly: Deadly creatures will kill a target immediately if they deal any amount of damage to it.
Hidden: Hidden creatures cannot be directly targeted by opposing enemies.
Regen: A guaranteed amount of regeneration will be gained by creatures with regen.
Roar: Certain effects are activated when the creatures are cast.
Step 5: Level up, win ranked battles, and get rewarded
You can get rewarded in Stars, Flux, and Packs (card packs) by leveling up and winning ranked battles. You would earn card packs by leveling up through playing ranked matches. You may view your progress on the main menu.
Also, you will be rewarded with a “vial” containing Stars and Flux. Stars are used to purchase game cards in the star store.
You can find the star store by heading over to Market > Star Store. Like the free cards obtained from the welcome set, the cards purchased from the star store are not added to the blockchain, and thus they are not transferable. These cards are called plain cards. Do note that all of the free cards obtainable in the game are “plain” at the time of writing.
If all free cards are not tradable, how can I profit from playing the game without any starting cost?
This is where Flux comes in. You can spend Flux to fuse two identical plain cards into a meteorite card at the Forge. A meteorite card is minted as an NFT on the Immutable X blockchain, and hence it is tradable in the Immutable X marketplace.
However, fusing has been temporarily disabled due to high transaction fees on the network. The Forge will reopen with the release of Immutable X minting - this has yet to be announced to ensure that the network runs smoothly.
Ranks
When you win a ranked game, your rank bar at the main menu of the game launcher will fill up. Your shield will be damaged if you lose a game. You will lose a part of your ranking advancement if your shield takes too much damage.
If the bar is full, you’ll raise a rank, and when it’s emptied, you will drop a rank.
There are 12 ranks in the weekly ranked event, which are Rusted Bronze > Purified Bronze > Rusted Iron > Purified Iron > Impact Meteorite > Astral Meteorite > Twilight Shadow > Midnight Shadow > Auric Gold > Solar Gold > Ethereal Diamond > Mythic.
How to earn money playing Gods Unchained?
There are 2 types of rewards that player can earn through playing Gods Unchained. The first is through earning new card packs from ranked match that can eventually be sold in the market when the Forge opens. The second is through a new campaign called Blessing of the $GODS, in which players are entitled to prize pools in GODS token each week.
Card packs prize
Players can obtain card packs by winning the ranked matches. The prizes you receive are determined by three factors:
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The number of victories you have in each event’s first 25 games.
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Your rank before the start of each weekend ranked event.
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Whether or not your account is linked to a wallet.
You must finish the match before the countdown ends for your win to count.
While it is not yet possible to sell your cards in the market, this should change sometime at the end of 2021 or early 2022 when the Forge launches. The forge is a feature where players can mint the cards they won into actual NFTs that can be traded in the Immutable X marketplace. The minting fees are paid GODS and an in-game currency called Flux.
Earn tokens through Blessing of the GODS campaign
This campaign will last for 8 weeks starting from 2nd November 2021. Anyone can participate in the event as long as they meet the following criteria during the week's challenge.
- Play 20 or more ranked games
- Win 7 or more ranked games
- Pass four rounds of each ranked game
- Be at least Rank 4 (Purified Iron) on Gods Unchained by the end of the campaign to qualify
- Play versus games with at least 17 unique opponents out of the 20 ranked games played
Points are calculated based on your ranking and win rates which will decide the percentage you would get from the reward pool.
Based on the current number of players of the game (around 10,000+), you are likely on average to be able to earn around 5 to 11 GODS per week if you complete the challenge. Details on reward and points mechanism can be found on the project blog.
Bottom Line
Although players are not allowed to mint tradable game cards for profit at this moment, you can accumulate Flux by playing ranked matches and wait patiently for the Forge to reopen. GODS token have also officially launched giving players an additional way to earn rewards from playing and winning the game.
Profits aside, Gods Unchained is a well-designed PC game. You would get fascinated by the game once you have tried playing it, even more so if you find games like Hearthstone and Magic The Gathering enjoyable. Since the mechanics and gameplay of Gods Unchained are fairly similar to these games, it will be easy for veteran trading card game players to pick up. I hope you enjoy this guide, and stay tuned for more Gods Unchained guides from us.
If you are interested in other crypto games, check out the following articles to learn about more games and how to play them.
Yi Hong is a market research intern at CoinGecko. He is a finance student who is learning more about blockchain technology.
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