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Wildhearts is an upcoming TCG that I’ve been lucky enough to play early with a few others in a creator tournament. It’s given me a fantastic overview of the game, a chance to build my own deck, and a great opportunity for me to flex just how ridiculous I can be.
Right off the bat, I promise you that my intention was to record the entirety of my screen with this match. However, what actually happened was that I didn’t realize that I was only recording the top left-hand corner, making for a thoroughly uninteresting bit of video. This is a huge shame because I pulled out a fantastic combo right at the end of the match.
Worry not, though. I don’t like wasting an opportunity to wax lyrical about how I managed to defy the odds and do something silly, so I’m going to take you through the highlights of this initial part of the Middlin Showdown.
The video below will help you understand the rules of the game and follow along if you’re struggling to understand. To be honest, I think my mistakes are pretty obvious without them, though.
Part 1: The Deck
Before my first match, I had to build my deck. You can check out all the cards I’m talking about on the official Wildhearts website if you’re interested in learning every detail of what they do, but I’ll do my best to explain.
I built this deck around the colossal Crysm and powerful Owlusion Familiars. As I mentioned in our recent card reveal, these are similar to Commanders in MTG, except you pull them back at the end of each of the four rounds and play them afresh with every subsequent one.
Crysm is massive, with 8 Power to its name and gaining Block on its Debut. This means it can negate one effect used against it, but, and more crucially for my deck, it’s a creature on the board with Block. One strategy I had was to build up a collection of six creatures with Block to earn extra Victory Points with the Unity Tactics Trainer card later on.
Owlusion can take one point of Power from an opposing creature on its Debut, but it also grants me the ability to ignore the Unique rule. This means I can play two copies of the same Ally and reap all the benefits.
Using Owlusion’s Unique-ignoring power, I thought I could play a couple of Hydrophons, which gain 1 Power every time you play an Ally, and quickly build a couple of Fields with huge creatures that would make me unbeatable.
My other cards consisted of a few with Support abilities that I’d use as resources, adding extra strategies to my turns, and small creatures like Terrachic that grant Block to others and just help me add as much to the board as I can.
Part 2: The Game
So, the time came for me to play. I loaded into Tabletopia against Dawn, Wildhearts’ community manager, and my opponent. I carefully read the names on the decks assembled at the side of the board, moved the cards over, placed everything correctly, and drew. That’s when I realized I’d done all this and picked up the wrong deck.
I apologized profusely and hastily threw my actual deck all over the place as I tried to get this derailed train back on schedule. Dawn was running a very different deck to what I’d seen her play before, and it was, in many ways, the perfect counter to mine.
When I was playing cards like Crysm and Hydrophon, attempting to exponentially increase their power to ensure my victory in every Field, she was able to remove all that added power pretty easily. She actually managed to get Fury Potion two rounds in a row, adding five Power to an Ally for that round before it was discarded after scoring.
This was huge, but I have to be fair. Dawn was whomping me before Fury Potion even came up, but the Tamer card just gave her a comfortable lead that I couldn’t counter when it came down to the wire.
All hope was not lost, though. In the last round of the game, I managed to whack out Terrpion. This Ally lets you gain 1 Victory Point for every Field you’re winning in, which is why I played Aering just before. Normally, playing Aering would end my turn, but because it is Speed, I can play both in one turn since Aering doesn’t count as an action.
Believe it or not, this move earned me 3 Victory Points and won me every scored Field for the round, so I only ended up 7 points behind Dawn at the match’s conclusion.
If you like the sound of just how chaotic and thrilling Wildhearts can be, make sure you follow the Kickstarter page for the first set. It’s your chance to get into the game at its inception and score some exclusive cards to go along with whatever decks you can imagine.
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