Hello Steemit community,
My name is Nabes Teban ( @nabesteban ), one year ago I made krosmopolitan.com a french website focused on the free-to-play online collectible card video game Krosmaga. I recently discovered Steemit platform and was attracted to this system promoting quality content. Thus I decided to join this community to make you discover this game that I love and, eventually, make you join the game. I hope our articles will be to your liking.
To begin this Steemit adventure, I decided to present you this game with an article freshly updated.
If you are fan of TGG/CCG or of Ankama's universe (Wakfu, Dofus...), or interested in games with different gameplay Krosmaga might be of some interest to you.
Krosmaga is an online collectible card video game created by Ankama, a french video game making company that has also produced Wakfu and Dofus as well as the animated series Wakfu. This is a Free-To-Play game that was first launched the 22th February of 2017.
Video game trailer :
Your goal like any other CCG is to collect cards, build decks with those cards and beat other players in several playing mode. Thoses modes will be presented later in this article. The game's tutorial making up for any new players, we also won't get too much into the countless mechanics present in the game.
Game's mechanics
Indeed Krosmaga, unlike other CCG, brings new ideas to the CCG world with new strategies born directly from the gameplay. To win the game, you do not have to beat the opponent's life or get more point than your opponent. However you have to take into your possession two true dofus (those are extremely valuable and powerful dragon's egg that you must protect at all cost)
Winning a game
Each player possess 5 Dofus : 3 real dofus and 2 dommies. Each Dofus is placed at the extremity of a row, and they are all hidden to your opponent though you do know yourself the position of your true dofus. Destroying a dummy won't be a setback as it will give you an advantage on board.
Each Dofus has 5 Health Point (HP) and can be damaged by either minions (attacking them), specific spells or once you run out of card. Indeed whenever you try to draw a card when you deck is empty, all your Dofus will suffer 1 damage. You better get those Dofus before it happens!
On this picture, the true dofus are on the left, and the fake are on the right. You can also see prisms (we will cover their use right after) on the first line of each player.
Prisms' strategy
The second specificity in this game is the presence of prisms. 3 kind of prisms on board exist : 2 Action Point (AP) prisms, 1 Draw prism and 2 Curses prisms. At the start of the game, each players possess on his summoning line all 5 prisms. When a minion is summoned on a prism, the summoner will pick it up. The ap prism will add one ap to your reserve, the draw prism will make you draw one card and the curse prism will add one curse to your hand. A Curse card is a spell that cost 3 AP and deals one damage to a Dofus. Once a player pick up the last prism on board, the next turn each prism will reappear in the same position if the cell is empty.
So, what cards do we have there ?
We got around the bases of this game, now let's wrap up the card system. There are 2 kind of cards : summons and spell (though there is also a difference between cards in your base deck, and cards received like curses or minions' effects). Those are separated into 5 different rarity : common, uncommon, rare, krosmic and infinite. You can differentiate them with the gem's color on the top of the card (none for common, blue for uncommon, yellow for rare, purple for krosmic and white for infinite).
Minions
Minions possess 4 characteristics : his AP cost (the amount of AP you need to summond it), his ATTACK (AT) in yellow which is the amount of damage it will deal when attacking a minion or a Dofus, his health point (HP) in blue, his movement point (MP) which is the number of cells the minion will try to cross. When a friendly minion meets a friendly minion (that do not move or already moved) he'll stop his movement. When a friendly minion meets an ennemy minions, he'll fight him. If he kills it, he'll continue to move until he used all his MP. If he does not kill him, he'll stop his movement.
Minions also possess either one time effect (on appearance or death for instance) and/or passive effect (for instance, all minions from the Cra family have all a passive range effect). When one of your minion dies, he goes to your discard pile unless stated otherwise. When one of your minion destroys a Dofus or reaches the end of a row without any Dofus, he goes back to the end of your deck.
Spells
Spells only have one attribute : their AP cost, and an effect. Some spells do have some restriction, for instance the presence of a minion with range attack to increase its range. When a spell is used, it goes to your discard pile, unless stated otherwise.
Tokens
As we said earlier, cards are divided into two kind : spells and minions, and these same spells and minions can be differentiated into 'true card' and 'token cards'. Those token cards are cards that you received thanks to an other spell or trhanks to a minion effect. These token cards do not go to your discard pile when used (spell) or when they die (minion), though token's minions do go back to your deck if they reach the end of a row.
Deck building and rarity limitations
A deck has to be composed of 45 cards. Each card can be presents up to 3 times in your deck, except for infinites and krosmics cards which are limited to 1 copy. You can put up to 5 infinites cards and up to 7 krosmics cards in your deck.
Infinites cards have a system of experience point. Each time you play them, each time they kill a minion or each time they destroy a Dofus, they win experience points that allow them to level up. Leveling up infinites can unlock treasures (gold, experience bonus for cards, piece of puzzle..), different card version and krosmic cards called krosfinites (because unlocked my infinites cards).
Whenever you get a new infinite cards, it starts at lv 1. You have access to the 1 star version of the card. Leveling it up to lv 4 will give you access to the 2 stars version (while keeping, of course, the 1 star version). leveling it up to lv 7 will give you the 3 stars version. Beware as you can only put 1 version of an infinite card in your deck (they are Hero!, thus you can't have both Amalia 2 stars and 3 stars in the same deck).
And what about class, or heroes, or whatever ?
In this game you are playing the Krosmoz' gods and goddesses. Right now, 9 gods are playable with 3 more to come (1 god coming up as soon as the 12 december of 2017, a specific article will be available presenting the new stuff coming with this expansion). Each god possess specific cards and spells (spells are limited to gods, there aren't any 'neutral spells') with their own mechanics. For instance the minions from the Cra god all have a range attack, which means they can attack and kill minions at distance without suffering any damages. These mechanics allow for a wide range of gameplay for each gods. You can discover the different gods by clicking on the pictures right below this text.
Free to play means...
As every Free To Play, you can gain virtual money by playing, unlocking challenge, daily quest or specific modes. In Krosmaga this virtual money is called Kamas. And like any Free To Play, you can also buy virtual money directly to make the grind faster. Krosmaga is not a Pay To Win, as you can unlock everything (apart from few cosmetics for gods) through games and modes without using cash money, but it will obviously take you more time to unlock everything. Yet it won't stop you from climbing the ladder, a lot of low cost deck work really well and the game's skill cap is huge. Moreover, Draft's mode that will be presented later is also extremely rewarding for players.
Getting cards
In Krosmaga, it exists different means to obtains cards. There are booster that gives you 5 cards, special pack that gives you a bunch of cards (only available in euros directly, these cards can be crafted with dust you get from duplicate).
The boosters from the standard game are divided into three kind : bronze, silver and gold. Each comes with a different price but also with different reward. The bronze pack will contain at least one rare cards in it, the silver pack will contain at least one krosmic card and the gold pack will contain at least one infinite cards. Each pack has different drop rate and statistics were made by the community here [link]
The boosters from each expansion are 100 gold each, with at least one rare per booster.
Some cards are only available through a Dungeon mode that will be presented later.
Finally, there is currently one pack with the Halloween theme that is available
there are some thematic cards that are either available by paying a fixed amount with real cash, or they can be crafted. Dungeon mode also allow you to win specific cards by beating the IA in rules specific games, or these dungeon cards can be paid instantly with some kamas.
Winning kamas or boosters
You can get kamas with a lot of different ways. You win 5 kamas for each win in unranked or ranked games, up to 12 wins a day (you can still play games, but you won't be awarded any kamas after that!). You can win kamas through daily quests (you get one quest each day). You can stack up to three quests and replace one quest per day. You can win kamas through some infinites' treasures. Eventually there are achievment (for instance : win 5 games with the Iop god) that award you either kamas, booster, or cosmetics. You can also win kamas or booster through the Draft mode that will be presented in the next section.
You can also win boosters by completing puzzle you get through infinites leveling.
Each day first connection, you also get a token to the Krosmic's roulette where you can win dust (to craft cards), kamas or even boosters if you're lucky.
Eventually, you can win infinites cards with rare event quest that all players receive from time to time (those are limited in time, the last one lasted 12 days).
Crafting and recycling
You can craft almost any cards (the dungeons' cards have to be unlocked through the dungeons' games), and recycle any cards apart from the cards given to you when you unlock a new god.
| Rarity | Craft | Recycle |
|---|---|---|
| Infinite | 1800 | 300 |
| Krosmic | 600 | 100 |
| Rare | 300 | 50 |
| Uncommon | 90 | 15 |
| Common | 30 | 5 |
The different game's modes
We are approaching the end of this article; now that you have some insight about this game it is time for us to present the different modes currently available in Krosmaga.
We can differentiate them in three types : standard games with the basis rules, Dungeon mode and Draft mode.
The standard games are divided in three kinds. The first one is the training; there you can play against the AI. It is needed to play with each gods' starter deck (apart from the Iop gods, awarded after the tutorial) against the AI to unlock them. Then there is unranked games, where you play against other players, but your wins or defeats do not impact your level. Eventually there are ranked games that will count for your rank. You start at rank 1 and each win makes you win experience (while any loose make you loose experience). You can get up to rank 30, where you become veteran. When you are veteran, your level is determined by an ELO that is reduced or increased after each game you play after reaching veteran, to rank you up against the best. Seasons last one month and at the end of each season you receive rewards depending on your best rank, and your experiences points are divided by 2 for the next season. You can also play against your friends, those do not bring you any reward and are mostly for fun, tournament or to try out new decks.
The Dungeon is an other mode where you confront the AI with our own deck. Though in these games the AI has access to different cards not available to players, and different rules are in place (for instance, the AI has 3 dummies instead of 2). You can enter a dungeon by paying a fee of 15 kamas (repeatable after each game). Winning a game can get you from 1 reward (a neutral card available for this Dungeon's level) up to 3 rewards (if you do not lose any dofus, it can be either dust, kamas or even more cards). Though Dungeons didn't receive a good review from the player base, this mode is currently being modified by Ankama. If you do not have the leasure to play these games, you can unlock directly the cards with a fixed amount of kamas (depending on the dungeon difficulty).
Eventually the last mode available is the Draft. If you're familiar with other TGC or CCG the name might ring a bell. You'll first have to roll for a god (up to three times, if you do not like the first or second god rolled), then you'll have to build your deck by selecting 3 cards out of 8 randomly chosen cards available in the game (even if you do not own them). In this mode there are no restriction and you can end up with 12 infinites in your deck. Once your deck is built, you'll fight against other foes in the Draft mode. The entry cost is 120 kamas and will reward you a booster (depending on your number of wins, from bronze to gold) and kamas depending on your number of tokens. You get tokens for each win. You can win up to 2000 kamas and a gold booster in a single draft. This mode is currently available each week-end.
EEEEEEEE-Sport!
Though we won't go into details about the E-sport in this article, the game receives also a lot of support from Ankama to get introduced into the e-sport world, here's the trailer for the recent and ambitious Krosmaga World Series, the first big esport competition for this game.
This is the end
We went around the whole game, I can now only advice you to go check out the game by yourself if we did pick up your interest. More article will come up, from beginner guide to new gods or mechanics presentation, so stay tunned ;). If you have any advice, either for the article structure or what you'd like to see covered do not hesitate to tell us in the comment! This is also a first for us to write english articles so you can except increased quality over time!
By the way, there is a discord community with all the staff and players available, do not hesitate to join us !
Translated and further developed by @lodesu (many thanks to him)