Introduction
We currently have only a few things of value that can be offered as rewards and traded with other players.
So here is an extended list of other things that could be added in the future. Perhaps some would be adequate to offer as rewards exclusively is specific game modes, assigning each game mode its niche as the source for specific rewards or cosmetics.
This is part of a series of posts that collect ideas for game features that have yet to be implemented and I believe would be very beneficial to the game.
As a reward for objectives or achievements, it could be possible to allow the player to mint 1 Welcome card of their choosing with shine adjusted to the difficulty of the objective or achievement.
What we have now
Boards
Trinkets
Card backs
Profile pictures taken from card art
Card packs
Promo cards and limited edition art variants
Tickets
Tickets for premium game modes, Sealed or any others to be released in the future. Offer options to buy in bulk, possibly with a discount. The tickets distributed as rewards would be tradable NFTs, but the ones bought directly not necessarily so. When the tickets are credited to the account, they are burned. This would simplify the process of playing Sealed in mobile for example. The player would be able to buy and redeem the tickets in their computer and then use them on mobile without any extra steps.
Tournament tickets
Raffle entry tickets
Early access tickets
Card cosmetics
Parallax effects in card art
Looped animations in card art
Play to the board animations
Destroyed, obliterated animations
Return from void animations
Animations for any other board events
The card cosmetics could be conceptualized as transparent sticker add-ons. You'd get a sticker for a specific animated effect - say parallax - minted as a NFT. To apply the effect, you'd burn the sticker NFT together with the card you want to improve with the parallax effect, in the Forge. This would result in a new minted card corresponding to the same prototype and shine, but now also featuring the added parallax effect.
If you then add another sticker to this card - for example an animated roar, the new card would accumulate both parallax AND roar effects. You'd be able to repeat this for SFX or any other cosmetic layer. The end result would be a large diversity of combinations of effects, depending on the particular stickers the player has applied to the card.
- Extra sound effects
Each card could have its own sound effect. The SFX could be enabled from Shadow quality and get increasingly more elaborate in higher qualities. Higher rarity cards could have more elaborate and distinctive sounds, similar to what we have now for Thaeriel, Hortuk or Reios, for example.
There could be custom sounds for board events, similar to the animations described above.
Other cosmetics
Emotes (added in February 2025 with the Battle Pass release but currently not tradable)
Deck sleeves. The player could apply a sleeve to decks in their Workshop to help distinguish or highlight the important ones more easily
God portraits, ideally animated
Victory screens
Animated effects when clicking on different parts of the board - mouse animations
God Power Quality tiers, creating for example shiny Badgers and Acolytes, and also the corresponding shiny animation when the GP is used
Alternative colors for card frames taken from the Sanctum
Mana wheels (added in February 2025 with the Battle Pass release but currently not tradable)
Boosts
Temporary earning boosts to any in-game currency, except $GODS. A player invested heavily in crafting would be able to purchase boosts from other players that have no use for Flux boosts, for example
Temporary luck boosts for better rarity Core packs or a small chance at an extra pack
Boxes, chests and other sealed products
Themed Bundles: a collection of cards, cosmetics, and currency centered around a specific theme or event
Mystery or gacha boxes. I suggested in another post these boxes for a collection reward incentive. They could also be the source of exclusive rewards for completing objectives, for reaching certain achievements or scoring high in recurring leaderboards.
Chests containing packs, similar to the ones produced for Genesis and Trial of the Gods.
These could be sold in the website for a premium compared to the pack cost, as before.
Could be rewards for the Sealed game mode, making for a more practical way to obtain liquidity from the rewards to buy more tickets.
Chests work as speculative collectibles that tend to appreciate in value over time, especially if the cards they contain stop being minted from other sources.
Permanent contracts
I got this from Exode. These contracts are NFTs that slowly but regularly yield new themed items, forever. In the case of Exode they also have an interesting pricing structure, where the price goes up as sales continue.
A variant would also distribute powerful items occasionally only to some of the contracts. In this case owning more than one contract would increase one's chances of receiving those special items.
I would make GU contracts that
Mint a Welcome card of your choosing
Mint a random Core card
Mint a Sealed ticket
Mint a Chest or a sealed Pack from the latest expansion set
Deliver Star Points
Mint an extra expansion pack for completing 18 matches during Weekend Ranked
Mint upgradeable cosmetics. These could be expansion-themed, with a somewhat long list of upgrade tiers and different cosmetic items, so that the contract would remain relevant for a long time
This is how I would adapt this idea to GU:
Sell them in the website with limited supply and / or increasing price as sales progress
Distribute as premium rewards in Sealed, tournaments, etc.
Mint to older accounts that fulfill a stringent number of prerequisites (use an Achievement track for example)
Contract fulfillment could require player engagement - i.e., win one game or more per week, for example.
Allow forging to combine the contracts into better ones, for example
Forge 5 Meteorite Welcome contracts, get a Shadow Welcome contract that has a small chance of minting a Shadow card. Repeat for the other quality tiers
Forge 4 monthly Sealed ticket contracts to obtain a weekly Sealed contract that distributes 1 ticket per week
Forge any number of Star Point contracts to obtain a single contract with the combined output of all the inputs
Exchangers or converters
These items would allow the player to spend an in-game currency or asset they have in excess and in return obtain another currency or asset that may be more useful to them. One example would be to convert Flux into Star points. Many players are accumulating large amounts of Flux they will probably never fully spend, while Star points will always be in demand to purchase more cards from the Star Store.
Another probable useful converter would be to swap unwanted plain cards for Star points.
Yet another use case would be to swap 2 unwanted plain cards for 1 random Meteorite Core card of the same rarity, paying a small premium in forging costs. Or just swap plain cards for other plain cards for a small fee in $GODS. This could be done in batches.
The usage of the converter could require spending a small amount of $GODS, which would be used to support the game's development directly, distributed back to the players as staking rewards, or routed to a tournament prize fund, for example.
The usage of the converter could also be time-gated, i.e., there would be a maximum usage per day to avoid large and sudden imbalances in the assets or currencies.
The potency or daily limits of the conversion could be enhanced by swapping a better Exchange Core, a tradable NFT that could be obtained as a very rare reward or sold in the game's shop. Lower tier Cores could be minted as an achievement reward for consistent playing or as a collection reward. The Cores could be upgradable in the Forge.
The exchangers themselves could be obtained by purchasing directly from the GU website, distributed as rare rewards or tournament prizes or minted automatically when the player's account reaches a threshold. This threshold could be reaching 250k Flux or holding 2500 plain cards, for example.
