Caster Chronicles

So, to little fanfare, a new tcg was released 2(ish) weeks ago. Given that it looked like a mahou shoujo duel masters, it seemed worth a shot. I bought the two starter decks, and played a few games, and figured I'd give my impressions to anyone on the fence about this game. Hopefully at least a few other people have tried it, and can share their opinions as well.

Other urls found in this thread:

caster-chronicle-tcg.com/products/future
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Anyway. The decks come with 50 cards and a 'coin', which, like in Hearthstone, is a one-shot energy source given to the player that plays second (a free lotus petal, for those that play mtg). Three of the cards are foil, and all there really is to say is that there's some nice texturing on the clothing, and once again, like literally every other modern tcg, they are much nicer than mtg's foils.

These are one of the decks 'Casters'. They basically function as lands, in that they tap for the mana you need to cast spells. Similar to duel masters, you can place any card in your hand face-down as a land, but in this case it only produces colourless 'mana' (I've already forgotten the term they use for mana, but, again, same thing). Casters also have an ability, usually a tap ability, which can draw cards, boost stats, etc.

I actually think this is a pretty good implementation of a Duel Masters-ish mana system, in that it keeps specific 'land' cards, but makes it much more difficult to get screwed. I will say that in the games I've played, it feels like the starters give you too many casters, especially given the card flow going on in this game - mulligans are extremely generous, many caster abilities draw cards, and like in Duel Masters, breaking shields (orbs) sends those cards to the owner's hand, and in this game, there are 7 orbs to start with.

Also, apologies for the glare on some of these pictures.

These are the servants and conjures (creatures and spells). The art is pretty basic, which keeps focus on the casters, which is a nice touch. Still on the boring side, though.

Now for the game play itself: I haven't played Duel Masters in a long time, but the overall game here strikes me as being very similar, with a small twist. You can place monsters in recovered or reverse mode (attack or defense). Attack mode can attack other monsters, or directly if the opponent has no cards in defense.

Personally, it feels like this leans into the flaws of mtg's system too much, in that the range of mana costs is heavily, heavily slanted towards low-costed cards. Given the card flow mentioned above, this is exacerbated, as with more expensive cards, you tap out every turn just on mana, and can't really keep up card economy. Meanwhile, the player with the cheaper threats can just run you over with card advantage, and can just snipe your one or two defenders to push through tons of damage. Despite the defense mode mechanic, being on the back foot feels really punishing. For mtg players out there, just try and wrap your head around what games would look like if all your lands had abilities like:
Tap: add B to your mana pool.
Tap: Draw a card if you dealt damage this turn.

Also, for magic players, think about what a stack of lands looks like in a given game, and now imagine each land had abilities you really wanted to keep track of. It's messy, to say the least.

Ultimately, this strikes me as much like FoW (same guys, so perhaps not surprising) in that it doesn't feel like a game created for its own sake so much as a game created to fix percieved problems in other games (mana screw, defense is mostly pointless in yugioh, as seen by links giving up the stat entirely). Even with the mechanical tweaks, it ultimately feels too much like a tap mana - play guys game, which means much like FoW, it will only really appeal to those frustrated with mtg, or who really like the weeb aesthetic (which to be fair the game does a good job capturing). Coupled with the extremely spotty playerbase, I can't really see myself going any farther with this game.

...

Ded thread for a ded game.

>one-shot energy source given to the player that plays second (a free lotus petal, for those that play mtg).

Why do they have to pander to baby players?

because without pandering theyre gonna die with all the other japanese tcgs

>game created to fix percieved problems in other games (mana screw,

Actually mana screw is a symptom of poor deck construction.

>frustrated with mtg, or who really like the weeb aesthetic

So, you admit is a game for scrubs. Interesting.

Either way, the weeb aesthetic is only for pimping out your deck.

Fuck jap tcgs.
They only need to keep printing kawaii sleeves for REAL GAMES, like MTG.

I'm still waiting for my Centaur no Nayami sleeves, Japan!

>Razer
no, user, you are the meme

I never denied such thing, teehee.

I just don't think theres any room for a tcg thats not absolutely phenomenal or from an established franchise right now. No one wants to spend an exorbitant amount of money on something that will be worthless in a month.

You reference DM as a game attempting to fix mana, have you tried VS? It seems relevant as they also ramp up stats with increased recruit cost. Booster boxes are sold out, but no one is playing. Damn weebs.
>Actually mana screw
was intended to inject randomness for displacing loss responsibility and slightly decreasing the effect of player skill disparity.

So, the big three are: MTG, Yugioh and Pokemon, right?

Yeah i'd say so, with a few other smaller tcgs filling their own niches.

user, if you can't brew for shit and are too proud to look up a list online, just say so.

>mtg
maybe in burgerstan

yeah but if a company doesn't make it big in burgerstan it probably won't print english cards you tardo. unless you enjoy playing with your moon runes.

I'm not sure what you mean, but if you are referring to buying online I have found it in stock at a few sites. My usual place listed it absurdly lower so really just hoping for it to come back in stock.

>mana screw is a symptom of poor deck construction.
Hence, 'perceived.' Honestly I don't have a problem with mana screw, but I do dislike how mana systems push down to the lowest possible cost. Especially in eternal formats like modern, anything that costs 3 or more needs to say "you win the game" or it's unplayable. I prefer leveling systems like Weiss or Wixoss, as they ensure that no matter the number of cards printed, you still need a good mix of creatures at all levels. (yes, 2-stops are a thing in Wixoss, but they've been super marginal for a long while now).

Honestly, this is this game's biggest problem. There's nothing wrong with it, exactly, but there's also nothing so spectacular its going to build much of a playerbase, either. Especially given that in terms of curve and game flow, it feels too close to magic to overcome the sunk cost people have dropped into that game (which as an added benefit keeps the playerbase stable).

you are arguing against something I never posited I was deriding mtg as unworthy of being one of the big three, not disagreeing on the fact americans must support new games to increase diversity.

so you're saying I win the argument then?

You can reduce screw but you can never eliminate it. Going down to 5 will almost always be enough but it's not 100% unless you play weird decks.

Because Japan has known for a long time that going first in a game is an appreciable advantage. That's why go gives free points to the player that goes second (as well as half a point to prevent draws).

Meanwhile the west doesn't care even though there's a small but significant bias towards the white player winning in chess.

There's a thematic familiarity to Madoka that has me interested in this game, but since I just got invested in Force of Will I'm probably not going to invest in Caster Chronicles any time soon. Maybe if they do an ACTUAL cross-promotion with Madoka.

I will say the card backs for this game are really nice (and super Madoka-ish). I'm kind of sad I missed out on the sleeves with just the card backs (although I can't seem to find them anywhere other than hobby search for some reason, maybe they were exlusives).

Can you post a pic? Caster Chronicles is made by the same company as Force of Will (literally Force of Will Co.), and FoW's card backs have a pretty nice looking and nicely textured magic circle design I'm a big fan of, so I figured they'd do something similar for CC.

>Just got invested in force of Will

People still play that game?

Myself and a few friends all got into the game from scratch around the same time, and there's a LGS in my area that does have more players besides my group of friends, so all in all there's enough of a scene to justify it.

>going first
>not playing in real time
>laughing_futurists.jpg

Dragonball super TCG is gaining a huge following quickly. It's really fun too. Last tornament I was in (which was just this last sat) had like 30 people.

jealous.

Which is weird, because DBZ struggled to get even half that at tournaments, it seems like.

For the Score release? Sounds sparse, guess my venue was lucky.

So how many tcgs are actually getting made and played right now?

I picked up this image a while back, and it's definitely out of date by now (and was probably incomplete when created). Still, it gives a decent idea of the number that's out there.

The games cheap as fuck, and already getting other magical girl tie ins. It has some staying power potentially.
FoW is to MTG as Casters is to Duelmasters. And Duelmasters>MtG.
FoW is lacking in good waifu art (imo) which seemed to be the point of the game.
Ill find one later, but its basically: Madoka the card game.
The game gets much better when you factor in the trial decks are just that- trials. Their are five other factions, and game play in my small group has been a ton of fun. Lots of interesting things going on.

>The game gets much better when you factor in the trial decks are just that- trials.
I did try to factor that in, but crashing trials against each other usually gives a solid idea of the game mechanics and flow of gameplay. For Weiss, for example, the trial decks are clearly untuned, but the Climax mechanic and the momentum advantage an early lead builds into are problems with the core rules that become evident in gameplay. With Casters, the game mechanics feel too similar to other games, and the spacing issues once you get 5-6 casters in play are both problems that carry over into more constructed gameplay. I'm not saying the game is bad, but apart from the fluff, it feels a little too derivative to make it worth jumping into for me personally (and there's pretty much 0 chance of it catching on locally).

That being said, I am curious to hear more about your impressions of the game, as someone whose clearly gone a little deeper than I did. Also, are Casters packs draftable?

Dumb Sakuraposter

>I don't understand that the first player in many games has a statistically significant advantage

Wixoss is good.

It's a shame, but I think you're right. It would take standout, great mechanics to get a game off the ground that didn't have a preexisting franchise.

>Wixoss is good.
A bit parasitic, but I'll second that.

sorry, forgot to f5

Im not saying the game is perfect, by far, and have room to improve. but compared to the FoW or Weiss trials its much better. Thats because its based on an already good game's system for the most part. The trials arnt that great vs each other, as you stated, because of too many casters and red needing to be faster (possible out of the packs, not from the trial) and the purple is much more powerful just from those two.

While the mechanics feel similar to other games (obviously with DM being the biggest), I dont see that as being an issue, particularly in eng as there is no game on the market (in eng) comparable. WOTC let those die (Hecatomb DM and Kaiju). And FoW caught on, despite being a clone of MtG with ten times the issues somehow (and worse art- half the reason I keep going off/on FoW is because half the anime art is great, and the other half is complete garbage. But hey, thats just like, my opinion man). Weiss is around despite buddyfight and vanguard being 99.99% the same. I honestly believe the weeb game market is different than the current big three. Although both pokemon and YuGiOh are anime based and huge, I dont feel as if people play them because its 'weeb' anymore, if that makes sense.

The multiple casters in play isnt any more of an issue than multiple lands, and as many have abilities that wombo-combo off each other, become one of the core components of the game. And level 2 Casters being able to sac their own level 1 (and yes it counts the caster underneither OR facedown) plus all the casters with abilities of discarding or banishing your own casters makes this not an issue, but instead a fun and interesting aspect of the game. Casters almost play more like mana dorks than lands, and it can get very fun very fast.

Like with DM, the card advantage aspect is very different than most games due to how corrupting orbs can give your opponents ways to catch up. (cont-)

>Mahou shoujo duel masters
Sign me up. Does making a cube work for this game?

With the current rotation FoW is better than MTG, at least in MTG's current state. I do like Duel Masters more though, so if CC is anything like you make it sound like it is probably the better game right now.

so, as a conclusion to all that, while derivative of other JP games I feel the subtle changes make it different enough to be its own thing. As far as derivative of current ENG games, I disagree full heatedly. I dont think their is a single game on the market like it. I doubt it will catch on at the local scene, but I am hoping it will in the weeb/con communities around.

Personally, I really like the resource system/game play and love the cute art. Some is mildly lewd, but enough is cute magical girl I could see it becoming somewhat popular with nurd grls and other ironic weebs. And hopefully people who miss this sort of game play (like all those burned by WOTC ruining their good games like Hecatomb, DM, Kaiju) will migrate just because of gameplay similarities.

As far as draft, that might be difficult somewhat. Most Rares in packs are Casters, but not always (in my box, 4 were non-caster out of 20). And three Casters isnt enough to play a game with, even if you make decks less cards (say 20-30). Id say it would be fine with extra casters thrown in, but some are so much better than others I dont think it would work unless they make 'draft' casters that do nothing but tap for color. It also hurts a bit for draft as their are Seven factions- so color might be very tricky.

one last thing - the game is heavily favorable towards control.

My local store has weekly nights and about a dozen dudes. Not as big as Pokemon or MTG, but actually comparable to the YuGiOh and Star Wars Destiny scene.

>I dont think it would work unless they make 'draft' casters that do nothing but tap for color.
They do something similar for FoW, with there being draft Rulers that support a mechanic and let you filter Will. I imagine that they would do something similar for this game.

A cube would definitely work. Tricky but Its something Ill try eventually myself.

While I still play MtG, I stopped modern/standard because of a few issues and stick to cube/edh/draft. But I really like cute anime girls. FoW was just ok, I only played for a few months but it was sort of unexciting. I dont know a better way to say it. Not dissing those who enjoy it, but I wanted to get AWAY from magic, not magic with half the cards being deviant art rejects.

CC is going to get tie ins in JP, hope they make it state side. Pic related.

My issue with the casters, as opposed to lands, is that lands are super simple (once in play most tend to add X, or X or Y). It's not a huge problem to have them in stacks. Casters, however, all have abilities, and you can't have duplicates in play, so you need to keep them all separate to keep them visible, which is either cluttered and difficult to keep track of, or spread all over the table. And there's less table space already because of orbs.

Compare casters.

The Reiya cluster art is much better IMO. I do agree that if you don't want to play MTG but slightly different then avoid FoW. FoW has the same strengths, but a lot of the same problems that MTG has.

To mtg. Not game breaker by any means, but it was annoying.

Ixalan draft is complete and utter irredeemable garbage, but standard's actually in a pretty good place right now. Our LGS regularly fires events somewhat consistently again, for what feels like the first time in over a year.

>playing against yourself

Is Caster Chronicles in English behind the Japanese version as far as sets go? Or are sets released at about the same time?

Casters are more like Lands than FoW Commanders, but 'coin casters' that produce only that color could work, or something similar.

The game actually just came out in Japan a month ago (October 6th) with the English version only two weeks behind according to the official Japanese website there will be Collaboration Boosters with other IPs and the first CB will come with in December

caster-chronicle-tcg.com/products/future

Fair points. I could see myself playing casually if it caught on, but with the size of my city, I can't see much of a player base developing here, and I'm satisfied enough with mtg (and webxoss) that I'm not going to push too hard here.

(Another minor point is that I hate free response systems like mtg, yugioh, and casters. Limited response times like Weiss and Wixoss are so much better, as they eliminate the awkward pause after every action where you wait to see if your opponent wants to respond. Also, awkward is a weird looking word.)

I guess I just don't understand weebshit

You don't know me.

Only set 1 is in ENG or JPN. JPN has some promos not available in ENG right now. You can pick up almost all the cards for under .50c on trollandtoad or tcg right now, although the textured foils are between 5-8 and the bubblegum rares are 50 which at that point just get a box as you get one anyway.
I built some 4 decks for under $40.

I see what you mean, but Casters are something I imagine, from a design and marketing standpoint, the 'draw' of the game. They are not 'lands' and are more legendary mana dorks. I play on playmats and the only thing I think really should be placed differently is the Orbs. Personally makes sense to place them like shields, but hey, DM is still stronk in Nippon.

Ixalan I really like, and made me want to do standard again. Too bad standard is kill around me, at least on the days I can play (and I am in a major city, and one of those days is Fri, so its surprising). Oh well.

Is that the newest set? havnt been keeping up.

>not playing with yourself
why else would you bother sleeving your cards?

While I love Wixoss and have a huge collection at this point, I hate playing card games online. I feel very strongly that if im going to play vidya, Ill play vidya and if I want to table top Ill tabletop. Hate hearthstone, online poker, and the like, I just dont get it. Defeats the purpose. But thats all on me.

>not being a little girl on the inside
look how cute (not!)Sakura is, dont you want to beinside her?

Wixoss is a work of art, and I've spent way too much money on cards I realistically will never play irl. Webxoss helps scratch the itch a bit, but there's definitely nothing online that compares to the feeling of smooth cardboard in your hands, and the snap of said cards hitting the table.

I agree. I hope to one day be rich, buy the IP, and release it in ENG even if as a box card game

...

Is this official art? One of the fun things with Wixoss was tracking down the artists on Pixiv and saving the card art.

yup!

Wait a minute this isn't FoW?

No, it's a different game. There are CC promo cards in FoW though.

Same company, different game

I just feel that if you don't play YGO, Pokemon or MtG, you might as well give up on card games since you need a lot of effort to find where to play them.

My friends are generally pretty receptive to play whatever. Though sometimes I do have to have a second deck on my persons. It depends on your group I suppose. If you just play with randos then you are generally going to be out of luck.

I think it would largely depend on how big your city is. You're more likely to find a critical mass of people willing to try out a niche-er card game somewhere like NYC than in bumfuck nowhere, Wisconsin.

Like board games, you can play with a dedicated table top friend group. Or as stated, live around lots of people.

I donno, it can be weird. A cousin of mine lives out on the country side and they have a very consistent hobby gaming club with 40+ people, but no where in my city is there a consistent crowd that large. though you can reliably get 20 in more venues. The only thing is most of them are stuck in the same mainstream games.

Also, I can't say I've experienced this personally, but apparently the Japanese tcg market is much more diverse than NA's (hence why so many of the tcgs on that image are japanese).

I was considering getting into this with a few people, but I wanted to know if the english cards are censored/edited in any way first. If so, any examples?

Only one that I know of and its a Hyper Rare

...

So is there an english version of this card? Censored I take it?

Yes, but only the boob area is completely foil it looks like so you dont really see nipple outline. Not a huge change. Silly for them to edit a card thats one in 6-7 boxes. And when pic related is a uncommon.

...

It disgusts me how most of these backs are ruined by their logos.

Spoils had a nice back.

Yugioh is the worst offender in my book. There's beauty in its simplicity and then it fucks it all up with not one, but two logos. One of which is multi-colored and pulls the eye away from the actual art.

How's the faction balance?

How hard not!red sucks? Because not!red sucks in every card game i know of.

Apparently Red has a pretty solid fast deck, and its breaks/notSakura are good enough to be the second or third color in a few decks floating around.
The game isnt established by any means yet and lots of brewing both in Eng and Jpn circles.
Most people are either trying
>control lock using purple/pink/x to constantly fog and humility casters
>orange/yellow (not!)dredge by sending cards to gy and getting them back later
>green/yellow beats and orb control
Blue seems like a third color add for breaks and some search cards but havnt red much else.

...

...

Well, you got me interested OP. I guess that I will have to see if the trial decks are worthwhile. I assume that there isn't a player finder online yet, nor any real decklists?

Just a US facebook group and twitter for JP.

...

nice art, but knowing Force of Will died makes me wary
tcgs are no good if you can't play 'em with somebody

FoW isn't dead yet.

As someome who plays allot of dead/fringe games:
Make friends.