After tabletop RPGs, video video games, and board video games, Cyberpunk 2077 is hacking into the TCG area with Cyberpunk TCG, a brand new card sport that is getting nearer and nearer to the launch of its Kickstarter marketing campaign on March 17. Revealed again in December proper right here on IGN, we have now had a while to shuffle by way of some playing cards and learn the way this newest adaptation of CD Projekt RED’s and Mike Pondsmith’s creation performs, courtesy of an alpha set that the parents at WeirdCo despatched our manner.
Having performed some matches with the 2 included trial decks, let’s check out how precisely Cyberpunk TCG hopes to win some avenue cred and declare some territory within the already crowded card sport market, alongside taking a primary take a look at a number of new playing cards within the thrilling TCG.
This “Merc Triptych” that includes Jackie Welles, V (Company Exile), and Viktor Vektor appears to be like phenomenal. I like how a lot it leans right into a gritty, watercolor aesthetic that particularly nails the Cyberpunk vibe. I’m additionally notably enamored by V’s corp look. You would possibly even discover her sporting a specific silver hand, which is an excellent further contact. Not solely are these playing cards enjoyable to have a look at, however it’s additionally an amazing take a look at the sport’s core mechanics and deckbuilding construction.
Whereas Cyberpunk options many acquainted features to different TCGs – utilizing sources to pay for playing cards you play, attacking and blocking with summoned creatures, common gameplay types tied to a coloration, and so on – I’ve been shocked how a lot it additionally manages to really feel fairly not like another I’ve performed up to now, not simply from V, Jackie, and Vik, but additionally with enjoying round with the aforementioned alpha deck. A lot of this I owe to how WeirdCo and the sport’s designers have managed to infuse the supply supplies’ RPG-DNA into the TCG area, incorporating cube into the stream of the sport, however in a manner that, if you first hear about it, chances are you’ll not have anticipated.
Every participant has a pool of six cube, known as “Gigs,” put aside at the beginning of the sport, and on every flip, you’ll decide certainly one of your cube, roll it, and set it in entrance of you. These values act as your avenue cred, whose whole worth (from all of your obtainable cube) will unlock extra perks for some playing cards, with some results even letting you regulate the cube. Different results, resembling “Jackie Welles – Pour One Out For Me,” help you manipulate the values of cube, too, triggering extra goodies and methods so that you can reap the benefits of. In Jackie’s case, you may regulate certainly one of your cube’s values by 2, and whether it is as excessive as it’s going to go, it enables you to draw a card. Managing your avenue cred cube holds a much more necessary issue to your sport of Cyberpunk The TCG – these math rocks function your life, too.
To win a sport of Cyberpunk, not like many different TCGs, you are not making an attempt to take an opponent’s life to zero; as an alternative, you’re taking the W everytime you begin your flip in possession of six whole cube. Everytime you assault your opponent and the assault lands, you may decide and steal certainly one of their cube, and add its avenue cred to your individual. You possibly can even steal a number of cube, relying on how giant an assault your card’s assault has, letting you steal even two or three at a time, turning every sport of Cyberpunk into an intense sport of tug-of-war that I discovered myself slightly enamoured by. Having develop into a bit burnt out on the usual lifepoint or prize/defend direct of a overwhelming majority of its friends.
Being a buying and selling card sport, ripping packs, setting up decks, and turning cardboard rectangles sideways are nonetheless entrance and heart right here. Cyberpunk options its personal coloration system for its playing cards, just like Magic’s coloration pie or Riftbound’s rune dominas, and closely impressed by the talent bushes featured in CD Projekt Pink’s Cyberpunk 2077. Along with the 4 colours featured, Pink, Blue, Yellow, and Inexperienced, playing cards additionally are available in 4 sorts. Legends (the leaders of your deck who you construct your deck round, not too dissimilar to a deck’s Commander in Magic), Items (your grunts on the bottom, doing the combating), Applications (Cyberpunk’s equal to spells, one-time results), and Gear (gear you connect to enhance your models).
Beginning with the Legends, every deck contains three playing cards which are positioned, face down, in a particular space. These legends, with the preliminary choices together with the likes of V, Goro Takemura, and Yorinobu Arasaka, characteristic a coloured RAM worth that may dictate the energy and colours of playing cards you may embody in your deck, with the overall values and colours of all your Legends collectively providing you with your limits. Decks themselves should fall inside 40 and 50 playing cards (not together with Legends) with not more than 3 copies of the identical card (no duplicate Legends although).
Astute TCG lovers could have picked up on the truth that I didn’t point out any kind of useful resource card, like mana, in my listing of card sorts, and that’s as a result of one of many Cyberpunk’s fascinating features is that as an alternative of enjoying a Unit or Gear card, you may as an alternative “promote” or place them face down and use them as a useful resource used to spend (i.e. tapping) to forged different playing cards, together with your Legends.
Alongside the inclusion of the cube facet, the aspect I’ve discovered most fascinating about enjoying Cyberpunk has to do with the Legends, extra particularly, the way you deliver them onto the board. As talked about earlier, these leaders begin the sport face down in a devoted Chief space. As soon as per participant’s flip, you may spend sources to flip them face up and, in essence, summon them, unlocking their card talents. Crucially, that timing isn’t restricted to your individual flip, which means you can too reveal a Legend throughout an opponent’s flip, resembling in response to an assault.
The factor is, nonetheless, except a card enables you to take a look at them, you don’t have any manner of figuring out which of your Legends you’re bringing out till you flip the cardboard. Granted, you solely have three Legends to choose from, however this kind of blindly casting a card as a serious mechanic is one thing I can’t recall seeing in another TCG I’ve performed, and I’m nonetheless not fairly bought on it. I’m all for the occasional infusion of chaos in my card video games; heck, I play “Possibility Storm” and “Chaos Warp” in certainly one of my Magic decks only for the hilarity, however having it’s a continuing consider each sport, I haven’t landed on fairly how I really feel about it but. I don’t know if I like the thought of together with playing cards amongst my slightly restricted 50 deck slots for the aim of enjoying the reminiscence sport of seeing the place that Legend I need to deliver out might be.
I’m no stranger to TCGs, having been a Magic participant for almost 30 years at this level (gosh I’m previous), and have performed all kinds of others from the Remaining Fantasy TCG, trendy Digimon, dabbled in Pokemon, Yugioh, and even performed a pair video games of the previous My Little Pony one, and the upcoming Cyberpunk TCG is already pulling off some surprises which have me excited.
I’ve discovered myself particularly intrigued by the tug-of-war nature of the gig cube, with video games feeling extra tense, repeatedly, than a lot of the others. Moreover, whereas there are playing cards in each of the decks that take care of altering the cube and triggers out of your Road Cred worth, I’m excited to see full spoilers for the set and these past to see how this mechanic is basically utilized and in what inventive results it’s going to make the most of.
Whereas we don’t have lengthy to attend for Cyberpunk TCG’s marketing campaign to start on March 17, if you wish to give the foundations a deeper dive, WeirdCo has the alpha ruleset obtainable on the company’s website.
Followers of each Cyberpunk and buying and selling card video games ought to have this one on their radars, particularly if in case you have felt that each one the cardboard video games popping out recently really feel a bit samey. For myself, I can’t wait to get my arms on extra of those playing cards and actually take these techniques for a journey and see what they’ll do.
Scott White is a contract contributor to IGN, aiding with tabletop video games and information protection. Comply with him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.
This text additionally options contributions from Robert Anderson, Senior Commerce Editor for IGN.