After tabletop RPGs, video video games, and board video games, Cyberpunk 2077 is hacking into the TCG house 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 via 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 approach.
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 have 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 selected silver hand, which is an excellent further contact. Not solely are these playing cards enjoyable to take a look at, however it’s additionally an important have a look at the sport’s core mechanics and deckbuilding construction.
Whereas Cyberpunk options many acquainted elements to different TCGs – utilizing assets to pay for playing cards you play, attacking and blocking with summoned creatures, common gameplay types tied to a shade, and many others – I’ve been stunned how a lot it additionally manages to really feel fairly in contrast to some other I’ve performed up to now, not simply from V, Jackie, and Vik, but additionally with taking part in 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 house, incorporating cube into the circulate of the sport, however in a approach that, if you first hear about it, it’s possible you’ll not have anticipated.
Cyberpunk TCG: Alpha Deck – Preview
Every participant has a pool of six cube, known as “Gigs,” put aside in the beginning of the sport, and on every flip, you’ll decide one among your cube, roll it, and set it in entrance of you. These values act as your avenue cred, whose complete worth (from all of your out there cube) will unlock further perks for some playing cards, with some results even letting you regulate the cube. Different results, corresponding to “Jackie Welles – Pour One Out For Me,” help you manipulate the values of cube, too, triggering further goodies and methods so that you can benefit from. In Jackie’s case, you possibly can regulate one among your cube’s values by 2, and whether it is as excessive as it would 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, in contrast to many different TCGs, you are not attempting to take an opponent’s life to zero; as a substitute, you’re taking the W everytime you begin your flip in possession of six complete cube. Everytime you assault your opponent and the assault lands, you possibly can decide and steal one among 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/protect direct of a overwhelming majority of its friends.
Being a buying and selling card sport, ripping packs, establishing decks, and turning cardboard rectangles sideways are nonetheless entrance and middle right here. Cyberpunk options its personal shade system for its playing cards, just like Magic’s shade pie or Riftbound’s rune dominas, and closely impressed by the talent timber 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), Models (your grunts on the bottom, doing the preventing), Applications (Cyberpunk’s equal to spells, one-time results), and Gear (gear you connect to enhance your models).
Cyberpunk TCG – Key Artwork
Beginning with the Legends, every deck consists of 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, function a coloured RAM worth that can dictate the energy and colours of playing cards you possibly can embody in your deck, with the whole values and colours of your whole 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 fanatics might have picked up on the truth that I didn’t point out any sort of useful resource card, like mana, in my record of card sorts, and that’s as a result of one of many Cyberpunk’s attention-grabbing elements is that as a substitute of taking part in a Unit or Gear card, you possibly can as a substitute “promote” or place them face down and use them as a useful resource used to spend (i.e. tapping) to solid different playing cards, together with your Legends.
Alongside the inclusion of the cube side, the ingredient I’ve discovered most attention-grabbing about taking part in 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 possibly can spend assets to flip them face up and, in essence, summon them, unlocking their card skills. Crucially, that timing shouldn’t be restricted to your individual flip, that means you can even reveal a Legend throughout an opponent’s flip, corresponding to in response to an assault.
The factor is, nonetheless, until a card enables you to have a look at them, you don’t have any approach of figuring out which of your Legends you might be bringing out till you flip the cardboard. Granted, you solely have three Legends to select from, however this type of blindly casting a card as a serious mechanic is one thing I can’t recall seeing in some other TCG I’ve performed, and I’m nonetheless not fairly offered on it. I’m all for the occasional infusion of chaos in my card video games; heck, I play “Chance Storm” and “Chaos Warp” in one among my Magic decks only for the hilarity, however having or not 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 taking part in the reminiscence sport of seeing the place that Legend I wish to deliver out may very well be.
I’m no stranger to TCGs, having been a Magic participant for practically 30 years at this level (gosh I’m outdated), 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 outdated 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, recurrently, than a lot of the others. Moreover, whereas there are playing cards in each of the decks that cope with altering the cube and triggers out of your Road Cred worth, I’m excited to see full spoilers for the set and people past to see how this mechanic is basically utilized and in what inventive results it would 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 out there on the corporate’s web site.
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 currently really feel a bit samey. For myself, I can’t wait to get my fingers on extra of those playing cards and actually take these techniques for a trip and see what they will do.
Scott White is a contract contributor to IGN, helping with tabletop video games and information protection. Observe him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.
This text additionally options contributions from Robert Anderson, Senior Commerce Editor for IGN.
