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World of Myths Review

I’m a sucker for a good card game, but in this era of online CCGs, it’s pretty damn hard to innovate and try something new. Everything has already been done by Pokemon, Magic, and Hearthstone. There’s no real need to innovate the playing field though because the Hearthstone/MTG visual style works – it looks familiar. A new player who has tried other card games will understand how the board works, and that’s incredibly important to a card game – you have to understand your battlefield just as much as the actual cards. World of Myths builds upon another card game, one that crumbled and fell into obscurity – Artifact. One of the many things that were terrible about Artifact was that it tried to turn Dota 2 into a card game with three lanes – so you had three boards to stress and play on. World of Myths is similar, in that the goal is to destroy the opponent’s structures, but is done in a simplified manner, putting all three temples on one screen.

In World of Myths, each player commands the power of a mythological god from our own cultures around the world. Each pantheon has a base god (Poseidon, Odin, Amaterasu), and as you play a faction you unlock other gods to control instead, each with their own different power and play style. I think the god I’ve seen the most personally is Tsukuyomi since he can lower enemy creatures Endurance – that’s very key to the overall gameplay experience, which we’ll cover here very shortly. The goal is to destroy all three of the enemy Temples, thus defeating the god. Players can also summon their god onto the battlefield, which has their own damage and health, but this is dangerous since losing your god means losing the game. They can be attacked directly as long as they’re on the board as well. There is more to these temples than simply defeating them though. Whenever you deal the temple’s damage, they also give the damaging player benefits – increased Endurance/Power or make the defending player kill off a creature.


Sure, you could just defend every turn, but if you do, you’ll never attack – creatures cannot both attack and defend on the same turn. You have to carefully consider what you do with everything you play. World of Myths does take a little bit of time to really get into, but it’s worth investing the time to learn this system. It’s a game with a great deal of tactical depth, but let’s start at the beginning. You pick a god/faction to represent, but this can be changed anytime. You aren’t locked to a god forever. Each god has a 30 card default deck, which are pretty decent, and great ways to see how a faction plays. Much like in Hearthstone, each player gains a Mana Crystal each turn, but the starting amount is 3. The player who goes second receives a 1/1 Creature that cannot attack to use as defense fodder.

During your turn, you deal with any Attacks from the other player first (if there are any). Otherwise, you play creatures/abilities, then declare your Attack. After you declare an attack, you cannot cast spells/further creatures, so be careful. At this point, another important feature of the game comes up: Endurance. Creatures have a number with a shield on it, and that’s the damage they deal in combat. On the right side of the card, there’s a series of green bubbles, and that is Endurance. Whenever a creature blocks or attacks, they lose 1 Endurance – when that runs out, the creature dies. You can bolster this with a variety of abilities, or by attacking the Right Temple (for the right-most creature only). This is yet another deep feature for the game. Unlike card games like MTG or Hearthstone, you can’t just declare an attack with every creature every turn – that’s a quick way to lose everything and be defenseless. I love this feature, to be honest, and there are plenty of ways to add or remove Endurance from your creatures, and your opponents.

There’s another thing that needs to be pointed out, because it wasn’t 100% clear to me in my first several games: Traits. Traits are what type of creature you have – Viking, Beast, Knight, et cetera. This is important because there are plenty of god abilities that are focused around having a “unique trait”, which means you only have one of that type of creature on the battlefield. Amaterasu is a good example – if you play a creature that has a unique trait, it gains 1 Endurance. So consider the Endurance, the strength, and your opponent’s strength if you want to succeed. I haven’t seen a single counterspell or interrupt ability in this game, which is honestly kind of refreshing. Not having to stress about “Oh no, I’m going to get countered and have wasted mana/time” is such a pleasant experience. So I said the combat is built around these Temples, but what is the benefit of attacking each?

Left: Dealing damage lets you draw one card, and your left-most unit gains +2 power.
Middle: Dealing damage makes your opponent kill one of their creatures.
Right: Dealing damage lets you draw one card, and your right-most creature gains +1 Endurance.

So how does combat actually work? It is a fairly simple system. You declare your attackers, and a temple target (or a god, if it’s on the board). It will add up the total power, and then the opponents turn pops up. They pick defenders (if any) and their total power is added up. If your damage is greater than their defense, that number is applied to the temple. If your combat power is lesser or equal to their defense, no damage goes through, and Endurance is removed from all participants. You can cast creatures while declaring attack, so if you have creatures to buff the attacking creatures, you can do it during this time, as well as cast Blessings/Curses (buffs/debuffs). It’s important to note that creature death due to Endurance takes place before you gain these benefits, so the plus to Endurance/Power may not hit the creature you’re attacking with. You also can only attack one of these per turn, and once an attack/defense is declared, I have not seen a way to undo it. One thing I’ve noticed is that other than dealing damage to Temples, there is not a lot of card draw outside of the Left/Right Temple, and with a hard cap of 10 mana, comebacks can be very difficult if your board is wiped due to abilities and combat.

World of Myths is a game where you genuinely have to put a lot of thought and consideration into every move and does not seem to reward constant aggressiveness. This is great because not enough card games seem to reward genuine tactical gameplay. There are also plenty of familiar Keywords (Rush, Reinforcements), but the game is not loaded down with them. What really makes characters shine are their special abilities. There are so many creatures with powers that boost endurance/power or weaken opponent’s creatures, and as a result, most of the decks I’ve played against have felt pretty varied and different. That is not to say that the creatures are perfect – there’s still a great deal of balance left to do, and everyone seems to have an opinion on what is the most busted/overpowered to them. I’m not going to make a claim on what is the most powerful, only that I have had incredible success with Amaterasu. I have noticed a trend in decks that defeat me the most have ways to seriously amplify their gods though – Ares, Odin, Freya are high on that list. I was excited at first to start with 3 Mana, but when almost every starting hand was a 4/5 drop, the game still can be slow even when I pitch all three starting cards and get new ones. I’ve yet to get a mulligan that was worth it.

I would not mind seeing the tutorial expanded on a little bit, perhaps as a separate part of the UI for players that want to focus on what is different here from other card games. This game is still in Early Access, so several modes are not available yet, such as their Battle Royale (but with cards!), the Living Story (campaign?), and Faction Wars. But there are more modes than just “Casual” and “Ranked”, so that’s another thing I love seeing in card games. I want to have more than just “play against x player”. You can also Draft, Enter Tournaments, and at some point, those other modes are going to drop. I’m fascinated by the idea of a Battle Royale card game, and I’m a sucker for a good story mode in a CCG. So while I can’t judge these yet, they without a doubt have my curiosity. As far as the actual gameplay, it is easy for beginners to pick up after a few matches, so thankfully the game does have bots/AI to play against. On the note of gameplay and development choices, I’m sad that it uses the popular Dust/Crafting system because I’ve yet to see a game do this in a fair manner. But on that note, let’s talk monetization.

World of Myths does offer a Founder’s Pack that gives a title, 30 card packs, and a +10% lifetime Mythology Reputation/Leader Experience buff. It also gives a trophy cosmetic and is available once per account. Given that 3 packs are 5 dollars, and the bundle is 25 dollars, that is reasonable enough. There is also the starter pack that is 10 card packs and 500 Diamonds (RL Currency) for 5 bucks. Since 3 packs are 480 Diamonds, that comes out to 15 packs for 5 dollars, so that’s another great start. Beyond buying packs, you can buy skins for your gods, which do not change how you play, only how cute the god is – and that’s important. They do point out that each pack contains 5 cards, and at least 1 will be Rare or better – that’s another key thing to be aware of. So all told, the cost for packs is reasonable, and you can buy 1 pack with 500 gold. Don’t worry, it seems like there are plenty of daily quests to farm gold. It’s going to be faster to spend real money, but that is simply the nature of card games. Always remember that simply spending money won’t make you the next Sima Yi. Only through play, theorycrafting, and strategy will you get better.

Raze the Temples: 3.5/5 (Good)

Honestly, this is a refreshing and interesting card game, and it has some features I have yet to see in any of the games I regularly play. I don’t care that the board set up is similar to Hearthstone, and I’m willing to overlook the Dust system, as that’s a personal preference. It feels like it makes it much harder to build a deck without spending money. I will say that the costs for cards seem a bit high though. World of Myths is free to play and has an Early Access bundle to help support it, and it’s one that doesn’t make the game p2w at all – it makes your grind for levels faster by a very small amount. As you level factions and leaders, you gain plenty of rewards, so it’s worth taking the time to try all of the gods and play matches with them. One of the huge benefits of World of Myths is it’s less focused on knowing what every card does, and requires far more strategy than the other card games I spend my day playing. The UI could use some work though – I’m ashamed at how long it took me to figure out that the only thing in the Store wasn’t the Early Access bundle.

If I could change one thing though, it would be recalling units that are set to attack/defend. You can accidentally swipe up on someone, or change your mind at the last second. Otherwise, you are punished for making that kind of serious mistake. It’s not the biggest thing in the game, but it can lead to some mighty frustrating moments. One of these is how hard it is to come back once you’ve fallen behind, especially when your opponent has a more powerful god.

It’s a fresh, fun CCG, and I like this company’s take on shaking up Online Card Games. World of Myths is a game I’m looking forward to seeing grow. If you want a CCG that takes a little more thinking and preparation, this is the one for you. It offers strategy, is visually very bright and colorful, and plenty of different ways to play. But I will say one thing for certain – the new player experience is very frustrating. More often than not I played against players who had seriously powerful decks, where all I had was a slightly modified starter deck. I’m still waiting for the card game that lets new players play legitimately against new players, instead of throwing them to the sharks with a weak matchmaking system. While World of Myths does innovate, it does have a ways to go before I would consider the game balanced.

Editor’s Note: As of this article, a new update and game mode has been added.

A game key was provided for preview purposes.

World of Myths Review

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