Good Cards, Good People: An Alpha Clash TCG Review
Earlier this week, I reviewed the first TCG I’m excited about releasing this summer. I want to continue that series and talk about the Alpha Clash TCG, a superhero styled TCG coming our way mid July.
Alpha Clash – The Origin Story
Alpha Clash is a hero centric game where you control a Contender that represents you on the battlefield. Each Contender has different abilities and play styles, and they even get stronger as you lose life!
Each turn, you can banish a card from your hand upside down to permanently turn it into a resource. Then, you use the resources to pay the cards’ costs. To use Magic terms: any card can become a land. Each card has a different color, and then, as you might guess, generates that color of resource when utilized.
Unlike other games, there are no class or deck building restrictions. You’re only limited by the color of the cards you want to cast. Your deck can include: accessories – permanents that sit on the battlefield and provide an ongoing advantage; clash cards – creatures that stick around on the battlefield and fight against the opposing contender; clash buff cards – cards that provide a hefty bonus to your creatures in combat, all while drawing a card; locations – cards that impact the whole battlefield, not just your team; and plenty of other cards to interact with your opponent.
Biases
Like I mentioned last time, it’s important to me that I share my biases so you know where I’m coming from. I’m going to tell you in this review that Alpha Clash is amazing, and it’s important you know the presuppositions I have coming into this one.
I’ll say at the outset, I’m not a big superhero guy. The art in this game does nothing for me, and I imagine the lore won’t either. I generally liked the first phase of the Marvel movies, and I like a good graphic novel occasionally, but I think I just have superhero fatigue after all that has come out over the past decade. The art is well done, and the cards are aesthetically pleasing. I’m just not jumping for joy at getting to play a superhero.
I also must admit I’m enamored at how awesome the guys who make this game are. While at Origins this past weekend, I had the opportunity to have dinner with Ridge, the CEO and co-creator, and Brady, one of the designers and testers. Those guys were phenomenally kind, very passionate about their game, and have some clear goals about what they want to accomplish. They hooked Abbie and I up with a Kickstarter box, along with a Clash Kit (basically a two-player starter pack). Before even demoing the game, I arranged to purchase three boxes at release.
Things I like
I like games that take solid ideas and manipulate them to make them more enjoyable. Here, Alpha Clash implemented a free action economy system that I’ve grown quite found of. You attack, play cards, and take other game actions in any order you choose. You can attack with one card, play another, then attack with a different card. There’s very little required structure to your main action phase. As long as you have the resources available, you can do things.
I also really enjoy Alpha Clash’s resource system. I’m unashamedly a big fan of Magic’s land system (I feel the boos reigning down upon me). I like the deck building consideration that comes with deciding what type of resources to include and then maximizing the efficiency of those cards.
Alpha Clash expands on that system by letting every card potentially be a resource card, allowing you to decide how and when to get value out of the card. Maybe it’s turn 2, so you permanently make your 9-drop creature a land. Yes, you’re sacrificing the very late game, but you need to play spells now, so turning that 9-drop into a resource is better than not curving out. Likewise, drawing a 1-drop creature on turn 9 feels terrible. Thanks to Alpha Clash, that 1-drop is now a land for you to case that 9-drop you’ve been holding on to.
I recognize Magic’s land system is antiquated; uncertain resource generation does not feel good, no matter who you are. That’s why I love Alpha Clash’s system. Since you draw a card every turn, and every card can be a resource, you’ll always be able to play a resource if you choose. That’s awesome.
In both instances, Alpha Clash took something we’ve seen before and made it better (the free action economy is a large part of Flesh and Blood, and the resource system is integral to Magic). These design choices led to several interesting decision points throughout the games, along with never feeling like there is a dead draw in your deck.
And…just to defend myself a little bit: I prefer a land system like Alpha Clash over Flesh and Blood’s resource system in large part due to how pitch stacking works. Pitch stacking introduces a different skill into the game, which is great, but I think games tend to drag on a bit too long because of it. It also encourages strategies like fatigue Oldhim that would otherwise be harder without effective pitch stacking.
Things That Could be Better
There are a lot of things that impact the board in a game of Alpha Clash. It’s a lot like Flesh and Blood in that regard. Just like the hero and equipment give an enormous amount of context to a FaB game, the Contender has enormous influence on the outcome
In the demo games I played, the Contenders and the location cards (these provide universal effects to the battlefield) were on opposite sides of the table, and it was hard to see the abilities of your opponent’s Contender. I lost a couple of units to “on board tricks” that I just didn’t see because they were outside my field of vision.
Despite my grumbling about this, players will get more comfortable with all the effects going on over time. I took a long time to remember my opponent’s equipment could affect my plays in Flesh and Blood too. Now it’s a non-issue. Once we get more familiar with Alpha Clash’s different cards and their primary interactions, I’ll probably laugh at myself for making this complaint.
My final “gripe” is also board aesthetic related. Since every card can be a resource, you’ll banish cards from your hand upside down into your resource zone to signify those cards are now resources. I’m worried that the board will be confusing between what cards are resources and what cards are active. When you tap a resource, you turn it horizontal like you do in most games. When you tap a clash character, you also turn it horizontal. I could see a world where the board gets muddied in really grindy games. I’m not sure whether this complaint is founded, but is a thing I’ve heard mentioned and caused me to wonder the same thing.
Conclusion
I’m rate this game an 8.5 or 9 out of 10. Like I mentioned, I want this one to succeed because I believe in the people behind it, and I had a lot of fun playing it right out of the box. Those two things combined make me really excited for it, and I really just want to get a bunch of games in.
If you’re looking for Learn to Play videos or actual game play, Team Covenant has a series of game play on their channel right now about this game.
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Next week: FaB prerelease season