Happy Holidays! Yes, I waited until after American Thanksgiving because I’m not a monster. Anyways, my holiday weekend was full of mucus and phlegm; exciting I know. So to save you all from my nasally voice or abrupt sneezes/coughs I am instead writing my Wish List for the Holiday season! So let’s stop babbling and dive right on it!
Better Communication from DWD
Direwolf Digital, the company which makes Eternal, does a good job of making this game. Eternal is a fun and engaging game with great strategic depth. However one aspect of managing a game like Eternal I’d like to see improve is how they communicate with the player base. We had roughly a week or so of previews for Tale of Horus Traver and so far we’ve had vague at best hintings of Set 3. But beyond that? We don’t hear about special events until a few days before they go live. We go crazy over a few card names Scarlatch tells us in the official Eternal Discord server. The communication needs to be better, end of story.
To borrow from Magic: the Gathering, Wizards of the Coast publishes a list bi-annually of what products are coming out in the next 6 months. Yes Magic has a different problem due to being a physical product while Eternal has no such problems, but something similar could easily be put in place. Give us a 2-3 month warning that a new set is coming out. And not by having Scarlatch say something in the Discord server. Make a post on the Eternal website saying “Hey, in 2 months on X date get ready for [INSERT SET NAME HERE]!” No need to give us card names or mechanics, but some card art or flavor text of the set would be fantastic!
Oh, and don’t just do that for major sets. Do this for Adventures as well! The marketing for Tale of Horus Traver was good and got us all thinking and talking! The speculation and discussion about what ToHT meant and what we would see in it was amazing! However give us at most 2 months to grind up the gold necessary for the adventures!
An Ever-Shifting Metagame
One of Eternal’s strengths is how much we’ve been able to milk out of two full sets and two adventures. The meta is ever-shifting and new decks are being discovered every month or so. This is augmented by the various promo cards and adventures we’ve had since Omens of the Past released, which is a welcome stimulus to the CCG genre. Look back a few months ago I’m willing the bet the number of Makt-echo decks floating around would be negligible. Whereas now I literally had to play a deck with Steward of the Past just because of how prevalent it is! DWD, and the community at large, has done a great job of exploring the cardpool and uncovering hidden gems. But this leads me into my next point cleanly.
Set 3 Before New Year’s Day
Direwolf Digital please, PLEASE, give us another set before January 1st! While the game hasn’t gotten stale yet, the community does want to see new things and new cards! Obviously it’s your prerogative as to when new cards/sets get introduced. But Tale of Horus Traver only stemmed the bleeding. Colony Matron was a sweet card, but didn’t impact too hard. Kosul Brigade was a fun card to show friends, and fun to play, but wasn’t earth-shaking. New sets, by their very nature, change the environment in massive ways. And we would very much like to see a new set before new years!
More DWD Support for ETS
Before I get too far into this bullet point, hats off to camat0 for being the first ever Eternal CCG World Champion! It is no small feat to be a World Champ in any venture, let alone in Eternal where the competition level is quite high.
But I have no desire to play in the ETS. No motivation, whatsoever. Is it because the ETS is run by fellow fans of the game? No. I just want to see DWD support this in more than just making the game. Even in their own tweet congratulating camat0 they referenced it as “the first Eternal Card Game community championship…” Either one of two things need to happen, in my opinion: DWD needs to start their own tournament series (which they’re probably waiting until after they’re officially out of beta to do), or DWD should let aReNGee let the ETS use official DWD and Eternal assets. Which brings me into my next point which is less for me and more for y’all ETS die-hards.
Institute a Bi-Weekly ‘Best of 3’ Event.
I’m not sure what needs to be done on the back end for a Best of 3 (henceforth shortened to Bo3) in-client, but many people have been asking for this feature. The gymnastics people go through just to play the ETS is astounding, to me. While I agree with those who think that having two simultaneous queues of Ranked (aka Best of 1) and Bo3 would split the player base significantly, having Bo3 every other week would satiate those who do play in the ETS as a valid testing ground. Count me among the players who dislike seeing Sabotage in Ranked when it’s not a very good card without sideboards. And finally,
A Preview Card for Set 3?
Look Direwolf Digital, I’m a man of simple tastes. If it’s aggressive or lets me “dome ‘em right out” I’m on board.
Thanks for following along with my Holiday Wish List! Hopefully this wasn’t too much of a bore for you. That said if you’re looking for what I’m playing right now, well this reddit thread has the decklist I took to Masters over the Thanksgiving weekend so give user MissedLethal2 a hat’s off! I wonder what happened to MissedLethal1? Oh well.
As always you can give me comments/questions on Reddit, the Discord, or Twitter @jwiley129. Thanks so much for following along and I’ll see y’all next time!
