Trading Card Game (TCG) Guide (ZAM Free Realms)

The Trading Card Game is one of many activities that you can do in Free Realms. You can play the TCG as a free member, you don't have to upgrade in order to play. To access the TCG, go into your game guide, then choose the card icon that pops up just above your game dock. On the main page of the TCG you can access your card collection, the deck builder, the lounge where you can find other people to play against, and even a tutorial where you can learn everything that you need to know about the game. So if you don't want to have to read through all the crap that I've written then you can just go through the in game tutorial.

ZAM attended the TCG panel at the 2009 SOE Fan Faire, and came away with some great tips!

I hope this guide helps you and if not then try the tutorial because I'm sure that it will explain everything better to you than I did.

The Card Duelist Job

You can complete quests to acquire more cards or you can purchase starter decks, booster packs, and quest packs with Station Cash from the Marketplace. Each starter deck has 40 cards from the chosen sphere and costs SC 599 ; each booster pack has 10 cards and costs SC 249 . Each quest pack contains more quests to complete, which means more cards (that are exclusive to these quests), and they cost SC 100 , but they must be done in order. More about each of these later.

Trading Card Game Rules


Spheres

Each card falls into 1 of the 5 spheres. They are chaos, nature, machine, order and hero. Heroes are like legends in Magic The Gathering, in that only 1 hero of the same name can be in play at a time. For example, if you have a Sam Potts hero card in your hand and there is a Sam Potts card in play either on your side or your opponent's side then you cannot put another Sam Potts card into play. The only exception is if the Sam Potts in play is on your side and you want to replace that card with the Sam Potts card in your hand.

Each sphere has its own strengths and weaknesses. Select your sphere based on your playing style.

The Nature sphere centers around hunting, and scoring many cards early in the game. It is more defensive than offensive. The playing style is fairly simple, with not many complicated abilities to worry about, which is why the starter deck is Nature.

The Machine sphere is very strategy based and relies heavily on tricks. It's frustrating playing against a Machine deck, because all the excellent tricks constantly upset your strategy. A machine player always has the element of surprise on their side.

The Order sphere is all about patience. It is heavily defensive, blocking your opponent from scoring wherever possible. The scored cards stack up slowly but surely, and an Order player may find they've won purely because their opponent can't get a good shot at them.

A cardie playing Chaos needs, first and foremost, guts. It's very strongly offensive, and often relies on the "gem" abilities (about a one in two chance) to win a battle. If it begins badly, Chaos has a hard time bouncing back, but once it gets going, Chaos is nearly impossible to stop.

Categories

Each card also falls into 1 of 3 categories. They are either creatures, resources or tricks.

• Creatures: are what you use to attack and defend with. The cost to play them is the number in the upper left hand corner.
  
• Resources: have special abilities that can be used when they are in your inventory. More about the inventory shortly.
  
• Tricks are like instant spells in Magic The Gathering. They help boost your creatures during battle.
  

Game Play

The goal of the game is to score 12 points first. More on how you score points later.

When you start the game both players draw 6 cards. If you don't like the cards that you drew then you get to redraw once.

Game Play Phases

Each turn has three phases. A ready phase, a set phase and a go phase. During your ready phase, you draw 2 cards and you can choose to play 1 of the cards in your hand to your inventory. The inventory is like the mana pool in Magic the Gathering. You can play any card you wish to your inventory. Resource cards go into your inventory face up because they have abilities that can be played while in your inventory, and every other card that you put into your inventory goes face down.

During your set phase, you get a coin for each of the cards in your inventory to play creature cards. You are only allowed to have three creature cards in play at once and as I have already mentioned there can only be one hero card of the same name in play at a time. You can have 2 or 3 different heroes in play, just not 2 or 3 of the same name and you can't play any hero card that your opponent already has in play.

The go phase is the combat phase. That is when you attack with your creatures, play tricks and use your resource abilities.

Hunt

The easiest way to score is to hunt with a creature. Hunting is when you attack with a creature when there is no creature across from it to block it or the creature is stunned. When you hunt, you score 1 card no matter how high your creature's attack power is.

Attack

If you attack with a creature that has a creature across from it to block it then there is a battle. It's your creature's attack power vs. your opponent's creature's defense power. Which ever number is higher at the end of the battle is the winner and the loser is destroyed. If it is a tie then both creatures are destroyed. If you're attacking and your creature wins the battle then you score a card. You cannot score a card as the defender even if you win the battle.

But there is more to it than that. During a battle both players draw a card and that card is used to help boost your creature. The number of gems on the bottom of the drawn card will increase your creatures attack power if it is attacking and its defense power if its defending. Every card has at least 1 gem on the bottom and at most 4 gems. So its advisable that you don't have too many cards in your deck with 1 or 2 gems because you will want as much of a boost as possible for every battle.

But that's not all that gems are used for. Some creatures also have special abilities that are activated by specific gems. For example, Forest Troll Archer has an ability that increases its attack power by 3 if 1 of the gems on the card that you drew for the battle is blue. If there is no blue gem then that ability is not activated. Note that you can only activate the ability once per battle. So if there are 2 blue gems on the card that you drew then Forest Troll Archer still just gets a plus 3 to its attack power not plus 6.

So in addition to trying to have as many cards with 3 or 4 gems in your deck as possible you will also want to try to have as many cards with gems that match your creatures' special abilities as possible.

As I mentioned before, you can also play tricks and use resource abilities during the go phase. Just like you get 1 coin for every card in your inventory during the set phase, you get 1 star for every card in your inventory during your go phase. The cost for each trick is in the upper left hand corner just the same as the cost for creatures.

Some tricks give your creature a specific boost to their attack and defense while other tricks allow you to draw an extra card during battle and others will even stun your opponent's creature making it unable to attack or block for a turn.

After the battle, all cards drawn for the battle and all tricks played go into their player's discard pile.

When you score a card, the top card of your deck goes face down below the creature that you scored with. Again, the first player to score 12 cards wins.


Playing NPC's as a Card Duelist -- the Job Quests

You will have to defeat NPC's and their various decks in order to win cards from them. Your first opponent is Sam Potts. At first she will only play you with her trick deck. When you defeat her trick deck she will challenge you with her tournament deck. When you defeat her tournament deck, she will then send you to another NPC card player where you will have to defeat that player's trick deck and then tournament deck. That will go on for a while until you complete the entire quest chain. If you defeat an NPC player's trick or tournament deck then you will win 3 cards from that player. You can only win 3 cards from an NPC one time per deck that you defeat. So you can't just keep beating Sam's trick deck multiple times and win 3 cards every time. You can only do it once. But there are 7 NPC's out there that you can play and if you defeat both their trick and tournament decks then that is 6 cards per NPC which equals 42 cards. That will help build your collection.

After you have defeated an NPC player's trick deck and tournament deck, you will gain the opportunity to play against their creature and resource decks. Playing against their creature and resource decks are different than normal games because you start at a handicap in those matches. If you are playing against an NPC's creature deck then that player starts the game with a creature already in play. If you are playing against their resource deck then that player starts with both a creature in play and a resource card in their inventory. Resource decks are extremely difficult to defeat especially if your opponent gets to go first. If you do manage to defeat an NPC's creature or resource deck then you will win 3 more cards from them. So that's another 42 cards that you could potentially win just by defeating NPC's.

Booster Packs and Other Items

If the cards that you are given to start with, and the ones you win through the quests, aren't enough for you, then you can trade with other players or buy starter decks and booster packs. You can even buy more quests!

Making a trade in the TCG Trade Lobby can only be done by players who currently have Membership.

Each starter deck contains 40 cards from the sphere you choose to purchase (Chaos, Machine, Nature, or Order). The decks come with a mixture of Rare, Uncommon, and Common cards. The series 2 starter decks come with a mixture of both series 1 and series 2 cards, while the series 3 starter decks come with a mixture of all 3 series in them.

Each booster pack contains 1 Rare card, 3 Uncommon, 6 Common, and 1 Virtual Reward. There is also the chance that one of the cards in the pack will be a Foil card, a special version of one of the TCG cards. If that is the case, then you will only receive 5 regular Common cards in the pack.

Each of the quest packs allows you to play more card games, against different NPC's, and win even more cards. The cards available in each of these quests are exclusive to that particular quest. You can purchase each quest pack individually or as a bundle (for a reduced price). There are also special quest packs available during some of the holiday events.


The above information is from Zam Free Realms!


Free Realms TCG Checklist: CLICK HERE

Free Realms Game Rules: CLICK HERE

Free Realms, TCG - Learn How To Play: CLICK HERE

Free Realms TCG Home Page: CLICK HERE