As I've been helping onboard HS players onto GU and I figured writing a quick guide might help others as well, especially after Blizzard's banning of blitzchung. This won't be entirely thorough, there have been articles in the past on this exact topic, but those might be a little outdated.
Migrating from HS to GU is easy. In fact, most mechanics in GU operate exactly the same, only with different names. There are some key differences though (which also make up the bulk of why GU is a lot more fun to me than HS) that I'll explain here. Need a beta key? You can use my beta key to start playing today.
Mana Lock system
Instead of a linear mana progression, Gods Unchained uses mana locks. This dissects the game into clear early, mid, and late game stages, allowing late game cards to be real game changers if you can survive long enough to play them. Starting after your 5th turn, you will no longer get 1 new mana each turn. For instance, after you've hit turn 5 (mana 5), unlocking mana 6 will take 2 turns. This is what your mana wheel looks like turn 5 (mana 5):
And this is what your mana wheel looks like at turn 6 (mana 5):
It's admittedly hard to see, but there is a slightly less opaque "tick" (a mana lock) on the 6th mana slice. At this point in the game, you still need another turn to unlock your 6th mana, but you can unlock mana 6 on this turn with a Bag of Tricks (GU's version of The Coin).
Coining at turn 5, with two mana locks until mana 6, makes no material difference unless you use it inbetween cards. For instance, while you're locked out from playing a 6-drop on turn 5, you can still play 6 mana worth of cards by playing a 4 drop, playing Bag of Tricks, then playing a 2 drop.
God Powers
In every Gods Unchained match, you can pick one God Power (Hero Power) among four. Some decks are built around a certain God Power and they'll invariably choose that God Power every game, but some decks/Gods have better integration into multiple God Powers and so your decision can be based on countering your opponent's deck instead of what works well for your deck in a vacuum, adding a different competitive element to the game.
You can find a list of all God Powers here.
In the future, the team plans to rotate in/out new God Powers to keep the game fresh and balanced.
Trading, NFTs, ownership, etc.
The best part of the game, to me, is actual ownership over my cards. In short, building assets on the Ethereum blockchain means at any time we can verify the amount of times any particular Genesis card has been printed. This not only provides real scarcity to cards, but since they're Ethereum assets, you can trade them as well, bringing "Trading" back into "Trading Card Game". One player has even spent more than $200,000 on Gods Unchained packs so far.
Trading is scheduled to open on Oct 29. For now, you can buy packs (this link uses my ref code) if you want to populate your collection in the meantime, but if you're holding out for specific cards, it might be worth waiting until the marketplaces open.
In order to take advantage of card ownership, you should link an Ethereum wallet to your Gods Unchained account. You can create an Ethereum wallet using Metamask.
Raffle Tokens
After each multiplayer game, you can collect Raffle tokens. These are also cryptographic assets that are tied to your accounts and will be used in the upcoming Raffle on Oct 17. The Raffle offers you the chance to win a variety of trinkets (which are also crypto tokens that you can own and trade) as well as a chance to win the last Mythic card, Tethys. Only one Tethys will ever be created, making it a potentially very valuable collector's item (the last Mythic to be auctioned sold for over $60,000).
You can find the team's official introduction to the Raffle system here.
If you don't care for Tethys or the trinkets, you can also sell your Raffle tokens on existing marketplaces, such as gudecks and gu.cards. As of this writing, 1000 raffle tokens sells for roughly $1.45 (lowest rate: 0.000008 per token). It generally takes ~5-7 wins to get 1000 raffle tokens.
Competition
Every weekend, a Ranked Constructed event lasts from Friday 5 am to Monday 5 am Pacific time. During this event, you can still acquire raffle tokens as always, but the team will be rewarding top performers and winners with Genesis packs. Genesis is the set you can only obtain by paying (Core is what you get by playing the game and leveling up), making these rewards pretty lucrative for the top finishers. You can find out more info about the weekend event here.
I write weekly meta snapshots after every event, which are featured on the official Gods Unchained blog. You can read the latest one here.
A World Championship is in the works and is scheduled for some time next year. The prize pool will be 10% of all pack purchases, which sets the current pool at over $500,000. Entering the World Championship requires purchasing a tourney pass, which currently goes for less than $20.
Mechanics
In NewMeta27's guide I linked earlier, he had an excellent breakdown on translating card mechanics, which I copied here (I made some adjustments to reflect the current game state in 2019):
Frontline = Taunt
Blitz = Rush
Roar = Battlecry
Afterlife = Deathrattle
Neutralize = Silence
Deadly = Poison
Leech = Lifesteal
Sleep = Frozen
Hidden = Stealth
Protected = Divine Shield
Spell Boost = Spell Power
Here are a few extra ones to take note of:
Flank — Ignores Frontline (Taunt) and can attack face as long as they are not the first to attack that turn.
Burn — Will take X burn damage at the end of the turn, resolves prior to Regen.
Twin Strike — Like Windfury, but with a twist that one attack must be on a creature to get the second attack.
Control — Will only activate if there is another creature on the board of the right tribe (type).
Soulless — Creatures with this obliterate on death and do not enter The Void (graveyard/discard pile).
Confused — 50% chance to attack a random enemy instead of the target creature.
Backline — You can only attack these creatures if there are no other regular minions (with frontline or without) on its side of the board.
Regen — At the end of each turn the minion will gain X health where X is the regen value. Resolves after Burn.
Ward—Blocks the next effect from a Spell or God Power, only once.
Additionally, the max # of cards you can have in hand is 9. A full hand won't discard cards, rather, you'll simply stop drawing. Your side of the board caps out at 6 creatures (minions).
When you run out of cards (fatigue), you don't take compounding damage, instead, you start to lose X mana per turn (where X is 10 - # of cards in your hand). When the turn passes to you and you run out of mana, you will lose the game.
F2P Viability
The general consensus is that the Core set, which is unlocked by playing, is stronger on average than Genesis (the set you can pay for). There are still strong Genesis cards, and Genesis cards will continue to be buffed for the next few weeks (at which point their card text becomes locked), but you don't need Genesis cards to compete.
But if you care about competing, having access to Genesis cards can't hurt. There are a few Genesis cards that are considered meta right now. The best players should have access to all cards, but if you don't want to spend a penny, you can still do well (but you might not be able to play certain decks as a result).
Moving forward
Keep in mind the game is still in its beta, you are getting in very early! As a result, there will be a lot of bugs, sometimes game crashes. And let's be honest, Blizzard is really good at polishing games. Don't expect that level of fidelity with Gods Unchained yet.
But the community is active and friendly. People are really invested in the game and we're all rooting for it to succeed. As a result, any newcomers are welcomed with open arms, so if you haven't already, check out the official Discord chat. We hope you can become part of this community as well!
I regularly help HS and other players onboard onto Gods Unchained, and I'm a voracious writer when it comes to the meta and competitive atmosphere. If you're interested in discussing strategy, or want advice, feel free to DM me directly on Discord: saintsintosea#9137 or on Twitter at @saints_gu.
I hope this has been useful, if you have any questions, feel free to reach me directly or respond here.
Awesome guide!
Thanks!
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