As blockchain technology continues to break barriers and set a new pace in multiple corporate realms, it also explores several functionalities in the digital and entertainment worlds, like the gaming industry. Essentially, it enables Free to Play (F2P) and Play to Earn (P2E) models where players own and earn in-game items like NFTs and crypto tokens. One of the games leading the way in this new era of Web3 is a hands on card battler, so buckle up, and get ready to learn everything there is to know in our guide to Gods Unchained!
What is Gods Unchained?
Gods Unchained is a free-to-play Web3 game that was co-founded by James and Robbie Ferguson in 2018. It is the premier trading card game built on Immutable X, a layer 2 blockchain for the Ethereum network. The Immutable X network promotes Gods Unchained with its gas-free feature, making the game accessible for players. As a result of this innovation, all in-game items belong to users, who can use them to advance their Gods Unchained experience or sell them to other players.
The Brainbox Behind Gods Unchained
Gods Unchained was developed on the platform of Immutable, a custom ecosystem for building decentralized games, enabling live minting, transferring, and trading of NFTs. Immutable was co-founded in June 2018 by Alex Connolly and the Ferguson brothers (James and Robbie). Immutable is an Australian-based company that developed the Immutable X blockchain, an NFT-custom layer 2 network on Ethereum.
Understanding Gods Unchained’s Gameplay
Gods Unchained is a trading card game (TCG) where mortals (players) navigate through the quest to unchain the six gods defeated and incarcerated by the Titans. Players are expected to use their powerful magic to wage war against the Titans to free the imprisoned gods and the enslaved humanity. The powerful magic needed for the conquest is obtained from the digital cards in the ecosystem. To play Gods Unchained, players must buy, build, and collect cards that they will use to form their decks and play against other players. Gods Unchained gives players 100% control over their in-game assets, allowing them to mint cards and other collectibles as NFTs
About Gods Unchained’s NFTs
Recall that Gods Unchained was developed on Immutable X, a layer 2 network for the Ethereum blockchain. Gods Unchained’s NFTs are ERC-721, an NFT token standard for all NFTs created on the Ethereum network. All cards and other in-game collectibles or items in the Gods Unchained ecosystem are ERC-721 token standard which can be stored in any Ethereum-compatible wallet like MetaMask, Trust wallet, etc. Furthermore, all NFTs earned from Gods Unchained are added to players’ collections where they can be used to further gaming experience, sold on marketplaces like OpenSea and Rarible, or exchanged for $GODS, the Gods Unchained native crypto token.
About $GODS Token
$GODS is an ERC-20 crypto token spent in the Gods Unchained universe. It was launched in June 2021 and had a maximum supply of 500 million tokens, and 45% are currently in circulation. According to CoinGecko, $GODS currently has a market cap of $38.7 million, ranking #474 in the global crypto market. Aside from incentivizing mortals, $GODS token can be staked on the ecosystem, used to mint cards (NFTs), buy packs from the Gods Unchained native marketplace, and participate in the ecosystem’s governance.
Playing the Game
To play the Gods Unchained game, players will need to
- Visit the official website and create an account with an email address.
- Creating an account will automatically download the game software to the user’s PC.
- Confirm the account registration via the confirmation mail sent to the connected email address.
- Run the software after completing the download and log in with the registration details.
- Link a Web 3 wallet, preferably MetaMask, to be able to buy/sell cards.
As a new player, playing through the tutorial to understand the gameplay mechanics is advisable. However, those familiar with card games, can easily skip the tutorial and start playing, but they will miss out on earning three core packs for completing the tutorial. Generally, Gods Unchained involves matching players against each other to exhibit their trading card gaming skills. This involves deploying playing cards to defeat opponents by skilfully using their gods’ power to reduce their strength to zero. The three core steps to play the game include
- Select a preferred God
- Building a Deck
- Play the Game
Selecting a God
This stage involves choosing a preferred God from the available six gods or goddesses (three each), namely, Nature (Aeona: Goddess of Nature), War (Auros: God of War), Death (Malissus: Goddess of Death), Light (Lysander: God of Light), Magic (Elyrian: God of Magic), and Deception (Ludia: Goddess of Deception). Each God has unique features reflecting its strengths and weaknesses, which can be instrumental to players’ valor during battles. Before playing the game, mortals must also select one unique god power from the available powers like Enrage, Slayer, Onslaught, etc. God power allows a God to turn the tide of a game, launch a surprise attack or devise a decisive advantage over opponents, depending the power’s ability.
Building a Deck
Within Gods Unchained, a deck is a pack of 30 cards. Each card has unique abilities, stats, and artwork, creating a formidable deck when combined with other cards in the pack. Each players deck should be tailored to a preference and what they anticipate achieving with the game’s endless possibilities.
Playing the Game
After choosing a God and building a deck, players can commence with the Gods Unchained game by entering the mulligan phase to shuffle the cards. This involves shuffling cards that might not be useful in the earliest stage of the gaming experience, like cards that require ≥5 mana. As a mortal (player), cards represent knights, and their abilities are the weapon used to attack an opponent’s cards or gods. Below is a simplified description of a Gods Unchained card.
- Mana is the energy required to use a card or God’s ability. It ranges from zero to 10+. However, mortals can access one extra mana point from their “Bag of Tricks” during a battle (per match). The first player to access the extra mana gets one, while the second player gets three.
- Strength Value is the damaging effect a card has on the opponent’s card or God.
- The tribe is the faction each card belongs to, marking their unique in-game abilities. For instance, Anubian cards can draw discarded cards back from the void, and an Aether card (Aetherrust) can destroy a friendly Atlantean. There are 12 tribes: Viking, Amazon, Anubia, Aether, Nether, Atlantean, Olympian, Dragon, Guild, Mystic, Structure, and Wild.
- Health Value is the amount of health a card or God possesses. The game aims to reduce the health of an opponent’s card to zero to destroy the card and render it void.
- Ability is a card’s unique effect on an opponent’s card.
Each card in a deck has its strength and health value, marking the magnitude of the its health or attack dealt on opponents. Once the health value becomes zero, it becomes useless and removed from play. A God’s unique power can be used to gain an advantage over an opponent. However, it can only be used once per turn, provided there is enough mana to activate the power. As gamers progress in the game, they will be rewarded with collectibles like card packs, $GODS, flux, starts, favors, and so on.
Understanding the Gods Unchained Cards Anatomy
Each card has features that mark its quality, rarity, tribe, mana, and the God it belongs to. Cards not specific to a particular god are tagged Neutral and can be used in any deck, unlike other God’s cards that other gods can’t use. Just like people can’t spend ETH on the Bitcoin network, gamers can’t use Aeona card in a Ludia deck; each card is specific to their gods. Generally, there are three categories of cards in the GU ecosystem: Creature, Spell, and Relic.
- The Creature cards have a rectangular frame, and they attack the opponent’s creatures or God. Mortals can have a maximum of 6 creature cards on the board at once.
- The Spell cards have a round or circular frame and are used to cast the spell depicted in their description. However, this spell can only be used once.
- The Relic cards have octagonal frames. They are used to activate gods’ abilities or make God attack opponents directly. Meanwhile, multiple relic cards can’t be active at once.
Card Quality
Based on card quality, Gods Unchained cards are classified into plain and shiny cards. The plain cards are in-game non-NFT collectible cards with grey borders. They are earned while playing the GU game and are not tradable. However, multiple similar plain cards can be forged or fused into shiny cards using $GODS and flux. In contrast, shiny cards are NFT cards that are tradable. They have different colored borders signifying their variants which can be a meteorite, shadow, gold, or diamond.
Card Rarity
A Gods Unchained card’s rarity is marked by gems on both sides of each card. The ecosystem has five rarities, including Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Mythic, as shown in the composite image below.
- Common cards are depicted with grey gems
- Rare cards are depicted with blue gems
- Epic cards are depicted with purple gems
- Legendary cards are depicted with yellow gems
- Mythic cards are depicted with red gems
Users can start playing the game after they have understood Gods Unchained’s card basics. There are five game modes available in the Gods Unchained ecosystem, they are:
Tutorial
The tutorial is the game mode for beginners to acclimatize to the Gods Unchained gameplay. It has six missions, and only mission one is unlocked. Therefore, players must complete the previous one to unlock the next one as they level up. Each mission has its assigned reward.
Solo
The Solo mode involves playing against computers to hone trading card gaming skills. This mode is perfect for mastering skills and building decks.
Casual
The casual mode involves playing against other players to unlock new gods following a victory. Winning or losing in this mode doesn’t affect the rank in the ecosystem. As players win in this mode, they will earn flux which can be used to fuse cards in the forge.
Weekend Ranked
The ranked mode involves playing to level up in the ecosystem. As such, players will unlock rewards and earn fragments and flux. Fragments are points earned from the Daily Play & Earn; it reflects performance and determines the share of the total daily $GODS rewards. For the first 10 ranked matches played and won, gamers earn fragments which are liable to double.
Direct Challenge
The direct challenge involves playing against friends. Players can invite a friend to the game, have them sign up, and play against each other at will via a unique code.
How to Attack in GU
Attacking means playing the game; it involves dragging a card to the battlefield. However, only play a card with enough mana can be played; if there is a card with 5+ mana and the mana wheel shows just 2 mana left, the card will remain unplayable. Meanwhile, gamers can only play a card once in a single turn (except if the card has a special ability) until the next turn.
Conclusion
Gods Unchained is an exciting free-to-play trading card game that incentivizes players with non-NFT and NFT collectibles. Aside from flux, fragments, and $GODS that mortals earn, they also earn XP (experience points) that fills the experience bar to increase players’ rank. As mortals level up within the ecosystem, they are rewarded with new card packs. Furthermore, they can also improve a card’s quality by fusing two inferior card qualities. Meanwhile, players can convert their rewards into crypto or fiat currencies by minting cards as NFTs and listing them on marketplaces like Immutable X. In addition, players can also exchange the $GODS token on exchange platforms for stablecoins (like USDT, USDC, DAI, etc.), other crypto tokens, or even fiat currencies.
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*All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFT Plazas are from the personal research and experience of our site moderators and are intended as educational material only. Individuals are required to fully research any product prior to making any kind of investment.
Technical writer, an enthusiast for everything blockchain and decentralized world.