I think Altered TCG will have a new concept in TCGs, which is where to assign your most powerful cards. In other trading card games, you just play the best cards that you are able to in whatever faction or colours that you’re playing, but Altered TCG has a defined power structure. Rares are better than Commons and Uniques are better than Rares. So, you have 12 slots that you can upgrade with Rares and a further 3 that you can upgrade with Uniques (at time of writing, the final decision on numbers is still to be finalised).

     So, you need to decide where you are going to put that power in your deck. There are a few strategies that I’m going to discuss below and what I think of them, though they will obviously depend on what access you have to 3 of each of the good rare and what good Uniques you are lucky to get a hold of.

 Strategy 1 – Play the Best Rares / Uniques

This strategy has you looking at what the best most impactful Rares and Uniques that you have are and choosing to play those, then filling in with the best commons left to fit the strategy of your deck. This strategy should see you having some good turns with the chance that the next card that you draw being one of your bombs being roughly 38.5%. So just over every other turn on average you will likely draw one of your ‘bomb cards’ to affect the game. This is actually a fairly good hit rate and with decks with extra draw it will mean you will stand a chance of hitting one of these cards 2 in every three turns.

There are two issues with this strategy. Firstly, you will get some weak turns, where you draw Commons that just don’t do enough for you against your opponent’s Rares and Uniques. Secondly it is likely that the very best Rares are likely dispersed between the three hero strategies in the faction and these really good Rares might not translate well with the different strategies (though some might).

Strategy 2 – Play the best Commons

This strategy may seem counter-intuitive but the idea here is to play the best cards at Common that fit your strategy and then look at what other cards will fit well with an upgrade to Rare and Unique. This strategy might downgrade the punch on the Rares because the Out of Faction (OOF) Rares that you might choose may only be as strong as a common (since they are purely a common in a different faction as the rare – though this may not be true for all OOF Rares). You will still get your Rares and Uniques at the same rate in your deck, they just won’t be as impactful.

This powering down of your Rares slightly will lead to an average higher quality of cards for your deck strategy and all your turns should be on average useful. However, you run the risk of being blown out on turns by your opponent’s high powered Rares and Uniques if they have gone for the strategy above.

Strategy 3 – Mix of the Above

I’m of the opinion at the moment (before seeing all the cards) that in practice we will want a mixture of the two things above. There will be some Rares that are just so good that they are essential upgrades to your deck. I think Hua Mulan is one of those as the rare is just so strong in any Bravos deck that might want it. These really good Rares will be the ones demanding the high prices and you will always want to get a hold of three of them. Once you have your essential Rares you then need to look at the Commons / Rares for your strategy and see whether the upgrade is worth it. If not, then you should stick with the Common.

Otherwise, these will be the next ones you should look at for your Rares / Unique cards. Strong Commons where the upgrade is not a big enough advancement should probably stay as commons.  Part of this will be to look at your OOF Rares and evaluate whether they will bring your deck something that you cannot get from the in-faction Commons and how important they will be to glue your deck strategy together.

Rating Rares

Going forward I think I’m going to be looking at Rares with a view to them being in one of four categories. However, before they can be rated in this way, I think we need to see the entire set

1. Essential Rares - These are the Rares that are strong and will fit into any deck of that faction. These will always be high priced Rares.
2. Strategic Rares – These are the Rares that are strong with a certain Hero card only in that faction. These will be high price IF that strategy is a dominant strategy in the meta.
3. Utility Rares – Rares that are generally quite good at helping a deck but are not essential to any deck. These will be average priced Rares and will never attain a huge price.
4. Junk Rares – Rares that offer a minor upgrade that really isn’t worth it in terms of power level. These will be bargain basement Rares at low prices UNLESS a new hero or mechanic comes along later to make the useful.