Rick Teverbaugh
The World of Warcraft has proved to be a popular and enduring property across many entertainment options, including online games, books and graphic novels.
Now it is moving to the collectible gaming world with a new card game released this week by Upper Deck Entertainment.
In this game, the gamer controls a hero in the world of Azeroth. During play, the hero can invite allies to join the fray, complete quests, find weapons and armor, and play abilities and talents directly from the World of Warcraft online game produced by Blizzard Entertainment.
The World of Warcraft Trading Card Game draws from the rich lore of the Warcraft universe. Two factions are battling for supremacy over Azeroth — the Horde and the Alliance — and each time you play, you choose a hero from one of these factions to represent you.
Even with a great deal of familiarity about the Warcraft world, there is still a great deal of competition in the TCG marketplace. So why is Warcraft likely to succeed?
“The number one reason the WOW TCG will succeed is quality,” said Jeff Donais, director of game development at Upper Deck Entertainment. “Reactions from Blizzard staff and playtesters is that this is the highest quality TCG they’ve seen yet. That’s a direct result of the level of passion and work ethic of the team working on it. The number two reason is the level of support from Upper Deck and Blizzard for this product. The level of organized play support at the casual and competitive levels is top notch.
“Blizzard has many die-hard TCG players on staff, so they acted as members of the team for game development. They participated in everything from game engine design, individual card design, flavor text, card naming and even artwork decisions. They were so excited that they ran 32-person booster drafts to playtest. They were a huge asset and effectively doubled the size of our design team.”
There are cards inserted into booster packs that have scratch-off sections with codes that can be used by online players to enhance that gaming experience. UDE is hoping that the card game players will try the online version and the online players will want to buy into the TCG to get the codes and will discover the card game.
“The players of the WOW TCG will be a mix of WOW online players and long-time TCG players,” said Donais. “Upper Deck has been careful to craft a game that will appeal to both types of players.”
Each starter deck contains 33 cards, plus two booster packs, three of 16 possible playable oversized hero cards which are only found in starter decks, and a rulebook. The starter is random and unknown to the buyer. There’s no way to know what heroes are inside the box.
“Random starters exist for two reasons,” said Donais. “One, we wanted to be able to use starters in ‘sealed deck’ if needed. Two, we wanted to add a little bit of collectibility to starters so they wouldn't just sit on store shelves once everyone had a starter. We actively decided to make the starters a very good deal financially, so we included two full boosters inside every starter.”
More cards are available in 15-card boosters.
There are several strong points about the game. Mechanically there is a lot of action and a lot of variety.
“The concept of your hero being directly involved in the action is very appealing, both mechanically and thematically,” said Donais. “The concept of damage that is permanent unless healed is very interesting and gives it a different feel from other TCGs. It makes every attack count and makes healing classes important.”
The look of the game was obviously an important element as the artwork is among the best ever seen in a TCG.
“Artwork was an extremely high priority,” said Donais. “We hired the art director from Magic to work on the WOW TCG, and we spent top dollar getting the best artists. The art from set one is very good, but the art from set two will blow you away.”
There is a theme deck to be released for the game next month. The first expansion for the game will be called Through the Dark Portal and it will be released in March. There are 361 cards in the first set so there will be plenty of variety available until March.
The game was released a couple of weeks ago in Germany at a huge gaming convention called Essen.
“Warcraft is truly a global game and the launch at Essen in Germany was tremendous,” said Donais. “The Upper Deck booth was crowded from the first minute of the show all the way to the last minute. They sold out of Warcraft product several times and had to resupply from the warehouse. It was a madhouse.
Locally Reader Copies in Anderson will be holding release tournaments Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m. each day.
Upper Deck will be offering full tournament support for this game in many different formats.
If you go...
Reader Copies, 1835 N Scatterfield Road, Anderson will be hosting release tournaments for World of Warcraft at 1 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday.
