Faeria: Cards, Boards, and the Art of Screwing Over Your Rival
I’ve been sinking some serious time into Faeria, and honestly, it’s the first game that makes me feel like Blizzard really fell asleep at the wheel with Hearthstone. It’s not just about throwing cards on a table and hoping for the best; here, if you don’t watch your step—literally—you’re dead. It finally crawled out of Early Access on Steam in 2017 after a pretty successful Kickstarter, and you can tell the devs at Abrakam put some actual soul into this mix.
The Board: You’re Here to Build (and Annoy)
Forget about playing on an empty screen. When the game starts, the board is a void, and you have to build the path to your opponent using hexagons. Every turn, you use this “Power Wheel” to decide: do I drop two neutral lands to rush the enemy? Or do I place a lake because my blue deck is thirsty for it?
It’s a strategic nightmare in the best way possible. I’ve lost count of how many times I had the perfect card in my hand, but I couldn’t play it because I hadn’t built enough forests yet. Plus, your creatures actually move across the map, usually one hex per turn. Positioning is everything; sometimes you win just because you knew how to body-block the enemy’s biggest monster.
Energy Management: Don’t Waste Your Faeria
The mana here is called Faeria, and the coolest part is that it doesn’t vanish at the end of your turn. It pools up. This is a game-changer because it lets you save up for a couple of rounds just to drop some legendary beast that completely flips the board.
There are also Faeria wells scattered around the map. If you park your creatures next to them, you collect extra points every turn. It creates these brutal mini-wars just to control resource points, adding a layer of depth you just don’t see in “classic” card games.
Colors and Styles: Pick Your Poison
The colors reminded me a lot of Magic: The Gathering, and each one has a very distinct “vibe”:
- Blue (Movement & Jump): Pure mobility. They’ll drive you crazy jumping over zones where there isn’t even land yet just to snatch your Faeria wells.
- Yellow (Rush & Self-Production): These guys generate Faeria out of thin air and hit you fast before you even realize what’s happening.
- Green (Survival & Growth): Creatures that start weak but grow into unstoppable tanks as the game goes on. If you don’t kill them early, you’re toast.
- Red (Control & Chaos): A slower, more devastating playstyle. You build a solid defense and wait until you can unleash absolute havoc.
Is it Pay-to-Win? (The Economy)
This is where these games usually suck, but Faeria is surprisingly fair. The deck-building is intuitive, and you can destroy cards you don’t need to craft the ones you actually want.
Completing missions gives you enough gold to buy packs (chests) at a decent rate. Sure, there’s luck involved with what’s inside, but you don’t feel like you’re forced to whip out your credit card just to try a new deck. It’s about 1€ for a chest of five cards, which is standard, but you can get pretty far just by playing.
Final Verdict
Faeria is a breath of fresh air for a genre that felt totally stagnant. It mixes chess-like movement with card collecting in a way that’s seriously addictive. You’ve got solo challenges against the AI that mix normal games with clever puzzles, casual/ranked play, and the Pandora mode. Pandora is a draft mode with its own rules, and it’s honestly my favorite way to play.
The Good:
- The dynamic board adds massive depth to the card game formula.
- Resource management that actually lets you plan several turns ahead.
- Pandora mode is a blast and feels very rewarding.
The Bad:
- Knocking Hearthstone off its throne is a tall order, especially with the Blizzard machine behind it.
- Games can occasionally drag on if both players decide to play super defensively.
Rating: 8.5/10 — If you like board games or card games, stop reading this and go play it. It’s one of the best things to come out of 2017.