This is very true, but I play it because, aside from maybe this year, I have not been able to even find another good, active, pvp tactical board game.
Which means you could take it even a step further and say its only comparable to other hybrids like Pox Nora when it comes down to choosing between X game vs X gametype.
You might like to try Cardhunter and Krosmaga.
Oh cool the Wakfu universe finally brought back an arena style game, that makes me very happy. But between my investment in Duelyst and my depressing history with Wakfu I probably wont be trying it out.
Thank you for the recommendations though, if duelyst ever truly hits rock bottom to the point where I need a break I will probably check them out.
A game can belong to multiple genres…If a game could not be played without the cards that it uses, then the cards are the main focus of the game and it is a card game.
While true, but having the board makes it just so vastly different from a card game that I think it is primarily a tactical game. It could be done without cards, but they are there to add the excitement that “good” rng can do, while being a sollid marketing tactic that not only attracts but makes it easier for a CCG player to get into.
It is certainly a hybrid game with elements of both, but that alone makes it a completely different. It’s not that I don’t understand why comparisons are made and why someone might choose it to be their “card game” it just seems odd to me that it is primarily classified as just a fancy CCG by most people when that could not be farther from the truth.
Any comparison is OK when a person does understand that it is his subjective opinion.
Compare
“Books are better than music”
and
“I like reading books more than listening to music”
While the first statement sounds really crazy, the second one is OK and just describes one person’s preference. Same goes for comparing Earthstone and Doolist.
I consider Hearthstone more grind than skill dependant, and I gave up playing it in about a week, since I knew much more “better” and “interesting” games to play. While I (and any other person) understand that this opinion is just, well, opinion, not a truth, it’s OK. But I believe I have the right to evaluate games and all the other stuff, while I understand that it is not objective.
I love those games as well, so I have a lot more to recommend as well, also ones without cards.
Just lemme know when you need them 
I don’t need a break with Duelyst in order to also play other games, so I am currently playing those aforementioned games as well.
I completly agree, the comparison or having preference is fine. I just find it odd that Duelyst often gets classified as a CCG despite that it’s really not.
Sorry, I misinterpreted your post then)
I don’t think you did, you are addressing a point that I brought up, and I just agree with what you said. My post is a little long winded and perhaps not very direct.
Point A. Which I failed to put the primary Emphasis on, is “Why is it frequently classified as a CCG when it’s really not.”
And point B. Why would you choose Duelyst over a Card game or vice versa. Some very fair points were brought up to this one that I completly agree with.
Well personally i disagree, are there cards? yes. do you collect them? yes. Therefor is is CCG, a Collectible Card Game
But classifying it as that means that is all it is, when it has just as many, if not more Tactical board game elements. So it hardly seems fair to just lump it in with other CCGs.
Its a CCG with a board. Just because there is a board doesn’t mean its not a CCG. I don’t know if you played Yu-gi-oh, but some of their games have played on a board where positioning matter to some degree like War of the roses and Capsule monsters if I remember the games right. But those are still CCG since you still collect cards in order to improve but just happen to have a board where tactical decisions matter, although not as much as Duelyst.
So to refer to the opening post. Point A, I would class it as a CCG because it has CCG elements to a large degree, although more diverse than a traditional CCG due to the board.
Point B, personally choice really. Most people who like tactical games often like card games because there is an element of strategy and tactical games often require knowing what pieces (or in Duelyst case, cards) to look out for, what needs to get shut down on the opponents side and how you are going to win.
I mean, I see your point and everything. If people only refer to duelyst as a CCG when describing it to other people, yes, it makes sense that would be a huge disservice to what duelyst actually is and it would confuse the crap out of anyone who actually downloaded it. But I haven’t actually seen anyone do that.
Moreover, I know of other tactical games, some online PvP based, and it would be unfair to them to lump all of Duelyst in that category instead. Stuff like Frozen Cortex, Blood Bowl and Battle For Wesnoth. It’s not that a tactical game has to be free of RNG elements, but the F2P CCG model can have a huge impact on whether or not tactical minded players would be interested in Duelyst. There are plenty of people who won’t touch any F2P game except to dip their toe in the water since they’d rather not commit to the F2P grind and/or microtransactions.
If there really is an unfair “CCG” bias in the playerbase it is a bias that has been encouraged by CPG itself. As we exited beta the devs described their vision of the game as something like 20% board game and 80% card game, and that vision hasn’t changed. So it’s not surprising then that players primarily compare duelyst to others in the CCG genre.
ccgs tend to have dusting element n value of opening packs in hopes of achieving a legendary card… cpg started with everyone able to get whole set then claimed it would be a one time thing but now its officially a trend where every expansion everyone will get access to all cards thus to me losing the value of it being a ccg since everyone can get every copy of every card at a much quicker rate making dusting and crafting obsolete. maybe it was a good thing maybe it isnt…who knows at least it enable noobs to play with all the top tier decks -_-
Yep duelyst is a game where you collect cards and build decks. But it is not a tactics game at all, it is a turn based game with cards that has a fair amount of variance unlike tactical games and that’s why I play it. This is a surprisingly difficult thing to find, there is an abundance of turn based games but basically no online multiplayer card + board games. Over the last couple years of really wanting this I either couldn’t find them at all or they were dead or really unhealthy. I guess recently there might be some competors but I am to invested at this point. So mostly I am just curious about others thoughts on it. (see how that reads?)
It’s far too easy to have a myopic one-sided view, but it’s insulting your reader to completely ignore useful points against your ‘classification’. Now let’s see, you’re saying that Duelyst has no business being lumped in with CCGs, well, I’m pretty sure players of games like X-COM, Fire Emblem, Atlas Reactor etc would be pretty offended at your lumping Duelyst in with their tactics games.
The developers of the game (blessed be thy name) themselves call Duelyst a CCG with a board, where the units are collectible. Unfortunately, as much as one might like it to be true, you’re flawed in both your assertion that longer games are preferred AND in this idea about tactics being of foremost importance.
I adore Fire Emblem and Xcom, and always found Duelyst to be closer to Emblem then a card game, but you make a very fair point. It is as equally unfair to lump it in with strait tactics as it is with CCGs.
Is there a term for the hybrid of the two yet?
I suppose it is also rather hard to argue with the Devs labeling and marketing it as such. I had just so far dismissed that as just marketing and trying to appeal to the large CCG market rather then an apt description of the game.
Well, action/RPG has a history already, why not call Duelyst a tactical CCG? And everyone’s happy)
Some other tactical card games are Faeria, Smite Tactics, Krosmaga and Shardbound.
Faeria is already launched, it looks really sweet, but I don’t like that your “general” is static and your minions can only move 1 unit at a time.
Shardbound is quite the opposite of Faeria, your minions move 4 or more units at a time, but I haven’t played much of it to give you more details. The game is in beta.
Smite Tactics is using characters from the third person MOBA Smite, it’s in closed beta for know, but it will possibly become popular in the future, like other Hi-Rez Games.
Krosmaga is interesting, but you don’t control your minions. You play them in a lane and they move towards your opponent by themselves, so it involves more planning.
For now, Duelyst rules over other board card games.
This is truly the topic on semantics. Duelyst is many things. I think in easiest terms it is a CCG with a board element. Specifically, it is played on a grid.
There are many comparators. Duelyst took a lot of the great innovations from Hearthstone, like dusting, arena, single player challenges, limited-time contests and so on.
The game it is the closest neighbour to is very likely Summoner wars, and Mage wars arena as a close second.
Link to summoner wars: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/58281/summoner-wars
Link to Mage wars (arena): https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/101721/mage-wars-arena
As you can tell, both of these are boardgames. Duelyst is essentially a fast-paced version of both of these games, with less focus on the board. It is a customizable card game with a grid movement and variable player powers. Just like all of these. The details do differ of course.
I can understand where the comment is coming from that Duelyst is closer to a CCG than both of these. It is collectible unlike either of these, and there is less focus on the board. After Shim’zar, I think they went even further and further away from putting emphasis on the grid. This makes it easier to draw the comparison of this to a regular CCG than say faeria.
Note that many CCGs have a board element. Magic has very limited landscape geometry going on. Star wars decipher divided the board in different locations, be they taverns, space station docking bays or star systems. Middle-earth actually has an entire map where your cards move on as a fellowship. Netrunner has a board of essentially the IT infrastructure of a corporation. All of these games are called CCGs. It’s a very recognizable and broad term, especially because all games in this post are very different to each other. Except duelyst and summoner wars.