Elestras Very interesting. In case you missed it, Elestras is a new Trading Card Game (TCG) that piqued my interest. The team was kind enough to send me a few starter decks and a ton of booster packs, which I spent a week or two trying out.
If you’d like to see me open all the booster packs, you can check out my pack opening video at the bottom, and read on to see my thoughts on the game. While all cards were provided to me free of charge, all thoughts below are my own.
Let’s start our discussion by talking about one of the first things you are familiar with Elestras: Art. It feels very cartoony. It’s playful and bright. It feels very imaginative. Of course, some people don’t like it, but I think it’s good and engaging.
Many Elestrals have cute designs, such as the Kryoling and Spirits, but there are also many that look cool like the Arctaurus and Emperowatt.
My next discussion point is card design. Overall, I think these cards are very well designed. The name is at the top and the picture is at the bottom. Then, in the middle of the card is the card’s fee.
On Eestrals you can then see attack and defense stats on both sides of the cost, with symbols clearly outlining which is which. Then you get the Eestral effect.
The bottom of the card contains information about its set, rarity, and subtype. The runes are the same, but instead of showing attack and defense stats on either side of the cost, there are symbols indicating the type of rune. Overall, it’s easy to figure out how to play the card and what it does.
I do have two criticisms of the card’s design, though. First, the symbols for the different types of runes are not very intuitive. I’m sure it will make sense as I play the game more, but for now I have to constantly refer to the reference cards that come with the starter deck to make sure I know what runes are being cast.
Second, the subcategories are hard to see. In fact, the runes’ symbols and the Eestrals’ stat symbols could also use some help, but they’re larger and therefore easier to see. The subcategory icon is very small, just a light shade of gray. I wish the color contrast was higher.
If it were just flavor, that would be one thing, but there are strategies to take advantage of subclasses, such as if you wanted an Ursa deck. I imagine as the game develops, more strategies like this will emerge. I think a nice gold would work wonders, or a bright white would be nice. Just a thought.
I won’t fully explain how to play the game, but I do want to talk about the gameplay. My current number one TCG is Yu-Gi-Oh!but I have also played Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, digimon (Definitely in my top 3), harry potter Back in the early 2000s, Naruto In the 2000s, Duel Masterand probably a few others I forgot.
The quick and dirty for me is, Elestras I feel like about 65% of the inspiration comes from Yu-Gi-Oh!10% inspired by Pokemon/magicand then add your own 25% to create a truly solid game. I want to break down where I saw every inspiration.
Honestly, if you only look at one Elestras board, looks like Yu-Gi-Oh! One less column. You also draw five cards at the start of the game, which you can only cast once per turn unless you use Special Cast, combat is pretty much the same, and you can set runes face down for use on your opponent’s turn.
At the same time, spirit acts a lot like energy Pokemon and log in magic As the cost of playing cards. Another similarity is Pokemon Yes you can level up your Eestrals, which is similar to evolution.
The beauty lies in Elestras While adopting many of these concepts, it did make some aspects its own. For example, I mentioned that ascent is like evolution. However, you don’t have to take a specific route as you ascend.
You can upgrade your Kryoling to any Eestral! You can use any Elestral to ascend to Emperowatt. There are some lines and cards that will lead you to specific lines and cards, such as Penguwatt, whose ability specifically boosts into Emerowatt, but most tend to be more like Snowattle, which hunts for Frost/Lightning Elestral, which can be used to get Penguwatt, but for you Provide more flexibility.
another way Elestras Its own peculiarity is that your main resource for playing cards (souls) also acts as your life. exist Pokemonyou can drain your energy and then wait to get a card that lets you cycle back.
exist magicyou can destroy all your land, the only problem is that your rhythm is lost. exist Elestrasyou lose if you run out and have to spend one, just like you lose if you can’t draw more cards from the main deck. This certainly makes resource management even more important.
I also appreciate that the souls don’t have to match the Allestra actors, but it does mean that Allestra doesn’t get their powers. This means that if you just need one physically for some reason, you don’t have to worry about not having the right mental typing.
Back to the battlefield, I like this way Elestras Dealing with a lot of damage. As I have already said, the overall battle with Yu-Gi-Oh!. However, the damage depends on the number of souls enchanted by each Estal.
This means there’s a reason to use bigger Eestrals since they generally do more damage, but it also means something with a huge attack stat isn’t going to wipe out half your soul in one attack unless your opponent is already invested in it Eestral has invested a lot of resources.
Another design feature that I appreciate and hope they keep is the lack of text novels on the cards. Some eestrals have quite a bit of text on them, but you don’t need a magnifying glass and their abilities are usually reserved for just one or two things.
as a Yu-Gi-Oh! Players, this is awesome and shouldn’t change. A card can only have a maximum of three effects, and only in rare circumstances. In my opinion, the text size should be uniform across all cards, if it has to be scaled down to fit in the box, that’s too much.
It is this kind of thing that makes Elestras It feels unique and sometimes more fun than other games. There are also areas where I either want to see happen, or I’m just curious if it will change.
In my previous article about ElestrasI mentioned that souls all seem to offer only a single resource, no abilities or anything. I do wonder if special spirits will be made that offer multiple types, have abilities, or something.
I don’t think this is a good way for the game to grow, but I’m curious about it. I do want a better stadium built. Nowadays, stadiums all look the same, just of different types. This means that in a mirror match, it’s at best a tool for connecting (aka moving) souls, and being around it reduces their overall value in my opinion. That said, some cards do require stadiums to be enchanted, but this doesn’t apply to all types.
i really like to play Elestras My wife liked it more than I thought. I’ve tried exposing her to other TCGs, but these are the only ones she seems to really like Pokemon (she played with it as a child) and Elestras.
I’ve tried tweaking the starter deck, and I think I was pretty successful with Kryoscorch (my wife beat me pretty hard the last time we played the edited deck), but I’m having trouble with Emperowatt, I think I want to introduce more non-Frost cards that are difficult to use frost Because this is the introduction to Frost.
I think I need to rethink my deck building or get more decks. i do hope dawn Was the last set to introduce new types in a long time so that more sets could give the different types a bit more balance.
I would definitely recommend trying Elestras For yourself. They have a very active Discord community and a free mobile app in case you are worried about investing. They are also constantly looking for game stores to partner with, so if you are a fan you should discuss the possibility of selling the game with your game store.
I think Elestras It’s an incredible start in terms of being a fun TCG. Hopefully it will continue to grow and occupy a larger share of the TCG space.
