The Trading Card Game Genre isn’t new. It became popular with titles in Web2 such as Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering Arena through the past decade or so. However, Gods Unchained distinguishes itself from its ancestors, introducing the blockchain technology and asset ownership into the genre. An almost natural progression of what card players have always wanted. In Gods Unchained, cards can be traded in the form of NFTs and players earn the $GODS token, which has utility in-game and it is your main reward for contributing and actively playing the game. Let's dive straight into our Gods Unchained guide and what you need to know to get started on your journey.

Getting Started

The first step is to go to Gods Unchained official website, create an account, download the launcher, install it and start the game.

You can create and connect your crypto wallet to GU. The latter step is optional, but it will be necessary if you want to trade cards with other players on the game's marketplace or withdraw the $GODS token. If you have trouble with any of the above steps, I recommend you follow this guide.

You’ll then come to this menu:

It might be overwhelming, especially if you’ve never played a TCG. But don’t worry, we’ll break it down for you.

The first thing you should do is go to Tutorial and complete all its missions. For that, just click on “Tutorial”. It will cover the basics and will reward you with new packs of cards. These packs can then be opened on “Open Packs” where you just have to drag the pack to the altar and you will be greeted with a cool animation of the pack breaking open for you to receive your shiny new cards.

Create a deck

Creating and editing a deck is a skill every TCG genre fan must have. To do it within Gods Unchained, go to Select Deck and click on it.

Here you can see that there are already a few decks created for you. If you want to jump into PvP and worry about creating a deck later, I recommend you choose the Nature Starter which is the most beginner friendly and balanced deck till you find your footing around the game.

Otherwise, you can edit an already existing deck by selecting it. If you click on the “Magic Starter” you can see all the cards it has. On the other hand, you can create one from scratch by clicking on Create a Deck. If you do so, you’ll come to this menu where you’ll have to select a God.

The God you select depends on your playstyle and will affect the available cards. Besides this, each God has three different powers and, in the beginning of the match, you can chose one. God Powers are abilities that you can use for a certain Mana cost during a match.

Mana, is the energy you need to use a card or God ability within Gods Unchained. You start with 1 Mana and it increases on each round up until 9. Cards with a higher Mana cost are usually more powerful.

When it comes to cards, there are two types of cards: Neutral and God-specific cards. This means that if you select Elyrian, the God of Magic, you can add to your deck any neutral or Magic card you own.

If you are completely new to Gods Unchained, I recommend you go with Lysander, the God of Light, Elyrian, the God of Magic or Aeona, the Goddess of Nature. The other ones, specially the Goddess of Deception and the Goddess of Death have a higher difficulty and are better suited for more experienced players. After you select your chosen God, you’ll come to this menu where you’ll have to start adding cards to your deck. Each deck has 30 cards.

To add a card, simply select it and it will be added to your Deck. To remove it, click on the card that you wish to remove. Here you have many filters, but the most common one is Mana cost.

It is wise to build a balanced deck with cards with different Mana costs and different types. Like this, you’ll be prepared for every stage of a match.

When it comes to card types, there are three different ones:

• Creatures that you can summon to the board
• Relics that you can equip on your God
  
• Spells
  

Creatures always have an Attack and Health Number that you can see on the bottom.

Spells just have described which effects they have when played.

And Relics usually have an Attack number, if they’re used to attack the opponent’s creature or God, and a durability number.

The durability number represents how many times the weapon can be used before it breaks. In this case, the Faeflame Blade deals 1 damage when used, and can be used up to 4 times. Your opponent might use some cards whose effect is to reduce the durability of your equipped weapon or destroy it completely.

You can also see that on each card, the Mana cost number has a different color. If it’s grey it’s because the card is Neutral and can be added to any deck. If it has any specific color it’s because it’s specific from a God.

Once you chose your 30 cards, click on “Select” and that Deck will be available on your next match.

If you don’t want to invest that much time before your first Gods Unchained match, you can just import a Deck of cards from GUDecks. This is a community database with different builds. To do it just click on “Import Deck” and enter the Deck Code.

This will only work if you have all the cards of the Deck you wish to import.

You must have already noticed that some cards in Gods Unchained have strange effects like Frontline, Blitz and Ward. Each of this names are linked with a special effect this card will have. I recommend you read this guide to find out more about card mechanics.

Game Modes and Your First PVP Match

Now that you already completed the tutorial, made it this far into our Gods Unchained guide, and chose your deck it’s time to jump into a real match in one of the other game modes:

• Casual – Face other opponents. The result of the match won’t affect your rank but you earn Flux
• Weekend Ranked – This mode is available during the weekend. It will affect your rank. You can earn Flux, Fragments and packs of cards based on your performance during the event.
  
• Solo – Play against the computer. There are no rewards in this game mode.
• Direct Challenge – Play against a friend. There are also no rewards in this game mode.
  

To play against a player you can chose either Casual, Weekend Ranked if available and Direct Challenge. So, why don’t we start with Casual? Click on Casual and click on “Play” to get into the matchmaking system.

Now select which of the three God Powers you want to use. Read what each of them does and select the one that is better suited for your playstyle.

Once you have done that, you have the chance to improve your starting hand by replacing certain cards. Here, I recommend you to try to get key cards for your strategy and/or cards with a low Mana cost, since in the first rounds you won’t have much Mana to spend.

You are finally ready to jump into your first Gods Unchained match. The goal is to take the health of the opponent’s God to 0. If you didn’t play the tutorial this might be overwhelming, so let’s break it down.

This is the board. On top you can see your opponent and gather information about him and his playstyle. In the bottom is where you are.

This is the God I chose. Here I can see the available cards I have for this round, my Gods HP, the God power I chose and how much Mana it costs.

On the bottom left of your Gods Unchained screen is where you see your available Mana. In this case I can spend up to 8 Mana this round. There are cards that can recover some of it and your opponent might play cards that reduce it. So there are exceptions where you can count on more or less Mana than the one available.

On the bottom left you can see the cards previously played and drawn by you and your opponent. There’s also a number 4 there. Those are your available Favor points. We’ll get there soon. 

On the two ends at the center of your Gods Unchained board, you can see how many cards you and your opponent have in the Deck. After a player runs out of cards he’ll start taking damage.

On the opposite side you can find the Void. The Void is where death creatures, broken Relics and used Spells go. There are cards that can pull cards from the Void.

What we are covering next in our Gods Unchained guide is the Sanctum. Here you can purchase cards with your Favor points. To gain Favor points you must:

• You attack an opponent’s God
• You destroy an enemy creature outside of combat
• Your creature survives an attack during combat and the attacking creature dies.
  

Whenever you complete a ‘Favor Action’, you are rewarded as follows:

• You gain 1 Favor during your first turn
• You gain 2 Favor during your second turn
  
• You gain 3 Favor during subsequent turns
  

The Sanctum might be a game changer. There might come the situation where you urgently need a Spell to destroy an enemies' creature and it might be there for you to purchase it. So, always keep an eye on the available cards there.

Now that you have an ideia what each element of the board does it’s time to try to achieve victory. To play cards just drag them. If it’s a creature or Relic, drag it to the board. If it’s a spell, drag it to the creature or God you wish to use it on.

After you play a creature, it will stay a sleep until the next round. Unless it has mechanics like Blitz for example. Once you’ve played this round it’s time to allow your opponent to play.

For that select the arrow on the right of the board. This arrow always points to the player playing. If you don’t click on it, after some time your time will run out and it will end automatically.

Now you have to wait for your opponent to play. Try to understand why he’s playing the way he is. Is he saving up on cards? Is he using a lot of Spells? Is he aggressively summoning low mana cost monsters to the board? Answering this questions might reveal which is your opponent’s strategy and playstyle.

Once he is done it will be your turn again. If you have creatures on the board from the previous round, they will be ready to attack. To do it, just drag that creature to the opponent’s monster or God you wish to attack. You can only attack with a creature once, unless it has Twin Strike which allows creatures to attack twice.

When a creature attacks another creature in Gods Unchained, it will deal damage equal to its attack power and will receive damage equal to the enemy creature’s attack power. If it attacks the opponent’s God it won’t receive damage. But it can only attack the other player’s God is he doesn’t have any card with Frontline.

If you have made it this far in our Gods Unchained guide, you have the basics locked down. Good luck on your first match!

XP, $GODS and Flux

Whether you won or lose your Gods Unchained match, you must have noticed that you got experience points, or XP, and you also gained a level. XP is used to fill your experience bar and, once it is filled, you’ll level up. Every time you level up within Gods Unchained, you get rewards like a new card pack.

When it comes to Flux and $GODS they are used to fuse cards in the Forge. Cards have different Rarities and Qualities. Their Quality can be increased by Fusing two cards of an inferior Quality.

Here, I am fusing two Plain cards to get a Meteorite Card. For that I will lose the two plain cards and I will spend 20 Flux and 0.1 GODS. Meteorite Cards are NFTs and can be sold on Immutable X marketplace. You can read more about Fusing on this guide.

We have arrived at the end of our Gods Unchained guide. We hope you have enjoyed it and took enough valuable information from it to get you confident to dive into your first GU game and win it comfortably. We will be rooting for you from over here.

What is your favorite Gods Unchained starter deck? What other tips do you have for a beginner?

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