Mythgard is a new digital card game Rhino Games that takes bits and pieces from just about every card game imaginable to make an interesting challenge for veteran players. There is so much to just cover in this Public Beta, so I’ll try and brief and to the point.

Players will summon creatures and attack the enemy player, simple as that. Creatures, spells, and enchantments all come from one of six factions. These factions have their specific playstyle like more magic damage, higher health, fast played minions and so forth. When playing cards, it stems a lot from Magic the Gathering’s mana system of having to play a mana card and the use it for that turn with mana refreshing at the beginning of the next turn. Instead of a deck being filled with a bunch of mana cards, Mythgaurd has a player basically transform a card each turn into mana if they want. It is an interesting design, especially because that burned card goes back in the deck to be used again later. A very interesting way to add in mulligans and mana creation into a deck.

To go along with the interesting mana usage and generation of mana in the game, card position also completely matters. There are seven places for cards to sit, and when you attack, the three places in front of you must be open or your minion would have some card ability to attack past minions. This odd placement of cards adds an interesting level of strategy into the game. It is hard to say if it is better or worse off to be like this, but time will tell in our full review of the game’s beta a little later.

The game looks fairly good in the areas that count: card design, gameboard layout, the general card effects, and menu systems.  All the art looks really really good. I enjoyed the post-punk future world with some fantasy layered through. However, there are still some cards and characters that really don’t look like they belong, their design is way too different or totally confusing to actually be a part of this magical technological world.

This beta also has a surprising amount of things to do, it basically seems like the full game, but in testing stages. There is a fairly good size single-player story. There are competitive and casual PVP. There is normal PVE against computers and even a draft PVE. There is also Draft PVP and 2V2 PVP. Lastly, there is a puzzle a mode! There is a lot here.

There may be all this quantity, but will the quality of making a good meta? A real, strong, fair competitive mode for players to engage with over and over again for months to come? Only time can really tell how this game will pan out, will it find a following? Or just be left in the dust by its predecessors. Check back soon for our full in-depth review.