I think this is not a bad game. Despite the obvious flaw of being Pay To Win, there are many interesting things going on in Faeria. In my opinion, Faeria is slightly better than another card-strategy game (CSG) called Duelyst. I'll call them CSG for now to differentiate them from Collectible Card Games (CCG). In Faeria, you play on a 4-ringed hex grid, fighting for mana springs at the vertexes and aiming to reduce your opponent's life to zero before they reduce your's.

Faeria is a game that you ought to try just to understand it. However, be warned that it is still Pay To Win with a max limit of $50. So, I'm half-half about it. I stopped playing after I realised that the community was kind of small. Do note that this game was backed as a One Time Purchase game on Kickstarter but the developers chose to go with Pay To Win instead.

17/12/2016: They wiped all the cards from the alpha tests. Every single card is gone and replaced by boxes instead. This is a very bad move.

24/08/2016: They go free to play today. I believe it is on this day that support for the game fell drastically. Basically, Abrakam broke a covenant with their initial supporters who paid $50 for a full game. These supporters have now been tricked/scammed into supporting a P2W game. Perhaps, this was ABRAKAM's plan along. Fake a full game, then switch to F2P. It happened to other games like Awesomenauts.

02/04/2017: P2W. $50 for 21,000 gems. It pains me to see Faeria go down the path of the P2W. It must mean a weakening in the game design.

03/08/17: No more buying base sets. The game population is less than 500 players now. There aren't many new cards anymore and the I believe that the hex tile laying(HTL) is creating a significantly more complex situation for new players to grasp. It is like comparing DOTA to Warcraft 3. Why is DOTA more successful than Warcraft 3 despite coming from the same base engine? It's easier to play and simpler to control. There are currently about 16*4 + 14*4*4 or 288 cards. It's surprisingly small and the colour seperation reduces the number of possible combos by a lot.

17/11/17: Tried Oversky. There's a new mechanic called "Swallow", which instantly removes a creature from the map. Supposedly, it's a overpowered mechanic. There's also co-op missions which is a plus point. However, I am wondering whether Duelyst might be better now, as Duelyst is faster to play? Also, there are Duelyst generals and each of them has a unique power. This is missing in Faeria.

31/10/18: Tried Resurgence. New mechanic called "Corrupt", which only activates when your creature steps onto enemy hexes. It looks interesting but there are only 20 new cards which won't make much sense. There is a new race of raccoons called the Rakoans. There are very interesting puzzles which add to the value of the game. However, I believe that the Internet/gamers have given up on it. I guess it's the last breath considering I no longer see any new or old players.

Abrakam SA is a Belgian game company co-founded by Jean-Michel Vilain, Martin Pierlot, Jen Berger, Emilien Eloy.

1. Campaign
AI-driven but it tells a bit of the story at a time. When I attacked Seifer the Rat, he will drop hints about the story. Even without reading the story, I know there's some sort of Empire with ratmen. Sadly, there are only 13 missions to do and they are very easy.

17/12/16: The campaign is no longer free now. It costs 500 gold to buy the next tier of 10 levels of campaigns. However, there are many more campaign levels compared to the early stages.

2. Strategic Hex Map
I love the tile-laying aspect as it adds another strategic layer to the game.

3. Beautiful Artwork
Muah! Absolutely a treat to look at. I love the big giant walking tree, Tarrum.

4. Childish Story/Theme
Kind of like the Rats of Nim story. No blood or gore and very intriguing just going by the cards. It might not appeal to hardcore gamers though (not that there is such a group).

5. Resource Storage
Well done. Finally someone understands how massively disadvantageous it is to not be able to store resources. This is where Faeria shines. In other games like Magic the Gathering, being unable to efficiently use your resources every turn, greatly influences if you win or lose.

6. Alternative uses for your Action
On your turn, you get a free action, you can either
a. Lay 2 Prairies hexes(plain tiles)
b. Lay/Change 1 Special Land tile
c. Draw 1 card
d. Gain 1 Mana

This allows for more strategic depth and choice for the player. Additionally, you will never forget to do your free action as it is cleverly designed on top of the End Turn button. You must do your free action before it flips to the End Turn side.

7. Puzzles
17/12/2016: Kudos to Puzzle #37, I totally didn't know that you could interrupt the placement of 2 tiles.
Puzzle #34, sneaky little trick to deal damage to yourself by over drawing. I totally missed that one.

8. Different Heroes
17/12/16: Previously, there were only a few 4 heroes. Now there are at least 13. It would be great if there were more.
a. Tarrum, Green
b. Ruunin, Green
c. Khalim, White
d. Rapal, Blue
e. Aurora, Blue
f. Magda, Neutral
g. Fugoro, Treasures
h. Hoaka, Blue
i, Krog, Red
j. Sharra, White
k. Raizeon, Blue
l. Jalmyra, Puzzles
m. Taesa, Something

9. Main Campaign Mission
10/08/17: There is a main mission where you get to defeat different bosses in the game. They are unlocked every 5 or 10 levels. E.g. Yaknus

1. Pay To Win ***
It's bloody obvious with all the booster packs. However, the shop does say that you can buy all the cards for $50. So, technically the game is $50. I am unsure if my interpretation is correct though. They might still be trying to bleed customers. So, caveat emptor.

2. Low player population
There are less than 1000 dedicated players for this game. I blame it on bad marketing.

3. No Feedback System
Games like Duelyst have a Uservoice feedback system installed within Faeria, allowing you to give feeedback, send screenshots and bug reports. Steam works well with the F12 screenshot button but it would be better with more.

4. Limit of 2 players ***
Severe weakness of CCGs. Without a large enough player pool, aka Magic the Gathering, 2 player games tend to have a smaller audience. Do note that MTG actually has many players who love to play multiplayer.

5. Map Control Limitations
There is no way to naturally flip the hexes of an opponent to your side. My guess is that there must be a card that exists to do this. This creates an odd situation where laying tiles no longer becomes useful and removes 1 element of fun. The only way to solve this is with the Ring of Dominion.

6. Rarity Creep
There are 4 levels of rarity. If you wanted to buy that 1 card, pony up the cash. You can craft it but it takes way longer.

7. Costly Gauntlets
You have to use golden triangles to pay for 1 draft gauntlet run. Those things are hard on their own. Now you have to farm golden triangles as well.

8. No Free Rewards for Logging In
Once you get past the initial free starter decks and booster packs, it is extremely grindy.

9. Short Campaign
There are only 9 missions to do. It really is short. For a game with so many starter decks, I was expecting at least 25 missions.

17/12/2016: There has been a remake and now they have new puzzles and quests. For the quests, you fight the same old AI again. For the puzzles, it's something new.

10. Additional Faeria + Centre Hex Tile Control for 2nd player
Kind of extremely important. It is extremely favourable to get the additional 2 Faeria and 1 free Prarie. With the additional 1 hex, you can reach the centre of the map on your very first turn. The 2 additional Faeria allows you to summon a 8 cost unit on your second turn. This creates major imbalance from the start.

11. Crafting
Here's how much you need for rares. E.g. The Standard Version of Day of the Dragons is 320 Faeria. You have to disenchant a lot of rares just to get it. The skinned Mythic version is 1600 Faeria.

12. P2W
The coveted gems and coins and the P2W sytem.

13. Psychological Barrier to Multiplayer, Imbalance
21/11/17: I realised that as one plays the game, you get annoyed by the fact that other players are able to simply use cash to buy rarer stronger cards. This creates a great asymmetry in the balance of the game. Some people have and some people have not. I just realised that this of the greatest imbalances in the game. This prevents proper balance.

1. Pandora and Pandora Shards
I am not sure if this makes the game more fun or less fun. To unlock Pandora, 6 shards of Pandora are randomly mixed into each player's deck. If all 6 shards are drawn, Pandora awakens, you get to draw 1 of 3 random treasures, all the wells run dry and you gain 6 mana each turn instead of 3.

a. Each treasure is extremely OP and can end the game quickly.
b. 6 mana per turn is pretty strong and ensures you can play at least 1 card each turn
c. Wells running dry pretty much waste all the hexes you used to reach the wells

However, it does make the game end faster so I am a bit unsure of how to judge this.

2. Exact replicas of Artwork
Soul Eater, Twinsoul Spirit, Icerock Behemoth, Warstorm Champion, Scourgeflame Spectre, Apex Predator are different cards with the same art. It's very confusing but I am guessing that they are placeholders and the art will be filled in later on.

3. Similar Mechanics
Nothing wrong as the mechanics are similar but I felt that I ought to highlight the similarities.
(M) stands for Magic the Gathering, (F) stands for Faeria, (H) stands for Hearthstone, (D) stands for Duelyst.

Haste (F/M) Rush (H)
Divine (F) Hexproof (M)
Protection (F) Divine Shield (H)
Deathtouch
Last Words (F) Death Rattle (H)
Taunt (F/H)
Gift (F) Battlecry (H)
Ranged (F/D)
Flying (F/M/D)

Aquatic (I think I can't find anything that is just purely for water, except Shadow)
Jump
Activate (Use)
Combat (When Attack)
Production (Start of Turn)
Charge X
Dash X

Followers from the Neutral Decks
Those are similar to the Gatekeepers from Magic the Gathering where you require 2 specific lands for a special ability to proc.

4. Hayao Miyazaki Influences
Waling Fortress from The Castle from Howl's Moving Castle

5. Snow White Reference
Queen's Assassin from Evil Queen after she changed her look

1. Give Out Free Booster Packs for Logging In
Honestly, I think grinding is one of the main reasons that no one plays Faeria. The main one is probably gameplay. Once you get past the initial reward stage, you have to grind hundreds of Pandora battles just to get 1 booster pack. If you give people free stuff for logging in, people will just click on your game just to get a free pack every 12 hours.

19/03/2017: There is a decent player population or AI bots of 2000 or more.

2. Puzzles
I realised that a daily puzzle is very entertaining. If you setup a difficult puzzle for players to solve in 1 turn, it makes it interesting to log back in. It must be of mid-ranged difficulty.

17/12/2016: This has been implemented.

3. Chat Functions
If you can't talk to your opponent, I'm going to guess that it's like Hearthstone where they used AI bots to play with players. If you want to grow your community, make sure they can chat.

4. Feedback Device
You don't have it. You need it.

"5. Shared Land Mechanic
I thought of a new variant. Shared Land Types. If you build a land, your opponent gets to use it in their count. E.g. Player A summons Mountain, Player B gets 1 Mountain but CANNOT summon onto it.

It adds another layer of strategic thought. If you are both playing the same deck, you can imagine that it is now very tricky. As you build lands as now you are thinking, "If I build this mountain, will he summon that Shedim Giant?" and "If I don't build that mountain now, he'll build it for me". This also opens up more avenues for mixed land cards as you can utilize both players land types.

6. Common Land
There's another variant. Certain land in the middle give both players the type. E.g. Middle land is a Forest. Both players gain a Forest but neither can summon onto it."

7. Hero Powers
17/11/17: I think you need each hero to have a tiny special ability to improve Faeria by leaps and bounds.

FAERIA® END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT (EULA)
Last Modified: January 22, 2016 - 12:30 CET

Faeria® (the “Game”) is a free-to-play, session-based, multiplayer online strategy card game developed and operated by Abrakam SA (“Abrakam”). This agreement also covers the Early Access period of Faeria®, during which the Game won’t be accessible for free.

Protecting Faeria® (our “Game”) as well as our players and the community is something we value a lot, this is why we are laying down this EULA which acts as a legal agreement between you and us (Abrakam SA) and describes the terms and conditions for using the Game. Reading legal documents is no fun and this is why we have tried to keep it as short as possible. Simply speaking, if you break these rules we may stop you from using our Game. If we think it is necessary, we might even have to ask our lawyers to help out. Please read, print (or save at tree) and save a copy of these terms and conditions for your records because a copy won't be saved for you.
If you buy, download, use or play our Game, you are agreeing to stick to the rules of these end user license agreement ("EULA") terms. If you don't want to or can't agree to these rules, then you must not buy, download, use or play our Game. This EULA incorporates our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and our Brand & Assets Guidelines. By agreeing to this EULA you also agree to all of the terms of the foregoing documents, so please read through them carefully.

ONE MAJOR RULE

This one major rule is that you must not distribute anything we've made unless we specifically agree to it. By "distribute anything we've made" what we mean is:

- give copies of our Game to anyone else;
- make commercial use of anything we've made;
- try to make money from anything we've made; or
- let other people get access to anything we've made in a way that is unfair or unreasonable;

unless we specifically agree to it. And so that we are crystal clear, "the Game" or "what we have made" includes, but is not limited to, the client or the server software for our Game. It also includes updates, patches, downloadable content, add-ons, or modified versions of a Game, part of those things, or anything else we've made.
Otherwise we are quite relaxed about what you do - in fact we really encourage you to do cool stuff - but just don't do those things that we say you can't.

ENJOYING OUR GAME

You have been granted a license to the Game so you can play and use it, yourself, on your devices.
Below we also give you limited rights to do other things but we have to draw a line somewhere or else people will go too far. If you wish to make something pertaining to anything we've made we're humbled, but please make sure that it can't be interpreted as being official and that it complies with this EULA and the brand and asset usage guidelines and above all do not make commercial use of anything we've made.
The license and permission we give you to use and play our Game can be revoked if you break any of the terms of this EULA.
When you buy/access our Game, you receive a license that gives you permission to install the Game on your own personal computer and use and play it on that computer as set out in this EULA. This permission is personal to you, so you are not allowed to distribute the Game (or any part of it) to anyone else. This also means you cannot sell or rent the Game, or make it available for access to other people and you cannot pass on or resell any license keys. You may however give gift codes that have been bought through our official gift code system. This is important to help us stop piracy and fraud and to protect our Game. It is also important to prevent members of our community from buying pirated versions of our Game or fraudulent license keys - which we may cancel, such as in the case of fraud.
Within reason you're free to do whatever you want with screenshots and videos of the Game. By "within reason" we mean that you can't make any commercial use of them or do things that are unfair or adversely affect our rights unless we've specifically said it's okay in this EULA, allowed it through the Intellectual Property Usage Guidelines, or provided for it in a specific agreement with you. If you upload videos of the game to video sharing and streaming sites you are however allowed to put ads on them. Also, don't just rip art resources and pass them around, that's no fun.
Essentially the simple rule is do not make commercial use of anything we've made unless we've specifically said it's okay. Oh and if the law expressly allows it, such as under a "fair use" or fair dealing" doctrine then that's ok too - but only to the extent that the law applicable to you says so.
In order to ensure the integrity of the Game, we need all Game downloads and updates to come from a single central source: us.

OWNERSHIP OF OUR GAME

Although we license you permission to install on your computer and play our Game, we are still the owners of it. We are also the owners of our brands and any content contained in the Game. Therefore, when you pay for our Game, you are buying a license to play / use our Game in accordance with this EULA - you are not buying the Game itself. The only permissions you have in connection with the Game and your installation of it are the permissions set out in this EULA.

CODE OF CONDUCT

While playing the Game, you agree to comply with all applicable laws, rules and regulations. You also agree to comply with certain additional rules that govern your use of the Game (the “Code of Conduct”). The Code of Conduct is not meant to be exhaustive, and Abrakam reserves the right to modify this Code of Conduct at any time, as well as take any appropriate disciplinary measures including Account termination and deletion to protect the integrity and spirit of the Game, regardless of whether a specific behavior is listed here as prohibited. In addition to this Code of Conduct, please see the Player’s Code for additional guidance on exemplary game-play behavior.

The list below consist of examples of behaviour that warrant disciplinary measures:

a. Impersonating any person, business, or entity, including an employee of Abrakam, or communicating in any way that makes it appear that the communication originates from Abrakam;
b. Posting identifying information about yourself, or any other user, in the Game;
c. Harassing, stalking, or threatening any other users in the Game;
d. Removing, altering or concealing any copyright, trademark, patent or other proprietary rights notices of Abrakam contained in the Game and/or the Software. You also may not transmit content that violates or infringes the rights of others, including without limitation, patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, publicity, personal rights or other proprietary or non-proprietary rights;
e. Transmitting or communicating any content which, in the sole and exclusive discretion of Abrakam, is deemed offensive, including, but not limited to, language that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, sexually explicit, or racially, ethnically, or otherwise objectionable;
f. Transmitting or facilitating the transmission of any content that contains a virus, corrupted data, trojan horse, bot keystroke logger, worm, time bomb, cancelbot or other computer programming routines that are intended to and/or actually damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or mine, scrape or expropriate any system, data or personal information;
g. Spamming chat, whether for personal or commercial purposes, by disrupting the flow of conversation with repeated postings of a similar nature;
h. Participating in any action which, in the sole and exclusive judgment of Abrakam, “exploits” an undocumented aspect of the Game in order to secure an unfair advantage over other users;
i. Participating in any action which, in the sole and exclusive judgment of Abrakam, defrauds any other user of the Game, i