First of all, this game is now neither pay to win, nor unbalanced: reviews which say so are usually pre-Griffin Bane expansion, which immediately gives new referred players all six starter decks, plus tons of gold to buy cards upon completing the introductory campaigns, and brings back all Factions to competitive levels.

More complex, varied and ultimately satisfactory than Hearthstone, this game has very nice mechanics, with the board consisting of four rows and two columns (shooter and melee) for each player, spells which can affect single creatures, specific areas (squares, rows, columns) or even the entire board, and fortunes which usually manipulate cards and decks.
Creatures can be basic or have a lot of useful abilities (immune to retaliation, stackable, outmaneuver, etc.), including "enter the board" effects.

Simply put, this is the best CCG I've ever played.

P.s. Since I love the game, I'm glad to help new players to understand it, so feel free to ask for help and/or for my referral code, should you have no friends who play the game.

Definitely better than MTG. Aside from playing without having to pay any money... you still get to enjoy the same feeling when you play cards as those on MTG. Card collection and deck building is so easy. Getting enough play means you get tons of gold in exchange for packs of cards to improve your deck. I can't stop playing this since I started and now I'm having trouble sleeping... :D
Deep game strategy, deck building skills and lots of cards to choose.
Every part of the game is excellent. Thank you Ubisoft for building this game
for cheap players like me!!!

If you're looking for a competitive card game, then I'd recommend this to you.

I recommend this because the gameplay is quite innovative and also addivting for a card game. Game mechanics is quite complex, but when you get the hang of it you will discover that this game have a great game mechanic unlike any other card games.
Like other Collectible Card Games, you will have to either invest a lot of money or do some serious grinding if you want to build a decent deck. And of course, like any other card games, luck plays a major role both in game and opening a booster pack.
FYI, I spent 0 amount of real money in this game and I'm already in the top 400 worldwide. All cards are accessible without paying.

All these negative reviews are old. Yeah the game had some problems some months ago, but they are working to make it enjoyable, they made so much progress!

- You can get all cards for free only playing, yeah it's grindy but that's normal since you don't pay a dime. If you want to speed up a bit you can buy more cards with real money and just that. There's no real diference between a paying player and a free player, the only benefit is the time spent.
- Lots of achievements that gives you cards, the various types of currency in the game and other fun stuff, another way to get the cards you want.
- 2 formats of dueling: the Open Format, for more experienced players and where you can play with all cards from the game, and the Standard Format, for beginners and where you have a tinier pool of cards that you can play with.
- Also there's a extra format of dueling: the Weekly Format, where every week the game choose some restrictions to put in the decks. Example: You can only play with Spells, or Creatures, or a specific Faction, etc.
- Campaign Mode and Puzzles: This one is great, you can learn a lot of things with it and get good rewards for doing it. Also the Puzzles are extremely challenging.
- Wildcards System: Since the beginning of this game everyone asked for a trade system, but the fact is the trade system would broke the game, so they implemented a way to get the cards you want by colecting Wildcards and trade it for them.
- Infernal Pit: This system help you to get rid of the cards you don't want. You just need a max of 4 cards from the same card in each deck so, if you have 5, 6 or more from that card you can "sell" them to the npc and he gives some amount of money for it. Also there's a featured card every 8 hours that you can get by selling a great amount of cards, the more cards you sell the chance of getting that card will increase until 100%.
- Unlike HS, where the game is extremely simplistic and casual, DoC is complex and very competitive, this can be a good or a bad thing depending on what kind of card game you want to play. If you want a simple game, this is not for you, you have so many mechanics and effects on this game, you must read every cards if you are a beginner or you will make a lots of errors. But that's normal, everyone does it, even experienced players make mistakes. It can be a bit harsh in the beginning, but after learn the basics you'll enjoy it.
- The community is not great but they are very united, helpful and loyal. If you need help they will help you for sure. Also they are constantly creating community tournaments where you can try your skill and win very good prizes.

The only thing i complain about is the lack of Draft system, but they said they are working on it. So ill wait :)

NOT PAY TO WIN & LOTS OF FUN:

PROS:
- Single player Campaign that takes more than a week to complete as it is hard.
- Lots of GOLD & CARDS earned from single Campaign.
- Deep strategy with LOTS of SPELLS
- Quick matches from 5 minutes to long ones of 20 minutes (that I love)
- AMAZING DARK FANTASY
- Levelling up gives you experience and gold to buy more packs
- It's FREE ( just try and see for your self)

CONS:
- It takes sometimes 2 minutes to get an adversary.
- It takes a few days to understand the mechanics of the game. (as it is complex, and GREAT!)
- Sometimes the randomization of the cards you get in your starting hand is flawed (getting 3 copies of one card 2 of another and 2 of another is strange when it happens a once or twice a day)

My past experience: I used to play MTG (I find it too expensive now days, so I use Work Station for free with friends), currently playing Hearthstone (I have most of the cards, only 4 legendaries to finish the collection)

I have been playing for a week TO DOC and I still have lots of fun!
The solo play is really good, it gives you LOTS OF GOLD to buy packs and some 20 packs. The only problems with the 20 packs is that they are from the old editions, so most of cards are not valid for standard game (only for open - for Pros)

What most of people complain is about the changes that happened from the old edition to the new. For me is ok, as I do not care about most of things they say. For example, you can only buy with seals (mostly real money) packs from old editions with cards that we can not use in the Standard game, so WHAT'S THE POINT!!!

COMPARE TO MTG:

Not as good. MTG is the King. Strategy in not as deep and versatile. But illustrations in DOC are better for my taste.
In MTG you can mix all the cards, in DOC you have classes and some general cards, very few. So it is limited in that aspect. But you can mix spells and there are 7 schools of magic, and many Heroes with abilities and mixes of magic schools that create different strategies.

COMPARE TO HEARTHSTONE:

For the moment I proffer the deepest of DOC and the extensive amount of spells. Hearthstone is great and I love it, but is all about minions and sometimes it feels a bit limited. I have been playing since close Beta and I'm a bit bored now. The brought only 30 new cards with Naraxxramas and the Meta has changed, but is more or less with the same cards, not so interesting.
I also prefer the illustrations and the darker look of DOC, but I miss the animation of the spells of HS.
HS is fast and great for any moment, DOC could be slower but deeper so more planing is requiered to play.
HS has Drafts in the Arena and is amazing, the best of all, maybe that is missing in DOC.

My advice is to try it and decide as it is FREE. If you want all the basic decks to start with, use my code as Referal: 8BKDTC

If you see a bad review of someone that has played more than 40 hours, read it careful, most of people do not like changes and get angry when that happens. There are reviews of people that has played more than 50 hours, even 400 hours and they are bad reviews. Tell me how someone that has played so much has not liked the game? They are angy with changes.
Don't miss the opportunity to try it!

Have FUN!

When I'm looking for something more complicated than Hearthstone, this is what I'm going to now. Wish I knew about it last year..

I found it very confusing at first, but once I figured out that I can right-click a card and it will explain what the key words mean (charge, swift, quick attack, magic resist, etc... there's a lot of them) it made things a lot easier to pick up. Also, the starter decks are all over the place.. Definitely make your own, simplified deck with a few good spells/fortunes and a lot of creatures, with a good resource-curve.. it'll be much easier to learn from. Also, I recommend stronghold to start, I'm finding them the easiest to pick up as their minions seem to be really good.

You should definitely use a referral code because you get a free copy of the starter deck for every faction right off the bat. Then when you beat that faction in quickplay, you get a second copy of the starter deck for that faction. You can then make a much better deck for that faction with your doubled card-pool.

It doesn't matter who's referral code you use, but here's mine if you're looking for one: TNRMH1
If you do use mine, feel free to ask me questions in the game. I'm happy to help another new player with what I've learned so far and I could use the extra gold :D

A friend introduced me to this game two months ago and I'm having a blast! The art is absolutely spectacular and the mechanics are quite elegant. The game offers just the right level of complexity and tactical depth; it's more streamlined than Magic: The Gathering and deeper than Hearthstone. If you like collectible card games you should really give this a try. I initially signed up just to play the single player campaign, but the game turned out to be so good that I jumped into the multiplayer arena to keep playing after I finished the campaign.

I read some reviews complaining that the game is buggy or "pay to win", but this has not been my experience. Perhaps it was different in the past, but I haven't run into many issues. I spent maybe €4 total (on the Steam Puzzles) and I'm still winning over half my games, so the pay to win aspect seems largely exaggerated to me. The game underwent some considerable changes lately and has become very welcoming to new players.

If you consider giving this game a try, keep the following in mind:
1: Sign up using someone's referral code. That way you get almost 400 extra cards right from the start.
2: Here's a code that can be redeemed for some extra cards, but it can only be redeemed within the first 6 hours of opening the account: FBAW-CMRW-7AAS-4PZN-NKNL

Have fun!

This is a very good card game with a high level of complexity and strategy. Despite what a lot of the reviews say, it is pretty easy to obtain new cards without having to spend any real money in the game- it is not very hard to get at least one pack per day (Increased gold reward from campaign is a huge contributor to that, but gold from dueling, daily quests and leveling is also generally sufficient).
Small complaints are:
Wildcards, the method for specific card acquisition, are a bit too hard to obtain (you can get 1-5 per week for logging in 7 days in a row, and [after you get to at least Champion I ranking] 3-5 per day from daily quests, which can be hard to finish if you get one that doesn't suit your cards. Rares/epics/heroes from the newest set are 15/24/24 wildcards each, respectively, so obtaining specific cards you are missing can take some time.
Infernal pit could give more gold for the cards you are sacrificing

EDIT: Pending the upcoming major update/expansion, wildcards will no longer be obtained from quests, but as an extra reward from sacrificing cards to the Infernal Pit. Quests that gave WC will now give gold. This may or may not be good- it will take 480 commons to get a recent epic/heroic. But if the gold reward scales evenly with current quests, the new quests should reward an equal amount of WC on average from saccing earned cards.

Legacy cards are virtually locked behind a pay wall. This is only a minor complaint though, because they are only usable in Open format, which isn't the "officially supported" format and not usable in the main tournament (Road to Paris)

Other notes: Card artwork is beautiful, and the community is generally very helpful (strategies, deckbuilding, etc).

I'll first say i dont have a lot of trading card game experience, playing only Hearthstone in addition to this game. But I am a long time fan of the Heroes of Might and Magic series. The art and mechanics in this game are both spot on, complex and interesting. l first started playing during Heart of Nightmares, when the infamous changes to the gold/seal system made playing a grind, so I lost interest quickly. Since the new expansion (griffins something) I'm happy to say its now much easier to acquire all the starting decks (just win a game against that faction) and gold gain for winning matches is now 5k. Levelling up also gave me 10 or 20k (i forget)
So if you like HoMM, trading card games, or were a player turned off by HoN, give this game a first/second look.

It's impossible not to compare this to Hearthstone or Magic, but I think MMDoC can hold it's own against these two other giants of the CCG scene and here is why.

Comparing it to Hearthstone:
-MMDoC is much deeper strategically.
-You are rewarded with a lot more packs by just playing the game.
-Much greater card variety.
-Automated tournaments.
-Three formats to play the game, open, standard and weekly (the latter is a bit gimmicky, but can be fun)
-Spectator/replay mode.

Comparing it to Magic Online (Duels of the planeswalkers doesn't really compare as it is just a dumbed down experience)
-Much better UI
-Can get new cards by playing the game
-Free to play
-Ladder
-Much more newbie friendly

Conclusion:
It's a shame that Warcraft and Blizzard have a much bigger fanbase that most people looking for a Free online CCG are going to gravitate towards it without even hearing about this game. Admitedly, I've always thought the art in Might & Magic games were a bit generic, but the artwork on the cards are excelent.

It may not be as deep as Magic the Gathering, but as a computer game it provides a far better experience.

If you have an interest in Card games, do check this out!

Very fun. It has strategic depth unlike other casual digital card games. New expansion (Sins of Betrayal) and upcoming changes are very anticipated. I played this game like 3 weeks and I got myself into Champion I tier, so it is a newbie-friendly game I think. 9/10

This is by far one of the best tradingcardgames to play. WAAAAY better than Hearthstone.

excellent ccg, been playing for 10 days straight!

gold and packs are plenty at the start - with all the campaign missions, achievements and quests,
its quite easy to build a good deck without spending money.

the wildcard mechanic is pretty nice as well - you can craft specific cards,
and you get those with daily quests! (as you reach champion level, like i did already)

tournaments are easy to access, balance seems a bit off like in every card game,
especially with editions focused on certain classes, but im having a blast so far!

I have played various card games since 2004. Although many have been playing longer than I have I still feal as though I have the authority to review this card game based on the endless hours and dedication I've put into card games.

Accessability:

This is the easiest to get started free to play game that I have ever participated in. There are good rewards for a campaign mode that teaches the basics of the game, there is a crafting system, and there are daily rewards for playing. Overall, I have yet to spend money on the game, but I'm happy with my collection and deck I have been able to build. I have played for less than a month. You can use actual money to advance if you wish.

This is also a easy game to learn, Even as an easy game to learn, there are many options during every turn so there is a challenge using the most basic decks against real players and the later computer players in campaign mode.

4.5/5

Only a totally free all cards accessible immediatley type of game would be better in my opinion, but there are drawbacks to having everything at the start of the game. The game can be picked up quickly, but offers a deep sense of strategy.

Flavor:

The artstyle of the game is comparable to that of Magic the Gathering. They are comparable in that this game draws inspiration from a number of fantasy areas; mideival, japanese, and middle eastern are a few of these fantasy realms that are drawn from. Additionally, this particular game doesn't feature art that is as dark and hard to distinguish as Magic the Gathering. If Magic the Gathering was Diablo 1 and Hearthstone was Diablo 3, then this game is in between when concerned with the art assets.

5/5

This is a great aesthetic for a competitive fantasy game that wants to be taken seriously. The art assets are memorable and work very well with the card effects.

Mechanics:

There are quite a few interesting, mechanically wise, things going on in this game that are not featured in many other games.

First, card zones matter. This is a feature non-existent in many card games, but as creatures may only attack opposing creatures that are directly across from themselves and because creatures can be made less vulnerable to attack by putting them on certain board tile players do best by strategizing how to move and initially position their creatures on the game board.

Second, creatures health totals do not automatically heal every round - creatures keep the damage that they take throughout the game. Creatures are also, as mentioned above, only vulnerable to attack in certain board positions. Together these parts of the game come together to create a lasting investment in the cards that have already been developed onto the board. Players may strategize how to keep their creatures around so that they may stifle a future assault or begin to pressure the opponents life total without engaging the opponent's creatures.

Third, attacking isn't always free. If a creature does not kill an opponent's creature with it's attack, then the attacking creature is vulnerable to retaliation damage. Attacking therefore becomes something more strategic than automatic.

Fourth, there are multiple costs to playing a card. Not only do cards have a mana cost, but they also have a threshold costs. There are three separate resources, other than mana, that players have the option of adding to every turn. Overall, these other resources add another layer of depth to card balance, deck building, and game play. Additionally, card zones and deck size are other limited resources that also may need to be managed during longer and more complicated games.

4.5/5

These are just the mechanics that I find most interesting. These mechanics are rare to find in a good card game, but they all come together well to create a challenging experience in this game. This game also has very good use of key words that facilitate the understanding of what cards do. The room for improvement here is a few rules based questions about not being able to always predict what will happen without having experienced the given situation beforehand.

Playability:

This game has curtailed some of the more annoying occurrences in card games with it's standard format and general card balance. Many times non-interactive combo strategies and rush strategies can be frustrating and impossible to stop in games. Although those types of strategies do exist in this game, they are not game breaking. The amount of damage that a player can deal in one turn, in a long back and forth game, is hardly unexpected. This is not Yu-Gi-Oh! or Hearthstone where players will be able to reliably leverage their card economy into fast and lethal damage.

This game gets deck and card diversity right. All too often do card gamers consider deck diversity to be an automatic good. All too often deck diversity comes with the cost of imperfect knowledge about the opponent's deck and degenerate strategies. As I said in the previous paragraph, most strategies are interactive in this game. There is a real focus on combat and life managmnt in the game. Additionally, players are limited from playing every single card in every single deck and therefore players will be able to reliably predict the threats that an opponent may have - the issue of losing because of the opponent happening to be using a different strategy than expected isn't a problem.

4/5

The point lost here is because of some balance issues. There are times, as in any game, where the opponent has a specific hand of cards that cannot be beaten. This is more of a issue with deck based games than this specific game, but there still will be a few games that will feel bad and that will be out of your control. The most recent set also has some very powerful cards that are difficult to interact with. This game does fall into the trap of allowing rare cards to be overpowered and there are also times when you will have no silver bullet available to use against the opponent, but, again, that only occurs twenty percent or a low amount of the time.

Total:

4.5/5

This game does live up to it's claim of being the best online free to play card game.

There are more things that I could have mentioned, but that would not have changed the score. Stop reading this review and go play the game already.

Play through campaign as quickly as possible as that has the biggest rewards in terms of free cards.

Once you reach a certain rank, then you will be given daily quests that are very generous.

Try to only use your wildcards for crafting heroic, epic, and rare cards. Also always uncheck hide duplicate on the crafting page so that you can find the lowest crafting price for the card you want.

If you get a referral link to play the game you will start with extra cards, but do not ask me for a referral link as that goes against the terms of my posting this review.

occasionally check the online forums for promo codes as they will be occasionally released and grant you free cards.

This is a good deep CCG. Most of the Complaints are either false or have been fixed in the new patch. I have pretty much all the cards I want in the game and only paid like $0.06 for 2 steam puzzle/decks (100+ cards) in the market place. I think it's more giving than Hearthstone, I have been playing Hearthstone since beta and still have a bunch of cards i need. The campaigns give a ton of gold/packs and can be completed with all factions for more gold/packs! You start off with 1 deck but earn other decks as u beat their factions or start with all 6 faction decks if you start the game through a referral.

There are weekly promotions like this last week for every Wild Card (WC) you spend, you get 50% back after the weekend. WC are used to buy any cards you want in the Altar of wishes. The WC prices are fair. There is a login bonus system where u just need to log in and get free stuff every day. Playing a game earns you gold and exp. win or lose, and there are daily quests to earn more gold. Leveling up gives a nice chunk of gold enough to buy a pack. There is a Infernal pit where u can burn your extra cards for Gold, WC and if u burn enough you also get a card(the card changes about every 8 hr). Another way to earn packs, gold, WC, etc is to earn achievements, and there are many of them! Also be sure to search for some codes online which give free packs/gold.

It's more strategic than Hearthstone since you have 8 placements to put your creature. You can be offensive or defensive. You can only attack the hero if there is no creature blocking your way. There are 3 different formats, Standard (recommended for new players), Open (Ever card can be used here but could be chaotic for new players), and Weekly format which changes every week. There is also 2 tournament mode: Jackpot (chance to earn gold) Swiss (tournament of 8 players where 1-2 place get 2 packs of the last to exp set and and random player that plays all 3 games will get a ticket and a bs2 pack) I think you should stay away from tournaments until you have reached champion 1 level or think you have a good deck and grasp of the game.

The cards consist of Creatures, Magic, and Fortunes. Most cards have a requirement where you can raise 1 per turn for Might (Creatures), Magic. And Destiny (Fortune). It's pretty simple, the tutorial explain everything clearly. Each Hero has magic school(s) attach to them and can only use spells from that school. There is also Neutral Events where both players can use so pick those out carefully. Try to pay attention to the events, cause I forgot about them when starting out and lost some games cause of it.

Oh and the art work in this is great!

If you use this link, you will start with all 6 decks:
https://signup.duelofchampions.com/portal/index/DOC_world_02_0010_06_200_12_0614_00♥♥♥♥♥♥♥791SBN

So that's 12 decks you will have after beating all the factions once, and will have lots of extra cards to burn in the pit. You can add me too if u like to chat or play a game :)

A really nice game. It is entirely possible to have tons of cards without paying anything. Just completing the daily quest should get you enough money to buy at least 1 pack. The game is far more strategic than a Heartstone and far more F2P.

Have fun !

There are many extensive reviews down there, but let's make the long story short:
-The game has great and unique mechanics, it requires a lot of attention and a few OP cards won't really guarantee your victory.
-Runs smooth and without many problems. There are a few bugs here and there, but still nothing serious.
-It does take some grinding (or money) to build a decent deck, but grinding DOES teach you stuff and is worth your time. Haven't played too much, but it does not seem pay to win.
-Also a great single-player experience with a fairly large and rewarding campaign that you can go through and get rewarded 6 times (1 for each of the 6 factions) PLUS some neat mind-teasing puzzles, hope they add more soon!
-Music, design and graphics are a plus.
-It does need you to have a Uplay account, but well, so what? You DO NOT need to pay a single coin to play the game and have access to everything.
My opinion: If you like TCGs, give it a shot with no second thought!

A little easier than Magic The Gathering, more challenging than Hearthstone.

I've played a lot of card games over the years, from Yu-Gi-Oh, to Magic, to Pokemon, Warstorm, Tyrant, and recently, Hearthstone, and I have to say, this game is up there as one of my favorites. I'm not very good at it, unfortunately, but I enjoy it nonetheless. Each faction plays differently, and actually feels different. Haven is all about defence and healing, Inferno is speed and power, Stronghold is all about super powerful creatures, Necropolis has a good balance of everything paired with poisons and debuffs, Academy has a lot of comboing creatures and abilities with complex strategies, and Sanctuary has powerful tactical strengths, with creatures powering their neighbors up and working together to take opponents down. All in all, the game is great, if a bit difficult at times. The micro transactions are not actually necessary, but help a lot (they have two pack types you can get with in game currency that should meet basic needs, but the best decks pull from a variety of sets). I enjoy this game a bit more than Hearthstone honestly (part of that is the card variety, I think), but I still love Magic more. Rating: 7.5/10

started a lil slow, thought i would delete it. but is actually a whole lot of fun. will be staying on my pc for sure.