Season 8 in KARDS ends on November 30th (at 23'59'59 GMT). The more ranks you have gained, the bigger the reward.

Use remaining time to gain as many ranks as you can to get a big payout! You gain ranks by winning PVP matches.

This is the perfect opportunity to get a nice boost ahead of the KARDS winter expansion Allegiance.

Reward details

With the end of the season, you will receive special rewards like card packs and a Gold card. After you have received the rewards, your ranks will be lowered a bit.

As a reminder, here is what you will receive as seasonal rewards:

• For the first 5 ranks gained: One pack plus one standard Gold card
  
  
• For every 5 more ranks gained (see image below): Either one extra pack OR the Gold card increases by one rarity
  
  
  
  
• For each Field Marshal reached: One national pack
  
  
• For reaching the Officer Club (minimum three Field Marshal ranks): The Gold card reward is increased in rarity one level. You get one extra pack.
  
  
• Top ten players of the Officer Club: 5 extra packs
  
  
• The best player of the season: Physical rewards including a KARDS seasonal winner metal plaque

Season 9 starts on December 1st!

Have fun and best of luck for the rest of the season!

Further Allegiance expansion info

• New game mechanics arriving
  
• Expansion card packs: Pre-orders available now
  
• Spoiler season and card reveals

Exciting news from the KARDS team for December. The upcoming weeks are filled with events and updates such as the World Championship 2019 Finals on December 7/8 (live broadcast), the first-ever KARDS expansion Allegiance arriving on December 10, and the localized version of KARDS with five new languages.

Let's have a look at the amazing new mechanics coming with the Allegiance expansion and reveal an important change also arriving on December 10. First the short version, then the details further below. With Allegiance you will be able to:

• New orders: Select between two possible effects
  
• New orders and units: Review the top three cards of your deck, and draw one. The other two cards go to the bottom of your deck
  
• Have Elite cards only in your major nation as you cannot use Elite cards in your ally nations any more

This is only a fraction of the new expansion! Other big changes coming with Allegiance, the two now nations and their new game mechanics, will be presented a bit later in a dedicated blog.

Now, let's dive right into the details!

The first of these is an ability found on several US and Soviet orders that allow the player to select between two options when playing the card from hand. This essentially means that these cards act like two different cards spliced into one, which gives a lot of flexibility when playing based on the situation and what the opponent is up to. Naturally, this flexibility comes at a price, so the effect is a little more costly than if found on a card with just that one effect. Let’s look at one of the new US orders arriving with the winter expansion:



CARRIER COVER is like a combination of The War Machine and Naval Bombardment. Paying 4 kredits for this effect would not be great on its own, but the flexibility here makes this card much more useful in any game - against decks that are pressuring you, you can buy yourself time by sending a unit to their hand and against slower decks you can play this as ramp as you are less likely to need to spend your kredits on keeping yourself alive. It even has the extra flexibility of allowing you to bounce your own unit to hand, to save a damaged unit or re-trigger a powerful deployment effect.

As stated above, this mechanic is only found on orders right now. It is most common with the US, with Soviets also getting a few. We want this to be a primary ability for the US to reflect how their strong industrial base allowed for varied fighting capabilities and superior adaptability.

Another new mechanic is a twist on drawing a card. Instead of drawing the top card of your deck directly, this mechanic allows you to look at the top three cards of your deck and select one to add to your hand. The other two are then placed on the bottom of your deck. Here is an example of one:



This new effect can be on either an order or a unit. It is limited to Germany in the new set. This ability is very powerful as it allows you to dig for the answers you need based on the situation and strengthens any kind of combos and synergies in your deck as finding the right pieces is now more consistent. The reason for making this a primary ability for Germany is to reflect their focus on flexible battle doctrine and tactical diversity.

There is one more thing to cover and it’s a doozy. An important rule change for deck construction will be put into effect when the expansion goes live. From the 10th of December and onward, you cannot use ally elite cards in your decks. Existing decks will be invalid until updated. Only elite cards from the major nation are eligible.

There are several reasons for this change, let’s cover the most important ones:

1. First of all, in most cases this reduces the overall count of elite cards in decks, making it easier for newer players to get a competitive deck together.
   
2. Secondly, this strengthens the identity of each nation, as many of their most iconic and powerful cards are now only seen when they are the major nation. This improves the overall immersion and makes it easier for players to learn what to expect from each nation, both when playing them and for deck construction.
   
3. Finally, this helps us down the road when creating new cards, not having to worry that it can go into any deck and be combined easily with any other card in the game. This helps in creating cards that we want to be exclusive to a main nation for thematic or gameplay purposes, an example of such a card is The Commonwealth. It also helps in creating cards later that we want to be mutually exclusive or would be too powerful together - by making them elites in two different nations we can ensure that they can never be played together, something we have no control over right now.

We’ve been testing these changes internally and the results have been very positive so far. The ban on ally elites opens up a lot of new possibilities and expands on what cards to use, as the same ol’ elite cards are no longer just an auto-include.

To reiterate, these changes are only happening when the expansion goes live on December 10 - the World Championship Finals are not affected for instance.

Let us know what you think about these new game mechanics in the discussions below!

KARDS has come a long way since its first steps in the closed, invite-only Alpha stage. While still in Early Access, we are now heading to the first expansion scheduled for December 10th!

This fantastic journey, which is still young and fresh with us having so many more ideas and plans for KARDS, wouldn't have been possible without the amazing contribution and overwhelmingly positive passion from you, our players.

Now, with the upcoming Steam Awards, we have a great chance together to propel KARDS even further!

We call for your help and to nominate KARDS for its outstanding visual style. You are, of course, also welcome to nominate KARDS for Game of the Year Award!



With all the positive feedback about KARDS (such as praise for the innovative frontline mechanics, operational costs, the amazing fusion of real WW2 battlefield elements with an abstract card game, and lots more), everyone agrees that the unique art style of KARDS is something extraordinary.

Help us spread the joy of KARDS and with it, let the amazing visual style be an inspiration to everyone!

With the upcoming KARDS winter expansion Allegiance, we will get two new nations and 150 new cards along with new game mechanics.

The road to Allegiance is spiced with reveals and exciting news about the new game mechanics. New cards are revealed almost every day now, either by the community or directly by the KARDS dev team.

Don't forget to subscribe to the channels listed below to stay up to date and never miss any news, especially KARDS Facebook, KARDS YouTube, and Twitter.

Please use the KARDS Discord channel for discussions of these cards and to speculate about further reveals!

Let's have a look a the first reveal cards since the expansion announcement last week!







Stay tuned for further card reveals and don't forget to subscribe to the listed channels and especially KARDS Facebook and Twitter for the latest info.

We are thrilled to announce the first-ever expansion set for KARDS, The WWII Card Game.



Allegiance, our first expansion, arrives on December 10th!

This expansion introduces two new ally nations, adds 150 completely new cards and enhances KARDS with several new game mechanics.

The additional allies add new flavors, enable interesting new battlefield tactics and significantly increase the strategic depth of the game. Allegiance not only introduces two new ally nations but also reinforces the existing five nations with a considerable number of new cards.

More details will be revealed about the ally nations closer to the expansion release.

Show your allegiance to KARDS and pre-order expansion card packs now! The pre-order comes with a great discount of 45% on the card packs and is only available until December 9th.



Pre-order 50 expansion card packs and a special Allegiance card back for only $39.95.

You are guaranteed at least two elite cards in these packs and can purchase as many of these offers as you want.

The card packs from this offers will be delivered to your KARDS account with the arrival of the expansion on December 10th. The card back from the pre-sale is available right away.

As we are heading towards the release of Allegiance, we are revealing further info about the cards of the expansion set. Subscribe to our social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) so you’ll never miss the latest reveals!

We’ll kick-off spoiler season right away! Let’s have a look at two new cards arriving with Allegiance:

The first card we want to reveal is a British Order card.



SHELLING is a British Order card of Elite rarity and costs 5 Kredits to play. When played, all enemy units receive one damage and get pinned. Additionally, your opponent loses one Kredit slot.

This card matches the general British theme of slowing down the opponent (pinning) and doing damage to multiple/all enemy forces on the battlefield.

The second card of the Expansion set we present is a Soviet unit.



15th MOTOR RIFLES is a Soviet infantry unit of Special rarity, that costs 3 Kredits to deploy and 1 Kredit to use on the battlefield. This unit has guard ability, and as a specialty, makes your HQ immune to damage on your enemy’s turn.

The 15th Motor Rifles fit well into the set of Soviet guard units that have strong defensive abilities but come up a little lacking on the offensive.

This is just a peek into the upcoming expansion. Stay tuned for more card reveals in the coming days and weeks!

The World Championship Tournament culminated this weekend with thrilling matches. All sixteen remaining champions were set to win their matches and to qualify for the grand World Championship finale in December in Iceland - but only four spots were available!

The four Finalists get sponsored flights to Iceland, the home of the KARDS World Championship 2019 Finals, where they will compete for the title of the KARDS World Champion 2019 on December 7-8.

Additionally to the sponsored trip to the Finals, the Finalists will receive a total cash prize of $6.500.

With stakes this high, the weekend matches were highly anticipated. Both rounds, Saturday and Sunday, were played as best-of-five series.

With only sixteen champions left in the tournament and a tough qualification process behind, everyone still in the tournament is a top KARDS player and very strong. However, there are favorites like Gearbot (Winner Season 7), Cybernetic (Winner Season 6, Top-5 Season 7), and Drogear (Top-5 Season 7).

The biggest upset of round 4 (Saturday) was the defeat of Cybernetic - until then without a single match lost throughout the tournament. Fenrir did beat Cybernetic 3-1. Have a look at Fenrir's winning {LINK REMOVED}decks of Round 4!

The final rounds were incredibly tight with half of them going over the full length of 5 matches.

The final round of the tournament on Sunday saw the following eight KARDS champions competing against each other in best-of-five matches:

Drogear -vs- top lad
Gearbot -vs- tedimi
D13 -vs- GKZhukov
Fenrir -vs- GARRODRIVE

Drogear against top lad was nerve-wracking! Drogear scored early victories and was 2-0 ahead, but then top lad had a phenomenal comeback and won the following three matches in a row to a 3-2 victory for top lad!

Gearbot scored a clear 3-0 victory against tedimi. Gearbot has lost only two matches in the whole tournament so far and has an impressive track record.

The matches between D13 and GKZhukov were very tight and exciting. GKZhukov scored early victories and got in the lead with 2-0. But then D13 started his counter-offensive and scored two victories in a row to a 2-2. The final match then saw GKZhukov as the winner.

Fenrir started with a victory against GARRODRIVE, but then all following three matches were won by GARRODRIVE to a 3-1 victory!

Congratulations to these four champions winning the KARDS Championship Tournament.

To qualify for the Finals in Iceland, you have to be available to be in Iceland on the 7th and 8th of December (flights and accommodation are sponsored by the KARDS team). Unfortunately, top lad and GARRODRIVE are blocked these days.

As a result, we had a runner-up tournament between the four champions of round 5 that lost their matches. Two more spots were open on the Finals in Iceland!

This resulted in the following pairing in the runners-up tournament with best-of-five matches:

Drogear vs tedimi
D13 vs Fenrir

With this second chance to reach the Finals, the excitement was palpable!

Drogear scored, as in the round before, two victories! Then, tedimi won his match - a repeat of the previous round where Drogear lost 2-3? No, this time Drogear won the following match to the final result of 3-1.

The match between D13 and Fenrir started with a win for D13. But then Fenrir rushed to the victory with three wins in a row to a final score of 3-1 for Fenrir!

With all matches completed now, we can celebrate the Finalists! Congratulations to the following four KARDS champions:

Gearbot
Drogear
Fenrir
GKZhukov
All four winners will compete in Iceland on December 7-8 for the title of the KARDS World Champion:

We will have a live stream to cover the Championship Finals in Iceland. There will be, of course, commentary and news from the dev team.

Stay tuned for the details of the broadcast and reserve already those dates!


Before we get lost in the celebrations, a quick reminder of the KARDS World Championship structure. The Championship has a total of four stages, each with specific challenges and rewards:

• Stage 1 (completed). Qualification round. The top 64 went directly to the third stage (Tournament). Everyone else went to Stage 2.
  
• Stage 2 (completed). Challenge stage. Here, the bulk of the players from Stage 1 are competing for the top 64 spots to proceed to Stage 3.
  
• Stage 3 (completed). The Championship Tournament with 128 players. The four semi-finalists of that tournament qualify for the Finals.
  
• Stage 4 (upcoming, Dec 7 & 8). The Final of the World Championship. The top four players from Stage 3 will be flown to Iceland to battle for the title of KARDS World Champion 2019!

Don't forget to watch some Tournament matches on KARDS YouTube
and to get inspired by the {LINK REMOVED}Tournament decks of Round 4 + 5.

The thrilling KARDS Championship Tournament goes into its final weekend. It is all or nothing now! After challenging trials and tough qualifications, sixteen champions fight for their right to enter the World Championship Finals in Iceland.

This Saturday and Sunday, Nov 16 and 17 at 19:00 UTC, the best KARDS players will compete in best-of-five series of matches for supremacy.

The winners from Saturday will continue their battle on Sunday, the losers are out. The winners on Sunday, our four best KARDS players, are invited for the Grand World Championship Finals in Iceland (sponsored by 1939 Games) in early December where they will fight for the title of the KARDS World Champion 2019!

Hint: Read the Recap of Tournament Week 1 and the Recap of Tournament Week 2!

Discover winning moves and strong decks, watch the World Championship matches!

The tournament matches of round 4 and 5 will start at 19:00 UTC on Saturday and Sunday.

Ready yourself and have a look at the upcoming matches and the pairings for round 4 (round of 16):


The pairings for the final round 5 are dependent on the results of round 4 and are as follows:


All champions have now submitted their tournament decks. During the tournament weekends, the contestants can use only those decks. Tournament decks cannot be changed by their owners during the weekend.

{LINK REMOVED}Decks of the Champions - Tournament decks week 3

Review those decks and get inspired! Try playing a few rounds with these decks to boost your success and climb the ranks quickly.

If you are missing some cards, simply experiment and test a couple of things. Dig deep into this vast treasure!


What would be a tournament without news and updates!

Follow the World Championship:

• Check the results live in the KARDS client. Simply click the World Championship trophy on the KARDS main UI
  
  
• Watch Tournament matches on KARDS YouTube
  
• Follow #KWC19
  
• Discuss the latest news with the champions on Discord #world-championship
  
• Check out KARDS Twitch streams

Last, but not least, spread the word and be a proud KARDS ambassador!

Last weekend (Nov 9-10), the KARDS World Championship 2019 Tournament was heading full steam into round two and three with tough matches between the champions.

This first official KARDS Championship Tournament is the culmination of a two month long process to find the best players and to determine the four finalists which will be flown to Iceland for the grand finale.

As a single-elimination tournament, every single match counts! We saw intense matches in round two and three of the tournament, both featuring best-of-five series. The field was close together already with only 59 player remaining at start of round 2.

16 champions remain in the World Championship Tournament after this weekend!

Here are the champions that will compete next weekend to reach the finals:

• Orbital_Armada vs Drogear
  
• top lad vs SaunaCat
  
• Maestro vs Gearbot
  
• tedimi vs OnlyInDeath
  
• D13 vs Ahri
  
• GKZhukov vs Hisendam
  
• Fenrir vs Cybernetic
  
• GARRRODRIVE vs JKing 7

Check out the full tournament brackets (courtesy of The Big Bob Adis).

Highly anticipated matches were those with the winners of the previous seasons and the highest ranked players such as:

• Gearbot (Winner Season 7)
  
• Cybernetic (Winner Season 6, Top-5 Season 7)
  
• Drogear (Top-5 Season 7)

There are, of course, many more strong players - we can mention only a few here. Keep in mind, every participant is one of the top players in KARDS!

Above mentioned champions scored all victories, but not without struggle! Drogear, for example had to go over all five matches in the series.

The biggest upsets so far are kov losing 0-3 against JKing7 and tedimi winning 3-1 against Spooz.

The fastest match lasted only 1 minute and 10 seconds. It was fought between Ser Armory and gabo (Gabo won with his tournament deck 1 vs Ser Armory with his tournament deck 2).

The longest match required 17 minutes and 24 seconds. Vimesey and kesvan battled and gave no quarter! In the ned, kesvan won this match with his tournament deck 2 against Vimesey who used his tournament deck 1.

Have a look at the {LINK REMOVED}full list of tournament decks for round 2 and 3.

The longest series of matches was fought by Xopy and top lad: Their three matches lasted a total of 54 minutes and saw top lad as winner! And even though Xopy was a bit disappointed by the outcome (after all, everything was still open after the 2:2), he was good sports and congratulated top lad.

Of course other matches were also intense! Have a look at tournament footage from Cybernetic vs Mantequilla and Cybernetic vs Saltlesf.

Same as with round 1 before, we have also general insight from round 2 and 3. The following graphs are a feast for the analysts amongst us.

The first graph shows the popularity of the nations, how often they are selected as main nation during the tournament and how often they appear in any of the decks played.


Japan was the most popular nation in terms of overall use. Soviet Union was the least popular option as main nation.

The second graph shows the deck combinations played and their win-ratio:


Interesting:

• The most popular deck in the first round was - again - a Britain / Japan deck with an average win-ratio of 55%.
  
• The least popular deck played was Soviet / Britain with a win-ratio of 0%. Same as in round 1.
  
• The most successful deck, even though unpopular, was a Germany / Soviet combination with 68% success.
  
• USA / Germany decks were not played at all.

This were the second and third rounds of the KARDS World Championship 2019 Tournament. The following rounds will take part on November 16-17.

Then, we will see the most intense action as everyone will fight to reach the finals and a sponsored flight to Iceland (plus accommodation). Only four will reach the finals!

Stay up to date and follow KARDS on Twitter and Facebook. Keep an eye on our Twitch channel as well.

Improve your KARDS deck building skills and create unbeatable decks with this basic deck building video tutorials!

In this first series, the KARDS developers explain the basics of deck building and how to improve your decks.

Learn more about important concepts like:

• Deck cost curve
  
• Drawing power
  
• Removal

After completing the introduction video, learn more about the starter deck of each nation, their key cards and how to improve these deck without any costs.

Watch the first video right away!



If you like these tutorial videos, subscribe to the KARDS YouTube channel and turn on the notification.

Let us know how you like these tutorial videos, if you want to see more and what you would like to see next!

After an exciting first weekend, the KARDS World Championship continues this weekend with round 2 and 3 when the 59 remaining champions fight for fame and glory (and survival).

This Saturday and Sunday (Nov 9 - 10), the champions will fight in a best-of-five series of matches. If they win, they proceed to the next round. If they lose, they are out.

The tournament matches of round 2 and 3 will start at 19:00 UTC on Saturday and Sunday.

Have a look at the upcoming matches and the pairings for round 2:


The pairings for round 3 are dependent on the results of Round 2 and are as following:


Similar to round 1, the contestants must submit between one and three decks. During the tournament, the contestants can use only those decks. The deadline for deck submission is end of this Thursday (Nov 7) at 23'59'59 UTC.

Decks are submitted by simply naming the deck EXACTLY like the following terms in English:
Tournament deck 1
Tournament deck 2
Tournament deck 3

After the deadline, those decks will be locked (they cannot be changed) for the weekend starting Friday and ending early Monday. Any contestant without a valid tournament deck available during the weekend will be disqualified.

To increase fairness and prevent unfair underhand tactics (like bribing opponents to reveal decks being used), we will publish all tournament decks before the tournament starts.

Have a look at {LINK REMOVED}decks submitted by the champions for round one. You might be also interested to get a Recap of KARDS World Championship Tournament week 1.

What would be a tournament without news and updates!

Follow the World Championship:

• Check the results live in the KARDS client. Simply click the World Championship trophy on the KARDS main UI
  
  
• Watch Tournament matches on KARDS YouTube
  
• Follow #KWC19
  
• Discuss the latest news with the champions on Discord #world-championship
  
• Check out KARDS Twitch streams

Last, but not least, spread the word and be a proud KARDS ambassador!