We just finished the first ever KARDS season at end of April and what a blast it was! Let’s celebrate the winner, go over some info, and have a look at Season 2.

The winner of Season 1, Number One of the elite Officer Club, is SoraTsukishima! The reward for this amazing feat is an original Kards survival bag with a Kards flask, a real Kards booster card pack, and a special 1939 Games certificate (we keep a twin of that certificate at the 1939 Office on display). We also have some in-game reward.

Congratulations, SoraTsukishima!

We handed extra packs as reward for Season 1. Depending on the amount ranked unlocked, you got various rewards with extra rewards for Field Marshals and members of the Officer Club: Season 1, Gold Cards, and Physical Items … OH MY!.


At the end of the season and with the start of the new season on May 1, the in-game rewards have been directly added to your Kards account. Enjoy!


Now, that we have successfully closed Season 1, it is time to look ahead to Season 2 which started May 1st.

As part of our ongoing improvements, we clarified the UI so that you can easily see what you need to do to get to the next level of rewards at the end of the season.


We have adjusted all ranks to provide new challenges and to justify the good rewards that are waiting for you at the end of the season.

Except for Field Marshal rank, all ranks for all nations were lowered by 1 with start of Season 2. All stars earned in the rank so far were retained (e.g. a German Major with 3 stars became a German Captain with 3 stars).

The Field Marshal rank was lowered by two ranks down to Major 5 stars.

Directly after the end of Season 1 and with the start of Season 2, we have removed everyone from the Officer Club as none matched the prerequisites of being Field Marshal in at least three nations (see above). We already see top players arriving joining the Officer Club for Season 2, are you one of them?


Welcome to Season 2!

KARDS Early Access Patch (Build 0.9.5)

This patch is to prepare the rewards for Season 1 and to be ready for Season 2 starting May 1st.

• Gold versions of existing cards are now available! Gold cards can be received as rewards and in packs. More about Gold cards.
  
• Packs opened until now will be retroactively checked for gold versions, and if applicable, the normal version in players collections will be swapped for the corresponding gold version.
  
• Tweaks to collection and deck builder to support gold cards.
  
• Added backend support for the end of Season 1 and start of Season 2: More about rewards for Season 1.
  
• An Officer Club leaderboard history has been added for previously completed seasons.
  
• After analyzing our data and feedback from the player community, we’ve implemented several changes to our matchmaking system that should pair players more appropriately and thus improve the experience for new players and veterans alike. Note that this may result in slightly longer queue times for some players as a better match is found.
  
• Feedback indicates that showing the national rank titles and icons when playing, is causing confusion instead of being helpful. As the national ranks is basically a part a progression system that doesn’t dictate matchmaking, we have decided to remove the ranks from being displayed in Battle to avoid confusion.

• The Officer Club leaderboard showed a mismatch between top 100 position and points and player information below line. Fixed.
  
• The 85mm D-44 FIELD GUN pinned attacking bombers and artillery units. Fixed.

• We slightly changed the animation for cards being played from the hand.
  
• We changed / swapped a pictures on a few cards.
  
• Preparations to change the main menu background image with the start of Season 2 on May 1st.

Let’s talk about the rewards for KARDS Season #1: Gold Cards, Packs, and physical items!

Read on for the juicy details and reserve your weekend for KARDS!

The first ever Season in Kards ends on Tuesday, April 30th, at 23:59:59 UTC.
Then, you will receive rewards based on the number of ranks you have gained.

The more ranks you have climbed up, the better the rewards

We look at the total number of ranks you have climbed up combined for all nations. The more ranks you have climbed up, the better the rewards - with a special twist for the Officer Club members and the Top-10 players.

For each of the five nations in Kards, you can gain up to six ranks up to a total of 30 ranks. Part of the reward are special Gold cards that we are going to introduce. Before we talk more about Gold cards, first the reward distribution.



For each Field Marshal rank, you get an extra National Pack for that nation!

Members of the elite Officer Club (you need to be Field Marshal in at least 3 nations) will receive a special reward and one extra pack!

Members of the Officer Club will get Gold Cards that are one rarity better

The regular Gold Card reward for members of the Officer Club will be buffed up by one rank. For example, if a member of the Officer Club has received 27 rank promotions, they will get an Elite Gold card instead of a Special Gold card.

The best five players of the first ever Season in Kards will get a special, physical reward! Make sure that you have your emails updated so that we can contact you.

The best players gets a real swag bag of Kards goodies, including a canteen and a pack of physical game cards

The first place will receive a bag of Kards goodies, including a canteen and a pack of promotional physical cards from the game (plus several more cool things). This player also gets an aluminum plaque with the player’s name engraved on it and the season. We will hang a duplicate plaque up in our office on our Wall of Fame, where the winner of every season will get a place.

The second to fifth place will receive the canteen and the pack.

The top ten players will get 5 extra packs.


With the start of Season 2 on May 1, 00:00:01 UTC, we will adjust the ranks.

For each nation, you will drop one rank, retaining any stars you already had at your previous highest rank (e.g. you were a Major with 3 stars for Germany then in the new season you will be a Captain with 3 stars).

The exception here is that for those nations you reached Field Marshal rank you will go to Major at 5 stars.

With the start of Season 2, the Officer Club will be initially empty (no one will be Field Marshal).

We are introducing Gold Cards! Gold cards are gold version of existing cards. Cards of all rarities have Gold versions. Their stats are exactly as their non-gold counterparts, but they are more rare - and can be recycled for resources!

Gold cards are special variants of existing cards and can be recycled.

The resources from recycling Gold cards allow you to create exactly one other card of the same rarity. Breaking down a Gold card is irreversible - so be careful!

You can get Gold cards as Seasonal reward, or (rarely) by opening packs.

When you open a pack, you have a slight chance of getting a Gold card instead of a typical non-Gold card.


Gold Cards are new and can be received when opening a pack (as well as a Seasonal reward).

We are going to retroactively award you Gold cards based on how many packs you have already opened so far.

The more packs you have opened, the higher the chance for Gold cards

The Gold cards you might receive from this retroactive award will be added to your collection by converting existing cards in your collection.
Keep an eye on your collection of cards with the update at the end of April.

Let us know what you think in the comments below!

We are full steam ahead with Early Access and would like to share what we have been working on since our last update. We also want to thank you for your continued great feedback which helps to improve and polish Kards - thank you!

Let’s have a look at the immediate future and the next steps. As usual, we categorize them into major and minor points.

• End of Season 1 and rewards.
  Seasons in Kards go for a full month, and our first Season will end on April 30. Since this is our first season, we are working hard to ensure that you have a great experience collecting your well-deserved rewards and that the system will flawlessly start Season 2 on May 1. Keep an eye on the news for more info about the rewards for Season 1.
  
  
• Player strength and ranks.
  We continue our work on the matchmaking system and its visualization. We want to avoid confusion and address concerns when players of different ranks are matched against each other due to their similar strength: Strength is based on an ELO rating system, Ranks are based on winning games per nation. Ranks cannot be lost during a season. However, we only show you the Rank (unless you are in the Officer Club), but the match-making is based on ELO. This can lead to the perception of an unfair matchmaking, for example when Privates are matched against Generals (which can happen if both players have similar strength). We would like to get your feedback!

• Continued bug fixing.
  We have received bug reports (additional to our internal tracking) ranging from small spelling mistakes to issues with game play itself. Thank you for all the reports, please continue that good effort!
  
  
• Ramping up the Support Help Center.
  We are adding game info and self-help articles to the Support Center. We also want to have a look at the Guides on Steam and start populating it, but maybe you would like to join that effort too?

That’s it for now. Keep an eye on the news and join the amazing community and Kards developers on Discord!

KARDS Early Access Patch (Build 0.9.4)

This patch is to address several issues we've seen in the first week of Early Access, among some minor balance changes.

• Matches would suddenly end at the very start (rare). Fixed.
  
• The end-of-match screen displays a white box (rare). Fixed.
  
• Popups in the tutorial were duplicated (rare). Fixed.
  
• Blockade would not change Kredits of cards (rare). Fixed

• Match-making has been improved to match players of similar strength more preferably.
  
• Starting decks have been slightly tweaked.

• Tweaks to the destruction timing.
  
• Improved the frontline timing.

With our first week of Kards Early Access almost down the road, we thought we would share more of our thoughts we have gathered over the week. We also want to thank you for your phenomenal welcome, amazing feedback, support and great ideas we have received - thank you!

Let’s have a look at the road map and our plans, which are strongly influenced by your feedback. We structure them into major and minor points.

• The match-making system allowed matches between players of considerably different strength. We have updated the match-making system so that the difference in strength between players is now smaller. Additionally, new players are now within their own band for the first several matches.
  
  
• Player strength and ranks. The current rank system and its visualization in battle isn’t an accurate measure of player strength. That has caused some confusion and raised concerns about unfair matches (e.g. Private winning against General, while that private might be actually Field Marshal in two other nations) and severe unbalance.We are looking into some good ways of addressing this issue.

• We want to improve card descriptions and review popups on cards as they have been reported to be confusing in some cases.
  
• The game can be too hard in the beginning (first AI matches) and we are doing some adjustments to the AI.
  
• The deck building process is not as intuitive as it should be and lacks some info.

• We see a lot of good feedback and great ideas from the community! This is amazing and we are super excited to see this great interaction. All your feedback is being discussed and taken into consideration during our daily team discussions and game design planning.

Keep an eye on the patch notes and further news! If you want to know more about Kards and participate in lively discussions about the game, or provide us with direct feedback then please also join our amazing community and the Kards developers on Discord!

Please let us know if we have missed anything - there is lots more going on behind the scenes. Again, thank you all so much for the amazing first week.

KARDS is a WWII-themed CCG with beautiful, period-appropriate art. Play online against other generals around the world or match your skills against a cunning AI.

The Early Access version of KARDS enhances the game with an exciting progression system, introduction of monthly Seasons, revamped achievements with free rewards, the Officer Club for elite generals, new cards, additional graphics and effects, and general improvements!

KARDS as Early Access is designed both for casual players and enthusiasts to enjoy a high-quality WWII-themed CCG with exciting new game mechanics.

Join now and test your skills on the battlefield!