KARDS - The WW2 Card Game - Thomas


Advance your KARDS collection this weekend and get new exclusive cards all for free - here is how.

We offer you something special this weekend:
Time-exclusive, free bonus cards for your first win of the day in a PVP match on each of the next five days!

Let’s go briefly about the why and then the juicy details about the how. Read on!

As we are heading towards KARDS release later this year, we are curious to see what you like and if there are things that you are especially fond of. We hope for your feedback as we go along - all the while you will get some free cards out of it. Fair deal?

This is what you can expect this weekend.

Time-exclusive cards
The cards you can get this weekend are time exclusive for one month. This means, that once this special weekend is over, no one will be able to get these cards for one month.

After that, these cards will become generally available via card packs, as rewards, in draft, and you will be able to craft them. Until then, however, they are exclusive to only those who got them this weekend!

Cards for 5 Nations
The new cards, one of each nation, are of limited rarity. The card cost ranges from 2 to 7 and their strength and abilities are aligned with their nation.

As we don’t want to spoil the surprise of these cards, we have decided to not go over the details here. Be assured though that these new cards are nice and competitive (no cheap or overpowered crap, KARDS is here to stay long term) and that the cards enrich the base set of each nation according to their main theme.


To the cards ... get them!
When you score your First Win of the Day, you get as a bonus a full set of these time-limited cards. As those cards are of limited rarity, you will get 3 (of the same) card in total as a bonus.

Each day, you can get a full set for one of the nations.

The event starts on Thursday, August 15, and ends on Monday, August 19.

You achieve a First Win of the Day only if you battle other players via the regular “Battle” functionality. AI matches, Draft matches, Challenges do not count towards First Win of the Day.

At the end of the bonus weekend, if you have managed to score at least one win in a PVP match each day, you will have received 15 exclusive cards of limited rarity.

Simply log into KARDS and score at least one win in a PVP match a day, that’s it!


Summary
To summarize this event:
  • Five new cards of limited rarity, one of each nation
  • Each First Win of the Day gets you a set of limited cards for one of the nations
  • The cards are time-exclusive for one month and cannot get gained any other way between the end of the bonus event and end of the exclusivity period
  • The event starts on Thursday, August 15, at 00:00:01 UTC
  • The event ends on Monday, August 19, at 23:59:59 UTC

Please let us know what you think! Remember, we are here for you and to make KARDS a fun game for you. Your feedback is very valuable!

Happy KARDS hunting!
KARDS - The WW2 Card Game - Thomas

This patch is all about bug fixing and card balances!


Card changes
For more in-depth details of the recent card changes, please read the latest update August Card Balance Update.
  • DESERT RATS: Damage dealt has been reduced from 2 to 1.
  • FROM THE PEOPLE: Cost has been increased from 2 to 3.
  • SUDDEN STRIKE: Threshold for cards that can be destroyed by this card has been lowered from 3 Kredit costs to 2 Kredit costs.
  • TACTICAL STRIKE: Playing this card doesn’t allow you to draw another card any longer.
  • SKY BARONS: Playing this card now also allows you to draw a card.
  • COMBINED ARMS: The bonus has been clarified. Instead of getting +1/+1 or +3/+3 (depending if you control infantry or/and air units), you get now +1/+1 for each type of non-tank unit you control.
  • I-15 CHAIKA: Defense has been reduced from 3 to 2.
  • TYPE 95 Ha-Go: The attack bonus against infantry has been replaced by 1 damage to the HQ when playing an order (this damage goes to the HQ of the player who issues the order).
  • P-40 KITTYHAWK: Defense has been reduced from 4 to 3.

Bug fixes
  • The 37 mm ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUN no longer increases the operation costs of spawned friendly units.
  • When units attack, you need to pay according Kredit costs even when the attacking unit is destroyed by AIR DEFENSE.
  • The destruction effect of cards is no longer triggered when they are being sent back to hand by SENDAI REGIMENT.
  • The kredit cost matches the one shown on the popup of the card.
  • A reduction in damage to the HQ no longer results in healing it.
  • Countermeasure count now as "played from hand" in achievements when they get triggered instead of when they get activated / de-activated.
  • Out-of-turn playing has been improved. Out-of-turn playing sometimes caused units to be invisible and other defects. We are still closely watching this issue, bug reports are highly welcome, as always!
  • The position of Mulligan message has been changed so that they are no longer blocking the text on your cards.
  • We have improved the client logging to allow us a better bug fixing.
  • Card texts have been improved with typo and grammar fixes.

Graphic and Cosmetics
  • The healing animation of the 42ND RIFLES no longer appears when the unit is being destroyed.
  • The position of Order previews have been changes so that they don't overlap each other.
  • A visual defect with LAST PUSH has been fixed.
  • Time-exclusive, free promo cards have been added. More info about this in an upcoming blog shortly.

As always, please let us know what you think about this update and please report bugs either on Discord or directly via a bug report ticket.
KARDS - The WW2 Card Game - Thomas

Dear KARDS enthusiasts,

We here at 1939 Games hope that you are having a great summer! Our team is (mostly) back from summer vacations, full of energy and ideas, and ready to roll. Lot of interesting things are on the horizon for KARDS, even in the next few days, so keep your eyes peeled!

For now, however, we want to go over some changes to a few cards scheduled to go out in a patch later this week.

Balance update: Removal cards
We are going to update some of the more popular removal cards and here is why.

First of all, this is not a spur of the moment decision - we've been contemplating this change for a while now.

There are several reasons for nerfing some of the more popular removal cards in the game.
  • Overuse. Removal cards are ubiquitous in almost all decks and the best ones, like From the People and The Desert Rats are an auto-include. While removal orders are still a necessary part of the game, the power level on some of them is simply too high right now.
  • Stalled games. The high popularity of removal cards results in many of the best decks being so order heavy that they have few or no units, especially at low cost, relying completely on orders to keep fast decks at bay until their few, expensive units come later to take the game over. This can lead to very boring "draw-go" style duels where players, with hands full of removal orders, can't or won't play units until very late in the game and often the first one to blink loses.
  • Reduced strategical options. The strength of removal also keeps most aggressive decks too heavily in check, apart from decks that don't care about cheap spot removal, like Japanese burn decks or Soviet token spam decks. So we are nerfing many of the most-used removal cards in the game (including the 3 most popular ones - From the People, Sudden Strike and Tactical Strike).

Not all removal cards are being changed this time around, we want to see the effect of the changes in this round before making a decision on further changes.

Change to nine cards
Let's dive right into it and see what cards we are changing.


It almost feels like a sacrilege to change The Desert Rats, the card has stayed the same for so long. But its ability to cheaply kill small units or buy you a turn with the pinning is just too efficient. Same as with the Naval Power change awhile back, we want British removal to be more reliant on delaying tactics through pinning. While undoubtedly weaker now, it can still deal with popular cards like the 15th Cavalry Regiment and Katyusha.



The glory days of From the People, when it dealt 3 damage AND pinned for just 2 kredits are now long gone. Its power is such that any deck with the Soviets is effectively at 36 card size, as 4 copies of From the People were an auto-include. Increasing the cost to 3 does weaken the card quite a bit - it is not as reliable as early removal against aggressive decks, nor as cost efficient when dealing with higher cost units. With From the People weaker, keeping Bloody Sickle as it is made more sense so that the Soviet standard rarity removal is not too heavily gimped.



The power of Sudden Strike was not just that it was a cheap removal against aggressive decks, but even more that it gave you a tempo boost by allowing you to spend 2 kredits to deal with something the enemy spent 3 kredits to play. Sudden Strike can still cleanly deal with early aggressors, but it no longer gives the tempo advantage and many important units are now out of reach, such as 42nd Rifles and 84th Infantry Regiment to name a couple.



Tactical Strike was not used much until we added a draw card clause to it, then it became on of the most played cards in the game, highlighting the power of cantrips (drawing a card as an extra effect). We're reverting this change now, but because we want to still highlight the cantrip theme of Germany, we are adding that draw clause to another card, see below.



Sky Barons on the other hand does not see much play, as it is much narrower than the similarly costed Tactical Strike. It will be interesting to see how things will stand a few weeks from now. We feel this change is like hitting two birds with one stone, because one of our fears with nerfing removal is that it strengthens air units, so beefing a card specifically aimed at those units seems prudent.


That's it for the removal cards, there are a few other changes to mention:



The current version of Combined Arms does not showcase the combined arms theme the way we want for Germany and now that we have reduced the number of unit types it is much simpler to just give a bonus per unit type. This reads much cleaner and allows for more interesting scaling and deck construction than before. Expect more of the same in the future.



The Chaika is a mainstay of the Soviet self-sacrifice deck. While that deck as a whole is not an issue, the Chaika is a bit too efficient at the frontend against aggressive decks.



The reason for this change is two-fold. The first one is that the current Type 95 is simply very underwhelming and rarely used beyond just the starter decks. Secondly, and more importantly, the new ability is aimed at further curbing the order-centric metagame we're seeing right now. While a single card will of course only go so far, it adds to the arsenal of options available when adjusting decks for an order heavy environment.



Similar to the change above for the Chaika, the change to the Kittyhawk continues in making sure that long-range units do not dominate the game too much. The Kittyhawk is super efficient in what it does and even at the reduced stats it stills offers excellent value for its cost.


Game update this week
That's it for now, as you can see, some big changes coming in the next
patch.

Our hope is they contribute to an improved and more diverse metagame, one more focused on units. The upcoming patch will also include a fair number of bug fixes.

We will publish the full patch notes together with the patch later this week.

KARDS - The WW2 Card Game - Thomas

Season 5 has started on August 1, 00:00:01 UTC, and with that we now know the winners of Season 4!


The Winner
Congratulation to ROY1380 for scoring the first place of Season 4!
Runner-ups are Fendor, marduk, Cybernetic, and moyang!

Rewards
Besides the top players (who will receive physical rewards), everyone else is a winner too!
All the rewards for Season 4 have been automatically delivered to your account. Simply log into KARDS and collect the juicy prizes!

As explained in detail here, the seasonal rewards increase with every 5 ranks. You have received a Gold card (the more ranks, the better the rarity) and 1-2 card packs.
  • Then, for each Field Marshall you got a National Pack.
  • Reaching the Officer Club gave additional rewards.
  • The Top-5 players have received a free ticket to the KARDS Gamescom player gathering

Rank reset
With the new season, we also have adjusted your ranks to keep everything fresh and challenging:
  • For each nation, you will drop one rank.
  • You will retain 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).
  • Your Field Marshal ranks will get adjusted to Major at 4 stars.
We believe that this is a good balance between preserving your progress and keep the reward scheme fair towards new players.

See you in Season 5!!
KARDS - The WW2 Card Game - Thomas


The race for the top place in KARDS Season 4 is in full swing! Only a few days left until end of the Season on July 31st - everything is possible.

As a reminder, the top five positions of the Officer Club will get shiny physical rewards, for example:
  • Physical KARDS booster card packs
  • Unique KARDS flasks
  • Airborne Cricket Clicker
  • Ration booklet

The winner of the season gets an individual, special plaque (brushed metal) with its twin being on display at the KARDS office.

Bonus for Season 4
For Season 4, ending on July 31 at 23:59:59 GMT, we have a bonus reward for the top-5 positions of the Officer Club:

Seasonal rewards
The rewards for Season 4 will be deployed to your account on August 1st. The rewards are based on the total amount of ranks your have gained - the more ranks you have, the better! If you have reached the Officer Club (Field Marshal in at least three nations), you get some more and better rewards!

Regular rank reset
With the end of the season, we are resetting the ranks as usual. One rank down for each nation - except that Field Marshals will drop down to Major 4 Star.


Good luck with the race on the final days and have fun!
KARDS - The WW2 Card Game - Thomas


Exciting news! The first-ever KARDS player gathering is going to happen during Gamescom 2019 in Cologne, Germany, and everyone is invited to join! The whole KARDS development team will there as well.

Here are some of the highlights and things you can expect
  • Live battle-the-devs fun
  • Unique KARDS T-Shirt
  • Physical KARDS collector cards
  • Open bar with free drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages)

We are looking forward to seeing you at the event and to have a ton of fun.

Get your reservation on Eventbrite now!

KARDS - The WW2 Card Game - Thomas


We are excited to share some of our plans for KARDS and to give you an idea about what's coming your way: Enter the LIVING ROADMAP!

This Living Roadmap is in its first version very high level. As development proceeds, we will update the roadmap as often as we can and make it more granular, refine the exact dates for feature deployments, etc.

As this roadmap is a living document, we will regularly update it, so keep an eye on this news section!

Please also keep in mind that everything on the roadmap might (and probably will) change, but we will let you know if/when it does!
KARDS - The WW2 Card Game - Thomas


This patch is all about the long-awaited new Draft mode.

New Features
  • A new game mode is now available: Draft

    • A Draft is a set of up to nine matches against other players. You can play these matches at any time.
    • During a Draft, you play with a deck built by you from random cards.
    • You build a deck over several rounds after choosing your main and ally nation. Each round, you pick one out of three card stacks presented to. You continue picking cards until your deck of regular 40 cards is completed.
    • The Draft ends when you have either won 7 matches or lost 3 matches.
    • Once the Draft ends, you collect your rewards. Draft rewards become increasingly better with more matches won during the Draft.
    • One pack of cards is guaranteed as your reward (even with 0 wins).
    • Admission to the Draft costs either 15 gold or USD 1.95.

  • Read more about the Draft mode in the full dev blog on Discord or a high level overview on Steam.

  • The deck builder has been improved and updated to match the look and feel of the Draft deck builder.

Audio and Graphic
  • Some audio effects have been updated.
  • The bomber attack animation shows the bomber flying a little lower now.

Bug fixes
  • When a card was discarded due to hand being full, their unit effects for leaving the battlefield are not triggered. Fixed.
  • The showcase card has gigantic dimensions when hovering over a card being played from hand while another was exploding/playing some animation. Fixed
  • Clicking on a board card doesn’t raise the card. Fixed.
  • Completed and claimed Achievements keep showing up on the end-of-match window. Fixed.
  • The AI using “Jade Unit” boosts enemy units in rare cases. Fixed.
  • The AI can place more than four units in the support line in rare cases. Fixed.
KARDS - The WW2 Card Game - Thomas

A new play mode is coming to KARDS: We publish the long-awaited Draft mode on 4th of July!

Without further ado, let's get right into the exciting details.


Draft Basics

  • In draft, you construct a new deck from scratch by picking cards from a limited number of choices until you have a full 40 card deck.

  • You won't pick cards from your collection, and the cards picked are not added to your collection. Instead, you pick from a certain set of cards.

  • Once you have a draft deck ready, you can play against other players, each player using their own draft deck.

  • The draft ends either when you lose your third game or when you have won 7 times. Once the draft is completed, you'll receive rewards based on how well you did in the draft.

Draft games do not affect your rank, but do count for achievements and daily missions. Your hidden matchmaking value is not used for draft games, but you are more likely to be matched against a player with similar score as you in the draft.

Draft Rewards
  • You will always get 1 pack as a reward for the draft, regardless of number of wins (even 0 wins).
  • Additionally, you will always get a bonus reward. The bonus can be anything from gold, resources, a card (can be golden) or even an extra pack. The bonus reward is randomly chosen, but the more wins you have, the better the bonus reward will be.
  • Starting with 2 wins, you'll also get a fixed amount of gold. With 6 wins you are guaranteed to get enough gold to be able to pay for another draft immediately. With 7 wins you get two bonus rewards.

Enter At Your Own Peril
Because you are guaranteed at least one pack and the bonus rewards, entering Draft cannot be free.

  • To enter a draft you can spend gold, money or a draft ticket. A draft costs 15 gold to enter, or $1.95.

Celebrate with us - Free draft tickets for everyone!

All players that have been created before server-downtime on July 4th will receive 2 free draft tickets. The tickets will be ready in your accounts when the servers are back online.



You are most welcome to get a taste of draft with these free tickets!


Drafting: You’re in the Army Now!
Once you have entered a draft, the first thing that you will a tutorial window (one-time display only to provide a quick overview).

  • The first choice you’ll have in Draft is selecting your main nation. After picking a few cards for your main nation you get a choice to pick an ally.
  • After choosing your main nation, you start picking your cards. Each card pick has three slots of cards. For each slot a random card is chosen. This can be any card from the main and ally nation, of any rarity, though each pick has similar rarity ranges for each slot.
  • There is also a chance that more than one copy is offered, up to 4 copies for a Standard card. This means that drafting can be as many as 40 clicks, but usually is less.
  • As you make your picks, cards that you select are added to a deck visible at the bottom of the screen.
  • You draft at your own leisure - there is no time pressure, you can go back in the middle of drafting a deck and even close the client and then continue where you left when you next enter the draft.
  • Once you have your deck ready, you enter a draft battle in the draft menu itself.

You'll face interesting choices when picking cards:

Is it better to pick 3 solid standard cards, or a single decent limited card?
Or, you get the option to take 3 Eagle Claws. You want to run Eagle Claws, but 3 copies? Do you skip it now and hope it shows up again later, in lesser numbers? It can be a tough choice!

You can only have a single draft active at a time, so you will use the deck you drafted until you have won 7 games, lost 3 games or decide to retire from the draft. If you do retire, you will get the rewards based on the number of wins accumulated so far.



That's it in a nutshell. Let us know what you think!

See you on the draft battlefield on Thursday!
KARDS - The WW2 Card Game - Thomas


This patch is all about bug fixing and card balances!

Card changes
For more in-depth details of the recent card changes, please read the latest dev blog Mind the Balance: Updates on twelve card.
  • OVERWHELMING FORCE: Cost has been changed from 1 to 0.
  • FOR FREEDOM: Cost has been lowered from 3 to 2.
  • B-26 MARAUDER: When attacking enemy HQ, enemy units are +2 more expensive to operate instead of +1.
  • HUDSON Mk III: Operation costs have been lowered from 3 to 2.
  • 10.5 cm leFH: The on-deployment damage dealt to the enemy HQ has been lowered from 3 to 2.
  • BLACKOUT: Reduction to pin only a targeted air unit (enemy needs to have an air unit on the board) from pinning all air units.
  • 33rd RECON REGIMENT: Defense has been lowered to 2 (from 3).
  • AICHI D3A-2: Defense has been lowered to 2 (from 3).
  • B5N KATE: Defense has been lowered to 2 (from 3).
  • 88 mm FLAK: Defense has been increased from 3 to 4.
  • B-17 FLYING FORTRESS: Attack and Defense have been lowered to 5 each (from 6)
  • PANZER 35(t): Operation costs is set now on deployment to -1 if you control an infantry unit (was 0 op cost any time as long as you control an infantry unit).

Bug Fixes
  • If 8th CAVALRY REGIMENT was added (for example by URAL FACTORIES, RED BANNER, or SEABORNE INVASION), your HQ was not immune on your turn. Fixed.
  • 10th ENGINEERS BATTALION was sometimes getting its bonus multiple times (for example if it was added with SEABORNE INVASION and another card was played from hand in the same turn). Fixed.
  • PANZER IV F2 removed your own HQ under certain conditions. Fixed.
  • In some rare cases the m36 JACKSON got stuck on the screen when discarded. Fixed.
  • Hovering over the same card as the enemy at the same time did not show the "pop-up" version of the card. Fixed.
  • You could "re-grab" a recently played order when it was being played and drag it around the screen. Fixed.
  • Clicking on a unit, releasing it and clicking quickly on another unit in the same front with minimal delay would not create the target arrow. Fixed.
  • Deck builder
    • Clicking the next button in collection while card info was open (even though the button was invisible) made you change pages and get stuck in card info view. Fixed
    • When adding a standard card to your deck and when you had exactly two of those cards already in your library, the counter beneath the library card was incorrect. Fixed.
    • After finishing editing a deck, mouse scroll in the deck editor results in graphic glitches. Fixed.
  • AI was not paying Kredits when playing CLOSE AIR SUPPORT. Fixed.
  • The AI would play M36 JACKSON if it was discarded by DIVINE WIND. Fixed.
  • When the AI bounced 85 PIONEER COMPANY then it did not change the cost of orders back. Fixed.
  • The AI did get only 1 Kredit when using WAR BONDS. Fixed
  • Several typos on various cards have been fixed.

Graphic and Cosmetics
  • The following cards received a graphical overhaul
    • 45 mm ANTI-TANK GUN
    • ENIGMA
    • KUMAMOTO REGIMENT
  • The British battlefield decoration "Sten Gun" has been updated.
...