Hello! I don't often post on Mondays, as I do not have a particular subject to write about in my schedule and in general I tend to spend my Mondays away from my laptop for the most part. This time, however, I did get a pretty interesting thing to write about - and it might be a permanent addition to my writing!

That addition might be Skyweaver. It is a TCG with Play to Earn elements included, which I had tried out a while ago, but only now decided to play a little bit more. I really enjoyed it the past week especially, and it is likely that every Monday, I will summarize my week in Skyweaver. The reason for that is that every week there is a snapshot of ranked ladder, which results in rewards for the top 250 players.

In this post, however, I will mainly talk about what Skyweaver is and my first impressions about the game. I will also summarize my experiences this week and talk a little about goals for next week, as I am really excited to play more of the game whenever I can!

What is Skyweaver?!

Skyweaver is a fairly new TCG that is still not fully released. While it has been in Alpha for a long while, it has only entered an Open Beta stage this year. The game flow is fairly similar to that of Hearthstone and Shadowverse, where players each take uninterrupted turns, with their max mana increasing by 1 every turn they take.

Prisms

Just like most TCGs, there are different colours/regions/classes in the game, which in the case of Skyweaver are called Prisms. There are a total of 5 Prisms and your deck can either be mono-Prism or a combination of any two of them. This also influences deck size, as mono-Prism decks only get to run 25 cards, while dual have access to 30. The Prisms are:

• Strength
• Agility
• Wisdom
• Heart
• Intellect

Each of the Prisms has access to different cards and cards themselves have tons of different stats that identify their strength. Mana cost, attack and health are the obvious ones, but there are also traits, as well as most cards have their own abilities. On top of that, each card is of a certain element, of which there are 8 - Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Light, Dark, Mind and Metal. These often synergize with each other or influence the power of certain cards.

Gameplay and Game Modes

The gameplay itself has you fight your opponent - each of you is represented by a hero, who is able to attack, just like all other cards. Additionally, your hero, as well as cards that you play can have spells and enchantments attached to them - they act exactly the same as cards you'd play from hand, except they disappear if the unit that has them attached is destroyed. This spells and enchantment system is one of my favourite things about Skyweaver, as it can really change how card advantage is perceived and gives you an additional factor to consider while planning out future turns.

You can play two different game modes within Skyweaver - Ranked and Conquest. Ranked ladder is pretty standard, where you compete to be the top of a leaderboard in each season, by climbing through ranks. Conquest is a little more exciting as it is a Single Elimination mini-tournament in which you play up to 3 games. Each win gets you more rewards. That said, in order to enter Conquest, you have to spend a Conquest Ticket, which costs either 1 Silver card or 1.50 USDC.

Within both modes, you can play either Constructed, or Discovery. The former lets you build your own deck, while the latter provides you with a randomized set of cards from within the Prism(s) that you have chosen to play.

P2E

But Mezume, you said it's a play to earn game - so how do you earn?! Well, there are cosmetic effects on cards (currently it's Silver and Gold borders) and those Silver and Gold cards can only be obtained in two ways.

• For Silvers, you get them either by winning games in Conquest or placing in the top 250 of the leaderboard in either Discovery or Constructed mode (weekly)
• For Golds, you can only get them by getting 3/3 wins in Conquest. You can do it both by playing Constructed and Discovery.

These cards have a value given to them by free market, so there is no guarantee that you will get anything at all for your troubles, but Silvers can be traded in for a conquest ticket - so they generally will always be worth at least 1.50 USDC. Golds are much rarer, as they can ONLY be gained through conquest and once they are minted, there will never be more again - so if the game stays popular overtime, these will certainly be more and more valuable. Currently, the absolute cheapest golds are going at around 13USDC, while the most expensive one has a bid of over 260USDC.

Mootichi - the most expensive Gold currently.

First Week of Real Play

While I have tried Skyweaver before, I have never really played more than 10-15 games in a month. This season though, I decided it would be different and picked up Discovery to get as many cards as possible for my Constructed decks, while also trying to get a silver card to be able to play Conquest.

In the season, I wanted to stick to just one or two Prisms in order to learn the game and what cards are there, but without burdening myself to having to change playstyles too much - that will be for later. We are already two weeks into the season, but I only really played this week and well.. I think it went pretty well!

The Prisms that I have tried was Heart+Intellect (Sitti), as well as Wisdom (Lotus). I started with mostly Sitti, but then switched to solely Wisdom towards the end of my play. I have to say that I love the Wisdom playstyle, with its slow-paced and controlled gameplan that allows to make a lot of decisions. I enjoy playing with a large amount of cards in hand and the amount of draw in Wisdom allows for exactly that.

Heart + Intellect to me felt slightly lackluster, but I also believe it is likely because I am the one playing it - and I'm just really new to the game and misplay pretty much every other turn. That said, I just never felt like my wins were decisive, which was something that was pretty normal while playing Wisdom.

Season/Week Stats

As all games that I played this season were also this week, the stats posted below are exactly the same as my weekly stats.

The 70% winrate feels good to have being such a new player, but I am also aware that the best players do not really care about the leaderboard that much - instead, they spend their days in Conquest. I played 73 games, which is quite a lot and it also means that my total score for the week was 52-21. I am unlikely to improve that much next week, as I will not get the fairly free wins against players in Apprentice and Scholar, but I hope to still be in the positive!

I did not play any Conquest games, as I am trying to be fully free-to-play, thus I cannot pay for the ticket in USDC. I have yet to decide whether I will turn in my Silver card for a Conquest Ticket. The reward I received for this season was Glacia - I have no idea whether it is a good card as I know exactly nada about Constructed.

Goals Looking Forward

I want to keep this one short, as the post is already turning into a bit longer one than I was aiming. I am looking forward to playing more Skyweaver, as it is simply an amazing game - so the main goal will be just have fun whenever I have free time and can do this!

As for more competitive goals, here are some bullet points:

• Reach top 50 Grandweaver in one of the upcoming weeks, in order to get more Silver cards, and simply feel the competitive rush of climbing the ranks!
• Play some Conquest in the last week of the season - I like my Silver card, so I wouldn't want to waste it, lowroll a game and be done. Instead, I'd like to first amass at least 2-3 cards I can enter with.
• In the longer term (next season), try to reach rank 1 in Discovery.
• Focus on broadening my collection, in order to be able to play Constructed.
• Branch out into other Prisms to get more practice for the future.

I am going to work hard to achieve this, although I know some of them can be challenging! Cannot wait to start getting some great gold cards!

Closing Words

Skyweaver is a great game and instantly jumps up to my top 3 TCGs I have played! I love the design which allows anyone to jump in and play - as the basics are very simple. Once you dive in, though, there is a lot to uncover and the game is actually quite complex! This makes it enjoyable competitively - I feel like I play awfully most of the time and still made it to Master and even briefly Grandweaver. This just shows that it is just so difficult to play it perfectly!

All images, including the thumbnail, are screenshots from Skyweaver.