If ya like the shirt and sweatshirt I’m wearing, you get 10% off site-wide at: intotheam.com/Shelfside Written review for Solforge Fusion: www.shelfside.co/reviews-2023/solforge-review
It's worth noting there's plans for an official mobile app, which would allow one to play their scanned decks online. Also, the flavour-text on cards form a haiku across their levels.
I'm always just shocked whenever I look at Shelfside's sub count and see such low numbers despite their super informative and high quality videos. You guys are hilarious and great at what you do!
I love FaB, but it's not good for kitchen table casual play imo. Blitz decks become very flow chart and not a lot of casual players want to construct a deck. Ugh
About no rulebook, I've heard that companies are doing more of this because they want to make it a "living" rulebook, so they can fix errata or change things after getting feedback from the community. It's not a bad concept, but they really dropped the ball on not at least including a QR code or making is easy to find the rules.
Really solid and fair review!!! Can you do a Summoner wars 2nd edition review? I think you guys would love the game and i would love to hear your thoughts on the game
Battle spirit saga might be the game you are looking for, as a replacement to yughio and an alternative the mtg. Reasons why you might like it below: - One of the most popular card games in Japan for 14 years. -Designed by the lead designer of 20+ magic the gathering sets. Who's intentions when designing it were to build upon the lessons learnt from mtg. - Has an interesting core resource system that is less random and luck dependant than the land draw in mtg. - Rich decision space turn to turn, game has quite a high skill ceiling. - Lots of deck building options, with each of the colours playing quite differently... -Some fantastic japanese artwork. -Cheaper than a lot of other tcgs on the market to build a competitive deck. -Organized tournament support from Bandai, with large cash prizes right out of the gate, if you want to play at competitive level. Game releases in April of this year, I'd say pick up a couple of the starter decks that are very affordable and at least give it a try. :) Flesh and blood is another good one, but unfortunately to optimize the decks in that game, it can get expensive to where most people won't be able to afford it. Still a mechanically well designed game though, even without top tier cards/decks at your disposal it's worth checking out. If you are a lover of 1 v 1 card games, there Is quite a few good ones out there right now worth exploring.
Wow that is awesome. Thanks for sharing! HAve some friends that like FaB and I have yet to try it. I'll have to take a look at battle spirit saga too. -Ashton
This looks very cool, I like those every deck is unique games of him. Keyforge is still my #1 card game at the moment I think. It's just so cool to explore the decks
For attack and health, we use MTG spindown counters and just cover the stats, so it just represents the current value. For life total, we use our preferred mtg lifecounter app or a 99 health life counter. For forgeborn ability, we just rotate the forgeborn. Regarding the artwork being carried over, the game was designed where there is over 20,000 unique cards in the base set alone. Each art represents the base card that has potential modifiers. Regarding deckbuilding, Richard Garfield hates trading card games, which is why he made a game like this where you only pick 2 half decks and between two forgeborns. Also, they recently launched their steam digital game, which is pretty great and uses your registered decks.
Great review! You hit all the issues I had with the game, especially regarding the fiddliness, weak production, and lack of evolving art on most cards. I'd love to know your thoughts on Shards of Infinity, which is a dueling deck building game with a somewhat similar card leveling mechanic.
Aweseome review :) I did some of the art for the game (Steel Rosetta, Hematophagic Stitcher, the Solforge, etc) but it's funny because I'm privy only to their production names and don't know what they're actually named until the game gets released, didn't know the Stitcher was called that until I saw your video; in production it was just called Nekrium Scientist. I remember playing the digital version of this and there were some real, real swingy cards like that 30/30 hexproof tree. I'm guessing they kept it in for spice and excitement, but as someone who's played MtG a lot I agree with you that it feels *too* good and sometimes just a bit unbalanced to stop.
you don't discard your hand at the end of every turn in Keyforge. Give it another try after all these years with proper rules, you might be surprised ;).
Sweet, hope it goes well! Apologizes on not getting to this sooner- you can get booster boxes if you don't want to deal with all of those playmat and component pieces. Cheers! -Ashton
Hey have you played another deck building game known as Siege Storm Siege mode? Wonder what are your thoughts if you have played it compared to Solforge :)
I was thinking about getting it on release, but then the time length turned me off, and nothing about the game otherwise really hooked me from watching gameplay. Maybe one day I can give it a go -Ashton
Oh, yet another comment. Do you think you'll give Mage Noir a go and maybe review it? I think it's entering retail about now, since those of us that backed it on KS got it a few weeks back
I should point, coming from the old steam game, there are control decks in Solforge (often centered around Necro - the purple faction as I may not recall their faction name correctly). I definitely recall having a deck that basically locked my opponent down with Alloyin Necro. I was extremely wary about buying this game despite spending a fair amount in the steam game because of how they handled the original steam game. This just looks like very sloppy publishing which was sadly expected but also a shame for how good the mechanics are imo once players really dove in. As an app, it was also very easy to learn, lots of deck customization abilities (lots of great options for meta decks), and there are many ways to counter play. (also I thought there was ways to play fast actions such as buffs in the game but it's been so long that I don't recall anymore). I don't think all of it translates well to a physical card game and the whole algo generated decks is a gimmick it DEFINITELY didn't need when the best part of the game was constructed. Finally, as a nitpick, your point about Chrogias being OP is unfounded ;). He really only shows up in Alloyin/natura fast lvl decks as most games are decided heavily with stage 2 cards at the more experienced level.
Hey thanks for sharing this! I would like to see more control in this game for sure. I want deckbuilding in Solforge but would be ok without it currently. Will see where they go! I'm not sure what you mean bean Chrogias being in Alloyin/natura decks haha, but man he is freaking insane in physical solforge. -Ashton
In all seriousness, would be interested to hear how Solforge lands with your MTG or Netrunner friends. I've been having a blast with Ashes Reborn (solid precons, beautiful art, and open deck-building at it's finest IMO) after being a kitchen-table Netrunner fiend for years (which is not as easy to introduce to new players, the meta feels overly defined, and there are some real hit and miss artwork throughout - especially with the NISEI/Null Signal decks). Love these card game reviews, especially from someone who's been down the rabbit hole with one!
@@whatsabandicoot One of my MTG & Netrunner friends really likes it! His main gripe is that his decks he got feel underpowered compared to mine, and that the art sucks haha. Overall, he quite enjoys the gameplay loop. Will have to share it more and have more thoughts later this year! -Ashton
@@Shelfside yeah, the art is.... Meh. Commissioning some core art is a great idea, but it feels really jarring (and confusing) using the same imagery between different card levels or, worse, across entirely different cards. Surely this would be some good fodder to give to AI image creation tools and see what whacky things get made, rather than copy-paste the same person but with a different name. Looking forward to hearing more about your experience with it 👍 p.s I'm pumped for the Ashes Reborn pve set to arrive in the UK, it looks awesome
4 decks with summoner abilities and leveled cards, some playmats, & some pieces... its certainly quite expensive for what it is haha. If you don't want the non-deck stuff, you can get boosters for a bit cheaper -Ashton
Great intro! I love Shards of Infinity - also by Justin Gary and published by Stone Blade. When they released one of their more recent Ascension games I was disappointed in some errors - it felt like they rushed the product out. So to see the production quality in Solforge be a lot worse, isn’t too surprising but it’s still disappointing. I’m a Keyforge fan as well, so I thought Solforge was going to be awesome but looking at that bland to terrible card art… the artist in me wouldn’t be able to stare at that through an hour gameplay. Just look at those women; why do they have such massive heads and tiny bodies? And the graphic design could be better. At least I can read the words on the cards, not like Flesh and Blood, which has imperceptibly small text. Seeing all the faults of SolForge makes me all the more appreciative of Radlands, which was already a ten out of ten game.
If ya like the shirt and sweatshirt I’m wearing, you get 10% off site-wide at: intotheam.com/Shelfside
Written review for Solforge Fusion: www.shelfside.co/reviews-2023/solforge-review
It's worth noting there's plans for an official mobile app, which would allow one to play their scanned decks online.
Also, the flavour-text on cards form a haiku across their levels.
THAT IS AWESOME! Did not know about the haiku, cheers. -Ashton
I'm always just shocked whenever I look at Shelfside's sub count and see such low numbers despite their super informative and high quality videos. You guys are hilarious and great at what you do!
cheers man! More stuff coming -Ashton
I’ve been playing a lot of this game along with Flesh and Blood. Both have reignited my childhood love of dueling card games.
What about netrunner and legend of the five rings?
I love FaB, but it's not good for kitchen table casual play imo. Blitz decks become very flow chart and not a lot of casual players want to construct a deck. Ugh
Hopping into this as well to recommend fabtcg as a tcg, not as a board game, to try and fill the lost Yu-Gi-Oh slot
I'll add too that Flesh and Blood is great
About no rulebook, I've heard that companies are doing more of this because they want to make it a "living" rulebook, so they can fix errata or change things after getting feedback from the community. It's not a bad concept, but they really dropped the ball on not at least including a QR code or making is easy to find the rules.
There's a QR code to the rules on the box, but it's easy to miss.
Really solid and fair review!!! Can you do a Summoner wars 2nd edition review? I think you guys would love the game and i would love to hear your thoughts on the game
SW 2nd edition is a must 2p game. 👍
I'll have to get to it one day! I've played it online but not in person, I certainly enjoyed it :) -Ashton
Battle spirit saga might be the game you are looking for, as a replacement to yughio and an alternative the mtg. Reasons why you might like it below:
- One of the most popular card games in Japan for 14 years.
-Designed by the lead designer of 20+ magic the gathering sets. Who's intentions when designing it were to build upon the lessons learnt from mtg.
- Has an interesting core resource system that is less random and luck dependant than the land draw in mtg.
- Rich decision space turn to turn, game has quite a high skill ceiling.
- Lots of deck building options, with each of the colours playing quite differently...
-Some fantastic japanese artwork.
-Cheaper than a lot of other tcgs on the market to build a competitive deck.
-Organized tournament support from Bandai, with large cash prizes right out of the gate, if you want to play at competitive level.
Game releases in April of this year, I'd say pick up a couple of the starter decks that are very affordable and at least give it a try. :)
Flesh and blood is another good one, but unfortunately to optimize the decks in that game, it can get expensive to where most people won't be able to afford it. Still a mechanically well designed game though, even without top tier cards/decks at your disposal it's worth checking out.
If you are a lover of 1 v 1 card games, there Is quite a few good ones out there right now worth exploring.
Wow that is awesome. Thanks for sharing! HAve some friends that like FaB and I have yet to try it. I'll have to take a look at battle spirit saga too. -Ashton
This looks very cool, I like those every deck is unique games of him. Keyforge is still my #1 card game at the moment I think. It's just so cool to explore the decks
For attack and health, we use MTG spindown counters and just cover the stats, so it just represents the current value.
For life total, we use our preferred mtg lifecounter app or a 99 health life counter.
For forgeborn ability, we just rotate the forgeborn.
Regarding the artwork being carried over, the game was designed where there is over 20,000 unique cards in the base set alone. Each art represents the base card that has potential modifiers.
Regarding deckbuilding, Richard Garfield hates trading card games, which is why he made a game like this where you only pick 2 half decks and between two forgeborns.
Also, they recently launched their steam digital game, which is pretty great and uses your registered decks.
Great review! You hit all the issues I had with the game, especially regarding the fiddliness, weak production, and lack of evolving art on most cards.
I'd love to know your thoughts on Shards of Infinity, which is a dueling deck building game with a somewhat similar card leveling mechanic.
Cheers, I'll have to take a look at Shards! -Ashton
Aweseome review :) I did some of the art for the game (Steel Rosetta, Hematophagic Stitcher, the Solforge, etc) but it's funny because I'm privy only to their production names and don't know what they're actually named until the game gets released, didn't know the Stitcher was called that until I saw your video; in production it was just called Nekrium Scientist. I remember playing the digital version of this and there were some real, real swingy cards like that 30/30 hexproof tree. I'm guessing they kept it in for spice and excitement, but as someone who's played MtG a lot I agree with you that it feels *too* good and sometimes just a bit unbalanced to stop.
The Stitcher has a lot of names, but is always a Stitcher. The game uses an adjective/noun system akin to Borderland weapons.
Totally agree with others here, you should definitely revisit KeyForge again that it's back in action. It's such a fun and approachable card game!
you don't discard your hand at the end of every turn in Keyforge. Give it another try after all these years with proper rules, you might be surprised ;).
I love Keyforge. You’re absolutely right about that rule. You can only discard cards from the house you activated. But it’s your choice if you do.
Oh man, timne to give it another go one day then. -Ashton
Thanks for the review, I went and ordered 3 starter kits. Looks like a sweet game.
Sweet, hope it goes well! Apologizes on not getting to this sooner- you can get booster boxes if you don't want to deal with all of those playmat and component pieces. Cheers! -Ashton
@@Shelfsideunfortunately my store only had starters :-)
I'm going to pick up Ashes Reborn once I see some reviews of the new solo/co-op mode. Hopefully it's excellent.
Don't underestimate the power of the Garfield
@20:28. Could anyone tell what's the name of that app? Been looking for one which allows to rotate the HP boxes to face the players
yep, it's called MTG Life Counter App: Lotus -Ashton
"Me, game,... good."
- Richard Garfield
Hey have you played another deck building game known as Siege Storm Siege mode? Wonder what are your thoughts if you have played it compared to Solforge :)
What is your tts sn?
What life counter app is that?!
Have you tried the 'Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game'?
Isn't it dead? It's an awesome looking game though
I was thinking about getting it on release, but then the time length turned me off, and nothing about the game otherwise really hooked me from watching gameplay. Maybe one day I can give it a go -Ashton
Oh, yet another comment. Do you think you'll give Mage Noir a go and maybe review it? I think it's entering retail about now, since those of us that backed it on KS got it a few weeks back
Hmm, never heard of it. Not on the plan anytime soon. Will probably do Summoner wars and FaB first for more 2p stuff -Ashton
I should point, coming from the old steam game, there are control decks in Solforge (often centered around Necro - the purple faction as I may not recall their faction name correctly). I definitely recall having a deck that basically locked my opponent down with Alloyin Necro.
I was extremely wary about buying this game despite spending a fair amount in the steam game because of how they handled the original steam game. This just looks like very sloppy publishing which was sadly expected but also a shame for how good the mechanics are imo once players really dove in. As an app, it was also very easy to learn, lots of deck customization abilities (lots of great options for meta decks), and there are many ways to counter play. (also I thought there was ways to play fast actions such as buffs in the game but it's been so long that I don't recall anymore). I don't think all of it translates well to a physical card game and the whole algo generated decks is a gimmick it DEFINITELY didn't need when the best part of the game was constructed.
Finally, as a nitpick, your point about Chrogias being OP is unfounded ;). He really only shows up in Alloyin/natura fast lvl decks as most games are decided heavily with stage 2 cards at the more experienced level.
Hey thanks for sharing this! I would like to see more control in this game for sure. I want deckbuilding in Solforge but would be ok without it currently. Will see where they go!
I'm not sure what you mean bean Chrogias being in Alloyin/natura decks haha, but man he is freaking insane in physical solforge. -Ashton
Why is this not available in Europe
Chrogias was always broken in the Steam version too. I never understood why they didn’t nerf him. He kind of breaks the game.
I love me some Solfroge
In all seriousness, would be interested to hear how Solforge lands with your MTG or Netrunner friends. I've been having a blast with Ashes Reborn (solid precons, beautiful art, and open deck-building at it's finest IMO) after being a kitchen-table Netrunner fiend for years (which is not as easy to introduce to new players, the meta feels overly defined, and there are some real hit and miss artwork throughout - especially with the NISEI/Null Signal decks). Love these card game reviews, especially from someone who's been down the rabbit hole with one!
froge
@@whatsabandicoot One of my MTG & Netrunner friends really likes it! His main gripe is that his decks he got feel underpowered compared to mine, and that the art sucks haha. Overall, he quite enjoys the gameplay loop. Will have to share it more and have more thoughts later this year! -Ashton
@@Shelfside yeah, the art is.... Meh. Commissioning some core art is a great idea, but it feels really jarring (and confusing) using the same imagery between different card levels or, worse, across entirely different cards. Surely this would be some good fodder to give to AI image creation tools and see what whacky things get made, rather than copy-paste the same person but with a different name. Looking forward to hearing more about your experience with it 👍
p.s I'm pumped for the Ashes Reborn pve set to arrive in the UK, it looks awesome
Shouldn't a box like this be ~10$ max?
No way !
4 decks with summoner abilities and leveled cards, some playmats, & some pieces... its certainly quite expensive for what it is haha. If you don't want the non-deck stuff, you can get boosters for a bit cheaper -Ashton
Great intro!
I love Shards of Infinity - also by Justin Gary and published by Stone Blade. When they released one of their more recent Ascension games I was disappointed in some errors - it felt like they rushed the product out. So to see the production quality in Solforge be a lot worse, isn’t too surprising but it’s still disappointing. I’m a Keyforge fan as well, so I thought Solforge was going to be awesome but looking at that bland to terrible card art… the artist in me wouldn’t be able to stare at that through an hour gameplay. Just look at those women; why do they have such massive heads and tiny bodies? And the graphic design could be better. At least I can read the words on the cards, not like Flesh and Blood, which has imperceptibly small text. Seeing all the faults of SolForge makes me all the more appreciative of Radlands, which was already a ten out of ten game.
Review UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNMMMATCHHHHHHHEEEED
It's on the way! -Ashton