u/Potential-Hat-9190

One day, One topic (day 9) : Collectable

I think that we all know a lot more if not all that buys Pokemon TCG are more buying it for collection than for actually playing the game. On the contrary FaB players are mostly Gamers if not all, I never encounter someone who actually collect the sets. If you look at sets Pokemon as a lot for full art and all "collector value" cards, while FaB as no such card like "Full art exclusive". The prices varies on the playability and the meta game while pokemon that are actually meta are not that expensive in their main set print, only full arts are really expensive.

Now what about Hellbreak ?

the game will be played for its unique gameplay and mechanic in my opinion. It's not a game that you go for collecting at first. However I can see some alternative art of the Monsters with like "movie poster" art. And I'm sure some player will love to collect all the card from their favorite monsters.

While Hellbreak will be more for playing than collecting, I think that it has a collecting value that can grow a bit, but not as much as it's playability value.

What do you think ? will you collect main sets in a binder ? will you collect your favorite monster ? Or you just prefer to hard brainstorm decks and play

reddit.com
u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 23 hours ago

One day, one topic (day 8) : Seriousness

Horror is a pretty serious theme and do not tolerate humor in it to keep a good immersive atmosphere. So will this tcg keep this seriousness overall, or might try to do some "scary movie" thing and allow some more fun cards ?

and what about you ? Would you agree or not about this game having some more goofy horror card or totally dislike it ?

I'm a bit mixed on this topic, I think that on one hand, the all tcg needs to keep this serious horror theme, but on the other hand, on kitchen table or at the lgs with friends, it can turns really funny to share this.

As in War40k, it is really serious in its theme, really dark and all. I get it and I love it, but I also love seeing people being creative about how they paint and customize their armies, even if the theme is universes away from the lore.

So I don't really know how I would react about seeing a "Scary Movie" Ghost face card, and you ?

reddit.com
u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 2 days ago

One day, One topic (Day 7) : Learning curve

Hey everyone, hope you are good today ! On today's menu, the learning curve of Hellbreak and the "beginner friendliness" of this tcg.

I think Hellbreak is one of those TCG that you can better approach if you already play other TCGs, because you already know some core rule like keywords, step, phase and some models that work almost identical like ressources, initiative, actions etc...

Moreover, Hellbreak cards are not beginner friendly at all to me. A new player barely watch the rules nor read the whole booklet to know all the symbols and keyword, you want to test the game after all, play it now, not reading a bunch of words that gives headache sometimes.

But now, you barely read the rule for setup, and some action, you know there is like the horror phase with actions etc... You are ready to play and discover this dreadful word by playing Dracula vs Jaws and you look at your cards...

WHAT ARE THOSE ?

you have weird symbols on the left, a bar with numbers and a symbol like teeths and ghost etc... these green symbol in the rule text but you don't know what it is supposed to do and you got symbols on the bottom of the card.

Once you read the rule, all is great, but that's what makes in my opinion, not beginner friendly, the cards doesn't explain itself. It has a complex anatomy and too many symbols means too many "you must know the rule and read the booklet to understand what I'm supposed to do" while casual players are more like once time player which means it will be a really hard time to play by always reading the quickstart to know what they can or can't, what their card actually do etc...

However, the ressources management, the scheme phase and all the mechanics overall makes it so deep and complex that the learning curve is going to be insane and optimizing your deck aswell as your play will be really challenging.

What's you opinion about it ?

reddit.com
u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 3 days ago

One day, One topic (Day 6) : Monster adaptation design

On today's topic : the design of the Classic monster. Several classic monsters got multiple designs/actor through remake or re adaptation. Do you think it's something we will get to see in this game ?

If we get Frankenstein's creature, will we only see the Karloff's version, or can we imagine having the Guillermo del toro version one day ? Same question for the mummy, if we get it, will it only be in the Karloff's version, or will we have the 1999's version ?

Is it something you would love/like to see in the tcg, or you prefer to keep it classic ?

u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 4 days ago

One day, One topic (day 5) : Theme vs Meta

Hey everyone ! today I wanted to talk about something that really matter to me when we talk about deck building : the balance between theme/flavor and metagame/mechanics.

the same can be true with SWU, MTG or others like Lorcana, or gundam tcg. When it comes to theme and the flavor of a all IP, sometimes it feels off to play some cards with others just because of what they represent. A classic meme in Magic is now to talk about how you can use The TARDIS with spiderman to knock off some space marines etc... and it's true, it feels like, not right.

I care a lot about the theme of my decks, and I feel like it would be off to play Jaws card or any other franchise cards not related to dracula in a deck all about him for example. Maybe I would miss a lot of great cards doing so, synergies would not be that great, or could be optimized but I prefer keeping the flavor when playing a game all about it.

However, Hellbreak is a Top-down tcg, which means that the theme is what come first and they create the mechanic around that flavor. which in fact means that they will mainly create IP to work with itself but maybe or surely not with the other (exception with some usual staple that there is in every tcg).

What do you think of this ? Do you usually play for theme, or for mechanics and you wouldn't care playing jaws with some dracula and frankenstein's bride cards ?

also do you think that it would shut down creativity if Hellbreak is always tuned so that IP are working only with themselves and not that much with others

u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 5 days ago

One day, one topic (day 4) : Stalker & minion, is it a problem ?

On today's topic that I wanted to explore with y'all, my concerns and curiosity about the Hellbreak possible IP monsters that we will surely encounters and the minion cards.

It is not a "problem" on its own, but stalkers are solo killers, the hunt on their own and I can't wonder of minion cards for a theme around Jason, Micheal, ghost face or Samara. Freddy could use nightmare creation as minion cards indeed.

Some are more tricky : let's say "Vecna" from Stranger Things, tons of minion possibilities (demogorgon, demodog, mind flayer, mind controlled minions). But if the monster is the demogorgon, the minions list is really low, because it is the minion in fact.

so will there be "invented" minions that are not from the IP, will we get not really killer-related minion, or will there be more Item - event focused killers ?

what are your thoughts on this ? Could Jason be with minions card in your deck ?

u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 6 days ago

One day, one topic (day 3) : Crossover

Hellbreak is all about monsters, but will we get to see much different, non "horror" franchise monsters in this TCG ? Not the classic one from universal ?

if you know a little about Dr who for example, you are familiar with the weeping angels, horrifying creatures that will, for sure, be a perfect suit for hellbreak with the Lurking/unleashed mechanic. (if you don't know about this monster, go watch the "blink" episode of Dr who, if you love horror, you will love it.

What about the T rex ? an iconic deadly monster that is also a continuation of Jaws, on land. Will we get to have a Jurassic park card, as it is getting its own tcg right now and we saw it in some crossover with MTG ?

Godzilla, the iconic monster, the kaiju that destroys japan with his horrific appearance as "Shin Godzilla" would be crazy good

Is there any none "horror" franchise with a really cool monster you would want to get in hellbreak ?

u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 7 days ago

One day, one topic (day 2) : the art of Hellbreak

hey everyone ! Today I wanted to talk a little about the art of Hellbreak, the choices of how cards are represented in their art. Through some of devoted player, we got the demo deck list and reveal so we can have a glimpse at what we are suppose to get in this game.

tldr : A great artistic direction to me, with really cool classic movie poster like painted realism. awesome use of colorful palet with contrast and meaningful bright/dark spot for horrifying result. Though some letdown art that are not that stunning and miss the point.

One of the demo deck uses Dracula and I'll start with my impression of its art and explain what I think is the main idea of Hellbrak artistic direction. (Disclaimer first : I'm not a specialist, just a player who enjoys art on cards !) Dracula's art, both in lurking and unleashed mode gives that painted and realistic vibes that tries to reconnect with the movie poster from the Universal classic era (as shown in slide 2 and 3).

What is stunning about this art is its saturation, you can even distinguish some red on dracula's hand and white vest. As the movie poster's, the art is still really colorful even for a horror tcg which could be really dark with really low saturated color palet. but that's not the case, even on drain life (slide 4) and Barracuda (5), the cards are both, even in dark situation, the color remains really vibrants and contrasted, making the scene readable and more intense so to say.

though the contrast is not just for color, it is also a major point of the art : in dracula and jaws demo deck, there is a real use of the light/dark spot. In many dracula's deck cards, we catch this "bright spot" that draws our attention : the carriage's light (6), the cat's eyes (7), the swarm of rats (8). This play of light and dark in dracula's is narrowed on simple spot of light so we can barely see what we are facing, but that's enough to understand the danger and the horror of it (the eyes of the predator cat, the eyes of the multitude of rats...) even Dracula is in a bright spot se we can really see him unleashed.

Jaws' cards use a different way of bright/dark spot which is almost exclusively the idea of calm vs dangerous place. Dark spot which the shark is in is the dangerous area and the bright spot is the safe area. Jaws (10) unleashed side shows the dark spot as a really sharp and dark area of the overall composition, in contrast of the bright and peaceful sea horizon. even on a panic of our hands (11) the sunshine comes from the left side of the card so the beach side (safe place, where jaws is not) and the shadow side on the characters running away is placed on the right, the sea, the danger.

I think that all this details are fabulous : use the classic movie poster painting realism to capture the old era vibes, a greay use of contrast and of light/dark to get a better horrifying and dangerous situation.

On a side note, there are few miss spot, as on the jaws from booster set, which art seems a bit... off. The deep sea looks empty, but not the scary way, just plain blue, no variation, no contrast, no details of the different hue.

u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 8 days ago

One day, One topic (day 1) : Flavorful mechanic

On my yesterday post about what monster(s) does anyone want to see in the game, I mentionned that I wanted the Death Angel (A quiet Place) to be flavorful. That's why I'm here to talk about flavorful mechanic in Hellbreak tcg today.

The Demo Jaws is rather simple, just dealing damage to a minion, basically could be any card in the game, but it has to be simple because starter deck, you are suppose to learn the game with it.

Then we got the reveal of the booster set Jaws, which is really flavorful to me : interacting with damaged minions reflect the idea of a bloodied person, which the shark can track down, to hunt and devour mercilessly. The lurking side reacting to jumpscare could also refer to it coming out of nowhere and biting you. So on a flavor/mechanic quality, Jaws use jumpscare to bite you (indirect damage) and then exhaust or devour you by hunting your bloodied body. total flavor win to me.

Now what's about the other ?

the death angel : I hope it will have a mechanic all about creature entering or scheming locations. Making sounds will trigger it and make it react in one way or another. I think it could act as a control or punisher mechanic where you are more reacting to the other player action, since that's what death angel manly does, reacting to sounds.

Dracula : He could be all about blood and malice ressources, collecting blood and malice to make other vampires to join him and flooding the locations with all his minions. (not really a lot aware of original dracula's movies so not sure if it's flavorful)

and you what mechanic do you think dracula, frankenstein's bride, Jason, Micheal myers and the others' as flavorful as possible ?

u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 9 days ago

Among the monsters we know we will get, Which one do you want to build/have first ?

for me, just on preference on design : the alien from A Quiet Place. I just love the idea of using a feral creature that will hunt you if you barely just whisper. I also wish to see event cards that will capture this horrifying idea of not doing any sound and keep quiet.

I hope the gameplay will try to be as flavorful as possible about it, as the booster Jaws that was revealed is pretty flavorful too about it being able to interact with damaged minions

reddit.com
u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 9 days ago

what are Horror IP and monsters you wish to see in this game ?

The mummy is just a classic monster I love ! I hope we get the classic and the "imothep" (1999) depiction of it. (could have it in mummy form and flip side is the regenerated form)

Chucky is such an Iconic slasher, I'd love to play it and collect cards

Not sure we will get it soon but it is such a huge IP : Alien ! My favorite horror IP I need it

u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 11 days ago

Are 2 players starter-deck better than spotlight deck for casual kitchen table ?

I'm a new player and mainly play solo kitchen table, one deck against another. I bought the intro Battle Hoth and I loved it and want to play different deck. I basically just want to play decks that could be balanced against each other even through sets (like buying LAW's deck, but they will still be able to win against the next set's one)

Is it better to purchase Spotlight decks or 2 decks starter pack ?

reddit.com
u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 13 days ago

Palace's Heist difficulty

I'm a mtg player and I casually have fun playing illumineer's quest once in a while with the prebuilt deck but I really have a hard time winning solo even on easy mode. Is it just me not understanding how to use well the prebuilt deck against the Quest or it's hard to solo with prebuilt deck even on easy mode?

reddit.com
u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 15 days ago

such as Nicol Bolas using the interplanar beacon and immortal sun to use the elder spell, what do we learn about Jace's plan from the Omenpath arc and the Dragonstorm arc ?

reddit.com
u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 20 days ago

>!Just seeing this makes me so fucking hyped for all the lore we will get but even more : Garruk is back and he will fight his alter ego with The chain veil ! like wtf !!! !<

>!the "maybe white aligned" vraska looks crazy too.!<

u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 21 days ago

Hey, really new and casual FaB player here ! I wondered if there will be new blitz decks collection like Rosetta or Hunted ones. These what get me into this game and I love those decks. There is not many players to play with so I basically play solo 1v1 or the rathe adventures and I love it

reddit.com
u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 22 days ago
▲ 5 r/TCG

I'm so hype for this one, the gameplay is great, the art is gorgeous, the theme is perfect ! I hope I'll be able to get my hands on this

u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 23 days ago

As a fan of Godzilla I just want to go back to the lair of behemoth and see even more of mutating monstrosities !

Unfinity is a love letter to good retro sci-fi and retro-pop style, I'm in love with the art and the goofiness of this plane

New Capenna is in my opinion a really well done low fantasy plane and really work as it is. I want to see more Gala party and art deco buildings (and more planewalkers in Roaring twenties dress like Elspeth !)

u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 25 days ago

going through my main set collection, I just catched that those two cards art and flavor text are connected and I think it's brilliant to have those slice of life on the campus

u/Potential-Hat-9190 — 27 days ago