Hi All, It's CRĐ again, with part two of my Beginner's Guide.

If you missed it check out my previous blog post:

• CRĐ's Beginner Guide #01 - What the Tutorial Doesn't Teach You

Last time I talked about the Gameplay of Gods Unchained Trading Card Game in this post I'll be talking about the Trading Card part!

Gods Unchained is a Web3 Trading Card Game where the Cards you mint are ERC-721 Tokens. The games economy runs on an earned ERC-20 token called $GODS. It is deployed on Immutable's StarkEx Layer 2 of the Ethereum Blockchain.

If you understand the above text then you're not new to the crypto world and you should skip ahead to the second section How do I Progress in Gods Unchained?

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Do I need to understand Crypto to play?

Do you need to understand how Valve stores your CS:GO skins in order to play Counter Strike? No, you don't.

I'm not here pitching an investment, or telling you to all-in on a meme coin. I'm here to talk about a game I enjoy playing that happens to keep your in-game items on a blockchain. I've seen Hive account@simplegame say a quote a few times that captures my thoughts on this perfectly.

My point is that there should only be gaming, not web2 not web3.

• Do I need a Wallet to Play?

  Yes, well no, but yes... You can play the game without a wallet but you can't progress. It'd be like playing WoW with no bank or bag slots.
  
  
  _{Source WoWpedia: Sword of a Thousand Truths}
  You can't collect, and you can't trade... Which is pretty debilitating for a Trading Card Game... You don't need to use an existing one, you can create a brand new empty wallet to store your cards!
  
  Here are the steps you need to do direct from the Gods Unchained Website.
  1. Intoduction to Wallets (More information on what I just explained)
  2. Creating a Wallet
  3. Adding a Wallet

*If you're still uncertain setting up a free and empty wallet then read the rest of this section and come back and make your wallet. If you're ready to go you can skip to How do I Progress in Gods Unchained?

What's a Blockchain

It's a ledger, that's it.

_{Source: Scrooge McDuck on Tenor}
I say that like it's nothing fancy, but in reality blockchains have become the fanciest ledgers in the world! Enabling a true Distributed Ledger, like a book whose pages changed automatically for your neighbor when you wrote something in yours. Like Harry Potter but it's Japanese instead of magic. A lot of blockchains are created with a specific coin for the ledger to track like Bitcoin!

Other Blockchains like Hive (The blockchain this post is stored in) or Ethereum have their own coins ($HIVE and $ETH) their ledger looks more like a database than a leather book.

• Ethereum Blockchain

  The Ethereum Blockchain is a Decentralized Distributed Ledger for all kinds of things, but we are going to talk about two specifically. Standards for this blockchain are published in papers called "Ethereum Request for Comments" or ERCs**. We're just going to talk about two standards. The ERC-20 and the ERC-721. The wallet we were talking about above is the digital entity associated with ownership on the blockchain. You need a Wallet to be able to 'own' these tokens.
  _{**Following the Internet Engineering Task Force standards of RFCs, Request For Comments.}
  
  The important difference between these two tokens is fungibility.
  
  

  • The Coin $GODS: ERC-20

    The ERC-20 IS FUNGIBLE, like a barrel of oil, an ounce of gold, or a US Dollar Bill. The very idea of Coins (Physical or Digital) is for them to all be trusted to be exactly the same.
    
    When you get payouts for playing well or completing tournaments you get a fungible coin called $GODS to spend into the games economy.
    
    

  • The Trading Cards: ERC-721

    The ERC-721 IS NOT FUNGIBLE, like a diamond, a painting, or a pokemon card. These Non-Fungible Tokens are made to be unique, the card you get as a reward will not be the same as the one I get.
    
    When you get new cards in the game they are ERC-721 tokens Or NFTs. You need a wallet to store your cards!
    
    

  • Layer2 Blockchain

    The Blockchain Trilemma states that a blockchain's true weakness is it's ability to only achieve two of the three requirements for an "Ideal Ledger".

    1. Decentralization
    2. Security
    3. Scalability

    
    Something was needed to allow more transactions to happen at a time on Blockchains like Ethereum,while keeping transfer fees feasible so the concept of a Layer 2 Blockchain was born.

    ![]_{Source: https://ethereum.org/en/layer-2/learn/}
    As the image above shows a smaller ledger can keep track of hundreds of transactions while only needing to make one transaction on the expensive Layer 1 Blockchain, this is perfect for applications like Gods Unchained because it allows us, the players, to trade our Cards and our GODS coins quickly and cheaply amongst our community.

• Who is Immutable

  Immutable is the parent company of Gods Unchained. It is also their tech implementing the Layer 2 roll-up. There's really not much else that's super important for you to know right now, but if you'd like to check out how Immutable does their Roll-Ups you can find that Here.. There are two Layer 2 models referenced, and Gods Unchained is using the StarkEx model.
  
  I would also recommend you check out both the Gods Unchained and the Immutable White Papers if you'd like to know more on the details about how this all works.

OK! Enough of the tech-crap! Let's get back to the game!

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How do I Progress in Gods Unchained?

_{Last Updated: 2025-01-19 Note: Changes are expected to progression soon! Check the last updated date.}

Gods Unchained is a competitive Trading Card Game so there are two ways to get the sense of "Pride and Accomplishment" that EA Games talks about.

You collect cards you like or cards that help you climb to ranking leaderboards and be the best that no one ever was.

So lets talk about how to get better and get more cards.

Quality vs Rarity

Remember when I told you all your cards were NFTs stored on a Layer 2 of the Ethereum Blockchain?

Well I lied.

The first 70 cards you get in your Welcome Set are "Plain Cards" and they are not minted NFTs. They only exist associated with your account as part of the game client.

I didn't clearly understand the difference as a new player, but it's not dissimilar to physical trading cards once articulated. It is very important to understanding progression so make sure you DO understand it.

• Rarity

  Each type of Creature, Spell, or Relic has a set Rarity. There is a correlation to how "good" or "strong" a card is, but it isn't a static rule that rarer is better.

  • There are 5 rarities in the game:
    1. Common
    2. Rare
    3. Epic
    4. Legendary
    5. Mythic

  
  If a card is Legendary or Mythic you are only allowed one copy in your 30 card deck.

  All cards of the same name carry the same rarity, every Charging Oryx in the game is a "common".

• Quality

  Quality is also called Shine or Variant Every card of any name can exist in every quality! You can take multiple copies of the same card at the same quality and UPGRADE your quality!

  • There are 5 Qualities in the Game:
    1. Plain <-- Plain cards are NOT minted NFTs on the Blockchain
    2. Meteorite
    3. Shadow
    4. Gold
    5. Diamond
  Behold, the common Oryx in all five qualities!
  source

The reason none of your Welcome Set cards are NFTs yet is because Plain cards are not on the Blockchain and are assumed to be infinite. Once you upgrade or buy your first Meteorite card it will exist in your wallet and be yours forever.

Level vs Rank

• Level goes up as you gain experience points
  • It never goes down or degrades
  • XP is gained from playing Casual, Ranked, Sealed, or Formats - Win or Lose
  • No Max Level!
  • Every 10th level you earn an epic pack*
  • Every 25th level you earn a legendary pack**
  • Every other level you earn a rare pack***

_{*An epic pack is 5 plain cards with at least one epic
**A legendary pack is 5 plain cards with at least one legendary
***A rare pack is 5 plain cards with at least one rare}

• Rank is your competitive ranking in the Gods Unchained scene.
  • Losses in Ranked or Formats causes you rank down
  • Wins in Ranked or Formats causes you to rank up
  • All Ranks operate mostly the same except for 12, Mythic with a more competitive ELO and Leaderboard
  • There are 12 Ranks in all:
    1. Rusted Bronze (B)
    2. Purified Bronze (B+)
    3. Rusted Iron (I)
    4. Purified Iron (I+)
    5. Impact Meteorite (M)
    6. Astral Meteorite (M+)
    7. Twilight Shadow (S) <--- Minimum Rank to Earn $GODS in Ranked and play Formats!
    8. Midnight Shadow (S+)
    9. Auric Gold (G)
    10. Solar Gold (G+)
    11. Ethereal Diamond (D)
    12. Mythic (M)
        
        
        _{I am Rank 9 and Level 37 at the time of this post}

Note: That's a borrowed deck, I don't have diamond cards a month into playing the game!

So now that you understand ranks and cards lets talk progression.

There are four currencies you will see in the top right of your screen

• Star Points

  • Star Points are the first accessible reward, they exist on no block-chain but they let you buy cards from the "Star Store".

• Flux

  • Flux lets you mint multiple copies of the same quality card into a higher quality.
  • This is called "Forging", it also costs fractions of a $GODS token
  • No way to use Flux immediately, don't pay attention to these at first

• Fragments

  • Earned by playing Ranked or Format with a Rank of 7+ with some minted NFTs in your deck.
  • Fragments solely an account currency used to divide the daily share of $GODS for the Play to Earn.
  • The more you have, the higher share of $GODS earning at the end of the day
  • They count up as you win Play2Earn and reset to zero once that day's amount is calculated

• $GODS

  • $GODS is the currency on the blockchain intended for Player to Player trading

Beginning Game Progression

The gate behind earning fragments and $GODS is behind two variables. You must be at Twilight Shadow(Rank 7) or above, and you must have no plain cards in your deck(All Meteorite and Above).

The first rule is static, you will earn 0.00000000 $GODS for playing ranked until Rank 7.

The second rule isn't, with a single meteorite card I was able to earn fractions of a fragment:

Reaching rank 7 is the primary focus in the beginning so that we can start to earn $GODS to buy better cards or even a whole deck (and of course the new packs when they are available for sale again).

Don't Sleep on the Star Store

The first and third slots of the Star Store will be a card from the Core Set that you probably don't have. They will always be common(first) and rare(third). They will always be Plain.

The second and fourth slots, however, are always Meteorite and Shadow respectively. They will always be cards from the Welcome Set that you already have, so often you'll know right away if you like the card. If you do, BUY IT! It's your first and easiest chance to get a Trading Card that is minted on the blockchain.

Star Points are gained when you win(more) or lose(less) in ranked, casual, or formats. Easy to grind and make a big difference in the beginning.

Don't Slack on Weekend Ranked!

I'm so ashamed to say I only just understood the Weekend Ranked last weekend.

Every Weekend from Friday 12:00 GMT – Monday 12:00 GMT a tournement runs available for all players at every rank! The tournament isn't explained in the Game's client and you have to scrape info from the web to really know what's going on, so I'll explain it simply here.

Every week your first 18 ranked games between Friday 12:00 GMT – Monday 12:00 GMT are "Weekend Ranked Games" and you will get rewards based on how many of those 18 games you win!

REWARDS ARE AVAILABLE FOR EVERY RANK, even if you're Rank 1 you have a chance of some packs. You can see the Official Blog post talking about rewards here, but I advise you check your own progress directly on GU Decks Player Stats page.

_{Source https://gudecks.com/meta/player-stats}

Here you can monitor how many games you have left, wins you have so far, current and next prize levels.

The Prize Tiers are determined by your rank when the tournament starts, ranking up or down during the weekend won't change anything. Here is a spreadsheet with each rank's rewards.

_{Screenshot from middle of last week, showing I'm 7 of 9, meaning 9 games left.}

In the screenshot above I started at Midnight Shadow, Rank 8, and at 11 wins I will get a "Dread Common Pack", which pack this is will change by the season but the important part is that in this pack all cards will be Meteorite!

So each weekend you hit the prize tier needed to get this season's booster pack you get 5 minted NFTs for free!

Note: the rewards on this screenshot are tiered levels, not cumulative. At 3 wins I get a total of 2x Rare packs, I don't get anything from the previous tiers.

What's Next?

Goals

Two major goals for you to start collecting and get to the play cycle loop that maximizes progression, new cards, and fun game modes called Formats*.

1. Get to Rank >7
2. Get 30 Minted NFTs in a deck.

_{*These game modes change often, I'll explain them in a future post.}

Two Goals and Two Easy Ways to Start:

1. Check the Start Store daily!
   • Grind Star Points!
   • Ignore Flux for now
2. Play 18 games each weekend!
   • Nothing to lose and NFTs to gain!
   • Available at Rank 1!

Go! Fight! Win!

_{Source: The Incredibles on Giphy}

Join the GU Discord!

https://discord.com/invite/DKGr2pW

That's the invite to the official GU Discord. I'm probably the newest member in the community and though it can be a bit trollish at times (it is discord after all) over all players have been very friendly and eager to help me. If you join make sure to @ me and say hi!

Read Wait for My Next Post:

CRĐ's Beginner Guide 03 - Jumpstart your Journey

• Am I getting better?
• Skipping the grind with a cheap deck
• Scholarships and F2P Alternatives

Give me Feedback!

Comments or Questions are always welcome, have someone you want to start playing? What will they need that I'm missing?