There are a lot of different digital card games on offer these days, but Eternal is a game that's won out over a lot of the other alternatives for me. Eternal is a digital CCG with a mild fantasy Western made by Dire Wolf Digital, and is available through Steam.

Why do I like Eternal?

A) It provides Magic the Gathering style rules in a streamlined format with a UI and graphical quality that rivals Hearthstone and other polished examples of the genre. Eternal simplifies instants and other interrupting effects to allow for a much smoother and intuitive play experience. Magic the Gathering Online has always felt clunky and unappealing, and practically outdated next to something like Hearthstone. Eternal bridges the gap between the two quite nicely, with a slightly different mana mechanic and a more generous mulligan among the more notable changes.

B) Eternal has a true drafting format, an honest to goodness crack open a pack, pick a card, and pass the rest of the pack on to the next guy draft. You get to keep the cards that you draft, and the price is super reasonable: you draft 48 cards, which is the equivalent of 4 packs, for the price of 5,000 gold and a chance to earn additional rewards. 5,000 gold will buy you 5 packs normally. If you win even once with your draft, you get an additional pack guaranteed, and the rewards only ramp up from there. Drafting is quite challenging and fun, and it is possible to build decks with real synergies and strategies. For me, it is far more enjoyable than the tempo oriented Arena format in Hearthstone. There are also two AI modes that are good to grind for new players to get basic resources and cards, and special Event modes in the line of Hearthstone's Tavern Brawl.

C) Eternal is very generous in terms of what it gives you for F2P. Every card pack you open is guaranteed to have a Rare (which is somewhat the equivalent of a Hearthstone Epic) and around 3 uncommon cards. But each pack also comes with 100 free shardstone, which is the crafting resource for the game. This is enough to craft an uncommon or two commons, and comes on top of the 12 cards you actually got from the pack. If you want a particular card, you can tangibly measure your progress towards that card in terms of packs opened because of the free guaranteed "dust." The game also gives out packs from quests, and free gold and dust from achievements. I don't have a full collection, but I've been playing for about 1.5 months and have a very well rounded set of cards, and feel I can play with most archetypes without being locked out due to needing lots of expensive cards.

D) Eternal takes very good advantage of the fact that it is a digital card game. Cards remember stat gains and losses even after going to the graveyard equivalent; if you use a spell to buff a unit's health, and then it dies, you can use another card to draw it from the graveyard and it will still have that buff on it. the same holds true for "battle skills," which are keyworded abilities that some cards have naturally.

E) It's an honest to goodness really fun game, with interesting takes on classical archetypes like Control and Aggro, along with some unique decks that take advantage of mechanics unique to the game. My current favorite deck is Armory, which uses interesting synergies to raise the power of relic weapons (similar to weapon cards in Hearthstone, but with some unique nuances) form removal tools to a game ending win condition. There are lots of interesting minion oriented and spell oriented strategies; another favorite deck of mine is Hooru Control, which runs a grand total of 6 minion cards in a 75 card deck. The rest is spells and power (read: lands, sorta kinda.) But I've also had fun with Aggro decks and Midrange decks, and in the time I've played the meta has remained vibrant and varied.

So, does anyone else on the forum play Eternal? What's your favorite deck? Are you excited for the upcoming expansion, Omens of the Past?