Three words: Marvel Card Game. That’s right, Netease, the popular mobile game dev company responsible for some awesome hits like Identity V, Creative Destruction, LifeAter, and Rules of Survival, among others, is currently working on a brand new card game based on the popular Marvel franchise. The game, Marvel Duel, is scheduled to enter closed beta in Indonesia and Malaysia later on July 31, and hopefully, release to the rest of the world some time later.

What is Marvel Duel?

Simply put, it’s a new card game by Netease based on the popular Marvel universe. In this game, players will be able to collect all sorts of cards based on characters from this universe, including some of the most notorious supervillains as well as the famous superheroes we’ve come to know and love from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And of course, since the MCU is actually only a small fragment of the vast repertoire of characters that are actually featured in this world, Marvel Duel will have many, many other heroes and villains available for unlocking.

Netease  has yet to reveal any sort of meaningful gameplay to let us know how the game will look. But luckily, there is plenty of gameplay footage floating around on the web, and we have to say that Marvel Duel looks pretty awesome!

Like with most card games, matches will initially consist of 1v1 with each player using their own decks. From what we’ve seen, these decks can contain character cards of various levels, trap cards, equipment cards, and spell cards. During each match, players will take turns placing new characters and traps on the field, activating spells, and assigning equipment to their heroes. Finally, they will also use their characters to attack the enemy; either by engaging their own characters in combat, or by directly attacking their superhero’s life points.

The Combat System

Like in most card games, the matches in Marvel Duel consist of trading blows, destroying the enemy’s character cards, and attacking and eventually depleting the enemy superhero’s HP to 0. The stats in this game are streamlined as characters simply have an attack power stat as opposed to both HP and attack parameters. In this sense, their attack is their HP, and vice versa. Moreover, all characters are fully healed after every turn, which means that battles will likely be more about brute force tactics rather than carefully chipping away at a character’s HP in order to defeat them.

Each player can only summon once per turn via normal summoning, though it’s also possible to support-summon certain characters and spells if specific conditions are met. In this manner, with the correct deck, it’s actually possible to summon many different characters in a single turn and create an aggro deck of sorts. Regardless, both players have a number of action points per turn, which limit the number of attacks they can unleash on the enemy. We’re not sure how this restriction will fit into the meta, but it might work against the aforementioned aggro decks. Only time will tell. Additionally, unlike other card games like Hearthstone, we haven’t actually seen if there are taunt strategies. What we do know, however, is that, as long as there’s a character on the field, a player’s HP can’t be attacked directly.

The Summoning and Equipment Systems

Characters in Marvel Duel come in different levels, which have different summoning requirements. While you can place level-1 characters directly on the field, heroes that are level 2 or higher require additional energy to summon. From what we’ve seen, a level 2 character requires a level 1 sacrifice to summon, which means that a level 3 character would require a level 2 sacrifice, and so on. This requirement is nullified whenever a character is support-summoned into the field.

Marvel Duel features a character equipment system where every character has a single equipment slot available to them. Players can outfit them with equipment cards to increase their overall power or give them special abilities. Players will have to choose wisely which characters to boost in order to give themselves an edge in combat.

Amazing Graphics and Fully-Animated 3D Battle Cutscenes

Aside from the regular gameplay, which we’ve only seen small snippets of, the graphics in Marvel Duel are amazing, featuring full 3D animated cutscenes and awesome character models that directly engage their opponents in combat. Most superheroes have both a long animated cutscene where they attack the enemy. However, since constantly showing a cutscene every time a hero attacks would be tiresome, all characters also have a field 3D model that quickly pops up from their cards to attack and quickly disappears after they’re done.

Whether it’s the cutscenes or the 3D field models, the combat in Marvel Duel feels weighty and exciting. We can’t wait to see what the full game has in store for us when it releases globally. And speaking of release dates, and as we mentioned above, the game will enter closed beta in Indonesia and Malaysia this July 31. Players who live in these regions can pre-register to receive awesome gifts when they access the games. Curiously enough, however, the game is already fully-localized in English, so it might not be too long before we see a worldwide launch.

You can bet that we’ll be covering more of Marvel Duel once the game goes live, so stick around our blog and stay tuned for more updates in the future!