DC Dual Force Guide - How to Play DC's new Card Game

DC Dual Force received a new beta this weekend, and we at Cards Realm had the privilege of testing the game. We already know how the gameplay, game rules and combat mechanics will be.

As these are two superhero Card Games, not to mention the great rivalry between these universes, it is natural to imagine that DC Dual Force come to compete directly with Marvel Snap. But in reality, they are quite different, the only similarity is the superhero theme.

Marvel's TCG contains a very different mechanic, based on dominating terrains and adding the maximum power to at least two of them.

Dual Force, on the other hand, approaches more traditional Card Games like Hearthstone and Magic: the Gathering, where your goal is to eliminate your opponent. But of course, the game also has its peculiarities, which will be mentioned later.

Leaders

Your Leaders work similarly to your Hero in Hearthstone, or the Nexus in Legends of Runeterra, and you lose the game if their life points reach 0. Each player will have 2 Leaders in the game, to win, you need to eliminate both of the opponent's leaders.

Your Leaders will receive a charge each turn, which will be used to perform a special effect. Each Leader has a unique power with different costs.

For example, Wonder Woman's power only costs two charges, and when activated, she will receive 4 attack this turn, in addition to granting +1 life to her recruits. A recruit is any troop that is not a Leader.

Board

Knowing the format of the board is essential to winning battles in Dual Force, as the positioning of your Recruits will directly influence the combat.

When starting the game, we see that there are 2 lines, the front and the back. Each row has 3 spaces for the player to place their cards. Leaders automatically go to both ends of the back row.

The recruits in front will be responsible for blocking attacks, but they will only defend those who are directly behind them. Let's use an illustrative example:

I have listed all the squares belonging to my side of the board, I will explain following these numbers.

As already mentioned, the Leaders already have a defined space at the beginning of the game, they will appear in squares 4 and 6. Recruit number 1 will defend the Leader on the left, recruit 3 will block attacks directed at the one on the right.

If you also want to defend a specific recruit, you can place it in square 5, and then fill square 2 with another troop to block attacks.

Even if squares 1, 2 and 5 are filled, square 6 (Wonder Woman in this example) will still be unprotected, the only one who will defend it is 3.

Keywords

Keywords are a great way to add dynamics to the game, and some of them even change the way the board works.

A Hunter, for example, can break through blocks and attack a back row unit with ease, ignoring the blocker.

Recruits with Guard defend all units if hit's on the front lines, similar to Hearthstone's Taunt.

We also have other defensive keywords like Aura and Shield. The first is a spell shield, while minions with Shield ignore the first damage taken, it's just like Divine Shield, also from Hearthstone.

There are other effects, but the most important and popular so far are these.

The Resources system in Dual Force is a little different from usual.

The game offers three types of resources in the game: Bronze, Silver and Gold. Ah, there are also cards that are free!

See how much resources you will receive each round:

First Turn: 1 Bronze

Second Turn: 2 Bronzes

Third Turn: 1 Silver and 1 Bronze

Fourth Turn: 2 Silver

Fifth Turn onwards: 1 Gold and 1 Silver

So far so good, it's just a different way of tracking resources, but there are things that might annoy some players:

Let's assume we're on turn 5 (with one gold and one silver energy) and with 4 Bronze cost cards. You couldn't play those four cards, as the Bronze card will consume a full resource, even if it's Gold.

Even with an energy of Gold and another Silver, we will be able to play a maximum of two Bronze cards, the first would spend its Silver resource, and the second card would use Gold.

It seems a little unfair, not to mention that it will weaken aggressive lists, which usually want to drop several cheap cards, in Dual Force it will only be possible two per turn, even if they are Bronze.

Magic players will easily understand Deck Builder from DC's Card Game, as it also works with colors.

Your first step will be to choose Leaders.

In addition to the Leaders, we have 40 cards in the deck, 20 of each color. In this example here, I chose Wonder Woman (red) next to Green Lantern (green), so my list should have 20 red and 20 green cards.

You can also place two Heroes of the same color. I recommend that you look carefully at the cards of each class to see if there is any interesting combo among them that catches your attention.

That's all for today! I hope this article has really helped you understand this wonderful game that is DC Dual Force. Use the comments for suggestions or questions.

Until the next time!