If you’ve ever liked the style of Magic: the Gathering, but never felt like collecting the cards, here’s a free Flash game for you–Mytheria!
Basic Gameplay
Mytheria is basically a Flash version of Magic: the Gathering, with a few teeny-tiny rules changes. For instance, instead of being able to draw and play mana cards (resources to pay for spells) every turn, you choose at the beginning of your turn whether you want to increase your mana pool or draw a card. Also, you don’t have any “mana cards” to play at all–the mana pool is separate from your deck of cards.
A screenshot of the tutorial stage–you play with a preconstructed deck and much of the gameplay is explained to you through popup text boxes. Vital info for each player is on the right, play area is on the left.
A sample game, with an Aura (permanent spell) in play on the right side, and a creature or two in play on either side. The half-transparent creature on the opponent’s side was used to attack last turn, so it is unavailable to block with (like tapping a creature to attack in Magic).
Now, normally I would go into all the essential rules and know-how in this section, but someone else has already done it, and done it very well, I might add! Thus, I give you the following Mytheria walkthrough that covers most of the basics of gameplay.
However, there is one part that the above guide and the in-game tutorial both leave out: the philosophies and typical gameplay of each color in the game.
The Color Pie: Each Color’s Abilities
Mytheria, like Magic, works off five basic colors. To play Mytheria well, you need to be versed in how each color plays, as well as what type of gameplay you prefer so that you know how to build your own deck when the time comes. (More about building your own deck in the Game Progression section of this article.)
Each color does have combat capabilities, but each color also has its own spin on what it does besides combat (and what it does with creatures). Each color also has a bit of unblockable combat damage and penetrating combat damage (you block, but if there’s damage left over, it gets through to you).
White
Major Creature Type: Soldier
- Gains life
- Prevents attacking
- Has lots of small creatures
- Enhances creatures with Auras and Modifiers
- Destroys creatures by paying life
- Destroys Auras
- Gives creatures back some Strength
- Can draw extra cards at beginning of turn
Purple
Major Creature Types: Myrkin, Soldier, Animal
- Destroys Auras and creatures
- Weakens creatures
- Manipulates opponent’s mana pool
- Gains a tiny bit of life
- Trades life points for mana
- Bounces opponent’s creatures back to hand
- Draws cards
- Stops opponents from playing cards
Red
Major Creature Type: Soldier
- Uses lots of little creatures for combat damage
- Targets opponent and enemy creatures with burn spells
- Plays very aggressively
- Gains a teeny bit of life
- Boosts creatures with both Auras and Modifiers
- Destroys Modifiers
Blue
Major Creature Type: Robot
- More focus on “unblockable” damage than other colors
- Boosts Robots’ strength
- Sacrifices creatures for life gain
- Destroys Modifiers
- Pings creatures
- Makes opponent ditch cards from hand
- Brings down opponent’s creature strength
Black
Major Creature Type: Shadow
- Destroys creatures
- Damages self in order to damage opponent
- Effects life loss
- Trades cards in hand for creature Strength
- Discards cards
- Takes away abilities of creatures
- Trades creature Strength and opponent’s life total for self life total
- Trades mana for life points
Game Progression
You have to beat each of the prescribed missions first, beginning with the (awesomely detailed) Tutorial and all the way through to the end, to officially “beat” the game. But that doesn’t mean you stop playing!
Deck Builder
After Mission 6 is complete, you unlock the Deck Builder option, which allows you to go in and build your own deck to use on missions. No longer do you have to suffer through playing the all-red decks of the beginning few scenarios; you can build whatever you like to stomp the opponent!
Card Limits
Keep in mind that some cards are limited to how many you can put in your self-built deck. Most have a limit of 5, but some, like Commander J’Ardan and Scythian Elite, can only have 2 or 3 in a deck. With a max of 60 cards allowed in your deck, take time to balance what you’re putting in your deck and remember these limits.
Challenges
You also unlock the Challenges section after you complete Mission 6. Challenges mainly involve defeating opponents playing super-strong mono-color decks, as well as winning a game when you only began with 10 health (or even 1 health!).
Completing challenges allow you to unlock special locked cards in the Deck Builder, which are quite epic cards…but I’ll leave that for you to discover on your own. Have fun!
Play the game: Mytheria