So this game feature that I will be bringing you is none other than Nightmare CCG. At first, this game felt pretty empty when I first got it earlier this year, but now it's filled with 3 sets, and a campaign mode to help keep you entertained along with being able to challenge friends.
This dark Lovecraft-themed mobile game can be found in the Apple App Store. Besides its incredible theming, the game brings familiarities from other mobile card games like Hearthstone, but this game brings in an enjoyable game mechanic that makes it truly its own. Most games have individual life and cost systems like mana. In Nightmares, you have health like any other game set to 20HP, but your cost system is called “Sanity”. Now you start with 12 Sanity at the beginning of every turn your Sanity drops allowing you to gain mana points to play cards in hand. When the candle drops to 4 your sanity will bring you to the brink of madness, as it counts down to 0 it becomes game over with whoever has the lowest life points losses. Now I love this because it adds extra strategy to the game. You have to balance out the amount of points you are gaming per turn, with cards in hand. Make sure you make the right plays to get your opponent's HP down below yours or eliminated before you lose your Sanity. The concept alone is a lot of fun, but the execution of working that concept into the cost system itself is one of the coolest things that I have seen in a game.
Next, since you have an idea of how the game plays will introduce the different realms that you will encounter and what cards you can find in them.
The Sunken City - Blue
The Void - Red
The Black Forest - Green
The Silence - Black
Starting things off with my favorite realm is the Sunken City - Blue typically is themed by deep ocean aquatic life or mythic legends. The different types they have are Abyssal, Undead, Clutist, Dragons, Elementals, Base/Machination, and Deep Ones. They have a lot of abilities like rush, freeze, destroy, and dealing damage to creatures as well as to the player. Sunken City focuses on utilizing the graveyard to manipulate the field dealing damage, gain buffs, heal HP, and more. Cards like the Abyssal like Hunger of the Depths/Cost1/1ATK/1HP, Serpentine Amalgamation/Cost1/1TCK/1HP, or Swarm of Death/Cost3/3ATK/1HP have rush which is haste in other games, which is great for getting in hand right at the start of the game to start chipping away your opponent's hp. A couple of key deep ones that I run Rogue Deep One/Cost2/3ATK/1HP allow for a mill 3 and give the ability to select a card out of the 3 to get a copy added to the top of your deck, this one is so good to have early on in the game due to the 3 ATK can help take out some things you do not want on the board. Another deep one that I use a lot is Deep One Swarm/4Cost/2ATK/2HP it has a great ability that when you summon it allows you to select 1 creature from the opponents you control on board and destroy it. This guy has allowed me to manipulate the board so much, and gain control of the game. This now leads to my Cultist that I run which is my bread and butter Cultist of Betrayal/Cost3/6ATK/6HP which has a backfiring ability at the start of my turn to discard a card or sacrifice himself. You might be like, wait that's a bad card to run, but when you run 3 Serpentine Amalgamation that ability allows you to add a "That Which Lies Below" card to your hand, which just makes life so much easier to discard those to keep your Cultist of Betrayal alive. Then you pair him up with Evangelical Cultist/Cost4/2ATK/2HP that on summon you summon 2 1/4 Cultist to the board when you pair this up with Ritual of Sacrifice which on summon or start of your turn deals x damage to random enemy creatures to X number of Cultust you control. Finally to wrap up the Cultist Draconian Cultist/Cost3/3ATK/4HP ties things together when on summon give all dragons creatures you control +2/+1. Dragons you can run are Ice Wyrn/Cost2/2ATK/3HP, Glacixx, Eternal Ice/Cost5/6ATK/6HP to do crazy things, and Frost Mage/Cost5/3ATK/3HP which on summon she summons 2 Frost Wyrms with Rush. Lastly, you cannot run this deck without the big man Cthulhu, the Great One/Cost10/10ATK/10HP he just comes out and curbs and stomps you out of your misery, dealing 1 damage to every creature in your graveyard (Max:10), but it ends everything typically that out at this point. This deck is incredibly competitive deck is listed below along with pictures!
Deck name: Depths of the Great One
Cost 1:
3 x Hunger of the Depths - Base Set
3 x Serpentine Amalgamation - Dark Machinations
Cost 2:
3 x Rouge Deep One - Base Set
3 x Ice Wyrn - Scorched Earth
2 x Ritual of Sacrifice - Scorched Earth
Cost 3:
3 x Cultist of Betrayal - Base Set
2 x Cultist Draconian - Scorched Earth
Cost 4:
3 x Deep One Swarm - Base Set
2 x Evangelical Cultist - Scorched Earth
Cost 5:
2 x Frost Mage - Dark Machinations
2 x Glacixx, Eternal Ice - Scorched Earth
Cost 10:
2 x Cthulhu, the Great One - Base Set
My next favorite realm to play has to be the Void - Red. They are typically themed after creatures of the underworld or anything fire-related. The different types they have are Demons, Dragons, Base/Machination, and Elementals. They have abilities as well that deal great amounts of damage to creatures as well as to the player, burn, gain attack, or HP. The deck I run has Demons that work together typically needing a Demon on the board to do additional effects, as well as Dragons who tend to hell each other out as well. In the recent set drop Scorched Earth brought traditional fire dragons into play utilizing a great deal of dealing burn to creatures or damage to the opponent's hp. So cards that I like best are starting with Demonic Lacky/Cost1/1ATK/1HP on summon gains a +1/+1 when you control another demon. Super simple card, but helps build the amount of demons you need in the deck, and is an easy cost 1. Another fun cost 1 Demon is Ignighted Imp/Cost1/0ATK/3HP which burns creatures that attack it. Doesn't do much either, but does help defensive-wise to start burning opponents' creatures. Lastly, Spitfire Drake/Cost1/2ATK/1HP on summon if you control another dragon, summon a dragon egg. This guy is the start of what the deck really does which leads into our cost 2 creatures like Dragon Egg/Cost2/0ATK/4HP start of turn deal 1 damage to the enemy hp. On death: Hatch into a 4/4 Drake with Molten. Now this is where Spitfire Drake if you have it in hand after this new Drake just hatched the turn before, can lead you into summoning another Dragon Egg which is a lot of fun. Moving on to cost 3 Obliterator/Cost3/2ATK/2HP which on summon when you control 2 demons destroy a random creature is excellently paired with Opportunistic IMP/Cost3/2ATK/2HP which gains a +1/+1 when an opponent creature dies, which is so agro and so good in the game. That IMP then gets paired with these two 4 cost cards Rip Out the Heart/Cost4 spell that destroys an opponent creature along with Breath of the Void/Cost4/3ATK/2HP when on summon deal 1 damage to all enemy creatures for each demon you control just adds a nice stab into the opponents forces. This is why I have those 1 cost demons to help gain up extra for this guy on summon ability. Then to add shame I have Swarm Leader/Cost4/4ATK/4HP on summon gives all your demons +1/+1 which just builds up your army. Lastly, our remaining cards are 5 cost with Voxx, Dragon King/Cost5/5ATK/5HP on summon fill your board with Dragon Eggs. On death: your dragon eggs hatch into 4/4 Drakes with molten. This guy is just the ultimate stomp you need to end your opponent's life, and forces. Our last card is just in case the board whip Mutilate/Cost5 spell deals damage to each creature to your current sanity level. This one is just in case, to get things I don't need. The deck overall focuses on lower-level demons to help out the other demons' additional bounce-off abilities and the Dragons along with their eggs are there to keep burning the opponent's HP and swarming the field.
Deck Name: Demonic Dragons Void
Cost 1:
3 x Demonic Lacky - Base Set
3 x Ignighted Imp - Scorched Earth
3 x Spitfire Drake - Scorched Earth
Cost2:
3 x Dragon Egg - Spitefire Drake
Cost 3:
3 x Obliterator - Base Set
3 x Opportunistic IMP - Base Set
Cost 4:
3 x Rip Out the Heart - Base Set
3 x Breath of the Void - Base Set
3 x Swarm Leader - Base Set
Cost 5:
2 x Voxx, Dragon King - Scorched Earth
1 x Mutilate - Base Set
Now my third favorite realm is the Black Forest - Green! I'm still working out a good deck, so will just give details, and mention the deck I am aiming to build. They are typically themed after creatures of the dark-infested forest and terrors that hide in them. The different types they have are Spiders, Darkwood, Dragons, Sporeling, Base/Machination, and Elementals. The typical abilities you will find are reveal, intimidate, poison, and spore. Darkwood has an ability called Reveal that has to sit one turn before activating triggering their ability typically having to wait another turn before you can attack with them. These can be paired up with to give you an edge on the battlefield. Spiders typically have Itimidate or stat-boosting abilities. They just added poison in the game and many of the dragons have this ability. Now getting into what I want to build starts off with a Hungry Spider/Cost1/2ATK/1HP that has Itimidate very simple, along with Infested Darkwood/Cost1/3ATK/3HP with Reveal: Give enemy creatures -1/0 which is great to reduce the opponents creatures attack. Next, our cost 2 creature Ravenous Spinner/Cost2/4ATK/2HP with Intimidate is very generic, but our Ambushing Darkwood/Cost2/4ATK/4HP with Reveal: destroy a random opponent creature. This helps out greatly along with The Infestation Begins/Cost 2 spell that gives opponents creatures a -1/0, which honestly doesn't sound good, but this low-cost drop can be paired with Infested Darkwood to help edge you into a good advantage aggressively or defensively. Now 3 costs are key to making your deck shine, starting with ArachnidIntimidator/Cost3/4ATK/2HP which at the start of each turn you gain +1/+1 which can be a threat to anyone's health left unchecked for too many turns. Another spider from Scorched Earth Slik Spinner/Cost3/3ATK/2HP on sumon or the start of the turn you can cacoon a random enemy creature which they can't attack or defend until the start of your next turn. This is such a great stall tactic to allow your Darkwoods to Reveal, but this guy Thornbark Drake/Cost3/4ATK/5HP Reveal: return a random creature your opponent controls back to their hand. It's a Darkwood/Dragon that has rush as well, making it a must-have in any Black Forest/Green deck. Cost 4 that I use are Drachanid/Cost4/5ATK/3HP Dragon/Spirder with Itimidate & Toxic along with Arachnid General/Cost5/4ATK/4HP which when I attack gives a spider +1/+0 and I have Itimidate which is so good at a cost 5. Leaving our last card at a cost of 7 Noxxus, Forest Plague/Cost7/7ATK/7HP this guy does a lot on summon from poisoning all your opponent's creatures dro summoning a Drachanid for each poisoned opponent's creature. This guy also got Itimidate which can just be devastating to the opponent's health.
Deck Name: Dark Sprider Dragons
Cost 1:
3 x Hungry Spider - Base Set
3 x Infested Darkwoon - Base Set
Cost 2:
3 x Ravenous Spinner - Base Set
3 x Ambushing Darkwood - Base Set
2 x The Infestation Begins - Base Set
Cost 3:
3 x Arachnid Intimidator - Base Set
3 x Slik Spinner - Scorched Earth
3 x Thornbark Drake - Scorched Earth
Cost 4:
3 x Drachanid - Scorched Earth
Cost 5:
2 x Arachnid General
Cost 7:
2 x Noxxus, Forest Plague - Scorched Earth
Lastly, my least favorite is the Silence - Black whose theme them are grand being that dark mythical creatures witchcraft, shadows, vampires, or cult feel to them. I also like a lot of their abilities which are like lifesteal (taking hp to heal your own), forcing the opponent to discard from their hand, and plagues that stack on gaining greater abilities. They even have the four horsemen of the apocalypse which they are really cool as well, but I am just not a fan of playing this realm personally. I have listed a few of the cards below that I think would be cool to make a deck out of. But I haven't fully invested the time myself into building this just yet. I find the other realms way more entertaining to play, which fits my playstyle. But I have to say the ShadowSpawn/Cost1/1ATK/2HP which on death give another Shadow Spawn my stats, is an excellent ran with PlagueofShadows/Cost2 spell which allows you to summon another shadow spawn, which you run along with the other plague cards makes for a great deck.
With that said what do you think about these Realms? Which is your favorite? What cards do you like? Make sure to drop what you think below in the comments!
Final Thoughts:
Gems:
I wish I could gain gems on a tie or something, but you get nothing out of it, unfortunately, but with each win, you get 25 gems. In the campaign, you can gain more gems this way as well which is loads of fun, and filled with cool challenges. You can now also get extra gems through extra cards you obtained from the packs, haven't got the exact amount you get for each card, but I have gotten quite a bit from the extras that I had when i first tried it. You can purchase gems which I think are pretty well-priced! But you can always hop on the discord to collect bounties which can get you a good amount of gems. Would be cool once the bounties are added to the game automatically!!!
Sets & Realms:
My favorite set is the Base Set followed closely by Scorched Earth and only needs a few cards to build decks Dark Machinations is my least favorite Ste only needing 3 or 4 cards from it to make my current decks. You have a wide variety of decks from each set you can pick up for 2000 gems, which I forget how much you start with, but was a healthy lot.
I like how they are just focusing on the four realms to build on the game and make sure to keep balance. But hoping that we do get another two realms to make it a total of six, which thinking something like light or holy type or even the dark mythology into the game that can be twisted in a way. Now thinking about it space creatures or beings would be cool to see as well. But they are working on lore to add to the game as well.
How the app runs:
The game app itself is good, only having an issue with the app itself shutting down at times when I go through the menu pages too quickly. But I like to mention that while playing the game itself I never had this issue.
Overall:
The gameplay makes it all too addicting, it puts me at the edge when the game gets into the later turns which is the "Brink of Madness" where your late game cards with high cost or ones who have this ability can kick in to turn the tables. The Sanity counter makes the game really interesting and unique, along with the new Scorched Earth set that helps balance out the cards in the Base Set allowing the game to hit a new level of excitement, and strategy. They made sure to have each realm have advantages in the early, mid, and late games to keep balance. I am excited to see what's to come from the fourth set and eager to hear about the lore behind the game.
If you haven't played it yet, I suggest if you have the extra time go ahead and check it out. It is a lot of fun and will gladly take on anyone who challenges me.
