Alteil until now remains for me as one of the best card battle games available online. They have made significant improvements since they transitioned from a Flash based game to Html 5. I have now been able to play and finish games against both AI and human players compared to matches I've tried about two years ago when the transition began. It has been a slow process, but given the limited resources of the team behind the game, it is actually amazing that the game has been kept alive after all these years, considering I was already playing this game since 2008.
While there are still some random bugs, overall, the game is now playable. You might have to wait a long time since the images for the cards are cached in your browser. If you have a single deck for your card collection, the wait time might not be that long, but if you've amassed cards from the 1st set up to set 13, then you can imagine how long it will take to store all the card images on your device. But after the first time you do this, successive logins should be quick to load.
There are many ways to acquire cards even in this new version of Alteil. There are single player quests that can award a new player 1-star to 3-star cards upon the completion of a quest. Card rarities range from 1-star to 5-stars (rarest). There are also EX-cards that can be considered like 5-stars and are available for purchase during certain events or occasions. There is also the Free Daily Lotto that awards a player a single random card if the player has participated in a match with an AI or human that has at least ten turns. Winning against human players will also sometimes give the player a card for a prize, as well as materials for card crafting. I haven't really tried crafting yet, because the results seem to be random. But there are a few players who are trying to build a database / guide of materials that will result in certain cards on a consistent basis. I hope they succeed. And finally, you still get a card for every 10 levels you achieve in your rank. But it no longer gives you four choices like the old Alteil used to. (I think new players will still appreciate being given a choice from four cards from each primary sphere since when you are starting out, you initially chose a deck built around a certain sphere.) Point cards are still available. These are special cards which you can exchange for a card of your choice depending on the card rarity minimum. 1-star cards are worth 10 point cards while a 5-star card is worth 50 point cards, if I remember correctly.
Mirage Master is gone. This memory game used to be the most viable way of earning gran, one of Alteil's currencies. Now, you earn FM or fight money for every match against a human opponent. I used to use FM for purchasing avatar related items. I think that FM can also be used to purchase cards, but I haven't really tried it yet. As a point of comparison, I think that you will have to amass a lot of FM compared to gran to buy the same card. Only Premium players can sell cards now. To be a premium player means paying for membership. In the past, you could actually sell a card in exchange for gran. That means that if you had a fourth copy of a certain card, which you no longer need, you could at least recycle this copy in exchange for gran. Now, you can still try to sell these cards, but you sell them to fellow players, no longer to a recycling machine. So, it is possible that the card is stuck in the store since no one wants to buy it, especially if it is a common card. I hope that they bring back recycling so that fourth copies of cards, or cards that I don't plan on using since they are not part of the sphere I'm concentrated on could be exchanged for useful gran.
I greatly appreciate the number of ways you can win in this game. There are many different types of decks you can build. There are many different strategies for winning. That is why there are still players who have stayed loyal to this game all throughout the years. A player could be using a discarder (a strategy that diminishes the amount of cards that a player can draw from his card pile) on his first match, and an energy-drain deck on another (a strategy that prevents a user from putting cards into play since each card requires a certain amount of energy). Another player could use a deck that uses small fast units while another could rely on a single unit that wipes out most units on the field. Alteil is filled with variety, and even now, I'm surprised to see new strategies after playing this game for such a long time. (Yes, I'm talking about you Kraken users) Other card battle games, say like Clash Royale are pretty much one dimensional. And the player who can send out units the fastest will more likely win. But Alteil is like a chess match. You have to think about your moves from the first turn up to the last. Otherwise, you will lose to a well prepared player who built a deck out of common cards even though your deck is stuffed with rare cards. Card synergy, timing, and creativity are necessary for playing a masterful match.
There are currently about 5 to 15 players who are active daily. I wish more players played this game. A growing user base is necessary for a game to succeed. There are plans to roll out the game in Steam and also as a mobile app and I hope that it happens soon and it succeeds.
There are still a lot of things I could discuss about this game, but it is best for a person to try it out himself/herself. Perhaps then, you too will discover this gem of a game called Alteil.
