Neopets Battledome Trading Card Game from Upper Deck is a new TCG based on he Neopets universe. Currently there are two-starter decks, Starry Acara and Fire Uni, available along with booster packs.
What Is Neopets Battledome Trading Card Game?
Neopets Battledome Trading Card Game is a game for two players, ages six and up, and takes about 20-30 minutes to play.
Neopets Battledome Trading Card Game was designed by Bobby Coover and published by Upper Deck.
Neopets Battledome Trading Card Game Components
Each Starter Deck includes a complete set of 55 cards (1 Exclusive Foil Neopet of the Deck namesake Neopet, 2 Common Neopets, 48 Common Cards, 4 Foil Cards), 10 custom 6-sided dice in a color matching the namesake Neopet (blue for Starry Acara and red for Fire Uni), a playmat with the rulesheet on the reverse side, and an exclusive avatar of the namesake Neopet redeemable on Neopets.com. As with most TCG Starter Decks, the card list for each deck is detailed on the back of the box and is exactly the same for every deck of that Neopet.
Each Booster Pack contains 8 random cards – 3 common, 1 common/rare/codestone foil, 1 super rare or higher, 2 rare, and 1 codestone. Across the five booster backs we opened, we only had 2 repeated cards.
How to Play Neopets Battledome Trading Card Game
You can download a copy of the rulebook here. I highly recommend this even if you have the game as the version included with the starter decks is version 1.0, and version 1.2 is now available online which clarifies a few rules that were a little tricky to decipher when we first started playing. Also, due to the rulesheet being on the backside of the playmat, having the digital version of the rules handy on your phone or tablet is ideal while learning to play (which is how I discovered there was a newer version of the rules in the first place)! Also, a nice little touch is that there is a QR code on the playmat to the latest version of the rules likely because they knew this would be necessary.
The Goal
The goal of the game is to win two out of three rounds. A player wins a round when their opponents Neopet has take damage equal to or greater than their Hit Points.
Setup
Like with most TCGs, you can custom and build your own decks if you have enough cards to do so. There are deck construction rules and guidelines in the rulebook, but that will not be covered here as we just played with the existing Starter Decks. I always recommend using the out of box starter decks on a new TCG until you are familiar enough with the rules and cards to start customizing and building your own deck.
Setup is fairly straightforward, especially with the help of the playmat. Each player chooses (or builds) their deck, and gets a matching set of dice and playmat (henceforth referred to as the Batledome). The Neopets and Rainbow Pool Neopets are pulled out of the deck and put into the designated areas in the Batledome. The remainder of the deck is shuffled and placed onto the deck area of the Battledome. Each player then draws five cards from their deck into their inventory.
Both players choose their starting Neopet and places them facedown on the Neopet area in the Battledome. Once both players have seleced a starting Neopet, they are flipped over simultaneously.
Who goes first the starting round is decided randomly by a method of your choosing (coin flip, rock peper scissrs, die roll, etc.)
Gameplay
Gameplay is made up of four turn phases. Each player does all four phases on their turn before the opposing player takes their turn. This repeats until one Neopet is defeated which ends the round.
The phases are:
- Draw Phase: Player draws a card from the top of ther deck. If their deck is empty, their active Neopet takes one point of damage.
- Training Phase: Player may attach one Codestone card to their Neopet to raise their level (to a maximum of five).
- Preparation Phase: Player may play exactly one card with a level requirement equal or less than the Neopet’s current level. (There are a handful of exceptions that allow more than one card per turn but that will be explicity stated on the card).
- Battle Phase: Player’s Neopet must battle the opponents Neopet if able to. Battling ends the player’s turn. (The player going first only at the beginning of each game skips the battle phase on the first turn.)
This is a photo taken mid game, but s useful for illustrating a lot of things about the game and gameplay.
Firstly, each Neopet card has four important pieces of information on it – the top right corner in green is the Neopet’s hit points, and along the bottom from left to right are the Neopets Attack (red), Defense (blue), and Agility (yellow).
During the Training Phase, a player can place one codestone under their Neopet. Each Codestone card not only increases the Neopets level, but will buff one or more of these stats. he cards are places in the Battledome under the Neopet with the buff peaking out to make it easy to see wha the Neopets current stats are with some quick addition.
During the Preparation Phase, a player may play a card equal to or below their Neopets current level. The various card types for this phase are Legends, Faeries, Food, Equipment, and Potions. Equipment cards are the odd man out in that they are added to one of the three Equipment slots in the Battledome for the player. A Neopet can only have 3 pieces of equipment at any given time but a card can be discarded and replaced with a new Equipment card during the Preparation Phase. All of the other card types are either immediate actions, specify a specific phase for them to take place in, or can be played as a reaction card, but regardless are all one time use cards. Once used, Legends and Potions g to the discard while Food and Faeries go to the Void. All of these cards have a level requirement in the top left corner and must be equal to or lesser than the Neopets current level to play.
Once a player has fully prepared their Neopet for the round, the Battle Phase begins. The Battle Phase is performed in four steps : Attack, Defend, Compare Agility, and Calculating Damage. The attacking player rolls a number of their dice equal to the Attack power of their Neopet. A 1,2, or 3 is a miss, 4 or 5 is a successful hit, and a 6(or star if using the branded dice) is a Critical Hit. The defending player than rolls a number of dice equal to the Defense power of their Neopet. A 1,2, or 3 is a miss, ad a 4,5, or 6(or star) is a successful block. Then the Agility power of each Neopet is compared. The player with the higher agility score can re-roll a number of dice equal to or less than the difference between the Agility powers. To calculate damage, add up the successful hits and subtract the number of successful blocks. Critical hits cannot be blocked. If the total successful hits is higher than the successful blocks, the Neopet receives damage equal to the difference.
Once a Neopet is defeated, the active Neopets are placed into the Round Results area – the winning player puts their card face up while the losing player places their card facedown. All other cards in play go to the respective player’s discard and void piles in the Battledome. The winning player than chooses their next Neopet and places it face up in the Battledome. The losing player then selects their Neopet, hopefully gaining them a slight advantage for the next round. The losing player goes first the nexy round and play continues as before.
Game End
The game ends when one player has won two out of the three rounds. If a player wins the first two rounds, the game ends without a third round.
Why You Should Play Neopets Battledome Trading Card Game
Neopets Battledome Trading Card Game is a fun and easy to play TCG, especially for a younger audience. It introduces a lot of basic mechanics of a TCG while also introducing some new ones (like using the dice to calculate damage and defense), that I haven’t seen before. As a family with a lot of experience with the other small creature TCG, I and my kids really liked the battle mechanics as they kept it a bit more fair and level than sometimes playing a game where all of your creatures are wiped out because your opponent got a really high powered card out first. Nobody in our family has any experience with Neopets, but we still enjoyed the game and looking at all the cute critters, and, I imagine, if your family does already enjoy Neopets, that this game would be even more enticing.
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
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