With Public Beta Launch, Emergents TCG Unveils Super-Rare NFT Card Packs & Exclusive Art

Fans of traditional trading card games like Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon fame are licking their lips in anticipation of the launch of the long-awaited Emergents TCG game, now available in public beta today. 

Emergents TCG is a new kind of trading card game that’s aiming to create a digital revolution in the industry with a bold, new economic model that caters to fans of both free-to-play games and those who value the ability to buy, sell and trade cards to build up their decks. 

Traditional, physical card games like Magic: The Gathering remain popular to this day, but efforts to bring the genre into the modern world have so far fallen flat. While blockchain technology, which enables the creation of unique digital assets with record ownership, is a natural fit for trading card games, most early efforts have been flawed. The problem is that blockchain is such a tricky concept that it simply doesn’t appeal to gamers who simply want to play games and trade their cards. They’ve no interest in the complex mechanics of how blockchains work, or learning how to buy cryptocurrency and set up a wallet. As such, digital card trading games have never really taken off. 

This is where Emergents TCG aims to make a difference, building on the Tezos blockchain while obscuring that fact to ensure players have a streamlined experience. Players won’t even know they’re interacting with a blockchain, the game’s creator, InterPop, has said. All they’ll see is their deck of cards, which are easy to buy using ‘normal’ money and a straightforward marketplace for buying, selling and trading those cards. 

Even so, the cards are actually NFTs – non-fungible tokens in crypto lingo – meaning that each one is totally unique, with its history of ownership being forever recorded on the blockchain. In this way, it becomes for Emergents TCG to create truly rare and exclusive cards that will command extremely high prices – just like the most valuable cards in physical games such as Pokemon or Hearthstone.

The Emergents game taps into the existing, blockchain-based comic book series created by InterPop – The Nine, Emergents Presents, #ZOEMG, The Abyss, and The Rejects – building on their rich storylines.

Each of the Emergents TCG cards features stunning and beautiful art from the best artists from the popular InterPops digital comic books. To entice new players to get started, some of the initial cards are free for anyone to claim, with additional cards available to purchase. 

Some of the earliest and most highly-sought after cards to go on sale can be found in the limited edition Super Booster card packs that are on sale now to celebrate the launch of the game in beta. Some of these Super Booster packs will contain incredible rare cards featuring exclusive “variant” artwork that cannot be found anywhere else, in addition to some that won’t be released for general sale in the game for a long time to come. These cards promise to be extremely valuable, though the most in-demand will be the exclusive 1-of-1, first-minted NFTs of each card type, that will also be randomly assigned to the packs. Everyone has an admittedly small chance of acquiring one of these first-mint cards, along with an NFT based player avatar and access to one of the digital comics that can be read on the InterPop website. 

For those who buy one of the more expensive Epic Super Booster, available through auction only, they’ll also acquire a super-rare NFT that can be redeemed for actual, physical comic book art that will be sent to their home address. So it’s not only highly-sought after digital collectibles that’s available, but a very limited number of physical goods too. 

Magic: The Gathering Hall of Famer and former World Champion Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa is one of the team of all-star designers who helped to create Emergents TCG. He explained that the game aspires to have both the strategic depth of MTG, along with the simplicity and speed of Hearthstone, another popular card trading game. It’s a highly strategic game with a big focus on deck building, he explained. 

“Everything in our game is designed to be quick and effective while also providing an opportunity for a challenge if you’re looking for one – complex, but not complicated,” Da Rosa said. “Our asynchronous combat system, for example, gets rid of all the awkward pauses that happen when a player interacts in the other player’s turn, but retains all the strategic diversity of blocking.” 

“Our core resource mechanic, Wildcarding, is a mechanic that we’re hoping will create exciting moments for players while also allowing for their choices to matter,” Da Rosa added. “The goal is to have strategic depth and skill-intensive moments for those who are looking for it while still being inviting for those who want a more leisurely approach to gaming.