Home Tabletop Sorcery Contested Realm – Two Years Later

Sorcery Contested Realm – Two Years Later

Roy WillittsUpdated 2 months Ago3 Mins read274 Views

Sorcery: Contested Realm is a Magic: The Gathering-style trading card game with board game elements that achieved its Kickstarter backing of over $3,000,000 back in April of 2022. Over 6,000 people backed the project to help bring it into existence. Described as an “old school” feel of fantasy CCG, this newcomer by the Creative Director of Path of Exile the dark fantasy Diablo-inspired online action RPG has gained attention by several TCG influencers and enthusiasts for the last 2 years since its Kickstarter success. Erik Olofsson, the visionary behind the game, left Grinding Gear Games in 2022 and had already begun a new startup Erik’s Curiosa Limited in 2021 which even has a card in Sorcery: Contested Realm of the same name!

*ERIK’S CURIOSA, A ‘UNIQUE’ TYPE CHASE CARD FOR ALPHA AND BETA SORCERY, DIRECT REFERENCE TO THE COMPANY OF THE SAME NAME.*

Artwork

One of the most striking aspects of the game is its artwork around 40 different artists have worked on the Sorcery game so far such as Drew Tucker, Rodney Matthews, Liz Danforth and Santiago Caruso. Many of the artworks are hand painted and look strange, otherworldly and reminiscent of the earliest sets of Magic: The Gathering.

*A MULTITUDE OF INCREDIBLE SORCERY CARDS, EACH HANDPAINTED FROM A DIFFERENT ARTIST, SOME YOU MAY BE QUITE FAMILIAR WITH*

The artwork may not appeal to every person out there but the fans of the project, fantasy art appreciators, TCG players and fantasy-collecting community members seem to have taken to it either for occasional playtime for some fun every so often or collecting all the distinct artwork available inside the card packs.

*THE HIGHLAND PRINCESS CARD, IT’S ABILITY LETS YOU SEARCH YOUR DECK FOR AN ARTIFACT CARD TO PLACE IN YOUR HAND*

As you can see from each piece of art it seems as if each artist drawing and painting work for the game has been given a large amount of creative freedom to produce their stunning pieces. You can see as you look at the details on the art for each card that they used a variety of their preferred choices to create each piece be it acrylic paint, oil paint, inks, watercolour as well as pencil and pen.

*flaming sword is capable of splashing its damage to airborne enemies as well as the surface*

The artwork looks rich and does set itself apart from other fantasy TCGs such as Flesh and Blood in terms of its overall style. However, comparison to the highly successful, established and popular Magic: The Gathering TCG is unavoidable.

Sorcery Contested Realm Design

*The ancient dragon, an airborne card, its tap ability deals 4 damage to a unit at a nearby target location*

The game design of Sorcery is primarily based on a 4×5 grid. Players seek to defeat the other person’s Avatar of a chosen element. You play your various landscapes known as ‘sites’ that help you gain the power to cast magic spells, spells such as units, your minions as well as permanents such as artefacts and transitory sorceries like auras and magics to the battlefield. Able units can move around the grid to interact with other elements of the game. There are even levels of verticality to the game such as surface level, underground/underwater and air/above ground level.

*seer is an avatar card, REPRESENTING THE PLAYER. SEER ALLOWS you to gain site cards necessary for gameplay, you can also see a vision of your next card on each of your turns*

The grid-based system makes the game feel similar to a board game when you play it, whilst also feeling like Magic: The Gathering. So the gameplay also seems to have captivated some players as well as the engrossing artwork that is undoubtedly gorgeous.

Funding for the Alpha Edition has already been met so those products are now available on the secondary market. It appears as if the more affordable Beta Edition cards, the second printing of the original Alpha cards and their Beta Edition booster boxes, are becoming harder and harder to find.

Reprints and New Expansions

The Beta Edition booster boxes of Sorcery: Contested Realm appear to be going through a reprint of some kind so cheaper rates of buying and acquiring the cards may be possible. The US seemed to get a lot of the Beta release whereas Europe is awaiting more products to be printed. We don’t know all the details yet but from what other influencers are suggesting another print run may be on the cards known as Beta 2.0.

*WAYPOINT PORTAL ALLOWS GREATER FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT OF YOUR UNITS ACROSS THE 4X5 GRID*

This reprint supposedly has deeper colour saturation than previous printings creating intense and rich artwork on these newly printed cards. Stores are being told by distribution centres how much availability and allocation there will be of this newer reprint. This may arrive sometime in August, possibly even September this year.

An upcoming expansion set known as ‘Arthurian Legends’ is also eagerly awaited by fans of the game with a tentative date of the set releasing in early Q4 of 2024. From what we can gain from the title, this more than likely focuses on the Knights of the Round Table, Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake.

Follow Blooing on Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok for more Tabletop news and reviews.

Post Views: 302