Yesterday Duelyst received its 1.68 patch, introducing a swath of new cosmetic features to the game. The long awaited Prismatic cards were introduced, “foil” versions of existing cards with custom visual effects, along with cosmetic card backs, new emotes, and custom profile icons. Additionally, a “crate and key” system similar to that of CS:GO, TF2, and most recently Rocket League was introduced as an alternate way to acquire these cosmetics.
As with most systems of this nature, crates can be randomly acquired after winning a match in one of three rarities: Common, Rare, or Epic. The better the crate, the more stuff it will have in it, but each rarity requires its own type of key, only available by being purchased with real money. Common keys are $2, Rare keys are $5, and Epic keys are $10. It’s important to note that, with the exception of individual Prismatic cards and Spirit Orbs (Duelyst’s name for a card pack), everything found in a crate is purely cosmetic, and Developer Counterplay Games has said crates and cosmetics will not be tradeable on the Steam marketplace when Duelyst makes its way to Steam in the near future.
Additionally, while the keys are only available with cold hard cash, all of the items within can be purchased separately with an in-game currency called Spirit. While crates come with a higher chance to get rare cosmetics, and even a chance to get more common crate keys, all emotes, profile icons, card backs, and Prismatic cards can be crafted with Spirit, which can be acquired by disenchanting cards. These items can also be individually purchased with real money, but those who don’t want to purchase keys still have the opportunity to get the cosmetic items they want without spending a dime.
As far as free-to-play card games go, Duelyst has one of the least offensive business models. As I noted in my review, filling your card collection comes much quicker than other games like Hearthstone as in-game gold is handed out more liberally. So it’s nice to see that as Counterplay expands Duelyst’s cosmetic options, it isn’t abandoning its generous attitude toward digital goodies. You can read the full patchnotes and crate info here.
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