Disclaimer: I’m not being paid by Mike Camilli or anyone else to write this review. The only money I could make would be through advertising on this site or on YouTube at this point in time.
Begin with Red Aeons- I think the Red deck is the best starting deck. It has good creatures and solid removal options. The green deck may have some stronger starting creatures, but it is limited in its ability to react to opponents without having board control. The black deck contains decent creatures and removal, but the costs appear to be higher. Many of the black cards cost you life and aeons to cast. The blue deck is slow to get moving. Once it does, look out! Until then it’s usually at the mercy of its enemies. I’ve now tried each starting deck and believe they are fairly balanced as long as you pick the correct abilities.
Abilities matter- look into abilities at the start of the game. Whichever you choose, get your primary attribute up to at least 15. This gets you your first sub ability. I personally recommend getting agility if you choose a red, green or black starting color. Agility lets you move first in duels more often (going first is based on a roll of agility attributes), and can get you more gold and cards as you level up this ability. When there is a limited number of enemies in the game, this can be very important! At higher difficulties enemies can take your gold and cards so gathering more resources seems essential. For the blue deck, I recommend either intelligence or wisdom to help the deck start faster. Many good blue cards cost more aeons. The health attribute actually affects your health total and should start at 28. Your health attribute +20 equals the health of your avatar.
Leveling up has a cost- leveling up allows you to spend gold at an ability trainer to increase your abilities. It will cost more gold each time you level up with the trainer. This means you want to save your gold if you play on normal difficulty and above. You get 2 ability points per level. If you maximize one stat at the beginning of the game this means you can get your second sub ability after one level up. The cutoff points for these sub-abilities are 15, 20, 25, and 30. You could get all of an ability’s sub-abilities at level seven if you min/max your character. It will take 11 levels to increase another ability from its starting point of 8 to 30. These abilities will drastically affect combat.
Pay attention to the order of combat-there is a huge advantage to moving first in Lost Portal. One of the reasons I recommend agility is because you have a higher chance of placing your creatures on the board first. Creatures don’t take damage when they deal damage to opposing blockers. This means going first and hitting first is amazing. The reverse is also true. On cast abilities also provide incredible advantages because they practically give a creature rush or bonus effects when played (think Battlecry from Hearthstone). Higher agility can lead to a skill which can give normal creatures rush. Overall you want a good assortment of low-cost and high-cost creatures with good abilities. Many of the best low-cost creatures will give you aeons or cards to help you build your field faster.
Save your gold- Remember, NPC merchants and forges have randomized stock. The only thing which always provides the same benefit is the ability trainer in terms of rewards. Cards’ costs depend on their rarities. Selling a card gives you half its value as gold. I have found forging to be less meaningful than buying from merchants in easy mode because it costs 8 cards to make one card you want. Once you know exactly what you want to build in the game, forging will make more sense.
NPC attributes- a green border indicates an NPC has a quest to give you. A white border means an NPC is ready to reward you for a completed quest. A yellow border means an NPC has already given you a quest, and the quest isn’t complete. A black border shows an NPC has nothing to give you, yet may talk with you. A merchant has a gold coin at the bottom right corner of its picture. The ability trainer has a green crown, claw, or spear point. A red anvil at the bottom right corner of an NPC indicates the forge. This information is given in the tutorial, yet I thought I’d include it for anyone who skipped the message. Keep in mind you can always access the tutorial and information again from the top left and right corners of the screen.
I hope this information helps you on your quest to find the Lost Portal, dear reader! If you want to see more information on the game, go to Mike Camilli’s site at http://lostportalccg.com/.
by Brian Petrilli AKA Jalinon