WWE Supercard is a free card game, available on mobile and tablet devices, brought to you by the folks at 2K Games, Visual Concepts and Cat Daddy Games. Apparently if you have played 2K's other card game, which is MyNBA2K14, you are going to be very familiar with WWE Supercard, since I hear it's very similar. Now I have never played MyNBA2K14, so I do not know exactly how similar or different the games are. However, looking at a few screenshots and reading the description of the game, I can say that they do indeed sound and look pretty similar. Anyways, on to the review.
WWE SuperCard is a very simplistic card game. You get cards, level them, combine them into "Pro" versions of that card to make them stronger, and battle other players decks. Now even though this game is all PvP (Player versus Player) AI controls your opponents. You are not actually fighting another player in real time. So you don't have to worry about a person rubbing it in your face when you lose, or a person sending you hate mail if you beat their team. Ha ha ha.
Right now there are only two game modes in WWE Supercard: Exhibition and King of the Ring. However they can always add in more game types later on. Exhibition mode is where you are going to be spending most of your time in the game. It is the quickest way to gain cards. Each win nets you two cards and a loss grants you one card. I would ignore King of the Ring until you are in the Super Rare bracket, since it gets a lot harder to get Super Rare (and better) cards in Exhibition than it is to get Uncommon and Rares. King of the Ring is the best source to get cards for whatever bracket you are in later in the game, but more on that later.
When you battle in Exhibition, you have your team of 4 male wrestlers (aka "Superstars") and one female wrestler (AKA "Diva"). Depending on how powerful of stats your team has will determine what bracket you are in, which will determine how good of rewards you can earn when you win. More on that later.
in Exhibition, they give you four random players to fight, who are pretty close to the same stats as you cards wise. Once you pick an opponent to battle their deck, the game will randomly generate a match to play. Sometime it will be regular 1 on 1 matches, sometime it will be a Tag Team match and other times it will be a Diva match. Not only will it randomly generate a match for you to play, it will randomly pick a stat or two that the match will focus on. The four stats are Power (POW), Toughness (TGH), Speed (SPD) or Charisma (CHA). Now all that matters in these matches are ONLY the stats it picks. If the game calls for a Charisma match, it doesn't matter what other stats your card has. All that matters is the Charisma. You could pick a card that has a weak overall rating but a super high Charisma (such as Mr. McMahon) and still win, even if the opponent picked a card with higher overall stats. All that matters is who had the higher Charisma. The game will only pick a max of two stats per match. You also have Support cards that increase your stats to help you win. But you can only use one Support card per game, so be wise on when you use it. Also when you pick your character for battle, sometimes they will activate their ability (if it has an ability, which most Uncommon+ cards do). When the ability gets activated is completely random. It will sometimes even activate in matches where it will prove to be no benefit whatsoever.
Once the cards are picked, and the Support cards applied (if any were used for the match) and if any abilities activated, the cards will automatically battle each other. The card(s) with the highest stat(s) the game called for will be the winner. The person who won the most matches after 3 matches wins the game. If there is a tie (one game was a draw), then there will be an extra tie-breaker match.
In Tag Team matches, you have to pick superstars who are "compatible" with each other. How to tell they are compatible is by the color of their half diamond arrow to the left of their picture, right under their name and above their level. You want to not only have your partner be the same color, but you want to be the opposite side of the diamond, so together they make a full diamond. So say you have a card who has a down yellow arrow, you will want to pick a person who has an up yellow arrow to make a compatible tag team. If you pair compatible superstars together, then you get a 10% boost to their stats in the tag match. However, if you choose characters who are incompatible (a yellow and a blue) then your cards will take a -5% hit to stats. If you pick cards that are exactly the same (same color, arrow pointing the same way. Such as two down yellows) then you will neither get a boost or get penalized.
Regardless of if you win or lose, you get to pick a card (or two. Remember you get one card for losing and two for winning) from the rewards table after the match. Depending on what tier you are in depends on how good of rewards you can get. Now every table is going to have a lot of Common (Gray) and Uncommon (Green) cards. Each table will also have a few Energy cards in it, which is used for King of the Ring, which I go more into detail about later on in the review. Anyways, once you pick either a Rare, or better, card OR a stat boost for King of the Ring, then the table will be reset. There is only one Rare+ card, or KotR stat boost, card per table. When you find that card is completely random (it's not going to always be the last card left on the table, for example). If you are in the Rare tier, you can only get Rare cards. If you are in the Super Rare tier you can get either a Rare or Super Rare. If you are in Ultra Rare you can get either a Rare, Super Rare or Ultra Rare. So on and so forth. There are seven different tiers of cards. Common (Gray), Uncommon (Green), Rare (Light Blue), Super Rare (Dark Blue), Ultra Rare (Purple), Epic (Orange) and Legendary (Yellow). Common cards are the weakest, and don't have abilities, and Legendary cards are the strongest with the highest percentage chance to activate their ability. Support cards are the cards you can use to boost your stats in matches and support cards also are a part of the seven tiers, meaning you can get better versions of all the Support cards.
You can level up cards by getting rid of cards you do not want and putting them into the card you wish to level. The max level of each card depends on how high of a tier it is. Common cards can only get to level 10, Uncommon and Pro Common cards and get to level 15. So on and so forth.
If you have two of the exact same card (same person, same tier) you can combine them to make a "Pro" version of that card. Pro versions of cards have better stats and can get to a higher max level. You can only Pro a card once, however. Also it is best to level up cards before you combine them to get the best stats. Once you combine the cards, their level will reset (but will not only keep their stats but also increase their stats) and you can level them up all over again for even more gains. If done right, fully Pro'd cards can be as powerful as max level (non-pro) cards of the tier above it. So it is very helpful.
Now onto the other game mode of WWE Supercard, King of the Ring! King of the Ring pits you up against 15 other players of similar card stats and has great rewards if you come out on top, but the catch is that it is VERY long. King of the Ring takes about 52-55 hours to complete, if you make it all the way to the final match. Before you start King of the Ring, you pick your team of 4 Superstars and 1 Diva, just like Exhibition. But in King of the Ring you also pick an additional 4 Superstars and a Diva to have as backup. The reason for this is because KotR has a Stamina system in place. Each active card on your team will drain 8 Stamina per game. When your cards lose Stamina their stats decrease, so it is best to have your cards with as high of stamina as you can. This is where the inactive team comes in. You can switch out cards on your inactive team with your active team, so your other cards can rest. Your inactive cards gain 20 stamina (recently increased from 6, thankfully) each game. However, if you don't want to put your good cards on the bench for a few games (maybe the next few games are crucial that you win), you can also instantly increase a card's stamina back to max back using an energy card on it. Energy cards can be obtained from Exhibition rewards. However you can only hold a max of 5 energy cards at one time, so if you have 5, and plan to play some more Exhibition while you are in a King of the Ring match, might as well use a few of them so they don't go to waste if you draw a few. Same goes for the King of the Ring stats boosts. You can only have 5 of each of them. So it is best to use a few when you get full.
Now you might be saying, "50+ hours!? Are you insane? How could I possibly play that?" but it's not quite as bad as you might think. Each match happens about an hour apart from each other. So say you are going to sleep for a full 8 hours, you are only going to miss out on about 8 matches. So when you wake up, sure your cards might be weak because their stamina is low, but you can switch them out with your inactive cards or quickly use some energy cards on them. And if you made sure your cards were all full stamina before you went to sleep, you will have probably only lost one or two matches while you slept. That's not too bad at all and you can easily recover from that.
The matches in King of the Ring are all randomly generated and done by the game. So you do not actually have to participate in these matches since the game does everything for you (and the other player). The game is going to randomly pick which of your active cards to play, when to randomly activate your support card, so on and so forth. Pretty much the only thing not random about King of the Ring is what cards it uses for your tag team. It will ALWAYS use the two cards you have as a team in tag matches. Also it will only use your active cards, of course. Basically the only things you have to do in KotR is make sure your cards are energized with Stamina and use your stat boosts when needed.
After 45 games of qualifying, the game moves on to the final bracket matches. The finals. The top 8 people get into the finals. Once there people battle each other in a bracket to move onto the next set of the finals to face the next opponent who also just won their last battle in the finals.
If you are lucky enough to eliminate everyone else and come out on top, you are crowned the champion of that King of the Ring tournament and get your great prizes.
The rewards for King of the Ring are determined by which King of the Ring tier you played in. If you played in the Rare tier, you will get a random Uncommon Card if you didn't qualify for the finals. A random Rare card if you lost in the first round of the finals. A random Rare Card and a random Uncommon Support if you made it to the semi finals, a random Rare pair (two of the same Rare card) if you came in 2nd place (made it to the finals). But if you win you get a random Rare Pair AND an Uncommon Support card. If you are in higher tiers, you would get higher rewards. Say you are in the Super Rare tier (like I was) switch all the word "Rare" above with "Super Rare" and all the "Uncommon" with "Rare". I hope that makes sense.
You might be thinking, "Why is it such a great thing to get two of THE SAME card?". Well that is because you can then work on making that card Pro by combining them to make them super powerful. Remember what I said earlier, max Pro cards are as powerful as max (non-pro) cards of the tier above them. So the rewards are well worth it, if you can make it to the finals. If you can come in 2nd or first, even better.
Of course, with this game being free, you can buy things to help you out in the game. You can buy things ranging from more picks from your Exhibition rewards table, 1 random wrestler ranging from common to epic, or a pack of 6 wrestlers ranging from Common to Epic. Also you can buy one random guaranteed Epic or Legendary card, but that one is pretty expensive. You can also buy things to help you out in King of the Ring like an ability to recharge your cards stamina for 8 hours (basically while you sleep or work) or buy the ability to instantly replenish ALL your cards energy in KotR.
Now onto the the review where I talk about the bad part of the game. First of, and probably the most obvious, if you don't know anything about WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), you probably aren't going to get as into the game as most people who are into WWE. You aren't going to know who anyone is, what their abilities mean (most people have abilities based on moves they regularly use in matches in real life), and you aren't going to feel a personal attachment to the cards. People who follow WWE will know who everyone is and be really happy when they get someone they are a fan of. If you aren't a fan of WWE, you will just be leveling cards that are the best stats and not necessarily because you like the person. However, if you used to watch WWE (or maybe WWF back then) then you might find a few familiar faces still. Because there are plenty of Legends in the game, such as 'Mr. Perfect' Curt Henning, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Ultimate Warrior, 'Macho Man' Randy Savage, The Undertaker, 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin among others. You just won't know who any of the new guys are, such as Cesaro, Roman Reigns, 'Bad News' Barrett, Bray Wyatt, Big E, Zack Ryder, etc.
Another bad thing about this game is that it's VERY simplistic. There is very little strategy involved with this game. Basically the only strategic decision you have to make are when to use your Support card and who to tag team up with. Sure, there is slight strategy in knowing who to play and when, but that is more so common sense strategy that most gamers will already be familiar with anyways. In King of the Ring, basically the only strategy you need is when to replenish your cards stamina (instead of just placing them on the bench to rest) and when to use your boosts. But again, these things are also very straight-forward things that most people will easily get the hang of very quickly.
This game also has very few animations when the cards battle. There are, I believe, three winning animations for each single and tag matches, and then three losing animations for each single and tag matches. So you will have quickly seen every animation the game has to offer. Thankfully though you can tap to have the animation play out very quickly. You can also tap the screen to skip the entrances of cards before matches. I wish Super Rare+ cards did their ability animations, if they used their ability, when they won. That would spice things up a little bit.
I also wish character's theme songs played while they were coming out. Maybe like a minor instrumental ringtone-like version. But at least something. I get that would make the game bigger, but I think it would be a nice touch.
Also this game only has two game modes at the moment. Add that to the fact that this game has very little strategy involved, you might get bored fast. I have over 1,000 games played in Exhibition and have done 3 King of the Ring games (been champion in all of them too! /endbragging) and I feel myself starting to slowly lose my addiction to this game. Sure, I still love getting better cards, especially when it's a wrestler that I am a fan of. But leveling cards take forever. Cards that are level 20+ eat a lot of cards just to level them up once. It gets kind of tiring having to play 100 exhibition matches just to max out ONE of your cards. I wish you could use a King of the Ring booster, that you were full of, to help level your cards. They need to decrease the amount of cards it takes to level up cards slightly. Only slightly. I don't want it to become too easy, but it shouldn't be this long either. They need to find a better balance.
And the final bad thing, the bad thing about pretty much every free-to-play game, is the people who pay their way to the top. If you an Epic or Legendary card at the beginning of the game, it kind of puts you at a disadvantage unless you buy 3 or 4 of them. But towards the end of the game (when you are in the Ultra Rare, or better, tiers) it becomes really hard to compete with these people who have bought their cards. They will have 2+ epics and usually a Legendary too, just completely whipping the floor with you and your Super Rare Pro cards. Add that with people deranking their hand, putting them against people lower than they should be fighting, in both Exhibition AND King of the Ring, and you are running into a lot of problems. I don't want to say the game becomes "Pay to win" at higher tiers, but it definitely becomes a lot harder to stay a free player and able to still win when you get to the Epic bracket. Especially since it is SUPER RARE (slight pun intended) to get cards better than Super Rare in Exhibition matches, no matter what tier you are in. So the best way to get cards for your tier is to do King of the Ring. But when you get to Ultra Rare, or better, a lot of people start "Deranking" their decks so they face easier opponents. ...Usually meaning you. So it gets really hard to get a steady flow of cards to move up in the game without paying. However the game is still relatively new (about a month old), so this problem might begin to sort itself out when more free plays start moving up the brackets.
So there you have it. My review for WWE Supercard. It is actually a lot longer than I was thinking it was going to be. For such a simple card game, with only two game modes, I sure did have a lot to type about. Ha ha ha.
And remember, if you are having trouble in the game, you can get through it. All you have to do is...... BOLIEVE!
NOTE: All these screenshots were taken by me, Bloody Sky, while I was playing the game. I DID NOT steal them from anyone or any website. However, if you have come across them and wish to use them on another site, then you are free to do so. I don't care. The only picture that is not mine is the very top picture, under the title of the game, which I got courtesy of IGN.com.
NOTICE UPDATE! This review is now out of date due to them updating WWE Supercard into "Season 2". While the core of the game is a lot of the same, there are also new additions and differences. This review was for Season 1 of WWE Supercard. I currently have no plans on making a new, updated, review for Season 2.
/endbragging) and I feel myself starting to slowly lose my addiction to this game. Sure, I still love getting better cards, especially when it's a wrestler that I am a fan of. But leveling cards take forever. Cards that are level 20+ eat a lot of cards just to level them up once. It gets kind of tiring having to play 100 exhibition matches just to max out ONE of your cards. I wish you could use a King of the Ring booster, that you were full of, to help level your cards. They need to decrease the amount of cards it takes to level up cards slightly. Only slightly. I don't want it to become too easy, but it shouldn't be this long either. They need to find a better balance.
