Actually it's more like Magic:TG.
Yeah, so far after the tutorial and some of the starter trial games, the mechanics themselves feel very,
very similar to how Magic plays, at least at the basic level.
(speaking of Magic, I've heard Cryptozoic/the devs are currently battling a lawsuit by Wizards of the Coast over this game? Or was that resolved recently? If it hasn't finished by now I hope they pull through!)
I can't decide whether the threshold system feels very similar to Magic's land system, or slightly different.
I'm going to lean on slightly different because it definitely feels like Magic's land system, even having 5 different types of "land" (
Blood,
Wild,
Ruby,
Diamond,
Sapphire), but I definitely think it's better since, from what I've played so far, you definitely won't get as mana-starved as you can in Magic (as far as I can tell from limited/early playing). I think I mostly feel that because most cards I've seen only need around 1-3 thresholds (of
BWRDS) to be played, and those stay around all game, and since you get a resource every time you play a threshold, and resources act similarly to Hearthstones crystals, you mostly have to care about that. Playing cards definitely isn't as "land" dependent as Magic; I like that.
Having too much thresholds also doesn't seem
as bad since they also charge your Hero's personal power, but it's still kind of bad if that's all your drawing. x)
Speaking of drawing, have you seen any "draw extra cards" cards yet? Like Pot of Greed in Yugioh or Arcane Intellect in Hearthstone? I seem to go through my hand pretty quickly.... ...That's probably just me being the problem though.
Once they get the PVE dungeons and campaign rolling out of development I definitely think it could turn into something nicely unique since I don't believe many TCG's have done a successful PVE sort of campaign mode, especially multiplyer PVE.
EDIT: also there's a race of magical talking rabbits/tiny critters that seem to have a feudal japan aesthetic bent on conquest What adorable, evil little creatures.
DOUBLE EDIT: I picked Humans as my starting race/deck. So much synergy!