Cards are the most important part of BattleForge. Cards represent the units, buildings and spells that can be played during the game. Before starting a match, a player must first select up to twenty cards to make a deck. The cards in the deck will be the only cards available during the match.
Each faction has their own set of cards, with their own advantages and disadvantages.
Getting cards
Each player starts his collection with a few cards and a few boosters to get started. Additional cards can be obtained from boosters, the marketplace, or by trading with other players directly.
Reading a Card
Each card lists information about its cost, stats and other characteristics.
Power Cost and Orb Requirements
The amount of power required to play a card is listed at the top right corner of the card. Here you are also able to see how many orbs you need in order to use this card.
Damage
The number in the bottom left corner shows the amount of damage a unit or building deals in approximately 20 seconds. If the unit is a squad, the listed damage value is the total for all squad members together. Units can either deal melee, ranged or special damage, shown by a sword, bow or star icon respectively.
Melee or ranged units get a 50% damage bonus against enemy units of a certain size: S(mall), M(edium), L(arge) or Extra Large (XL). Units with special damage get no size bonus. Instead they often have a special damage bonus such as Siege or another way to deal additional damage.
Life Points
The life number in the bottom right shows how much damage a unit or building can take before being destroyed. The letter next to the heart icon on unit cards displays which size they are: S, M, L or XL. If the unit is a squad, the life number shows the total for all squad members together.
Card Charges & Squad Size & Card Type
Near the bottom of the card artwork is a line displaying the number of charges, the squad size if the unit card is a squad, and the card type.
The squad size can be x2, x4, or x6.
A squad is controlled the same way as you would control a single unit, but the squad members can die individually and can even be revived through healing spells. Squad members cannot be revived from the passive regeneration gained from standing near friendly buildings.
Abilities
Abilities are listed in the text box on the bottom half of the card. You can mouse over the card to see what each ability does.
Some units or buildings have no ability. In that case the ability box will just list a short flavor description of the unit. This flavor description has no effect on gameplay.
Spell cards have no abilities but they do have a flavor description. The effect of the spell is shown when mousing over the card. The spell cooldown is listed at the end of the description, if there is any.
Affinity
Cards from the Renegade Edition or a later set can have an Affinity. The affinity is shown by a colored orb in the bottom right corner of the artwork.
Rarities & Editions
The bottom right icon on a card shows the card's rarity and the edition that the card is from. This has no effect on gameplay. The type of icon shows which edition (set) the card is from. Four editions have been released for BattleForge. In Skylords Reborn all four sets come from the same type of booster.
The color of the icon shows the card's rarity. The rarity determines how often it appears in Booster Packs, and how expensive its Card Upgrades are. There are four different card rarities: Common (bronze), UnCommon (silver), Rare (gold), and Ultra-Rare (diamond).
Example
Summoning a squad of Northguards uses 50 power, and it requires one blue orb to be owned by the player.
The level 0 Northguards card has five charges, and each time the card is played a squad of six Northguards is summoned. Each Northguard deals approximately 75 damage every 20 seconds and has 110 life points. They have a melee attack and deal +50% damage against small units. The Northguards have no abilties and their flavor description is 'Brave Defenders'. They have no affinity.
The Northguards card is a common card from the Twilight Edition.
Card Upgrades
You can collect and apply Card Upgrades to your cards. This may improve their stats, cost or abilities. Some cards even gain competely new abilities when upgraded. Each card can be upgraded up to three times.
Legendary Cards
Legendary cards require no specific orbs, are very power-expensive and no duplicate legendary units or structures can be played at the same time. This includes legendaries summoned by allies or enemies.
Promo Cards
Promo cards are premium versions of normal cards that have been fully upgraded to level three including their charge upgrades. They have different and shinier looking skins than their normal versions, but they still cost the same to play and have the same stats as a fully upgraded normal card.
Trivia
There are 171 common cards in the game, 152 uncommon cards, 145 rare cards, and 71 ultra rare cards.