Cabals: Magic & Battle Cards App Reviews

In my search for playable iOS card games, this one sticks out as a winner. I like the strategy and resource management, and the theme is unique and well done. There are endless way to play the game and the sets of cards are well balanced. Each of the four heroes has unique cards that can confer a specific advantage to the player, but none of them seem powerful enough to always be the winner. The ability to buy booster packs, complete play sets, and individual cards from the shop is very convenient and useful for deck design, and there is a lot of opportunity for expansion. My only criticism: Upon starting the app for the first time you are asked to choose a hero and then given a deck to go with the hero. It would be useful to know a little more about the hero and deck you will receive before being asked to make a choice. Its a great game and I look forward to hours of play in the future.

This game is great very very fun. If you are a fan of tcg then I suggest you download this. You do have to spend real money for better cards as you would any tcg but just stick with the starter deck for a while and see if you like it enough to spend around 10$. Not bad IMO considering how much Ive spent on magic the gathering lol

Shadow Era has been my go to for years, however it just doesnt play well on iPhone due to the small screen. Cabals in the other hand, does. This is a great little ccg that employs a battle mechanic on a game map. The card set is currently pretty small but it is still a lot if fun to play.

I really enjoy this TCG and second what another review said, it looks great on iPhone which is really nice. The game play is fun and competitive, but you will NEED TO SPEND MONEY to really enjoy the cards. Do not however buy the booster packs, as there is no way to sell cards back, this in why Ive only given 4 stars. You will get many cards you cannot use and be stuck with the, forever. But, if you enjoy the game play and dont mind spending $10 on a really good deck, its a blast!

This concept (TCG+board game) is fantastic. It has not been explored on the iPhone for the most part, and where it has, has fallen short. Not so with Cabals. The game gives you a free starter deck and 150 credits (booster pack is 100, so you get one free!). If anyone is complaining about pricing on cards, are you serious? You never paid $20 for a deck of YuGiOh or Magic cards? I know I spent a lot more than that on starter decks, boosters, and individual cards. A new starter deck is $4.99, in terms of how many credits you need to purchase from 0. Booster packs are obviously going to contain cards that are weak and unusable in your deck - every booster pack of REAL trading cards that you buy has these as well. It is going to happen. Overall, great implementation. Interface works wonderfully and is beautiful. The cards have insightful quotes on them and seriously impressive artwork. Gameplay is addictive and well put together. I would, however, increase the amount of dominion points required to win from 60 to 100. It is far too easy to have an enemy in a standstill and use cards such as Underground Spy to increase dominion points and win.

I was stupid huge into Magic: The Gathering in its early years, only quitting the game out of frustration with the endless money milking and mechanics recycling (but missing it over a decade later all the same). What made M:TG the game it was, as opposed to the countless wannabes that followed, was that the game design had come before anything else. So, it is no small thing when I say that Cabals is the first TCG that Ive played since that first M:TG game in 1995 that I see the game comes before the setting and, most importantly, before attempting to milk the players of their money. This is a wonderful little game and it doesnt take long to grasp the fundamentals - a fine example of the "easy to learn, difficult to master" catch phrase. It plays tight and fast and is its own game. Its not trying to be M:TG (*cough*Shadow Era*cough), and its not trying to figure out how to draw some nebulous link between an expensive licensed property and playing cards like so many of the TCGs that have come and gone in the past two decades, card games where the game was obviously an after thought to the commercial product. Instead, you can see that the designers had a cohesive vision for the game and have executed it near flawlessly with a stripped down set of mechanics that, instead of being bogged down in numerous turn phases and arcane timing resolutions, find their complexity through a set of varied game boards that change the way you need to approach each game. The artwork is distinctive and good stuff, albeit nothing amazing, and the back story, like M:TG, works with the card game to give it framework. The interface is about as close to perfect as youre going to get on a small screen like this (although there is room for improvement for some things like the opposing player name and a log of moves). The weakest point to the game is that it has a relatively small card set (~20 cards per faction) and not a huge variety of deck strategies. On the other hand, even with such a small card pool, factions are fairly distinct and there actually are balanced deck strategies. Still, an expansion is planned for early 2012 and the designers have a road map to carry this game through the foreseeable future. For the grand old price of $0 they set you up with a constructed starter favoring one of the four factions and enough premium currency to grab a booster and some singles. There is a solid single player "campaign" where you can take on ever increasingly better AIs. Playing through the single player portion of the game (while connected to the internet) earns additional free random cards, even uncommons and rares, and a future update will allow unwanted and extra cards to be traded in for cards you do need and want. If you do find you like the game and want more, the cost is very reasonable, and they sell singles and playable "box sets" at fair prices. Its a good compromise with most conventions of physical TCGs supported, but adapted to the digital existence. If youve ever enjoyed TCGs at all, give this game a chance.

It,s no magic the gathering, but it is still a great game. Its one that I might get easily afdicted to. 5 stars for creativity, creating a hame its own style card abilities could have an better explanation but easy to catch on. Its not a spinoff from magic but still has some basic ideas I vote DOWNLOAD

Never have I been into card games or even board games really, but I must say this is an extremely fun game. Beware, all the free time you thought you had will now be consumed by this game. Only one complaint - needs a better tutorial. Reading the instructions wont get you very far. Youll have to read them, play some, scratch your head, then read them again to finally get it. But once you do, youll be hooked.

I REALLY like playing this game, even spent some cash on influence to buy new cards, buy WHY arent the decks and cards I have purchased available in offline play mode? Im not connected to wifi ALL the time. Make that upgrade to game play and earn the fifth star. This is a really good game to introduce players to TCG tablet games, and alot of fun for free.

Great game. One of the best tcgs ive played on iphone. However there is no way to sell back for influence the cards you dont want or need. Please, please, please make some sort of buy back update, especially since the cards you win every level arent guaranteed to be from the set youre playing. Cabals would easily be worth 5 stars then.

I originally wrote a bad review. The game is awesome but I had some trouble in the online portion. Not 10 minutes after I posted on the forum my problem I was talking with someone who explained the problem, and although they didnt know what was causing it, they needed my help because I was the first person in this region to encounter it. So five stars for an awesome game, and for awesome customer service.

The only time this game is remotely a challenge is if you play other people. If you play other people youll likely face a blue deck. Each game against blue goes like this. Your opponent plays one or two of infest the mind or psychic lapse then you lose. Or they dont play them and you might win. It gets old.

Its a well though out strategy card game with variable playing areas. The production values are high and its a slick experience. So why only 3 stars? Cos it might just be too hard out of the gate. The enemy AI is deadly and while you learn the ropes you get continually punished. Ive played 6 or 7 games now and Ive yet to win one. Ive actually yet to feel superior on the battlefield ever, the AI have better cards than you (which you can unlock, if you win), but for the very first game youre Demolished. Ive tried different decks, built my own from what Ive observed used against me in the game to no affect. My closest win came from losing to time, the enemy having captured my terrain than me. Im going to try another couple of times, see if I can crack a win. But if not, then this game is simply too hard at the early stages for me and its more frustrating than enjoyable.

This game has proven to be fun and challenging. The AI is difficult with the starter but far from unbeatable. Once you have some wins, the AI becomes one of the weaker parts of the game. Im an avid card gamer and like the added card play with physical movement of the changing battlefield layouts. It seems the developers make a real effort to constantly update the game in a balanced way and that should be rewarded. True that you should spend some money to be competitive but as any gamer knows theres always some price. Ive spent about $20 and only after playing a while. Anyone with a Playstation or MtG collection knows this is reasonable. Its free to start and I didnt spend money until 3 weeks of playing. If your looking at this then you crossed that money bridge when you bought your smart phone or iPad. In closing, excellent game, worth trying out if your not deterred by strategy and looking forward to new updates. Excelsior!

Cabals is an amazing card game, with the added twist of a board. This game is amazing, other than when it crashes when I go to deck editor. If you guys could fix this, it would make it that much better.

Smart game but free is an illusion. Every "earned" card i got was unusable by the starter hero and, its basically a fruitless grind. Would be single star but gameplay is moderately interesting once learned.

A strategy card game, very challenging... Recommended for everyone, and currency is not expesive like most other games...

Good but keeps crashing i dont know if it just my iPad or the but crashs all the time

The game is very fun. Its very possible to win with just the starters, and you can upgrade your starter to a "Tier 1" deck for around $5 if you spend it wisely. Hope to see the expansion soon!

Cant speak for the card balance, but the game does not disappoint and is rather fun to play. Good combination of strategy board game and CCG. With the free download I was able to build a fairly decent initial deck.