Athenion First Impressions

Finally, a CCG game that doesn’t rely on gacha whaling, because everything depends on your mettle and your mettle only.

Welcome to Athenion, a strategic CCG game made by Thai people, available in English and Thai.

Overview

As soon as you log in, you will be directed to a tutorial amid a fierce battle. The stage is a 4×4 board. Your job is simple: make the best use of your cards at hand and beat the enemy.

The game’s main objective is to reduce the enemy’s health to 0. (Kind of like chess + Yu-gi-oh) The game mechanics is simple to learn but difficult to master. There are limits on how many cards you can summon per turn and how many cards you can hold in your hand, but that just adds to the challenge. Card order is randomized. Each card has their own attack directions and active/passive skills. With the extremely diverse and beautifully illustrated cards (plus, voiced) anything can happen and you need to use your head to make the best out of every situation.

The graphics and effects are very nice. It’s up to standards with a lot of those other Japanese and Korean games. Battle effects (especially the winning moment) are really cool, because the opponent literally shatters if they lose.

What I like about Athenion is that it matters not what level or grade of cards you have, it’s how you use them and their special abilities. High grade cards just make your job a bit easier, but on the other hand they’re harder to summon. There is no annoying aspect of training each individual card. In short? Your gacha results doesn’t really matter. It’s all about how you use your cards.

I gave the English version a try, and the English is perfect. Not just comprehensible, but reads like it was written by a native speaker. Although one thing I have to say is that the tutorial voice acting for some of the characters are a tad bit awkward.

Decks

Athenion has 6 main decks, with different play styles. You can choose whichever one suits you best (and can choose more than one). This will be my first impression of each.

Flame Legion: What doesn’t kill you make you stronger (Alex)

This deck’s specialty is its “Berserk” mode, where your damaged cards get a huge damage boost. Although the attack power is insane, it comes with the risk of getting wiped out because you’re lowering your cards’ HP in the process. Suitable for those risk takers. I find this deck really fun to play since in Berserk mode, one card can crush a lot of people at once haha

Tidal Nether: With the power of friendship! (Tear)

If the card arrows face each other, both (or all) cards get a boost. Moreover, some cards can freeze other cards, stopping them from attacking. This deck takes a few turns to set up, but once you get it going it’s really strong. Main objective is to get a lot of cards sticking to each other. Good for those patient people. Personally my favorite deck despite being a bit hard to set up. Plus, the deck’s mascot (Tear) loves bubble tea. How cute is that.

Planet Guardian: I need my personal space (Brundo)

Main tactic is strategic placement of “Locks”. That square on the board will not be usable by you or the opponent. Some cards get special boosts from locks. The player must really have the board under control, or else the locks could backfire. Good for defensive, but… Needs too much planning lol and I dug my own grave with the locks a couple of times

Cyclone Fury: you can’t catch me hahaha (Ralana)

This deck has two strong points: you can move your units, and you get boosts from backstabbing people. Usually, if you put down a card, it stays there until it dies, but Cyclone Fury deck’s greatest strength lies in that you can move your cards to attack other people from blind spots. However, this deck is probably the hardest to master, since you really need solid understanding of the game mechanics and you need to be quick-witted not to get countered yourself. Personally my least favorite deck because I think very slow and can never move people right hahah

Divine Grace: Bless you, ooh, bless you too! (Sadia)

Probably the simplest deck. Placing cards next to a card with “Aura” gives them boosts (regardless of arrow), and the cards can support each other. However, attacking can be a bit tricky and needs a bit of planning. It’s a simple deck but a scary one if used to its potential. I also like this deck, because it’s one of those late game decks.

Shadow Realm: Mwahaha (Tartarus)

One instance where you can willingly join the dark side. This deck is a bit tricky to use but a very, very annoying one to face. Strategy? 1. Kill your own allies to get stronger 2. Put dark spots on the board and put something over it to get boosts 3. Automatically summon a card in place of the dead one to troll your opponent. It’s a fun deck to play, just be careful not to let people take your dark spots away from you

Overall

Athenion has a lot of potential, being F2P friendly and supports a diverse style of tactics. It’s also simple to learn, but really needs some skills to best others (or even the AI). Give the game a few months to really fix the balance and it’ll be really good.

The game could use some more PVE content, since newer players are almost always crushed by older and more experienced players.

If you’re into actual strategy card games, please do give Athenion a try!

Athenion is available on both PlayStore and Appstore!

Official Website: https://www.playathenion.com/?page=index