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Wildcard to mint playable trading cards

Wildcard has announced its first mint.

Wildcard will hold its first mint at the end of next month.  

Up for grabs are NFT packs of playable digital trading cards, summoned creatures such as Gorrit seen in the card mock-up image above, that can be used in-game in Wildcard’s web3 mode. 

“These are real, playable digital cards,” Paul Bettner, co-CEO of Playful Studios, the company building Wildcard, told a community town hall this week.

“They’re primary utility is that they are the cards used to summon creatures and compete in the web3 mode of the Wildcard game.”

The mint will be launched on the Polygon blockchain, but Playful are also partnering with OpenSea. 

Wildcard is a MOBA battler – think League of Legends meets Clash Royale – in which players summon various monsters to fight to destroy their opponent’s base. 

The game is still in development, but in a recent closed play-test, web3 gamers, including me, were impressed. (The public will get their first opportunity to watch some real-time Wildcard gameplay at the game’s Melee on the Meteor exhibition on February 23). 

Wildcard gameplay
There’s not much Wildcard gameplay out there, but on February 23, the game will host a public exhibition battle.

“Each drop that we do like this [one at the end of March] will feature the unique, first generation collectible cards that would only ever appear in that drop and not ever be reproduced with the same design art,” Paul Bettner said. 

“So the cards that you’re getting in this genesis drop are unique, one-of-a-kind cards that will only ever be found in the genesis drop itself.”

The exact number of cards in each NFT pack will be released close to the first mint, Playful co-CEO Kate Bettner said.

“Each summon creature in this genesis drop will have 6 NFT card rarity variants,” she said. The six variants are common, uncommon, rare, epic, legendary and wild.

The rarity distribution of each pack will also be announced around the launch date. 

Each of the rarity variants will be linked to unique, web3 utilities and features, and earning potential, but not to gameplay mechanics, Paul Bettner said. 

“This is to avoid that play-to-win scenario in gameplay that we’re all kind of allergic to.”

Early access limited

The launch will have three phases: pre-mint/invited, the collab phase and the public phase. 

The pre-mint/invited phase is for the game’s earliest adopters, those who have supported the project the longest. Currently, there is no way to get in here, but keep an eye on any organisations Wildcard partners with in the near future. They are about to start building collabs with other big web3 projects and during the second phase, allowlist/whitelists spots might come up. This could be a way to get a spot in the mint – maybe even at a reduced price compared to the public mint. 

In the third phase, Wildcard will open the mint up to the public. 

Given the 300-strong showing at the town hall, I would imagine demand for this genesis collection will be pretty high. 

Playful will still want the mint to be accessible to the largest audience possible, however, so the price might be quite reasonable, even for a non-crypto native. 

Get rewards for showing up

My temporary OAT that will eventually turn into a pin.

The studio also announced their new reward program at the town hall and rewarded all of those who showed up to the meeting.

The Bettners want to give back to the community when they engage and promote Wildcard so they will be handing out “pins” which act as POAPs (Proof of Attendance), or OATs as they are known on the Polygon blockchain. 

These will have rewards associated with them including early-access gameplay, the collector role in the Discord, and more to be revealed soon. 

The next major opportunity to earn these pins is at the Melee on the Meteor exhibition.

Cavan "Caveman" Roe

Caveman is one of Polemos' core content producers and a game expert with more than two decades of experience. He has been an esports professional and hosts Polemos Bridge on YouTube.