1939 Games presents the KARDS Open X, powered by 983 Media. In this Open tournament, players will have two chances to make it into the top 16 through one of the two Swiss Qualifiers held on January 29th and February 5th.
The KARDS Open is all about gathering together, meeting new people, having fun, and playing KARSD. To that end, we will be doing a random giveaway between all those that sign up and play in the KARDS Open X qualifiers, where three lucky players will receive 4 officer packs once the qualifiers are complete.
Read on for a detailed breakdown of the different tournament stages.
STAGE ONE
Starting Saturday, January 29th, with the swiss qualifiers, you will compete in a best of 3 free-for-all deck format. This means you can bring any deck you want and play it as many times as you'd like. No deck submissions and no deck restrictions! If you make the top 8 in this stage, you will advance to stage two.
The second chance qualifier will be Saturday, February 5th. This swiss bracket is open to any player who has not already made the top 8 cuts, so make sure to maximize your chances of making the top 16 by playing in both qualifiers.
STAGE TWO
If you finish in the Top 8 from either of the stage one weekends, you will be qualified for the next stage - Saturday, February 26th to compete in the single-elimination best of 3 conquest. You will submit four of your best decks from four different main nations in this stage. (you will only use three of these decks for the first half of this bracket) You will ban one deck from your opponent and play a best of 3.
STAGE THREE
If you've made it to the Top 4 on February 26th, you've made it to stage 3! In this stage, you will break out your 4th submitted deck and play in a best of 5 single elimination with one ban. These games will be broadcast live on Sunday, February 27th.
For all questions about participating in the Open and all things related to KARDS Tournaments, please join our KARDS competitive Discord: https://discord.gg/288DQexmng
FORMAT & SCHEDULE
Swiss Qualifiers
Compete in one or both qualifier swiss bracket weekends. Top 8 from each weekend bracket moves on to Top - Cuts weekend Closed deck lists with no deck restrictions! Play whatever you want, whenever you want!
Best of Three matchups
Swiss Bracket with 128 player maximum (7 swiss rounds) Swiss Qualifier Bracket A January 29th @ 1300 GMT Swiss Qualifier Bracket B February 5th @ 1300 GMT
Top Cuts
Bring three decks from three different main nations A fourth deck must be submitted, which will only be used if you make it to top 4 Top 16 Conquest format best of 3 with open deck lists and one ban Top 4 conquest format best of 5 with open deck lists and one ban Top 16 Bracket February 26th @ 1300 GMT
⏰ DECK LIST SUBMISSION DEADLINE: February 26th @ 1200 GMT
Top 4 Bracket & Live Stream February 27th @ 1400 GMT
PRIZES
The KARDS Open has a prize pool of $1500 that is split the following way:
1st: $600 USD
2nd: $450 USD
3rd: $250 USD
4th: $200 USD
5th-16th - 100 Gold
Sign ups are open now! https://smash.gg/tournament/kards-open-x/details
KARDS: World at War - The Escalation update is live now
Thrilling news from KARDS: New cards, general improvements, and alternative art have arrived on the battlefield in KARDS with the latest World at War - Escalation update on January 20th!
World at War: Escalation
This second World at War update is themed around the build-up into the war and focuses on the USA, Japan, and the Soviet Union. This update delivers a combination of new and existing cards fitting the theme.
Explore new options and strategies with Escalation, such as the iconic US 5th Medical Battalion, which repairs your units and gives them extra attack, or the Soviet 60th Cavalry Regiment that restricts players to play a maximum of one order per round.
This World at War update comes with 7 unique new cards (18 in total). Included in the premium version is also highly popular alternate art, a new Battlefield, gold versions of the World at War: Escalation card set, the interactive Silver Dollar Lighter board item, and a sizable number of wildcards of all rarities.
Get your new Escalation cards
KARDS is entirely free to play and stays like this. You can obtain the new Escalation cards in many ways:
Create the new Escalation cards with wildcards (nation-specific or all-purpose type)
Get the Escalation standard bundle for in-game gold
Get the Escalation standard bundle for real currency
Upgrade your existing Escalation standard bundle to the premium version with real currency
Get the Escalation premium version for real currency
The premium version of the Escalation also contains popular alternate art for some of our most iconic cards.
Additional World at War updates on the horizon
This World at War - Escalation update is the second in our series of updates stretching over the next half year. A new update will arrive almost every month now!
With the World at War updates, we want to satisfy several demands:
Release new cards more often
Provide strong, coherently themed, and history-aligned bundles to ease access to KARDS
Deliver regular exciting content for new and veteran players alike
Trying out new methods to deliver precisely defined content (additional to the current card draws from packs)
Each of the World at War updates focuses on a specific historical theme and comes with a bundle of new and existing cards to support each theme.
Let us know what you think of our new World at War - Escalation and use the comments below or chat with the developers on our KARDS Discord!
World at War: Escalation - Spoiler Season Kickoff
Welcome to the first card reveal of our upcoming update, World at War: Escalation.
World at War: Escalation
This second World at War update is themed around the build-up to the war and focuses on the three nations USA, Japan, and the Soviet Union. World at War: Escalation comes with 18 total cards, of which 7 are entirely new. Similar to the first World at War update, there are several options to receive the new cards:
Get the standard World at War bundle for in-game gold or real currency
Get the premium World at War bundle for real currency
Use wildcards to create some or all of the cards you want
Spoiler season
Every day until the release on the 20th, we will reveal new cards, their stats, and interesting background info.
Subscribe to our social media channels to stay up to date and never miss any reveals:
Especially join our 👉 KARDS Discord server! Get first-hand information, discuss the revealed cards and their potential use in existing and new decks, and speculate about unrevealed upcoming cards.
Let's have a look at the first new World at War Escalation card!
Spoiler season starts now: First new World at War Escalation card
We kick off the spoiler season with the legendary 60th Cavalry Regiment.
The 60th Cavalry Regiment was a military unit of the 3rd Cavalry Division of the Red Army of the Soviet Union. The division was first formed in 1923 and participated in the invasion of Poland in 1939, but at the start of Operation Barbarossa in 1941 it defended against the Axis invaders as part of the 5th Cavalry Corps of the 6th Army of the Southwestern Front. That same year the division was redesignated to 5th Guards Cavalry Division for its skillful combat performance against the Axis forces. From 1944 to 1945 the division served under the 1st and 2nd Baltic Front, but was moved to 3rd Belorussian Front where it served until the end of the war.
Stay tuned for more as we approach the World at War II release on January 20th. There are card reveals now every day!
Card reveal updates
Since the initial announcement, more cards have been revealed.
SOUTHERN PLAN
Imperial Japan’s ultimate goal was to conquer China, but they knew they couldn’t subdue this large country without clashing with other great powers, the Soviet Union in the north or the United States in the south. Several reasons led to the choice of the southern plan, that was led by the navy, over the northern plan that would rely on the army.
One was the raw materials such as oil and rubber in the American, British and Dutch possessions in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Another reason was the defeat of the Japanese Army in the Soviet–Japanese border conflicts in the 1930’s and the Japanese believed that the Soviet Union was too powerful to conquer. Last but not least was the trade embargo imposed by the Americans and the British that was intended to pressure Japan to withdraw from China.
The Japanese southern plan worked great for the first 6 months, but once American industrial and military capabilities reached their full potential, and after the devastating defeats in the Battle of Midway and the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Japanese war machine was fated to fail in its efforts.
5th MEDICAL BATTALION
A medical battalion was a divisional unit that offered medical support to the division in the field. Its main role was to conduct necessary evacuation and to administer medical care for the casualties of the division.
The 5th Medical Battalion was attached to the 5th Infantry Division, aka “Red Devils”, of the US Army during WWII. In 1942 the division was shipped to Iceland, where the British occupation force was replaced by the US forces, but from there it was sent to England in 1943 to prepare for the Allied invasion of Europe.
After two years of training the 5th Division landed in Normandy in 1944, over a month after the D-Day landings, and in the following months it participated in heavy combat during the Battle of France. In December 1944 the division was sent to reinforce the Allied southern flank in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. Later, that the division fought its way towards Germany along with the Allied forces and ended the war in Czechoslovakia in 1945.
M4A2
The Sherman M4A2 medium tank variant was nearly identical to the Sherman M4, but it had a diesel engine and came with a pair of vented armored grates on the rear hull deck.
This variant saw limited combat with the US forces, some were in service of the US Marine Corps, but mostly it was used by the British forces. Some M4A2’s were shipped to the Soviet Union through the Lend-Lease program. The tank fitted the needs of the Red Army perfectly as they were using diesel tanks only.
A total of 10,968 M4A2 tanks were produced from 1942 to 1945.
MACHINES OF WAR
During the opening stages of the German invasion of the Soviet Union the Red Army faced a serious shortage of weapons. The course of the war went on in such a way that most of the available munitions were lost, along with its troops who were either killed or captured, destroyed during a retreat or captured by the enemy in warehouses.
The development and manufacturing of munitions in the Soviet Union had begun before the invasion, but in 1941 they stepped up their game and most of their weapon production was done during the invasion, in some cases under siege and isolation.
From 1941 to 1945, the Soviet Union managed to produce over 30 million rifles and submachine guns, 1,476 million machine guns, 516,648 artillery guns, 347,900 mortars, 119,769 tanks and self-propelled guns, 265,600 army trucks, 213,742 military aircraft, 2 cruisers, 25 destroyers and 52 submarines.
52-K
The Soviet 85 mm M1939, aka 52-K, anti aircraft gun was used by the Red Army during WWII.
The gun entered service in 1939 in regiments of 16 guns each and was used effectively against German aircraft between 1941 and 1945. In its secondary role the 52-K was used as an anti tank weapon and some gun barrels were mounted on vehicles such as the SU-85 tank destroyer.
After the war most Soviet nations had the 52-K in its arsenal and in some cases they were refitted for peaceful purposes as anti-avalanche guns.
SAKURA REGIMENT
The 57th Regiment Sakura was a regiment of the 1st Division of the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII.
The division was sent to the Philippines to participate in the Pacific War in 1944 and was initially based in Manilla before being shipped to Leyte to defend against the Filipino and US forces which had reoccupied the island.
The 1st Division participated in fierce combat during the Battle of Leyte where it was nearly annihilated. Of the 11,000 soldiers only 800 managed to evacuate to Cebu island where they would participate in the Battle for Cebu City.
Alternate Artwork
The premium bundle also contains the new alternate artwork for three popular cards: The War Machine, Ural Factories, and Last Rites.
Once you have received the premium bundle, this alternate art will get automatically activated.
The Officer Club Championship returns in 2022
Hello KARDS players!
It is a new year but some good things remain the same! We are delighted to announce that this holds true for the Officer Club Championship which will be returning for the year of 2022!
What is the Officer Club Championship?
The Officer Club Championship (OCC) is a monthly tournament with a $1000 prize pool available to the top 38 players on the ladder each month!
The tournament consists of two stages. First is the play-in stage, where players fight for their spot in the top 8. The play-in stage is then followed by the top 8 finals, broadcast live on Twitch every month!
How do I qualify for the Officer Club Championship?
In order to qualify for the Officer Club Championship a player must be in one of the top 38 spots of the in-game ladder when the season ends.
From there, the top 6 players are automatically qualified for the top 8 finals and broadcast.
The remaining 32 players are paired off based on their placement on the ladder and placed in two 16 person double elimination brackets, each fighting for one of the two remaining spots in the top 8 broadcast.
Finally the remaining 8 players face off in a single elimination knockout bracket until a champion is crowned!
The first OCC of 2022
The first Officer Club Championship top 8 broadcast of 2022 will happen on the 22nd of January and will be broadcast live on www.twitch.tv/kardsccg
Never miss a beat or broadcast and follow us on social media
Aimed at especially newer players, but also useful for veteran players, this new DLC contains everything you need to expand your US collection. Highlights of this DLC are the Elite and Special cards together with a unique card back.
This new USA Starter Pack DLC contains the following items:
Card back 507th PIR
Elite Card: 507th PIR
Special Card: B-17 Flying Fortress
Limited Card: 1st Marines
Limited Card: M7 Priest
Limited Card: War Bonds
Limited Card: We Can Do It!
2 Standard Cards: 5th Infantry
2 Standard Cards: 7th Regiment
2 Standard Cards: Stars & Stripes
During the introduction period, this DLC is completely free on Steam. After this initial period is over, the DLC will cost $9.99.
Don’t wait, grab this DLC for free as long as it lasts!
World at War: Escalation - New expansion arrives on January 20th
Exciting news from the KARDS team: We kick off 2022 with our second installment in the World at War release cycle. Our second World at War, called “Escalation”, arrives on January 20th.
World at War: Escalation
This second World at War update is themed around the build-up to the war and focuses on the three nations USA, Japan, and the Soviet Union. This update delivers a combination of new and existing cards fitting the theme.
World at War: Escalation comes with 18 total cards, of which 7 are entirely new. Similar to the first World at War update, there are several options to receive the new cards:
Get the standard World at War bundle for in-game gold or real currency
Get the premium World at War bundle for real currency
Use wildcards to create some or all of the cards you want
The premium version arrives with a bunch of goodies, such as the new US Headquarters “Washington” and a new unique board item. Included are also a sizable amount of wildcards.
We will reveal the new World at War cards in the coming days as we get closer to the release date. You can find spoiler cards in various places; especially keep an eye on our popular KARDS Discord!
KARDS Holidays are here 🎄 Celebrate and enjoy great gifts 🎁
The Holiday season in KARDS arrives with a bang: We have gifts for everyone every day throughout the holidays!
After another great year in KARDS and a fantastic outlook for 2022, it is time to be festive and enjoy the Winter Holidays with gifts from the team.
Also enjoy the (permanent) changes in the economy with 10% more special cards in packs, 100 more levels in the national progression system, wildcards as additional new rewards in draft, and more (details in the dev blog).
🎁 Daily Holiday Gifts
Celebrate the Winter Holidays together with KARDS. This is the time to be merry and enjoy some great gifts from the team.
During the holidays, celebrate with a special Holiday bonus every day! Simply log into KARDS between December 21nd and 27th and get your goodies. Note that some gifts are tied to the first win of the day, so don't forget to play a couple PVP matches.
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These Holiday gifts include unique seasonal decorations, card packs, double XP, and more. Of course, our traditional festive visuals are ready to make the Holiday season even more pleasing.
So, make sure to log in every day and get your goodies! Enjoy!
🎄 Special Offers
The holiday gifts are not all we have; more goodies are waiting for you! This is the season to be festive and enjoy special offers with great discounts of up to 25%.
Festive Bundle
Give yourself a treat with this bundle and enjoy Officer packs from each set together with our festive “Ho! Ho! Ho!” emote.
Holiday Special
This holiday special includes Officer and standard packs from the base set plus a draft ticket as extra. The “Ho! Ho! Ho!” emote is included too, of course.
Holiday Bundle
Get Officer packs from all sets with this bundle plus several draft tickets. Similar to the other offers, the “Ho! Ho! Ho!” emote is included here as well.
Enjoy this year’s Winter Holidays and a fantastic end of the year 2021 in KARDS.
Happy Holidays!
December Holiday Update
Merry KARDS community,
With great delight, we released the second update in December (the first one brought 10 deck slots) on December 20th to bring permanent economy improvements, daily holiday gifts, and bug fixes.
The economic changes include 100 new National Progression levels, 10% more Special cards in card packs, and more ( 👉Check out the dev blog for details)
We have daily gifts ready for you with the upcoming Christmas celebrations and winter holidays. Those daily Holiday gifts include unique seasonal decorations, card packs, double XP, and more. Of course, our traditional festive visuals are ready to make the Holiday season even more pleasing. Stay tuned for more info on this shortly.
We also have several bug fixes ready with this update.
All feedback is appreciated and most welcome. Please use the comments below or join us on the KARDS Discord.
IMPROVEMENTS & CHANGES
100 new levels for each major nation have been added to the National Progression System. The level cap has been raised from previously 250 to now 350.
The drop-rate of Special cards in standard card packs has been increased by 10%. The drop rate has been improved from the previous 4.0% to now 4.4%.
The random card rewards have been changed into wildcard rewards in the National Progression system. For a random special card, you now get a generic special wildcard instead. For a random limited card, the reward has been exchanged to a generic limited wildcard in about 70% of cases and two standard wildcards in about 30% of cases.
Added generic wildcards as an additional Draft reward. This wildcard reward scales with the number of wins you got in the draft, so the more wins you get, the higher the chance is to get a high rarity wildcard. In exchange, the chance to get a random card as a reward has been lowered.
Holiday event items have been added to become available during Christmas and the Holiday season.
BUG FIXES
General bug fixes
Naval Bombardment was sometimes not updating the cost correctly when spawned in hand. Fixed.
There was an error in the mulligan of campaigns. Fixed. Fixed campaign mulligan bug
Scrolling in the deck builder andthe deck selection arrow were not always working as expected. Fixed.
Several minor errors in card translations have been fixed.
Audio-visual bug fixes (gameplay function was worked correctly)
The tooltip of the 120mm M1 GUN incorrectly showed the deployment section. Fixed.
The attack sound for the Heinkel He 111 was incorrect. Fixed.
The attack sound for the T-34 1942 was incorrect. Fixed.
SPECIAL OFFERS
Several time-limited special offers have been added to the client. Check out the KARDS in-game store.
We welcome your feedback! Please use the comments below or join us on the KARDS Discord.
Santa Kards is Coming to Town
Hello friends!
We are about to enter the holiday season and we at 1939 want you to enter it in style by giving you a small, but important update. We have been monitoring the progression system we introduced earlier this year and while we are generally happy with it, there is always room for improvement.
We have several adjustments slated, which we intend to go out with over the coming months.
The first of these updates is coming just in time for some Christmas crunch. In this dev blog we will go over these changes.
A Very Special Christmas
One of the most common complaints about the new system is that special rarity cards are more of a bottleneck than elites to collect. To address this, we are adjusting the drop rate of specials in normal packs, increasing it by 10%.
After the change, there is a 4.40% chance for each card in a pack being special, instead of 4%. The 0.40% are coming from standard mainly (0.30%) and limited (0.10%) picks, so chance of an elite remains the same.
Holidays Gone Wild
Another common complaint is how hard it is to get generic wildcards in the game. This makes the collection grind harder, especially when it comes to the minor nations. To solve this we put our collective heads together and, after recovering from the resulting concussion, decided to adjust the reward schema of the national levels.
Currently, you regularly get a random card of a given rarity when reaching a new level. This reward always felt a bit underwhelming because the random card rarely was something of interest. We are replacing these rewards with generic wildcards instead. For a random special card, you now get a generic special wildcard instead, a considerable improvement. For a random limited card, the reward has been exchanged for a generic limited wildcard in about 70% cases and two standard wildcards in about 30% of cases. This is to give you a better spread of wildcards at different rarity levels.
This has the additional benefit of making it easier for newer players to start grinding up a new nation. With the current system, the rewards from leveling up a specific nation track are a bit too nation focused, but with the new generic wildcards, switching to a new nation is less of a hassle.
A Gift That Keeps on Giving
As we were tinkering with the national levels anyway, we decided to throw an extra 100 levels into the mix, so once the update hits, you will be able to grind up to 350 levels for each nation. The reward structure for these new levels is largely the same, including new emotes (4 per nation) and a brand new card back at level 350.
Raise your hand if you aim to make grinding to 350 a New Year’s resolution!
Give Me M0ar!
But wait, there is more! We are also adding generic wildcards as a possible reward in draft.
The % chance for this comes mostly from the random card reward category, so after this change goes live, you should get a random card less often. As with other draft rewards, the wildcard rewards scale with the number of wins you got in the draft, so the more wins you got, the higher the chance is to get a high rarity wildcard.
That is all, the update is slated to hit on Monday, December 20th.
See you on the battlefield, commander!
The World Championship is over - Relive all the action!
The 2021 KARDS World Championship is in the books and our new KARDS World Champion is Jking7!
We send our sincerest congratulations to Jking7 on his hard-fought win to cap off a fantastic year of KARDS, but anyone that keeps their eyes out for the top of the ladder will be well familiar with the fact that he has won all but one season this year as well as multiple tournament titles across both Officer Club Championships and KARDS Open tournaments.
The 2021 KARDS World Championship runner-up is Darkness, who narrowly lost out in a five-game nailbiter of a series in the finals against his teammate and friend Jking7. He is followed by Viebator in third place after his amazing run in the world championship came to a halt against Jking7 when he was unable to pull off his game-ending combo before succumbing to the relentless pressure of Jking7’s British Air deck. In fourth place, we have Bison, the dark horse of the competition, putting up an impressive showing against both Viebator and Jking7 in the lower bracket before becoming the first player to exit the Grand Finals in Iceland.
This means the final bracket stands like this.
We are extremely grateful to the players for undertaking the journey of traveling during a pandemic to create a truly unforgettable KARDS World Championship filled with amazing matches, excitement and great plays!
Relive the action!
You can already relive all of the action of the KARDS 2021 World Championship Grand Finals on our YouTube channel.
KARDS 2021 World Championship Grand Finals Day 1
https://youtu.be/phVu43sI52Y
KARDS 2021 World Championship Grand Finals Day 2
https://youtu.be/794U_Qw5udA
Check out the live recordings to feel all the highs and the lows of an unforgettable World Championship weekend!
The fun is not over yet!
Just before the Holidays, more specifically the 19th of December, we will be finishing the competitive year with a bang! The finals of the final Officer Club Championship of the year will take place that day, starting from 13:00 GMT. Keep your eyes peeled for more information!
Kicking 2022 off with a bang!
January will already be an action filled month for competitive KARDS with the first OCC of 2022, a special Invitational tournament for our top Chinese players and the first qualifier for the KARDS Open XI!
Make sure you follow us on social media and check regularly back here to not miss out on anything related to KARDS!
