My Templar Expertise Guide and deck-building suggestions

I'll try to provide a guide here on the things the Help section in the game doesn't cover.


Yellow Golden Expertise
- Main winning condition: Sites
- has mass-destruction cards (site+agents): Animus Reboot

Red Faith Expertise
- Main winning condition: Sites
- Agents mostly have Recover ability
- has card against Purple Media Expertise and Green Scholar Expertise

Black Crime Expertise
- Too few cards to cipher the winning condition but I'm guessing it is through Agents? I'm reading that there are other win condition cards in Black Crime Expertise.

Purple Media Expertise
- Main winning condition: Agents
- Weenie-swam strategy available
- has cards against Sites

Blue Order Expertise
- Main winning condition: Agents
- most cards in Templar set
- has counterspell! (Magic: The Gathering's famous card: one that can negate other cards)
- has a lot of vanilla (no abilities) and Official-ability Agents
- has an unblockable Agent (uncommon card that is quite difficult to get)
- has cards against Sites and Black Crime Expertise
- works with Green Scholar Expertise
- has a +2 power to all Templar Agents (Templar set agents?) rare card

Green Scholar Expertise
- Main winning condition: Sites
- Assassin packs will provide the powerful card drawing and card advantage mechanics
- has cards against Purple Media and Red Faith
- has mass-bounce cards (Site+agents): Impending Pandemic

You are allowed to mix up to 2 expertise color, not including yellow, so you can have 3 expertise too. It will be obvious that expertise with the same winning condition will complement each other. For Agent-based decks, I'm figuring it will be like Yugioh; if you keep to the same type (Nobles, Militants, etc) there will be more synergy. There are quite a few cards that are specifically to counter other Expertise but since there is no sideboard in the game, I guess it is too situational and best used in single player.

Now, back to more packs opening!

iTunes App Store link: Assassin's Creed Recollection - Ubisoft

My Templar Recollection Rarity guide for Rare Cards after 177 Templar packs

Update: There is a new post updating my rarity guide after I opened more Templar packs.

I notice that even for rare cards, there are some disparity so I'm going to list out what I think is the rarity for the rare cards. I'll be using Yugioh naming to represent them. Please note that this is from my purchase experience of 177 Templar packs and may not represent the exact rarity ratio, it may just represent my luck!

Legend
Ultra Rare - Out of 177 packs, less than 5 copies, the rarest rare-s
Super Rare - Out of 177 packs, very close to or about 5 copies, the uncommon rare-s
Normal Rare - Out of 177 packs, easily more than 5 copies, the common rare-s

Cards will be listed with the card type in brackets. I'll leave the card details to another post or hopefully Ubisoft releases the card list guide soon.

Yellow Golden Expertise
Normal Rare
Jacobo De' Pazzi (Agent)
Forgotten Temple (Site)

The Spaniard (Agent)

Super Rare

Nil

Ultra Rare

Animus Reboot (Action)
Merchants Guild (Site)
False Hopes (Action)
Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained (Action)

Black Crime Expertise
Normal Rare
Lia De Russo (Agent)
Change of Plans (Action)

Super Rare
Lanz (Agent)

Ultra Rare
Nil

Red Faith Expertise
Normal Rare
Judgment Day (Action)
Roma, Vaticano District (Site)

Super Rare
Silvio Barbarigo (Agent)
Quiet Chapel (Site)
Pontifical High Mass (Action)

Ultra Rare
Capella Sistina (Site)
Rodrigo Borgia, Pope (Agent)

Purple Media Expertise
Normal Rare
Palazzo Della Signoria (Site)

Super Rare
Il Colosseo (Site)
Carnevale (Action)

Ultra Rare

Calling All Stand-ins (Action)

Man of People (Action)

Caha (Agent)

Dama Rossa (Agent)

Blue Order Expertise
Normal Rare
Nil

Super Rare
Macro Barbarigo (Agent)
Il Carnefice (Agent)

Ultra Rare
Castle Sant'Angelo (Site)
Cesare Borgia (Agent)
Uberto Alberti (Agent)
Charles De La Motte (Agent)
Just Cause (Action)
Lucrezia Borgia (Agent)
Octavian De Valois (Agent)
Templar Sanctum (Site)
Royal Decree (Not the Yugioh card! Site)

Green Scholar Expertise
Normal Rare
Impending Pandemic (Action)
Gaspar De La Croix (Agent)

Super Rare
Master Architect (Agent)
Military Workshop (Site)
Malefato (Agent)
Master Engineer (Agent)

Ultra Rare
Engineer's Workroom (Site)

An Auction House feature will be added to the game soon and players will be able to sell their cards. I think the Ultra Rare cards are going to fetch a higher price and may even reach Assassin Rare prices.

iTunes App Store link: Assassin's Creed Recollection - Ubisoft

Completing the Templar Recollection... My virtual pack purchase history so far

To give everyone a sense of how many packs get you what amount in your collection, here's what you get originally at the start:

After spending 800 credits (500 given by Ubisoft for the server crash and 300 for the single player campaign so far) and getting 8 Templar packs:

After spending 2700 credits (in-app purchase) and getting 27 packs:

After spending 2800 credits (in-app purchase + 50 for previous left-over) and getting 27 packs:

After spending 11500 credits (in-app purchase) and getting 115 packs:

That is it, the complete Templar Recollection. Half of the most colors are in Assassin Packs while the Crime faction (Black) has the majority in Assassin and the Noble faction (Blue) has the majority in Templar. An important point to note is that I still do not have 5 copies of the rare cards I want!

iTunes App Store link: Assassin's Creed Recollection - Ubisoft

Opening Virtual Packs is fun too!

After losing countless times to the com which was using a particular deck and I noticed the combo (more on that in future post) that AI was pulling were just Templar cards, I finally started buying virtual packs and also bought more credits through the in-app purchase! The interface for card purchase is ok but the way you open packs is better. The pack and thereafter, the opened cards are spread out over your screen and they slide around your screen if you tilt your iPad which is pretty cool. It makes the experience of opening packs a joy. No pack wrappers to clear too!

I went for only Templar packs as I aimed for low cost and to get 5 cards of each type and go for consistency over power. They cost 100 credits compared to Assassin packs which are 9x more expensive. (You'll have to spend much more to get 5 copies of a card) My buying strategy is to open enough packs till I get 5 copies of cards I want before stopping. Therefore, I do not want to buy a huge number of credits at one go.

Here's a look at the charts for in-app purchases of the game:

Top In-App Purchases (Taken from the App Store)

1. pack of 2750 Credits $4.99

2. pack of 1050 Credits $1.99

3. pack of 11500 Credits $19.99

4. pack of 500 Credits $0.99

5. pack of 30000 Credits $49.99

You can see the popular choice is $4.99 which gets you 2750 credits; 3 Assassin Packs or 27 Templar Packs or 5 Mixed Packs. There was a forum poster who recommended getting 27 Templar packs before contemplating multiplayer. Personally, I won't be considering buying any credit packs lesser than that amount. $4.99 is probably an acceptable price point to people as it is about the price of a real-world pack or 2 of cards. I bought this credit pack and when opening the 27 Templar Packs, I found that you will not be able to get the complete 5 copies of rare cards which are the good ones.

The next choice I considered is $19.99 (a price of a pre-constructed deck?) which is about twice the amount of $4.99 but it gets you 500 extra credits; 5 Templar packs. You then get to open 115 packs of cards which can be addictive and battery-sapping! I bought this pack after deciding then I don't mind spending more and this amount gets you 500 more credits too.

Now, going for $49.99 and opening 300 Templar packs sound very enticing (I'm starting to get addicted to opening virtual packs!) but as I mentioned earlier, you should try to reign in your spending urges as shopping online can easily go out of hand. I think it is better to spend and open enough to complete the 5 copies of card that you need. I think $49.99 is fifth choice as spending $50 is still very hard to stomach for most people. Therefore, I recommend buying 2750 or 11500 credits until you hit your required cards.

Buying packs definitely opens up more of the game and make the whole game experience better. The card art are great and you do get a sense of collecting them although they are virtual. Maybe Ubisoft might print them out one day? One thing for sure is that you do not have to worry about people feeling and buying up the "foil cards" packs before you!

iTunes App Store link: Assassin's Creed Recollection - Ubisoft

Assassin's Creed Recollection Early Impressions

I've tried out the tutorial missions and have learned how to play. It has a fixed playing field/board (Yugioh) and a resource system. Cards cost resource points (called gold in this game) before you can play them and I'm already thinking of building decks (called sequence in this game) along a "mana-curve": more lower resource cards and fewer higher resource cards. In summary, the aim of the game is you trying to control 2 out of 3 regions with 2 monsters (Assassins in this game) "attacking" each region at a time.

The most unique feature and why this game might stay digital is that there is a timer aspect to it. Other than resources, cards take a short period of time to "activate". I find the game not too tough to pick up and from the forum postings at TouchArcade, it seems that you might need to spend some more money buying packs (via in-app purchase) if you want to build a stronger deck fast or to complete your card set. I personally might go the route of slowly building points via single campaign and multiplayer. The interface to edit your deck is nicely designed and not a hassle unlike the Marvel Trading Card Game, this is a really important aspect which Yugioh has excel at.

Assassin's Creed console players who have sign up for Ubisoft's UPlay account can login from this game too and it looks like there might be some link between this iPad game to the Assassin's Creed universe. Overall, the graphics look beautiful and the sound is just like the console, although I suspect I'll be playing mute when outside. It shows that a card game can be played out well on an iPad and it is a shame that big names in trading card games have not arrived on a tablet first. Wizards of the Coast and Konami, are you looking at this game?

iTunes App Store link: Assassin's Creed Recollection - Ubisoft

Assassin's Creed Recollection review by TouchArcade

link

iTunes App Store link: Assassin's Creed Recollection - Ubisoft

iPad Assassin's Creed Card Game at $0.99 now!

and no, I've not converted the blog to an Apple/iOS blog.

I haven't been keeping in touch with card games for a while now. The US version of Tag Force 6 is taking very long to be released. I've been spending time playing PS3 games like Batman Arkham City and Assassin's Creed Revelations and also Naruto Ultimate Ninja Impact on the PSP. (Best Naruto game I've played so far)

I just checked shriek.twoday.net and apart from the endless list of tournament deck-lists, notable articles are the release of the latest dragon structure decks and Gold Series 2012. I was surprised to find lightsworn cards in the structure deck and pot of duality in gold series, the latter is really tempting me to buy a box.

Anyway, the purpose of this post was to share this good deal on the Apple App Store for iPad: Assassin's Creed Recollections is $0.99(USD) currently. (Used to be $2.99(USD) which is about the price of a booster pack or two) Before the App Store came about, $2.99 games are unheard of, not to mention $0.99! I think the description listed it as a board game but I read reviews that it is a card game. A movie about the ending of Assassin's Creed character, Ezio, is also included in the game, adding to the value of the app. I'm very keen to learn and try out this new card game. If you are a fan of card games or Assassin's Creed games and have an iPad, no harm trying this out. It's only about the price of a cup of coffee!

iTunes App Store link: Assassin's Creed Recollection - Ubisoft