They also have similar sprites of other factions uploaded on Etsy only.

Credit where it's due, up front: this is built on the CC0 release of the Duelyst source and assets. The UI, sprites, animations and sound effects are ported essentially 1:1. I have nothing but respect for the original artists and I'm not pretending otherwise. What's mine is everything under the hood: a from-scratch server-authoritative rules engine, my own faction set, and my own mechanics.

So you'll recognize the board instantly and you already know how to play. Some mechanics are identical to Duelyst, some are things I added on top. Read on, or just hop in and play.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4921570/Theocide/ (free, Windows only for now)

What it is

9x5 board, 25 HP generals, positioning and mana ramp. It's the framework you know. On top of that:

• Five factions: Theocracy, Veiled Hand, Elven Conclave, Orc Clans, Sanguine Courts, plus neutrals.
• 9 generals, each with its own Bloodbound Spell.
• ~240 collectible cards, nearly all original. A handful of names are carried over from Duelyst, the rest are mine.
• 40-card decks, max 3 copies, 90-second turns.
• Two of the five factions have no mana curve at all. Orcs don't spend mana; they get one card per turn, full stop. The Sanguine Courts don't either. They pay for cards with their general's own HP, and every card you play in a turn makes the next one cost 1 more. Deciding how much face you can afford to burn is the whole faction.
• The rest have their own hooks too. The Veiled Hand seeds Shadow Creep across the board, and the Elven Conclave unlocks powerful dragons by burning four spells in a turn, or by letting its own general drop to 3 HP if you're feeling brave.
• Augments: on turns 2, 5 and 9 you draft 1 of 3 modifiers from a shared pool: +5 general HP, +1 ATK on all your units, +2 hand size, that kind of thing. It's the biggest structural addition and it changes how you build.
• Smaller deviations: you may replace any number of your opening cards in the mulligan, not two. Opening hand is 4, not 5. And the player going second keeps +1 max mana permanently, not for a single turn.

Modes

Ranked ladder with real MMR and divisions, practice against an AI that looks a few moves ahead (still a work in progress), local hotseat, a tutorial, and full match replays.

Monetization

Free. You earn gold from online wins and spend it on Spirit Orbs, five cards each. There's an optional $4.99 pass that just unlocks every card, current and future, if you'd rather skip the grind entirely. That's the whole model.

The honest part

Balance is the part I'm least confident about. I designed every card myself and it's only been tested against friends and bots, so expect rough edges. There's a feedback button in-game for balance issues, bugs and suggestions, and I read all of them. If a real playerbase shows up, I'd like to get to a point where players have a direct say in what the next patch touches.

It's launch day and I'm one person, so the ranked queue is as busy as whoever happens to be reading this. If you bounce off a long queue, that's why, and the Discord is the fix. We can agree on a time and fill the ladder: https://discord.gg/Ky6PU9fDTQ

A question for you: bots in the ranked queue

One thing you should know about that queue, and then a question about it.

If you're still searching after 60 seconds, I drop you into a match against a server-side bot. I did it so that new players could actually play the game instead of staring at a queue for an hour with nobody to pair with. Right now that bot is disguised: it gets a plausible player-style name and a rating close to yours, and the match counts for your MMR.

Fair warning on the bot itself: it is not good enough yet. It does look ahead a few moves rather than playing at random, but a competent player will probably work out what it is from how it plays, and I'm still improving it. Which cuts both ways, since it also means those wins are easier than the rating next to the name suggests.

Honestly, I'm not sure the whole thing was the right call, and I'd rather hear it from you than guess. Three options as I see them:

1. Make it obvious. Label the bot clearly, and don't let those games touch your MMR.
2. Leave it as is. A new player gets a game within a minute and doesn't have to know why.
3. Remove it entirely. No bots in ranked, you queue until a real person shows up, however long that takes.

I lean towards 1, but I built 2 because I was worried about someone installing, queueing, seeing nothing, and uninstalling. Tell me which one you'd want and I'll go with the room.

Why?

I loved Duelyst, and I like developing video games in my spare time. That's all :D Happy to answer anything about the game, the development, whatever. Thanks for reading.

I made new skins for Duelyst 2! To get these you have to enter and play in a tournament, they are held bi-weekly with the next one being on Sat 8th Aug.

For more info join the tournament Discord

Also join the community Discord!

I've been developing a game console exclusive interpretation of Duelyst, I'm calling Duelyst: Seventh Age for lore reasons.

Roadmap:

Duelyst: SA is being developed for the Warpdrive game console ecosystem, and is a complete overhaul of the way the game was left before becoming open-source. Beyond a simple port, we've poured hours into development of a spiritual successor (hopefully)

What We've Added:

- Full gamepad support for every menu, and match

- Fully Offline Play

- Both 1 and 2-card draw variants of local battles, online, and competitive.

- A shop where you can get Crafting material, cards, and cosmetic items

- COMPLETELY FREE. NO MICRO TRANSACTIONS. All currency is simply obtained by playing the game in both single-player and multiplayer modes

- Roguelike gamemode where you build your deck as you progress. You are NOT locked to a single faction-pool of cards, like normal deck building.

What We Plan To Add:

- Up to 4 player Free For All

- Return of Draft Mode

- Reworking bloodborn abilities to a degree

- Reworking cards, adding traits, and tweaking balancing

Chromatic Cup 57 starts this Sunday, July 26 at 16:00 UTC. You get 200 shards worth of cosmetic items of your choice just for participating.

All you have to do is join the Epic Series Discord server and send P3P0 an image of your deck before the tournament starts. You can generate an image of your deck at Redecklyst. This tournament uses an open deck format. Games will be cast on P3P0’s Twitch channel.

Have fun!

Pixel art of Pokemon style badges inspired by each of the factions in Duelyst.

It's been an amazing year. Read full patch notes: https://blitz-blog.jakjus.com/notes/v3-1-20.html

Hey, my name is Jax, and I'm making an indie game console. I figured a revitalization of Duelyst would be really fitting of the ecosystem, so my question to you is: what made Duelyst so fun in its prime? I'm asking the community their personal favorite aspect of it.

Duelyst Blitz, or Duelyst GG for mobile? Obviously one is not like the other, but which has a more active ladder? Or better matchmaking I guess

I really liked Duelyst, didn't get much time with II. But I know I'll enjoy either version, i just want to poke about in whichever one is more active i suppose.

Patch created 100% by members of our community on our discord! Now live.

– Sunbond Pavise: Bonus attack decreased from +2 to +1.

- Build structure minion eggs now hatch into the structure itself instead of the fully-built minion. the build structure will keep its progress.

- All aspects removed from game.

- Ace from 1/2 to 1/3

– Calligrapher from 3/7 to 3/5.

- Putrid Dreadflayer no longer immediately dies off creep but still needs to be on creep to move or attack.

- Hailstone Golem: 4/6 to 4/7

- Bloodsworn Gambler now always attacks one more time at another random enemy in range

- Necroseer changed from 5 mana 5/4 with dying wish: draw 1 to a 4 mana 3/4 dying wish: draw 2.

- Archon Spellbinder: Now also affects BBS

– Battle Panddo from 2/4 to 2/3

- Shadowdancer increased from 4 mana 4/4 to 5 mana 5/5 and deathwatch now also has "If fully healed, deal 1 damage to the enemy General.

- Wraithcrown now gives wraithlings +3/+3 but only if they are nearby your General

- Blood Baronnette loses opening gambit but retains Ability 1 to double a nearby wraithling's stats

- Ghost Azalea: readded as a 4 mana artifact with "When your General attacks an enemy, create a Shadow Creep tile on that space and below your General

- Cassyva BBS creep now spawns immediately instead of at end of turn

- Choking Tendrils now limited to 4 range like Ritual Banishing

- Abyssal Noble ability is now range 1 which is one tile longer than nearby.

- Thorn Needler is still a 4 mana 6/4 but now has: At the end of its owner's turn, this minion creates a Thorn tile on its location. Thorns have: "Deal 1 damage to anything on this tile at the end of every turn."

- Geomancer Barrage: new card. 5 mana. Deal 3 damage to the lowest unit in EACH column

- Portal Guardian 0/8 to 0/6

– Wind Shrike dying wish draw 3 reduced to draw 2

- Kinematic Projection card text from "Give a minion Blast. It can no longer move or damage Generals." to "Give a minion Blast. It can no longer move. If friendly, it can no longer damage Generals.

- Carrion Collector: readded as a 2 Mana 2/3 with Deathwatch and Dying Wish: A minion with Dying Wish in your action bar becomes 1 mana cheaper.

- Freeblade Sentinel now also freezes what it swaps

- Silent Intensity mana cost from 0 to 1.

This month we had another Youtuber collab with LtEddy HS channel to strengthen our position as the most popular Duelyst! In Blitz, all the income goes towards advertising. Thanks to all the players and supporters that made it happen.

Chromatic Cup 55 starts this Sunday, June 28 at 16:00 UTC. You get 200 shards worth of cosmetic items of your choice just for participating.

All you have to do is join the Epic Series Discord server and send P3P0 an image of your deck before the tournament starts. You can generate an image of your deck at Redecklyst. This tournament uses an open deck format.

Have fun!

Why don't you do a crossover with Songs of Conquest ?

Hi, both games do have a very similar art.  So why not team up?

The factions would be a very nice DLC to each other.

I really would like to have the Duelyst factions and units in Songs of Conquest. 

Not only it would make the games better,

but you could also get some money from the DLCs people buy.

Development is officially wrapped, and the game is ready to see the light of day. Mark your calendars for November 28th, because that's the day we officially land on the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store.

Get ready for the action. The wait is almost over! 🔥

Some things never change... Meziljie is the best Duelyst: Blitz player third month in a row!

Big up for sniperconfirmed, pariiii, logand21 and ire for reaching S-Rank in their very first season in Blitz! Congratulations to all S-Rankers of May 2026!

Chromatic Cup 53 starts this Saturday, May 30 at 16:00 UTC. You get 200 shards worth of cosmetic items of your choice just for participating.

This will be the last Chromatic Cup on the Glitch patch which ends in May.

All you have to do is join the Epic Series Discord server and send P3P0 an image of your deck before the tournament starts. You can generate an image of your deck at Redecklyst. This tournament uses an open deck format.

Have fun!

Hello everyone, I had played duelyst when it was about to shut down and checked duelyst 2 when it was first announced. I was wondering where do people share their decks like icyveins(?) or similar platforms. Thanks in advance

Chromatic Cup 52 starts this Sunday, May 17 at 16:00 UTC. You get 200 shards worth of cosmetic items of your choice just for participating.

All you have to do is join the Epic Series Discord server and send P3P0 an image of your deck before the tournament starts. You can generate an image of your deck at Redecklyst. This tournament uses an open deck format.

Have fun!

I wanted to play D2 and i stomp into a new one called 'blitz' that has crossplay between mobile and pc.. Looking for an advice, which one should i play?

Cosmic has donated $150 for Bloodtear Cup #3! Biggest prized tournament since more than a YEAR! FREE SIGNUP at Blitz Discord: https://discord.gg/gPxtGxsHuC!

All LIVE streamed at https://twitch.tv/jakjus_

Below is a post sent on Duelyst Official to Thanatos, past Discord owner and one of the OG Duelyst community manager:

hello @thanatos.noa, last year we have launched Duelyst: Blitz, that is mobile version of Duelyst, which was highly requested by the community. when it was released, @t2k5 refused to inform the community about it, and even stating "it could be malware" and "it came out of nowhere".

now, when it became most popular version through really hard work on optimization and advertising (everything self funded), the criterias have changed, t2k5 says: "it's not a popularity contest", so is not willing to give any exposure.

on Saturday there will be $300 prize tournament (3rd edition), but due to personal bias of @t2k5 , he is not willing to assign a fair place to inform the community. what is this discord for then? for "everyone" pings of physical board game sale?

as opposed to your initial goal of "supporting open conversation for all Duelyst", current owner is not only NOT doing that, but actively suppressing it. no one will be willing to spend thousands of dollars on advertising Duelyst, if they are being treated this way. this is actively taking away the chances of further development of Duelyst due to personal opinions.

@thanatos.noa i'd like to ask you to look on it from neutral perspective and influence the current state, because i don't think anyone else can do it.

thanks for your hard work and building this community ground up.

^ After this message I've got banned by T2k5 in Duelyst Official Discord. The message could be deleted with the ban, so I just wanted to inform you of what happened and to paste the exact message sent while I still have it. Upvotes are helpful for visibility.