It's no secret that Magic: The Gathering practically invented the collectible card game. With that popularity, numerous similar games have sprung up over the years, emulating various aspects of Magic: The Gathering and innovating in a few key areas. Naturally, the CCG eventually turned towards video games, moving from meat space to the digital realm and losing very little in the process. Elements, an intricate, well-illustrated, and smartly composed online collectible card game, is fine example of the genre taking a turn towards the digital.

The set-up will feel quite natural to anyone who is familiar with Magic: The Gathering. You take on the role of an elemental, a spirit composed of one of twelve elements, who has a set of skills represented by cards in a deck. Spells can be cast by drawing from a pool of "quanta" and put into play on the screen. Quanta regenerates each turn and is often required to use special abilities on cards in play, so when you're out of quanta, you have little choice but to end your turn.

In a standard duel, each player begins with 100 health, the goal being to reduce your opponent's life to naught. You do this using three main types of cards: permanents, spells, and creatures. Permanents stay in play after they are cast and maintain their effect unless otherwise altered. Spells fly in, do their thing, and are then discarded. Creatures stay in play and attempt to attack the other player each turn.

Apart from the actual duels, you'll also pay visits to the bazaar to purchase new cards as well as the oracle who rewards you with cash and special abilities. Managing your deck is another major part of the game, but when you first start out, you should just dive right in and take on a quest or two so you can become familiar with the basics of the game. The first handful of quests serve as a great tutorial, with helpful bubbles popping up to explain some of the game's rules as you go.

Now that the basics are out of the way, you can begin to see how intricate Elements really is. At first it seems like it's a mere stripped-down version of Magic: The Gathering, but with a wider variety of elements available, as well as what feels like a greater number of cards with special effects that toy with the basic mechanics in a much more mischievous way. After some rounds go by, though, you'll see it's quite confidently its own game with its own set of strategies to learn and employ.

The only real down side to playing Elements is its fondness to force you into grinding. In order to get the really good, rare cards, you'll need to engage in dozens of duels to level-up your character. This leads to many battles that feel like drudge work, pitting you against opponents while your deck is still relatively small and light on strategic options.

Elements sets out to almost fully emulate a collectible card game environment right in your browser window. To a large extent, it absolutely succeeds in this, giving you everything you would want except that satisfying sound of shuffling cards with your hands. It's got a good database of cards to collect, features some fantastic artwork, and manages to be just simple enough to draw you in, but complex enough to require real, honest strategy! 

You can play Elements right here in NewsFLASH by going here:  Elements