Its hard to keep track of all the card games these days, but three years ago Solforge launched as one of the first free-to-play variants, and even though the appearance of Hearthstone certainly hurt its popularity it has managed to consistently move ever-forward.

After years of hard work and numerous patches, some more successful than others, Solforge is going to be officially released next week, May 31st, with a newly redesigned UI, ranked ladder, and a rebalanced economy. If you're interested in what the new UI looks like here's the recently posted launch trailer:

I haven't played Solforge in a while so my explanation might be a tad shaky, but in essence its a lane-based card game that features a rather interesting leveling mechanic. All minions and spells have numerous levels, and each time you play a card it will level up and go into your discard pile. After a couple of turns your discard pile will be reshuffled back into your deck and your powerful leveled-up cards will be now be mixed with the ones you haven't played yet. 

With this sort of a system you have to base your decisions on more than just the current state of the board, as powerleveling a couple of cards is a great idea if you can guarantee you will draw them before the deck reshuffles itself, whereas a more even spread deck will constantly be throwing out sizable threats without too much worry about drawing the wrong cards. Its not the easiest thing to explain, but its not a very complicated system and you will get the hang of it pretty quickly once you have the actual game before you.

Speaking of which, you can download Solforge for free on Steam, though I'd recommend you wait until May 31st for all of the new features and quality of life changes to drop in.