The Differences Between Guild of Guardian’s Four NFT Collections
In This Post:
- Introduction
- The Four Collections
- What’s the Difference Between The Collections?
- Which Should You Own?
- Conclusion
Introduction
Hi folks! Welcome to another Guild of Guardian’s post on The Nexus.
One of the most frequent questions I see in the forums is about which Guardians are worth buying. That’s a tough question to answer when there are over 80 Guardians to choose on the market.
You can simplify things for yourself by understanding the differences between the four collections.
They aren’t created equal, and owning Guardians from a particular collection can provide you with a head start if you’re willing to spend on the game.
In this article, I’ll cover some background on each collection, the biggest differences between them, and which ones you should concentrate on depending on your situation.
Let’s get started.
The Four Collections
A “collection” is just a group of gaming assets that are released together. Founder or Genesis collections are typically the most valuable because developers give them more utility to reward the game’s early supporters.
Guild of Guardians follows that trend, but it also offers three other collections — two of which can be obtained from playing the game.
Collections You Can Own
In-Game Collections
Let’s cover some background on each one first.
Founder
GoG’s founding collection was released in 2021, right before the height of the last bull cycle. The whole collection was playable before the reboot — when the game still played like Diablo.
They were added to the regional playtest in March 2024. Players have been testing them out since then and prices on Token Trove — the secondary market — reflect that.
It includes 8 Legendary, 11 epic and 16 rare Guardians. Legendary ones initially minted for 200 USD each, meaning that most are still available for only slightly above their mint price.
The most popular are by far Tavros, Lia and Cyrus, who all sell for around 400 USD on Token Trove.
I first joined the project when these were around 70% cheaper. I picked up Lia (🔥🔥🔥), but I regret not picking up more.
The team listened to the community and gave them good value in the game.
eSports
The second collection of Guardians was the result of a partnership with 8 competitive eSports teams to bring more players into the GoG ecosystem.
It only features 8 legendary Guardians. Each one is inspired by a different team.
Legendary eSports Guardians minted for $99 USD in Feb 2023.
The ones with the rarest skins (chromas) minted early, causing people to stop buying. As a result, only 6,672 are in circulation — making them rarer than legendary Founders.
The majority of us don’t know anything about them because they haven’t appeared in the game yet.
Rumors of a not so secret private test are circulating, and it seems like eSport Guardians will be as strong as the Founder collection but with a focus on PVP.
Whatever the case, we won’t really know how good they are until the game launches. I’ll make sure to update this section once I’ve had the opportunity to see them in action.
Gen One
Together, the Gen One and Core One collections include all the playable Guardians from the regional playtest.
The Gen One collection is the premium collection you can earn from the game by collecting summoning stones.
The premium banner had a paywall in the regional playtest, but characters would cycle to the freemium banner afterwards. It seems that this will carry on in the launch version, but with a longer delay.
The collection only has 3 legendary Guardians in total, so it’s hard to compare to the Founder collection.
New premium characters typically get better over time in other games, and I could see this one overtaking the Founder collection one day.
The clear favorites are Tian Long and Phoenicia, who go for about 250 USD and 225 USD respectively. Both are worthy additions to any team, and they are definitely a step above any legendary Core One .
Salve, the third legendary Gen One, gets a bad rap in my opinion because Assassins are harder to play.
He’s a lot of fun and does a lot of damage once you figure him out. Check out my review on him if you want to find out more.
Core One
If Gen One is the premium brand, then Core One is your run of the mill.
The Core One collection includes most of the in-game Guardians with 7 legendary, 21 epic, 8 rare, and 3 common.
Since all of these Guardians are available in-game for free, their supply is truly unlimited. I managed to collect them all within two months of starting the regional test.
Core One legendary are very decently priced compared to playable characters from other Immutable games.
For example, Metal Core operatives go for 250 USD each, and Chrono Forge Epic Characters go for over 2K USD.
The best Guardians from this collection are Griselle and Atticus.
The other ones aren’t amazing! But, if a lot of the premium units roll over to the freemium banner, it could become more viable over time.
What’s the Difference Between Collections?
So why should you care about these in the first place?
Well, there are four major differences that might make you lean towards one or the other:
- How well they perform in the game
- How much they cost
- How easy they are to get
- How much they cost to upgrade
Performance: Founder Guardians Are “Better” Than In-Game Ones
I use quotation marks because succeeding in GoG takes more than just having powerful Guardians. Squad composition and gear counts for a lot too — if not more.
That said, the team designed Founder Guardians to be more powerful than in-game ones.
They start with higher enlightenment and radiance levels, and that means higher stats to start the game. They also have abilities with slightly higher multipliers than Core One or Gen One.
It’s a whole other story when it comes to epic and rare Guardians, however. In fact, I prefer playing a lot of the Core One epics over the Founder ones.
Be that as it may, the fact of the matter is that spending more on Founders will give you a head start at the beginning of the game in PVE content like Adventure and Endless mode.
Cost: A Lot Of Options To Suit Your Budget
First, let me say that you don’t have to spend any money on GoG to play the game…
…But if you do want to make progress faster, you have a lot of options.
The most expensive Guardians in the game are Legendary Founders, followed by the two best Gen One. Accordingly, Gen One are slightly more expensive than the Core One.
Epic Core One and Gen One are definitely worth a look. They’re a fraction of the cost and they don’t take very long to upgrade. They can slice through early content, but obviously might struggle against legendary teams.
The point I’m trying to make is that you have a lot of options on how to build. It’s just a question of what your goals are for the game.
Availability: Core One Guardians Are Easier To Get
The Core One and Gen One collections are available from in-game banners, in-app purchases, and on the secondary market.
That makes them way easier to get than the Founder and eSports collections that are only available for purchase from other players in limited supplies.
Epic and rare Core One Guardians were especially easy to get in the regional test from farmable shards. Legendary Core One were available at a fixed price of $129 CAD or every 40 pulls from the Freemium banner.
Web3 Guardians may seem easy to get from the secondary market for now, but that could change as the player base grows.
Price will eventually be a huge barrier to owning eSport or Founder Guardians, but Core One and Gen One will always be available from playing the game.
Upgrades: Web3 Guardians are Cheaper To Upgrade Quickly
The premise here is that you want to max out a Guardian as soon as you get them — which is typically reserved for hyper-competitive play.
The main way to upgrade the Founder and eSports collections is to craft a cracked heart. You’ll be able to build one at the Altar of Sacrifice.
Cracked hearts are somewhat expensive to build. You have to sacrifice other Guardians and pay a $GOG fee. You can use any Guardian as part of your recipe, even those you farm in the game for free.
That lets you keep your costs lower.
Based on today’s market prices and $GOG’s value (0.26 USD), it would cost about 693 USD to fully upgrade a legendary Founder of your choosing by crafting 7 cracked hearts.
Meanwhile, the cheapest Core One legendary Guardian, Thorit, would cost 665 USD to max if you were to buy all of his duplicates on the market.
Phoenicia, one of the more popular legendary Gen One, would cost 3,315 USD to max. Tian Long, the most powerful Gen One legendary, doesn’t even have enough copies on the market to get him there.
In his case, you would have to pull on the in-game banners to get his copies. That can get pricey quickly.
The drop chance on his premium banner is 0.07%. That means it could take you on average 1,428 pulls to get him.
That works out to 143 10-pulls. At 39.99 CAD a ten pull (based on the regional test), it could cost you 5,719 CAD on average per copy if you try to chase the banner.
Now, that’s an exaggeration on my part. The math doesn’t quite work out that way because the premium banner has a soft pity. You receive a random legendary Guardian every 30 pulls with a better drop chance for a Tian Long.
I think I’ve made my point though. Pulling for multiple duplicates on the in-game banners can get very expensive if luck isn’t on your side.
So, even though Web3 Guardians have a higher price point, the cracked heart system makes them much cheaper to improve.
Which Should You Own?
Which collections you should look at really depends on how much you want to compete in the game. The more competitive you are, the better rewards you get, but the more it will cost you.
I find most players (except maybe for whales) will fall in one of these three categories.
Free to Play
If you just want to play the game without spending anything, then you’re automatically committed to the in-game collections. And out of the two, you’re likely to play with Core One Guardians the most.
The freemium banners included Tian Long and Salve in the regional test, so there was a chance to pull some Gen One legendary for free.
Phoenicia on the other hand, was only available through the Premium banner. I expect there will be more exclusive units that will stay out of reach for you as a F2P player.
The nice thing about Web3 games though, is that you’ll be able to earn in-game rewards and sell some of your stuff to other players. You can always choose to buy from one of the better collections with your earnings.
That said, you can build some very good formations with Atticus, Griselle and Tian Long.
You can support them with an epic healer like Flix or Aquiris, and an epic tank like Tursgog, Ikam or Grine.
You won’t necessarily compete with Founder and eSport-heavy formations at your level, but you will be able to take part and do well in all of the game’s content.
Competitive Play
I define a competitive player as someone who puts a serious amount of time and money into ranking for top spots on leaderboards or farming the rarest gear.
If that’s you, you’ll probably have to buy a mix of Founder, eSports and Gen One Guardians. You’ll also have to pay to upgrade them as quickly as possible to keep up with others.
The four that stand out right now are Tavros, Cyrus, Tian Long and Lia.
That tank-healer-DPS combo can carry your entire squad through all of the regional test content. Adding Freia or Phoenicia to the mix makes for a terrifying squad.
In a recent AMA with Gate.io, Chris Clay, the game’s Director, confirmed that leaderboard prizes would be concentrated at the top to reward players who put the most money, time and effort into the game.
That translates to a lot of competition to rank.
The formation I mentioned above would cost you approximately 10K USD to purchase and max immediately.
Of course, that’s just a quick estimate, but there is a steep price if you want to jump into the game and compete right away at this point.
On a Budget
You’ll need to be more strategic if, like me, you only have a finite amount of time and money.
I was lucky to purchase a copy of Lia for around 150 USD before her price ballooned during the playtest. I know I can pair her with Atticus and Gwynn to devastate early game content.
I can support those three with a tank like Takati, and Flix for healing.
That formation has a starting price of around 550 USD based on current market conditions.
It would still end up costing me around 1.6K USD to upgrade quickly. Unfortunately, I can’t put that kind of capital into the game yet, but I’m ok grinding my way up even if it means a smaller return.
That’s the type of mixing and matching you need to do if you missed the bear market lows and are faced with prices inflated by pre-game hype and speculation.
My point is that you don’t need a powerhouse squad to start the game.
You can target a handful of good Guardians from the Founder, eSports and Gen One collections to position yourself better and build from there.
Conclusion
In the end, the collections you choose really depend on how big of a splash you want to make.
If you’re on the competitive track, you’ll want to lean on Founder Guardians — and eSports ones when they come into play.
Although the initial price tag is high, you can save quite a bit on their upgrades and they’ll absolutely help you rank for better rewards early in the game.
That doesn’t mean you can’t have success if you don’t splurge on pricey characters. The game is well balanced and you have a lot of options.
If you’re F2P, you obviously won’t have access to Web3 Guardians, and your focus will be on Core One.
Those of us who are on a budget have the hardest road ahead.
A good play if you’re a light to medium spender who is just joining the game would be to choose a few powerful Guardians to help you get established.
You can lean on some of the better Core One and Founder epics to round out your squad while you build up your account.
If you need help figuring out which ones to pick, clap and follow my content as I test new ones out to see if they’re worth owning.
