The Story Behind the Cards: Elestrals

In 1993, Magic: The Gathering made history by becoming the first universally recognized TCG, selling millions of cards within its first decade of release. Since then, trading card games have become a pop culture phenomenon, with thousands of different TCGs played around the world. In fact, TCGs have gotten so popular that they are often the subject of other media, including books, television shows, anime and even YouTube videos.

In 2022, popular Pokémon YouTuber aDrive announced a KickStarter campaign for a new TCG of his own creation: Elestrals. A game of monsters, magic and mythology, Elestrals takes inspiration from popular TCGs like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering to put a fun spin on the typical monster battle formula.

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How to Play Elestrals

Each player starts by building two decks: a Spirit deck and a Main deck. The Spirit deck contains only Spirit cards — creature cards that represent the player’s health. The Main deck contains every other card, including Elestrals and Runes. Elestrals are also creatures, but they have attack and defense values that can defend your Spirits and return fire. Meanwhile, Runes provide magical properties that can damage opponents, buff Elestrals or cause debilitating effects on the opponents’ Elestrals.

Elestrals’ combat mechanics are very similar to Yu-Gi-Oh! Spirits must be “expended,” or moved to the Underworld (the discard pile) to play any card from your hand. The goal of the game is to use Spirits to add Elestrals and Runes to the battlefield to form a good offensive and defensive line. Up to four Elestrals can be placed on the battlefield at a time, along with four Runes. Elestrals can be “ascended” into stronger Elestrals to deal more damage or provide more defense, while Runes provide your entire battlefield with extra effects to turn the tide of battle in your favor.

The game ends when a player runs out of Spirit cards to expend and is unable to perform any actions, or when their Main deck is empty. For a more detailed explanation on how to play Elestrals, go here.

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What makes it special?

Elestrals is a love letter to classic trading card games that inspired generations of players and collectors. The TCG combines the battle mechanics of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the evolution, elemental typing and creatures of Pokémon, and the high-stakes Life mechanics of Magic: The Gathering into one game, all while maintaining its own unique identity as a fun and whimsical game that stays true to its roots.

Additionally, Elestrals works to put TCG fans at the center of the game’s development and continued growth. The TCG was conceptualized and produced by aDrive — a YouTuber with more than 970,000 subscribers who focuses on Pokémon and TCG content. Elestrals employs fan artists from around the world to create cards for the game, with popular illustrators including Giovanni Aguilar, a popular “fakemon” artist, and Elite4, a group of Italian artists known for their Pokémon fan comics and fan games. Finally, the game has been backed on Kickstarter by more than 7,000 fans and followers, who have pledged more than $1.4 million to the game’s continued growth.

Overall, Elestrals is a promising TCG that is already played, collected and loved by hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts. According to the CGC Cards Population Report, CGC has certified more than 100 Elestrals cards as of September 2025. To learn more about Elestrals, visit the TCG’s website here.