I started playing Chronicle a couple of months back after seeing a sponsored stream, and I ended up enjoying it a lot. While the general F2P model of the game is very similar to Hearthstone the actual gameplay is something quite unique.
The idea is basically that instead of getting creatures to fight for you you're setting up your own adventure, 4 cards at a time. The cards you play are creatures that give you rewards when you beat them and "support" cards which give you rewards in exchange for gold. Then at the end you have a fight with your opponent to see who's stronger. Or alternatively you can try and kill them before it comes to that, or interfere with their adventure to try and cause them problems.
I think it's definitely worth a shot since it's free, and I found the basic set to be surprisingly interesting from a deckbuilding perspective. As I said the F2P model is very similar to Hearthstone - you earn in-game currency to spend on packs by doing daily quests and winning games, or you can spend real money to buy premium currency that also buys packs or cosmetic features. You can't trade cards with other players, instead you turn your redundant cards into crafting materials to make other ones. There's also a draft mode that can be very profitable once you get the hang of it (it's how I've managed to avoid spending any money on the game).
Some advice:
- You should try and complete all the fights under Solo. When you complete all five fights for a given a difficulty level you get a free pack. This should also give you some idea of how the game plays.
- You unlock all the basic cards for a legend once you get them to level 6. There are actually some pretty important cards in there (eg Gorge in Vanescula) so you should probably level up before you try to play Ranked. You also get some goodies at levels 5, 10 and 15.
Links:
https://www.rschronicle.com/The official website, you can also get the game on Steam.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlfAYCup9fDAAzDl-CpAgdv2X2cgwdk5QA playlist by Jaggerous with some nice videos for getting you started. The first video also serves as a good introduction to the game and the rules. Note that some cards have been changed since the earlier videos.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3ZqFbpwxyp-sseip6nD9Iw/videosThe channel of one of the main developers. He has some content for new players. His crafting guides are a bit suss in places though (don't craft Mej-Kah).
https://discordapp.com/invite/0hPykN0SMn6yNrTm#chatThe Discord channel for the game. A lot of good players tend to hang out in there and they're usually pretty helpful. Another neat thing is that most of the developers for the game tend to hang out there (and on the subreddit) and are usually pretty open when it comes to talking about their future plans.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ktd5LScTKBEuYyFVDHZadV30fEsoqKyI-cIhILJoeB0/edit#gid=1105990296A guide and card tierlist for Dungeoneering, the draft mode.
http://chronicle.gamepedia.com/Chronicle:_RuneScape_Legends_WikiThe official wiki. Contains info on all the cards. Very useful if your opponent plays a spellbook and you can't remember what all the spells do.