Shadow Forge Leaderboard and Launch
As Unicorns have ventured deeper into the Dark Forest, the Shadowcorns have begun ramping up their war efforts to push the Unicorns out of their territory...
Unable to replenish their population, the sterile Shadowcorns are hungry for bloodlust but know they can’t risk battle themselves. Instead, they have found a path through the dark arts to construct the heinous Shadow Forges that will create disposable minions to do their bidding!
Today we are announcing the first permanent major release related to Shadowcorn gameplay, taking us one step closer to faction warfare between good and evil.
In this release, players will stake their precious Shadowcorns and receive rewards that will allow them to continuously craft minions of various classes and efficiency.
For the next few weeks, players will be using the Shadow Forges to amass their minion armies in preparation for Twilight Tactics, the next major release in the Shadowcorn arc. Once Twilight Tactics begins, Unicorn holders and Shadowcorn holders will battle for territory and the valuable resources therein. The Shadow Forge will remain active all throughout Twilight Tactics, and the cycle of amassing minions will restart once the round of Twilight Tactics ends.
In this Article
Goals
Shadowcorns have been in the wild for some time now, and we wanted to ensure that this release checks some important boxes to meet the priorities of our Shadowcorn holders.
Four major goals for the Shadow Forge:
Create gameplay for Shadowcorn holders that is largely passive.
Increase utility and reward-generating potential for Shadowcorns
Implement a means for Shadowcorn holders to increase their "Prestige" by crafting/obtaining minions.
Introduce a means for Shadowcorn holders to increase their "armies" in anticipation for Twilight Tactics
Overview
Shadowcorns are able to do the following within the Shadow Forge:
Join the Leaderboard!
Earn a place of honor in the leaderboard through crafting Minions.
Harvest Resources
Husks and Ingredients can be gathered through the Shadow Forge through staking Shadowcorns.
Shadowcorn Lootboxes may also be opened for additional resources!
Craft Shadow Forge Items
Craft resources that will help to further your progression.
Mint Rituals to summon Minions that will follow your bidding!
Create Minions
Minion Creation allows you to progress further in the Leaderboard. Minions will also be part of the core strategy in future installments of Shadowcorn gameplay.
Upgrade Your Shadow Forge
The Shadow Forge may be upgraded to a higher level with enough Dark Marks and Shadow Forge Keys. Upgrading helps you get better Shadow Forge Bonuses.
Harvesting
The Shadow Forge begins on the Harvest tab, where players will be able to stake their individual Shadowcorns to begin harvesting resources, like Husks and Ingredients.
When staking a Shadowcorn for reaping, players will have to select either a Husk or Ingredient to reap for collection. Shadowcorns are most efficient when reaping husks that match their class; however, they can be directed to reap whichever resource you need the most.
Husks
The amount of Husks a Shadowcorn can harvest depends on its stats, class, rarity, and Shadow Forge level.
Shadowcorn stats provide a baseline for husk production, which is then amplified by other factors:
Stat Baselines
Fire Husk = Might Stat/100
Slime Husk = Wickedness Stat/100
Volt Husk = Tenacity Stat/100
Soul Husk = Cunning Stat/100
Nebula Husk = Arcana Stat/100
Class Bonus
50% Bonus if you produce a Husk whose class matches your Shadowcorn.
Rarity Bonus
Common: 10%
Rare: 100%
Mythic: 400%
Shadow Forge Level
The formula to calculate the harvest speed of a specific husk is:
(Stat Husk Production + Shadow Forge Bonus) * (1 + Class Bonus + Rarity Bonus)
Harvest Supply Cap
A Shadowcorn can only harvest so much before it can’t carry anything more. If a staked Shadowcorn’s storage is full then it will no longer be able to harvest additional husks or ingredients until the controlling player unstakes the Shadowcorn for collection. Make sure to upgrade your Forge to increase your carrying capacity!
The formula to calculate supply cap is:
(Shadowcorn Total Stats/10 + Total Shadow Forge Level Storage Cap Increase) * (1 + Rarity Bonus)
Ingredients
Players may also choose to send a Shadowcorn to harvest ingredients instead. Ingredients come in handy for upgrading the Shadow Forge Level or for crafting Shadow Forge Keys with special Rituals. They will also be used for crafting higher-tier minions in the future.
All Shadowcorns harvest Ingredients at the same rate: 1 per hour. This is the same regardless of Shadowcorn Stat, Class, Rarity, or Shadow Forge Level.
If you’re unable to play Shadow Forge for a couple of days, consider upgrading your Forge level for a lesser risk of hitting the supply cap.
Collecting the Harvest
Players can collect their rewards from harvesting at any time by simply unstaking their Shadowcorns through the ‘Reap Rewards’ button. Harvested Husks and Ingredients will be sent directly to the player’s wallet.
To minimize transactions, players can harvest and restake in the same transaction by checking the box that reads “RESTAKE AFTER REAPING REWARDS”. The Shadowcorn will be re-staked and sent to harvest the same Husk or Ingredient it was harvesting when it was unstaked.
Rituals
Once you have some husks and ingredients, players can consume them by using Rituals to craft Minions and other useful items like Shadow Forge Keys.
Everyone will have five basic starter rituals, one for each class of minion; however, you can also mint new NFT rituals that are more efficient and have different requirements.
Using a Ritual
It’s time to begin crafting minions! To start, players must choose a ritual to use based on the desired class of the minion being created.
If desired, players are able to craft multiples of a specific Minion in one transaction. Players can control this by using the + and - buttons next to transmute or click MAX to craft as many minions as you have resources available.
A maximum of 50 Minions can be crafted in one transaction.
Starter Rituals
The five Starter Rituals owned by all players can be used an unlimited number of times. These rituals will have the least efficient costs for producing a Minion, incentivizing players to consider minting NFT rituals for better efficiency.
These Starter Rituals cannot be traded on marketplaces, like Opensea.
NFT Rituals
Players can create Rituals NFTs that cost RBW and Dark Marks to mint. These Ritual NFTs will be more efficient to produce Minions and Shadow Forge Keys than the starter Rituals.
Players can mint Ritual NFTs of three different qualities: Common, Rare, and Mythic.
Although NFT Rituals are more efficient than Starter Rituals, the catch is that NFT Rituals can only be used a certain amount of times to craft Minions.
The amount of charges left for an NFT Ritual is noted by the number in the top right corner of the Ritual in question.
These Rituals can be traded on marketplaces, like Opensea.
Let’s take this NFT Ritual as an example. We can see that the cost to produce a Slime Minion is 46 Slime Husks instead of 50 Slime Husks. Players can receive an 8% discount on 30 minions when using this ritual! This allows you to optimize and create even more minions with the same amount of Husks.
NFT Ritual Restrictions
NFT Rituals might also have additional restrictions that a Player must meet in order to use it. The list of restrictions that can be rolled is as follows:
Shadowcorn Class Restrictions
NFT Rituals with a class restriction can only be used if you own a Shadowcown of that class.
Shadowcorn Rarity Restrictions
NFT Rituals with a rarity restriction can only be used if you own a Shadowcorn of that rarity or better.
Shadowcorn Stat Restrictions
NFT Rituals with a stat restriction can only be used if you own a Shadowcown that meets the stat requirement.
Shadow Forge Level Restrictions
NFT Rituals with a Shadow Forge level requirement can only be used if your Shadow Forge is that level or higher.
Upgrading the Forge
Players can upgrade the Shadow Forge by clicking on the UPGRADE FORGE Tab. Upgrading the Shadow Forge Level increases Husk Production for all Shadowcorns as well as increases their carrying capacity.
Upgrading the Shadow Forge Level requires Shadow Forge Keys and Dark Marks. You can find the costs here:
Shadow Forge: New Assets
The addition of Shadow Forge gameplay also introduces a few new assets into the Crypto Unicorns ecosystem. Below is a breakdown of these new assets:
Shadowcorn Items (ERC-1155)
Items created by Shadowcorns, such as husks, ingredients, keys, and minions, follow the ERC-115 token standard. All of these items are tradeable and transferable among players. This means that they can also be listed on secondary marketplaces, like Opensea.
Shadowcorn Rituals (ERC-721)
Shadowcorn Rituals that have been minted by players follow the ERC-721 token standard. Unlike the account-bound Starter Rituals, these Rituals are NFTs that can be traded and transferred among players. They can also be listed on secondary marketplaces for sale.
Dark Marks (Soulbound Tokens)
Dark Marks are a soft currency distributed to Shadowcorn holders that participate in crafting minions and are used for important activities like upgrading your Shadow Forge.
Dark Marks are stored as on-chain assets; however, they are soulbound tokens, meaning they are non-saleable and non-transferable to other players.
Dark Marks can only be earned by claiming Daily Bonus rewards. Every 24 hours, there will be 250,000 Dark Marks and 1.5M UNIM tokens distributed to players who choose to craft minions. Your daily bonus of Dark Marks and UNIM is based on the percentage of minions you create relative to all of the minions created in the last 24 hours.
Your daily bonus will be displayed as 0 until the timer ends at midnight UTC each day. Once the final calculation is made, your daily bonus values will be displayed and you will be able to claim the rewards.
Note that daily rewards must be claimed within 7 days or they will be redistributed in the next day's rewards. Make sure to stay on top of your claims to prevent losing rewards!
Leaderboard & Shadowcorn Earnings
The Shadow Forge event will have its own leaderboard that ranks players based on how many Minions they create in this phase. There are no other factors that contribute points to this leaderboard- simply producing any minion is worth 1 point.
Shadowcorn Earnings
Outside of the leaderboard, there are additional Shadowcorn Earnings that come from core-game Shadowcorn attacks on questing, farming, & gathering loops.
Shadowcorn Earnings are split between shadowcorn holders based on their Prestige. Take note that wallets do not have to participate in Twilight Tactics to be entitled to Prestige Points; Prestige is tied solely to the core-game passive rewards that will be distributed immediately prior to the beginning of Twilight Tactics.
Prestige Scoring
Prestige is calculated by point contributions for holding minions of different rarities in a given wallet:
5 points per Tier 1 Minion held (any Minion)
1000 points per Common Shadowcorn held
2500 points per Rare Shadowcorn held
10000 points per Mythic Shadowcorn held
Your projected rewards are based on your Prestige Share, which is the percentage of your total prestige score relative to the total prestige score of all players.
Note that your prestige will change on a frequent basis as the total prestige amount increases or you increase your prestige by obtaining additional SCs or Minions.
Prestige scores are used primarily to make sure players have an active incentive to keep producing and holding minions during periods of tranquility, as there needs to be enough minions available to fight for a battle phase to begin.
This back-and-forth dynamic between Unicorns and Shadowcorns is a key element in setting the stage for Tribes and more faction-based gameplay!
Rewards Timeline
The pending rewards from periods of tranquility will be distributed right before a Twilight Tactics battle begins. Specific dates will be announced closer to the release of Twilight Tactics later this year.
Once a battle begins, players should expect their prestige score to decrease as minions get killed in battle; however, the rewards from participating in battles will be more than worth it compared to sitting on the sidelines.
Players will have time to rebuild their Prestige by crafting minions prior to the next round of Twilight Tactics. Note that a certain number of minions must be crafted before SC holders can trigger Twilight Tactics to begin again.
Leaderboard Rewards
This Leaderboard will run for the duration of time between the launch of Shadow Forge and the launch of Twilight Tactics. When Twilight Tactics launches, we’ll release another Leaderboard that is more indicative of the entire Act 2 experience.
Shadowcorns, Rise.
Are you ready to strike fear into the hearts of Punycorns? Raise your army of Minions and prepare for the glory of devastation!
The moment of reckoning draws close. Soon, you will be able to access the Shadow Forge at https://shadowforge.cryptounicorns.fun/! Rally your resources– those Shadowcorn Lootboxes will come in handy to get a head start on Minion Production. Keep our Zendesk Guide handy for the first couple of times.
For Shadowcorns who remain previously staked to past Shadowcorn events (ie., Throwing Shade and Dark Forest), reach out to our Zendesk Team to get your Shadowcorn sorted out and ready for destruction.
To strategize and antagonize the Punycorns with your fellow Shadowcorns, join us on Discord! After verifying your Shadowcorn wallet, you’ll gain access to an exclusive channel for Shadowcorn Holders.
Changelog
September 14, 2023 - Article Published
September 19, 2023, 1:00 AM UTC - Updated the “Shadow Forge Key Ritual NFTs” Table
September 21, 2023, 2:37 AM UTC - Updated the “Minion Ritual NFTs” Table