This combat and card play guide for The Elder Scrolls: Legends will give you all the information a beginner needs to hit the ground running. The Elder Scrolls: Legends is a complex game that puts some unique twists on the traditional digital card game formula.With more accessibility, faster-paced battles, and a ton of depth waiting for players looking to dive deeper into the game, Legends leaves a lot of open area to cover. Before you can build the best deck, or even find your strengths and weaknesses with each class, you’re going to need to understand the basics of the game, and how each encounter with your enemies will play out.
The Basics of Card play and Creatures
Unlike Hearthstone, heroes are mere avatars for your player character. They don’t actually hold any weight in a match, and your main focus in this collectible card game is going to be the creatures that make up your deck. Each card has a defense and attack value, and these will be the most important factors to weigh in on during a match. Like other card games, when creatures attack each other their attack and defense stats are effected.
For example: if my creature with an attack of 2 attacks your creature with a defense of 2, this will kill your creature, removing the card from play. However, your creature’s attack stat will also be inflicted upon my creature’s defense value, hurting or killing my creature. Creatures are not only allowed to attack other creatures, though, which means players can attack other players directly (called a face attack), and inflict the creatures attack directly to the opposing player’s health.
The most important rule of creatures is that they cannot attack on the turn that they are played, unless they have the Charge keyword, which allows them to attack immediately. There are actually several keyword abilities like this that can change how creatures work on the battlefield. Let’s go over them, now.
Keyword Abilities
The Elder Scrolls: Legends features 12 different keyword abilities. Some of these act as static effects that last only for the creature’s lifespan, while others are one-off abilities that trigger at certain moments of play. The different keyword abilities in the game include: Prophecy, Breakthrough, Guard, Regenerate, Charge, Ward, Shackle, Lethal, Pilfer, Last Gasp, Summon, and Drain. These abilities play a massive role in each and every match, and are an extremely important part of the deck building process. We won’t touch on these too greatly here, but these abilities can easily mean the difference between winning and losing a match.
Lanes and What They Mean
The lane system is a completely new and unique feature in Legends, and most of the matches that you play will feature at least two different lanes. In matches you can play creatures in any lane you choose, however, the important thing to remember here is that creatures can only attack other creatures that are in that same lane. This means you’ll need to pay attention to both sides of the board, and make sure you aren’t leaving any open areas for your opponent to attack.
Another important factor of the lane system, each lane is broken down by different effects. Most notably you’ll often find yourself with a normal play lane and a Shadow lane. In the Shadow lane creatures cannot be attacked until they have been utilized, meaning you’ll need to play a card, then attack with it before it can be targeted by enemy effects. Sometimes you don’t have to follow the rules of the lane system, and you can use special abilities on cards to attack creatures in other lanes.
These are the basic areas you need to know in The Elder Scrolls: Legends. Pay attention to your lanes, use your keywords to your advantage, and make the most of your cards. Also, make sure you don’t sit on cards for too long. One of the most important attributes to being good at Legends is to know when to play your cards, and when to hold onto them. Be patient, strike when ready, and you will be well on your way to becoming a legend.
