There are a bevy of cards in the Heroes of Skyrim deck and most, if not all certainly have found a comfortable place within Legends. The additional themes and familiar faces (Khajiit, anyone?) help to bring another level of entertainment and enjoyment to the Legends world. I think that Bethesda did a bang-up job with making the deck creation deeper and certainly should get respective kudos for their continued expansion and balance of the cards in Legends.
The Elder Scrolls: Legends card game is an addictive experience by itself, as you traverse still-picture driven storylines that lead to competitive head-to-head card-based gameplay. Whether it’s offline or online, the game keeps you going through its Magic The Gathering-esque structure, but with a familiar Elder Scroll scent. You basically compete with a deck of cards against the CPU or real-world players in order to slowly wear down your opponent and beat them with strategized card decisions. The bevy of options to change up gameplay rules, such as how many cards you can have on one side of the board versus another, is significant. There’s quite a bit of complication to the core gameplay of this card-based title, but certainly welcomed complication. In other words, it’s constant, short-stints of fun that is incredibly hard to put down once you get going. It’s the Pringles of card games. Once you pop, you can’t stop.
In addition to the engrossing gameplay, there are also card decks to deal with to keep the experience going. Putting together your own deck of cards, which can be purchased as you progress in the game, and having different decks for different scenarios can quickly become a time consuming process, if not an obsessive one. To say that this would take up a good majority of your time in Legends would be an incredible understatement, but also one that makes sense and that is fun. It’s not simply about picking the most powerful cards, it’s also about choosing your lower-level support to help protect your upper-level power plays. There’s a lot to think about when it comes to putting a deck together that will, regardless of random card selectivity in the match, give you the best chance to win.
Anyway, you know the game by now, as it has been out nearly a year, but that is a quick summary of what to expect and what elements of this make the game addictive. This is useful information for those starting out with the game.
Now, Bethesda has decided to add to its deck of cards an addition of characters from Skyrim. The new deck falls under the moniker ‘Heroes of Skyrim’. The deck features familiar faces and foes from the Skyrim universe, which are quite powerful from top to bottom. While the deck is a bit top heavy in usage, meaning that you do get some incredibly powerful, sometimes multi-tier cards (they have multiple cards within), the overall deck is quite good. You would think this is a no-brainer, but crafting together a deck that is balanced for power, but also the long haul of defensiveness is not an easy task. Somehow Bethesda has put such a deck together. For example, one of my favorite cards of the bunch to use during gameplay, that has saved my butt more than a few times, is the Dragon Priest Mask, which ups +2 (offense) / +2 (defense) on cards. This card single-handedly got me through some of the Brotherhood missions, specifically the mission where you only get 10 rounds. Getting back to the deck, they did a great job of balancing out cards like DPM, while rewarding players with powerful cards that are enormous game changers. To put this in perspective, I think I’ve progressed much faster with my Skyrim cards than the previous decks.
Having said that, in terms of increased success in the game with these additional cards, you have to be careful not to get too infatuated with the more powerful selection. I think the first time out I loaded my first deck with the more higher-end cards, as they dealt far more damage than my previous deck. I had a lot more Dragon cards, but their point value was higher, which means I had to go through a few rounds before using them. I did a balance of lower cards, lots of kids and a few higher. It seemed to work just fine and felt more balance in the success category.
Anyway, there are a bevy of cards in the Heroes of Skyrim deck and most, if not all certainly have found a comfortable place within Legends. The additional themes and familiar faces (Khajiit, anyone?) help to bring another level of entertainment and enjoyment to the Legends world. I think that Bethesda did a bang-up job with making the deck creation deeper and certainly should get respective kudos for their continued expansion and balance of the cards in Legends.
