The key to winning in The Elder Scrolls: Legends is building a strong deck capable of causing mayhem for your opponents, and reacting to the spells, creatures, and other abilities they attempt to throw your way.
While there are a plethora of different strategies, card combinations, and play styles you can experiment with, there are some basic tips that will help you build strong and consistent decks repeatedly.
Don't build a one-color deck
Seriously? Yes, seriously! One-color decks just don't give you enough variety in mechanics or strategy to go up against a worthy opponent. It will limit the abilities available to you, meaning it's too easy to get stuck in a loop of repeating the same play each turn. Any opponent worth their salt will easily be able to identify your tactics and modify their play to counter them.
On top of being limiting, having enough cards in one color to build a deck is extremely difficult, remember you need at least 50 cards in a deck. It's just not smart.
Make sure you have the cards to support it
Piggy-backing off my previous tip, you need to make sure you have enough cards in both colors you want to use to make a strong deck. It's extremely hard to "splash" another color into a deck in The Elder Scrolls: Legends for the same reason I mentioned earlier; it limits your available strategies.
For example, in a 50-card deck made up of the colors red and green, you wouldn't want 40 red cards and only ten green cards. You'd rather have a much more even split — 27 red cards and 23 green cards for example.
Keep your deck as balanced as possible in this regard and you'll fair much better in battles!
Don't have too many cards in your deck
This is a no-brainer if you're familiar with strategy card games like Magic the Gathering.
The minimum number of cards you can have in a single deck in The Elder Scrolls: Legends is 50, and you're going to want to keep your deck as close to that minimum number as possible. Why? Because it gives you a higher chance of drawing your exquisite cards than a deck that has a larger volume.
The highest number of cards I would ever suggest putting into a deck is 56; anything more than that means you undoubtedly have less important cards you can cut out.
Use the auto-build feature to get started
I know advanced players might cringe at this suggestion, but the auto-build feature in The Elder Scrolls Legends is a great way to get started; however, you need to give it a little direction to make it useful.
Start by adding five cards (preferably strong ones) of each color into the deck. This will give the auto-build feature a solid foundation to build the rest of the deck out, so the AI isn't just adding random crap.
Once the auto-build process is complete the hard work begins! Meticulously go through the deck and your collection card-by-card to ensure that the best options made it into your deck. It will take some time, but I guarantee it will make your deck stronger.
Pick an ability (or two) to build around
There are tons of cards that have abilities, which, when activated, perform certain actions. Breakthrough, Last Gasp, and Lethal are just a few examples of abilities found in The Elder Scrolls: Legends. These abilities often lend themselves to certain strategies and card combinations that can help frame your deck.
For example, a common strategy using Breakthrough is using a lot of items that enhance your creatures' strength and defence stats, so you can trample over your opponent's creatures and still do damage to your opponent's life total.
Some abilities are a little more straightforward than others, so experiment and see what you like!
Don't have too many high-cost cards in your deck
Another simple, but an extremely important tip. Every card cost Magicka to play onto the battlefield, and your Magicka pool starts at zero and goes up by one each turn.
If you stack your deck with a bunch of cards that cost six or seven Magicka to play, you're going to have a hard time fending off attacks from your enemy during the first five turns. Heck, you could even end up getting killed before you play a card.
A good rule of thumb is to have the majority of cards in your deck cost four or less Magicka. The game makes it easy to look at the number breakdown in a handy bar graph as well, so make sure you take a look and make adjustments as necessary.
Use practice mode to test out new decks
Practice makes perfect, and deck building is no different! Use the games practice mode to try out your deck multiple times against a computer to see how well it handles the challenge. If you're struggling to win, go back into the deck builder and tinker around a bit more by substituting in different cards. Experimenting is paramount to success.
Do you have any tips?
Do you have any great tips for building fantastic decks in The Elder Scrolls: Legends? Let me know in the comments below, or hit me up on Twitter!
Updated July 2018: These are still my top tips to help out beginners build a strong deck!
