Hi All,

Over the last week or so I downloaded and started to play the Digital CCG from the Elder Scrolls franchise as I was getting a bit bored with duels and fancied having a go at something else for a bit. As the title suggests this is my first impressions coming from a purely MTG background (no Hearthstone) and may help other non-goblins decide if they want to give it a shot or not.

Installing
So the first thing that was noticeable to me is that this is not available on Steam so you need to download a Bethesda program and create a new account to play it. This was annoying but it was relatively pain free but the BIG WATCH OUT is that your user name that you create your account with Bethesda is not changeable and will also be your in-game name with no option to change what is being displayed. This really sucked as my account user name is not what I want my avatar to be.

F2P
So like Duels and Hearthstone the game is free to download and enter but it is micro transactions are very similar to HS so you almost have to spend at least $100 to build a somewhat competitive deck, if you don't you will get roflstomped by the AI and ladder opponents, so for those who like to try to grind out a F2P game this will not work here as it would take more hours than are in a day to get anywhere.

It works like this, coins are used to buy packs of cards which will give you 6 random cards that can be duplicates of cards you already have even after reaching the maximum playable number in a deck for each card (3, 2 or 1 depending on the card, not rarity). So the extra cards above the maximum can then be broken down into 'Soul Shards' which can be used to summon/craft any card you want at iirc 5x the cost of the shards you get for destroying a card of the same rarity (i.e if you get 20 shards for a rare card then summoning another rare will cost 100 shards). They also have a kind of foil/gold version of each card which is worth more shards. These cards as well as a gold border also have a soft animation on them which is pretty neat.

So in summary coins are used to buy packs and arena tickets and soul shards are used to craft cards. 1 pack of cards is 100 coins and an arena ticket is 150. You get coins by winning ladder matches and competing in the solo or P2P arena.

Game Modes

There are 5 types of game modes you can play:
- Practice vs the AI
- Story/Campaign
- Ladder or practice versus a human opponent
- Solo Arena
- Arena vs. human opponent

Story mode is like the campaign in duels you are given decks and it is a bit like a tutorial to start and you play until it is completed to get the rewards from it.

Practice mode vs the AI is also similar to duels with 3 modes of difficulty but the MAJOR difference is the AI in ESL is really hard to beat on Expert mode. From what I can tell the hard difficulty just gives the AI access to better cards and it cheats its ass off by having what seems like the exact right card to answer you plays when in top deck mode

This means you need to have a very strong deck to consistently beat the expert AI the lower difficulties can also be tricky but with lower powered cards the AI has less game winning option to screw you with. If you try to play the medium or expert difficulty with a starter deck you will lose most of the time.

The rewards for winning in the practice mode are soul shards (not coins) at a rate of 5,10 or 15 depending on the difficulty. Crafting a legendary card costs 1,200 shards and these are naturally the hardest to find through packs, so that is 80 wins vs the expert AI for one big card, that will take a long time.

Ladder matches vs other players are actually easier in the beginning than playing the AI and here you are rewarded with coins and sometimes cards as well so this is probably a better place to start grinding although it is still quite hard to win as it seems a lot of people pay significant sums of money and net deck to get started

Solo Arena requires 150 coins or a ticket which you can buy with real money(~$1.50) to enter and in arena mode you build a deck of 30 cards by picking from an offered 3 cards at a time normally ending up with a trashcan fire of a deck. You then face up to 9 AI battles with sometimes different rules in play that either handicap you or boost the AI. The arena is also really tough to get through all 9 battles without loosing 3 times and when you do you move up in rank and the next arena will be harder still until it becomes almost impossible to win. You get decent rewards for competing in the arena so you probably only need to win 3/9 battles to break even.

PvP Arena is the same as the solo except no mechanics favoring your opponent specifically and you are playing other draft decks built the same way like you did but there is ofc a large element of luck here. You also need to pay coins or use a ticket for this arena as well.

Throughout all of this you will be leveling up with EXP and each level you get a bonus prize and an upgraded version of a card. You can craft directly the upgraded version but this will transform your base card into the better version.

Game Play

The game play to me seems like a offspring of MTG and Hearthstone as there are clear elements from each like the colors segregation from magic and the turn based play and increasing magicka per turn that is not color specific from HS.

In ESL you cannot interact with your opponent on their turn except by RNG procs that certain cards haves when runes are destroyed but that is not controlled by you so you cant on purpose kill their new creature when they cast it even if you have available mana and the spell in hand.

Each player starts with 30 life and every 5 life points they have a rune which when destroyed draws that person a card. This is probably the best mechanic in the game that is different from MTG or HS (i'm sure other CCG have something like it) and it makes for very interesting battle strategy, do you attack for 2 damage and draw your opponent a card and potentially trigger a prophecy proc or sit back and wait for a better board state.

Prophecy is a mechanic or 'keyword' on some cards that means if they are drawn when a rune is destroyed you can cast them for free. There are a large number of powerful effect that have prophecy such as destroy creature or direct damage spells or guard/taunt creatures that stop you attacking face. Thus the tactics around rune breaking are pretty cool, with some opting for one large attack of 10 or more to avoid the potential proc on the two last runes.

Creatures can only attack one at a time and they can attack only face or other creatures in their 'lane' (there is one card that has text that lets it attack anywhere). If an opposing creature in your lane has guard it must be attacked before any other creature or opponent and there are tonnes of these guard effects around. There is no flying keyword or evasion that I can see except for moving a creature to a different lane, so all creatures can attack and block each other.

There are two lanes to the game board and while the rules for each lane can sometimes change with special battles in the arena, the normal rules are one 'Field Lane' and one 'Shadow Lane' the field lane is normal with no special effects and the shadow lane means that new creatures are not attackable by the opponents creatures on their next turn. They can still be targeted by actions (spells) though.

Summary/TLDR

Overall I have to say I quite like the game so far although it is far more rage inducing than duels The game UI is very polished and the battle visual and sound effects are great, this is where the game is far superior to duels as it has been designed as a digital card game and not a port of a paper game. The card art is pretty good although not close to MTG standards but better than Hearthstone with its childish cartoon style.

The game play is more complex than HS but less than MTG so somewhere in the middle but I like the rune and lane mechanics that make you think differently to how you approach MTG battles. The games really resolve around making favorable trades on the battlefield or overwhelming your opponents board either early (aggro), late (control), or a mix of both (mid-range). As you can't play on their turn there is no counter spell mechanic so you are only responding to the board or what you think they will be playing next. This makes things simpler than MTG but does speed up games even when they are control vs control although you can sometimes still get 15min+ matches.

As mentioned at the start though this game is expensive so you cannot reasonably expect to play this for free and have any fun and you must be careful of overspending as this game is a money sink requiring you to spend a very large sum to get all the cards. So unless you don't care about money you will probably want to spend about 60-100 bucks and then play for the rest.

Sorry for the epic post but I thought I would give this community my first impression of this game 1 week in. Let me know if anyone else has played it and what you think?

Thanks for the review Haven. The Hearthstone repetitive unlocks, RNG and crafting kills it for me. I need another money sink like I need Chiang to start posting again.

I played during the Alpha. The killer for me was the Hearthstone speed of unlocking cards, wasn't pumping money into an Alpha, so most of the really exciting creatures were off limits. I remember the Orc tribal deck being a pain to deal with if you didn't have enough unlocked removal, similar thing to B/G counters.

Yeah I didn't play during the beta but now it is released and also x-platforming to mobile devices I thought I would give it a go. Although the card unlocking is annoying I think this model is probably the only way for a competitive digital card game to work. There are a lot of ranks though so you wont be faced with players that have all the cards until very deep in the ladder. Even some of the people who have been playing since release don't have all the cards just crafted for decks they want to play.

I tried playing for free but I hate loosing so stuck in $50 bucks to get me up and running.

One thing I didn't mention that I like a lot is the deck builder, it just has a simple search bar that you can type anything in be it a keyword or text on the card and it filters instantly to those that match. Simple, effective and Stainless could learn a thing or two about how computer games are supposed to work. It also has a fast way to break down all your cards that are over the deck limit for that card so you can collect your soul shards quickly rather than having to search manually.

I've been playing this game for months during open beta, actually it's pretty much the only thing I've been playing after getting bored out of duels.

This game is very generous compared to other similar F2P alternatives like Hearthstone. The story mode gives you a decent number of cards to work with (including some legendaries) and when starting the game you can build a decent collection in Solo Arena which provides great rewards if you can beat the AI consistently. Generally a good run can net you 2-3 packs, some gold and soul gems that you can use to summon cards. Even if you somehow lose all your matches you at least get a pack (and a bit of gold IIRC). The game also gives you cards and sometimes gold just for leveling (you gain XP for playing pretty much anything). You can farm the practice AI and gain up to 15 soul gems per win (capped at 300 a day). In VS mode you gain reward every 3 wins, minimum being 15 gold, which can go up to more and sometimes even give you an extra card in bonus. You also have some daily quests netting a good amount of gold.

Let's be clear though, if you what you aim for is having a full collection, this game cannot compare to Duels in terms of easiness of farming (although this assertion is getting less and less true as Duels expansions grow). You shouldn't aim first to have a full collection, which is close to impossible anyway, but just try to get the good cards for the colors you like. You need to get acquainted with the meta to some extent to know which cards you can safely exchange for soul gems, which you should keep and which you should summon.

There are some budget decks that can do wonders in the early ranks. If you want to try the good stuff from the get go you can commit to three or two colors and get rid of most of your cards from other colors. That's what I did at the beginning and honestly I wouldn't recommend it, but using this method I could craft a powerful deck with some legendaries right out of the bat. Really though, I don't recommend you do it as you may end up regretting later, but that's an option if you're really desperate.

The game system and particularly the prophecy system can be very frustrating at the beginning, especially coming from MTG. You always have to think the merits/demerits of each attack when breaking runes and account for what prophecies your opponent may have depending on the colors they are playing. Due to this, the order of attacks is also very important. Do you attack with your 1/1 first and break an opponent's rune if you think he may get a guard prophecy card that you could then kill with your 4/4? Or do you go for potential max damage and break the rune with your 4/4 first so that even if your 1/1 is barred you get the maximum damage out of your attack? Being the beatdown or not in a certain matchup also has a lot of impact on whether you should break runes or not. The system looks like stupid RNG on the surface but actually has a lot of depth into it. The most important is to study and know the prophecy cards first.

The other element that brings some extra depth to the game is the 2 lanes system. You can only attack enemy creatures that are in the same lane as yours, and guard creatures can only block opposing creatures in that same lane. On top of that, one of the lanes makes your creatures impossible to be attacked for 1 turn (except if they are guard creatures or have "haste" and you made them attack straight away). So you have to evaluate the situation in each lane when playing your creatures, and when playing in an empty lane consider what your opponent could play to contest it. In general you always want to start playing and developing in the field (left) lane, so that you can trade with other creatures, unless you think your creature risks being killed by a charge (haste) creature.

Anyway I really like this game, it's not perfect but there are interesting elements and the P2W is not as bad as in other games IMO due to the generous reward system. Also they are going to include an in-game tournament mode so that's something to look forward to.

Started playing during its closed beta, stopped through the Open beta, and it couldn't drive my interest.

Farming and unlocking cards is beyond doubt slower than the generous system that Duels implements, but I can't find Legends to be THAT much better when compared to HS.
Even using the crafting system that Duels lack, the overall card gain is too slow.

Never fully liked the key mechanic of "Evolving" some specific cards through a branching path; in my mind, it either forces an accurate planning ahead through guides, or it poses a threat to prolong your farming.
It's also basically padding for the few collection completionists out there.

Gameplay itself never striked much interest; it's basically a cloning version of HS and MtG adding "Lanes" for the sake of it.
Legends hides behind a curtain of fake complexion, when in all reality it strongly enforces much of the same RNG both with cards resolving effects at random, or through the damage mechanic that lets you play your random next card.
While HS is strictly more RNG, and MtG is far more strategic, Legends's middle ground feels unsatisfying while just posing as a weird copycat.

UI, board Color schemes and cards' art doesn't even feel on par with either of the mentioned competitors.

In the end, I can't bring myself to enjoy HS for the sheer RNG and lenghty unlocks, therefore I can't enjoy Legends either. " A bit better " in those fields doesn't make it acceptable for me.

All of this is also strenghtened by the newest arrival, Gwent.
Played it since first day closed beta, and although I can't really get behind the lenghty unlocks, Higher rarity cards too low drop chances, gg system, and some factions being overused in MP; both gameplay, strategy, and artstyle far surpasses Legends.

Therefore, if this thread drives anybody to invest in Legends, I'd personally advise to instead hold your horses and at least invest in Gwent. Still NOT F2P, but a FAR better product when compared to Legends.

The runes bit and even prophecy was done in Duel Masters. I think the Pokemon TCG might have had something like runes too.
Do you use cards from your deck as runes? Are the runes chosen randomly from your deck? Are cards with prophecy significantly weaker than their nonprophetic counterparts?
So, you can attack creatures directly?
I like the bit about soul shards. But when you say that cards when broken down give you soul shards equal to their rarity, what does rarity indicate? Is it like most TCGs where there are only 4 or 5 rarities? That would make getting most cards reasonably easy. Or is there a wide spread of rarities, and getting 5 cards of the highest rarity to break down is already a feat? Please don't tell me that rarity is based on market value or something. Please.

From what I remember in Alpha, the rarity broke down as common (silver), rare (blue), epic (purple) legendary (gold). The problem this introduced back then, is your pack would contain 1 rare OR epic OR legendary. So you effectively drew uncommons most of the time. I hope that changed, because it sure sucked balls back then.

So if you breakdown a legendary to soul shards you get 400 but it costs 1200 to summon another legendary card but if you get a duplicate to a legendary that only allows one in a deck you get the 400 shards to compensate.

When opening a pack of 6 each card is RNG to determine what rarity it will be and you can hover over it before clicking to see a blue glow = rare, purple glow = epic and gold = legendary. You can get more than one of each type in a single pack so if you are lucky you may hit one of these super packs and that does add a bit of excitement to opening packs. I had one pack with 1 legendary and 2 epics in it which was pretty sweet.

While art is ofc a subjective topic, I would strongly disagree with this statement. Magic has better static images on its cards because they are designed for paper but for everything else Magic is way worse. HS is a childish disgrace like Pokemon or Yu-gi-oh and way to much of the screen is taken up by useless crap.

The UI for ESL is simple and uncluttered but the battlefield effects are where the game really shines with great individual voices for each card when the enter the board and attack, 3D spell effects like a ward shield over your card and fire/ice/lightning bolts blasting away looks very good.

The other thing that made me want to try this effort at a digital card game is that The Elder Scrolls universe has a huge amount of content to draw from that is more to my tastes than the Blizzardverse. The Witcher game could be interesting but I have never played those games so will have to see.

For those who are tempted to have a go, this website and article are very helpful advice and resources for new players that want to spend as little money as possible:

https://betweenthelanes.net/2017/01/19/ ... aulodiogo/

Runes are elements that are placed at every 5 points of your life bar, not actual cards. When one of your runes gets broken due to a life loss, it draws the top card from your deck, and if that card is a prophecy you can choose to play it at that moment instead of putting it in your hand. So the likelihood of you being able to play a card when you lose a rune depends directly of the number on prophecy cards in your deck.



Not really/not necessarily. Actually there aren't really direct non-prophecy equivalents of prophecy cards that just cost less for example. All cards including the prophecy ones are pretty unique for what they do. While it's true that quite a few prophecy cards can look overcosted for their effects aside from the prophecy ability, the vast majority of them at the very least playable even when not drawn as prophecies.

There are many prophecy cards that are efficient enough even played as normal cards on your turn. For example there is a 2/2 prophecy for 2 at common that gains +1/+1 permanently every time it hits the opposing player. One of the only non conditional removal cards in the game is a card that kills a creature for 5 and also has prophecy at common (the only strictly better non prophecy alternative being an epic rarity card which can also kill the equivalent of enchantments and costs 4 but requires you to be in a specific color combination).

Prophecy cards that are arguably bad when played normally are very rare. The only one I can think of is a 2/4 creature with guard (forces attackers to attack it) and prophecy that gains you 4 life when played. It kills aggro when played from a rune break but is pretty much unplayable when not drawn as a prophecy because its mana cost is 7...

You're all a bunch of TRAITORS

Shame!

image

I don't think i've ever not burst out laughing at that haha

Come to the Darkside Nighthawk you know you want to!

If one has to betray, at least it goes for the cute next door, not the dull cousin that has been groped by many weirdos.


I'll reiterate: You might just have tried out Legends, but before committing to the inferior product, or keep spewing the usual Altmer propaganda disguised as friendly reaching to the angry masses, you might just wanna look next door for, at the very least, a better option when it comes down to not-F2P CCG environment.

Instead of letting them milk their franchise bare, with secondary afterthoughts such as Legends or ES Online, they should learn their lesson and stick to what the fanbase truly wants.

At least, a community-driven project such as Gwent proves itself superior, in the lenghty, largely Pay to Ease/win scene.

Gwent just doesn't appeal to me, I watched some videos and recognize that is has great strategic depth but it's just not the kind of gameplay I'm expecting from a TCG. Maybe I'm too attached to TCGs with an attacking/HP system I dunno.

In any case, to each their own, Legends certainly isn't perfect by any means and I'm not arguing it's the best digital TCG out there. For me MTG gameplay remains superior, and I probably wouldn't be playing Legends if Duels was able to provide me with an MTG experience that is much closer to paper. For now I enjoy it a great deal though, so I don't mind talking about it.

You bastard

So the thing is while to could superficially assume this was Bethesda jumping on the HS bandwagon and milking their franchise which in part it is, as any company will look for opportunities grow its brands, you still have to judge the end product to see if they have done a good job or not.

There is a review in Forbes website that I saw from a hardcore HS player that admits the game is actually pretty good the jury is still out if it will last but the game is a very solid effort, much more solid than Duels.

I will keep an eye on Gwent but it didn't look as attractive to me from the video promos.