With High Isle, the MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online gets its own card game. You can play against NPCs, but also against friends and in a leaderboard against other players. We at MeinMMO were able to try out the content in advance and reveal how the Tales of Glory work.
What kind of card game is this? The Tales of Glory are a very strategic game that differs significantly from card games like Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering. While you fight 1v1 against someone else, the typical combat elements take a backseat. You also do not need to eliminate the opponent’s life points.
Instead, during the match, you build a deck whose goal is to win the game in two different ways:
- You collect 40 prestige points
- You gain the favor of all 4 patrons on the table
If you succeed in either, you win the match. In PvE, this primarily means following a small story or dueling for some resources as a reward.
However, there is also a PvP aspect where you can optionally challenge friends nearby or enter a queue to face another player.
Assemble a hand to win
How does the game proceed? At the start, your deck on the field only contains cards that give you either a gold coin or one power. You draw 5 each round.
- You can use gold coins to buy the cards that are in the middle of the table.
- Power, on the other hand, is converted into prestige at the end of your turn, with which you can win the match.
If you buy a card from the middle of the playing field, it goes to your discard pile. This discard pile gets shuffled back into your deck once you can no longer draw cards, which happens very quickly at the start as you only start with 6 cards.
The game is played alternately. If you have no cards left in hand, you can end your turn, and the opponent takes their turn. It is advisable to play all hand cards, as the hand will be discarded at the end of the turn anyway.
What do the cards from the middle bring? The cards you buy from the middle can belong to one of three types:
- Action Cards – These have an activation and a combo effect. Combos are activated when you play the respective number of required cards. Typically, these effects bring additional gold or more power. Some also let you draw additional cards or remove cards from your deck, such as the boring 1-gold cards.
- Agents – They have similar effects to action cards, but they stay on the field until the opponent removes them. This way, their effect automatically activates gold or power each round. Some have the effect that they prevent enemies from collecting prestige points if they are not defeated. To defeat them, you must bring their life points to 0.
- Contracts – These cards only work once; they are played directly when you buy them.
Within a match, you build the perfect deck to win the game. You start with boring cards and grow stronger from round to round.
How do I win now? The easiest way is to play a total of 40 power throughout the game. At the end of your turn, power is always converted into prestige. Whoever has 40 prestige wins.
However, there is a second way you can win. On the edge of the game are 4 patrons, from which each player selects two at the start of a match. You can “buy” these patrons with gold, power, or other effects.
They have the states:
- Friendly
- Neutral
- Hostile
All patrons start neutral and become friendly or hostile depending on which player “buys” them. However, you can buy them back to neutral and later also friendly. Purchasing a patron is only possible once per round.
Additionally, each patron has a special effect when they are friendly or hostile towards you. These effects provide more gold or let you remove cards from your deck again. The exact effects will be supplemented in the future in this article.
The cards in the middle are determined by the players’ decks
How do the cards in the middle come about? The cards in the middle come from a total of 4 decks. Each player brings two of them into the round. However, these decks are fixed and cannot be changed.
At the beginning, you already unlock four different decks through the tutorial. You get another four decks by completing special quests or achievements. These decks contain about 20 different cards with various effects.
There will be no decks available in the shop and no trading or exchanging between players.
What are these quests and achievements for new decks? We will update this part of the guide as soon as we have more time to test the new expansion.
You can compete against NPCs and other players
How do I unlock the new card game? The unlocking takes place through a new tutorial quest that you can accept in the harbor town on the High Isles.
How do I play against other opponents?
- In every tavern, you can challenge NPCs
- You can play directly against friends
- You can join a queue for the Tales of Glory in the group finder, where you also register for dungeons or PvP. There you can compete against other players in unranked or ranked matches.
As rewards, there are achievements, collectibles, furnishings, and gold.
What do you think of the new card game? Are you interested in the Tales of Glory or will you prefer to dedicate yourself to other contents of High Isle?
We have gathered everything about the new expansion here:
ESO: All about the new expansion High Isle and the contents of 2022
