Building a deck in Paladins is key to mastering the hero shooter. With a good deck, you can strategically influence a Paladins match and customize your champion to suit your style. With our Paladins guide to deck building, you’ll understand the system in just a few minutes.
Paladins falls into the “hero shooter” category with many unique champions that bring different abilities to the table. However, the champions and their abilities are not the only tools at your disposal to turn a game in your favor.
Paladins features a built-in card system, which brings deck-building elements into the game, making this hero shooter something special in its genre. The cards allow you to adapt your heroes to different situations. If you’re in a team that hasn’t selected a support champion, use cards that restore health when dealing damage. Similarly, there are cards that grant you more damage or greater defense.
In Paladins, there are three types of cards that allow you to adapt your champions and their abilities. There are cards that are tailored to different champions: Loadout cards & Legendary cards. Additionally, there are cards that are available to every champion in Paladins: Burn cards.
Paladins: Deck Building with Loadout Cards
Each champion has a selection of special cards that you can compile into a deck of five cards. When you start Paladins for the first time, each of the champs already has a standard deck, so you’re ready to jump into battle immediately.
You acquire new cards by crafting them with essence. They also appear in loot chests that you earn while playing. Once you receive cards or cosmetic items from chests that you already possess, they are converted into essence.
Use the deck to balance your team’s weaknesses
Which card combination is most useful greatly depends on your team’s composition. You have a total of 6 slots available, which you can fill with decks in the champion menu. You should build a deck for every conceivable situation, which you select before each match.
If your team lacks offense/damage and you’re playing the support heroine Ying? Have a deck ready that gives you extra damage to support your team beyond just healing.
Customize the deck to your personal preferences
The cards also offer you the possibility to enhance your individual playstyle. Do you enjoy playing the flanker Sky and prefer to dash behind enemy lines to take out opposing champions from behind? Build a deck with movement speed.
Or do you prefer to play the assassin from the shadows, unnoticed? Choose cards that enhance your stealth abilities. This way, you can enhance your own strengths and preferences for each champion and support your team with your personal style.
This is how Loadout Cards are structured
All cards come with a value. A complete deck can cost up to 12 points in total. The more expensive the cards, the stronger they are and they will often form the core of your build. The abilities of the cards are all passive and run unnoticed in the background. You do not need to activate them during the match.
The cards are structured as follows:
- Rarity – At the top of the card, there is a crystal that determines the rarity of the card. There are four different rarity levels: Common (green), Rare (blue), Epic (purple), Legendary (gold)
- Active – The “Active” modifies either a weapon or an ability of your champion.
- Cooldown – The number at the bottom right indicates the interval at which the card can be activated. Activation occurs automatically.
- Ability Modifier – Here it describes how the card modifies the champion.
- Cost – The number at the bottom left represents the cost and rank (I, II, III, IV) of the card. The higher the cost, the stronger the card.
Paladins: Importing Decks from Top Players
If you initially don’t want to deal with creating decks, it is possible to import/copy decks from other players. This can help you better understand the composition of effective decks and especially provide relief in the beginning.
When you click on “Create Deck,” you have the option to import a deck. The following options are available to you:
- Browse Leaderboard
- Browse Friends
- Search by Name
On the leaderboard, you will find the decks of top Paladins players that you can simply copy. Provided that you already own the cards from those decks. The main decks of the best Paladins players are often referred to as “Main Loadouts.”
Deck Building with Burn Cards – These are the Items of Paladins
In Paladins, at the start of each match, you choose a champ that cannot be changed anymore. Burn cards can adapt your champ based on the situation during the match. They are the items of Paladins that you must buy before and during the match. During gameplay, you earn credits that unlock the burn cards in the base.
Every player and champion has access to the same burn cards. They are your way to strategically and actively counter the opposing team.
Burn cards are divided into four categories:
- Defense
- Utility
- Healing
- Offense
You can buy cards at the start of a match as long as you can afford them. However, you may only unlock one card from each category. Unlocked cards can receive up to three upgrades, also through the earned credits. Once a card is unlocked, it remains so and cannot be replaced by another. At the end of the match, these cards reset, and a new match means you need to assemble a new set of burn cards.
The burn cards can reduce enemy healing, increase your movement speed, or boost your damage when attacking shields.
Paladins: Deck Building with Legendary Cards
Legendary cards do not belong to your loadout deck but are chosen at the start of a match. Each legendary card provides your champion with powerful attributes that add even more strategic decisions to the game. They are unlocked with essence but can also drop from loot chests.
- Each champion has a total of 3 legendary cards with powerful attributes.
- Before each match, the player chooses one of the three cards.
- Legendary cards do not belong to the loadout deck.
- Once a legendary card is selected, it cannot be changed during the match.
- Legendary cards have no ranks.
Legendary cards are much stronger than the cards in the loadout deck. Each champion has its own set of these special cards. At the start, one of the three cards is already unlocked for each player; the other two must be unlocked with essence.
Paladins Deck Building: Master the cards, master the game
The right use of the cards and diverse decks will distinguish you from your opponents. It is certainly possible to learn Paladins and the required mechanics and become a good player. However, to master the game, you need to engage with the cards. Try out different builds and observe how they affect your champion.
Try to think about how you can balance your team’s weaknesses and further enhance strengths. The heart of the cards in Paladins is your key to success.
Want to learn more about how to master Paladins? Here are 20 quick tips to get better in Paladins.
