Blizzard's card game Hearthstone is one of the most popular games today and that fact has been noticed by many big companies that are exploring card games market as well. Bethesda has the nose for the gaming market needs and they just released their version of Free to Play card game based on their popular Elder Scrolls IP. Elder Scrolls Legends has many similar game mechanics like Hearthstone with some interesting new ones that can make this game a worthy opponent to Hearthstone. 

Story and Gameplay

Story mode is prolonged tutorial  and serves no other purpose than learning game's mechanics and unlocking basic decks and cards, there are 20 chapters all together that can be completed in 2h if you have the experience with the card games. There are some choices that can be made during story mode like choosing different upgrades for your cards, that makes story mode great learning experience and presents players with the tough choices very fast. 

Arena is another game mode very similar to Hearthstone arena where you need to pay 150 gold to enter and create a deck with random cards offered. If you can manage to get 9 wins you will get nice rewards. This is an example of arena reward pool.  

There are 5 basic classes in the game whose class cards can be mixed together to create hybrid decks. Strenght, Intelligence, Willpower, Agility and Endurance are the main attributes. There are also neutral cards and special dual attribute cards that can be used only when you meet the dual class requirements. Compared to Hearthstone this system is more complex and with time as more cards will be added I can only imagine where this game will go. 

Players can place cards in two lanes, one is basic lane and the other one is shadow lane where your creatures are immune against other creatures attacks, they can be targeted by spells though. Two lanes creates more dynamic games where you can punish your opponent mistakes. But they can always come back in the game with Rune Mechanic. Once you or your opponent hits your health pool every 5 hitpoints the rune activates giving you another card, if that car has a prophecy attribute, you can use that card during your opponent's turn, prophecy cards can change the course of battle, luck based mechanic. If you draw a prophecy card it can help a lot, if not you still get a new card once your rune gets destroyed. 

Just like in Hearthstone there are Taunt minions, in this game they are called Guard minions. Divine shield is Ward, Deathrattle is Last Grasp, Battlecry is Summon. There are some new ones like Breakthrough that damages your opponent's health pool once you damage a minion. Pilfer adds more stats to your cards when they survive on the board longer. Support cards have an active effect that lasts for the whole game that can help a lot. All those mechanics are easy to learn, but to create a truly great deck you will need time to master all the cards and combos. 

I always liked card games and Elder Scrolls Legends is a nice new addition to the genre. It is a free to play game so you can just create an account and start playing. While you wait for another Hearthstone expansion this game is great to kill some time. I can't find anything negative to say about the game, you have to check it out if you like card games. This game is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you will get while opening those card packs.

Score: 91/100 Great!