I’ve been seeing a lot of comments in the community lately from newer players who are struggling with the basics of The Elder Scrolls: Legends. Many of them feel stuck and have been asking for general gameplay strategy and tips on how to improve. Below are 9 essential lessons that I’ve learned in my time playing the game that have drastically improved my skill. This is not an exhaustive list or a comprehensive gameplay guide. Just a few things that I’ve picked up since I started playing that I feel are essential for any beginner looking to improve their game.

Be careful about when you break your opponent’s runes. Every time you break an opponent’s rune, you are handing them potential answers/threats that could easily swing the game in their favor. An early rune break could hand your opponent a Prophecy that lets them take control of the board, or let them have that Ice Storm a turn earlier than they would have drawn it otherwise. Breaking runes at some point in the match is (usually) inevitable, but you should always consider the pros and cons of pushing more damage versus giving your opponent more resources. It may not be worth attacking with that last creature for an additional 2 damage if it means giving your opponent the tools they need to take back the game.

In general, attack first then play cards. As a rule of thumb, if you already know that you are going to attack this turn, attack first then play cards. If you end up breaking a rune and give your opponent a Prophecy, you don’t want them to be able to interact with the cards you just played. For example, if you play a Bleakcoast Troll and then choose to attack your Mage opponent with another creature and break a rune, they could draw and play a Piercing Javelin, which can destroy your Troll for free. (There are exceptions to this rule, however. You may have a creature in hand that benefits from runes being broken, or have an item that you want to equip before attacking to push more damage.)

On a related note, draw cards first then attack/play cards. Again, there are caveats here, but in general you want to draw first before doing anything else. This is because the card that you draw may significantly impact your decision making this turn. For example, say you have a bunch of small creatures being blocked by a Dark Guardian and you are about to trade them in because you have no other way of dealing with it. You play a Thieves Guild Recruit first and you end up drawing an Earthbone Spinner! Whereas before you may have felt locked in to making unfavorable trades to remove the Dark Guardian, now you can silence it instead and use your creatures to push more damage!

Don’t neglect the Field Lane. This is a mistake that many newer players often make. The Shadow Lane can appear enticing. Giving your creatures cover and protecting them for a turn is a powerful ability. However, the importance of controlling the Field lane can’t be overstated. The player who summons creatures onto the Field lane first gets to use those creatures to attack first, thus giving them a significant advantage in being able to pick their trades.

If you summon a Young Mammoth into an empty Field lane, and your opponent follows up with a Daring Cutpurse and an Ald Velothi Assassin, you can choose to have your Mammoth attack the Cutpurse first and survive to fight another day. However, had you played your Mammoth in the Shadow lane instead, and your opponent followed suit, you wouldn’t be able to attack his creatures at all and on your opponent’s next turn they can attack and kill your Mammoth with their Assassin, leaving their Cutpurse alive. This is why controlling the Field lane is so important. It gives you much more control over the board and forces your opponent to either hide in the shadows or fight an uphill battle to regain control of the Field.

Summoning your creatures onto the Field lane isn’t always the right play, however. Sometimes you may want to avoid Charge creatures, hide a powerful Drain creature behind cover, split your threats between two lanes to avoid AoE, etc. But as a general rule, you want to try to control the Field lane if possible, and almost always want to default to placing your creatures there if the lane is empty.

If you want to read detailed guides on Lane Placement and strategy, check out ItsTenz’ Lane Positioning Guide and WaitThisIsntMTG’s How to Effectively Use Lanes.

Sometimes taking damage isn’t a bad thing. This is especially true for Control decks, but can also apply to just about any deck in the game. There will be occasions where answering all of your opponent’s threats isn’t necessarily the correct play at the moment. Sometimes you may want to tank some of the damage threatened on the board so that your opponent breaks more runes and you draw more cards. It may be tempting to use that Guard or removal spell right away, but consider whether or not it is worth spending those resources versus trading some health for more options in your hand. Your health is a resource. Spend it wisely. (Related to this, if you don’t need to Drain or gain health, try not to. The further you push yourself above 30 health, the further you push yourself away from your opponent breaking your runes and giving you cards.)

Don’t play cards unnecessarily/waste resources. As tempting as it may be to make the best use of your magicka every turn (this is usually a great idea, btw), there will be occasions where you want to hold back some of your cards and potentially get better value out of them by playing them later. Maybe equipping that Steel Scimitar to your Orc Clan Captain right away isn’t the best move. Sure, you can push an extra 2 damage now, but if you hold onto the Scimitar it may allow you to trade up into a bigger creature later. Or maybe you can equip it to an Ash Berserker to turn on its card draw ability.

Another scenario where you may not want to play cards is if you are anticipating your opponent playing a massive AoE spell and you don’t want to over extend. Say you are an aggressive deck going second and it is turn 5. You have a couple of creatures in hand that you could play, but they all have 3 or less health. If you expect that your opponent may be able to play an Ice Storm next turn, and you are under no pressure to develop your board further, it may be better to hold off playing more cards. If you did play your whole hand onto the board and your opponent wipes them all out with a single card, you have probably lost the game. So consider whether you will get more value out of playing cards now vs saving them for later turns.

Pay attention to your attack ordering. If you are trying to maximize damage and you will be breaking runes, make sure you order your attacks correctly. For example, if your opponent is at 24 health and you have a 4 power Eastmarch Crusader and a 3 power Mighty Ally in play, it is best to attack with your Ally first to put your opponent to 21 before attacking with your Eastmarch Crusader. This way you maximize your damage and limit your opponent’s ability to potentially block that damage with a timely Prophecy.

When you are going for the kill, try to skip runes when able. Nothing feels worse than going for lethal and hitting a Prophecy off the last rune that stops you dead in your tracks and buys your opponent another turn. One way to avoid this is to skip runes. When you reduce an opponent’s life total to 0 with a single attack, you skip any runes you would have broken along the way. This means if your opponent is at 6 health and you have a 6 power creature, you attack and they don’t get a chance at that Prophecy. Setting up these rune skips is a really valuable skill to learn and will potentially save you a lot of close game losses to Prophecies.

Know your gameplan and role in the matchup. Every deck will fall into one of four major categories: Aggro, Midrange, Control or Combo. Knowing the win condition and game plan of your deck is hugely important in how you approach a matchup. If you are an Aggro player, it is reasonable to assume that you will be the aggressor in most of your matchups. Likewise, if you are a Control player, it is reasonable to assume you will be the reactive player. Midrange decks switch between these roles depending on their opponent, sometimes even switching mid game. Combo decks want to delay the game until they get their combo pieces together, but they may adjust their role depending on what they are up against.

Where it can get tricky however is in the mirror matches. If you are in a Control mirror match, you need to be able to make a judgement call on whether or not your opponent has a better late game than you, and if so, switch to being the aggressor in the matchup. If you are in an Aggro mirror, and your opponent is faster than you, you may need to start being more reactive and making trades. Or maybe you just need to know that you can reasonably beat your opponent in a damage race. No matter the situation, it is vital that you know your deck and what your role is so you can quickly adjust and make the best plays possible.

Bonus Tips: Know the Meta & Mulligans. Sort of related to the last tip, if you know the meta then you can usually make educated guesses about what you are likely to be facing before either player even plays any cards. For instance, the most popular Hlaalu deck at the moment by far is Aggro Hlaalu. If you queue up against a Hlaalu player and you are a Control Sorcerer deck, you should be able to make a reasonable guess about what you are facing and adjust your play accordingly.

Which leads me into Mulligans. If you suspect you are going to be facing a certain type of deck, this should influence your mulligan. Again, if I’m playing Control Sorcerer and suspect I’m against an Aggro Hlaalu deck, I may want to keep an Ice Storm in my opening hand even though I can’t play it for another 5 turns. There is a risk involved, as I may end up unable to play anything for several turns, but on the other hand it may just save me the game later when I can use Ice Storm on a pivotal turn to remove my opponent’s entire board of creatures. In general you want to mulligan away cards that you can’t play in the first few turns of the game, but sometimes the saving a key card in the matchup in your opening hand can save your life later.

These are just a few important lessons I’ve learned in my time playing Elder Scrolls: Legends. If you have any good tips for beginners, please leave a comment below! Thanks for reading!