Introduction and Fighter Starter Strategy Overview

by Paul Dennen, Sr. Game Designer Greetings,fellow gamers. My name is Paul Dennen, and I'm lead designer for Legends of Norrath. It is my privilege to be able to introduce the game with this article. I'll briefly describe the overall game, and then I'll talk a little about the Terin the Fighter Starter Deck, one of four starter decks in Legends of Norrath's first set, which is called Oathbound .

What Is Legends of Norrath?

There is a What Is It? section on this website, but I'll give you my take on what it is and a little bit of insight into how it was designed. Legends of Norrath (or LoN for short) is a trading card game designed especially for Everquest and Everquest II players. It was designed specifically to make sense as a game that residents of Norrath would play. It's even possible for your EQ or EQII character to find LON cards while adventuring. The material on these cards will make sense from that perspective. For example, you might find a card called "Dain Frostreaver" based on the legendary Lord of Icewell Keep. Conversely, you would not find cards named from out-of-character perspectives such as "Train to Zone".

It is also very easy for your character to challenge an opponent on your server to a quick duel. The same LON server is accessible from any EQ or EQII server, and thus it is possible to play with other gamers who aren't even on the same server.

We designed the game to play quickly, so that it can serve as a distraction during downtimes. But it's not just a minigame that you'll play a few times and get bored with -- it is a full-fledged trading card game with over 350 cards. This translates into many strategies and styles of play, so that you and your friends can explore the game for a long time. We also plan on introducing expansions from time to time to mix things up.

One of the best things about a trading card game is the ability to customize your deck to your own liking. However, your first experience should really be with a starter deck. A starter deck is a deck that is preconfigured specifically for new players. These may not be the most powerful decks in the world, but they are balanced for play against each other and they don't contain any cards that are difficult to understand.

And best of all? If you are an EQ or EQII player, you will receive a free random starter deck when LON launches!

Terin the Fighter Starter Deck Overview

Every deck starts with an avatar card. In this case, that avatar card is Terin, as you would suspect from the name of the deck. That's a picture of him on the deck itself, and as one of the featured characters of the Oathbound storyline, he makes an appearance on some of the cards in the game. LON is a game about powerful heroes doing legendary things, and we decided to break up these heroes into four archetypes, encompassing the various flavors of fantasy heroes but in a way that gives players a lot of freedom while building their own decks. In other words, you'll find some cards in the fighter archetype that have paladin-like effects, others that feel have effects you'd expect from a berserker, etc. We're giving you a lot of freedom in customizing a fighter to your liking. Look for an article called "Four Archetypes, Two Alignments" in a couple weeks which will fully explain what I'm getting at.

How Do You Win?

Before talking about what the Terin starter deck is good at, it's worth taking a peek at how you win a game of Legends of Norrath. There are actually two main paths to winning: questing and elimination. To win by questing, you must be the first player to complete four quests. To win by elimination, you must defeat your opponent's avatar in combat.

LON is a game of tradeoffs, and these two victory conditions are at the heart of many of the tradeoff decisions you will make while playing. The most common tradeoff decision is whether you want to put your avatar in harm's way to complete a quest. You'll be trading health for quests. On the other hand, you may decide to give up on a quest in order to protect your avatar. Each game is dynamic, and a good player will learn to be flexible and be willing to win using either method, depending on the game circumstance.

The Fighter's Advantages

As a fighter, Terin has access to cards with particular advantages. First and foremost, fighters have access to heavier armor than the other archetypes. This gives Terin a clear and powerful advantage as his opponents will find it difficult to inflict damage on him. This defensive strength is accented by powerful defensive abilities.

Secondly, fighters have access to powerful weaponry and the Terin deck has two copies of a particular weapon that will put fear into your opponent when it hits the table.

The third advantage that fighters get is leadership-based effects. Leadership is not a game term, but rather a category of cards that we've assigned to fighters. These cards give bonus effects to cards that you'll muster into your avatar's army. The Terin deck actually has very little leadership cards, but the ones it does have can easily win games when played at the right moment.

The Terin deck can sometimes start slowly - you may have to fall behind on questing to give Terin some time to equip his powerful items. But once Terin is equipped, you should be able to create board advantage by clearing out your opponent's cards. This board advantage should translate into your opponent having a difficult time with finishing his final quests, as he'll be flailing to stay alive against your army's attacks as well as Terin's own relentless onslaughts.

Here's a sneak peek at a few of the cards in Terin's deck:

When you play this ability, choose an opponent. That player's avatar gets -1 damage bonus. Your avatar gets +1 damage bonus.

Deal 1 damage to a defending combatant.

Next week is "Card Type Week" here at the LON website. Each day, we'll explain one card type, including what those numbers and icons mean. By the end of the week, you'll understand how all the card types work. This is going to be an exciting few weeks of previews leading up to the game's release.

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