| I've noticed almost no one is asking about the gameplay itself. I sat down on Saturday morning with some guildmates and over an hour or so we played through the tutorials, and then a game or two. It was pretty fun.
Basically, you choose an avatar based on one of the four main archetypes. These avatars are prechosen based on cards you presumably get in the card sets.
The playmat is split into quarters. On the right side, you play your quest. On the left side, your opponent plays his or her quest. Your creature cards are then split between your half of the playmat, against your or your opponents' quests.
The general goal is for your avatar to either kill the other avatar (pvp win) or to complete four quests first. The creature cards I mentioned are basically you playing NPC's to make the other person's questing harder (random encounters).
Also, you can play abilities for your avatar at the base of your side of the playmat. These abilities are needed by your avatar to complete the quests.
So, while you're playing creatures (ice giants, gnoll scouts, etc.) to slow down your opponent's avatar, he or she is playing creatures against you. These creatures are specifically split to "defend" one quest or the other. So if you play all 3 of your creatures against the quest you've played, that means the other quest is undefended and wide open for your opponent to complete.
Now, you can either keep the creatures sitting there doing nothing, waiting for an opponent to attempt the quest. Or, you can "exert" (i.e. "tap") them to proactively attack your opponent's avatar directly.
Meanwhile, your own avatar can either attack creatures defending quests, use abilities to attempt quests that are currently undefended, or attack the opponent's avatar directly (GANK!).
It's actually pretty tactical, especially when you start taking events into account (i.e. - instants/interrupts/traps). Took about 15-30 minutes to really start to understand it, and another 15-30 minutes before I was really getting into it.
There's some other nuances to it, but that's the quick basics of the gameplay. I can see my guild setting up a night just for the card game. I know at least two guilds which have chapters in EQ and EQ2 that could use such a night for cross-chapter socializing.
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