Hopefully this guide will stay relevant for a long time!

Just like in Magic the Gathering, there are 5 types of colours that each card could be belong to in this game. I’m going to call them by their colour, rather than saying Willpower or Agility.

TL;DR
*In the intro story ‘The Forgotten Hero’, there some one-time rewards when you play through it. Look at the Single Player Rewards section of this guide for more info
*When you reach level 23 and 31, check this guide’s section on Level Up Rewards for more info on what to do
*Login/logout every day
*Complete one quest every day, or complete all quests every third day
*Buy stuff with gold in the store before you start crafting stuff, don’t waste it on Arena when learning the game
*Setup twitch drops for free stuff
*Play some versus AI to farm soul gems

Currencies in this game
Soul gems: Use to craft new cards
Gold: Use to buy Card Packs, Preconstructed Decks, Arena tickets & Single Player missions

Login rewards/quests
Login every day and get the daily reward. Lots of good stuff (expensive cards, card packs) if you consistently log in every single day. You don’t even have to play, just login and logout.

Every 24 hours, you get a new quest. You can have 3 at the same time. They give between 40 and 70 gold, or sometimes a pack. Obviously pick the pack or the highest gold reward quest that you can do. You can also reroll one quest every day, I’d say always reroll 40g quests.

So the idea is to login every day, then every third day play until you’ve completed your quests.
Alternatively, play a little every day until you have only 2 quest left. Then wait for the next day for the next quest and play until you’ve got 2 left again.
Either way you’ll get about 150 gold every three days.

Farming soul gems
In the play window, you can select something called practice battle. This is versus a computer, and you have 3 difficulties to choose from.
Defeating Adept means means you get 10 soul gems, and Expert means 15 soul gems. The maximum soul gems you can get each day is around 300.

Playing vs Expert with a consistent & aggro deck means you can farm soul gems fast and easy.
I recommend using this deck: Archer Aggro (only cheap cards)
Ignore the ‘Outdated’ label, the AI opponents you play versus are always the same regardless of patch.

Build something close to that (personally I changed the 3x Stormcloak Vanguard out for 3x Shield Breaker).
Add substitutes (charge creatures) when you are missing something (you will eventually get most of these cards from just opening packs, so don’t craft them).
Try to keep the deck on a early curve though.

The Rare/Legendary Cards you could add into your farming deck if you happen to own them:
Lumbering Ogrim
Mournhold Traitor (pair with Corprus Disease!)
Relentless Raider (Probably the best straightforward aggro card in VS AI, very expensive though.)
Morag Tong Aspirant

Twitch drops
You can link your bethesda account to your twitch account, watch a stream of TES:Legends and get free stuff.
Basically it gives you gold/soul gems for leaving twitch streams on while you go off to bed.
You can get 50/100/600 Gold or 50/100/1500 Soul gems. It can also drop a legendary card, but it’s rare.

Needs a twitch account obviously.
1.
Choose to link your twitch account, and then login when the prompt shows up.
If it’s linked, you should see the option to ‘unlink’ it.
2.
Pick a stream (lots of streamers to choose from who keep a constant 24/7 for those who just want the drops). You only need one stream running, more than one won’t increase your chances of a drop.
3. A drop means you get a message from that say something like “Bethesda : Congratulations! You have been selected to win….”
You can then login to the game and click the lower left icon on the starting screen to confirm that you have gotten your drop. You can have multiple drops waiting to get redeemed, and you don’t have to collect them immediately.

Don’t play arena just yet.
You need experience with the game to really make the ticket/150 Gold cost worth it.
So do not waste your gold or tickets yet. Instead use gold for these things first, then play arena last!

Unlock the single-player chapters
*Cost 1,000 Gold each
Enjoy the challenge & story, while unlocking cards that you can’t get anywhere else.
For example, Eclipse Baroness lets you draw two cards in total AND reduce their cost. You get her in Episode 5 of the Dark Brotherhood story missions. Great card.

Get the special offer preconstructed card sets from the store
*500 or 1000 Gold for each deck.
You unlock a bunch of cards + a legendary card.
I’m talking about the “Arcano’s Cunning” deck or “Alduin’s Apocalypse” deck and so on. You can find them in the store under “Special offerings”.
The reason I recommend buying these is because you get cool cards for gold rather than having to craft them. Also any extras you get can be used for disenchantment and getting even more soul gems.
You don’t have to buy all of them, but you can. Don’t actually play using these decks though, it’s the cards inside and their value that we want. Build your own deck with the cards!!
Legendary cards: Paarthurnax Brynjolf Ancano Aela the Huntress Alduin Mighty Conjuring Bolvyn Venim Duke Vedam Dren Dagoth Ur Archcanon Saryoni Sun-in-Shadow

Other store offers
*You can get the “Madhouse collection” for 1,500 gold.
It contains 10 unique cards (3 copies of each). Lots of cards here are useful.
It’s pricey, but the cards are good if you want to build something with them. Due to the price it’s not a must buy though.

Buy card packs & play arena
*One pack costs 150 Gold.
*Arena entry costs 150 Gold or a ticket.

When you have gotten every preconstructed deck that you want, and played tons of the single player chapters, the two remaining things to use gold for are card packs & arena entry fees.

Once you’ve gotten a good understanding of the game, you could try your luck in arena.
These two videos really help on how to play arena and pick cards.

You craft cards that you want. The more expensive it is, the more you want to make sure that you will have use of the card.
If you are unsure what to craft, just wait.

Rarity guide
Red orb at the top of a card means you can only have one copy of it.
Example: Astrid

The diamond at the bottom of each card indicates rarity.

Examples:
Arrow in the Knee
High Rock Summoner
House Kinsman
Wildfire Dragon

Legendaries to craft?
As already explained, you can acquire many cards (including legendaries) with gold, so soul gem crafting them is wasteful. I’d say you should buy most of the preconstructed decks before you start soul crafting.

Also, if you complete clockwork city on master difficulty, you get a premium copy of Swims-at-Night. You do not need to own the regular version to get it. So I’d say avoid crafting that card as well since you can get it without gems.

So, what do you want to craft? Generally it’s best to get cards that are useful in many decks, not just one. With that said, if you know that you’ll get good use of 2 or 3 copies of Doomcrag Vampire for your deck, then go ahead a craft it. Just be aware it requires a fairly certain build.

These 3 are probably the most commonly used legendaries:
Ungolim the Listener Gives you 3 units with lethal, which can get rid of strong enemy creatures. Also it won’t clog your deck since you also draw a card when you play the assassin. (Keep in mind that you might get this as a level up reward so don’t craft it before level 32. Read next chapter for more info.)
Tazkad the Packmaster Great finisher, and destroys powerful enemy units with ease.
Daggerfall Mage Very useful in any decks that use blue cards, creates a tome that gives +2/+2 on any unit and lets you draw a card. Good even without “give creature ward” effects like Assassin’s Ritual or Wardcrafter

Other useful legendary cards:
Nahagliiv
Dawn’s Wrath
Miraak, Dragonborn
Vigilant Giant
High King Emeric
Journey to Sovngarde This one has been nerfed, but still good in certain decks. It’s a neutral card so it’s rather flexible.

Epic rarity good cards:
Mournhold Traitor Good in aggro decks
House Kinsman
Moonlight Werebat
Breton Conjurer
Ice Storm
Cloudrest Illusionist
Divine Fervor
Dushnikh Yal Archer Destroy supports, or damages a creature.
Earthbone Spinner
Hist Grove Very commonly used in scout decks for it’s value.
Preserver of the Root
Hallowed Deathpriest
Shadowfen Priest If you run deck with purple in it, 2 or 3 copies of this is very common.
Rift Thane Another Aggro card.

Specific use but very powerful legendaries:
Skeletal Dragon Used in many resurrect decks. Needs cards like Soul Tear & Merchant’s Camel
Haafingar Marauder Very powerful in aggro decks
Relentless Raider Another aggro card, having 3 copies will improve your deck
Undying Dragon
Ahnassi
Ayrenn Action decks

When you level up you get rewards.
The usual is gold, soul gems and card packs.
Once you get to level 50 you cap it and it won’t go any higher.

Card upgrade
However, sometimes as you level up you get the choice to upgrade a card.
For example, Camlorn Adventurer will either become Camlorn Hero OR Camlorn Sentinel when you reach level 7.
The thing is that the other alternative you didn’t pick can be crafted. So if you got the Hero version of Camlorn, you could always craft the Sentinel version for 50 soul gems later.

Rare/epic card rewards
Sometimes you will also get a random rare/epic card as a reward for leveling up.
In the game, the race that you pick is only a cosmetic choice 99% of the time. You can change race at any time on your profile. It changes your portrait & voice when using emotes.
However, it is notable that the rare/epic cards that you get are depending on your picked race. So if you are a Nord, when you get a rare card from leveling up, it will be a rare Nord card. Such as Grisly Gourmet or Candlehearth Brawler.
Since there are so many cards that you could get (it’s random), there really isn’t a point in worrying about it beyond picking the race that corresponds to the colours of decks you want rares/epic cards for.

The races and their corresponding card colours:
Argonian = Green/Purple
Breton = Purple/Blue
Dark Elf = Green/Blue
High Elf = Yellow/Blue
Imperial = Yellow/Purple
Khajiit = Yellow/Green
Nord = Red/Yellow
Purple = Red/Purple
Redguard = Blue/Red
Wood Elf = Green/Red

Legendary card rewards
With that said, you will get a legendary card on two occasions from leveling up. These also depend on race, but are not quite as random and means that you will want to pick a certain race before you level up, to make sure you get a chance for a good card.
The level ups that you get a legendary for is 24 and 32.

Full list of what you could get:
Argonian:
Black Marsh Warden
Red Bramman

Breton:
Daggerfall Mage
High King Emeric
Supreme Atromancer

Dark Elf:
Queen Barenziah
Necrom Mastermind
Indoril Archmage
Divayth Fyr

High Elf:
Ayrenn
Mentor’s Ring

Imperial:
Lucien Lachance
General Tullius
Renowned Legate

Khajiit:
Descendant of Alkosh
Ahnassi
Quin’rawl Burglar
Thieves’ Den

Nord:
Relentless Raider
Tyr
Haafingar Marauder
Miraak, Dragonborn

Orc:
Wood Orc Headhunter
Gortwog gro-Nagorm

Redguard:
Merric-at-Aswala

Wood Elf:
Ungolim the Listener
Allena Benoch

If you are a new player, it might be confusing on what to race pick when going for these rewards, especially since you don’t know what kind of decks you want to build.
Below I will recommend what race you should pick, based on which cards are the most useful in more than one type of build. Since you can get the same card twice, and most cards are unique – I’d say pick one race for the level 24 reward, then a different for lvl 32.

Good picks:
Wood Elf – Both are great. Allena Benoch can potentially kill two strong units, Ungolim the Listener is useful in almost all green decks
Khajiit – All of the cards here are strong for your yellow/green decks. Only slightly undesirable one is Thieves’ Den which is a card mostly used in pilfer decks
Nord – All cool cards for red/yellow decks here
Argonian – Both cards are useful for green/purple
Orc – Decent cards for red/purple, pick if you want
Dark Elf – Decent cards, pick if you play mostly blue/green decks and think you could use the cards here
Breton – Daggerfall Mage and High King Emeric are both great even if Emeric only is playable in sorcerer decks. Supreme Atromancer is a decent card.

Risky/low usefulness picks:
Imperial – Mostly okay-ish cards, I’d say skip unless you know you’ll get good use of them for your yellow/purple decks

Don’t pick these:
Redguard – Only one card, and it’s only good in item focused decks. Avoid!!
High elf – Ayrenn is good, but Mentor’s Ring is only useful in specific decks. And with only two cards means you’ll risk getting the ring. If you want Ayrenn, crafting the card is much more reliable.

Here is a full list of level up rewards if you need it

In some cases during the intro single-player campaign (known as ‘The Forgotten Hero’), you get two choices on what to do in the story. You will get something based on what you picked, and you won’t ever be able to get the other option. It’s a one time reward.
In the other story modes there are no options that gives you a one-time choice. All choices there only impact the story, so pick whatever you want.

Act 1
Bandit Ambush
Choose Spare -> Get Steel Scimitar
Choose Execute -> Get Execute
Both are common rarity cards, so your choice shouldn’t be influenced by the card you want. Crafting them are super cheap.

The Hungry Pack
Choose Adopt -> Get Snow Wolf
Choose Abandon -> Get -> Cast Out
Both are good cards, but neither are must have cards.
Any option is fine (why would anyone want to abandon a cute wolf pup though?).

Act 2
Unwelcome Intrusion
Choose Follow -> Get Green-Touched Spriggan
Choose Loot -> Get Hackwing Feather
This choice is tricky. Both are ‘Epic’ rarity, and both are useful. With that said, spriggan requires you to somehow gain health before it becomes a useful card. Meanwhile the feather is useful on it’s own when used on a strong creature.
In my opinion pick the Loot option

Tangled Web
Choose Help -> Get Shimmerene Peddler
Choose Rob -> Get 50 Gold (yeah that’s it)
Peddler is another card that isn’t cheap, and on top of that the Rob option only gives you 50 gold (which you can get super easily by just playing and doing quests).
Choose Help.

Act 3
The Restless Dead
Choose Take -> Get Haunting Spirit
Choose Destroy -> Get Plea to Kynareth
The plea card is a rarely used card, meanwhile Haunting Spirit is a decent card in any Purple deck – it gives a +3/+3 boost to an ally creature when it dies, which is often useful. Compare that to the Plea card, in order to make the most of it you’ll need a filled row of creatures. And then you only get +1/+1 on each. The heal part of the card is also fairly hard to make proper use of.
I’d say pick the Take option for this one.

Interlude
Choose Tyr -> Get Tyr
Choose The Orb -> Orb of Vaermina
Both cards are decent, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone actually use Orb of Vaermina. Thieves Guild Shadowfoot does the same thing with the benefit of making sure your opponent won’t get a prophecy off if you break a rune on the same turn as you summoned the shadowfoot. Also they don’t get the card you stole. Meanwhile the Orb draws you a random copy three times, and nothing else.
Tyr is Red/Yellow card, meaning you can’t put him in that many decks, but if you can he’s great since he is both defensive and offensive.
So I’d say pick Tyr.

When playing ranked mode, you ascend on a ladder. The thing to note here is that at the end of each month you are rewarded with a certain number of copies of a brand new card. You only get the card if you have a high enough rank. You also get some gold and soul gems, increasing with your rank.
Your rank is lowered at the end of each month. Anyone who didn’t get the card from ranked as a reward, will have to craft it to get it.

Examples of previously monthly rewards:
Protector of the Mane
Dushnikh Yal Archer

What the new card is will show up in-game towards the end of each month if you play ranked.
To get one copy, you must reach rank 9 of Mage. Two copies for those that reach rank 5 (Warrior), and three copies if you make it to rank 1, Thief.

From my experience, the ladder is pretty hardboiled & competitive at the beginning of each month, so if you are struggling – wait until later in the month and see if you have any better luck then.

Read more about ranks here:

To put it simply, the lowest effort for gaining the monthly reward is to reach ‘The Lady’ – then the next month you are only lowered by one rank to ‘The Warror’.
That way you’ll only need to climb one rank each month to get the 2x Card reward.