In the Cursed Empire Heroes of Thargos Card Game, players battle one another or collaborate in the RPG setting of Thargos using a simple-to-learn card-resource management system to compete over four mission tracks. Each track has a mission card for players to fulfill, for which they will receive victory points (VP); as mission cards are completed, you replace them from your own decks to help even the playing field.

The Additional Story Mode which can be played from the base set and using expansions too will allow for collaborative play and street level adventures that can be a tie-in for the Cursed Empire RPG for side quests or build on the standalone card game from the Core Set I.

You can construct a deck to match your own playing style, using the components of the base game and card pack releases. Each character card has a "character point" value, which indicates both the power level of the character and the number of VPs required to win your match. The stronger your deck, the more VP you need. For clarity the Core Set has a great deal of replay-ability and you do not need additional packs to play multiple games. you can play out of the box without any prior deck construction as there are deck lists to get you started.

The two-player Core Set I box of Heroes of Thargos Cursed Empire Card Game contains 136 cards with which players can build their starting decks:

• 16 unique Character Cards comprising key character types such as The Crimson Knight, Spider Darkun/Slayer, Cobra Sorceress, Kurnor Assassin and Karg Demon Summoner.
• 40 Mission Cards (18 pairs of specific missions, 4 individual missions), all set in the World of Thargos.
• 40 Lasting Cards (15 pairs of specific cards, 10 individual cards), comprising Thargos minions, objects, weapons etc.
• 40 Action Cards (15 pairs of specific actions, 10 individual actions), comprising a host of Thargos creatures and player driven events.

Two legal decks can be created from one Core Set I, although you would need additional Core Sets to create more specialized decks that use the maximum number allowed of some cards.