Cosmetics
Nothing cosmetic changes how a card plays. Sleeves, playmats, avatars, titles, emotes, deck boxes and alt art are purely for looks, and a lot of them are free or earned just by playing. Here's the full wardrobe and where each piece comes from.
Open the You tab and scroll to Cosmetics for Avatar, Playmats, Backgrounds and Card sleeves. Titles and emotes are sold on the Shop's Style shelf. Deck boxes, per-deck sleeves and per-deck playmats live in the deck editor.
At a glance
| Cosmetic | How many | Paid with | Free ways to get them |
|---|---|---|---|
| Card sleeves | 35 | Gems | Aether Standard, deck mastery, Aether Jack ladder (web) |
| Playmats | 63 | Coins or gems | Aetherwood, 46 Covenant rewards, deck mastery |
| Backgrounds | 9 | Coins | 1 free |
| Avatars | 21 + your cards | Free | Every character, any card you own |
| Avatar frames | 12 | Gems | 6 Covenant frames |
| Titles | 75 | Gems | Achievements, Covenant, puzzles |
| Emotes | 38 | Gems | 12 starter emotes |
| Deck boxes | 26 looks | Gems (4 colours) | 8 colours and 13 forms are free |
| Alt art | 670 | Coins or gems | 451 from card mastery, story stars, Covenant |
Card sleeves
A sleeve is the back of every card in a deck. Sleeves are worn per deck, and your opponent sees them in online matches. Buy them in the sleeve gallery (You → Cosmetics → Card sleeves) or straight from the deck editor. "Coins buy playmats, gems buy sleeves."
| Group | Sleeves | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Aether Standard | Free |
| Elemental | Emberforge, Tidebound, Rootbound, Galewrit, Umbral Seam, Lanternlight | 250 gems |
| Set | Blightfen Bloom, The Lost Lanterns, Fate's Gambit, No Logout, Ninefold Dawn, The Black Seam | 600 gems |
| Seasonal | Lantern Wake (Hallowfall), Moon and Beast (Hallowfall), Summer Crash, Ember Acolyte (Summer Crash), Saint Ilara (Summer Crash) | 800 gems |
| Mythic | Vyrmaroth Ascendant, Vyrmaroth the World-Ember, Nereida, Verdigris, Halcyra, Ashmother, Verrin | 1,000 gems |
| Aether Jack ladder | The House's Marker, The Tout's Coin (rare); Twelve Exactly, The Veil's Deal (epic); The Gilded Shoe, Vael's Chain (legendary) | 250 / 600 / 800 gems |
| Feat | The Gilded Hand | Deck mastery level 4 |
The six Aether Jack sleeves are sold for gems everywhere. On the web (and Android) you can also win them for free at the Aether Jack table: 10, 25, 50, 100, 150 and 250 career wins.
Three more feat sleeves appear in the gallery with requirements (Covenant Sigil, Champion's Laurel and The Chronicler), but nothing in the launch build awards them yet. Don't chase them for now.
Playmats
The playmat is the battlefield under your lanes. You pick an account playmat in You → Cosmetics → Playmats, and any deck can pin its own mat that overrides it.
| Group | Count | How to get them |
|---|---|---|
| Aetherwood | 1 | Free, the default mat |
| Covenant mats | 46 | Earned on the Covenant track only, never sold (Emberforge Arena, Verdant Grove, Celestial Weave, Golden Vault, Blood Moon Arena and more) |
| Character mats | 8 | 1,000 gems each: Gobby the Goblin, Verdigris the Plague-Mother, Miss Birdwell, Nyx the Dark Ending, The Administrator, Sonju, Ilse of the Upcast Shaft, Verrin of the Black Seam |
| Legendary mats | 4 | 4,000 coins each: Bessie's Pasture, Sir Clucksworth, Dooks's Domain, Stapler Steve |
| Seasonal mats | 4 | 1,000 coins each: Lantern Wake and Harvest Hall (Hallowfall), Summer Crash and Saint Verity (Summer Crash) |
The Administrator is also free: it's the reward for reaching deck mastery level 3.
Menu backgrounds
Backgrounds are the scenes behind the menus. There are 9: one free, four epic at 1,600 coins, three legendary at 2,600 coins and one mythic at 3,600 coins. Find them in You → Cosmetics → Backgrounds.
Avatars and frames
- Characters (21, all free): two defaults plus 19 portraits of the story cast, including Aleyn, Asti, Bryne, Castigan, Emi, Erevos, Iyari, Lin, Othrik, Peeks, Sonju, Vael, Veska, Vesper and Vyrmaroth. You don't need to reach them in the story first.
- Your Cards: any card you own can be your avatar. "Cards you collect can become your avatar."
- Frames (12): six are Covenant rewards (premium level 10 of each season, starting with Mythic Ascendant in Season 1). The other six are sold for gems: Tidecrest 140, Wildroot 140, Umbral Thorn 160, Stormcrown 180, Sunburst Halo 200 and Starbound 220.
Titles
Your title shows under your name on your player card and in matches. There are 75. Everyone starts with Initiate.
Title Shop (26)
10 gems: Loser, Tryhard, Filthy Casual, NPC, Main Character, AFK, Washed, Gremlin, Touch Grass, Problem, Button Masher, Lantern Bearer, Grave Guest, Masked Wanderer, Last Leaf, Moonstruck, Crow Keeper, Midnight Mallard, Haunted Office, Very Alive.
15 gems: Pumpkin King, Wakekeeper, Harvest Ghost, Bone Collector.
25 gems: Autumn Sovereign.
100 gems: Bought This ("The flex is that you paid full price.")
Covenant (12)
Two per season (free level 30 and premium level 40), such as Not Dead Yet, Blood Sovereign, Unbroken, Worldbreaker, Season Crown, Untouchable and Star Sovereign.
Achievements and feats
Most of the rest come from achievements: Conqueror, Aether-Crowned, Legend, Mythbearer, Completionist, Gauntlet Champion, Oathbound, Dragon-Hoarder, Keeper of the Flame, Actually Has Friends, Spelunker and more. Solving all 48 puzzles earns Puzzle Master.
Emotes
Emotes are the reactions you can send in an online match (chat itself is preset phrases only). Everyone has 12 free starter emotes: Smile, Sweat, Cool, Angry, Cry, Nice, Clap, Fire, Dead, Dice, Love and Hmm.
The Shop's Style shelf sells 26 painted emotes: 13 rare at 25 gems, 9 epic at 40 gems and 4 legendary at 75 gems. Your loadout holds 8; buying one when it's full drops the oldest. You can turn emotes off, or mute your opponent's chat, in Settings.
Deck boxes
Every deck has a 3D box on the Decks screen ("drag it to spin"). Pick its look in the deck editor.
- Colours: 12 colours of the standard box. Eight are free; Molten Gold, Radiant Ivory, Rose Thorn and Glacial Frost cost 200 gems each.
- Forms: 14 different box shapes, such as Reliquary Dawn, Pelt Case North, Lamp-Room Locker, Reef Coffer Tide, Aviary Trunk, Throne Case, Ammonite Case, Ledger Drawer, Gambler's Caddy, Lantern Case, Scrap Tin, Server Rack and the new Wyrm Hoard Chest. All are free except the Artisan Vault, the deck mastery level 2 reward.
Alt art
An alt art (skin) repaints a card you own. The rules stay exactly the same. There are 670 skins, and your opponent sees the ones you've equipped in online matches.
| Source | Skins | How |
|---|---|---|
| Card mastery ("PROVEN") | 451 | Play the card enough times to reach mastery rank 3. "Earned through play. No currency required." See card mastery. |
| Gem skins | 155 | 40 to 100 gems each, from the card's Alt Art strip or the Style shelf |
| Covenant | 24 | Covenant track rewards, never sold |
| Story trophies | 19 | Earn 3 stars on a story battle (for example "Perfect The Earthmoot") |
| Coin skins | 19 | 1,000 to 2,000 coins |
| Free | 2 | Claim from the card page |
To preview a skin, open a card's full detail and tap one in the Alt Art strip. The preview lets you flip between "Original" and "This skin" before you buy. Buying a skin unlocks it and equips it straight away, and gem purchases always ask you to confirm.
Hallowfall: The Lantern Wake
The autumn event. "Carve a light. Set it on a grave. Do not sleep." It adds 48 new alt arts (18 of them for cards that had never been painted before) alongside 32 Hallowfall classics: 80 skins in all, plus two playmats and two sleeves.
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| Legendary skins | 60 gems |
| Mythic skins | 100 gems |
| Rare and some epic skins | 40 gems |
| Other epic skins | 2,000 coins |
| Uncommon skins | 1,500 coins |
| Common skins | 1,000 coins |
| One rare skin in each series | Free |
| Lantern Wake and Harvest Hall playmats | 1,000 coins each |
| Lantern Wake and Moon and Beast sleeves | 800 gems each |
The coin-priced skins are there so a player with no gems can still collect part of the event. The older Summer Crash collection is still on the Style shelf too: four alt arts at 50 gems and two playmats at 1,000 coins.
Foils and other flourishes
- Foil: a shimmering finish that can roll on cards you pull. Every Mythic, every Tin promo and every Covenant card is foil. Crafted copies are never foil.
- Mastery foil border: if a card reaches mastery rank 3 and has no skin to give, it earns a foil border that shows everywhere you see that card.
- Paragon nameplate: deck mastery level 5 gives the deck a foil nameplate.
- Mythic projections: not something you collect. Every Mythic with a 3D model projects a hovering statue over its lane in battle and dissolves into embers when it leaves. Turning Animations off in Settings hides them.
- Ranked crests: the painted tier emblems on the Ranked screen come from your rank and can't be bought.
Coins are easy to come by and gems are not. Spend coins on playmats, backgrounds and coin-priced skins, and save gems for things coins can't buy, such as Legendary Packs, the Covenant premium track and extra deck slots. See the Shop guide.