At a certain point, it felt like Destiny 2 was going to have to change its clone stamp seasonal model for its own sake. One of the main points of contention was a series of timegated vendor “checkboxes” where each week you’d earn 2-3 pieces of seasonal currency for some sort of same-y upgrade about red borders or small bonuses in activities or something. This happened every season for years.

Now, that has been wholly broken by a much, much more entertaining system in Season of the Witch, a giant new “deck” of Hive tarot cards that players earn through gameplay or most entertainingly, have to hunt down in the wild.

The “major” cards here form a small deck of five where you will draw them for bonuses in combat during Savathun’s Spire or Altars of Communion. Some are better than others, and the best one is probably a card that gives you just buckets and buckets of heavy ammo during fights so you can essentially use your heavy as a primary for the entire encounter.

But there are Minor cards as well, many of which are just as good in their own ways. There’s a class of “perks” which can affect gameplay, like allowing easier completion of the elemental crystal parts of the encounters. And others that will dole out more rewards during the activity, Witch Keys get more engrams, getting Witch Keys from Witch Key chests, etc. Then, a final tier, just outright rewards, engrams, upgrade and crafting materials. And in pretty large quantities too.

While you earn some of these through weekly bounties and activity completions, there are a number that are hidden around well, everywhere. There are “attuned” ones where you need a specific element attunement to find them within Savathun’s Spire:

Then there are a four hidden inside Altars of Summoning as well:

And there’s even one hidden behind a tree in the back of the Eris Throne World HELM area.

This is just a lot of fun, I’m really enjoying slotting all these cards in like some sort of Destiny advent calendar. This is shaping up to be my favorite season since…man, I don’t even know what. Lost? Chosen? Really, the last two years, more or less. It’s still early, but between stuff like this and how good the two new activities are, it’s really stellar, and Bungie deserves credit for producing an engaging season even in the midst of blockbuster releases that may otherwise be distracting. Really enjoying this season even buried in these other massive games.

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