Published on May 21, 20210

How to Win Tears of Themis Debates Guide | Battle Tips and Tricks

Debates play a crucial role in Tears of Themis, the latest game from Genshin Impact developer miHoYo. A detective game first and an otome game second, it takes a few cues from the Ace Attorney series and wraps it up in stunning artwork and compelling story-based adventures. The four main Tears of Themis characters are magnetic in their very own ways, and you'll spend a lot of time hanging out with them before going to court to debate against your opponents and present your side of the story, which is invariably the truth. We'll show you how to win Tears of Themis debates and persuade the judge to see the reality beyond the lies.

How to Win Debates in Tears of Themis

Debates are a recurrent gameplay feature in Tears of Themis. Every now and then you'll face some random stranger, entering into a frenzied war of words and persuasion. Be it a salesman, a reporter, a fake cop or any other passerby, your legal attorney background will play a role here, but not as big as the cards that you hold.

Tears of Themis features a collecting card game spin, with diverse character cards illustrating the four romantic leads: Luke Pearce, Artem Wing, Vyn Richter, and Marius von Hagen. To win debates, you must own a strong and balanced deck capable of crushing the attacks of every opponent with solid legal arguments. This can be achieved by progressing through the main story chapters and earning Tears to pull new cards – here's a few tips on how to get Tears of Themis and summon Vision cards.

Respect the Color Coded Arguments

During the debates you can see the little triangle with green, blue, and red colors. Those are the card attributes or arguments that guide the battle system. Blue is for Logic, Red is for Empathy, and Green is for Intuition. The attributes work like this: Logic trumps Empathy, Empathy trumps Intuition, and Intuition trumps Logic. There's also a grey argument which is called a General argument, so you can attack it with a strong card that you don't think will be necessary for any subsequent turn or wave.

You don't have to memorize anything, because the debate screen gives you all the info you need. You have the arguments with the respective color, and the color code triangle indicates what you should do.

Continue attacking your opponent until their HP (Heart Points) is depleted. If your health falls to zero or you fail to beat your rival before the number of turns available is over, the debate ends and it is considered irrefutable, which means that you lost.

So, remember to use the color arguments wisely and save up some of your strongest cards for the final wave – this is usually the toughest argument and you need to use your best cards to beat it, making note of the required color in case of repeated runs.

Summon New Cards

Visions is how you ask the Goddess of Justice to bestow you with the gift of new cards. For this you use Tears of Themis that you acquire through multiple means such as daily sign-in rewards and limited-time events, player surveys, and a few other options.

At certain intervals you are guaranteed an SR or SSR card, depending on which banner you are pulling from. For example, one SR card or above is guaranteed within 10 draws, so it's best to avoid the single pull.

Limited banners offer exclusive character cards and also promise an SSR within a certain number of draws. During the closed beta there was the Ballad of Spring banner with increased drop rate for four cards, and a guaranteed SSR within 80 draws. It won't be easy to achieve, but at least you know that one is a given, and the top card animations are just jaw-dropping.

Enhance Cards

How to Win Debates in Tears of Themis Trial of Athena

This one is a no-brainer. Your decks needs to be balanced, featuring an assortment of cards from the four main characters, but also of the three argument types. Focus on the strongest character cards, which are the SSR cards, but the SR cards are good as well. The rarest cards have unique character stories divided across different chapters.

You can enhance, evolve, and upgrade cards (with card fragments from duplicate cards) using materials such as Oracles of Justice and in-game coins known as Stellin. When you enhance a card to its max level – level 40 to begin with, and level 70 after that, as an example – you can evolve the card to raise the level cap, unlock new card faces (a slight smile animation or something like that) and card skills. You can upgrade these card skills as well.

A great way to enhance cards is by progressing through the retro-styled event called Trials of Themis. In 8-bit fashion you'll face opponents, collect rewards, and answer some questions about Greek mythology and a few assorted topics in the Trial of Athena challenge. For that we have our Trials of Themis quiz guide, which you should definitely check out for the solutions.

Hopefully this guide will show you how to win Tears of Themis debates. If you're looking for more coverage on miHoYo's detective and romance game, you can find additional guides below.