How to get Opaque Cards in Destiny 2's Season of the Witch

Destiny 2 Opaque Cards - Deck of Whispers
(Image credit: Bungie)

Finding Opaque Cards is a big part of Destiny 2's new Season of the Witch. Besides the usual seasonal vendor, the Lectern of Divination grants powerful benefits if you find and return these cards to the deck. Minor Arcana are a little like the bonuses from last season, providing buffs for crafting seasonal armour and weapons, or free engrams and keys. 

Major Arcana are a little more involved, though, and you'll have to complete specific objectives to unlock their combat buffs for running Savathun's Spire or Altars of Summoning. If you haven't yet, be sure to do the Unveiled quest if you want the new Strand Aspects. Otherwise, here's how to get Opaque Cards in Season of the Witch, plus how the Deck of Whispers works.

Destiny 2 Opaque Card locations

There are four different ways you can currently get your hands on Opaque Cards:

  • Complete Savathun's Spire and Altars of Summoning: Both seasonal activities drop Opaque Cards upon completion most of the time.
  • Complete playlist activities: Vanguard strikes and Crucible matches both seem to have a chance of dropping Opaque Cards, but the drop rate is far less consistent than just playing the seasonal activities instead.
  • Find them: There are a few hidden Opaque Cards in the world, such as the one at the far end of the Athenaeum hidden behind the tree, and the Elemental Attunement cards you can see in Savathun's Spire, but are currently unable to pick up.
  • Raise your season vendor rank: As you earn more seasonal vendor XP and rank up, you'll be able to collect four Opaque Cards from the Ritual Table in the Athenaeum.

Once you get a card, head back to the Lectern of Divination to activate the Arcana and receive its associated reward. Minor Arcana can give you seasonal bonuses such as being able to craft a Deepsight weapon once per week, one-off rewards like engrams, or Witch's Keys to use in the Savathun's Spire activity.

Destiny 2 Deck of Whispers: How does it work

As you complete the main seasonal quest, you'll unlock Major Arcana cards at the Lectern of Divination. Each card has a list of seasonal benefits, but before you can get them, there are two things you need to do:

  • Complete its quest: Activating a Major Arcana at the Lectern of Divination begins its quest, requiring you to gather Insight by completing specific objectives and steps. These generally just involve doing activities or killing enemies across the system with certain weapons.
  • Unlock five Major Arcana: Before you can use the Deck of Whispers, you'll need to complete the associated quests for five Major Arcana cards.

Once both of these are done, you can build your Deck of Whispers. Each Major Arcana grants a specific buff in seasonal activities. When you start either Savathun's Spire or Altars of Summoning, a random card will be drawn from the Deck of Whispers, granting that bonus.

You can only have a few cards active in the deck at any one time. Since there are only five Major Arcana cards available in week one, this doesn't matter so much now, but as more appear it'll become relevant. To swap out cards in your Deck of Whispers, walk over to the row of big floating cards in the Athenaeum and you'll be given the option to remove or switch them around.

Sean Martin
Senior Guides Writer

Sean's first PC games were Full Throttle and Total Annihilation and his taste has stayed much the same since. When not scouring games for secrets or bashing his head against puzzles, you'll find him revisiting old Total War campaigns, agonizing over his Destiny 2 fit, or still trying to finish the Horus Heresy. Sean has also written for EDGE, Eurogamer, PCGamesN, Wireframe, EGMNOW, and Inverse.