How Honor of Kings: ACE works
The shared card pool, the keywords on every card, and what each faction is built around.
Tiers and copies
All players draw from one shared pool. Each hero card has a fixed number of copies, and higher tiers have fewer. Awakening a hero takes 4 copies.
Cards in a shop are out of the pool. Any card showing in a player's shop counts as taken. When that player rerolls, the cards they didn't buy go back into the pool.
So when another player is collecting the same hero, there are fewer left for you, both in their hand and in their shop.
| Tier | Heroes | Copies each | Total in pool |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | 9 | 14 | 126 |
| Tier 2 | 20 | 11 | 220 |
| Tier 3 | 24 | 9 | 216 |
| Tier 4 | 18 | 7 | 126 |
| Tier 5 | 14 | 6 | 84 |
| All | 85 | – | 772 |
Example: a tier-4 hero has 7 copies and awakening takes 4. If another player holds 4 of them, you can never awaken that hero.
Card keywords
Triggers at the start of each round. Cao Cao, Athena and Luna can also set off other heroes' Ready effects.
Triggers when the hero leaves the board, for example when you sell it.
Triggers when you win a fight.
Triggers when you lose a fight.
When the fight starts, the hero jumps to the mirror-image row on the enemy side of the board: back row to their back row, front row to their front row. Wukong and Xuance reward having Blink heroes.
When you play this hero next to an allied hero, it takes 10 levels from that ally (highlighted in blue). If the ally has fewer than 10, it takes levels until the ally is at 1. Temporary levels can't be taken.
A Fleeting card stays in your hand only for the current round. When the fight starts, it disappears, so play it before then. Baige's Inspiration Burst makes Fleeting copies.
Levels that don't last and can't be stolen by Seize. Ming can convert some of them into permanent levels. Tap a hero, then its level, to see how its level is made up.
A summoned unit from Great River heroes. Several cards level totems up or feed on them.
An effect card from Heluo heroes. Using it on a hero raises that hero's level.
The six card pools
At the start of each game some card pools are banned. Check which ones are gone before picking a comp.
Zhulu 逐鹿 · 16 heroes
Effect cards, tactic cards, shields and items. Many cards hand out tactic cards or reward playing them.
Heluo 河洛 · 16 heroes
Ancient Coins and Sacrifice. Coins raise levels; Sacrifice heroes dying feeds carries like Li Xin.
Sunset Sea 日落海 · 13 heroes
The Akmia Core and Ready effects. Almost every card levels the core, and Athena and Luna re-trigger Ready effects.
Great River 大河流域 · 13 heroes
Totems and Engage. Guiguzi, Shaosiyuan and Dasiming summon totems; the rest level them up or cash them in.
Three Kingdoms 三分之地 · 13 heroes
Built on Entry effects. Cao Cao and Lady Zhen re-trigger Entry effects, and most other cards level up your Three Kingdoms heroes whenever one enters.
