Questing vs Challenging

When you exert a character in Lorcana, you make a choice: quest to gain lore, or challenge to remove an opposing character. Lorcana is, at heart, the ongoing tension between those two actions. The lore counter is the scoreboard, but the board is how you control the pace.

The core trade-off

Questing moves you toward the only win condition that matters: 20 lore. But a questing character is exerted, which makes it a legal target to be challenged.
Challenging protects your board and tempo by banishing threats — but every turn you spend challenging is a turn you didn't gain lore.

You win by questing. You survive by challenging. Knowing which you need is the whole game.

A simple decision framework

Ask three questions before you exert a character:

Am I racing or controlling? If your lore total is ahead and your deck is faster, keep questing — don't get distracted fighting a war you don't need to win.
Is there a must-kill threat? A big quester or a value engine on their side can be worth challenging into, even at the cost of a turn of lore.
Is the trade good? Challenging a 3-cost character with your 5-cost one is usually a bad deal. Look for even or favorable trades.

The "who's the beatdown?" rule

A classic card-game principle applies perfectly here: in any given matchup, one player is the aggressor and one is the defender. Figure out which you are.

The faster deck should usually quest and force the race.
The slower, grindier deck should usually challenge, stabilize, and win late.

Getting this backwards — durdling around challenging when you should be racing, or racing when you're behind and should be trading — loses more games than any individual misplay.

Don't forget evasive and ward

Some characters dodge the challenge math entirely. Evasive questers can only be challenged by other evasive characters, and Ward characters can't be chosen by removal at all. Against those, challenging may simply not be an option — so you plan to race instead. (See evasive strategy.)