Gameplay Rules

Diagrams and text formatting are still WIP!

Field Layout

Each player's side of the field (their "stage") holds the following:

  • Three stage positions, with each consisting of a character and potentially a summon.
  • A stage effect token area.
  • The player's deck of character and support cards.
  • The player's pool of infinite resource ("Hype")
  • Their hand of character and support cards (not visible to the other player)
  • A discard pile area (your "Backstage")

Keep standard 6-sided dice and a few coins on hand too, as most skills use them to determine raw damage output. To convert a d6 to a d4, reroll a 5 or a 6 until you get a result between 1 and 4.

Deck Construction

A 30-card deck consists of 20 characters and 10 supports. Only 2 copies of each card (from the same set, including overnumbered secret rares) may exist in a deck.

Tokens for summons and stage effects are kept separately, so that users are able to place them on the stage as soon as they obtain the respective host character and enough resource to pay the skill cost.

Game Setup

  1. Both players shuffle their decks separately.
  2. Determine who goes first by a game of chance. For example, highest roll on 1d4.
  3. Each player draws 6 cards and chooses any number of them to keep. Place the rest of the cards at the bottom of your deck, draw that many more cards from the top, and then shuffle the deck.
  4. The player going first draws 4 Hype to start, and the player going second draws 5 Hype.
  5. Place 3 character cards from your hand onto your stage.
  6. Play begins.

Turn Structure

  1. At the start of each subsequent turn (i.e. not including your first turn), players gain 1d4+4 Hype.
  2. Untap all characters and summons.
  3. Draw a card from your deck. If you have more than the maximum of 6 cards in your hand, you must choose to discard until you have 6 cards (by the end of your turn).
  4. If any characters have passive skills that activate during your pre-combat phase, you may use them now.
  5. If a character was defeated on your opponent's last turn and you have an empty lane, you can play a card from your hand to the stage in tapped position.
  6. Combat phase. Hype must be spent to use active skills, and each character can only use one active skill per turn, as long as you have the resource to do so. If a character has a boost effect, you may pay the additional cost to use both the boost effect and the base effect of a skill.
  7. Characters may also only use skills on enemy targets in their respective lanes unless specified by a skill description, passive skill, or stage effect. Characters cannot attack an enemy target shielded behind a summon, also unless specified by a skill description, passive skill, or stage effect.
  8. You may play as many support cards from your hand as you want, as long as you have the Hype to do so.
  9. At the end of the turn, resolve any summon or stage effect end-of-turn attacks from stage left to stage right. If an enemy lane is empty during your summon combat phase, you may draw 1 additional Hype.
  10. All spent Hype during your turn is recycled back into your infinite resource pool.
  11. Pass the turn.

Resources

Resource in this game is referred to as "Hype" in card descriptions.

  • At the start of each turn, you gain 1d4+4 Hype.
  • Hype is what pays for attacks, and is recycled back to your Hype pool upon usage.

Characters

  • Characters may use skills the same turn they enter the stage.
  • A character defeated during your opponent's goes to your discard pile, or "Backstage". At the start of your next turn, you may place a character from your hand to the stage as a replacement. You may draw a card to replace your hand.
  • Characters on the stage cannot retreat back into your hand, and must be defeated in order to leave the stage. Damage incurred is persistent across turns, but can be restored through HP restoration skills or support effects.
  • Once a character activates and resolves an active skill, turn the card 90 degrees clockwise to mark it as tapped.

Character Skills

A skill triggers at the moment stated on the card. There are currently 3 different categories of passive skills:

  • Lurker - Once during your turn, this character may swap stage positions with another ally character, as long as it is still active. Slide the character card back slightly towards yourself to mark that the passive has been used (to differentiate from tapping after using an active skill).
  • Collab X — When attacking an enemy target, deal X (value determined by the skill tag) additional DMG to adjacent enemies. If the enemy target is on an outer lane, only the center lane enemy will also be affected by this attack, etc.
  • Timed Out - When this character attacks an enemy target, that target cannot take action on your opponent's next turn. To mark that a character cannot take action during your turn, slide the card back slightly towards you.

Two keywords appear in skill text:

  • Summon creates a summon token.
  • Deploy creates a stage effect token.

Supports

  • Support cards can be played from your hand and cost the amount specified next to their effect descriptions.
  • During your turn, you may play as many support cards from your hand as you want, as long as you have the Hype to pay the collective cost.
  • After a support effect has been used, the card goes to your Backstage, and the Hype spent is recycled to your Hype pool.

Summons and Stage Effects

Summons

  • Summons use [Power/Toughness] notation, and have persistent damage across turns until defeated. Summons may attack the same turn they are spawned.
  • Summons attacks do not require resource to activate, and automatically attack after your combat phase.
  • A maximum of 3 summons can exist on the field at once (per player), with 1 summon per lane. When spawned, summons enter the field tapped and cannot take action until your next turn.
  • If a summon is defeated on your opponent's turn, it is recycled into your summon card deck so it can be resummoned again in the future. If the damage dealt was more than the summon's remaining HP, the rest of the damage spills to the character behind the summon (summons with 2 HP cannot fully tank an attack that does 3+ damage).

Stage Effects

  • Only 1 stage effect per player can be in effect at the same time.
  • Stage effects only exist for 3 turns (beginning the first turn after they are deployed), and their effect is included on the deploying character's skill description.
  • Stage effects have no HP gauge, and cannot be attacked or overwritten by your opponent.
  • When activating a character's boosted skill to deploy a stage effect and another stage effect is already in use, you may either swap out the current stage effect and reset its turn counter.

End of game

The game ends when one player has defeated 4 of their opponent's characters.