Learn 3FC

Choose a Commander, three distinct Generals and a 40-card draw pile. In an ordinary constructed deck, choose two aligned factions and at least one General from each; Wastelands cards can join either pairing. Draft uses its own all-faction deck rules.

Start with five cards. Keep your hand or mark cards to replace during the opening-hand step. Generals begin in Command HQ rather than your draw pile. Once setup is confirmed, follow the initiative indicator to see who acts next.

Spend AP to play cards and use available actions. Use Advance tokens to commit an Advance. Watch the response queue before expecting a Slow action to resolve. Two consecutive Passes with no pending response end the Action Phase and begin the round boundary.

Training provides ten guided scenarios. Start there to practise selection, positioning and combat before joining matchmaking.

AP is upper-left, Mastery sits beneath it, Attack is bottom-left and Stamina bottom-right.

Tides use a distinct flowing frame and have no invented Unit stats. Cards in play show only current Stamina, in red when below maximum; hand cards show total Stamina.

Attack is white at its base value, green when buffed and orange when reduced.

The AP fraction shows current AP / round AP. Blue gems represent carried AP.

Advance tokens are a separate resource: a normal Advance spends one token and no AP.

Actions alternate within a round. Passing hands initiative over; you can act again if your opponent does not also Pass. A Pass that closes a pending response queue resolves that queue first, rather than acting as the ordinary second Pass that ends the round.

At the round boundary, capture up to 3 unspent AP as carryover. Standard round AP increases by 1 up to 12, with card effects such as Ancient One tracked separately. Your new current AP is round AP plus captured carry and eligible round-start bonuses.

Carryover also supplies new Conscripts in Command HQ under the existing Muster rules. Remaining CHQ Conscripts expire at the next boundary; deployed bodies remain on the battlefield. Ordinary Conscripts improve at rounds 4 and 7, including living deployed bodies; Skeleton and Slumber progression have their own rules.

From round 2 onward, each player normally draws one card after round-start processing, in round-starter order. Draw multipliers and draw-triggered effects apply. Round 1 uses the opening hand rather than an additional normal draw.

Restore X Stamina increases current Stamina only, up to the current maximum. Heal is a historical name for the same operation. Gain or grant +X Stamina raises both maximum and current Stamina. Temporary gains keep their stated duration.

An Aura says units have a Stamina modifier while affected. Recalculating the same Aura is not another restoration. Removing a negative modifier reverses it; losing a positive Aura can be lethal. The survival floor for temporary-buff expiry does not protect against Aura loss.

Pay or lose X current Stamina does not change maximum Stamina and is not damage. Follow the stated payment threshold and survival rule. Field of Cinders is a lethal exception: lose 3 current Stamina, or all of it if less than 3. Deal X damage instead uses the normal damage rules.

Regrowth and Worldroot Awakening count Stamina actually restored or granted: actual current Stamina received from restoration and new positive grants, including qualifying fresh Aura grants. Ancient One and Worldroot share this actual-current-Stamina accounting: +3 current and +3 maximum counts as 3; restoring 5 with only 2 missing counts as 2. Undaunted restoration to an exposed Commander counts exactly once, just like restoration to other friendly units. Defense repair does not count. Overhealing, unchanged Aura recalculation, modifier reversal, revival and temporary-expiry survival floors do not contribute.

Resetting or reviving is not restoration. Reanimate creates a new X/X Skeleton in the death cell before positional and live Aura effects. Sovereign has no revival Active: its Passive damages every enemy defence line by X after a friendly successful Reanimate X. Pyre Rebirth uses half printed maximum, rounded up.

Destroy two enemy Defence Lines to win immediately. Breaching a line exposes its defending Commander on that front; defeating that exposed Commander is another route to victory, subject to its normal death and Reanimate rules.

A player who must draw from an empty deck loses. Merely having an empty deck is not the same as attempting a draw. Card-specific victory conditions, surrender and inactivity can also end a match.

A result already reached is final. Simultaneous Commander deaths can produce a Draw after death effects, Reanimate and live Auras are resolved; see Targeting exposed Commanders for those exceptions.

Open Info, then Decklists. The recorded Commander, Generals and main-deck composition comes from setup before shuffle or draw. It never changes with draws, deaths, generation or later saved-deck edits.

This does not reveal current hands, current draw-pile contents, remaining counts, draw order, private instance IDs or chosen General skills. Historical matches without a recorded starting list show Unavailable rather than reconstructing it from hidden zones.

Ancient tracks actual qualifying Stamina progress. Ascended tracks cumulative friendly Mastery. Ancient One, Ascended One and Prime Architect live totals appear once in their ongoing-rule details in the War Table. Crossing Ancient’s threshold adds standard round AP starting next round, never immediately. Aura suppression and reactivation preserve existing progress counting; genuine returning gains are labeled Aura reactivated. Unchanged stabilization adds zero.

The ongoing-rule area shows selected visible Auras and rules that continue to change play. Open an entry for its source, scope, duration, suppression and available progress. Independent permanent casts remain separate. Temporary unit modifiers remain in unit inspection; private or unavailable totals are not guessed.

Ramp X adds bonus AP once per round start from living deployed sources. Values stack; permanent AP capacity and income are unchanged, with normal carryover retained. Counters record allocated Ramp AP separately. Older matches can report unavailable history.

The ledger separates restored and granted Stamina, Attack, Mastery, keyword applications, successful Reanimate returns and replacements, and actual Logistical AP saved on committed plays. A current-and-maximum Stamina grant counts current Stamina once; capped or overhealed amounts add zero. One valid Cursed Feast death-trigger group is one proc, with Attack and restoration shown separately. A final qualifying Skeleton death counts; a Reanimate replacement death does not award Feast. Invalid observers are not procs.

Filter recorded totals by match, current round, and unit. Keywords gained/given distinguish recipients from causal sources using control at resolution; numerical values and applications are separate. Discounts include floors and other discounts, never previews or rejected plays. New discount/revival tracking begins explicitly; older totals are unavailable. Available Slumber and revival progress, plus Feast records, remain in Counters independently of the historical filters. Worldroot Awakening follows its recorded Slumber stage rather than Ancient’s Stamina threshold. Lifetime receipts remain after damage, expiration, or control changes; current values and retained effects are separate. Expand an event for requested and applied values, source, duration, and Ability Progress credit. Private counters belong to their owner, and hidden sources remain hidden. Tracking starts explicitly; earlier events are unavailable rather than reconstructed from History.

Mandatory card choices use a centered popup with actual cards. Select a card, then confirm. Escape and outside clicks never submit or discard a choice. Use command recovery if the connection is interrupted. HUD Graveyard buttons open the records menu for the selected player. Info opens Battle History, Graveyard and Counters. Ability rows visibly highlight hover, keyboard focus and press; direct Active targeting remains available. Explanations remain in Full Inspector, while keyword and buff hover help stays available. Graveyard cards reuse miniature card faces with printed base stats and retained grant details. Full card details remain available from card inspection.

Each front has three columns. Your Vanguard faces the opponent; your Rear sits behind it. Each player also defends one Defence Line per front. A front includes both players’ territories; friendly territory means your two rows, not the entire front.

Select a card for its available actions. Highlighted cells and targets show the legal choices for the current action. Right-click or long-press a battlefield card for inspection; hover a keyword, or click or tap it to pin the explanation. Blur shows its keyword icon on the face and its value in the explanation.

Info groups Battle History, Graveyard, Counters and public Starting Decklists. Starting lists show the initial composition, not current hands or draw order. Full card inspection explains printed abilities and current effects.

On every fresh Rear entry, halve the unit’s entire then-current Attack, maximum Stamina, current Stamina and Mastery separately, rounding each up. For example, 5 becomes 3. This includes all bonuses the unit already has, even bonuses earned during an earlier stay in Rear.

Bonuses gained while already in Rear apply at full value. They remain at full value when the unit leaves, for their stated duration. If it later enters Rear again, those bonuses are part of the new totals being halved. Moving directly from Rear to Rear does not halve the stats a second time.

Leaving Rear reinstates the recorded suppressed portion of each stat. It does not double the current values or heal damage taken in Rear.

Attack supplies a unit’s normal hit damage; current Stamina is what it can still survive. Damage lowers current Stamina, not maximum Stamina. Fast strikes before Normal, and Normal before Slow. A slower unit killed by the faster normal hit does not strike back. Equal Clash Speeds exchange normal hits simultaneously, so both units can die.

Clash-start effects, prevention and reductions can change the exchange. Scorched can strike before normal hits; Mantle reduces damage, Shield consumes a protected hit and Blur can avoid an eligible unit hit. Follow their individual definitions and Pierce interactions.

Supporting units contribute to the leader’s first attack and share its incoming enemy combat damage. A clash with a Defence Line follows its own exchange rules. Assault applies after ordinary unit-clash damage, not when clashing with a Defence Line; Rally can produce a second legal attack.

Clash Speed is independent of Quick, Normal or Slow action timing. A Slow-clash unit may have a Normal Active, and a Fast-clash unit may have a Slow Active.

Choose a friendly deployed unit, then an empty existing cell in your territory. Every unit can Relocate, including Skeletons and other Conscripts. The source may be in enemy territory. Friendly destinations on the same or another front cost 1 AP per cell. A unit already in enemy Vanguard may Relocate to an empty enemy Vanguard cell on the same or another front for 2 AP per cell. Units cannot enter enemy Rear. Advance is required to enter enemy territory from your own side.

Pay the horizontal plus vertical distance between the cells on the fixed 9-by-4 battlefield grid. Intervening units do not block the move. Relocate ends your turn and uses no Advance token. The unit keeps damage, upgrades and used abilities; it can Relocate again on a later turn if you can pay. Moving does not trigger summon abilities.

Flanking Maneuver costs 4 AP and moves a friendly unit to an empty existing cell in your territory on another front, waiving the distance payment. It has no per-unit round limit. Free Move is retired.

Click an available Advance token, then choose a front and your orders. The token is spent when you commit the Advance. You can cancel selection without spending it. In Main, a direct Advance joins the shared response queue before its combat resolves.

A selected friendly unit in the immediately preceding cell of the same column adds half its current Attack, rounded up, to the leader’s first attack. An invader draws support from your Vanguard; your Vanguard draws support from your Rear. Support cannot reach through another unit or an empty cell.

The supporter takes 100% of the enemy combat damage suffered by the leader, even on a lethal hit. Only the leader clashes. Support units stay in place and can die or revive normally.

You may spend a token on any valid front that is not explicitly prevented, even if nothing can move or fight there. It still ends your turn.

Effects such as Truce can explicitly prevent an Advance.

Your units act first. Then the exposed Commander clashes with every remaining enemy unit on that front, starting nearest to it and moving left to right through each row. If no enemy units remain, it hits an intact enemy Defence Line for half its Attack, rounded up.

A Commander in Command HQ cannot Advance. An exposed Commander does not generate extra Advance tokens. Disabled Commanders cannot join the Advance, and queued targeting restrictions still apply.

Friendly Tides and abilities can restore Stamina, grant stats or grant keywords to your living exposed Commander. This includes friendly group effects and legal self effects. A friendly Aura must still reach its front. Enemy Tides and Actives that target units may also target an exposed Commander. Explicit exclusions win; Commanders in Command HQ stay protected.

Commander Actives reach any front from Command HQ or while exposed, subject to each card’s explicit restrictions. This does not widen Aura or Passive ranges. Chosen One generates Onslaught if it is absent from your hand; Ancient One can give its own exposed Commander +2 maximum and current Stamina. Their 0 AP, once-per-round, turn-ending timing is unchanged.

A Commander has no Vanguard or Rear row and does not qualify for Soldier-only or General-only effects. It cannot be moved, sacrificed or returned to hand. Follow explicit Commander exclusions, including Reaper. Field of Cinders cannot use it. Other eligible nonlethal stat costs keep their normal payment floors. Commander combat, death and revival retain their special rules.

Losing a friendly Stamina Aura can reduce an exposed Commander to 0 Stamina. Resolve its normal Reanimate or defeat rules. The 1-Stamina floor for expiring temporary buffs does not protect against Aura loss.

If the same Aura-removal checkpoint makes both exposed Commanders lethal, resolve their death effects and Reanimate together, then reapply live Auras before checking survivors. Neither surviving is a Draw; one surviving wins; both surviving means play continues. A player who exhausts their deck through those death effects skips their own Reanimate; the other still resolves theirs. Both losing is a Draw, even if one exhausts and the other stays slain. A single loser with a surviving opponent still loses normally. A result already reached cannot be overwritten.

A Draw changes LP, CR and MMR by 0 and adds neither a win nor a loss. Eligible ordinary match and action quests still count; win-only quests do not.

Rally has no value: attack twice total when the repeated clash remains legal. Multiple Rally sources do not stack, even when both sides have Rally. It also works against Defence Lines and Commanders.

Assault deals its value to the intact enemy Defence Line on that front after normal unit-clash damage, including while defending and after each Rally unit clash. It never triggers in a Defence Line exchange, including its defending Rear and Rally repetitions. Demolitionist separately adds its value to ordinary Defence Line damage. A unit killed by normal hits still resolves Assault. If lethal Scorched damage skips the normal hits, Assault does not trigger. Pierce suppresses Assault.

Attacking Assault resolves first. If it wins the match, defending Assault and any later clashes do not resolve. Defend is the new name for Towering Assault: it adds its value to clash damage while the unit is in your Rear.

Ranger is unnumbered. On Advance, a Ranger outside its own Rear attacks the intact enemy defence line from its current cell if no enemy unit intervenes in the forward column. It stays in place. A Ranger in its own Rear cannot fire.

An intervening enemy means normal Advance, clash and post-win movement, without an extra line hit. Ranger adds no immunity, distance selection or Pierce restriction. After the line is breached, ordinary Commander combat applies. Enlightened Archer and Tech Sniper have Ranger; Ember Pikeman does not. Allfather grants it to its eligible recipients until round end.

Priestess heals friendly Units and an intact line after every completed Advance on its front; damage alone does not trigger it.

Play a card, deploy a General, Muster, use an available Active, Refresh a General, Relocate, Advance or Pass. Select the source card, then its available action and highlighted targets. Mandatory card choices must be completed before another action.

Quick actions resolve immediately and retain initiative. Normal actions resolve immediately and end the turn. Slow actions pay and lock choices when declared, then wait in the response queue. Action speed is separate from Fast, Normal or Slow Clash Speed.

Refresh costs 3 AP and changes a deployed General to another offered skill while preserving position, wounds, statuses and spent Active limits. Canceling selection spends nothing. Refresh is unavailable during a pending response or mandatory choice.

A Slow Tide, Slow Active or direct Advance pays its cost and locks its choices when declared. It opens a response opportunity and hands initiative to the opponent. The shared queue holds at most six entries; a seventh is rejected before payment.

A Slow response adds another entry. A Quick response resolves immediately and keeps the window open. A legal Normal response or Pass closes the window and resolves waiting entries newest first. An ordinary legal Relocate can be a response. You still act only when you have initiative.

Negate can cancel a queued Tide, Active or Advance. Costs and spent uses are not refunded by Negate or a fizzle. An Advance caused inside another Tide or Active resolves as part of that parent effect; it does not open a nested queue.

A queued Active requires its original physical source life to survive. Merely changing its selected skill does not undo an already-paid cast. The opponent of the player who started the queue receives initiative when resolution finishes.

A physical unit explicitly chosen as an opposing effect target by a waiting entry cannot newly declare an Active or join a direct Advance while that entry remains queued. Other eligible units on that front may still Advance. Friendly contributors, costs and incidental area effects do not create this restriction.

Relocate remains possible, but moving does not clear the restriction or retarget the waiting effect. The same physical life remains targeted after moving, without another range or slot check; its current protections and Auras still matter at resolution. Death and Reanimate do not transfer that target to a new life.

A restriction ends when the targeting entry actually leaves the queue. Merely queueing Negate does not release it. Another waiting entry can continue to restrict the same unit.

Each action gets 30 seconds, followed by your remaining 3-minute Decision Reserve. Only overtime spends reserve; it never refills. Once reserve is empty, you still receive the normal action window. Quick Tides do not reset the action timer.

A timed-out turn forces a Pass and cancels a pending mandatory choice. Missing 3 consecutive turns after reserve is empty loses the match. Any accepted gameplay action, including choosing Pass, resets that count. Automatic passes and reconnecting do not.

Each player has 3 pauses of 60 seconds per match. Both clocks and play freeze during a pause, then resume automatically. Opening the battle settings alone does not pause play.

If synchronization is interrupted, use the recovery action for the pending command instead of issuing a different action. The last confirmed state stays authoritative. A normal in-play disconnect has a 90-second return window before forfeiture.

Check Mr Paradox after all costs and immediately before effects begin. Multiple copies do not stack. Commander Actives are excluded. Reuse the original recipients and physical lives, skipping invalid originals; there is no recursive repeat or extra activation credit.

Black Market Deal is the fresh-choice exception: finish the first reveal and keep choice, then reveal a fresh cohort from the updated deck and choose again. Payment and successful-play credit happen once. Reloading preserves the pending choice and completed first effect. A full hand or an empty deck does not invent a choice.

Reaper is a 7 AP Slow Tide that destroys an enemy unit, excluding Commanders. Hex Beam is a 2 AP Slow Tide dealing 2 damage to an enemy unit, including an exposed Commander. If you control a Logistical unit on the battlefield, choose an enemy unit or defense line. Only the selected target takes 2 damage.

Duel is a 4 AP, Normal-speed Tide. Choose a living friendly Soldier, General or Conscript first, then a living enemy unit of one of those types anywhere on the battlefield, across any fronts, rows or columns. You may instead choose your living exposed Commander as the friendly attacker. The friendly participant attacks and the enemy unit defends in a normal clash. Enemy Commanders and Commanders in Command HQ cannot be chosen. Luminous does not provide targeting protection.

Duel spends no Advance token and moves neither participant. Their current stats, position and ordinary clash rules still apply, including Rally, Scorched, Defend, Assault, death and revival. Plague instead resolves at round end. A Commander keeps its distinct combatant rules and has no row. Each source’s Assault affects the enemy Defence Line on that source’s own front.

Quick Study discards one other hand card before drawing two. War Bonds discards one other hand card for two Advance tokens, capped at three. Forced March makes the friendly units currently on one chosen front Fast for the round and draws no cards.

Sabotage permanently adds 1 AP to the payable cost of each physical card currently in the opponent's hand. Repeated casts stack on cards still present. The surcharge follows those cards through zone changes; later arrivals are unaffected by earlier casts. Original printed AP, ability ranges and already-paid Tide queue costs remain unchanged.

Choose an offered Passive, Active or Aura when deploying a General. Only that selected skill is active. Refresh lets a living deployed General change to another offered skill for 3 AP, without restoring spent uses.

Current Main also requires a printed skill choice for Soldiers that offer multiple ability slots. Their unselected printed slots stay dormant. Eligible selected Soldiers can Refresh to a different printed slot for 3 AP, ending the turn while keeping wounds, life identity and used limits. Copied or returned unrestricted Soldier lives do not use that selection-changing action. Keywords and separately granted Actives follow their own rules. Commanders use their own three skills together, subject to exposure, suppression and card restrictions.

Once Upon a Time keeps each Soldier’s printed abilities together. Its spell-only queue and lack of the Main printed-Active speed system are mode differences, not new permissions in Main.

Refresh replaces Recall. The living deployed General stays in place with the same wounds, statuses, physical life and used abilities. It does not heal, redeploy, repeat entry effects or restore an Active use. Copied Generals retain their inherited skill restrictions.

Choose another offered skill and confirm; canceling spends nothing. Refresh is a separate action, so Mr Paradox does not repeat it. Pending Tide responses and mandatory choices block it. Losing or gaining a Passive or Aura immediately updates its eligible effects, including resulting survival changes.

Conditions, triggers and costs may involve units or events anywhere unless the card says otherwise. Where an ability can apply its payoff is a separate question: follow the ranges below and any narrower card text.

Your unit's own front is the front where it is deployed. Friendly territory is your Rear and Vanguard on that front; enemy territory is the opponent's Vanguard and Rear. A front includes both territories and both lines. The battlefield means all three fronts.

Card text tells you whether to choose a unit, a territory or a whole front, and which targets qualify. A broad range does not automatically affect everything within it. Tides follow their own card text.

Use the unit/card original AP cost before discounts, not an ability's activation cost, a discount or the AP actually paid. Reanimated Skeletons inherit the original physical body’s range AP, not its discounted price. Commander cards use the Commander exceptions below.

Use the original AP of the physical card or generated body for ability range. A discounted payment, a Raise Dead half-cost copy, an in-hand cost reduction or AP actually spent does not move it into another range tier. Reanimated Skeletons preserve that original range basis.

A permanent printed rebalance establishes a new original AP: Treant Defender now costs 6 AP and its Pack Tact 3 may choose any ONE front, including its own. Enchantress costs 3 AP and its Pack Tact 2 chooses one OTHER front. Moss Tender costs 1 AP and Pack Tact 1 stays on its own front.

Copied abilities retain their physical body’s identity rather than borrowing a costly donor’s range. Single-recipient effects stay single-recipient, narrower card text still applies and Commander exceptions remain unchanged.

Unit/card AP cost 0–2: use the unit's own front. The card may specify an individual unit, friendly or enemy territory, or the whole front.

Unit/card AP cost 3–5: choose one OTHER front. The source's own front is excluded, and you cannot affect both other fronts together.

Unit/card AP cost 6–8: choose any ONE front, including the source's own front. This does not allow a battlefield-wide payoff.

Unit/card AP cost 9+: an Active may affect the whole battlefield when the card text allows it. Narrower targets and exclusions still apply.

Commander Actives have global range, including while exposed. Follow the Commander's card text and target restrictions.

Unit/card AP cost 0–8: a Passive affects the unit itself or its own front, as the card says.

Unit/card AP cost 9+: a Passive may affect the whole battlefield when the card text allows it. A condition or trigger on another front does not expand the payoff's range.

An unexposed Commander may have global Passive scope according to its card text. Once exposed, its Passive payoff is self or its own front; a remote trigger can remain remote without expanding that payoff.

Unit/card AP cost 0–8: an Aura affects the unit's own front, with any narrower territory, unit or target restrictions in its card text.

Unit/card AP cost 9+: an Aura may affect the whole battlefield when the card text allows it. A broad range does not turn a single recipient into every unit.

An unexposed Commander's Aura has global range according to its card text. An exposed Commander's Aura is limited to the front where it became exposed. Prime Architect's approved non-spatial first-card discount remains independent of destination.

Consume 4 Mastery for each Power Up and retain the remainder: 3 Mastery plus a gain of 6 gives two Power Ups and leaves 1. Anointed values and starting Mastery are unchanged. Mastery does not otherwise scale Actives or Auras; Luminous instead adds a targeted holder's current Mastery to its own friendly numerical payoff at effect resolution.

Each reward package permanently gives Watchers +1 Attack and Stamina; Verdants +1 Stamina; Crimson Hosts +1 Attack; Evil Ones Reanimate 1; Augmenters 1 spendable AP. Wastelands still consume Mastery and record the Power Up event, but receive no faction reward or replacement random keyword.

Temporary and Aura Mastery can be consumed. Consumed contributions remain spent through movement, suppression, reactivation and reload; expiry removes only unspent Mastery. Skeleton revival keeps the same Aura contributions spent. A genuinely new source activation can grant new Mastery.

Transmute X generates X permanent Mastery for another legal friendly unit within Active range determined by original physical-card AP. There is no donor debit. It costs 0 AP, is once per round and ends the turn. Normal Mastery-gain credit and Power Up rules apply, including Ascended progress. Dawn Cantor has Transmute 1. Herald costs 15 AP minus your actual Power Up events before or after drawing, down to 0 until payment; its original 15 AP still determines range.

Shiny Wisp is 1/1 with Anointed 1 and Luminous, and no Passive. It no longer mirrors Mastery changes into Stamina. Ordinary Power Up rewards and targeted Luminous bonuses still apply.

Resolve the existing aura and positional penalties first, with a floor of zero. New card and ability buffs then add their amount up to the effective cap of 20: Turbo Up grants +3 Attack and +3 maximum/current Stamina, even while already in Rear. A later fresh Rear entry halves the totals, including that bonus.

For example, 2 Attack with a −4 penalty becomes 0; adding +3 gives 3 Attack. At 5 Attack with a −2 penalty, adding +3 gives 6. Aura contests still resolve between auras; they do not cancel a played stat buff. Damage already taken remains damage.

Buffs keep their stated duration. When a temporary Stamina buff expires, remove its contribution but leave an otherwise living unit at no less than 1 current Stamina. This includes stacked buffs, Rear units and exposed Commanders. Expiry is neither damage nor healing. Actual lethal damage, costs, sacrifice, destruction and continuous Aura changes follow their own rules.

Commanders start with 20 current and maximum Stamina; their printed Attack does not become 20. No gain or effect can raise effective Attack, current Stamina or maximum Stamina above 20. Defense durability is separate.

Excess permanent gains are discarded. Aura contributions keep their source identity so removal and restoration work correctly; they do not bank permanent excess. Existing damage remains damage.

Compare each opposing Aura independently on the same recipient and typed channel. Higher current Mastery applies, lower is suppressed, and equal cancels. Friendly Mastery 3 and 1 against enemy Mastery 2 leaves only the Mastery 3 contribution applying. Mastery does not scale Aura values.

Blinding Light suppresses enemy Auras, including Commander Auras, in a Left, Middle, Right sequence. Each front lasts one round. The round played counts as the first Left round. Returning Auras recompute their current Mastery comparison without refilling consumed grants.

Necromancer Lord, Enchanted Ogre and Enchantress affect friendly units in friendly territory on their own front, including both existing rows and excluding Commanders. Verdant Protector affects enemy units in enemy territory on its own front, excluding Commanders; its Stamina penalty can kill. Enchanted Ogre counts every enemy unit on the front when calculating its bonus. Root Surge instead applies Rooted to all units on both sides of one selected front until round end, without moving them.

From round 2 onward, each intact defence line restores 1 Durability if it took no actual damage in the previous round, up to its initial Durability. An exposed Commander restores 1 current Stamina if it was exposed by the previous round and took no actual damage that round, up to its current maximum.

Fully prevented damage, Stamina costs, debuffs and temporary-buff expiry do not block recovery. Actual damage still counts if later healed. Recovery happens before round-start card triggers, never rebuilds a breached line and never increases maximum Stamina.

Fine Tune is a 2 AP Slow Augmenters Tide granting Logistical 2 permanently. Life Bloom remains 4 AP Quick: if one of your defence lines is breached, permanently grant Pack Tact 3 instead of healing immediately. Both target Soldiers or Generals, not Commanders. Eligible printed and granted numeric values combine under one 0-AP, once-per-round, turn-ending Active; regranting or Refresh does not refresh usage.

Logistical uses the current hand snapshot, minimum 1 without raising free cards; an eligible Grand Logistician extends its permanent discounts to CHQ and deck, excluding Muster-only cards. Pack Tact retains adjacency and physical source AP range, can heal intact lines, and cannot reopen a breached line. The grant itself does not heal.

Affliction is a 4 AP Slow Evil Ones Tide. Validate and sacrifice three distinct allied units at declaration, separately from another allied Soldier or General receiving the permanent Plague Active. Normal death observers and Reanimate apply. Negate or a lost recipient does not refund those sacrifices or AP. Paradox repeats only the grant. Granting the Active does not infect the recipient or create another duplicate Plague button.

Permanent granted abilities follow native death, Reanimate and supported copy rules with authenticated recipient provenance and spent-use preservation. Pending Plague damage is separate and does not transfer to a new physical life. In Main, printed Active speed takes precedence; granted Enhance, Plague and Pack Tact default to Slow when no printed speed exists, while granted Logistical defaults to Normal.

Each explicitly targeted Luminous holder uses its own current Mastery immediately before that effect resolves. Other holders do not contribute. Multiple recipients are evaluated independently. Each holder has one use per round per life for one original ability or Tide cast, including all its parts and its Mr. Paradox repeat. Zero Mastery or no actual numerical payoff does not spend the use. Death and reanimation or hand return and redeployment give a fresh use; transformation, control changes and keyword suppression or regrant do not.

Delayed and paid Slow effects use recipient Mastery when they resolve, not when they were paid for. Earlier costs or effects can change that Mastery. A Mastery gain cannot amplify itself recursively. Once a persistent payoff is granted, reload or later Mastery changes do not apply the bonus again.

Only the explicitly targeted holder receives its numerical bonus from friendly abilities and Tides. Enemy effects and untargeted areas receive none. Costs, target counts, direct summons, activation limits, Passives and Auras remain excluded; controller AP, draw and hand-generation effects have no targeted-unit bonus. Luminous grants no targeting protection. Until-round-end checkpoints retain their normal expiry.

Evolve X applies on printed deployment or a new grant, then adds all eligible values once at deployed round start: two Evolve 1 grants grow +2/+2. Legacy unnumbered Evolve means 1.

At every qualifying clash start, combine current X from all applicable Overclock grants and gain that much Attack until round end, subject to normal caps and suppression. Each actual activation schedules a separate round-end loss of twice that X Attack, to a minimum of 0. Distinct offensive, defensive and Rally clashes in the same round each trigger; duplicate processing and command replay do not. Mastery is unchanged.

Later offensive, defensive and Rally clashes can each activate Overclock again. Reprocessing the same clash or replaying its command cannot duplicate the activation. Previously saved round-end obligations keep their recorded effects; newly scheduled obligations change Attack only.

Logistical X is a once-per-round turn-ending Active: costs 0 AP to discount cards currently in your hand by X until round end. Physical-card grants stack and follow zone movement; later entrants do not inherit them. The discount floor is 1 AP and already free cards stay free. Muster-only cards are excluded; the activation costs 0 AP.

Another friendly Unit must occupy an orthogonally adjacent battlefield cell on this front, including eligible friendly invaders. The recipient need not be adjacent. Global unit counts do not enable Pack Tact or expand its recipient set.

Restore X current Stamina to one eligible friendly unit or X durability to an intact friendly defence line within the source’s Active range and any narrower restrictions. It cannot increase maximum Stamina, revive or rebuild. Pack Tact costs 0 AP, is once per round on your turn, and ends your turn. Its printed value does not otherwise scale with caster Mastery; An explicitly targeted friendly Luminous holder adds its own current Mastery to the payoff at resolution.

Random positive-keyword pools cannot grant this Active. Moss Tender has Pack Tact 1; Treant Defender costs 6 AP and has Undaunted 2 and Pack Tact 3; Enchantress has Pack Tact 2 while retaining mutually exclusive General skill choices.

Flesh Golem, Banshee and Grave Warden’s selected Active use the current Plague program: 0 AP, once per round, ends the turn, with no activation sacrifice. Affliction can permanently grant that same Active to a Soldier or General. Existing physical source AP range, individual-target protection and exposed Commander targeting remain.

At resolution, count physical unit cards with Reanimate in your own graveyard, once per card rather than adding their Reanimate values. Deal that much damage immediately and preserve the same amount for the end of the following round. Zero is legal. Each hit uses normal damage protection and can be lethal.

A pending target cannot receive another Plague, so Paradox’s second resolution skips it. The second hit clears the marker and permits later targeting. Death cancels that life’s pending hit permanently; revival does not inherit it. The caster need not survive. Blocking damage does not erase the pending marker. Older numbered Plague remains a historical status under its original stored rules.

EMP suppresses positive enemy keywords through round end while preserving underlying grants and consumed charges, including across Aura refreshes.

Root Surge costs 3 AP and is Slow. It applies Rooted to all units of both players on one selected front until round end, including Conscripts and exposed Commanders. It gives no Stamina bonus or bonus Advances.

Every 12 cumulative actual current Stamina restored or gained by friendly units gives Ancient One +1 standard round AP starting next round. It gives no immediate AP and makes no direct carryover deposit.

While Ascended One is alive, 30 cumulative friendly Mastery gained doubles each Power Up reward package. Credit the gain crossing 30 before checking rewards. Event counts remain unchanged. Its 0 AP once-per-round Active consumes all accumulated Mastery from one friendly unit with at least 1 current Mastery, including an exposed friendly Commander, to trigger exactly one Power Up and end the turn. This adds no synthetic Mastery gain. Ascended gives friendly non-Commander units +1 Mastery across the battlefield in CHQ and on its exposure front when exposed, including friendly units in enemy territory. Dawn Cantor instead gives Blur this round to the first qualifying subsequent Soldier or General played on his own front each round. His own deployment, Conscripts, summons and revivals do not trigger it; earlier plays do not consume it.

Grand Logistician is a 12 AP 4/7 Soldier with its extension Passive and Logistical 1 Active, and no Slow. Its Active costs 0 AP, is once per round, and ends your turn. Current Main uses the deployment choice: Active excludes this body’s Passive, and Passive excludes its Active. Once Upon a Time retains both printed abilities together. While active when Logistical resolves, it includes current CHQ and deck cards and makes that activation's physical-card discounts permanent. Extra copies do not multiply the benefit; grants survive source departure. The 1 AP discount floor remains, and existing free cards stay free.

Worldroot Ancient remains 6/6 and retains its hand discount of 1 AP at each round start, down to 0. Its once-per-round, turn-ending Active generates a permanent 0 AP Worldroot Awakening in your hand. Ancient has no printed Undaunted and no on-play Slumber generation.

Worldroot Awakening costs 6 AP and is Quick. It immediately generates exactly one Slumber body in your CHQ. Healing thresholds, Ancient deployment and round start do not generate Slumber automatically.

Each player independently generates stages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then loops to 1 on later Awakening plays. Ordinary carryover Conscripts and paid Plague-packet rewards remain separate. Generated Slumber bodies stay in CHQ until played for their original 3 AP. Their fixed stage stats, Mastery 0 and Normal speed do not gain ordinary Conscript round scaling.

Stages 1–4 grant their Auras to other friendly battlefield units across all fronts, as an exception to their original 3 AP range: Rootwake Tender 6/6 grants Mantle 1; Groveguard Sentinel 7/7 grants Mantle 1 and Beefed 1; Ironbark Guardian 8/8 also grants Undaunted 1; Worldroot Colossus 9/9 grants +3 Attack and +3 Stamina. Caps and exposed-Commander eligibility remain.

Stage 5, Verdant Harbinger 10/10, selects one other front. It temporarily grants Mantle 3 to other friendly units there, then immediately Advances that front. Only its gifted Mantle is removed afterward, including from recipients that never clashed. CHQ is excluded.

Full Dragons have Slow Clash Speed. Ordinary full Dragons and dragonlings have dormant abilities in the Rear; this is not a general ban on their legal movement or combat. Chimera has an explicit Rear exception. Dragonling printed Actives are 0 AP, once per round and Normal-speed.

The Dragon package has approved battlefield-wide payoffs where its card text allows them. This exception does not widen unrelated unit abilities or remove target restrictions. Inspect the card for its eligible partner, recipients and payment.

Each held Death Strike grows independently when an allied physical unit dies: +1 damage, or +2 when a surviving controlled full Dragon and another deployed full Dragon or dragonling qualify. Two dragonlings alone do not qualify. A copy newly generated by that death does not gain the same death’s growth.

Chimera Dragon, Death Strike and Withering Whisper are generated-only and cannot start in a deck. Once Upon a Time uses the current eligible card catalog, including the approved Dragon package, with its own combat and queue rules.

Transcendence is a 6 AP Slow Watchers Tide. Permanently protect an allied unit against damage and reductions to Attack, maximum/current Stamina and Mastery, including combat and clash stat loss. Explicit kills and Curse of the Phoenix bypass it. Voluntary sacrifices and other costs must still be paid. Temporary bonuses expire and withdrawn allied Aura bonuses disappear normally. Movement, silence and unrelated non-stat effects are not blocked.

Curse of the Phoenix is a 9 AP Slow Wastelands Tide targeting an enemy Soldier or General, never a Commander. Resolve final Attack and maximum/current Stamina to 1, including existing bonuses. Mastery, abilities, identity and usage remain unchanged. Old contributions cannot immediately restore the wiped stats or subtract twice when they expire.

Phoenix is a reset, not a permanent ceiling: genuinely new buffs work. Staying inside the same eligible Aura or recomputing its effect does not undo the reset. Genuinely leaving an Aura and later re-entering lets its bonus apply afresh. Reckless Charge separately becomes 4 AP Slow and permanently grants Assault 1 on its chosen allied front instead of temporary Attack.

Drawing removes cards from the top of the deck in order. A hand holds at most ten cards: drawing stops at the hand cap, leaving further cards in the deck. A normal round draw is skipped when the hand is full, without an empty-deck check. Random hand or deck discards select only from that hidden zone; the opponent is not shown its other contents.

Discarding from hand or deck moves physical cards to the graveyard and contributes to the match’s total discard count. Discarding a unit card is not a battlefield unit death and does not by itself trigger allied-death abilities.

A deck with no cards left is not an immediate defeat. A required draw with no remaining card causes deck-out. Discarding more deck cards than remain discards the available cards without inventing additional draws.

Sacrifice X uses the existing named ability’s X, not an invented count of bodies. Cultist has X=1, Ghoul Scavenger X=2 and Dark Priest X=3; each pays one eligible physical body. Other destruction costs do not automatically become Sacrifice X.

Death Collector discards the opponent’s top three deck cards for each other allied physical unit death while the Collector survives that death cohort. It does not count itself or allies that die simultaneously with it. The original death followed by Reanimate counts, and a later death of the resulting unit can count again.

Different death observers retain their own conditions. In particular, Feast’s final Skeleton-death requirement differs from Death Collector’s physical-death trigger. Neither hand discard nor deck discard creates a unit-death event.

The Cursed One receives Skeletons instead of ordinary Conscripts. Every successful Skeleton muster costs 0, then 1, then 2 AP, and so on each round. Failed musters do not increase it. Each player tracks their own count; the cost resets to 0 AP next round. Ordinary Conscripts still cost 1 AP. Each successful muster, including the free first one, ends your turn.

Ordinary deployed Conscripts gain their next base tier at the start of rounds 4 and 7: 1/1, Mastery 0, Slow becomes 2/2, Mastery 1, Normal, then 3/3, Mastery 2, Fast. Existing wounds and buffs are preserved, with positional suppression still applied. Conscripts waiting in CHQ do not grow and retain their normal expiry. Skeletons and Slumber bodies use their own progression instead.

Ordinary Skeleton generation has no Reanimate in rounds 1–3, Reanimate 1 in rounds 4–6 and Reanimate 2 from round 7. Used revival sources do not return. Reanimate X on an ordinary unit records its true death, then creates a new X/X Skeleton in its death cell, never CHQ. The replacement inherits faction, baseline Mastery and speed, eligible skills and keyword durations, and spent ability uses. A General contributes only its selected skill. Inherited source AP affects range, not payment or targeting power. Commanders retain their own revival rule.

Feast grants +1 Attack and restores 1 current Stamina, capped at maximum and 20; it never increases maximum Stamina. Units with Skeleton in their original card name, including Skeleton tokens, qualify regardless of controller, subject to the source Passive range. Copied names alone do not qualify. Only final Skeleton death counts for Feast; a death followed by Reanimate replacement does not. Expiry and other non-death removal do not. Captured passive self-gains stop with the old source’s death; future inherited passive events may affect the replacement. Actual on-death triggers still resolve. Normal caps, Passive range and Commander exceptions remain.

Armageddon is a 12 AP Slow Tide. It snapshots all non-Commander battlefield units, adds Reanimate 3 to friendly units and Reanimate 1 to enemy units, then kills the original cohort before inserting its replacements.

The records menu Graveyard shows public cards and relevant tracked effects. Reanimate X is the current keyword value; for ordinary units, X sets the replacement Skeleton’s Attack and Stamina. Printed Reanimate remains part of printed identity after its source is consumed. An unused temporary grant removed or expired before death does not persist as eligibility.

A granted Reanimate that was actually used retains physical-card eligibility on a later death, but does not restore consumed keyword sources. A copied profile is distinct from the physical card’s history. Keyword-grant counters record applications and cumulative values, rather than successful revivals. Beyond the Last Grave uses actual successful friendly Reanimation events, including Commanders; retained Graveyard eligibility is not a revival event. Hidden hands and draw piles are never reconstructed for this view.

A General killed in round 4 remains in the Graveyard during round 5 and returns to its owner's CHQ at the start of round 6. Death during round-end processing still belongs to the round that is ending.

Recovery happens before AP refill, round-start triggers and the normal draw. The General returns with full printed stats and no selected skill, following the normal Graveyard-return reset. Earlier revival or leaving the Graveyard cancels that pending natural recovery. A later death starts a new wait; terminal games do not continue their round boundary.

System Override installs a permanent effect: each positive AP payment by the opponent makes them randomly discard two hand cards, then draw two. Paying 6 AP is one payment and triggers once; paying 0 triggers none. The draw is still two if fewer hand cards were discarded. Each additional installed copy triggers independently.

Data Leech makes the opponent randomly discard one hand card, then draw one whenever it is targeted, including combat/Advance and Relocate selection. It draws the full one even from an empty hand. Normal target eligibility and source-life rules still apply.

Each Supply, No Demand doubles both players’ draws, including replacement and other effect draws. Copies multiply: two copies make a draw four times as large. After each individual opponent draw, each applicable Supply discards two random cards from that opponent’s remaining deck before the next draw.

Soul Bargain observes a formal Sacrifice X payment: the opponent randomly discards X hand cards, then draws the full X even if their hand was empty. Repeated resolutions install independent permanent copies. Costs are paid once when an effect repeats; the repeated payoff does not invent another payment.

Scrap Artillerist’s once-per-round Slow Active damages a chosen enemy Defence Line for the total actual cards discarded from either hand or deck this game. The counter includes both players and survives reconnects. Draw multipliers and per-card draw/discard ordering can reach deck-out before a larger chain finishes.

Declaration requires six physical unit cards in your graveyard and three distinct eligible Soldier definitions. Tides, past death events and vanished bodies do not count. Rank base Attack, base maximum Stamina and original AP cost, retaining effects that genuinely persist in the graveyard, such as Soul Reaper progression. Choose exact ties; duplicate definitions count once.

Lock the chosen physical originals. They stay in the graveyard. Each fresh copy costs 1 AP, has maximum/current Stamina 1 and Reanimate 1. Recheck at resolution: fewer than six graveyard units makes the whole paid effect fail; otherwise skip missing or ineligible originals without replacements. Mr Paradox repeats copying those same originals, subject to the normal ten-card hand limit. New casts do not create the historical enrollment window.

Raise Dead ranks eligible own graveyard Units by Attack, maximum Stamina, then original AP. The player chooses an exact tie. General copies enter CHQ and other copies enter hand, preserving retained properties and an inherited selected General skill; cost becomes half original AP rounded down in either zone. Orbital Reset restrictions do not apply.

Prime generates a random eligible Soldier or Tide it has not successfully generated for you earlier this match. Different cards of an already represented faction remain eligible. The choice is by card, not by faction, and includes eligible generated-only cards. Conscripts, Generals, Commanders and retired cards remain excluded.

Each successful own-Active generation permanently records its faction. Played, discarded, destroyed or removed cards still count; you do not need to hold six faction cards at once. Draws, steals and other generation do not count. The existing Passive must still be active for the victory condition.

Your used-card history survives reloads and replacement or copy sources and is separate from your opponent. An exhausted pool never resets: the Active is unavailable without spending the action, AP or once-per-round use. A full hand still generates nothing and follows the existing action/use rule; it does not consume a card definition.

Sum of All Parts costs 12 AP and creates a 0 AP Scrap Drone in hand. Its equal base Attack and Stamina come from the number of positive keyword applications recorded this game, from 1 to 20. Its inherited keyword types and cumulative numerical values are fixed at resolution. The inherited bundle is not counted again; the normal on-summon random keyword still counts. Missing older history is not invented. Orbital Reset excludes all Conscript families.

Main is the standard game: shared six-entry action queue, current printed Active speeds and current Soldier skill choices. Play normal matchmaking, private lobbies or bots; Ranked has its own admission requirements and player queue.

Draft uses Main combat rules with an all-faction drafting pool, a saved draft deck and its own bot or human match flow. Draft games do not grant ordinary match rewards or Ranked progress.

Once Upon a Time is believed to be the first timeline, before the world discovers someone has been tampering with space and time. Their identity remains a mystery. Its spell-only queue lets Quick Tides retain initiative, regular Tides resolve immediately and close a response, and Slow Tides queue with a 6-entry limit. It does not use Main’s shared Slow Active/Advance queue or printed-Active speed selection system. Its deck copies and matchmaking are separate. It offers normal PvP and Medium bots without Ranked or per-match rewards.

Training contains ten guided scenarios. Endgame, Deserters Rising and Singularity are upcoming timelines, not currently playable choices. Stored older matches retain their own supported rules; this guide describes newly created current games.

Pick one Commander, three distinct Generals and a 40-card draw pile from deterministic offers. Any faction can appear, regardless of collection ownership, with up to three copies of a pile card. Tokens, retired cards and cards unavailable in the mode are excluded.

Picks save as you go. After a completed match, find another draft opponent or play a bot again with the same drafted deck. Ending a game does not consume the draft or force another build.

Use Retire this draft when you want to build a different deck. A pending or active battle must be resolved or closed through the normal recovery flow before starting another.

Finish all ten Training scenarios and five unranked matches against other players to enter Ranked. You do not have to win those five matches. Bot games and matches ending before play begins do not count.

The nine divisions from Newbie III through Commander I each take 100 Ladder Points (LP). Wins and losses usually change LP by about 30, within 25–35 depending on the matchup. At 100 LP you advance automatically and carry excess forward. You cannot fall below Newbie III at 0 LP. Climbing 900 LP reaches Conqueror; battlefield score does not add LP.

Conquerors use Conquest Rating (CR). Complete a Ranked match at least once every seven days to remain on the active Rankings board; inactivity does not drain CR. A sufficiently low CR returns you to Commander I.

Ranked pairs players by skill and widens its search over time. Normal and Ranked queues stay separate. Seasons last 12 weeks and apply a partial rank reset while preserving past season records. Surrender counts as a loss; a Draw changes LP, CR and MMR by 0.

NewbieIII → II → I

RookieIII → II → I

CommanderIII → II → I

ConquerorConquest Rating

Grand Offensive, The Last Free Company and Cinder Marshal are retired. Existing saved decks keep their original IDs and counts. Remove these cards manually before playing; no replacements or automatic deck cleanup occur. All Conscript variants can be inspected in libraries and editors but cannot be added to decks. Old matches with a different card-set, engine or ruleset version cannot resume actions or authoritative replay on the current authority; preserving records does not bypass compatibility checks. Training may require an explicit restart.