Da Rules, and a Glossary (NEW: Basic Tutorial)

Tutorial:

Making a deck:

To make a standard starter deck, choose two elements. Here, we use the six Neopian faerie elements. Not all decks are two elements, but it’s useful because you won’t get cornered by a card that’s of an element you’re weak against, but you also will usually be able to find the kind of elemental energy you need.

A deck consists of 30 cards. Starter decks are composed entirely of Common cards. Rarer, more powerful cards can be found in booster packs.

There are three kinds of cards in your deck. There are Fighters, which are central to the game, energy cards, which you attach to your Fighters so they can do stuff, and events, which are one-use cards which can turn the tide of battle. It is recommended that your deck contain 5 events, 10 Fighters and 15 energies.

Someday we’ll have a shiny list up. Choose from the list.

The Basics of Gameplay:

1. To begin the game, assign numbers (1-30) to each card in your deck. Roll a 30-sided dice 7 times. ([dice=30]) The cards that correspond to the numbers you roll are the seven cards you begin with. If you roll the same number twice, just choose the card that corresponds to the next number down. If you do not have an Fighter card in your hand, disregard all seven rolls and roll seven times again. Your opponent then gets to roll for two more cards.

2. Roll a 2-sided die to determine who goes first. Though Twinky duels are still an option, says I.

3. Begin the game. The one who goes first starts the first round. One turn is composed of a number of 'phases' as explained below in order:

- Draw Phase
Dude #1 rolls a 30-sided die to draw a card from your deck.

In addition, any status effects with lingering damage (poison for example) do their damage during this phase.

- Deployment Phase
Dude #1 puts an Fighter down as his Active Fighter. This is the Fighter that does all the attacks for now. In this case he puts Meepit into play.

On his first turn, he can also put an Fighter on the Bench. However, this rule was written after this tutorial, and Rider is hungry and rushing.

Meepit (Colorless)
HP: 5
(*) Bite - 1 Damage
(*)(*) Tackleglomp - 3 Damage
Beneath that adorably furry exterior lies a heart of pure insanity.

Certain Fighters have Special Powers with text stating 'When this Fighter comes into play ...' Apply any effects from these Special Powers right now.

Do note that all subsequent Fighters will be deploy directly to the bench, which will be detailed later.

- Energy Phase
Dude #1 can now attach an energy card to any of his Fighters. For now he only has Meepit so he attaches a Dark energy card to it. Because everyone knows how evil they are >_>

Meepit (Colorless)
HP: 5 / 5
Attached: (D)

- Event Phase
Dude #1 can now play an Event card if desired, not that there’s a lot to lose or gain first turn. He chooses not to obviously.

- Retreat Phase
Dude #1 may now retreat his active Fighter and switch it with one of his benched Fighters. This costs 2 energy cards of any type which are discarded and shuffled back into your deck. (Note: Unless specifically stated otherwise, this is the only form of energy discarding that shuffles them back into your deck)

Dude #1 doesn't have any reason to retreat Meepit, and neither does he have any benched Fighters so he skips this phase.

- Attack Phase
The player who starts first cannot attack, obviously because the second player doesn't have anything on the table yet. We'll get to this phase later so for now Dude #1 skips this phase

4. End your Turn
Yup, that's right. After your active Fighter attacks that's it for your turn. You cannot play any events, attach energy, etc. Now your opponent takes their turn and repeats everything in step 3.

Interlude:
Now, this Energy thing.

011:
Tabloid Town Pierat (Water)
HP: 5
(*)(*) Needle Sword – 3 damage
(W) Gnaw - 2 damage

If Dude #2 plays this card as her Active and attaches a Water energy to it, she can use Gnaw right away. If she attached, say, a Fire energy to it, she couldn’t use the Gnaw attack because it requires Water. If she attached two random elemental energies (like Fire and Air) to it over the course of two rounds, she could use Needle Sword because Needle Sword doesn’t require specific elements. Asterisks (grey circles on the actual card graphics) mean that it doesn’t matter what kinds of energy you use.

For simplicity's sake, the symbols for each element are as follows:
(D) = Dark
(W) = Water
(F) = Fire
(E) = Earth
(A) = Air
(L) = Light

And now a helpful tip from our sponsors:
Keep track of your Fighters' HP remaining, which cards are where in your deck, and which cards are in your hand. For this I recommend having a piece of paper handy.

And now let's go back to the game at hand.

Dude #2 plays down Tabloid Town Pierat and attaches a Water energy on Pierat

Tabloid Town Pierat (Water)
HP: 5
Attached: (W)

She skips all other phases till she comes to the attack phase. She then proceeds to use the Gnam attack on Meepit.

(W) Gnaw - 2 damage

This does 2 Damage on Meepit.

Meepit (Colorless)
HP: 3 / 5
Attached: (D)

Certain attacks may have additional effects other than damage so read your card carefully before using them. Some even have requirements to fulfill in addition to the energy costs. Examples include discard energy cards and poisoning the target of your attacks.

Fast forward a few turns. Assume Meepit and Pierat nomnomnom on each other like good little rodents and Meepit’s at 1/5 while Pierat's at 4/5

On Dude #1’s next turn, he begins by drawing. He can play another Fighter, but this one will be on the Bench.

The Bench is where Fighters who aren’t actively attacking go. They can be switched with the active Fighter if the active Fighter pays a Retreat Cost. The retreat cost is 2 energies unless otherwise stated. The 2 energies have to be attached to the retreating ally at the time. For example, if Dude #1 attached another energy (of any color) to the Meepit, the Meepit could retreat to the Bench. But there has to be an Active Fighter out at all times so you can only retreat when there's another Fighter on the bench to take their place.

Dude #1 puts Shiva on his bench. He attaches an energy to the Meepit and retreats it to his bench. He discards both of the Meepit’s energy cards and places them back into his deck. He makes Shiva the Active Fighter because one must always have an Active Fighter. However, Shiva doesn't have any energy attached to him at the moment so he can't attack. Dude #1 thus decides to lay low and end his turn

Dude #2 rolls a 30-sided die to draw a card, then puts Stal’s Whiteboard on her bench. The Bench, as said before, is where Fighters who are not attacking sip strawberry smoothies and chillax. I would really like to be on the Bench right about now. Dude #2 then does something very foolish. She attaches an Air energy to Stal’s Whiteboard. One can only attach one energy per turn, so now the Pierat doesn’t have enough to retreat. She believes her 4/5 HP Pierat is safe, but little does she know…

Pierat uses Gnaw on Shiva and it’s the end of her turn.

Shiva (Dark)
HP: 6 / 7
Attached: -

Dude #1 rolls a 30-sided to draw a card, doesn't play any other Fighters down to the bench, attached a Dark energy to Shiva, and finally attacks Pierat with Demon Hooves.

003:
Shiva (Dark)
HP: 6 / 7
Special Power: Demonic Speed - This Fighter does not pay a retreat cost.
(D) Demon Hooves – 2 Damage
“No, Shiva, that’s not edible, that’s Leoness.”
Attached: (D)

Elemental weaknesses are important factors in the game, and they may be the difference between victory and defeat.

… God help me, I’m turning into an NPC…

Light > Dark > Water > Fire > Earth > Air > Light

Dark is strong against water, so it does twice as much damage. 2 * 2 = 4, Tabloid Town Pierat is knocked out.

Dude #1 now has 1 out of the 4 KOs needed to drive him to victory in a chariot of shiny and gold.

And that is to how to play in a nutshell. There are many more effects used in the game and various ways to achieve that shiny victory but we'll leave all of you to figure out your play style. Have fun!

[glow=red,2,300]Dissecting a card:

I am not responsible for any internet memes referenced here.

Thanks Chessy for these diagrams.[/glow]

[glow=red,2,300]*has been caught*

*hangs her head in shame* T_T[/glow]

Questions: When powering up a card, is the card that it was powered up from discarded, moved to the deck, moved to the hand, or is it treated as if the the powered-up version was 'attached' to it and it doesn't go anywhere?

Also, if something you do knocks out your own card, does that count as a 'win' toward your opponent, or does it not count toward anything?

And how are 'sudden death' matches treated?

EDIT: And what happens if someone's deck runs out of cards to draw?

Another Question: What happens if you don't have any creatures out, but your opponent has not killed 4 of your creatures and you have some left in your deck? Do you lose?

A couple of questions:
- If somebody is poisoned/paralysed/asleep, how does it affect retreating?
- Do benched cards keep their poision/paralysis/sleepiness?
- How many allies can you bench at the start? Is it just one, or as many as you want?
- If you knock out somebody's card, where does the energy and the card go? Back into the deck, or on a discard pile?

When an Ally card is returned to the hand, will it still retain its status effect and HP damage?