Introduction:
Welcome to my currently unnamed Competitive TCG. This game will test your preparation, planning, and decision-making skills. With the Player who wins, being the one which gives themselves the best edge possible.
Core Principles:
The core principles of this game are simple. The focus of it is planning and counter play. Being able to understand your opponent’s patterns and deck should give a stark advantage.
Beyond that, the systems and cards have been designed in such a way to limit RNG, making it one of the least random of the major TCG’s on the market.
The games will have a slower tempo, with less overall cards hitting the field, but those individual cards having more power –– and importantly more Player decisions related to how one goes about using them.
Two Players may even use the same card in totally different ways, to completely different results.
Matches should be brisk coming in around 10-to-15 minutes per game.
Deck Building:
We’ll start the explanation at the first thing you’ll have to do before getting into a match, which is making a deck.
The Deck building process is a very involved one, with it being one of, if not the primary determination of skill and if you will win or lose.
We will go over a few core principles of Deck building and introduce some ideas that will be fleshed out as we go.
First you need to know that your Deck is made up of different types of cards. For now, we will just look at the primary three.
Phantom Cards are cards with Attack and Health values. They are able to Attack and engage in Battle with other Phantoms on the field. Along with being able to attack the other player.
Cards have what is called an Ability. Abilities are special properties that cards have that allow them to interact with the game mechanics in a unique way.
The other two types of cards only have Abilities. Those being Spirit and Counter Cards. Spirit cards can be played on your turn to utilize their unique Ability to give you an edge. Counter Cards are the same as Spirit Cards, but they can be activated on your opponent’s turn and are often designed around responding to your opponent, to try and countertheir play.
Using these Card types and more, you will build a Deck to Duel. However, saying deck isn’t quite right, because you will actually be building multiple Decks.
You see, each deck is made up of three pieces. The Main Deck , which you will draw from. The Side Deck, which you can access with specific cards and between Duels. Then the Extra Deck , which can be accessed at any point for you to be able to Special Summon Phantom Cards from it directly (acting as a secondary hand you always have access to).
You can add up to 3-copies per card to your deck.
Your Main Deck must be comprised of 30 Cards, with a Maximum of 50 Cards.
Your Side Deck can be comprised of up to 20.
Your Extra Deck can be comprised of up to 10 Phantom Cards.
If you are playing multiple a Match with multiple duels, such as best of 3, then between each duel you can freely move cards between your three decks.
But you cannot add in new cards or take cards out of your decks entirely.
Duels:
In a duel, the two Players will try to reduce their opponent’s Life Points to 0 in order to win (or activate an alternate win condition).
To do so, players will use their cards to outplay their opponent.
Both players start with 10,000 Life Points. At the start of the duel, one Player goes first and another goes second.
At the start of the game, both Players Draws 5 cards from their Main Deck. Then both Players go into the Mulligan stage. Where they select 0-5 cards to place to the side, and then they draw the same number of cards from their Main Deck. Cards not selected stay in the hand. The Player then decides which of the two groups of cards they want to keep in their hand. Between group of cards set aside or the group of newly drawn cards. Add the selected group to your hand. The unselected group is reshuffled back into the Main Deck.
Once done with the Mulligan Player 1 then takes their turn.
At the end of Player 1’s Turn, it becomes the Middle of the Round and the Draw Phase begins.
Both Players draw a card.
Then Player 2 takes a turn.
Once both players have taken a turn, the Round ends, with a new Round starting.
Each turn each player has 4 Summoning Points.
Phantom Cards cost Summoning Points to Summon equal to their Level.
Summoning Points it shortened to SP.
If you have more or less than 4 SP, at the start of your turn they are reset to 4. Unless an Ability is used to gain additional SP.
There is no limit on the number of cards that can be played, besides the resources at your disposal.
Very importantly.
There is a mechanic the Unsummon Mechanic.
Players, on their turn, can Unsummon a Phantom card they control.
This gives them the current Summoning Point value of that Phantom back.
The Summoning Points they gain can be used to Summon more Phantom Cards like normal.
A Special Summon is a Summon that does not cost SP to perform.
Phantom Cards can be played in Attack or Defense position.
Phantom Cards can be played face up or face down in either position. While face down they cannot activate their Abilities. (Unless otherwise stated).
Phantoms cannot Attack Directly the turn they are summoned.
However, they can attack other Phantoms.
Phantoms cannot Attack Directly, if there is another Phantom Card on the opponent’s side of the field.
While in Attack Position, Phantoms can initiate an Attack by Targeting another Phantom for an Attack. If a Phantom successfully Attacks another Phantom they enter into Battle.
In Battle Both Phantoms’ Attacks get deducted from the opposing Phantom’s Health.
When a Phantom has zero Health remaining, it Breaks.
When a card Breaks it is sent to the After Life.
When a Phantom is the Target for an Attack and takes more Damage beyond their Health, the controlling Player takes the excess Damage.
Defense Position Phantoms do not pass on Excess Battle Damage to their Player.
But Defense Position Phantoms cannot initiate an Attack.
(Besides that change for Defense Position, Battle calculations work the same regardless of Attack or Defense Position and regardless of if a Card is face down).
When a Face Down Phantom is Targeted for an Attack it is Flipped Face Up.
You cannot Unsummon a Phantom the same turn it has Battled.
But you can Unsummon a Phantom that Direct Attacked the opponent.
Besides Breaking, a card can also be:
Discarded, Banished, or Destroyed
Discarded Cards are sent to the After Life.
Banished Cards are sent to the Shadow Realm.
Destroyed Cards are sent to Oblivion.
Phantom Abilities can be activated on either Player’s Turn.
Spirit Cards can be activated on the Player’s turn by placing them onto the field and activating their Ability.
Both Spirit and Counter Cards can be placed face down onto the field and kept there.
Counter cards can be activated on your opponent’s turn. They cannot be activated the turn they are set unless their Condition is met.
Other Card Types:
Environment: Each player has an Environment Field Slot, which an Environment Card can be placed in. Environment Cards effect and can be used by both players when only one is on the field. When two are on the field, only the Environment card on your side of the field effects only you and your cards.
Field Slots:
There are Three Phantom Slots and Three Spirit/Counter Slots. Alongside Two Balance Slots where Phantom Cards, Spirit Cards, and Counter Cards can be played.
With extra individual slots for specific types of other cards (such as Environment Cards).
3 Phantom Card Slots.
3 Spirit/Counter Card Slots.
2 Balance Card Slots.
1 Deck Slot.
1 Side Deck Slot.
1 Extra Deck Slot.
1 AL (After Life) Slot.
1 Shadow Realm Slot.
1 Oblivion Slot.
1 Environment Slot. [1 For each player].
Reading A Card:
Phantom Cards:
Phantom Cards each have a unique name. They are a level between 1-10.
They can have many Architypes. An Architype shows what cards synergize together and if two cards can work on each other.
Phantom Cards have Attack Points and Health Points. Attack Points are indicated first, then Health Points. Short hand for both of these together is Stats.
Phantom Abilities can be activated on either Player’s Turn.
Spirit cards – must be played onto the field before activating. Can be activated on the users turn.
Counter card – Must activate a trigger to be played. Can be activated on
opponents turn, or any turn after being played and the opponent has ended
their turn.
Game Mechanics:
The Ability Point System:
Ability Points are Abilities that Cards have that can be triggered in any order. Ability Points normally have limiters on how many of them can be Activated.
For example, a Card might have 1 Ability Points per turn. But have three different Ability Point Abilities they could activate.
Ability Point(s) is written as AP.
Some AP Abilities might cost more than 1 AP to Activate them.
Here are some Ability text keywords and what they mean.
Once per Turn: This specific ability can only be activated once per each Turn.
Once per Round: This specific ability can only be activated once per each Round.
At the start/end of the turn/round: This ability can/will activate at the start/end of the turn/round.
Once per Summon: This specific ability can only be activated once per each Summon.
On Summon: This specific ability can only be activated when a card has just been summoned.
Once per Card: This specific ability can only be activated once per copy of the card.
Once per Duel: This specific ability can only be activated once during the
duel.
Architypes are the basis of deck building. Cards within the same Architype synergize well together. There are no restrictions for deck building, but having cards that do or don’t synergize well together will dictate how strong the deck you build is.
Architype Path:
Architype Path is a mechanic that allow for further synergies between Architype cards that are along the same Path.
The way the Path works primarily, is that Architypes are layered under each other. With Path Rank2 cards being able to be used on Path Rank 3 cards, but not the other way around.
Or more simply a card will be printed like this:
Archetype: Swordsman
Archetype Path: Life – Mortal
If an Ability says something like, give a Life Phantom 500 Health.
Then as long as a card says it has that Archetype the Ability will work. Even if that isn’t the card’s main Archetype.
Architype Branching:
Some cards have can also connect up to other Branches. Any Branch Architype has the card be additionally treated as that Architype.
Draw Phase:
After Player 1 ends their turn the Draw Phase Begins.
Both Players Draw a card during the Draw Phase.
After Drawing, before the Draw Phase Ends:
Both Players are able to decide if they want to Spend SP to Draw Additional Cards.
If you have less than 4 Cards in hand, you can Spend 2-SP to Draw a card.
If you have 4 or more Cards in hand, you can Spend 4-SP to Draw a card.
You can then Spend more SP to draw more cards, until you run out of SP to spend.
After both players have had a chance to Draw additional cards for SP, the Draw Phase Ends.
Extra Deck Mechanics:
The Extra Deck can have 0-10 Phantom cards in it.
Abilities that Special Summon can be used to Summon Phantoms from the Extra Deck.
At any point during your turn you can spend 4-SP to add an Extra Deck card to your hand.
Or you can spend 2-SP to Trade out a Phantom from your hand, placing it into your Extra Deck, and adding an Extra Deck card back to your hand in exchange.
The going second Player has the cost of Adding a card or Trading a card out of the Extra Deck halved the first time they initiate this mechanic.
Adding would cost 2-SP and Trading costs 1-SP.
Every use of this mechanic by the going second Player after this first use costs the normal SP amount.
Lines:
You can react to your own cards or your opponent’s cards with your Abilities.
And those Abilities can be reacted to as well.
When this happens it forms what is called a Line.
Each new Ability activated becomes a part of the Line.
Each new Ability added to the line becomes the next Line Step.
The first Ability is Step 1, then the next is Step 2, then Step 3, Step 4, and so on.
Each activated Ability extends the Line. Once Abilities have stopped being added to the Line the already added Abilities will activate in order from newest added to oldest added.
Once a Line starts resolving, neither player can activate their cards in response to it.
Mandatory card Abilities are added to another Line after the current Line Resolves.
Ability Speeds:
Different actions, cards, and Abilities have different Speeds.
A regular action a player takes, such as playing a card, or declaring an attack, is Speed 0.
Phantom Card and Spirit Card Abilities are default Speed 1.
Counter Card Abilities are by default Speed 2.
There are some specific Abilities that are of higher speeds. Such as Abilities printed with Quick Play which increases the default speed value by 1.
And Max Speed which automatically becomes the fastest Speed in play.
A card/Ability must be of equal or higher Speed to be activated in response to another card.
You can only react to the last Ability activated.
You cannot react to Abilities that came earlier in the Line.
Speed 0 cannot react to anything including other Speed 0 actions.
Line Break:
When an Ability of a higher speed is activated in response to a lower Speed Ability, what is called a Line Break occurs.
After a Line Break, a lower Speed Ability than the current new line cannot be activated.
Only Abilities of the current Line Speed or higher can be Activated.
For example:
Player 1 has a Phantom declares an Attack.
Player 2 Activates a Phantom Ability. This action makes a Line Break and starts a new Line and becomes the second Step in the line.
Player 1 Activates a Spirit Ability, becoming Step 3.
Player 2 Activates a Counter. This counter causes a Line Break.
Now only Speed 2 or better Abilities can be Activated in response.
A Line Break has the card that caused the Line Break become Step 1 of the new Line.
Each Line is resolved in order of Speed, following the Steps from highest to lowest.
When a Line is fully resolved up to where the Line Break occurred, the highest numbered step can be reacted to again.
Any new Ability activations are added onto that Line. However, just as normal, once a Line starts resolving you can no longer activate any card in response.
Not until another Line Break, where you can only activate a card in response to the highest step in that current Line.