V2 Rules

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Card Structure
See the article 'Card Structure ' on how each card is designed.

Card Types
There are 5 different card types in this game:

- Creatures. These are creatures that fight for you in the game. They will attempt to defend your own immortal while trying to enable you to defeat your opponent's.

- Conditions: These are cards that can be used to strengthen your position in the game. You can play as many condition cards as you want during your turn. Conditions can only be played during your preparation phase (unless otherwise stated).

- Spells: These are cards that commonly must be cast by your creatures. A spell will state how a creature casts it. Fulfill these instructions and play the casted card next to the creature. Resolve its effects and the discard it (unless otherwise stated).

- Gear Cards: These are cards that can be used to strengthen individual creatures. Gear cards are attached to an individual creature (place it under that creature but visible), and are discarded when that creature leaves the field.

- Legendaries: These are powerful cards, similar to conditions, which represent your life but also have powerful effects. Legendaries commonly have abilities when 'flipped' (when taking damage would cause you to turn them face up). They also may have an ability that allows you to discard them from the game for a powerful effect. This essentially is a trade-off of one life for a powerful effect. Please note: this discard effect does not occur when the legendary would be discarded except by activating that effect. Please also note you cannot use these discard effects during your opponent's turn.

Deck Structure
To play ImmortalsTCG, you need a deck of 40-50 cards.

There are a few restrictions to what cards can be used in a deck:

1) You may only use 1 copy of any card (name). (The only exception to this is characters with the Generic ability.

2) You must use at least 1 Rank 1 character. (Without this creature, you cannot begin the game).

There are no other restrictions to what you can use in a deck. You can mix habitats and colours and use any amount of creatures, gear, conditions, areas, spells and runes.

You also need exactly 5 legendary cards which will be placed in the 5 legendary zones to represent your health (see Affliction and Setting Up The Game). You may also have up to 5 creatures in a 'side deck'. This is a separate deck which covers additional creatures. The types of creatures that can be played in the side deck are exclusively limited to Evolution creatures and Combination creatures. For more information, see the article below on How To Construct a Deck.

Setting Up The Game
To play the game, you need a 40/50 card deck and 5 legendary cards. Shuffle your deck and place the deck in the deck zone on your field and place the five legendary cards into your legendary zones in an order that you feel they may benefit the game. (See Legendaries if you need guidance).

To start the game, determine who is going first.

Both players choose a rank one character in their deck and place it in their central character zone. This character becomes their Immortal. Players will play higher rank characters onto this character to 'rank up' their Immortal as the game progresses. Please note: effects that activate when a card is 'played' or 'recruited' do not activate at this time as the game has not yet started.

Both players draw 5 cards.

The player who goes first cannot rank up their Immortal or attack that turn.

Playing The Game
The game of Immortals TCG is played in a series of turns. Each player's turn is broken up into a number of phase.

1. Initiative

During the initiative phase, a player readies all of their creatures and draws a card. They also resolve any effects that occur during initiative.

2. Preparation

During the preparation phase, a player can activate any cards and abilities in any order they desire. In addition, they may recruit one creature (see Recruiting).

3. Attacking Phase

A player may then attack with any of their creatures. (See Attacking).

4. Turn End

Resolve any effects that occur at the end of the turn. Play turns to the next player.

Immortals And Supporters
A player only has one Immortal. Think of this as their representative during the game. This creature must and should be the strongest creature they control.

The immortal is the only creature they control that can take damage (see Damage). Any other creatures they control are supporters. A player may control up to 4 supporters.

Recruiting
Once during a player's turn, they may play a creature from their hand. This is called a recruitment. This creature may be played on top of your immortal as a new immortal, or may be a supporter. If you recruit a creature as your Immortal, you must play it onto your Immortal which is the same rank or one rank higher than your previous Immortal. If you play a supporter, it's rank must be lower than your Immortal's.

Recruiting An Immortal: To recruit an immortal, play that creature on top of your current immortal.

Recruiting A Supporter: To recruit a supporter, its strength must be equal to or lower than your immortal.

In both instances, all effects and costs that are listed on the card (or other cards on the field) must be met and any offering (see Offerings) must be paid.

Please note: a player can only play a new Immortal through recruitment or a card effect or ability. If a creature would be brought into play via a card or effect and that card or effect does not specifically state that the creature is, or can be, played as your Immortal, it must be played as a supporter.

Please note: a player can play any number of additional creatures during their turn if they have effects and abilities that allow them to do so, but they can only recruit a creature from their hand once per turn.

Please note: a creature's ability that activates 'when recruited', only activates if it is played in this way. If the effect states 'when this creature is played', it activates whenever that card comes into play whether it is via recruitment or if played by an effect.

Offering
Some creatures have an offering. This is a cost that must be paid to bring the creature into play. Some creatures have a number next to this. To pay this offering, a player must discard creatures from their field equal to or higher than that number. (For example: a creature with Offering: 3000 means you must discard creatures whose strength equals at least 3000 to play). When paying this offering, the strength of your immortal may also be added to the cost. (If this is the case, the current immortal is not discarded to pay the cost, but place the new immortal on top of it as normal).

Some creatures have other kinds of offerings, such as discarding a certain card.

If a creature has multiple offerings, they must all be paid.

For example: Dunkler Kaiser has two offerings: Offering:3000 and 'return a Dunkler creature from your hand to the top of your deck'. You must therefore discard creatures whose strength equal 3000+ and place a 'Dunkler' creature from your hand on top of your deck (show it to your opponent).

Please note: a single card can only be used to pay one cost/offering for a card being played. For example, an evolution creature must be placed on top of a certain creature. If that evolution creature also requires an offering to be paid, the creature it was placed on does not count towards its offering as it has already been used as the evolution material. As a second example, if a creature stated: Offering: 3000 and discard a creature, creatures discarded to pay the 3000 cost cannot also be the discarded creature for the second offering.

An offering is a Permanent Condition (see Permanent Conditions).

Attacking
To win the game of Immortals TCG, a player needs to attack their opponent's immortal a number of times. Each time a player's immortal is hit, they take 1 damage to their legendaries (see Affliction). When they cannot, they lose the game.

To attack with a creature, follow the following steps: 1) Attack Declaration Subphase - A) Choose a creature to attack with, then B) Choose a creature for it to attack.

2) Validity Subphase - This effect determines whether an attack target is valid or not. Here, any effects that would change the attack target are used. Intercept or effects and abilities that would change the attack target must be used as this point.

3) Effect Subphase - In this sub phase, any effects that activate when the attacking creature attacks activate and resolve. Then, any effects that activate when the defending creature is attacked activate and resolve. This includes all effects that a player may wish to use during this battle.

4) Battle Subphase - This is the main phase of an attack and is where the actual attack takes place. The attacking creature and the target compare their strength. If the attack was against a supporter, whichever creature's strength is lower is defeated (discard defeated supporters). If the attack was against an immortal and hits, they are afflicted (see Affliction). This is treated as the winning creature 'hitting' the opposing creature. If the two creatures have an even strength, neither is defeated (and neither is treated as 'hitting' the other). Please note that if one immortal attacks another and the target's strength is stronger during the resolution of the attack, the attacking immortal is hit and is afflicted. Similarly, if a player's supporter attacks and loses, that supporter is discarded.

5) Hit Subphase - A) Any effects that activate when the creature that hits would hit with an attack activate, then any effects that would activate when the hit creature is hit activate. B) If a hit creature is not Immortal, it is treated as defeated, then discard it. If the creature is Immortal, resolve all afflictions it suffered (see Affliction).

In the event of a stalemate, skip the hit subphase.

6) Resolution Subphase - The attack ends. You may then continue your attacking phase.

Battling
When a creature attacks another creature, they are treated as 'battling'.

Affliction
If a creature's immortal is hit, that player takes 1 damage. This is called an affliction. To resolve an affliction (and represent this 1 damage), the player either turns over their next legendary in order OR discards an existing faceup legendary. If an immortal takes damage while a player does not have any legendaries left, that player loses the game. This is not the same as effect damage (see below).

Intercepting
Some creatures have the Intercept keyword ability. When another creature would be attacked, during the Validity subphase, you may dedicate a creature with Intercept. If you do, that creature becomes the attack target instead. This can be helpful in protecting your creatures: especially your immortal.

Teaming
Sometimes, you may come across a creature(s) that none of your creatures are strong enough to hit. If this is the case, you may attack it with multiple creatures. To do so, place the two creatures together and dedicate them both.

When a creature is hit by a team, the team compares their combined strength with the strength of the attacked creature. If the team's strength is higher, the attacked creature is defeated and discarded. If not, the attacked creature defeats BOTH creatures in the team.

After the attack is resolved, place those creatures back in their original zones.

You can team a creature with your immortal.

Winning the game
There are two ways the game can end:

- When a player's immortal is hit and they have no legendaries, they lose the game.

- A player may surrender at any time. If they do, their opponent wins the game.

If a player's deck runs out of cards, the game continues until the game ends one of these two ways.

Keyword Abilities
All creatures have at least one keyword ability. Some of these are restrictions on the creature (such as Immortal or Supporter) and some of these are additional abilities.

Keyword abilities are always active. See Keyword Abilities.

Other Ability Terms
Other terms such as 'Submerge', 'Take Flight' and 'Generic' will be listed in the abilities of creatures. For a full list of these terms and their effects, see Glossary Of Ability Terms.

Evolving & Side Deck
Some creatures, evolution creatures, exist outside the game. Place these in a separate deck (the side deck).

Evolution creatures may be played at any time by placing them on top of the listed material.

For example, if a creature stated 'Evolve: A creature with 3000+ strength', place that evolution creature from your side deck on top of the chosen 'material'. Please note: If a creature also has an Offering listed on it, the evolution material does not count towards that offering as it is already treated as part of a different cost to summon the card.

Please note: a creature cannot evolve the turn it is played (including the first turn).

Please note: You can control as many evolution creatures as you want but you can only evolve one creature per turn.

The side deck has a maximum size of 5 cards.

Using Card Effects
All card effects in Immortals TCG are optional unless otherwise stated. For example, some keyword abilities are non-optional. Also, all permanent conditions are not optional. Finally, costs are not optional. Other abilities and effects may also be non-optional. Additionally, if an effect is used, you must fulfil that full effect. However, if you use one of a card's effects, and it has multiple separate effects, you are under no obligation to use them. Please note that ALL effects are optional unless otherwise stated on the card or unless the effect is a permanent condition. Furthermore, no effects have 'trigger' automatically or are 'mandatory' unless otherwise stated within the game, so if any effect timing is missed, that effect did not activate. Players must remember to activate their abilities when they can but there are no repercussions for missing an ability. Furthermore, players in a casual setting should decide amongst themselves if their opponent can 'take back' part of the game to play an effect they missed.

Please also note that once an effect is activated, the entire effect must be fulfilled. If a player cannot fulfill an effect, the effect cannot be activated.

For more information, see 'Card Effects '. (Note: this will probably not be important if you're just starting out).

Effect Damage
Some effects state they 'deal a creature x damage'. This is not the same as damage to an immortal from an attack. When a creature takes damage, their strength is reduced by that amount. If this would reduce their strength to below 0, discard them. Dealing this damage is referred to as Lethal Damage. Use damage counters or dice to keep track of what damage has been dealt to a creature. Players should attempt to clearly distinguish difference between things tracking damage dealt and things tracking strength reduction.

At the end of a player's turn, both Immortals remove all damage from them.

If a character is healed (See Healing), then that much damage is removed.

Lethal Damage
If a supporter would take so much damage that its strength is reduced below 0, discard that creature.

If an Immortal would take such damage, it is afflicted and then all damage on that creature is removed.

Reducing Strength
Some effects also state that they 'reduce x creature's strength x amount'. Strength reduction may also be portrayed by a minus symbol in the same way a plus sign might be used to show a a strength increase ie'That creature gets -1000'. This is not the same as effect damage. When a creature's strength is reduced by an effect, their strength is reduced by that amount and if their strength is reduced to below 0, they are discarded. This is referred to as the creature being Withered. If an Immortal would be Withered, it suffers an affliction and then all strength reduction is removed. Please note: some strength reduction effects are constant. For example, an effect that states 'An opposing creature gets -1000 while this creature is on the field', then while that creature is on the field and the effect is still active, that creature constantly has -1000. However, if an effect states 'Choose an opposing creature. It gets -500', and that Immortal is Withered, then that effect ends. This is because the former effect is constantly active while the creature(s) in question are active. The second example is a one-off effect that activates, resolves and then no longer exists.

Strength reduction is not removed when a creature is healed.

Cards Under Cards
When upgrading your immortal by playing stronger creatures, and naturally occurring during the game, some creatures will build up a pile of creatures under them. These cards are not treated as part of the game and cannot be interacted with except through card effects that specifically do so.

If a card would leave the field, all cards under it are discarded.

Attaching Cards
Some cards, such as gear cards and spells, state that they are to be attached to a creature. If they are, they cannot be unattached. When a card is attached to a creature, place it slightly under that creature so that all of its effects are visible but it is clear that it is attached to that creature. Please note: cards attached to a creature are not treated as 'cards under' a creature. When a creature leaves the field, all cards attached to it are discarded.

Face down Cards
Some cards have the ability to be turned face down. A face down card is still treated as a card while on the field and can be interacted with by any appropriate effects. However, a face down creature cannot be attacked and cannot do anything. If a face down creature would do something, such as attack, cast a spell or use an effect, they are turned face up again before they do so.

Other rules
Cost: Some effects and abilities require a cost. Costs must be paid. If a creature requires a cost to play, it must be paid before that creature is played. If the playing of that creature is then negated, the cost has still been paid. Similarly, if a creature would cast a spell or use an ability that would require them to be dedicated, that creature must still be dedicated. Only in a situation where the cost is also nullified or negated is the cost not paid. Costs include: dedication, discarding cards, anything written after 'Cost:' and Offerings. Not all costs are permanent conditions (as previously stated, some can be nullified in certain ways) but some costs - such as offerings - are. Most costs to play creatures are Offerings however additional costs to play a creature will be listed as such on the card. For example 'As an additional cost to play this creature, discard a card'.

Costs within card effects are usually stated inbetween two commas in a card effect. For example 'When this card is played, dedicate, draw a card' the cost would be 'dedicate'. These costs are explained in greater depth in the Card Effects article.

Dedicate: Dedication is a state in the game. Some effects or spells are too exhaustive for a creature to cast and this is represented by dedication. When a creature is dedicated, they are turned sideways. Dedicated creatures cannot do anything (unless stated specifically by a card). This includes casting spells (even if that card itself would not require that creature to be dedicated to cast it). Creatures that are dedicated may still be targeted by conditions or have cards attached to them but cannot play these cards themselves. Creatures that attack are dedicated as part of the attacking process. Please note: intercepting creatures do not dedicate (unless otherwise stated). Dedication is a cost. If a creature is dedicated to attack, activate an ability or cast a spell and that attack, ability or spell is nullified, that creature is still dedicated as that creature has attempted to do this action and that action has been prevented.

Discard: A common cost for cards is to discard card(s). To do so, place that card in your discard pile. If a card simply says 'discard x card(s)', you may discard those cards from your hand or field. Only if it states that the cards must be discarded from your hand (or field) must they be exclusively sent from one place. Please note; any offerings must be paid by discarding creatures on your field unless otherwise stated. Exile: Some cards may exile themselves or other cards. The exile pile is a pile outside of the game and the discard pile. The idea with this is that the exile pile will be harder to access than the discard pile. Flipped: Some cards refer to when a legendary is 'flipped'. This means when a legendary is turned faceup as a result of taking an affliction.

Generic: Whereas normally you are only allowed 1 copy of any card in a deck, a card with generic may be included as many times in a deck as the number listed on the card adjacent to the Generic statement. For example, 'Zombie Merman' has Generic: 10 meaning your deck can contain 10 copies of Zombie Merman. Generic is a permanent condition.

Hand Size: There is no hand size limit in Immortals TCG.

Nullify: When a card refers to an effect being nullified, that means the effect no longer happens.

Offering: Offering (see Offering) is a permanent condition. A creature with Offering must pay the costs listed in its offering to be played.

Permanent Condition: Some cards have text written on them that are permanent conditions. Permanent conditions cannot be ignored or nullified and are always active. Permanent conditions include: Generic, Offering and any text accented by a *. Please note, although they are similar, permanent conditions are not keyword abilities.

Reveal: Whenever a card refers to 'revealing' a card(s), that means showing it to your opponent.

If a specific type of card is required to ruse an effect, that card must be revealed to prove the correct type of card is being used. For example: 'Dunkler Kaiser' requires you to return a 'Dunkler' creature from your hand to the top of your deck. As that card must be a 'Dunkler', you must show your opponent that card before placing it on top of your deck.

However, if the effect resolves without requiring a type of card, that card does not need to be revealed. For example: if 'Dunkler Kaiser' instead required you to return a card from your hand, as that does not to be any type of card in particular, the card does not need to be revealed to the opponent.

Re-set: Some, very rare and powerful, effects may refer to 'resetting' a legendary. To reset a discarded legendary, (place it from your discard pile into your legendaries in a vacant zone facedown.

Set: Some effects may refer to 'setting' a legendary. This means turning a faceup legendary facedown. This is essentially similar to healing.