How to play
The rule of the game is extremely simple:
- At the beginning of the game, each player draws three cards.
- At the beginning of every turn, each player draws draw one card.
- To end their turn, players have to play one card from their hand. It will add its value to the Total Power of that player.
- After both players end their turn, the played cards are revealed, and a new turn begins.
- After 5 turns, the round ends. The player with the most Total Power wins the round and collects a Relic for themselves. The cards on the board are discarded, and a new round begins.
- Whoever wins 3 rounds wins the game.
While the rule is simple at first glance, the game has a few neat mechanics to spice things up. Each player can perform two additional action before playing a card to end their turn: Boost and Cast Spell.
Boost
Players can discard any card on their hand to add 3 Power to their Total Power for this round. This action is called Boost. You must have at least 2 cards on hand to be able to boost one of them.
Boost is a powerful to gain extra Power to turn the table in clutch situation, but it is also a double-edge sword and must be used wisely.
Each player starts the game with 3 cards on their hand. Boosting reduces the number of cards on their hand. So normally, each player can only boost 3 times in one game.
Boost too much, and you will find yourself with only one card left on hand, and you have no choice but to play whatever card you draw. You will completely lose control of your strategy. So think before you boost.
Spell and Mana
Each player starts the game with 5 mana gem on their board. With these, players can cast powerful spells. But there is a twist to this to this mana system. Whenever a player plays a card, that card will cover a mana gem on the board, preventing them from using it for this round. So, on the first turn of the round, you can access to 5 mana. On the second turn of the round, you can access to 4 mana. Keep that going, and on the fifth turn of the round, you can only access to 1 mana. The mana that was covered is not usable until the new round starts.
The mana system gives many problems for the player to consider. Would you like to cast a weak spell that cost 1 mana at the 5th turn, giving the enemy no chance to react ? Or would you like to cast a stronger spell that cost 2 mana at the 4th turn, and give the enemy opportunity to react on the 5th turn ? Should you use all the mana for this round ? The choice is yours.
That's it ?
Of course not! There are plenty of things I want to talk about. But the focus of this post is the basic flow of the game. In the next few days, I will go in depth into the mechanics of the game, the Factions, the Relics, etc... So stay tune for more.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3227150/Relics__The_Card_Game/