Battle

Battling overview, how to play Zenonzard.

## Deck (and gear)

**Deck**
Zenonzard decks are made of 40 cards exactly. (Cards that are added to hand via outsude the game do not count towards the deck total.)

There can only be three coppies of each card.

**Life Counters**. Physical gameplay requres counters(Chips, Dice,etc)  for Life totals. (Digital games would do the counting automatically)

**Two Forces**. Players cannot use two of the same force.

Neutral Mana stack. Players can use anything to represent Neutral mana, such as other cards outside the deck, this can be unselected Forces that aren't in use, or random other cards.

**Related Cards.** The cards that are pulled from outside the game. Some cards can pull cards from outside the game (outside the cards in the deck), such as Token Minions.

## Board / Game mat

**Field.**
an area toward the front of a players side of the board. The focus area of battle. Minions placed here can battle. it is limited to 5 spaces for minions (only 5 minions can be on the field at once.)

**Deck**.
An area towards the right The area to place the deck. The cards in the deck cannot be checked.

**Player Life**
An area in the low middle. Player life is kept count here.

**Force**
Two areas- one towards the center-left and one towards the center-right, next to the Player Life.

**Base**
an area towards the bottom(Physical), or middle(Game), its placement is always behind the Field. The Base fits 10 cards, therefore there can only be 10 Mana on the base at once.

**Trash.**
Either to the left, or to the right (placed behind the deck). Banished cards are placed with the Trash, but in a separate pile.

## Card Types

### Magic Cards

Magic cards have effects that activate immediately after playing them from the hand. They can only be used once before being placed in the Trash, but can also be the key to turning the tables on your opponent

### Force Cards

Forces are objects avalible from the start of the game that support players by providing special effects.

The Number on the top of each force is that force's heath (Force Points). Forces can be attacked, and will be destroyed when the Force Points reach 0. A Force's ability willl not activate when the Force is in the Rest State. When a force is destroyed, its [When Destroyed] effect will activate, after which, it will no longer have an effect on the battle. Destroyed Forces should be placed face-down on the game mat. Destroyed forces are shown to be broken in digital game play.

### Mana Cards

Specific Neutral Mana cards are not needed to play, and players can just use any other card outside the deck that is not in use flipped face down to use as Neutral mana.

## How to Play

### Before the Game

Players each shuffle their own decks and then have the opponent shuffle their decks.

Determine who is going first.

Players reveal the two Forces they are using. and calculate their force and life points, then set up their life counters. The toatal force and life points a player has at the beguinning of the game is 12(the 12 points are distrabuted between the forces and player life).

Draw six cards from the top of the deck.

Players can pick out any cards that they don't want from their initual draw and place them under the deck, then draw the same ammount of cards from the top again to replace them. When this occurs, players have to shuffle their decks again afterwards.

Once players are ready, the game begins

## Turn Structure

Players Alternate turns, in which turns progress as such:

1. Standby Phase
	1. Start
	2. Refresh
	3. Draw
2. Mana Phase
3. Main Phase
4. End Phase

and then the other player's turn starts and carries out in the same way.

## Turn Sequence

### 1. Standby Phase

The Standby Phase is comprised of the Start, Refresh, and Draw steps, and will proceed in that order.

1. **-Start**. This is the first step when a player begins their turn.

they recieve one Movement, which can be used to move a minion from the base to the field ot vice versa.
The player going first will not have any Movements on their first turn.

1. **-Refresh** All of your Forces, minions on the field, and cards in the base are put in the Active State.

To put cards in the Active State, change a card currently in the horizontal position to the vertical position.

1. **-Draw** Take one card from the top of the deck.

The player going first cannot draw a card on their first turn.
Players can only have up to ten cards in their hand. Any further cards will be immediately discarded to the trash.

On the second turn, the player whose turn it us draws two cards.

On every other turn, players draw one card.

### 2. Mana Phase

The player may choose one of three actions: place a Base Minion, place a Neutral Mana, or do nothing.

* -**Place a Base Minion**. Choose one Base Minion card from the hand and place it in the base.
* **-Place a Neutral Mana.** Place one **Neutral Mana** in the base. The player is free to use anything to use as Neutral Mana, provided it can be easily seperated from the other cards in the game (namely Base Minions and Field Minions)
* **-Do Nothing / Skip**. End the Mana Phase without putting down any mana. Cards placed in the base act as Colored Mana corresponding to the color of the card. This mana can then be used to pay the cost of playing cards in-game.

in a physical game, players may just use their unused force (or other) cards flipped face down to represent Neutral Mana.

#### Base Card Limit

The Base can only hold up to ten cards. If there are already ten cards in the base and the player wants to place a card, the player must discard a card to replace it with the new one.

If a Neutral Mana is removed from the base, it goes back to being removed from the game.
If a Minion mana is removed from the base, it goes to the Trash.

### 3. Main Phase

During the Main Phase, Players can:

* Summon a Minion
* Activate Magic
* Move a minion
* Attack with a minion
* Activate abilities (such as Boost)
* Pass

#### Paying Cost

Paying cost involves selecting the required mana to play a card.
Card costs have two characteristics: Colored Cost, detailing which specific colour mana must be paid, and Basic Cost, in which any mana can be used to pay.
The overall cost of the card is the number written in the top left corner. While the cost details for the specified colours, if any, are detailed in dots underneath.

#### Field Card Limit

Players can only have up to five minions on the field at a time.

If players wish to summon minions to the field or advance minions frm the base or other potentual means to stick mor eminions in the field, then they must choose a minion to destory first before replacing it.  [When Distroyed] effects do not activate when this happens.

#### Attacking

During the main phase, the active player may attack the opponents Life or Force with the minions on their field.
Attacking has multiple steps:

1. Select Target
2. Flash Phase
3. Block Phase
4. Battle
5. After an Attack

##### **Select Target**

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##### **Flash Phase**

During Flash Phase, players are able to use cards for a quick chance of modifying the battle situation.

Things the player may do during flash phase are:

* Play a minion card

* Play a magic card

* Do nothing / pass.

The player recieving the attack is the first to go into a Flash Phase, and when their Flash Phase ends, the other player goes into flash phase. The Flash phase will keep flip flopping between both players untill both of players pass.

Eg.

P1 attack targets P2 > P2 goes into Flash Phase and plays a card > P1 Goes into flash phase and passes> P2 Goes into flash phase and passes > Flash phase ends

or

P1 attack targets P2 > P2 enters flash phase and passes > P1 enters flash phase and passes> Flash phase ends

Cards that can be used during flash phase includes magic cards with [Flash] effects or Minion cards with the [Swoop] ability.

Block Phase

After the flash phase when an attack occurs, the player recieving an an attack may choose to block it with a minion on the field.

Things the defending player can do during Block phase:

* Choose a minion that will block

* Pass

When a minion blocks, it takes the attack and the player does not recieve damage, unless the attacking minion has an ability like [pierce].

If the blocking minion has a [When Blocking] ability, it activates here.

##### Battle

Once the defending player has chosen to block or not, battle occurs.

If the defending player has decided to block with a minion, the attacking and and blocking minion will battle. When this happens, the minion with the lower BP will be destroyed, or if the minions have the same BP, they both get destroyed. Destroyed cards get placed in the Trash.

If the defending player does not choose to block, the targeted Force or Player Life gets damaged by the ammount of DP the attacking minion has. The DP value will get subtracted from the life or force value.

#### Destroying Forces and Life

A Force is destroyed when its Force Points reach 0. The force will then activate its [When Destroyed] Effect, after which the player must flip it face down.
Force effects become inactive one the force is destroyed.
One both of the opponent's forces have been destroyed. minions can attack the opponent's life on the same turn that the cards have been summoned to the field or placed in the base.

If a Player's life reaches 0, they loose the game.

### 4. End Phase

The end phase is the last phase of a Turn.
The end phase plays out as follows:

* All [At the End of Your Turn] Effects Activate.
* [On your Turn] and [At the end of your turn] affects are lost.
* All remaining Movements are lost.
* Once everything resolves, the other player starts their turn.

### When Multiple effects activate at once

when multiple effects happen at the same time, the player whose turn it is decides which of those effects are resolved first, reguardless of who activated the effects. In the case of three or more effects activating, the order of the effects must be decided before resolving them.

If a new effect is activated as a result of another effect, the new effect must be immediately resolved before moving onto the others.

### Limits on life restoration

Forces and players can only have up to 10 life or force points each. Upon reaching 10, Life and force will not increase further, even if effects are activated to increase them.