C-23 Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• What You Need to Play
• Object of the Game
• Game Setup
• Types of Cards
• Putting Cards in Play
  • Tapping Your Resources and Characters
• Paying for Cards
• Starting the Game
• Playing the Game
  • Your Turn
  • STOP!
• How to Attack
  • A. Attack
  • B. Block
  • C. Combat
  • D. Discard
  • E. End Combat
• Attacking and Blocking: What Happens
  • Unblocked Attacking Characters
  • Blocked Attacking Creatures
  • Example of Attack
• Additional Rules
• Multiplayer Rules
• Glossary

What You Need to Play

All you need is a deck of cards for you and a deck of cards for your opponent.

Object of the Game

Run your opponent's deck out of cards--you win if your opponent's deck has no cards!

You start the game with a deck of cards that represents the armies fighting for you. Your goal? To conquer your opponent's armies by discarding cards from his or her deck until every card is gone. Most of the time, you'll do this most of the time by attacking your opponent's deck with cards called characters.

Game Setup

Put your deck of cards on the table. When the game starts, this is all you'll have in front of you.

Be sure to leave room for your discard pile! All of your cards that get discarded during the game, no matter how they get discarded, will go there.

During the course of the game, you'll put other cards on the table. All cards on the table other than those in someone's deck or discard pile are referred to as being in play. Be sure to leave yourself room for the cards you'll put in play.

The cards you have in play and in your discard pile should be face up all the time.

Types of Cards

There are four different types of cards in this game. Search your deck for an example of each type of card before you continue.

• Resources don't do anything on their own. Once you put them in play, though, they act like bank accounts to store "money" that you use to pay for your other cards.
• Characters are your main tools. You put them in play and then use them to attack your opponent's deck. Every character has a power that indicates its strength. This power will be important later on.
• Actions are one-shot cards that do something once and are then discarded.
• Combat cards are like action cards, but they're played as a surprise when either player attacks.

Most of your cards are either characters and resources, since it's tough to win without characters and you can't put characters in play without resources.

Putting Cards in Play

Resources and characters don't do anything until you put them in play on the table. Once a resource or character is in play, you can use it over and over again. So how do you put a card in play? This is where your resources will come in handy!

Tapping Your Resources and Characters

Resources (and characters) can only be used once each turn, and you'll show you're using them by tapping them. You tap resources in order to pay for other cards.

Whenever you use a card, you show that it can't be used again until your next turn by turning it sideways. This is called tapping it.

When your next turn starts, you show that you can use your resources and characters again by turning them upright (untapping them).

Paying for Cards

Characters, actions, and combat cards have a cost that you have to pay before you can do anything with them. The better a card is, the more it costs. To pay for a card, simply do the following:

1. Find the card's cost. A card's cost is the number in its upper-lefthand corner.
2. Pay the card's cost by tapping (turning sideways) that number of your own resources in play.
3. Cards come in three colors (red, green, or blue). When you tap your resources to pay for a card, at least one of these resources has to match the color of the card you're paying for. The rest can be of any color. For example, you can pay for a green card that costs 4 by using one green resource and three red ones.
4. If you've paid for an action or combat card, follow the instructions in the rules text, and then discard it.
5. If you've paid for a character card, put it face-up on the table in front of you (in play). You pay this card's cost only once, when you put it in play.

Sometimes you simply won't have resources in play that match the colors of the cards in your hand. If this happens, you'll have to wait until you draw the right resources to play those cards.

Starting the Game

Before the game begins, you and your opponent need to decide who goes first. If the two of you just played a game, the loser gets to go first; otherwise, decide randomly. Flip a coin, play rock-scissors-paper, or whatever works for you. Now you're ready to play!

1. Shuffle your deck several times, then put it face-down in front of you and draw a starting hand of seven cards.
2. If your starting hand has fewer than two resources, you won't be able to do much, so shuffle your hand back into your deck and draw a new hand of seven cards.
3. The only thing you should have on the table at this point is your deck.

Playing the Game

As you play, you and your opponent take turns. During your opponent's turn, you don't do anything unless your deck is attacked. During your turn, go through the steps below in order.

If you can't do anything during a step, that's okay--just go on to the next one.

Your Turn

1. Untap your characters and resources.
2. Draw a card.
3. Put one resource in play.
4. Play action(s) and/or put character(s) in play.
5. Attack with your characters.
6. Your turn is over. Your opponent's turn begins.

If you're not playing yet, you're ready to start now!

Let's look a little closer at each of the steps in your turn:

1. Untap your characters and resources.

If you have any tapped characters and resources on the table (in play), turn them upright (untap them). This shows that you can use them again. If you don't have anything to untap, go on to the next step.

2. Draw a card.

You have to do this each turn. If your deck runs out of cards, you've lost, and you should start a new game!

3. Put one resource in play.

You may put one resource in play from your hand but only one each turn. This doesn't cost anything, so you should put a resource in play every turn if you can. If you can't put a resource in play, go on to the next step.

4. Play action(s) and/or put character(s) in play.

You may play as many actions as you like and put as many characters in play as you want, as long as you have enough resources to pay for all of them. You may play these cards in any order.

If you decide to play an action card, pay its cost, follow the instructions in the rules text, then discard it.

If you decide to put a character in play, pay its cost, then put it in play untapped. Once it's in play, it stays in play until something discards it. You never pay its cost again.

Most characters have special rules written on them (rules text) that change how those cards work. Some of those rules apply when a character is put in play, so be sure to read every character before you play it.

Remember that your action cards and characters just sit in your hand doing nothing until you pay their cost. If you find you don't have enough resources to pay for any of the cards in your hand, you can't do anything else during this step of your turn.

If you don't have any actions or characters you can play, go on to the next step.

5. Attack with your characters.

If you have a character in play, read "How to Attack" below and follow steps A through E.

If you don't have a character in play, go on to the next step.

6. Your turn is over.

Now it's your opponent's turn.

STOP!

Don't read any further until you have a character in play with which you can attack. Remember that each player gets to play just one resource a turn, so it may be a few turns before either of you can afford to do much.

How to Attack

Attacking your opponent is as easy as A, B, C, D, E!

• A. Attack: You choose your attacking characters.
• B. Block: Your opponent chooses his or her blocking characters.
• C. Combat: First your opponent and then you can each play a combat card.
• D. Discard: Figure out what happens.
• E. End Combat: Your turn's over now, so go on to your opponent's turn (this is step 6, above).

(See below for details on each step.)

During step 5 of your turn, you should look over all the characters in play, your own and your opponent's, and decide whether attacking would be a good idea that turn. Generally, the only bad attacks are the ones where you lose a character and your opponent loses nothing.

A. Attack

You choose your attacking characters.

• Turn your attacking characters sideways (tap them) to show that you're using them. This also lets your opponent know what is and isn't attacking.
• Characters that were already tapped can't attack since they've already been used.
• Attacking doesn't cost anything.

B. Block

Your opponent chooses his or her blocking characters.

Your opponent looks the situation over and decides whether or not to have any of his or her characters block your attacking characters.

• Each of your opponent's characters can block one of your attacking ones.
• Your opponent taps his or her blocking characters to show that they've been used. Your opponent also lets you know which of your characters each of his or hers is blocking.
• Characters that were already tapped can't block since they've already been used.
• Blocking doesn't cost anything.

C. Combat

First your opponent and then you can each play a combat card.

• Your opponent chooses first whether or not to play a combat card.
• Next, you choose whether to play a combat card, even if your opponent chose not to play one.
• Playing a combat card works just like playing an action card. You pay its cost, follow the instructions in the rules text, and then discard it.

D. Discard

Figure out what happens.

The exact results depend on which of your characters are blocked by your opponent's characters.

• A character that isn't blocked discards a number of cards equal to its power from your opponent's deck.
• A character that is blocked checks its power against that of the character blocking it. The character with the smaller power is discarded; if the characters have the same power, discard both of them.

E. End Combat

This ends your turn. Now it's your opponent's turn.

If one of your characters discards all of the cards from your opponent's deck (even if it could have discarded more), YOU WIN! You also win if your opponent's deck runs out of cards for any other reason (so you win if your opponent draws his or her last card, or if you play a card that makes your opponent draw more cards than he or she has left).

This, of course, is the whole point of attacking--to run your opponent out of cards. If it feels like you're smashing your opponent's deck to bits. . . good! Keep going! You're doing a great job, soldier!

Attacking and Blocking: What Happens

Unblocked Attacking Characters

Power of Attacking Character Is	What Happens
Any Power	Discard a number of cards from your opponent's deck equal to that character's power.

Blocked Attacking Creatures

Power of Attacking Character Is	What Happens
More than its blocker's power	Discard the blocking character
Less than its blocker's power	Discard the attacking character
Same as its blocker's power	Discard both characters

Example of Attack

Only your attacking characters, your opponent's blocking characters, and your opponent's deck are shown.

The numbers shown on the cards are the characters' powers.

• 5. These are the characters in play when you decide whether or not to attack.
• 5A. Attack: You have more and stronger characters than your opponent, so you attack your opponent's deck with both of them.
• 5B. Block: Your opponent chooses to block one of your characters.
• 5C. Combat: You and your opponent each decide not to play a combat card this turn.
• 5D. Discard: Your unblocked character discards 4 cards (its power) from your opponent's deck and...
• 5D. Discard: Your attacking character has more power than your opponent's blocking character, so discard your opponent's character.

Additional Rules

Unique Characters: Some characters are labeled on the card as "unique." You can't put a unique character in play if anyone has a copy of that character currently in play. Also, if you have a special card that instructs you to put the unique character in play, ignore that instruction if there's already a copy of that character in play.

Blocking with More Than One Character: You're allowed to block an attacking character with more than one of your characters. Here's how it works: when you get to step 5D ("Figure out what happens"), discard the attacking character if the blocking characters' combined power is at least equal to the attacking one's. At the same time, the attacking character discards any combination of the ones blocking it whose combined power doesn't exceed its own.

Example: If you choose to have a character with 3 power and one with 4 power together block an attacking character with 6 power, the attacking character is discarded. The attacking player can choose to discard either your 3-power or your 4-power character, but not both.

The Order in Which Events Happen: Normally the order in which events happen is determined by the turn sequence. And if it isn't, it usually won't matter in what order the different events happen. But in case it does, the player whose turn it is decides the order in which those events happen.

Multiplayer Rules

Three-Player Game: You can say anything you like during the game to any player, but whatever you say must be said aloud so that anyone can hear it. If you want, you can show cards in your hand to everybody, but you can't show cards secretly to just one other player.

All the regular rules apply, except:

• The winner is the last player surviving.
• Your characters can only attack the player to your left (which means you will only be blocking attacks from the player on your right). During the attack, just the two players involved get to play cards or make combat decisions; the third player doesn't do anything.
• If the player on your left is eliminated, you get a bonus: randomly choose up to seven cards from your discard pile and put them on the bottom of your deck.
• Whenever you play a card that says "your opponent," you can pick either one of the other two players. In other words, the player you picked counts as "your opponent" when you play that card.
• This rule will almost never come up but just in case: if a situation ever occurs when one player does something and both of the other players can react to it in some way, the first player to the left does whatever he or she wants to do, and then the next player does whatever he or she wants to do.

Glossary

• Action: You play actions during the same part of your turn as when you put characters in play. When you play an action, follow the instructions in the rules text, and then discard it.
• Attack: You have your characters attack your opponent's deck so they can discard cards from it. When you attack with a character, tap it to show that it's being used. Characters that were already tapped can't attack.
• Block: Your characters block attacks against your deck, so the attacker fights your blocker(s) instead of discarding cards from your deck. When you block with a character, tap it to show that it's being used. Characters that were already tapped can't block.
• Character: You put characters in play so they can attack and block. Most characters have rules text that affects how they work or tells you what happens when you put them in play.
• Combat card: You play combat cards during any player's attack. When you play a combat card, follow the instructions in the rules text, and then discard it.
• Combat resolves: The part of combat when you figure out what happens is sometimes called resolving combat.
• Cost: Cards other than resources have a cost. You pay a card's cost by tapping that many resources, one of which must be of the card's color.
• Deck: Your deck consists of the cards you haven't drawn yet. If your opponent's deck runs out of cards, you win.
• Discard pile: Your discard pile contains your cards that have been discarded for any reason. These cards are placed face-up on the playing surface.