DC Deck-Building Game: Crisis Expansion Pack 5 – Dark Nights: Death Metal Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Quick Reference
  • Crisis Mode Rules
  • Defeating a Super-Villain
  • Winning the Game
  • Losing the Game
  • Game Structure
  • Start of Turn
  • Player Actions
  • End of Turn
• Overview
• Contents
• General Crisis Setup
  • Storyline Selection
  • Super Hero Selection
  • Super-Villain Stack
  • Weakness Stack
  • Crisis Stack
  • Main Deck and Crisis Cards
  • Crisis Main Deck
  • Start of Game
• Crisis Mode Rules of Play
  • Objective of Crisis Mode
  • The Line-Ups
  • Storylines
  • Defeating Villains and Rewards
  • Super-Villains Are More Challenging During a Crisis Game Since You Must Beat Their Crisis Before You Can Defeat Them
  • Crisis Cards
  • Villains Prevent Beating Crisis Cards
  • The Batman Who Laughs and Rescuing Captured Characters
  • Weakness Cards and Getting Captured
  • End of Turn
• Additional Rules
  • Ally
  • Ambush Attacks
  • Character
  • Foes
  • METAL Cards
  • Removed from the Game
  • Rounds
  • Stack Ongoing
  • Surge
• Challenges
• Competitive Mode
• Specific Card Clarifications
  • Trinity Crisis
  • Crisis Super Heroes
  • Main Deck Cards
  • Super-Villain Cards
  • Crisis Cards

Quick Reference

Crisis Mode Rules

• When a Weakness is destroyed, return it to the stack. Playing 2 in the same turn ends your turn and Captures one of your Characters.
• When you gain a Villain from any Line-Up, you must put it into your score pile.
• Before you can beat a Crisis, you must remove all Villains from all Line-Ups.
• Before a Super-Villain can be defeated, you must beat the current Crisis. (Villains in any Line-Up do not prevent you from defeating the Super-Villain.)
• During your turn, you may Contribute any number of cards in your hand towards the Crisis, as long as they have a required trait. You may Contribute cards to a Crisis even while there are Villains in any Line-Up.

Defeating a Super-Villain

1. Resolve its Reward.
2. Resolve The Batman Who Laughs.
3. Resolve any abilities that trigger off of defeating a Villain or Super-Villain.
4. Put it next to the Storyline and advance the Storyline if the next defeated Super-Villain threshold is reached.

Winning the Game

Beat each Crisis and defeat all the Super-Villains before time runs out!

Losing the Game

If you need to add a card from the Crisis main deck to the Crisis Line-Up and cannot, your team loses the game. (You do not lose if you cannot refill the main Line-Up.)

Game Structure

A. Start of Round

1. Storyline: Resolve any Start of Round abilities on the Storyline card from top to bottom.
2. Crisis: Resolve any Start of Round abilities on active Crisis cards.

B. Player Turns

Starting with the player with the Storyline card, each player takes a turn.

Start of Turn

Resolve all Start of Turn abilities in any order.

Player Actions

1. Play Weakness cards.
2. Perform the following actions any number of times and in any order:
   • Play a card from your hand.
   • Contribute a card from your hand to the Crisis.
   • Buy a card from any Line-Up or stack.

End of Turn

1. Put all cards in your hand into your discard pile.
2. Resolve all End of Your Turn abilities in any order.
3. Recruit a Character if you have none.
4. Put all non-Ongoing cards you control into your discard pile.
5. Draw 5 cards from your deck.
6. Refill the main Line-Up to 5 cards.
7. If the top Crisis AND Super-Villain cards are both face down, flip the Crisis and then the Super-Villain.
8. The next player takes their turn. If you are the last player, start a new round.

Overview

The Batman Who Laughs continues to terrorize our Multiverse! In this cooperative DC Deck-Building Game expansion, players take on the roles of the remaining Super Heroes and must band together to defeat this incursion from the Dark Multiverse. You'll need to defeat The Batman Who Laughs's forces and beat their Crisis-level plots before they consume the entire Multiverse.

Contents

• 11 Oversized Crisis Super Heroes
• 12 Super-Villain Cards
• 13 Crisis Cards
• 30 Crisis Main Deck Cards
• 2 Oversized Storyline Cards
• 1 Impossible Mode The Batman Who Laughs Card
• 1 Randomizer Card
• 1 Multiverse Divider

General Crisis Setup

Choose any DC Deck-Building Game base game to play with this expansion. Dark Nights: Metal provides the most thematically linked base game, so it's recommended to mix this Crisis with that base game first before adventuring into other combinations. Follow the setup instructions from the base game you are using with the following changes:

Storyline Selection

Choose a Storyline to play through. This expansion includes two options: Dark Nights: Metal and Dark Nights: Death Metal. We recommend playing the Dark Nights: Metal Storyline first. The back of each Storyline card includes the unique setup instructions, such as which Super-Villains to use, for that Storyline.

Place the Impossible Mode The Batman Who Laughs card above the play area.

Super Hero Selection

Deal 2 random Crisis Super Heroes to each player. Players may discuss which of their Super Heroes to select to maximize their synergies.

Shuffle the unselected Super Heroes with the remaining Crisis Super Heroes into an unused Character stack and put it on one side of The Batman Who Laughs. Place the top card of this unused Character stack face up on the other side of The Batman Who Laughs. This is the first Character Captured by The Batman Who Laughs.

Super-Villain Stack

Create a facedown stack of Super-Villain cards based on the instructions on the back of the Storyline card. If a specific card is not named, select a random card with the appropriate level. Cards of a lower level should be on top of cards with a higher level. Flip the top card of the stack face up.

EXAMPLE: When setting up the Super-Villain stack for the Dark Nights: Metal Storyline, you should have Court of Owls face up on top of the stack, a random Level 2 Super-Villain face down below it, two random Level 3 Super-Villains face down below those, and a facedown Barbatos on the bottom of the stack.

Weakness Stack

The back of the Storyline card lists how many Weakness cards to use in the Weakness stack. If you own the Dark Nights: Metal base game, use the Weakness cards from that set. Otherwise, use the Weakness cards from the base game you are playing, but keep in mind the additional Weakness rules covered on pages 9-10.

EXAMPLE: If you are playing the Dark Nights: Metal Storyline with 3 players, there should be 12 Weakness cards in the Weakness stack.

Number of Players Icon: You will find this icon in the Setup instructions for each Storyline. This icon means "the number of players" in the game. 3x [player icon] means 3 times the number of players.

Crisis Stack

Place the listed Level 1 Crisis card, Dark Knights, with the side face up matching the number of players next to the Super-Villain stack. This begins the Crisis stack that more Crisis cards will be added to during the game.

Main Deck and Crisis Cards

Shuffle the main deck for the selected base game (don't mix in any cards from this expansion yet!) and count out 97 facedown cards. Place any extra base game main deck cards back into the game box. Refer to the back of the Storyline card for additional instructions on the number of decks and Crisis cards to use to construct the main deck.

1. Divide the 97 main deck cards into facedown decks each with a number of cards based on the player count.
2. Place a Crisis card on top of each deck, except the first.
3. Stack these decks on top of each other.
4. Place this main deck near the play area and fill the Line-Up.

EXAMPLE: If you are playing the Dark Nights: Metal storyline with 3 players, the main deck from top to bottom should be 18 main deck cards, a random Level 2 Crisis, 12 main deck cards, a random Level 2 Crisis, 12 main deck cards, a random Level 3 Crisis, 12 main deck cards, Against the Darkness, and 43 cards.

Once you are done setting up the play area, it will look something like this image. (The layout image is not reproduced here.)

Crisis Main Deck

Shuffle the new Equipment, Hero, Location, Super Power, and Villain cards from this expansion together to form the Crisis main deck. Put this separate deck below the main deck. Cards from this deck will be added to a secondary Crisis Line-Up below the main Line-Up.

Start of Game

After completing the rest of all the setup instructions, but before the first player takes their turn, perform any instructions in the Start of Game section at the bottom of the Storyline card. Do not resolve the abilities of any Crisis cards revealed in this step. If any Ambush Attack cards are added to the Crisis Line-Up during this step, resolve those Attacks.

Note on the Dark Nights: Death Metal Storyline (transcriber's note, not printed in the rulebook): the Death Metal setup values referred to above (the Super-Villain stack, the number of Weakness cards, the Crisis card and the main deck split) are printed on the back of the Dark Nights: Death Metal Storyline card. That card is not part of the rulebook PDF, so they are not reproduced in this file. Follow the Storyline card when playing Death Metal.

Crisis Mode Rules of Play

Objective of Crisis Mode

Crisis Mode is a fully cooperative game mode. All players will either win or lose together. To win the game, your team must defeat all the Super-Villans before time runs out! If you need to add a card from the Crisis main deck to the Crisis Line-Up and cannot, time has run out and your team loses the game. The main deck running out of cards does NOT cause you to lose the game. The Storyline card may also have an additional way for the players to lose the game.

(Note: Your total Victory Points do not matter in Crisis Mode.)

The Line-Ups

There are two Line-Ups players can buy cards from. Cards from the main deck are added to the standard 5-card main Line-Up. Cards from the Crisis main deck go into the Crisis Line-Up. The Crisis Line-Up does not refill at the end of each player's turn like the main Line-Up. Cards are only added to the Crisis Line-Up by game effects, such as from the Storyline card. If a card ability interacts with "the Line-Up," it only affects the main Line-Up. Abilities only affect the Crisis Line-Up if they specifically say "Crisis Line-Up" or if they say "any Line-Up."

Important Note for Crisis Mode Veterans: You do not add 1 card to the main Line-Up at the end of each player's turn. Instead, the main Line-Up will refill to 5 cards like in a standard competitive game. If there are 5 or more cards in the main Line-Up at the end of your turn, you do not add any cards to it.

Storylines

Storyline cards create an ever-increasing pressure on the players as they progress through the Super-Villain stack. The numbers on the left side of the card correspond to the current number of defeated Super-Villains. Each time you defeat a Super-Villain from a Super-Villain stack, after resolving the Reward of the Super-Villain and any effects that trigger off of defeating it, put it in a stack next to the Storyline card. Stagger the cards to easily see how many cards are in the stack. If the next defeated Super-Villain value is reached, the next act of the Storyline becomes active. The abilities on this card are cumulative and build up over time.

At the start of the game, only the abilities next to 0+ are active. After the first Super-Villain is defeated, the abilities next to 0+ are still active. After the second Super Villain is defeated, the abilities next to 0+ and 2+ are BOTH active. If an ability says "Immediate" in red text, that ability occurs immediately after the required number of Super-Villains are defeated.

You may find it useful to use a spare card or coin to visually track which abilities are active. If you do, place the marker on "0+" at the start of the game. Slide the marker down when the next number of Super-Villains is defeated.

(The card art on the Storyline card is not reproduced here.)

Defeating Villains and Rewards

Whenever you buy or gain a Villain from any Line-Up, place it into your score pile (above your deck and rotated 90°) instead of into your discard pile, even if the ability that gained the card would put it into another zone. If the Villain has the Reward keyword, immediately resolve the text after this keyword. Cards in your score pile are not part of your deck. You own the cards in your score pile, but you do not control them. If you gain a Villain from any other zone (such as the main deck or destroyed pile), it goes to your discard pile unless it has the Reward keyword. In that case, it goes to your score pile and you resolve its Reward ability as if you had gained it from a Line-Up.

Super-Villains Are More Challenging During a Crisis Game Since You Must Beat Their Crisis Before You Can Defeat Them

Super-Villains on the Super-Villain stack cannot be defeated while there is an active Crisis. Once your team has completed the current Crisis, you can pay the Power cost to defeat the Super-Villain like normal. When you defeat a Super-Villain from a Super-Villain stack, resolve its Reward and the ability of The Batman Who Laughs (more about that on page 9). Then, put it next to the Storyline card, instead of into your score pile. If the next Super-Villain threshold is reached, advance to the next act of the Storyline. If you defeat a Super-Villain from any other zone, remove it from the game after resolving its Reward ability.

Crisis Cards

At the start of the game, the Crisis cards after the first one are added to the main deck. This represents the concealment of the Dark Multiverse's Crisis-level schemes. In order to uncover their schemes, you'll need to research and explore. This is done by revealing cards from the main deck. If a Crisis card is destroyed, revealed, looked at, or otherwise removed from the top of the main deck, add it to the bottom of the Crisis stack and perform that action on the next card in the main deck instead. Players may read the Crisis card before adding it to the Crisis stack. You have uncovered the scheme of another Super-Villain and can plan ahead for it. If you ever interact with the bottom of the main deck, and it is a Crisis card, perform that action on the next card above it and return the Crisis card to the bottom of the main deck.

Most Crisis cards have a Stack Ongoing ability that will hinder your team. Any text on a Crisis card above the words "Stack Ongoing" only occurs when the Crisis card is first flipped up on the Crisis stack. Most Crisis Stack Ongoing abilities occur at the start of each round, so be sure to read the Crisis card after resolving the Storyline's Start of Round abilities. If a Crisis effect happens at the start of the round, this is before any player can play cards or attempt to beat the Crisis. This happens between turns, so abilities that can only be used during a turn cannot be used. Crisis abilities that do not have the "Attack:" keyword cannot be avoided with a Defense card.

To Beat each Crisis card, players must Contribute certain cards to it. These cards are listed after the "To Beat:" text at the bottom of each Crisis card's textbox. During your turn, you may Contribute any number of cards from your hand to the current Crisis. Contributing a card does not play the card, so do not resolve any abilities on the Contributed cards. Put Contributed cards in a stack next to the Crisis. Stagger the cards to easily see how many have already been Contributed. You may only Contribute a card if it has a trait (cost, card type, VP value, keyword, etc) that matches a trait required to beat the Crisis card. A card with a specific trait cannot be Contributed if the required number of cards with that trait have already been Contributed.

EXAMPLE: A Crisis requires 4 cards with different costs. If cards with cost 0 and 1 have already been Contributed, then cards with cost 0 and 1 may not be Contributed again. A card must have a cost of 2 or greater to be legal to Contribute.

EXAMPLE: A Crisis requires 10 VPs worth of cards. You may only Contribute cards to this Crisis with a VP value of 1 or greater.

You cannot interact with Contributed cards, and they are no longer owned or controlled by any player. You are not required to Contribute a card in your hand just because it meets the criteria. However, the longer you wait to beat each Crisis, the more you will have to suffer its effects. Some abilities allow you to Contribute cards from a zone other than your hand, such as your score pile or in play. These abilities do not get around the trait restrictions listed above for determining if a card can be Contributed to a Crisis. If a card can gain a type or change costs, it can be made legal to place. However, a card reverts to its base card type and cost after placing, meaning it may not end up helping beat the Crisis.

Villains Prevent Beating Crisis Cards

Once all of the required cards have been Contributed, if there are no Villains in all Line-Ups, the current Crisis is beaten. Remove the Crisis card and all cards Contributed to it from the game. Do not flip over a new Crisis card until after the current Super-Villain is defeated.

Note: While a Crisis cannot be beaten if there are Villains in any Line-Up, Villains in either Line-Up do not prevent you from Contributing to the current Crisis or defeating the current Super-Villain.

The Batman Who Laughs and Rescuing Captured Characters

The Batman Who Laughs terrorizes the players during your Crisis 5 games. At the start of the game, The Batman Who Laughs Captures a random unused Character, putting that Character face up next to him. If The Batman Who Laughs ever has no Captured Characters, he immediately goes out hunting and Captures the top card of the unused Character stack. After resolving a Super-Villain's Reward, you get to rescue a Captured Character. When you rescue a Character, choose one of the Characters next to The Batman Who Laughs and put the rescued Character next to your other Characters. You may use the abilities of all Characters on your team and there is no limit to the number of Characters you can have.

The Batman Who Laughs does not stand idly by when you defeat one of his minions and lashes out, destroying a card with cost 5 or greater you control (you choose if you have multiple options) and giving you 2 Weakness cards.

Weakness Cards and Getting Captured

Weakness cards are more dangerous while playing Crisis 5 games. When a Weakness is destroyed, return it to the stack. If you own the Dark Nights: Metal base game, use the Weakness cards from that game no matter what base game you are using. If not, keep in mind these additional rules, which can also be found on The Batman Who Laughs's card.

While you have a Weakness in your hand, you must play it before playing other cards or ending your turn. You may use abilities on your Characters or Ongoings before playing a Weakness, as long as those abilities don't play other cards. Having a Weakness in your hand does not prevent you from Contributing cards to a Crisis or buying cards. If you ever control 2 or more Weakness cards, your turn ends after resolving any effects that triggered off of playing that second Weakness. You may no longer play, buy, or Contribute cards. One of those Weaknesses goes into your score pile, representing a permanent injury, and the rest are put on the bottom of the Weakness stack. One of your Characters is also Captured by The Batman Who Laughs.

When your Character is Captured, you must choose 1 Character from your team to place next to The Batman Who Laughs. If you end your turn with no Characters, Recruit a new Character by looking at the top 2 cards of the unused Character stack. Put one of them in front of you as your new Character and put the other on the bottom of the unused Character stack.

End of Turn

At the end of each turn, if the top cards of both the Super-Villain and Crisis stacks are face down, flip the top card of the Crisis stack face up. If it has any text above "Stack Ongoing," resolve that text now. Then, flip the top card of the Super-Villain stack face up and resolve its First Appearance — Attack. If the top card of the Super-Villain stack is face down, but the Crisis stack is empty, do not flip over the top Super-Villain card face up yet. Your team has not discovered the next Super-Villain's Crisis scheme in the main deck and cannot confront them yet.

Additional Rules

Ally

Some card abilities will affect an "Ally" or each "Ally." Each player on your team (including yourself) is an Ally who can be affected by these abilities.

Ambush Attacks

When a card with an Ambush Attack enters any Line-Up, resolve its Attack against each player. Ambush Attacks are considered Attacks for card effects and can be avoided with a Defense card. If you play a card with an Ambush Attack, do not resolve that Attack against any players. Note that all Villain cards in the Crisis main deck have an Ambush Attack, so don't forget to resolve that Attack when a Villain is added from the Crisis main deck.

Character

Character is the general term for the Oversized Super Heroes and Super-Villains that represent the Character you play as or the other Characters on your team.

Foes

In Crisis mode, card abilities that affect a "foe" or "each foe" affect another player or each other player instead. These abilities will not affect the player resolving this ability.

METAL Cards

METAL cards have the METAL subtype to the right of their card type.

Removed from the Game

When a card is removed from the game, return it to the game box. You can no longer interact with that card.

Rounds

Some effects will occur at the start of a round. A full round consists of each player taking a turn. At the start of the game, the first player takes the Storyline card to remind players who takes the first turn each round. This card is not passed during the game.

Stack Ongoing

Some Super-Villains have game text with a red banner. These Stack Ongoing abilities are only active while they are the top card of a Super-Villain stack. Ignore Stack Ongoing abilities while the Super-Villain is in any other zone. At the start of your turn, check this text to see the ability you will be subjected to this turn.

Surge

The keyword Surge without any qualifier adds the top card of the main deck to the main Line-Up. This can cause the main Line-Up to have more than 5 cards. If an ability says that the "Crisis main deck Surges," then add the top card of the Crisis main deck to the Crisis Line-Up.

Challenges

Crisis mode is a challenging but winnable cooperative experience. Once you are more familiar with the cards and strategies of this mode, up the challenge rating by using any combination of these setup modifications at the start of the game:

• The Crisis main deck Surges an additional time.
• Add 3 more cards to the two topmost main deck sections.
• Add an additional Level 2 Super-Villain and a Level 2 Crisis to their respective stacks.
• Replace a Level 2 Crisis in the main deck or Crisis stack with a Level 3 Crisis.
• Each player gains a Weakness.

Competitive Mode

Some of the cards in this expansion can be incorporated into your competitive games. The Crisis and Storyline cards should not be used in a competitive game. When setting up a competitive game, follow the setup instructions for the base game you are using with the following changes.

Super-Villain Cards: Mix the Level 1, 2, and 3 Super-Villains from this expansion with the base game Super-Villains before creating the Super-Villain stack. For an extra challenging game, you can use Barbatos as the final Super-Villain.

Crisis Main Deck Cards: Shuffle the new main deck cards from this expansion into the main deck. Whenever a card with cost 6 or greater enters the main Line-Up, place it into a separate Crisis Line-Up below the main Line-Up and continue to add cards to the main Line-Up. The Crisis Line-Up can have any number of cards and does not refill to 5 cards at the end of each turn like the main Line-Up does.

Specific Card Clarifications

Trinity Crisis

Once the second Super-Villain has been defeated during the Dark Nights: Death Metal Storyline, the players split up and adventure to different time periods where they will tackle their own Crisis and Super-Villain. This is represented by each player setting up their own Crisis and Super-Villain stacks from those set aside during the game. Players are free to discuss which players are better suited to handle each Crisis. If players cannot agree, stacks are chosen in turn order, starting with the player that defeated the second Super-Villain. The next cards of the main Crisis and Super-Villain stacks are not flipped face up while the players are still engaged with their own Crisis and Super-Villain cards.

Each player is only affected by the abilities of their active Crisis and Super-Villain. A player may only Contribute cards to their own active Crisis. Players may still aid each other with their own abilities that affect Allies. You may defeat your own Super-Villain once you complete your active Crisis. Another player having an active Crisis does not prevent you from defeating your Super-Villain. Once your Super-Villain is defeated, you will choose another player that still has an active Super-Villain and join them. The other player's Crisis and Super-Villain are now also active to you. You are affected by their abilities but can now also Contribute to their Crisis and defeat their Super-Villain once their Crisis is beaten. Note: You do not resolve any text above "Stack Ongoing" on Crisis cards when you join another player.

As these individual Super-Villains are defeated, only the players that Super-Villain was active for may resolve the Reward ability of that Super-Villain. Don't forget to add these Super-Villains to the defeated Super-Villain pile and advance the Storyline if the next threshold is reached. At the end of the turn the final individual Super-Villain is defeated, players will move on to the next Crisis and Super-Villain in the main stacks.

Crisis Super Heroes

Crisis Batman / Crisis The Flash: If you have a Weakness in your hand, you must play it before you can play a card with the ability of either of these Super Heroes. If you control 2 Weakness cards, your turn will end before you can use either of these Super Heroes' abilities.

Crisis Wally West: Drawing a card from a Super-Villain First Appearance — Attack that occurs between turns does not trigger this Character's ability.

Main Deck Cards

Alfred Box: Playing a Weakness with this card while you control another Weakness will cause your turn to end.

Batmobeast, Joker Dragon, Quietus: You do not have to gain a Weakness if you do not have an Equipment/Hero/Super Power in your hand or discard pile. If the Weakness stack is empty, you must destroy a card with the listed card type if able.

Black Lantern Power Ring: If you choose 2 cards, they cannot go to the hand of the same player.

Call Upon the Multiverse: The other player resolves any when gained effects on the card they are passed. Any Villains gained by this card go into the player's score pile instead of their hand.

Cloak of Erasure: This card's Defense can only be used while it is in play.

Godly Ascension: The blue banner text on this card triggers whenever it enters your discard pile. That includes when you gain this card or discard it from your hand or deck.

Jarro: Any Villains gained by this card go into your score pile instead of on top of your deck.

Mister Miracle: You may use this card's Defense ability to have another player avoid an Attack even if you are not being affected by that Attack.

Super-Villain Cards

Barbatos: You cannot use a Defense card against an Unavoidable Attack.

Court of Owls: If a player's Character is Captured while this card is on top of the Super-Villain stack, they will not Recruit a new Character until the end of their next turn after this Super-Villain is defeated.

The Mindhunter: You cannot avoid this card's Attack, but you can avoid the Attacks resolved by this card's ability. Ambush Attack cards can be resolved with this card's First Appearance — Attack.

Crisis Cards

Casualty of War: The random Character is from one of the players, not the unused Character stack. Only the base Power of the card is used to determine if it can be Contributed. Do not take into account any conditionally generated Power.

Final Crisis: Villains may also be Contributed to this Crisis from your hand or using abilities.

Infinite Crisis: After each player has had a chance to defend this card's Attack, resolve the Attack in player order. If a player chooses to discard a card, the card they revealed remains on top of the Crisis main deck, so the next player will reveal the same card.

Recurring Nightmare: Only the base Power of the card is used to determine if it can be Contributed. Do not take into account any conditionally generated Power.

Shatter Reality: Both cards of a pair do not have to be Contributed in the same turn. Once 3 different costs and/or card types have been Contributed, only cards that complete pairs can be Contributed. Cards without a card type, such as Breakthrough or Weakness, cannot be Contributed to this Crisis as they cannot share a card type with another card.

Suspend in Darkness: The color of the card frame determines the card's color. You cannot have any duplicate colors or costs among the Contributed cards.

Vengeful Justice: While this Crisis is active, each time you destroy a card with cost 1 or greater, by any means, you may Contribute it to this Crisis. You cannot Contribute cards that were already in the destroyed pile before this Crisis became active.