Flesh and Blood
Flesh and Blood Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Zones
- Hero - Start the game with your hero in this zone.
- Weapon - Start the game with your weapon(s) in this zone. When a weapon attacks, it goes onto the combat chain until combat is finished.
- Equipment - Start the game with your equipment in these zones. When an equipment defends it moves to the combat chain until combat is finished.
- Combat Chain - Attacking and defending happen in this zone.
- Arsenal - At the end of your turn you can store a card face-down here to play in the future. You can't pitch or defend with cards from arsenal.
- Pitch - Cards go here when you pitch them to get resource points.
- Deck - Your deck is kept face-down here. You can't look at your deck during a game.
- Graveyard - If a card is destroyed, discarded, defends, or resolves, it gets put into the graveyard.
- Banished - If a card is banished, it gets put here.
In addition to the zones above, you also hold a hand of cards that you draw from your deck. If a card refers to the "arena" it means the collection of the hero, weapon, equipment and combat chain zones as well as any permanent cards like items, auras, etc. that are in play.
Game Setup
To get started, take the following steps to set up a game.
- Start with your hero face-up in your hero zone.
- Choose who's going to start the game first. Pick someone at random, and they choose whether they'll be going first or second.
- Choose your weapons and equipment, and put them in a face-down pile. Then choose the cards that start in your deck - exactly 40 for Blitz, and at least 60 for Classic Constructed. Any leftover cards you don't choose become your inventory for the game.
- Shuffle your deck, present it to your opponent to do a shuffle and cut, and then put it into your deck zone.
- Flip over your weapons and equipment and put them in your weapon and equipment zones.
- Draw up to your hero's intellect (usually 4), and start the game!
There is no opportunity to change your weapons or equipment after you've seen your opponent's weapons and equipment.
There's also no mulligan - the first cards you draw are the cards you'll start the game with.
Turn Structure
Start Phase
The start phase is where you simply resolve any effects that occur "at the start of the turn" (such as resolving the effect on your Might token). You can't play cards or respond to these effects while they resolve.
Once you're done, move on to the action phase.
Action Phase
The action phase is where you can start playing cards. If it's your turn, you start your action phase with 1 action point, which you can use to play an action card from your hand or arsenal.
If the action card you play has go again, you regain an action point when it resolves and can play another action. If you play an action card without go again and don't have any action points left over, you can't play any more action cards and you'll move on to the end phase.
End Phase
The end phase is where you resolve any effects that happen "at the beginning of the end phase", and then you do the following:
- If your arsenal is empty, you can put a card from your hand face-down into your arsenal.
- Everyone puts cards from their pitch zone to the bottom of their deck in any order.
- Everyone loses any action or resource points they have left over.
- You draw cards until the number of cards in their hand is equal to your hero's intellect (usually 4).
- Your turn is over, and your opponent starts their turn.
At the end of the first turn of the game, BOTH players draw up to their hero's intellect. Otherwise, you only draw up at the end of your OWN turn.
Playing a Card
Announce the card, and choose any targets or modes. You announce that you're playing Assault and Battery and choose your opponent as the target to attack.
To play a card, you need to pay its resource cost. You start each turn with 0 resource points. To gain resource points, you pitch cards, moving them from your hand to your pitch zone. Pitching a card generates resource points equal to its pitch value. Assault and Battery costs 2 resource points to play. You start with 0 resource points, so you pitch a Reinforce the Line (yellow) to generate 2 resource points.
You can only pitch cards from your hand, and only if you don't already have enough resource points to pay the cost for playing a card. You still don't have enough to pay the cost, so you pitch a Performance Bonus (yellow) to generate 2 more resource points for a total of 4. You can't pitch any more cards now because you've got enough to pay the cost.
If there are any additional costs, you pay those after paying the resource cost. After paying the resource cost, you discard a Beast Mode (red) from your hand to the graveyard to pay the additional cost to play Assault and Battery.
If you can't pay ALL of the costs of a card, you can't play it, and you reset the game to the time before you announced it.
Finally, the card is played and any resource points left over from pitching stay with you for the rest of the turn. Assault and Battery is an action so you have to spend your action point to play it. Because it doesn't have go again, you won't have any more action points, and can't play any more actions this turn.
Activating an Ability
Some cards have activated abilities. Activating an ability is similar to playing a card, but instead of playing it, you announce that you're activating the ability, and go through the same step of paying the costs and resolving the effect. If the activated ability is an "action", it costs an action point to activate, and if it has go again, you get an action point back when it resolves.
Activated abilities are always in the format:
Limit Type - Cost : Effects
Limits are typically once per turn, but if an ability doesn't have a limit, you can activate it as many times as you want (as long as you can pay the costs).
Types are similar to card types: Actions require an action point, instants can be activated anytime and in response to other cards, and reactions are like instants but can only be activated in the reaction step of combat.
Costs always appears after a dash and before the colon. If there is no cost, there will be a 0 instead. If the type of the ability is an action, you still have to pay an action point to activate it.
Effects are what the ability does when it resolves. If the effect is an attack, then combat begins.
Combat
When you play or activate an attack, combat starts and you go through a series of steps to resolve the attack. Each attack is resolved one-at-a-time as a chain link on the combat chain between you and your opponent.
The combat chain can have many attacks (chain links). During combat, you can't play or activate any more actions until you finish going through the different steps to resolve the attack. After resolving an attack, in the link step, you can make another attack which will continue the combat again from the layer step. If you want to play non-attack actions after the attack, you have to close the combat chain first. You can always start combat again, as long as you have the action point to play another attack.
An attack begins with the first step called the layer step.
Layer Step
You play an attack, but it isn't considered attacking just yet.
You've played Flex Claws (red), paying the cost, and choosing the opponent as the target for the attack. Combat has begun.
Attack Step
The attack goes onto the combat chain and begins to attack the opponent.
Flex Claws moves onto the combat chain, and is now actively attacking the opponent. It has 4 power.
Defend Step
The player being attacked can put defending cards onto the chain link. They can defend with any combination of:
- Equipment they control with a defense value (if it's not already defending)
- Cards from their hand with a defense value (except for defense reactions)
The opponent defends with two cards: an equipment with 1 defense, and an action card from hand with 2 defense. The current total defense is 3.
Reaction Step
The attacking player can play attack reactions, and the defending hero can play defense reactions.
You play an attack reaction card, which boosts Flex Claws from 4 power to 5 power!
Damage Step
Compare the power of the attack and the total defense of the defending cards. If the power is greater than the total defense, deal damage to the target equal to the difference (power minus defense equals damage). If any damage is dealt here, the attack has hit. If no damage is dealt, the attack has not hit. You can't play any cards while this is happening.
Here we compare 5 power against 3 total defense, so the attack deals 2 damage to the opponent and has hit!
Resolution Step
The chain link has resolved. Resolve any effects from hitting or dealing damage.
Flex Claws has hit, so it triggers its effect and creates a Crouching tiger in the Banished zone.
Link Step
If the attack has go again, the player gains 1 action point. Then the attacking player can either:
- Play another attack, in which you go to the layer step again.
- End combat, in which case you go to the close step.
Because Flex Claws has go again, you gain 1 action point back. You play the Crouching Tiger that you made, which starts chain link 2, and you start from the layer step again.
Close Step
This is where the combat chain gets cleared. Equipment and weapons all return to their respective zones. Anything remaining on the combat chain goes to their owner's graveyards. Combat has finished... for now.
In the close step, Edge of Autumn returns to your weapon zone beside your hero. Your opponent's Monstrous Veil will return to their head zone. The rest of the cards go into their respective graveyards.
The Golden Rule
Finally, there will sometimes be times when a card will contradict the rules of the game. If that's the case, the card text always wins.
For example, normally you can't play cards from your banished zone, but if a card like Flex Claws tells you to create a card in your banished zone and that you may play it this turn, then that effect wins and allows you to play it from the banished zone this turn.
One of the fun things about the game is that many cards bend and break the rules in interesting ways.
Types of Cards
Heroes
Your hero determines what cards you can use. If your hero is a Ninja, you can have Generic and Ninja cards in your deck and as weapons or equipment.
"Older" heroes are used in Classic Constructed and Living Legend formats. Young heroes have half as much life, and are used in formats like Blitz, Sealed Deck, Booster Draft, and Commoner.
Equipment and Weapons
Players choose their weapons and equipment at the start of the game.
Weapons have either 1H or 2H as subtypes. You can equip two 1H (one-handed) weapons or one 2H (two-handed) weapon.
Equipment have one of these subtypes: head, chest, arms, or legs. You can equip one of each type.
Instants and Blocks
Instant cards can be played at any time during any action phase, even in response to another card. If two or more instants are played in response to something, the last one played always resolves first. If an instant doesn't have a defense value, it cannot be used to defend. Instants don't require an action point.
Block cards can't be played, but they can be pitched and they can defend against attacks. They often have higher defense values and powerful effects when they defend.
Reactions
Reaction cards are like instants, but they can ONLY be played during the reaction step of combat.
Attack reactions can only be played by the attacking player.
Defense reactions can only be played by the defending player, and when they resolve, they go onto the combat chain as a defending card (adding to the total defense against the attack.)
Actions
Actions make up the majority of cards in Flesh and Blood, and come in all sorts of colors.
Action cards with the subtype attack, start combat when they are played.
Some subtypes, like item or aura, mean that when the card is played and resolves, it stays in the arena until an effect removes it.
Tokens
Token cards are temporary cards created by effects. Most tokens are items or auras, and stay in the arena until an effect destroys them or moves them to a different zone.
If a token would leave the arena, it is simply removed from the game instead.