My Little Pony: Adventures in Equestria Deck-Building Game – Princess Pageantry Expansion
My Little Pony: Adventures in Equestria Deck-Building Game – Princess Pageantry Expansion Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
New Additions to the Supply
These new materials are used just like the ones in the core set, with a few exceptions, as outlined in this Rulebook.
- 70 Standard Cards (54 Adventure Deck, 6 Starter, 8 Situation, 2 Reference)
- 25 Deluxe Oversized Cards (9 Hurdles, 4 Final Challenges, 4 Characters, 8 Festivals)
- 4 Celestia Tokens, 4 Luna Tokens, 15 Gift Tokens
- 4 Plastic Standee Bases
- 5 Location Cards
- 4 Character Standees
All-New Starting Characters
Each player needs to choose a Starting Character. With this Princess Pageantry expansion, you can now play as Princess Cadance, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, or Shining Armor. Of course, you can still choose one of the original Starting Characters from the core set: Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, or Twilight Sparkle. You may also use Starting Characters from any other set you have.
The new Pony Characters use these unique cards to complete their starting decks:
- Princess Cadance: Sunshine, Sunshine, Ladybugs Awake! and Love is in Bloom
- Princess Celestia: Gotcha!
- Princess Luna: The Fun has Been Doubled!
- Shining Armor: Big Brother Best Friend Forever and Two Hearts Becoming One
Take the matching Character Card for your Pony and place it in front of you with the Starting Side face up. Insert the matching standee in the plastic base and place it next to the Central Location.
New Situations, Hurdles, and Challenges
A standard game of My Little Pony: Adventures in Equestria pits your team against three Hurdles and one Final Challenge. In this expansion, there are 9 new Hurdles and 4 new Final Challenges to add to the available pool of possibilities.
Set up the Hurdles and Final Challenge as described in the core set rule book. To further increase the difficulty, try adding an additional Hurdle or two to the Active Hurdle stack at the start of the game. This will give the Clouds more time to accumulate on the Final Challenge and you might also see the Adventure Deck run low, which could cause the game to end if it runs out!
Princess Cadance's Gameplay Tip: A good way to start your adventure is a Level 1 Hurdle, then you can progress from there. We don't recommend starting against a Level 2 or Level 3 Hurdle right away, as that's really, really difficult!
New Locations
Princess Pageantry adds 5 new Locations to your available Location options. You can now visit Canterlot Castle, Froggy Bottom Bogg, Ponhenge, Ponyville: Antique Market, and Yakyakistan to perform all-new Tasks that can guide your team to victory.
Place one Central Location in an open area near the Adventure Row, either Ponyville: Town Square or Canterlot Castle. Then, shuffle the rest of the Location cards together (except for the unused Central Location) and randomly create a Location deck with 10 cards (return the unused Locations to the box without looking at them). Finally, draw the top 3 cards and arrange them around the Central Location as in the core game.
Preparing the Adventure Deck
Princess Pageantry features a ton of new Allies, Actions, and Artifacts for you to buy. There are also new Situation cards that want to make their presence felt. To prepare the Adventure Deck with all these new cards, follow these procedures in order:
- Shuffle all of the available Ally cards, then create a stack of 30 Ally cards.
- Shuffle all of the available Action cards, then create a stack of 24 Action cards.
- Shuffle all of the available Artifact cards, then create a stack of 6 Artifact cards.
- Shuffle all of these stacks together into an Adventure Deck of 60 cards, then draw the top 6 cards and place them face up to form the initial Adventure Row.
If this is your first few times playing with this expansion and you've yet to win a game, leave the Situations out until you win. When you're ready to add them in, shuffle all of the Situation cards together, then take the top 4 or 8 cards from the stack (according to your desired difficulty level) and shuffle them into the Adventure Deck after placing the initial 6 cards in the Adventure Row.
If you're really feeling "Pinkie Keen," use only one copy of each Ally and Action card from the Core Game and expansions when creating these stacks of cards to shuffle into the Adventure Deck. Now you have a 60-card Adventure Deck where all of the cards are unique! However, the same should apply to the dastardly Situations! Insert 0, 4, or 8 different Situations into the Adventure Deck once you've formed the initial Adventure Row.
Place all unused cards back in the box, unseen. Now you're ready to take on the game!
Pinkie Pie's Gameplay Tip: I heard my name, so I guess I'll need to help out here! After the game is over, it is recommended you keep these stacks separate from their duplicate copies if you want to be Pinkie Keen all the time!
See "Build the Adventure Deck and Row" in the core rulebook (page 3) if you need a refresher on how to get your Adventure Deck and Row ready.
New Mechanics
Princess Power!
Princess Celestia and Princess Luna didn't arrive empty-hooved! Each one comes with 4 Celestia Tokens and 4 Luna Tokens, respectively. If you play one of these characters, you will begin the game with 1 of their tokens; the rest are placed in a personal supply. You also take the Reference card Celestia's Commands or Luna's Laws, respectively.
When either of these characters has the chance to gain any Resource Tokens throughout the game, they can choose to gain 1 Celestia or Luna Token instead of 1 of the normal Resource Tokens they would normally gain. Place any gained tokens on your Reference card for ease of play.
Example: If Princess Celestia is at Yakyakistan, she may pay 4 HELP from Twilight Sparkle, a Student, Indeed, and Philomena for any target players to gain 2 Resource Tokens total. The group decides it would be best for her to gain both Resource Tokens. As a result, she is able to substitute 1 of those Resource Tokens for a Celestia Token instead, which can be helpful towards using a Celestia's Command.
The Celestia's Commands and Luna's Laws reference cards describe all of the abilities that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna can use if they discard the required tokens. When you use a Celestia's Command or Luna's Law, you must discard the tokens used to your personal supply, then flip your Character Card from the Starting side to the Flipped side. You cannot use any Celestia or Luna Tokens you have unless your Character Card is on its Starting Side.
Princess Luna – Luna's Laws (as printed on the reference card):
- When Princess Luna gains 1 or more Resource Tokens, she may gain 1 Luna Token instead of 1 Resource Token.
- Discard the number of Luna Tokens listed to use 1 of the abilities below, then flip your Character Card to its Flipped Side:
- 1 Luna Token: Target player removes 1 card in their discard pile from the game.
- 2 Luna Tokens: Target player gains 1 Sugar Cube.
- 4 Luna Tokens: Gain 1 card that costs 5 HELP or less from the Adventure Row and add it to your hand.
Example: Princess Luna was able to collect 2 Luna Tokens. On her turn, she may discard these tokens to her personal supply, then flip her Character card over to perform the second of her Luna's Laws (which has a cost of 2), which allows a target player to gain 1 Sugar Cube of their choice.
Important Note: If any effect during the game requires you to pay or discard a "Resource Token", it must be a normal Resource Token, and not a Celestia or Luna Token.
The Flipped side of Princess Luna's Character Card reads: You may flip this card to its Starting Side when your team successfully overcomes a Hurdle, even if you are not the active player.
Love Conquers All!
Princess Cadance and Shining Armor, the loveliest couple on this side of the Crystal Empire, vowed to help each other as much as they can!
Each of their starting decks contains an extra Starter card: Love is in Bloom for Princess Cadance and Two Hearts Becoming One for Shining Armor.
If one of these cards is in your hand, you may play it during the other player's turn (even though you are not the active player), as if they had played it themselves. If you play it in this manner, the active player will gain a bonus of +1 HELP! Love is so magical!
Example: It is Princess Cadance's turn, and she's missing 2 HELP to purchase Flurry Heart from the Adventure Row. Turns out Two Hearts Becoming One is in Shining Armor's hand, and he may play it out of turn to give Princess Cadance an extra 2 HELP and 1 INFO!
Important Note: This bonus effect only occurs if both Princess Cadance and Shining Armor are in the same game.
Festivals of Fun
You've worked hard to save Equestria, and now Pinkie Pie says it's time to party hard! Festivals can bring unimaginable joy to your ponies; you just have to ensure that they go off without a hitch!
To set up the Festivals before the game begins, shuffle, then place 2 Festivals face down in a stack next to the Active Hurdle stack. Return the unused Festivals to the box, unseen.
Fully mix the Gift Tokens with the gift icons face-up and place them near the Festival stack. Return all but 3 tokens per Festival in the stack to the box, unseen.
Do not reveal the first Festival until the team has overcome the first Hurdle! It is only revealed immediately after revealing the second Active Hurdle of the game (the same will apply in a game with more than 3 Hurdles). Place 1 Gift Token, keeping the other side hidden, beside each of the arrows on the Festival Requirements.
During your turn, you may discard one set of Traits that match the Traits pictured or discard one Ally that featured the listed Keyword on any Festival Requirement. You must discard at least 1 Ally card when completing a Festival Requirement. Reveal the matching Gift Token, then place it face up next to the Central Location.
Example: Princess Cadance decides to discard Love is in Bloom and Twilight Velvet & Night Light for Baking Cupcakes on the Hearts & Hooves Day Festival. She reveals the Gift Token next to the Requirement, and it reveals a Pink Sugar Cube! That token will be moved to the Central Location to remind everyone that any player may use the collected Gift Tokens on their turn.
Each token has the effect described below:
- Gain 3 HELP.
- Gain 1 WORK.
- Gain any 1 Sugar Cube.
- Counts as 2 Mountain Traits.
- Gain 1 card from the Adventure Row that costs 4 or fewer resources.
- Gain 3 INFO.
- Gain 1 KNOWLEDGE.
- Counts as 2 Moon Traits.
- Draw 2 cards.
- Flip all Character cards to their Starting Sides.
- Gain 3 MOVE.
- Gain 1 FRIENDSHIP.
- Counts as 2 Star Traits.
- Remove 1 card in your hand or discard pile from the game.
- Remove 1 Cloud from the Active Hurdle or Final Challenge.
Any player may use each collected Gift Token from the Central Location as an Action or as part of another Action on their turn. Once used, they are discarded.
When the next Hurdle is revealed, also reveal a new Festival and place Gift Tokens, regardless if the team completed the previous Festival's Requirements.
Place Cloud Tokens on the Final Challenge for any remaining Gift Tokens beside the Festivals only when the team has gained the Reward from the final Active Hurdle and has moved on to overcoming the Final Challenge. The number of Cloud Tokens added for each remaining Gift Token are listed on each Festival.
Pinkie Pie would be very sad if there were leftover Gifts from the parties she worked so hard to put on, after all... but please don't give your team more Clouds!
Example: Hearts & Hooves Day, the active Festival, has two remaining Gift Tokens, as the team was only able to complete one of the three available Requirements before the team reached the Final Challenge, therefore 2 Cloud Tokens must be added to the Final Challenge immediately, as Hearts & Hooves Day adds 1 Cloud / Gift Token.
Note: If your team has yet to win a game, we suggest holding off on playing with Festivals, for now! You may choose to play with added Festivals if you're playing a game with more than three Hurdles, but make sure you're not overwhelming the team!
"Discovering" a Trait or Keyword
To "Discover," you simply need to look for and count the named Traits or Keywords on any number of cards in your hand, cards under your control, in the hands of the other players, and cards under their control... all during your current turn. Seeing a Keyword or Trait on cards in the Adventure Row, discard piles, etc. does not count toward your "Discovered" total.
Ally cards in the core game and this expansion have a combination of Traits (Star, Moon, and Mountain), and the Keyword Leader. You may encounter cards that ask you to Discover a certain Trait or Keyword on cards.
Example: Shining Armor plays Sunburst on his turn, which names Leader as a Keyword that the player needs to Discover to unlock the card's full potential. Well, it turns out that Princess Celestia has Prince Rutherford and Princess Cadance has Thorax, so Shining Armor gains two +2 INFO tokens!
Princess Luna's Gameplay Tip: Make sure you can see all of your teammates' cards in their entirety, because you'll want to Discover to the best of your ability! If you don't have space for this, you can always ask your teammates to check for Traits and Keywords.
"Adventure Row" Call-Out
Some new cards have the text "Adventure Row:" before their effects. If these cards are in the Adventure Row, that effect is active. Once they are removed from the Adventure Row (e.g., by buying, gaining, or discarding), they no longer have this effect, including when you play them on your turn.
Princess Celestia's Gameplay Tip: If you see these cards in the Adventure Row, try to purchase them right away, because you may get a small discount or you may produce a cool effect on your turn!
Solo Play Changes
When playing Solo, the new Discover ability is modified, allowing you to Discover Keywords and Traits on cards in the Adventure Row. However, cards in discard piles still do not count towards your Discover total.
Shining Armor's Gameplay Tip: Try playing your cards that use Discover early in your turn before buying cards, because you'll need all the added Traits and Keywords from the Adventure Row!
We also recommend playing with only one Festival to start, as Solo play is challenging enough, but feel free to add another for the extra challenge!