My Little Pony: Adventures in Equestria Deck-Building Game – Scholarly Shenanigans Expansion Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• New Additions to the Supply
• All-New Starting Characters
• New Situations, Hurdles, and Challenges
• New Game Set-Up
• Preparing the Adventure Deck
• New Mechanics
  • This School's Too Cool!
  • The Dreaded E.E.A.
• New Card Interactions
  • Anthem Cards
  • Almanac Cards
  • Pick-A-Perk
  • Challenge Accepted!
• Yearbook Tokens
• New Situations & Hurdles
• "Discovering" a Trait or Keyword
• Solo Play Changes
• Location and Classroom Card Notes

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.

• 87 Standard Cards (58 Adventure Deck, 6 Starter, 10 Situation, 7 Location, 1 Reference)
• 21 Deluxe Oversized Cards (9 Hurdles, 5 Final Challenges, 6 Characters, 1 Guidance Counselor's Office/Principal's Office)
• 5 Classroom Cards
• 18 Yearbook Tokens
• 3 E.E.A. Tokens
• 6 Plastic Standee Bases
• 6 Character Standees

All-New Starting Characters

Each player chooses a Starting Character. With this Scholarly Shenanigans expansion, you can now play as Gallus, Ocellus, Sandbar, Silverstream, Smolder, or Yona. 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 students use these unique cards to complete their starting decks:

• Gallus: Sarcasm in Spades
• Ocellus: Shy & Misunderstood
• Sandbar: Cool, Calm, Collected
• Silverstream: Super Talon-ted!
• Smolder: Rash, Yet Refined
• Yona: Best Yak, Confirmed!

Take the matching Character Card for your team and place it in front of you with the Starting Side face up. Insert the matching standee in the plastic base and place it on the Treehouse of Harmony Location card.

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 5 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!

Ocellus' 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 Game Set-Up

Scholarly Shenanigans adds seven new Locations to your available Location options. You can now visit Breezie Village, Changeling Kingdom, Mount Aris, Ponyville Spa, Seaward Shoals, Wonderbolts' Academy, and Treehouse of Harmony to perform all-new Tasks that can guide your team to victory.

Place Treehouse of Harmony in the center of play as the Central Location. Shuffle the Location cards together, and randomly create a Location deck with 10 cards (return the unused Locations to the box without looking at them). Finally, draw the top three cards and arrange them around Treehouse of Harmony. Do not shuffle any other Central Locations into this deck if you have multiple expansions.

Below the Locations, place three Classroom cards out in a row, then place 1 E.E.A. Token on each of these cards. For your first game, we recommend including Introductory Generosity, Introductory Kindness, and a random Classroom. As you become more experienced with this expansion, you can use just one of Generosity or Kindness and two at random, or eventually select all three at random. Return the two unused Classroom cards to the box.

Place the Guidance Counselor's Office/Principal's Office below the Classroom cards. You may leave out this card if you believe there's enough complexity at hoof, and you can also choose to play with just this card and not the other Classroom cards. We'll let you decide how you learn best!

Choose one side of this card to play with, each providing a different way to strategize:

• The Guidance Counselor's Office allows you to spend [book] to save cards from the Adventure Row here. Any saved cards may be purchased for just their printed purchase costs. We recommend this side for your first game.
• The Principal's Office allows you to spend [book] to remove cards in your discard pile from the game in exchange for a reward.

We both have so much work to catch up on, so don't feel bad about picking one or the other!

Preparing the Adventure Deck

Scholarly Shenanigans features a ton of new Allies, Actions, Artifacts, and the brand-new Anthem and Almanac cards for you to buy. There are also new Situation cards that will cause some headaches.

To prepare the Adventure Deck with all these new cards, follow these procedures in order:

1. Shuffle all of the available Ally cards, then create a stack of 30 Ally cards.
2. Shuffle all of the available Action cards, then create a stack of 24 Action cards.
3. Shuffle all of the available Anthem, Almanac, and Artifact cards, then create a stack of 6 random cards.
4. 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 2, 4, 6, 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 into the Adventure Row.

You can always curate your Adventure Deck to fit certain playstyles and to see more specific keywords if you'd like!

If you're really feeling "Pinkie Keen," use only one copy of each Ally and Action card from the core set 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 those dastardly Situations! You may insert 2, 4, 6, or 8 Situations into the Adventure Deck after 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!

Silverstream's Gameplay Tip: We recommend that 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

This School's Too Cool!

Collecting will be crucial to your success, as all Classroom tasks require (you're studying about Friendship, after all!). If a player decides to perform a Classroom's task, they will place their standee on the first available space.

Important Note: The Classroom's second space cannot be used in 1-2 player games. In a 3-4 player game, both spaces are available. Any number of players may occupy the Guidance Counselor's Office/Principal's Office Classroom at any time.

Like traditional Locations, players may only perform each Classroom's task once per turn. All game effects that refer to Locations also refer to Classroom cards. You may move to a Classroom by paying the cost, but its task is optional.

The Dreaded E.E.A.

What's worse than your students not learning about Friendship? Having the E.E.A. shut down your school!

The active player may attempt to remove an E.E.A. Token from their current Introductory Classroom. First, they must discard all cards played so far this turn that do not say "Ongoing." They will then reveal a Hurdle from the Chaos deck. If the players at this Classroom can alone meet the added Chaos Requirement, on behalf of all players in the game, remove the E.E.A. Token and flip the Classroom. If unsuccessful, their turn ends immediately. Discard the Hurdle at the end of the turn.

The team collectively discards all Sugar Cubes of 1 color per remaining E.E.A. Token when the team has gained the Reward from the final Active Hurdle and has moved on to overcoming the Final Challenge. Players must choose Final Challenge-listed Sugar Cubes, if possible.

New Card Interactions

Anthem Cards

Hear that? It's the sound of a song coming on, and your friends from Equestria know all about breaking into song! This new type of card can be mixed in along with Artifacts and Almanac cards when setting up the game.

The new keyword Harmony allows players at the same Location to perform the effect listed under each Trait, even if they're not the active player. During a turn that you control an Anthem card, you may announce that you're activating it, and all players at that Location are invited to join. Every player at that Location must discard one Ally card with Trait(s) matching the Anthem to perform the matching effect(s). If a single player at this Location cannot / chooses not to discard an Ally with at least one matching Trait, the Anthem card cannot be activated, even if other players are able to Harmonize, so be aware of whom you can Harmonize with and when!

If you have multiple Anthem cards under your control, you cannot use the same Ally card to perform more than one Anthem card at a time.

These cards also contain the Keyword Ongoing, so they will not be discarded at the end of the turn, unless otherwise stated.

Example: Gallus controls A True, True Friend (one of our favorite songs of the show, by the way!) and he shares a Location with Silverstream. On his turn, if he discards Smolder from his hand, he can perform both effects of A True, True Friend, but hold on! Silverstream has three Harmonizing options: She can discard Cloud Chaser & Flitter to perform the Trait's effect, she can discard Flim & Flam, No Plan to Sham to perform the Trait's effect, or discard Starlight Glimmer, Guidance Counselor to perform them both!

Almanac Cards

It wouldn't be a proper education without having some books to guide you (Twilight Sparkle nods enthusiastically while writing this), so we've added Almanac cards! When you play these cards, you'll immediately use the effect under the Keyword This turn. On your next turn, you'll use the effect under the Keyword Start of next turn, then discard this card to your discard pile.

Example: Sandbar plays Journal of Friendship, which has him discard one card. Well, that could be any card, so he chooses A Good, Clean Race—not a huge loss! On his next turn, the second effect of Journal of Friendship allows a target player to draw two cards. He lets Yona draw, who gets Twilight Sparkle, Headmare and Silverstream, before discarding Journal of Friendship.

Pick-A-Perk

Pick-A-Perk: When you play a card with this text, you must decide which of its two effects to use. You may not use both effects.

Example: Sandbar plays Trixie & Starlight Glimmer, which allows him to either draw one card or to pay one Resource Token to draw two cards. Of course, Sandbar, being the calm, cool, and collected of the crew, decides to take the risk and draws two cards for a + 2 Token.

Challenge Accepted!

Challenge Accepted!: When played, ignore this card's game text unless your team attempts to overcome the Active Hurdle this turn. If you control this card, and you decide to attempt, do not discard this card. If the attempt was successful, resolve this card's game text before gaining the reward of the Active Hurdle!

Sandbar's Gameplay Tip: As with any card in your deck, you'll want to maximize the efficiencies of your hand, so don't be afraid to lean on your teammates for their advice!

Yearbook Tokens

When the players overcome the Active Hurdle, each player who contributed at least one Sugar Cube for the Hurdle or Chaos payment gains one of their Yearbook Tokens from their personal supply. They may distribute this token to another player, or keep it for themselves (in both solo and group games) before revealing the next Active Hurdle.

Yearbook Tokens have an "active" and "inactive" side. A player may flip an active Yearbook Token they control to use that Character's Starting Side ability - without flipping any card over! However, a player cannot use a Yearbook Token if the pictured Character is already Flipped (the Starting Side ability must be visible), even if their Token is active.

When a player uses their Flipped Side ability, all matching Yearbook Tokens are flipped to the active side, regardless of who controls them.

Example: Silverstream, Smolder, and Yona each contributed at least one Sugar Cube to overcome the Active Hurdle! As a reward, all three gain one Yearbook Token each and can now distribute them to the other players. Gallus cannot, as he didn't contribute, but he's still eligible to receive a token. Yona believes her token is best suited for Silverstream, Silverstream gives hers to Gallus, and Smolder decides to keep hers.

Important Note: A player cannot use the same Starting side ability more than once on their turn, regardless of controlling multiple active Yearbook Tokens.

New Situations & Hurdles

We have all-new Situations to deal with—Situations, WITH AUTHORITY! They're all headlined by the worst of the worst in Equestria, befittingly so!

While these cards are in the Adventure Row, the players must follow their directions with their Keyword: Authority. These effects will remain active until they are resolved or discarded, so it's best to resolve them as soon as you can.

The Hurdles also gained an upgrade (or downgrade, if you will) with the new keyword: Nullify.

When a player attempts to overcome the Active Hurdle, all Resource Tokens nullified by the Active Hurdle cannot be used to overcome the Chaos, in any way—not even flipped to the Wild side.

Example: Ocellus decides that she and Silverstream should overcome Finding Your Place In This Time as she has 4 Sugar Cubes and Silverstream has 2 Sugar Cubes. The Hurdle states "Nullify: All Help and Info Tokens." Thus, no Help or Info Resource Tokens can be used to overcome the soon-to-be-revealed Hurdle used for Chaos. They can't even be flipped to their Wild side. Upon its reveal, any Chaos payment for Home, Sweet Home? must only come from the cards they have in hand. Silverstream's lone Move Token can still be flipped to its Wild side.

"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 Trait symbols (shown on the cards as icons), and the Keyword Graduate. You may encounter cards that ask you to Discover a certain Trait or Keyword on cards.

Example: Yona plays Twilight Sparkle, Principal, and the card's effect allows her to gain + 1 for each Graduate she Discovers. She sees Gallus has Gallus in his hand (naturally), she sees Yona in Silverstream's hand, and she sees Student in Sandbar's hand. Yona will gain + 2 because she Discovered 2 cards with the Graduate Keyword and Sandbar's going to get an earful from Professor Applejack about not paying attention in class.

Smolder'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.

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.

If you are playing with any of the Characters from this expansion, you will give yourself your own Yearbook Token before the new Active Hurdle is revealed. You may flip your available Yearbook Tokens to their inactive sides if you wish to use your Starting Side ability, instead of flipping over your Character Card. As with all previous sets, you may only use your Character Card ability once per turn.

Yona's Gameplay Tip: Yona is strong Yak, she can win game by herself! Yona thinks players should look for ways to use Character Cards and Yearbook Tokens when time is right!

Location and Classroom Card Notes

The manual's page 5 shows the new Location and Classroom cards as they are printed. Where cards overlap in the printed image, some task text is partly covered; the physical cards carry the complete text. The text that can be read in the printed image is:

Treehouse of Harmony (Central Location)

• Friendship Bonus: Gain + Help if you started your turn here while another player is at this Location.
• Task: Pay Help to give target player 1 Resource Token.
• Task: Pay 1 Resource Token to exchange 1 Sugar Cube with the supply or 2 Sugar Cubes with another player.

Seaward Shoals (Location)

• Task: Pay Help to gain 1 Pink Sugar Cube.
• Task: Pay Info to gain 1 Sugar Cube. You may then discard 1 Sugar Cube to remove up to 2 Task Tokens from any Locations.
• Task: Pay Help to gain 1 Pink, 1 Green, and 1 Blue Sugar Cube. Reduce this cost by Help for each color of Sugar Cube you do not control.

Principal's Office (Classroom)

• Remove 1 card in your discard pile from the game, then gain the associated bonus:
  • Starter Card: Draw 1 card.
  • Action Card: Gain 1 Resource Token.
  • Ally Card: Gain 1 Sugar Cube.

Introductory Loyalty (Classroom)

• Target player may remove 1 card in their discard pile from the game.

Introductory Generosity and Introductory Kindness (Classrooms): each lists a single task, partly covered in the printed image; consult the physical cards for the full text.

Breezie Village, Ponyville Spa: each lists three Tasks, partly covered in the printed image; consult the physical cards for the full text.