Showdown Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Objective
• Set Up
• Gameplay
  • Setting Up the Challenge
  • Making Predictions
  • Deciding the Matches
  • IMPORTant! Breaking Ties
• Scoring
• The Next Challenge
• The Ultimate Showdown
• Winning the Game

Contents

• 1 Ultimate Showdown board
• 150 Contender cards
• 50 Challenge cards
• 8 Voting chips
• 1 POW! marker
• 64 Betting chips
• 8 Contender # tokens
• 1 Score board
• 8 Scoring tokens

Objective

Determine who'll rise to the top as famous people and characters battle it out to see which is the Ultimate Victor! Predict winners to score points and beat out your fellow players.

Set Up

Each player selects a Scoring token and eight Betting chips ("1" to "8") in the same color. Each player also takes an orange/blue Voting chip.

Place the Ultimate Showdown board in the center of the table. Place all pawns and betting chips next to the "0/START" space on the Score board. Shuffle both the Contender and Challenge decks and place them off to the side of the board. Deal four Contender cards to each player.

If there are an even number of players, you'll need to use the POW! marker. Give the POW! to the youngest player.

Gameplay

Ultimate Showdown is played in 5 rounds. Each round, a Challenge card is drawn as well as eight famous people/characters to duke it out. Players predict who will rise to the top, and then the matches are played out, one by one, in single elimination until only one Contender is left standing as the ultimate victor.

Setting Up the Challenge

To begin a round, draw the top two Challenge cards. Pick whichever side you prefer to use, and place the cards on the A and B Challenge Choice spaces on the board. Read the two challenges placed there out loud to everyone. Each player will then vote simultaneously by using their Voting chip. Place the Voting chip in your hand. All players open their hand simultaneously and reveal the side they wish to vote for. The card with the most votes (orange or blue border) is the Challenge for this round. Discard the other and place the winning Challenge on the white Challenge space on the board.

Players now play Contender cards from their hand that they believe would be most likely to win this challenge.

• If there are 3 players, each player chooses 3 Contender cards and place their two best choices face down into Box A on the board and the other in Box B.
• If there are 4, 5, 6, or 7 players, each player chooses 2 Contender cards, placing their best choice in Box A, and their second choice in Box B.
• If there are 8 players, each player chooses 1 Contender card and places it in Box A.

Shuffle any cards from Box B then deal enough to Box A so that there are 8 total cards in Box A. Shuffle all of the Contenders together from Box A and then randomly deal them into the eight slots titled Contenders #1 through 8 on the board. As you place them, call out who is in each match. Discard any leftover Contenders from Box B. Place the Contender # tokens on each Contender card now so that each card has a token with it that matches it's slot #.

Making Predictions

With the matches lined up, it's time to predict how the Contenders will fare. Take your Betting chips and place face down the number of the Contender that you think will take first place in the blue "Champion Bets" box on the right side of the board. Place face down the number of the Contender you think will take second place in the purple "Final Bets" box right underneath the "Champion Bets". In the green "Semi-Final bets" box, place face down the number of a Contender you think will make it past the first match. All of your Betting chips should remain face down so no one else can see how you voted.

Deciding the Matches

Begin with the match between Contenders #1 and #2. At this point, you are only deciding who is the best between these two Contenders for the Challenge chosen for this round. Players are free to declare their preferences and try to sway other player's votes. Note how in each match, one Contender is in an orange outlined square and the other is in a blue outlined square. To vote, place your Voting chip in your closed hand. The side that is face up will be the color of the Contender you want to win. When all players have a vote ready, everyone simultaneously opens their hands to reveal their vote. Whichever Contender has the most votes wins the match and progresses to the semi-finals! Move that Contender and it's number token up to the green level on the board, then advance to the next match.

Once you have resolved all four matches in the starting section, it's time to move to the Semi-Finals. The winner of the match between Contender #1 and #2 is up against the winner of the match between Contender #3 and #4. Likewise the winner of the match between Contender #5 and #6 is going against the winner of the match between Contender #7 and #8. Everyone votes on each pair to see who moves on to the Finals (purple section).

Once both Semi-Final matches have been decided, it's time for the Finals to see who is the Champion! Everyone votes and the winner moves on to the blue Champion space!

IMPORTant! Breaking Ties

If you're playing with an even number of players, it is possible that a match will result in a tie. If this happens, the player currently holding the POW! marker is the tie-breaker and their vote is counted as TWO votes to decide the match. The POW! marker is then passed to the next player on the right.

Scoring

Now that you have a winner, it's time to score! Reveal the Betting chips in the 3 betting boxes. Use the score board to track everyone's points. Award points as follows:

• 4 Points: The Contender you picked in the blue circle came in first as the Champion.
• 3 Points: The Contender you picked in the purple circle came in first or second.
• 2 Points: The Contender you named in the green circle won at least one match.
• 3 Points: You were the one who owned the Contender who was the Champion.

The Next Challenge

To prepare for the next challenge, put the first and second place Contenders into the white Challenge box on the board, to wait there until the fifth challenge. Discard all the other Contenders. Put the used Challenge card at the bottom of the Challenge deck.

At this time, each player may discard any Contender cards from their hand that they don't want to keep. Players then draw new Contender cards to fill their hands back to four. You're now ready to begin the next challenge.

The Ultimate Showdown

After the fourth challenge, instead of playing Contenders from your hand, now take the first and second place winners from the first four challenges (from the white challenge box). These are the 8 Contenders for the fifth and final challenge, the Ultimate Showdown.

To begin, draw a new Challenge card. Then shuffle the eight Contenders and place them in the numbered slots on the board. Everyone makes their predictions and votes as normal except that for this challenge:

• All points scored are doubled.
• No points are awarded for owning the Contender.

Winning the Game

The player with the highest score at the end of the fifth challenge wins. In the rare instance of a tie, flip over the top Challenge card. This sudden-death match is between the two players who have tied. Declare one of the players orange, the other blue. All players vote with their orange/blue Voting chips, using the POW! marker if necessary. The winner of this match is the winner of Ultimate Showdown!