Three Spheres TCG Rules a1.0

Goal

in this game you will try to build up your deck to score more victory points than your opponent before the end of the game.

End of Game

The Game End is triggered when one player needs to flip a card from his opponents World Deck and cannot due to it being empty. Afterward players continue playing until the round is finished then the game is completed and scoring may begin.

Setup

Each player brings a pre-constructed deck.

to set up the table before playing, each player will remove cards from their deck to form 3 different zones: World, Discovery, Realm.

Realm Deck

remove 10 cards ranging from level 0 to level 1, with the sum of the levels being 5 or less.

This is your initial Realm Deck these will be the first cards you get to use and spend in the game it will grow as you buy more cards.

place it on the table in front of you.

World Deck/Spread

The World deck has a variable size that has a direct effect over when the game ends. Remove an agreed on number of cards from your deck (usually between 7 and 9). These go in a pile in the center of the table to form your World deck. Your opponent should do the same placing his world deck to the left of yours.

The World spread is formed by drawing three cards and placing them side by side to the right of your World Deck.

At the start of the game, there are 6 face up cards in the World Spread. They can be purchased by any player no matter who the original owner was. This mechanic allows you to strategically buy some cards so your opponent cannot use them. It also allows you to collect cards from other players and grow your collection as part of the gameplay itself.

Discovery Deck/Spread

The remaining cards go on the table between your world deck and your realm deck to form your Discovery Deck.

Draw 5 cards from the Discovery Deck and lay them side by side near the Discovery Deck. This is your discovery spread.

Draw your hand

Draw 5 cards from your Realm Deck.

You are now ready to begin playing.

Taking a turn.

Turn Start

Activate any Turn Start abilities on cards in your realm (that you control)

Main Phase

• In your main phase you may play cards from your hand in two different ways.

  • Play a card for it's ability text.

  • Spend a card for it's resource value.

    Resources are the lifeblood of this game, there are a few different things you can do with them.

    • Use resources to activate card abilities. Some cards have abilities that can trigger multiple times as long as you have the resources to spend.
    • You may use resources to buy a card from the World Spread or your Discovery spread.

Important

A spent card may only have one target, all of the spent cards resources go to that target, even if they would be wasted.

Important

A card can either be used for it's ability or used for it's resources, not both.

Running Out of Cards

If you need to draw cards and your Realm deck is empty, shuffle your Realm Discard pile and replace your Realm Deck with it, then finish drawing the required number of cards to your hand. 

As a consequence you will need to add a new card to your opponents world spread the end of your turn.

Turn End

At the end of your turn perform these actions.

Remove any cards from the table that do not Persist.

Discard any cards remaining in your hand.

Draw 5 cards

Finally, If you had to reshuffle your Realm Deck to draw a card at any point during your turn, you must flip the top card of your opponents World deck and place it in an empty space in your opponents World Spread, if no empty space is available, place it on top of another card that is already in his World spread.

Note

• This action is a fairly complex one to remember, but it's important. This action is the only way cards are added to the world spread outside of using card abilities, and it will also eventually trigger the end game.
• this only happens at the end of the turn so that it can only possibly happen once per turn, but also happens at the point in the turn where it is most likely to have been triggered.

Your turn is now over and now it is your opponents turn.

Turns progress like this until when player needs to reshuffle, the the end game condition is met. Then the round is finished out and end game scoring can begin.

Scoring

To prevent the need for counters and dice, I have decided that victory points are not gathered and counted during the game. Much like Dominion and Forest Shuffle, points are only counted at the end of the game, this keeps players engaged, as they need to pay attention to the cards that their opponent is buying in order to sabotage them, and also keep track of the points the opponent has accrued so you have a number to beat. At any rate you may be losing, but you may still have fun simply because you don't know that you are losing until the scoring.

Like in Forest Shuffle, scoring points is a combination of fixed vp numbers on cards, and more dynamic vp values, that can grow or shrink based on the number or types of other cards in your deck.

my suggestion is to separate your deck into three piles, non-scoring, fixed vp, and dynamic vp, then score the fixed vp cards first, then the dynamic ones one at a time based on their scoring text. it take a bit, but it's kind of fun going through your deck at the end of the game, and finding those vp scoring connections and synergies.