Reference

Aegis X

While this creature is in play, each Wound effect aimed at you is reduced by X.

• Aegis is passive: it works even when the creature is exhausted, and the creature is neither exhausted nor destroyed.
• Several Aegis don't stack: only the strongest one in play when the effect resolves counts. Aegis stacks with Divine Shield.
• It stops as soon as the creature leaves the battlefield, even if its Demise is still waiting.
• No effect on Unblockable Wound or on poison.

Allegiance X

Split X allegiance points among the factions of your choice.

• A faction never goes beyond 6. Extra points are lost, with no carry-over. You may put points in a faction already at 6.
• These points are added on top of the turn's allegiance action (1 essence for 1 point) and don't count toward its limit.
• You can gain allegiance during the opponent's turn, for example with the Demise of Fanatic or Bearer of the Ideal. A Rite can therefore be taken during the opponent's turn. If a single Allegiance X brings you to 6 in two factions at once, you choose which of the two free Rites you take.
• Thresholds remain useful once a Rite is taken: 6 in Blue still counts as 6 for a "6 Blue:" line.
• Allegiance never decreases. A card you could play remains playable.

Cure

Remove all your poison counters.

• Only yours. On the same card, Cure and Poison don't interfere: Poison targets the opponent.

Demise

Effect that triggers when this creature is destroyed.

• It triggers whatever the cause of destruction (Sacrifice, Destroy, Guard, An Eye for an Eye), except Call from the Grave. Never when the card is exiled.
• The creature goes straight to the discard pile and loses its abilities. Its Demise waits and resolves even if the card has moved again in the meantime (returned to hand by Anointing of Souls, for example).
• Everything after "Demise:" forms a single effect, read in order. Zealous Defender: Heal 3, then Cure.
• The Demise belongs to the creature's owner. Its Wound targets that owner's opponent. If you destroy an opposing Pyrobomb during your turn, its Demise wounds you, and you can't guard since it's your turn.
• Wound from a Demise doesn't trigger An Eye for an Eye: the creature is no longer in play.

Destroy X

Destroy X opposing creatures of your choice.

• Only opposing creatures. If there are fewer than X, destroy all you can.
• The chosen creatures are destroyed together. Their Demise effects wait, and their owner chooses the order.
• The Destroy keyword only means the Destroy X effect. Other ways of destroying (Guard, Sacrifice, An Eye for an Eye, Call from the Grave) are not Destroy effects. Anointing of Souls, however, prevents any destruction of the creatures it protects, except by Guard.

Discard X

Your opponent discards X cards from their hand, of their own choice.

• They may discard the cards they kept during their cleanup.
• If they have fewer than X cards, they discard their whole hand.
• During your turn, this hand holds the cards of their next turn and their traps.

Exile X

Exile X face-up cards from the recruitment zone, one at a time. Each is replaced at once.

• The card revealed to replace an exiled card can be exiled by the same Exile X effect.
• If the recruit deck is empty, the slot stays empty. Exile X does what it can if fewer than X cards remain.
• An exiled card goes to the shared exile pile, belongs to nobody and triggers nothing (no Demise). It never returns to the recruit deck. Only a Rift effect can take it back.
• You also exile with Volatile Essence, Hypernova, Soul Trap and the Demise of Disruption Drone and Astral Ravager. All these exiles count for the Rite of Antimatter.

Guard

⟳ Guard: during the opponent's turn, when a Wound effect targets you, you may exhaust this ready creature to cancel that effect entirely. The creature is then destroyed.

• Only during the opponent's turn. Guarding is not an activation: the creature only needs to be ready.
• You decide after Aegis and Divine Shield, right before damage. Guard cancels everything that remains. If the effect is already reduced to 0, there is nothing to guard.
• The creature is destroyed at once. Its Demise waits, and its owner's Rite of Ruin triggers.
• One Guard per effect. Two creatures can stop two effects, including the Demise of a creature destroyed by the first Guard.
• An exhausted creature can't guard. Your creatures are readied at the end of your turn: a creature summoned or activated on your turn can guard during the following opponent's turn.
• Useless against Unblockable Wound and against poison.

Heal X

Regain X health, up to 40.

• Only the healing actually applied counts. The rest is lost.
• A commander at 0 has already lost: no waiting Heal saves them.

Poison X

Add X poison counters to your opponent.

• Counters add up, with no limit.
• In their initiation phase, they take as much damage as they have counters, then remove 1. The number of counters doesn't change otherwise: Wound and healing don't affect it.
• This damage is not Wound: nothing reduces or cancels it. Only Cure removes the counters.
• A commander killed by poison loses immediately, before playing anything.

Research X

Search your deck for up to X cards of your choice, reveal them, add them to your hand, then shuffle your deck.

• Any type of card, only from your deck. Not the discard pile, not the recruitment zone.
• If your deck is empty, the effect finds nothing: the discard pile isn't shuffled in. A card played this turn therefore can't come back through Research.
• Shuffle your deck even if you took nothing.

Rift X

Swap up to X cards from your hand with as many cards of your choice from the exile pile.

• The swap is only made with the exile pile, never with the opponent. It is optional: 0 to X cards. Impossible if the exile pile is empty.
• You may give any card from your hand, Souls included: it's a way to thin your deck. You may receive any type.
• The cards received are revealed, go to your hand and become yours. Destroyed or discarded, they go to your discard pile.
• They are played under the usual rules, once the current card has fully resolved: a spell or a creature this turn if you have the allegiance, a trap during the opponent's turn.
• The cards you give go to the exile pile, but the swap doesn't count as an exile for the Rite of Antimatter.

Rush

The creature enters ready and can be activated the turn it is summoned.

• It is only activated once per turn, during your strategy phase, and only once the waiting effects of its summon have resolved.
• Without Rush, a creature is never activated the turn it is summoned.
• The Rite of the Blaze gives Rush to all your creatures, but doesn't ready any exhausted creature.

Sacrifice X

Cost: destroy X of your other creatures.

• It is a cost. All Sacrifices on a card are paid together, after the trap window and before resolution, even if written further down. Only creatures pay a Sacrifice, never essence.
• Only your other creatures: a creature can't sacrifice itself. An exhausted creature can be sacrificed.
• The cost is paid in full or not at all. With only one other creature, Sacrifice 2 is impossible: the card stays in hand, or the creature stays ready.
• Sacrificed creatures are destroyed together. Their Demise effects wait, and their owner chooses the order. The Rite of Ruin triggers once per creature.
• Anointing of Souls doesn't prevent paying a Sacrifice: it only protects the creatures of the player who played it, during their opponent's turn.
• Sacrificing is the only way to free a slot yourself on a full battlefield.
• Cards with Sacrifice: Auto-da-fé, Blood Sacrifice, Death's Embrace, Essence Collector, Harvest of the Damned, Herald of the Apocalypse (ability), Immolation, Pyro-Inquisitor (ability), Soul Pact.

Soul (icon)

Each Soul icon gives you 1 soul essence.

• The gain is mandatory.
• Your essence never goes below 0. It is used to buy and to gain allegiance. The rest is lost in the cleanup phase (see Rite of Grace).
• A Soul card played stays in front of you until cleanup, then goes to the discard pile. It is no longer in your hand: you can't keep it.
• Soul cards go through the same steps as other cards.

Unblockable

This Wound can't be reduced, cancelled or prevented by any effect.

• Guard, Aegis and Divine Shield have no effect on it. You can't guard against it: no creature is destroyed.
• Unblockable only applies to Wound. Unblockable cards: Banishment, Burning Hand, Fireball, Hypernova, Meteor, Multiverse Journey, Rite of Antimatter, Rite of the Blaze, Wormhole.

Wound X

Deal X damage to the opposing commander.

• A Wound effect always targets the opposing commander of the player who produces it. Creatures never take damage.
• Each occurrence is a separate effect, even on two consecutive lines. Each is reduced separately, and each Guard cancels only one.
• Order against a Wound effect: Aegis, then Divine Shield, then the decision to guard, then damage.
• An effect reduced to 0 or cancelled deals nothing and triggers nothing.
• Defeat is checked after each effect: at 0, the game ends at once.
• Vocabulary: "Wound" is the keyword, "damage" means the health lost. Poison deals damage, not Wound.

An Eye for an Eye

Black trap. Opponent's turn: this turn, each creature that wounds you is destroyed and your opponent suffers that much. Unblockable. Draw a card.

• "When" trap: play it right after an opposing creature in play has dealt you at least 1 damage with its ability, after Aegis, Divine Shield and Guard.
• It stays active until the end of the turn: each opposing creature that later deals you Wound with its ability meets the same fate.
• Return: each time, your opponent suffers as much Wound as you just did, Unblockable. Example: the Venomous Warrior deals you Wound 3, you play An Eye for an Eye, your opponent suffers Wound 3, the Warrior still resolves Poison 1, then it is destroyed.
• A creature is only destroyed once, after the end of its activation. If it has already left play, nothing happens.
• Doesn't react to spells, to Demise (the creature is no longer in play) or to Rites.
• Anointing of Souls doesn't protect this creature: it only protects the creatures of the player who played it.

Anointing of Souls

White trap. Opponent's turn: this turn, your creatures can only be destroyed by Guard. Return 2 creatures from your discard pile to your hand. Draw a card.

• Trap without a trigger. Play it when nothing is resolving, especially right after a card is played or an ability is activated, before it resolves. Never between two lines of a card. The protection doesn't bring back a creature already destroyed.
• Protection: until the end of the turn, your creatures can't be destroyed. An opposing Destroy X effect, including one from a Demise (Carnage, Blastling, Empress Salome), destroys nothing. The rest of the opposing card resolves normally.
• Guard: the only exception. One of your creatures that guards is destroyed normally, and its Demise triggers.
• Only your creatures: Anointing doesn't protect your opponent's creatures. If they sacrifice one to pay a Sacrifice, or if you destroy it with An Eye for an Eye or Call from the Grave, it is destroyed normally.
• Return: when you play Anointing, return up to two creatures from your discard pile to your hand. They go to your hand, not into play.

Auto-da-fé

Spell. Sacrifice 1, Allegiance 2, Wound 7.

• The Sacrifice is paid before everything else. If Allegiance 2 brings you to 6 in Black, the Rite of Ruin is taken too late for this sacrificed creature: no Poison 1.

Burning Hand

Red trap. Opponent's turn: when they summon a creature, they choose: Discard 1 or Wound 3. Unblockable. Draw a card.

• "When" trap: play it right after an opposing creature is summoned. One copy, one trigger.
• The opponent chooses: discard 1 card from their hand, or suffer Wound 3, Unblockable. Empty hand: they suffer the Wound.
• A creature destroyed right after being summoned (Call from the Grave) also counts.
• Doesn't react to spells, Soul cards, activations or traps.
• The choice waits: it resolves after the summon and after the active player's waiting effects.

Call from the Grave

Black trap. Opponent's turn: when a creature with Demise is summoned, destroy it. Its Demise triggers. Draw a card.

• "When" trap: play it right after the summon of an opposing creature that has Demise.
• Its Demise triggers normally and waits, like the other effects of the destruction (opposing Rite of Ruin).
• The summon did happen: Burning Hand and the Rite of the Blaze can trigger on it.
• Anointing of Souls doesn't protect this creature: it only protects the creatures of the player who played it.

Cloning Station

Blue trap. Opponent's turn: each time your opponent buys a card, you may draw a card. Draw a card.

• Play it before the purchase. One trigger per purchase.
• The draw is optional. It waits and follows the usual priority. Empty deck: shuffle your discard pile.
• A card drawn can be played as a trap as soon as nothing is resolving, but only against a later event: a Soul Trap drawn this way can't exile the purchase that made you draw it.

Divine Shield

White trap. Opponent's turn: each Wound effect aimed at you is reduced by 1. Draw a card.

• Trap without a trigger: play it when nothing is resolving, for example right after a card is played or an ability is activated.
• Until the end of the turn, each Wound effect is reduced by 1, whatever its source: creature, spell, Demise, Rite of Grace. Not Unblockable Wound.
• It applies after Aegis and adds to it: Aegis 2 and Divine Shield reduce Wound 5 to 2. It never reduces below 0 and never increases anything.
• It doesn't act on an effect that has already resolved.

Essence Collector

Starter Soul. Sacrifice 1, then 2 Souls.

• You need a creature to sacrifice to play it.

Fanatic, Bearer of the Ideal

White creatures. Demise: Allegiance 1.

• Destroyed during the opponent's turn, they make you gain allegiance during that turn. Reaching 6 gives you the Rite at that moment.

Herald of the Apocalypse

Black creature. ⟳ Sacrifice 1, Wound 6, Poison 2.

• It must sacrifice another of your creatures. If it is your only creature, it can't be activated.
• With a Biting Skull sacrificed, the Wound 6 and Poison 2 resolve first, then the Biting Skull's Demise (Wound 2).
• If the Wound 6 kills the opponent, the game ends: the waiting Demise is ignored.

Hypernova

Blue spell. Destroy 5, Wound 4 Unblockable, then exile it.

• It goes to the exile pile instead of the discard pile. This exile counts for the Rite of Antimatter (Wound 2).
• Under Anointing of Souls, Destroy 5 destroys nothing, but the Wound 4 is dealt and the card is still exiled.
• Once exiled, Rift can take it back.

Pyro-Inquisitor

White creature. ⟳ Sacrifice 1, Destroy 1, Wound 2.

• You need another creature to sacrifice.

Return from Hell

Red trap. Opponent's turn: when your creature is destroyed, take a card from their discard pile or exile. Draw a card.

• "When" trap: play it right after one of your creatures is destroyed during the opponent's turn, whatever the cause (Destroy, Guard…).
• Choose a card that isn't a Soul, from your opponent's discard pile or from the exile pile, and add it to your hand. It now belongs to you.
• Nothing to take: nothing happens, but you still draw.
• You can play the card taken under the usual rules: a spell or a creature on your turn if you have the allegiance, a trap during the opponent's turn.

Rite of Antimatter

Blue Rite. When you exile a card: Wound 2 (3 for a creature). Unblockable.

• Every card you exile counts, wherever it comes from: Exile X, Volatile Essence, Hypernova, Soul Trap, Exile on a Demise.
• The Rift swap doesn't count.
• "Creature" refers to the card's type, wherever it is.
• Each exiled card triggers the Rite separately. The trigger resolves even if the card has left the exile pile in the meantime.
• A card taken back with Rift and then exiled again counts again.
• No retroactive effect: only exiles after the Rite is taken count.

Rite of Grace

White Rite. End of your turn: Heal 1, then convert all your unspent essence into Heal or Wound.

• It resolves at step 2 of your cleanup phase, before essence is lost. Taken during the turn, it acts from that cleanup on.
• You choose when resolving it: all the essence becomes a single Heal, or a single Wound effect, never a mix. 5 essence: Heal 5 or Wound 5.
• The Heal 1 applies at every end of turn, even without essence; without essence, the conversion does nothing. Healing beyond 40 is lost.
• Its Wound is not Unblockable. Your opponent can reduce it (Aegis, Divine Shield) and guard against it, since it's your turn.
• It comes from the Rite, not from a creature: An Eye for an Eye doesn't react.

Rite of Ruin

Black Rite. Each time one of your creatures is sacrificed or destroyed: Poison 1.

• Once per creature: being sacrificed means being destroyed. Three creatures sacrificed at once give three Poison 1.
• Every cause counts, including a Guard during the opponent's turn or Call from the Grave.
• The Rite and the creature's Demise are two separate effects, in the order of your choice.
• No retroactive effect: a creature sacrificed before you take the Rite doesn't count, even on the same card (see Auto-da-fé).

Rite of the Blaze

Red Rite. Your creatures have Rush. Each time you summon a creature: Wound 1. Unblockable.

• Every creature you summon after taking the Rite enters ready and can be activated at once. Your creatures already in play gain Rush, but no exhausted creature is readied.
• Wound 1 for each creature you summon, even if it is destroyed right away (Call from the Grave).
• Only your own summons count, including those of a creature taken back with Rift.

Soul Trap

Blue trap. Opponent's turn: when your opponent buys a card, exile it. They don't get the essence back and draw 1 card. Draw a card.

• A purchase goes like this: payment, card placed in the buyer's discard pile, slot refilled. Soul Trap is played right after and exiles the card from that discard pile.
• The buyer draws 1 card, shuffling their discard pile if their deck is empty. The purchase did happen.
• If you own the Rite of Antimatter, it triggers (Wound 2, or 3 for a creature) and resolves after the trap.
• A card drawn during this purchase (Cloning Station) can't be used as a Soul Trap on that same purchase.
• The exiled card can then be taken back with Rift, by any player.

Volatile Essence

Starter Soul. 1 Soul. Or exile it: 2 Souls.

• When playing it, choose: 1 essence, or 2 essence by exiling it to the exile pile.
• Exiled, it counts for the Rite of Antimatter (Wound 2) and can be taken back with Rift, by any player.