Atnia Card Game Rules Document

If you have not seen it, watch the Atnia announcement video
This information / rules document is a work in progress
This Google Sheet displays all of the cards.
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Dictionary for words on cards
This Links you may need while playing the card game page exists.

This is a 1v1 card game, within the gameplay genre of trading card games (not the distribution model). The rules will support constructed as well as draft . For draft we intend on making a draft format for 2 players as well as provide a set of cards for traditional 8 player drafting. The game rules and cards are being designed to work both in paper and as a video game.

You begin the game at 20 life and win the game by reducing your opponent’s life total to 0. You will do this by attacking your opponent with your units, and using powerful spells and items.

The game takes place in Atnia, the setting of Ciaḃan’s Tabletop RPG. A short briefing on the world can be found here: Atnia Introduction.

Rules for playing the game:

Shared Round

During each round players will take turns taking actions (mainly playing cards!). Only one player is the active player at a time, and only the active player can take actions. These actions include:

Play a card or ability of a card - See “Playing Cards”
Take universal actions such as passing, channeling cards, or attacking.
- Pass - By passing, the other player becomes the active player.

Zones

Deck - Your deck of cards.
Hand - Your hand.
Battlefield - The main playing area / board. All unit and item cards that are currently in play live here.
Memory - When cards are destroyed or discarded, they go here. It’s the discard pile.
Horizon - Zone for cards & effects currently being played and not resolved yet.
Void - Zone used for some things.
Channel zone - Zone cards go after being channeled.
Location zone - Zone locations go to after being played.

Parts of a Card

Name
Energy Cost - To play a card, you must pay energy equal to it’s energy cost.
Source Devotion Requirement(s) - See “Power Sources”
Type - See “Card Types”
Subtype - See “Card Types”
Speed - See “Playing Cards”
Offense/Health Stats - See “Card Types” & “Playing Cards”
Description / Rules Text - Explains what a card does. See “Playing Cards”

*Icons from https://game-icons.net/

Energy System

There is a single (numerical) energy pool for each player, the maximum energy you can have at any given time is 10. At round end, players retain up to 2 energy and any excess is discarded (banked energy limit of 2 is separate from the main 10 energy limit). Players begin the game with 2 energy counters and gain an additional one after each round (maximum is also 10). Each round, players get 1 energy for each of their energy counters.

Note: Try testing maximum energy gain from round starting at 6 or something like that.

Power Sources

Sources are the main categorization of cards & affect which cards you will likely have in your deck, as to play cards from a source you must also have other cards of that source to meet it’s source devotion requirement (appears as a number of symbols for given sources). The power sources are diegetic concepts people in Atnia value, they represent the ways you can rally new allies to your side and do magical feats. The 7 sources are:

Arca - A chaotic and wild energy that has expanded throughout Atnia after the apocalypse. Highly magical, both destructive and creative, to many it is symbolic of the new world.
Eminus - Your reputation among others or within a community. Trust built through a shared history or one’s reputation is important to those who value Eminus.
Materia - Resources people need and desire in the new world. While the other sources are largely conceptual, Materia is grounded in the physical battlefield of the world. Food, lumber, salt, stuff that has value independent of concepts & social dynamics.
Old World - Drawing from ancient magics & past civilizations. While also very magical, it is in many ways the opposite of Arca, a romanticization of the past & apposed to the chaotic new world. Strongly connected to the coins/currency of the old Atnian kingdom.
Zelor - Passion, emotion, storytelling. One who values Zelor may join you if they truly believe in your cause or you give a rousing speech. Zelor magic draws from…
Martial - Martial arts, armies, guards, and skill in combat. Not much magic / magic takes a more subtle form. Magic tends to be either magical weapons, or being supernaturally good at fighting.
Faith - Connection to and power of the gods. Since the apocalypse, Atnia’s connection to the gods has been severed, but those who still worship them draw power from relics left behind, still infused with the power of the gods.

Source names subject to change, (particularly, Old World, Martial, and Faith).

Different people and factions within Atnia will value the different power sources differently and in varying amounts or combinations. These will determine the vibes of different factions, units, spells, and in general cards that you can include in your deck.

Cards may will often have a source devotion requirement, a number of symbols indicating how much devotion to that source you need to have to play it. Your devotion to a source is equal to the number of individual cards (not the icons on them) of that source you must have total/combined among your channeled cards and allied locations in the battlefield and horizon zones. If you do not meet the devotion requirement, you cannot play the card.

Currently the source icons are as follows: Arca is a purple ring of magical energy, Eminus is a yellow hand shake, Materia is a green plank of wood, Old World is a blue coin, and zelor is a red book.

You can tell what a card’s source(s) are by which source icons are on it’s devotion requirement.

Card Types

Unit - Units have offense stat in addition to their health stat, and can attack and block. Other card types do not have an offense stat.
Item - Items can have different subtypes that give them unique effects
Spell - Spells do what is indicated by their description on resolution, then are put into memory, unlike other cards which resolve to battlefield.
Location - When you play a location it goes to the location zone. Locations count towards source devotion/requirements while in the location zone (as well as the channel zone). Locations have no devotion requirement, the source icons only indicate which sources a location counts as source devotion towards.
- The card template may be updated to move the source icons on locations to a different part of the card to make it more clear, but you never have to meet a devotion requirement to play a location.
Starting Location - A deck can have up to three starting locations. You may choose the same starting location more than once.

Some cards will also have subtypes. Substyles do not have any universal rules significance unless otherwise noted. Here are some that do matter:

Weapon - Weapons can be played on their own or on top of an allied unit already on the battlefield (chosen as a target as you play the weapon card). Only one weapon can be on a board space at a time. If an allied weapon without a wielder is on the battlefield and an allied unit arrives, the unit arrives equipped to the weapon. Weapons have 2 text box sections, the top one describes the abilities of the weapon itself, and the bottom one indicates what abilities and stats are given to any unit equipped with the weapon. If a unit equipped with a weapon departs, the weapon stays in battlefield. If the weapon departs with the unit still in battlefield, the unit takes damage equal to the health buff on the weapon.

Playing Cards & the horizon

The horizon gives you a chance to see what your opponent is doing and react to it.

To play a card, you must meet it’s source devotion requirement and pay it’s costs.

When you play a card or ability, it goes to the horizon zone, and the player who did not play the card becomes the active player, who may then take an action or pass. Any new cards/effects put into the horizon zone are placed above other cards/abilities already there. Once any player passes after doing nothing or only taking actions at infinite speed (such as channeling cards), all cards in the horizon zone (unresolved cards) are resolved in order of top to bottom

When a card is played, it goes to the horizon. When it resolves, it goes to battlefield if it is a unit or item, memory if it is a spell, and the location zone if it is a location. When a card in battlefield or horizon is destroyed (such as by having no more health left), it is put into memory. Damage only occurs to cards in the battlefield and horizon.

To reiterate, you pay an ability or card’s cost to play it, and only once it resolves it does it’s effect / enters play.
During the main phase, when all cards/abilities resolve, the player who did not control the bottom card on the horizon becomes the active player.
All abilities are placed into the horizon just as cards are.
Since new cards are placed onto the horizon above cards already there, when the horizon cards resolve, cards most recently added to the horizon zone will resolve before cards added to the horizon at an earlier point in time.

Speed

Cards have an icon in the top left below the energy cost indicating what speed the card has.

Current speeds:

The two primary speeds are slow and fast.

Slow speed cards cannot be played during combat, and cannot be played while there are other cards/effects already in the horizon.
Fast speed cards can be played during combat, and can be played while there are other cards/effects already in the horizon.
Burst speed cards can be played during combat and can be played while there are other cards/effects already in the horizon. If you play a burst speed card/action, it resolves immediately and you remain the active player and can continue playing cards. All burst speed cards and effects are always placed above and resolved before any fast or slow speed effects. No player can take actions while they are in the horizon, and they do not affect which player is or becomes the active player.
- Burst speed is reserved mainly for location cards which do little more than draw a new card and put themselves in the location zone.
∞ speed cards and effects are the same as burst speed, except they are the same as having not played anything for the purposes of ending the round/main phase or resolving the cards on the horizon (for example if you play an infinite speed action such as channeling a card or have an ability of one of your cards trigger, then pass, if your opponent also passes the round will end.)
- ∞ speed is reserved mainly for channeling cards and triggered abilities on already played cards (effects that say ‘whenever x happens, y happens’).

More info:

You may commit multiple fast/slow speed cards to the horizon at once, although speed rules still apply, and you must choose an order for the cards to be placed into the horizon.
- When doing this, if there are no cards already in the horizon, you are able to play a slow speed card as the bottom card, and commit fast speed cards along with it on top of it (the slow speed card must always be on the bottom though, as slow speed cards cannot be played when there are other cards on the horizon).
- When committing multiple cards at once, cards committed lower on the horizon are legal targets for cards committed higher on the horizon.

Channel System

All cards in hand can be channeled face up into the channel zone at ∞ speed. Channeling cards is primarily for increasing your source devotion to fulfill devotion requirements, and getting rid of cards you don’t want, so you can replace them with new ones at the end of the round.

During the draw phase, your channeled cards will be recycled into your deck. They are not lost permanently, only for the duration of the round.

More Location Info, Exploration, and Chromatic cards

Locations when played go to your location zone, and while there add 2 devotion to each of their sources (except for starting locations, which only add 1). The text on location cards defaults to being active when they are in the location zone instead of the battlefield.

There are a number of location cards that allow you to put as many of them as you want in your starting deck. These currently include one for each single source and one for each two source combination. They all have the type ‘Core’.

Any card can be used to explore. To explore, at burst speed reveal and put a card from your hand or channel zones on the top or bottom of your deck to create a Wilderness location of any source of your choice (there is 1 Wilderness location for each source).

Alternative rule if this doesn’t work: You may only explore for one of the sources the card could be channeled for or one of the sources contained on your starting locations.

Some cards will have a rainbow circle in the top left, this means the card is chromatic. While channeled, in addition to adding 1 to the source devotion of each of it’s sources, it also adds 1 to the source devotion of each source contained on allied locations (this cannot add 2 devotion to a single source). Also, when you use a card with chromatic to explore, you create a Home location instead of a Wilderness location (the wilderness locations are slightly upgraded versions of the home locations).

Round Phases

Pre round
1. If it is not the first round of the game, the player with the most cards in hand becomes the first player (tie broken by who has the most units, if that is tied, the player who began as the second player in the previous round becomes the first player.)
  1. Alternative rule to test: The player who ended the previous round goes first (the second person in the double pass, who says yes to ending the round).
2. Each player gets 1 additional energy counter
3. Each player gets 1 energy for each of their energy counters.
4. Each player unflips all cards on their battlefield that are flipped (locations do not unflip at round start).
5. Move to next phase
Round Start
1. If an effect refers to round start, it happens here.
2. Once all effects are resolved / there are no unresolved effects, move to the next phase.
Main phase
1. The first player becomes the active player (unless otherwise specified).
2. When both players pass in a row after doing nothing or only taking actions at infinite speed (such as channeling cards), move to the next phase.
- This is the primary phase where players actually play the game, along with combat which players can enter from the main phase.
Round End
1. If an effect refers to round end, it happens here.
2. Once all effects are resolved / there are no unresolved effects, move to the next phase.
Draw Phase
1. The number of cards total in a player’s hand, face up in their channel zone, + 1, (up to 10) becomes that player’s maximum hand size for the round.
2. Each player puts all cards from their channel zone on the top and/or bottom of their deck in any order/combination (which cards go where is not revealed to other players, the quantity of cards put on top & bottom is.).
3. Players draw up to their maximum hand size.
4. Begin next round

Combat phase
- See “Combat”

If a phase/step does not explicitly make a player the active player, no player is active and therefore players may not take actions (such as playing cards), however, If a fast or slow speed card/effect is somehow put onto the horizon anyway, the player who does not control it becomes the active player.

Combat

During the main phase, while you are the active player and there are no unresolved effects, as a universal action you may start an attack by declaring your attackers (you attack players, not their cards).

Combat phase outline:

Combat begins with the attacking player being active, declaring one or more attackers and committing any desired cards/effects to the horizon. After attackers are declared, any triggers/effects created are put into the horizon zone, however only ∞ speed effects are resolved.
Defending player becomes active, declares up to one unit to block each attacking unit, and commits any desired cards/effects to the horizon zone. After defenders are declared, any triggers/effects created are put into the horizon zone, however only ∞ speed effects are resolved at this step.
If the defending player committed any non ∞ speed effects or blocked with one or more units, the attacking player becomes active. Otherwise, or after a player passes, all cards and effects on the horizon are resolved, then all combating units simultaneously strike (deal damage equal to their offense stat) the unit blocking/being blocked by them, and if they are attacking unblocked, strike the defending player.
Combat ends, return to the main phase, and the player who was attacking becomes the active player. Notes:

You may attack up to three times per round.
Both attacking and blocking causes units to flip.
You cannot attack or block with flipped units.
By attacking, the attacking player becomes the first player for the remainder of the round / until another player attacks.
If you pass after attacking, the pass does not count towards ending the round.

Starting the game

To start the game, randomly determine the first player. Each player shuffles their deck, (reveals & puts their starting location(s) into the location zone if applicable), and draws 6 cards. Players may put any number of cards from their hand on the bottom of their deck to draw that many cards. After both players have finished drafting their hands, begin the first round of the game.

Card Semantics

See the Naming V2 sheet in the Atnia Cards Sheet for info on words that appear on cards.

Here is some additional info:

The brown symbols in the description box of cards are zone symbols. A zone icon may indicate which zones a card or effect can target, or which cards in what zones are relevant to it.

Kinds of game objects

Card - Cards!
Ability - Effects created by cards
- Triggered ability - Occurs automatically when indicated by the card they are on. Is infinite speed unless otherwise noted.
- Skill - Ability of a card that is activated by the player similar to playing a card.
Universal Action - Actions such as passing, channeling cards, or entering combat, which are granted to players by the game rules rather than cards.
Player health / life total

Extra Notes

Damage dealt to cards in horizon/battlefield is permanent (until they leave).
- If a card is given a health buff, then takes damage, then the buff goes away, the full extent of the health buff is taken away still. Whenever a health buff goes away, the unit effectively takes that much damage.
Targets for cards are chosen as you play the card (as it enters horizon), not on resolution. Same for abilities. The arrive ability is quite common and has specific rules surrounding it, that targets are chosen as you play the card if possible.
The battlefield zone has a limit of 8 cards. Locations are in the location zone and do not count towards this limit.
- This is mainly to not have to handle an indefinite number of cards online, the exact number can change a bit.
- Online, locations can stack up on top over each other in a corner of the board or something, and not count towards the main board limit.
- If a card would enter a full board, the player should be prompted to choose a board slot / card on the board to replace (in which case the old card and any weapons on the board space are discarded as the new card arrives), or allow the new card to be discarded instead.
  - There is not a clear answer for how the exact timing of this should work, and if the board is full whether the new card should enter and then be discarded or simply never enter in the first place.

Advanced notes on timing rules and the horizon:

If during horizon effect resolution one or more new cards/abilities are put into horizon that are not at ∞ speed, resolution stops, and the player not in control of the new top most card/effect becomes the active player.
- Maybe also: If new non infinite speed cards/effects are put into horizon by an infinite speed effect and the active player passes, it does not cause them to resolve & instead the other player becomes active.
If effects would trigger simultaneously, they are put into horizon all at once, in order of, from top to bottom:
- Effects from the first player in the round above effects from other players.
- Top to bottom, triggers from cards in: horizon, battlefield, Memory.
  1. Horizon, top to bottom: Cards higher in horizon to cards lower in the horizon.
  2. Battlefield, top to bottom: Cards on the left side of a players battlefield zone to cards on the right side of their battlefield zone (combatting cards are assumed to be to the left of non combatting cards).
  3. Memory - If a player has multiple simultaneous triggers from cards in their memory zone, smaller cards go on top and and larger cards go on the bottom (determined by offense, tie broken by health, tie broken by base energy cost. After base energy cost is a tie, in paper players decide the order, and online it goes by alphabetical order of card name (earlier in the alphabet goes on top))
    - If a single card has multiple triggers occur at once, the one(s) on top of the card’s text box go above ones lower in the text box.
All new cards arrive on the battlefield to the right of cards already in battlefield. Attacking allows the attacking player to choose the order of their attacking units. Blocking forces the blocking units to match the location/order of the attacking units. At end of combat all attacking/blocking units return to the rest of the battlefield zone on the left of cards already there that didn’t attack/block, in the same order/arrangement they were in combat.
- If multiple cards would enter a player’s battlefield at once, they enter with the largest card on the left and smallest card on the right (determined by offense, tie broken by health, tie broken by base energy cost. After base energy cost is a tie, in paper players decide the order, and online it goes by alphabetical order of card name (earlier in the alphabet on the left))
If multiple effects that require targets to be chosen are put into the horizon simultaneously, targets must be chosen for the bottom most effect(s) first.
If multiple cards are in one board space (such as with weapons), the card on the bottom (the weapon) is assumed to be to the right of the card on top.

Formats / modes and ways to play the game

Recommended way to play for new players.

Grab (and print if you’re playing in paper) some of the prebuilt decks from the Google Drive Folder and play them against each other.

For a more structured experience, do this with:

Best of 3 with multiple decks

Grab 6 (or more) decks, and assign 3 decks to each player (you could have each player take turns picking a deck until both have 3, randomly assign decks, allow players to bring their own, or any other method). Which decks each player has is known to all players.
Each player bans one of their opponent’s decks.
Players play games until a player wins twice, at which point they win the match.
- Before each game in the match, players pick any one of their available decks to play for that game (players reveal their chosen deck simultaneously).
- Once a player wins a game with a deck, they cannot play that deck anymore for the rest of the match.

We will provide decks / sets of decks to be played in this mode, and you can also play with players bringing their own decks. All prebuilt decks can be downloaded from the Google Drive Folder, and I will add a few potential deck pools which work well below (whenever we finish them).

Constructed

Build a deck with 40 total cards, max 2x of each card, (and 15 card sideboard??), then play it against other people’s decks.

Limited format that lacks a name but is the main one rn

Limited format for 2 players. It shares some characteristics with being given a preconstructed deck, but in practice is closer to drafting from a cube (the card pool in fact may be used for cube draft) as you play the game due to channeling + enhanced card selection, without requiring a lengthy setup or draft before playing.

Start with 7 decks on the table, one for cards of each source, and randomly determine the first player. Player 1 will choose one of the decks to take 15 cards from (+ a starting location of that source), then player 2 will do the same, repeat 2 more times so each player has 45 cards* and 3 starting locations. The same deck can only be chosen 3 times total across all players*. Players are then given 10* “Explore!” cards, as well as 6* “See Beyond” cards for each different source deck they chose when selecting their 45 cards. Players then shuffle all of their cards (the 45 cards from the source decks, Explore cards, and see beyond cards), which then become that player’s deck for the game.

The game then begins and is played as normal.

Notes:

You can play multiple games before resetting the card pool. If a deck can be chosen 3 times total across all players (and all games in the match) and there are 7 decks, up to 3 games can be played in the match. When doing this, in games two and three players will have more limited options for sources to choose for their decks, which may be desirable if you enjoy playing (and being forced to attempt to win with) a variety of different strategies, and undesirable if you would like to stick with a single strategy for many games.
The card pool should provide a variety of directions for players to go in archetype wise even within the same sources / combinations. This of course means that cards will be of varying use to players depending on what they are doing, and the existing channel system + see beyond cards should allow them to effectively ‘draft’ during the game and select for the cards they actually would like to use.
The explore cards simply give players access to a consistent number of exploration effects to get enough locations. They are also all sources, so they can be channeled to help play any of your cards. They may at some point be replaced by just having more cards with Exploration text.
The See Beyond cards when channeled are voided and allow you to look at the top 2 cards of your deck, rearrange them (and put them on the bottom of your deck if you like), then draw a card. This is to emulate the benefit of playing multiple sources in constructed, higher card quality.

Notes for paper/online:

In paper, after a match has been played, players should go through their cards and separate them back into their original piles. For cards that have multiple sources, they should go in the pile of the source that is on the left of the card border/box backgrounds.

* These numbers can be adjusted for the video game version as they were selected largely for paper play where there is a limited number of physical cards and the more you use the longer resetting the game takes. Online one player taking cards doesn’t need to mean the other player can’t have the same card, although the picking process should still be a back and forth thing so one player doesn’t have a large information advantage during selection.

For online, I would start with the following numbers:

20 cards per pick (60 total, the total number of cards in a single source deck).
16 “Explore!” cards.
10 “See Beyond” cards for each source deck the player chose to add cards from to their starting deck.

Cube Draft

You could do a cube draft with one of the full sets. Set 1 is not finished yet but when it’s playable for cube draft I’ll link it here.

Highlander

80 cards, max 1x of each, featuring the super cool draft pool! There will be a universal pool of ~30 cards, all with no devotion requirement. This set of cards can rotate over time, perhaps weekly or monthly, hand picked and brand new cards selected for the pool. At the start of each match, shuffle the 30 card pool and create two {packs} of 10 (numbers not decided yet and must be tested) cards from the top, then draft 5 cards from those packs with your opponent. Do the same thing after game 1 and 2 (if you go to game 3) (no sideboarding) (you are required to put all the cards you draft into your deck) (this may have issues with location count since you are changing the number of non locations, we’ll have to figure a solution to that out later).

Abandoned Formats/Modes

See this for a list of abandoned format ideas.

Atnia

Explorer

Card Game Rules Doc