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.
- Join the Discord :)
- 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.
- Discard Pile - When cards are destroyed or discarded, they go here.
- 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.
- Ideal Devotion Requirement(s) - See “ideals”
- 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. Players begin the game with 2 energy counters and gain an additional one after each round (maximum is 10). Each round, players get 1 energy for each of their energy counters. After a round, if a player had any unspent energy, they receive +1 energy in the following round.
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 discarded, unlike units and items which resolve to battlefield.
- Location - Used to gain devotion to an ideal. When you play a location it goes to the location zone. While there, locations add devotion to each of their ideals.
- Starting Location - A deck can have up to three starting locations. You may use multiple copies of the same starting location.
Some cards will also have subtypes. Substyles do not have any universal rules significance unless otherwise noted.
The 7 Ideals
Ideals are the main categorization of cards in the Atnia card game and affect which cards you will be able to play together in the same deck. Each non-location card will have a devotion requirement, which will require you to have a certain amount of devotion to an ideal (or multiple ideals) to play it. The ideals each represent a wide swath of related concepts the people of Atnia value (and you can use to rally them to your side in battle), as well as different paradigms or ways of doing magic.
The ideals are:
Arca
Chaos, The Rift, Arcane Magic, Change
- Symbol: A purple ring of magical energy.
- Arca represents 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.
- Warlocks, the Forsaken, dream mages, nightmares, people seeking power and change.
Eminus
Reputation, Law, Trust
- Symbol: A yellow hand shake.
- Your reputation among others or within a community. Laws and law magic. Trust built through a shared history or one’s reputation is important to those who value Eminus.
- Arbiters, law mages, politicians, traders, knights, the Old Watch.
Materia
Physical Resources, Alchemy, the Untamed Wilderness
- Symbol: A green plank of wood
- Resources people need and desire in the new world. While the other ideals are largely conceptual, Materia is grounded in the physical reality of the world. Food, lumber, salt, stuff that has value independent of concepts & social dynamics.
- Druids, the Salt Alliance, farmers, alchemists, vampires.
Epoca
History, Ancient Secrets, Past Civilizations
- Symbol: A blue coin.
- Drawing from ancient magics & past civilizations. While also very magical, it is in many ways the opposite of Arca, as it represents a romanticization of the past and opposition to the chaotic new world. Strongly connected to the coins/currency of the old Atnian kingdom.
- Nobles, traditional wizards, people who believe in the societies of the past.
Zelor
Passion, Emotion, Storytelling
- Symbol: A red book.
- One who values Zelor may join you if they truly believe in your cause or you give a rousing speech. Zelor magic draws from your own passions and emotions.
- Storytellers, bards, people who fight for a cause.
Talentus
Martial Arts, Armies, Skill & Craftsmanship
- Symbol: Orange shield with a fist.
- Talentus represents mundane skills as well as combat prowess. Low on magic / magic takes a more subtle form. Magic tends to be either magical weapons, or being supernaturally skilled at something.
- Tradesmen, soldiers, the Fifth Legion, martial artists.
Deitas
Gods, Religion, Relics
- Symbol: A white sun.
- 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 after the fall, still infused with the power of the gods.
- Clerics, priests, those who value religion or the gods.
There is no hard gate on which cards you can include in your deck, you may include cards from all 7 ideals if you want to, however you may then have a very hard time meeting the devotion requirements to play them.
There are three ways to gain devotion to ideals: Channeling cards, playing location cards, and using your cards to explore (converting a card in hand to a location).
Channel System
All cards in hand can be channeled face up into the channel zone at ∞ speed. Channeling cards is primarily for increasing your ideal 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.
- Each channeled card adds 1 to your devotion to each of it’s ideals.
- During the draw phase at the end of each round, your channeled cards will be recycled into your deck. Cards you channel are never lost permanently, only for the duration of the round.
- During the draw phase, you choose which of your channeled cards are put on the top of your deck and which are put onto the bottom, then draw a card for each card you had channeled +1.
More Location Info and Exploration
Locations
Locations when played go to the location zone, and while there add devotion to each of their ideals. Instead of having a devotion requirement to play, the ideal icons on location cards indicate how much devotion to that ideal the location provides while in the location zone.
The text on location cards defaults to being active when they are in the location zone instead of the battlefield. Locations do not unflip at round start, as they are not on the battlefield.
Exploration
Exploration allows you to trade any card in your hand/channel zone for a single ideal location. To explore, (at infinite speed) put a card from either your hand or channel zone on the top or bottom of your deck to create in your location zone a Wilderness location of the ideal of your choice.
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 ideal 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, the discard pile 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 the discard pile. 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
The speed of a card is indicated in the top left in italicized text. Below is the full list of different speeds and what they mean.
- 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.
- If you play a burst speed card/action, it resolves immediately as you play it 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.
- You cannot commit burst speed cards along with other cards on the horizon as they will resolve instantly. Imagine it as dragging a card from your hand onto the board in a video game and as soon as you let go of the mouse it resolves.
- ∞ speed cards and effects are the same as burst speed, except they do not count as having taken an action 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, exploring, and for triggered abilities on already played cards (effects that say ‘whenever x happens, y happens’ are assumed to be infinite speed unless otherwise stated).
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.
- If you would like to guarantee putting multiple cards onto the horizon, commit them all at once, because once you commit your cards, if your opponent chooses not to react, all cards on the horizon will resolve.
Round Phases
- Pre round
- If it is not the first round of the game, the player who did not ebd the previous round becomes the first/starting player (the player who passed first in double pass. This will be whoever didn’t take the last non infinite speed action before the round ended (channeling, exploration, and abilities marked on cards as infinite speed are the only infinite speed actions)).
- Each player gets 1 additional energy counter
- Each player gets 1 energy for each of their energy counters.
- Each player unflips all cards on their battlefield that are flipped (locations do not unflip at round start).
- Move to next phase
- Round Start
- If an effect refers to round start, it happens here.
- Once all effects are resolved / there are no unresolved effects, move to the next phase.
- Main phase
- The first player becomes the active player (unless otherwise specified).
- 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
- If an effect refers to round end, it happens here.
- Once all effects are resolved / there are no unresolved effects, move to the next phase.
- Draw Phase
- 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.
- 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.).
- Players draw up to their maximum hand size.
- 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, you may start an attack by declaring your attackers. You attack players, not their cards. You can only attack opposing units directly if the attacking unit has ‘challenger’).
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 by this are put onto the horizon, however only ∞ and burst speed effects are resolved. Fast and slow cards/effects will resolve during step 3.
- Defending player becomes active, declares up to one unit to block each attacking unit, and commits any desired cards/effects to the horizon.
- After defenders are declared, any triggers/effects created by this are put onto the horizon, however only ∞ and burst speed effects are resolved at this step. Fast and slow cards/effects will resolve during step 3.
- The attacking player becomes active, and players may play cards/pass as normal. 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.
- Blocking is done in step 2, and cannot be done later. You can only block with a unit put into play after blockers are declared if that unit has ‘guardian’
- 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 5 cards. Then, 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 16 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. (Current plan is to have the cards shrink on the board once you go above 8 or something like that)
- 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.
- If a card would resolve and targets originally chosen for it no longer exist (if they are made to be illegal targets they cease to exist as targets), any effects related to that target don’t happen. Any other effects on the card still occur.
- Unless an ability says ‘you may’, you must do it.
- If a card says ‘do x to do y’, if x does not happen, y won’t happen. Y includes all remaining text on the card until the next line break.
- If y cannot or won’t happen, x also won’t happen?
- If a card is given a health buff and then that buff goes away, the buffed health also leaves (it takes that much damage). If a card is given a health debuff and the debuff leaves, the card is granted that health as it leaves. These rules apply if a single buff changes over time, and also apply to weapons.
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, the discard pile.
- Horizon, top to bottom: Cards higher in horizon to cards lower in the horizon.
- 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).
- Discard Pile - If a player has multiple simultaneous triggers from cards in their discard pile, 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.
Info not relevant to set 1:
Subtypes which may be used in the future:
- 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.
- Scheme - Schemes cannot be played normally. Instead, at slow speed (with intermezzo), you may plan a scheme by paying 2 energy and putting the scheme card from your hand directly onto the battlefield face down (does not use the horizon). Schemes arrive face down with 3 health as items, and you may play schemes for their normal costs from this face down state (when played they go to the horizon as though they were played from your hand). Every scheme has a condition in the top half of it’s text/description box, and you may only play the scheme while the condition is met.
- If you summon a scheme (via another effect), it summons as though you are summoning a regular spell.
- If you plan a scheme from a zone/context where it is face up, it is planned face up instead of face down (in paper use a counter to track that it is planned)
- You can plan a scheme from any zone you could play the scheme from (for example if it is cached), however after paying the 2 energy plan cost, instead of planning it directly, recall the scheme, then plan any scheme from your hand.
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 ideal, and randomly determine the first player. Player 1 will choose one of the decks to take 15 cards from (+ a starting location of that ideal), 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* “Wilds of Atnia” cards, as well as 6* “See Beyond” cards for each different ideal deck they chose when selecting their 45 cards. Players then shuffle all of their cards (the 45 cards from the ideal 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 ideals 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 ideals / 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 ideals, 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 ideals 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 ideals, they should go in the pile of the ideal 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 ideal deck).
- 16 “Wilds of Atnia” cards.
- 10 “See Beyond” cards for each ideal 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.
Ideals short version:
Arca
Chaos, The Rift, Change
Eminus
Reputation, Law, Trust
Materia
Physical Resources, Alchemy, the Untamed Wilderness
Ancestra
History, Ancient Secrets, Past Civilizations
Zelor
Passion, Emotion, Storytelling
Talentus
Martial Arts, Armies, Skill & Craftsmanship
Ecclesia
Gods, Religion, Relics