These cards are played at any time for their cost. There is no limit to the number of Basic Troopers you can play. Basic Troopers never return to your hand, or go to the discard pile, instead they return to your Basic Trooper deck.
This adds a +1 token to a lane that will increase the power of that lane by 1 for this turn. Tokens are removed in the Regroup phase.
Abilties with a cooldown may only be triggered once per turn. Rotate the card sideways to indicate that the ability is on Cooldown. Reset all cards on Cooldown in the Regroup phase.
Unless otherwise stated, Cooldown abilities can be triggered during your Deploy or Aftermath phase, but not during an opponents phases, Attack phase, or Operations phase.
This adds a -1 token to a lane which lowers the power of that lane by 1. Multiple tokens stack additively. You cannot go below 0 power in the Mining or Production lanes, but you can for your Attack lane. Tokens are removed in the Regroup phase, unless the lanes owner chooses not to.
Target opponent(s) lose hitpoints equal to the damage number immediately. This can allow you to win during the deploy phase if all other players are reduced to 0 HP.
Send a card from its lane into its owners discard pile.
Change the power of this card to 0 for the turn. Cards moved to another lane still have 0 power. Abilities that target a card use the 0 power value in their checks. Card power resets back to it’s base power during the cleanup phase.
Move specified card to your discard pile.
Cards can be discarded from the hand or playfield for a given player. Discarded cards always end up in the discard pile for the player that owns the card. Basic Troopers are not discards and instead return to the Basic Trooper deck.
Move an opponents card from one lane to another.
See Shift, but applies to another player’s lanes instead.
Add a card from your deck or the basic card pool to the specified players hand.
Some abilities may specify a location to draw from such as your discard pile, or a specific type of card, such as a basic card. Cards drawn may be played as normal any time after the draw action is completed.
Increase your available crystals by the listed amount.
Crystals are available immediately for use in the stage the ability is triggered. Crystals gain on a When Played ability can be used to play future cards in the same turn. Gained crystals cannot be used to pay for the card that gave you those crystals, only subsequent cards. Crystal victory conditions are still calculated at the end of turn, even if you hit the required amount by gaining crystals earlier in the turn.
Increase your hit points by the listed amount.
You may gain additional hit points above your maximum unless otherwise stated. Hit points are gained at the time the ability is triggered, gaining hit points after you have already reached 0 does not prevent a loss.
Add a number of gambit tokens to your Attack lane. During combat resolution the losing player takes +1 damage.
This does not effect your Attack power in the lane. It is additional damage added after the combat is resolved. Damage is taken as part of the Attack phase and before any End of Turn effects. Damage can be reduced or prevented by abilities.
When a card specifies a max number, it applies to the ability, not the total maximum for all abilities played during a phase. E.g. Swarming (max: 2) would mean you only add +2 Boosts as part of the Deploy for that card, you can have more that 2 Boosts total from other cards or abilities.
The following ability is optional.
This is to allow the player who played the ability to skip the activation of said ability. If you skip part of an ability, you must skip the whole ability. E.g. If you “may discard a card to gain 5 hp”, you cannot skip the discard and still gain the hit points.
The following ability is a mandatory requirement of playing the card.
By default all abilities are required unless otherwise stated. This means the player who played the ability must activate and complete the action if possible. It is however allowable that a player might enter a situation in which they are unable to completely do the action, in which case they would fulfill the requirement as much as possible. E.g. “End of Turn: You must discard three cards from your hand”, with a hand of only one card, would mean you discard down to 0.
You pay the normal crystal cost to play a Mercenary, but then an additional cost to leave it in play during the Aftermath phase, or return it to your hand.
This cost is only payed once to keep the card in play. If an ability or effect returns the card to your hand, or otherwise removes it from play, re-playing the card causes you to make the decision again on the turn it was re-played.
Abilities on the card are triggered in order, so if you have another Aftermath abilitiy before the cost one, you can resolve it first, even if you end up returning the card to your hand.
Move the priority token to the next player. Take the rest of your turn after all players are done.
This lets you interrupt your play phase and allow the other players to take their play phases before you. This does not reset your tech limit for the turn, give you another draw phase, or re-activate any abilities. You may only do this once per turn, so if another player passes the priority back to you, you may not postpone again.
Reduce the amount of damage you take from all abilities up to the listed amount this turn.
Prevents damage from abilities as well as damage from combat, in the order it occurred. This cannot be used to prevent damage that occurred in an earlier stage of the turn or before the ability was activated. E.g. If your opponent played a “Deal 2 damage” ability, then you played a “Prevent 2 damage this turn” you would still take the 2 damage, but any future triggered abilities or combat damage would be prevented up to the 2.
Take a card from specified location and put it into the specified lane. If no location is specified the card goes from your hand into any lane.
Cards played this way count when calculating the number of cards present in the lane, as well as any abilities specifying “cards your control”.
Cards played in the production lane do not allow for additional production on the current turn, they simply add to your Production Power for the turn, just as playing a card from your hand would.
Temporarily use the power from your Attack or Mining lane as Tech this turn.
If you reallocate your Mining lane to another, skip your Mining phase. If you reallocate your Attack lane, your attack power counts as 0 in the combat calculation. Corruption counts in the reallocation so a power of 5 with one -1 corruption token would count as 4. Like normal, tech from cards played this turn does not count. E.g. If you had 3 power in your Mining lane, played a basic card to increase it to 4, then reallocated, you would only have 3 additional tech. Skipping a phase means your power in that lane is 0, even if you played additional cards in that lane during the turn you reallocated.
Reduce the amount of crystals you must pay to play a card.
This may be on your current card, or applied to future cards you play on the turn. If the card cost depends on cards in play, you do not count the card currently being played in any cost reductions for itself.
Reduce the amount of tech pool consumed to play a card.
This may be on your current card, or applied to future cards you play on the turn. If the card tech requirement reduction depends on cards in play, you do not count the card currently being played in any tech reductions for itself.
Return a card from one of your lanes to the specified players hand.
Some abilities may specify a location or card type to return to your hand. Cards played this turn may return to your hand unless specified. It’s not necessarily required that the card was in your hand at any point, cards put into play by other abilities may also be returned to your hand.
Discard a card to gain hitpoints equal to its power.
Power is determined by the value in that lane it is in when the ability triggers. This does not include any Boost or Corrupt tokens on the lane, just the number on the card itself.
Look at the top card(s) of a deck, then place them back on top or bottom in any order. Unless otherwise stated, this refers to your Faction deck.
Add Shield tokens to you Attack lane, when taking damage from an ability, or during your attack phase, you may remove a Shield token for each damage instead. Any remaining damage is removed from your hitpoints as normal. Tokens are removed in the regroup phase.
Move a card from one lane to another.
This ability does not re-activate any abilities on played cards. If your card had a lane dependent End of Turn ability then it applies to the lane it was moved to, not the lane it was played in. Cards moved into or out of the tech lane do not alter the tech you have available for your current turn.
Take specified card, place it on top of your deck and then shuffle the whole deck.
Shuffling should be sufficient that the cards location is no longer known. Your opponent may cut the deck after any shuffle.
Solo cards can only be played if you have not played any other cards this turn.
Playing a solo card ends your turn and moves to the next player, or the Attack phase if you are the last player.
Remove a number of Corruption tokens from your lane, and add that many Corruption tokens to each opponents matching lane.
Move the priority token to your side of the field.
All future phases play out as if you had priority. You resolve your Mining and End of Turn phases first, including any win conditions triggered during them.
A card of a type is specified the the text under the card name and effects all abilities for the named type.
Cards may have multiple types. If multiple types are on a card it counts as all the listed types when it comes to resolving abilities.
Play a second copy of the same card, and pay it’s cost, placing it on top of the first card. You may then use the Upgrade version of it’s abilities.