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Goal

Summon fighters and battle the other player’s fighters to empty their Life Stack. A player whose Life Stack has no cards left loses at once.

Cards

A standard 52-card deck and its 2 Jokers.

• Fighters: the 2 to 10. A fighter’s value is its rank.
• Modifiers: the A, J, Q, K, and Joker.

Setup

1. Shuffle and deal 27 cards face down to each player. These are the Life Stacks.
2. Each player draws 6 cards from their own Life Stack.
3. Pick the first player at random. On Play again, the other player goes first.

Play

1. Draw. Begin your turn by drawing 1 card from your Life Stack. The first player draws too, but may not battle on the first turn.
2. Summon and modify. Summon fighters, change their positions, and play modifiers, in any order. A fighter goes onto your field upright in attack position or sideways in defense position.
3. Battle. Each of your fighters in attack position can battle once a turn. Once your first battle starts, you can only battle or end your turn.
4. End your turn. If you took no action at all this turn, you may draw 1 more card first. Then discard down to 7 cards.
5. Pay summon, once a turn. Discard fighters from your field to summon a fighter from your hand. A 2 to 6 costs none, a 7 or 8 costs 1, and a 9 or 10 costs 2. A stack counts as 1 fighter.
6. Trip summon, any number of times. Show 3 fighters of one rank and summon 1 of them. The other 2 stay in your hand.
7. Run summon, any number of times. Show 3 fighters of consecutive rank, such as a 4, 5, and 6, and summon the middle one. The other 2 stay in your hand.
8. Stack summon, any number of times. Lay one of your fighters on another of the same rank. The stack is 1 fighter whose value is the sum, and more of that rank can join it.
9. Canceling. When a modifier is played, the other player may cancel it by discarding a card of the same suit. The player who played it may cancel the cancel the same way, and so on. A Joker can only be canceled by the other Joker. A canceled modifier goes to the discard pile.
10. Battle. Pick one of your fighters in attack position and one of the other player’s fighters. The lower value goes to the discard pile, with any modifiers on it. If it was in attack position, its owner takes damage equal to the difference. Equal values send both to the discard pile when both are in attack position, and do nothing when the defender is in defense position. If the other player has no fighters, attack their Life Stack directly for your fighter’s value.
11. Protect. When a battle would send your fighter to the discard pile, you may discard 1 card from your hand instead. The damage is still dealt. A fighter the bomb takes with it can’t be protected.
12. Damage. Draw that many cards from your Life Stack. Once your hand holds 7 cards, the rest go to the discard pile.

Card abilities

Each card in your hand wears its mark at its foot.

• Ace, the Bullet. Shoot any card on either field to the discard pile: a fighter with every modifier on it, a whole stack, or one modifier.
• ±1Jack, ±2Queen, ±3King. Play it on a fighter on either field. It adds 1, 2, or 3 to a fighter of the same color and takes as much off a fighter of the other color. A fighter can carry any number of them.
• Joker, the Shovel. Put it on the discard pile and take any other card from the discard pile into your hand.
• 012Fighters. The number is how many fighters on your field its pay summon discards.
• The 2, the bomb. Whatever sends a 2 to the discard pile in a battle goes to the discard pile too, and can’t be protected. With Bombs by value, the bomb is any fighter worth 2.

Variants

• Modifiers in combat, a setup option. When a fighter attacks, the defending player and then the attacking player may each play a modifier, in turn, until both choose to fight. The usual cancels apply. Values are compared when both have chosen to fight. Any modifier played this way is discarded at the end of the turn. Only the player whose turn it is may play an Ace. If the attacker or the defender is shot first, the battle doesn’t happen.
• Bombs by value, a setup option. A fighter is the bomb when its value is 2, whatever its rank, so modifiers make and unmake bombs. A 3 with −1 is a bomb, and a 2 with +1 isn’t. A stack of 2s, worth 4, isn’t either.

How this version differs

• A run is 3 fighters. An Ace isn’t a 1 in a run and a Jack isn’t an 11, so the highest run is 8, 9, and 10.
• A stack joins fighters of the same printed rank. The fighter laid on top decides the stack’s color for later modifiers, and every modifier on either fighter stays with the stack.
• A J, Q, or K is fixed when it takes effect. The fighter’s color then decides whether it adds or takes off, and a value can go below 0.
• The bomb is a printed 2, whatever modifiers it carries, unless Bombs by value is on. It works only in a battle, and a protected bomb takes nothing with it.
• Changing position is free until your first battle of the turn, and a fighter can battle on the turn it’s summoned.
• The cancel prompt only appears when you hold a card that could cancel, and the protect prompt only when you hold a card. With Modifiers in combat on, the combat prompt only appears when you hold a J, Q, K, or Ace that would change the battle in your favor.
• A fighter the bomb takes with it can’t be protected. The bomb itself can be, when it loses its battle.
• The board outlines in red a battle that gains you nothing. That’s one your fighter would lose, a tie against a fighter in defense position, or a direct attack worth 0. You can still make it.
• A turn with nothing left to do ends by itself.