DC Deck-Building Game: Heroes Unite
DC Deck-Building Game: Heroes Unite Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
- 211 Game Cards
- 36 Punch Starting Cards
- 16 Vulnerability Starting Cards
- 111 Main Deck Cards
- 16 Kick Cards
- 12 DC Comics Super-Villain Cards
- 20 Weakness Cards
- 7 Oversized DC Comics Super Heroes
- 1 Rulebook
Types of Cards
Cards show a Card Name, Card Type, Cost, Victory Points, and any Special Rules Text or Abilities. The different card types that you can play are: Starter, Villain, Location, Hero, Super Power, and Equipment. Weakness cards have no card type.
Setup for Your First Game
1. DC Comics Super Heroes and Starting Decks
Each player is dealt a random oversized Super Hero. Alternately, each player may choose to play as their favorite character.
Each DC Comics Super Hero begins with a starting deck of seven Punch cards and three Vulnerability cards. You will use your Punch cards to buy more powerful cards to add to your deck, improving it as the game goes on. Vulnerability cards represent the things that occasionally cause a DC Comics Super Hero to falter. They don't do anything for you when drawn or played, so it's best to get rid of them as soon as possible (more on how to do that later).
2. The Main Deck
Most of the cards that you will add to your deck as the game progresses come from the main deck. Shuffle the main deck and place it in the middle of the table. None of the following cards should ever be placed into the main deck: Super-Villains, Punch, Vulnerability, Kick, Weakness, or the oversized Super Heroes.
The main deck is made up of every other card in the game (111 cards total).
3. The Super-Villain Stack
There are twelve different Super-Villains available to use each game. Typically, eight Super-Villains are used for a standard game. For a longer game, use more than eight. No matter how many you use, you will always use Vandal Savage. On his card is text that reads, "This card starts the game on top of the Super-Villain stack." If you use eight Super-Villains, you will use seven selected at random, plus Vandal Savage.
Set Vandal Savage aside and shuffle the remaining eleven Super-Villain cards face down. Then randomly remove the number of cards you aren't going to play with this game from the stack. The Super-Villain stack remains face down this entire time, so no one will be able to see which Super-Villains are being used and which ones are not. Set aside the unused Super-Villains (still face down). Finally, place Vandal Savage face up on top of the Super-Villain stack.
Example: In a game using the typical eight Super-Villains, set aside Vandal Savage and shuffle the rest. Remove four of them at random, then put Vandal Savage face up on top of the remaining seven face-down Super-Villains.
4. The Line-Up
After shuffling the main deck, place the top five cards from the main deck into the Line-Up. There is no board necessary to play this game; just reserve space for each card.
Next, place the Kick, Super-Villain, and Weakness stacks at the end of the Line-Up. You may want to turn these stacks perpendicular to the board so that everyone can reach them. You will always use all 16 Kicks and all 20 Weaknesses each game. The number of Super-Villains you use will vary. Kicks and Super-Villains are always available to be bought or defeated during your turn (while cards remain in their stacks). Weaknesses are never bought; they are gained only through unfriendly card effects. The main deck and the three stacks of cards on the end are not part of the Line-Up.
Once you have arranged the main deck, the Line-Up, and the other stacks, it will look something like a row of five face-up cards next to the Kick, Super-Villain, and Weakness stacks. Your opening five cards in the Line-Up will vary. At the start of the game, there should be 16 Kicks, 8 Super-Villains, and 20 Weaknesses in their respective stacks.
Gameplay
Randomly determine a player to go first. Each player begins by shuffling his or her deck and drawing five cards. Players take turns in clockwise order.
Each turn, you may buy cards from the Line-Up, Kick cards, and/or the top card of the Super-Villain stack to improve your deck. Cards you buy or gain are always immediately placed into your discard pile unless you are instructed otherwise. Discard piles are always face up. Soon they'll be shuffled into your deck, and then you'll be drawing these newer, more powerful cards into your hand so you can play them.
Buying powerful cards builds up the effectiveness of your deck. That's why it's called a "deck-building game."
You can buy any number of available cards with combined cost less than or equal to the amount of Power you have for the turn. For example, your Punch cards each give you +1 Power. If you draw four of them and no other cards with any Power bonuses, your total Power for the turn is 4. You can buy a single card with cost 2, 3, or 4, or even two cards each with cost 2, assuming these options are available. Kick cards are (usually) available if the cards in the Line-Up are too expensive, and you may buy more than one during your turn if you wish. You may pass if you cannot buy or do not wish to buy any cards.
Vulnerability and Weakness cards provide no Power. Since they weaken your draws and deck, you should try to destroy them as soon as possible. You may play them if you wish, but they have no effect when played. They are not discarded until the end of your turn when you discard all cards you have played and any cards that you have kept in your hand.
Order of Playing Your Cards
On your turn, you get to play the cards in your hand in the order of your choice. When you play a card, its game text resolves immediately. When you have played all the cards you wish to play at that time, total up the Power you have accumulated and buy what you wish to buy from the Line-Up or the face-up stacks. You do not have to play all of the cards in your hand before you start making purchases if you don't wish to. You may play additional cards even after making purchases.
Most cards you play have simple effects like +Power, card drawing, or an Attack. The order in which you play these cards typically does not matter.
Ending Your Turn
- Resolve any "at the end of your turn" effects.
- Place all the cards you played and any cards remaining in your hand into your discard pile. Any unspent Power from cards played during the turn is lost. Draw a new hand of five cards and pass the turn to the player on your left.
- If any of the slots in the Line-Up are empty, draw cards off the main deck and add them to the Line-Up. Do not replace empty slots as soon as you buy or gain a card from the Line-Up.
- If the top card of the Super-Villain stack is face down, flip it face up. This will reveal the next Super-Villain out to terrorize the Super Heroes.
Sample Turn Sequence
After shuffling up your starting cards, you draw a hand of four Punches and one Vulnerability for your first turn. You may play the four Punches for a total of 4 Power, which is enough to buy Dr. Sivana from the Line-Up. After buying it, you put it into your discard pile. The Vulnerability provides you with no additional Power. Once you have played and bought all the cards you want, discard the cards you have played and any remaining in your hand and then draw a new hand of five cards. Play proceeds to the player on your left.
End of Game
The game ends immediately when either of the following two conditions is met:
- You are unable to flip up a new Super-Villain on the stack.
- You are unable to refill all five slots of the Line-Up.
Return all Locations you have in play, all cards in your hand, and all cards in your discard pile to your deck. Then, players total up the Victory Points on cards in their deck. Weakness cards in your deck at the end of the game will subtract Victory Points (VP) from your total.
The player with the highest VP total is crowned the winner! In case of a tie, the player with more Super-Villain cards wins.
After a winner has been determined, all players will need to take apart their decks, placing all of the cards back into their proper stacks. Be sure to return any Super-Villains that were not used during the game to the Super-Villain stack, so they can be used in the next game.
Additional Rules
DC Comics Super Heroes
Your Super Hero gives you an ability that you may choose to use during your turn. If a Super Hero has two abilities on his card, both of them may trigger on the same turn. At the start of games after your first, each player may choose a Super Hero to play with, or if you have enough, deal two Super Heroes to each player, and then each player chooses one.
Attacks and Defenses
Some cards allow you to make an Attack against the other players in the game. When you play a card with an Attack ability, each other player has an opportunity to avoid the Attack with a card that has a Defense ability. A player using a Defense card's ability negates the Attack only for that defending player. A player may only play one Defense card per Attack. Any players who don't avoid the Attack are then affected by the Attack card's ability. Avoiding an Attack does not negate any other abilities (like +2 Power) of a card, unless an ability specifically counts the players successfully hit by the Attack.
The Super-Villains
When you have accumulated enough Power in a turn, you can choose to defeat a Super-Villain. If you do, take the topmost face-up card from the stack and place it into your discard pile, unless instructed otherwise. The next card in the Super-Villain stack remains face down until your turn is over, so a player may defeat only one Super-Villain per turn. Super-Villains range in cost from 8 to 12, and their stack is randomized at the start of each game, so check the stack for the current Super-Villain's cost.
While Vandal Savage is content to gaze scornfully at the players from his lofty perch atop the DC Comics Super-Villain stack, the rest of the Super-Villains take a more hands-on approach. When a new Super-Villain is revealed, this is called his or her "First Appearance." On each Super-Villain (other than Vandal's), you will find that Super-Villain's First Appearance—Attack.
Super-Villains are Villains. Super-Villain is a title, not a card type, so playing a Super-Villain does not count as playing two different card types.
Example: If you have the Location Apokolips in play and you reveal a Super-Villain, it counts as a Villain, so you get to draw it.
Super-Villain Cards in Your Deck
Like any other card you acquire, the experience gained defeating a Super-Villain will aid you in your future turns. When you play a Super-Villain from your hand, the text at the top of the text box is the relevant text. The "First Appearance—Attack" is no longer applicable, as the Super-Villain already made that attack when he was first revealed from the Super-Villain stack.
Weakness
Some Attack cards force the attacked players to gain a Weakness. If this happens, the Weakness cards are usually placed in that player's discard pile, effectively adding them to that player's deck. They have no ability when drawn during the game and can be played or kept in your hand and discarded at the end of your turn. At the end of the game, each Weakness in your deck subtracts 1 Victory Point from your VP total, so you'll need a plan for destroying them at some point! If the Weakness deck runs out, effects that would cause a player to gain a Weakness do not do so, but any other effects those cards have still resolve as usual. A player may still play a Defense to avoid an Attack, even when there are no Weaknesses available to be gained.
Shuffling Your Deck
You don't reshuffle your discard pile into your deck as soon as you run out of cards. However, if at any point during the game if there are no cards in your deck and you need to draw, discard, or reveal a card from your deck, immediately reshuffle your discard pile, and it becomes your new deck.
Locations
Location cards go straight to your discard pile when bought or gained, just like any other card. However, when you later draw and play a Location, that card will remain face up and in play in front of you for the rest of the game. Each Location has a unique effect that can trigger during each of your turns for the rest of the game. The word Ongoing is a reminder that this card keeps working for you turn after turn. This effect triggers only once during each of your turns. You can have any number of Locations in play at once.
Destroying Cards
Some cards have an ability that allows you to destroy a card from your hand, your deck, or even the Line-Up. When you destroy a card, place it into a face-up pile of destroyed cards anywhere away from the play area, removing it from your deck and the game. You will often get to choose which of your cards to destroy. Destroying Vulnerability and Weakness cards will improve your deck greatly! If Weaknesses and Kicks are destroyed, they do not go back to their respective stacks.
Gaining Cards
When a card tells a player to gain a particular card or a card of your choice, that card is taken and immediately placed in that player's discard pile at no additional cost, unless otherwise directed by the card. If a card tells to you gain a card with a specific name, card type, or cost and there are none available, you simply don't gain the card.
Resolving Card Abilities
If a card's ability affects multiple players, and the order matters (for example, an Attack that has each of three opponents gain a Weakness, with only two Weaknesses remaining on the board), resolve that ability for each affected player in clockwise order, starting from the player who played the ability.
When you play a card that triggers another effect, like on your Super Hero or a Location you control, fully resolve the card you are playing before resolving any secondary effects triggered by your card play.
Example: Skeets' game text says to "put a Hero from your discard pile on top of your deck." If your Super Hero is Nightwing, the second time you play an Equipment during your turn you get to draw a card. You must resolve Skeets and place a Hero on your deck before drawing a card due to Nightwing's game text.
Variant Games
Super Hero Synergy: After choosing which Super Hero you are going to play, search the main deck for one copy of the Hero version of your character. Place that card on top of your oversized Super Hero card. You are the only player that may buy or gain that card this game. The other copies of your Hero in the main deck (if any) are fair game for any player. Your card is considered to be a card in the Line-Up only during your turn. Now shuffle the main deck and go!
- Batgirl: Daughter of Gotham
- Black Canary: Sonic Siren
- Booster Gold: Hero of the Future
- Hawkman: Winged Warrior
- Nightwing: Wonder of the Knight
- Red Tornado: Crimson Whirlwind
- Shazam!: World's Mightiest Mortal
Super-Villain Hunt: The game starts out as usual. However, a Super-Villain in an opponent's discard pile is fair game to steal! All you need to do is amass enough Power to defeat that Super-Villain as if he was on the Super-Villain stack. This counts as an Attack against that Super-Villain. The player whose Super-Villain is being targeted may play a Defense card to avoid the Attack. If an Attack against a Super-Villain is avoided, that Power is not lost. The attacking player may not attack another Super-Villain in a discard pile this turn. That Power must be spent elsewhere.
When a player defeats a Super-Villain on the stack, that player is immune to the First Appearance—Attack of the next Super-Villain to be revealed from the stack. This will encourage players to defeat Super-Villains even though they are vulnerable while in their discard piles.
Super-Hidden Super-Villains: Instead of creating a Super-Villain stack as usual, shuffle all 12 Super-Villains into the main deck. When a Super-Villain enters the Line-Up, they make their First Appearance—Attack against all players. Since the Line-Up can get clogged with high-cost Super-Villains, play with a six-card Line-Up, instead of the usual five. If any Super-Villains come out in the first six cards at the start of the game, shuffle them back into the main deck and replace them. Play until the main deck is empty.
Note: The Location Oa will check the Line-Up for a Super-Villain with cost 10 or greater in this variant.
Specific Cards
- Amazo: The Power and effects remain from the original play of the cards you play again.
- Arkillo, Nekron: Do not announce your cost total until all players have decided whether or not to play Defense cards.
- Booster Gold, Hero of the Future: A Defense card is any card with the bolded word "Defense:" in its game text box. You "avoid" an Attack only when you play a Defense card to avoid the effect of that Attack.
- Black Lantern Corps: A player won't gain a Weakness if there are none in the stack or they avoided the Attack with a Defense.
- Blue Lantern Power Ring, et al, White Lantern Power Battery, Kyle Rayner: A Power Ring is any card with the words "Power Ring" in their card name.
- Deadman: The total number of cards you may destroy is two. They can both be from your hand, both from your discard pile, or one from each place.
- Granny Goodness: You cannot buy or gain the card you remove from the Line-Up this turn.
- Graves: All players must put a card face down before any are revealed. Only a single player will get to draw. If tied for highest, no players draw.
- Manhunter: A Manhunter is any card with the word "Manhunter" in its card name.
- Mr. Zsasz: Zero is an even number.
- Red Tornado, Batgirl: You may apply this ability when you wish to during your turn. To do so, just announce that fact to the other players.
- Shazam! (Super Power): If you reveal a Location it does nothing for you, as it returns to the top of the main deck before you can use it.
- Shazam! (Superhero): You may pay 4 Power multiple times during your turn if you wish.
- Star Sapphire Power Ring: If you reveal a Weakness, note that it does not have a card type. If you reveal one or more Weaknesses, you will not draw either card.
Combining Sets
While you could simply shuffle all 220+ main deck cards together from the original set and this set, that would dilute a lot of the combos in both sets and be pretty darn tough to shuffle! Instead, we recommend separating each main deck by card type, then choosing three card types from each set to mix together into a new main deck. For example:
- Set 1: Equipment, Locations, Super-Villains
- Set 2: Heroes, Super Powers, Villains
Shuffle all 14 Super Heroes together and deal two to each player, but they play with just one. At the end of each game, you will need to separate the main deck again by card type, or just play with the other half of the two sets for your second game.
If you do end up with all of your cards shuffled together, you might want to split the large deck into two roughly 112-card decks, and then play one game with each deck. The winner is the player with the highest combined score over both games. Choose Super Heroes for game #2 based on points scored in game #1, with the lowest scorer choosing first. After seeing much of the first deck, you will have some idea of the cards that you might see in the second deck. Use that information to your advantage!
FAQ
Q: What does the term "defeat" or "defeated" mean?
A: That term is only used referring to Super-Villains. You "defeat" a Super-Villain when you buy it from the top of the Super-Villain stack. That Super-Villain has then been "defeated."
Turn Sequence (Quick Reference)
Turn Sequence
- Play cards from your hand.
- Total up your Power and purchase cards with combined cost less than or equal to that total. You may play additional cards even after making purchases.
- As soon as you buy or gain a card, place it into your discard pile, unless instructed otherwise.
End of Turn
- Resolve any "at the end of your turn" effects.
- Place all the cards you played and any remaining cards from your hand into your discard pile, and draw a new hand of five cards.
- Fill each empty slot in the Line-Up with a card from the top of the main deck.
- If the top card of the Super-Villain stack is face down, flip it face up and read aloud the next Super-Villain's First Appearance—Attack.
Do not reshuffle your discard pile just because you have no cards in your deck. Wait until you must draw, discard, or reveal a card from your deck. Then shuffle your discard pile, and it becomes your new deck.
The game ends immediately when either of the following two conditions is met:
- You are unable to flip up a new Super-Villain on the stack.
- You are unable to refill all five slots of the Line-Up.
Credits
Game Design: Erik Larsen. Game Engine Design: Matt Hyra & Ben Stoll. Game Design and Development: Matt Hyra (Lead), Phil Cape, Dan Clark, Matt Dunn, Kevin Jordan, Erik Larsen, Ben Stoll, Drew Walker, Chris Woods. Graphic Design: Larry Renac (Lead), Nancy Valdez, John Vineyard.