Deck of Wonders

Deck of Wonders Rulebook

Table of Contents

Overview

In Deck of Wonders you'll summon minions, cast spells, and battle Villains as you try to stay one step ahead of Fate. It's a solo tactical card game that progressively introduces new story and mechanical elements. In each individual game you'll square off against a Villain that Fate has put in your path. Across games, you'll progressively reveal new cards, mechanics, and Villains that will tell the tale of your adventure.

THIS MEANS THE FIRST TIME YOU PLAY YOU WILL ONLY OPEN 2 OF THE CARD PACKS. Please leave the rest unopened until you meet the conditions to do so.

Objective

Unless otherwise stated, the objective of the game is to reduce the Villain to 0 health before they can reduce you to 0 health.

Game and Card Layout

Play Area

The Play Area is where the action in Deck of Wonders unfolds. You should have room for two rows of cards: one row for Player Minions and one row for Villain Minions.
Below that, you should have a place for the Draw Pile, a place for the Discard Pile, and a Rules Area to put the health trackers in.

Card Layout

Every card in the Deck of Wonders has two halves: the Player half (3 icons across the top, oriented the same way as the card name) and the Villain half (2 icons across the top, oriented the opposite to the main card name). That's because during a game both you and the Villain draw from the same deck of cards! If a card is drawn by the Player, only consider the Player half and ignore the Villain half. If the card is drawn by the Villain, only consider the Villain half and ignore the Player half.
There are two main types of cards: Spells and Minions.
- Spells have an immediate impact when played based on their text, but are discarded once that text is resolved.
- Minions have a persistent presence in the play area, and can attack turn after turn.
Card Name: center of the card.
Set Icon: on the left side of the card name; denotes whether the card is from your collection, or from a Villain.
Strength Icon: top left of minions. A minion deals damage equal to its strength.
Health Icon: top right of minions. A minion is destroyed if it takes damage equal to or greater than its health in a single turn.
Priority Icon: top middle of Player minions only. Priority informs the order in which Player minions are attacked during the Villain turn. Villain minions don't have Priority.
Spell Icon: replaces all other icons on spells. This means their card text is resolved immediately and then the spell is discarded.
Card Text
- Cost: some Player cards will have a cost (usually discarding one or more other cards). A card's cost must be paid before playing the card. If you can't pay the cost, you can't play the card.
- Cards may also have text that describes card effects and when those effects are resolved (see the Effect Glossary).
- Flavor text: the world of Eladale is brought to life through the flavor text on the cards! Flavor text is italicised and a different color than the card text, and has no mechanical impact.

Other Cards

Villain Cards: Villains are the main antagonists that Fate has put in your path. Each has a Set Icon and special rules, cards, and unlockables to include when confronting them.
Story Cards: Legacy packs will often contain cards that further the story. They're meant to be read as soon as you find them! They have no mechanical impact.
Rules Cards: these cards impact the game without going directly in the Deck of Wonders. Once unlocked, they'll go into the rules area alongside their associated Villain card.

Setting Up the Game

Select a Villain

Choose the Villain you want to face off against. Carefully read their special rules, then place your and their health trackers in the rules area.
Unless otherwise noted, Villain and Player health both start at 30.
For your first game, open and use Cullin, the Spoiled Prince.

Create the Draw Pile

Both you and the Villain will draw from the same deck. It will be built partially of cards dictated by the Villain, and partially of cards chosen by you.
The draw pile must include all cards from the Villain you're facing. These cards will have a set icon that matches the set icon on the Villain card.
You may add to that any combination of 28 cards from your collection. These cards have the collection icon in one of several colors. The recommended collection cards to go with a given Villain will match the color of that Villain's icon. These will get you started quickly with a tough but attainable challenge.
Shuffle the Villain cards and your chosen collection cards together to form the draw pile.
For your first game, shuffle together Cullin's cards with the green collection icon cards from your collection.
For alternate ways to build the draw pile, see Alternate Ways to Build the Draw Pile.

Starting the Game

Begin the game by drawing 4 cards from the draw pile into your hand. You may mulligan once by discarding all 4 cards and drawing 4 new cards from the draw pile.
You may then play out your turn per the normal turn rules.
Once you end your first turn, the Villain draws and plays 3 cards.
IMPORTANT: do not draw all 3 cards at once. Rather draw, play, and fully resolve the first card before the second, and the second before the third. This is because many Villain set cards will instruct you to draw another card. Those additional draws are resolved as normal, but do not count towards the 3 draws. For an example of how this might play out, see Example A.
The Villain then plays out their turn per the normal turn rules.
Once the Villain ends their first turn, play continues per the normal turn rules in the following section.
IMPORTANT: These opening turns are the only time you or the Villain will draw more than one card at the start of your turn. Every other turn starts by drawing only a single card.

Normal Turn Order - Your Turn

Draw

Draw the top card from the draw pile into your hand, considering only the PLAYER side of the card.
There is no limit to your hand size.

Play

To play a spell: pay its cost (if any), place it in the play area, immediately resolve its text, and then discard it.
To play a minion: pay its cost (if any), place it in your play area exhausted (represented by playing it sideways), and immediately resolve its Play text (if any).
Note that since Player Minions are played exhausted (sideways), they are unable to attack until your next turn.
There is no limit to the number of cards you can play in a single turn, provided you can pay their costs. But be wary of emptying your hand too early in the game: an empty hand leaves you truly exposed to the whims of Fate!
You may end your turn without playing any cards if you want.

Attack

Only ready (rightside-up) Player minions may attack.
You may attack with your minions in any order, and target enemies (including the Villain) in any order.
NOTE: you do NOT need to destroy all Villain minions before attacking the Villain directly.
To attack with a ready (rightside up) minion, exhaust it (turn it sideways) and deal damage equal to its strength to a target Villain or Villain minion.
The target will always deal damage equal to its strength back to the attacking minion. If the target deals damage equal to or greater than your attacking minion's health, your minion is destroyed and will be discarded.
Once cumulative attacks from Player minions deal damage greater than or equal to the target's health, the target is destroyed and discarded.
You may choose not to attack with a ready minion if you want.
NOTE: You can play cards from your hand and attack with ready minions in any order you like, even alternating between the two.
NOTE: A minion with 0 strength is still able to attack, and deals 0 damage to its target.

Turn End

When you're finished playing and attacking, end your turn by turning all exhausted Player minions to the ready position and starting the next Villain turn.
Any damage a minion has taken does NOT persist between turns.
See Example B.

Normal Turn Order - Villain Turn

Draw

The Villain draws and immediately plays the top card from the draw pile, considering only the VILLAIN side of the card.
If it's a spell, place the card in the play area, immediately resolve its text, and then discard it.
If it's a minion, place it into the Villain's side of the play area in the ready (rightside up) position, and resolve its Play text (if any). The Villain minion doesn't attack yet.
The Villain will always finish drawing and resolving cards before the Battle Lines phase.
IMPORTANT: Remember that the Villain only draws 3 cards on their first turn. Every other turn they draw only 1.

Battle Lines

Villain minions are stronger and faster than yours, but will attack mindlessly. The Battle Lines phase is your chance to use your wits and some clever positioning to turn the tide of battle in your favor.

Order your minions left to right from highest to lowest Priority (e.g. Priority 2 goes further left than Priority 1).
If 2 or more of your minions have the same priority, you choose their order.
Keep in mind: Villain minions will only consider attacking the highest-Priority (leftmost) Player minion during the Attack phase.
Order the Villain's ready minions from left to right in any order you choose.
The Villain's minions will attack in a predictable way based on their order. Choosing the order that is LEAST effective for the Villain is key to gaining an advantage!
Exhausted Villain minions can't attack this turn, and don't need to be put in the order.

Choose Target

All ready Villain minions will attack one at a time in order from left to right, but the choose target phase determines who they will attack.
Villain minions will target the highest-priority (leftmost) Player minion IF their collective attacks will deal enough damage to destroy that Player minion.
If their collective attacks will not deal enough damage to destroy the leftmost Player minion (or if there are no more Player minions), they target the Player directly instead.
IMPORTANT: Villain minions will NEVER target a Player minion that is not currently highest-Priority (furthest left).

Attack

A Villain minion attacks by exhausting (turning sideways) and dealing damage equal to its strength to the target.
NOTE: A minion with 0 strength still attacks, and deals 0 damage to its target.
There are 3 golden rules that Villain minions follow when attacking:
- Villain minions ALWAYS attack one at a time in order from left to right (but remember: you get to set their order during Battle Lines!).
- Villain minions NEVER target a Player minion that is not currently highest-Priority (furthest left).
- Villain minions NEVER target a Player minion they won't collectively destroy that turn (they'll target the Player directly instead).
If the target is the highest-Priority Player minion:
- Villain minions attack it one at a time in order from left to right.
- When the successive attacks from Villain minions deal damage equal to or greater than the leftmost Player minion's health, that Player minion is destroyed.
- The destroyed Player minion deals its damage back once to each of the Villain minions that attacked it (in the order they attacked), and is discarded.
- If a Villain minion takes damage greater than or equal to its health, then it is destroyed and discarded as well.
- Remaining ready Villain minions choose a new target (see Choose Target) and continue attacking.
If the target is the Player:
- All remaining ready Villain minions attack the Player directly by exhausting (turning sideways) and dealing their damage to the Player.

Turn End

Once all Villain minions are exhausted (turned sideways), end the Villain's turn by turning all Villain minions to the ready position and starting the next Player turn.
Any damage a minion has taken does NOT persist between turns.

Resolving Card Text

IMPORTANT: Whenever card text (or any other rule) can be resolved in multiple ways, you choose how it's resolved. You're encouraged to choose whatever you think is best for you: Deck of Wonders is balanced so that players need to take every advantage they can find to win!
"COST" card text must be resolved BEFORE the card is played. If you can't pay the cost, you can't play the card.
"PLAY" card text is resolved immediately after the minion is played. If it can't be resolved, the minion can still be played.
"DEATH" card text is resolved immediately after the minion is destroyed. If it can't be resolved, the minion can still be destroyed.
All card text on a spell is resolved immediately when it is played, and then the spell is discarded.
Other card text will include a condition for when it should be resolved.
Card text is always resolved in the order it appears on the card. Always finish resolving preceding card text before resolving following card text.
Each bullet of card text is resolved separately. If any part of a bullet can't be resolved, the entire bullet is skipped. However, card text from a separate bullet on the same card is still resolved if possible.
NOTE: Card text is often subtly different on the Player side vs the Villain side. Be sure to pay attention to these differences based on whose turn the card is played on! Specifically, Villain cards frequently have "Draw 1" as the final bullet.

Additional Rules

Winning and Losing: Unless otherwise specified, you lose the game if your health reaches 0, and you win if the Villain's health reaches 0.
Resetting the draw pile: If the draw pile is empty when a card needs to be drawn, immediately shuffle the discard pile and place it as the new draw pile, then draw the card and resume play as normal. If the cause of the draw is a spell, that spell is not included in the shuffle.
Persistent spell effects
- Spells with a persistent effect (i.e. Earth Shield) are placed on the relevant character as specified, and remain in play until resolved or until the character they're on is destroyed.
- One minion may NOT have multiple of the same effect (e.g. 2 Earth Shields).
Discard Order: Situations may arise where the order of discarded cards matters. All cards involved in resolving a single spell or attack must be discarded together (including cost cards and attacking minions), but you decide in what order to discard those cards.
If there is a conflict, rules from card text take precedence over rules from the rulebook.

Alternate Ways to Build the Draw Pile

Normally the draw pile is constructed from the Villain's cards and the recommended cards from your collection. Using the recommended cards from your collection will get you started quickly with a tough but attainable challenge.
As you become more familiar with the game, you can hand-pick 28 cards from your collection to complete the Draw Pile. This allows you to maximize your chances of success through smart deckbuilding.
Experienced Players looking for a challenge can choose to shuffle their collection and deal 28 cards at random to complete the draw pile. This creates a unique and unpredictable challenge.
No matter which way you choose cards from your collection, you will always add them to the specified cards from the Villain's set.
All 3 methods of building the draw pile can count towards legacy pack objectives.

Co-op Play

Deck of Wonders is meant primarily as a solo game, but you can easily play co-op with the following rules:

Each Player chooses a Villain and sets up their game as normal.
Play progresses in parallel, with Players starting and ending each turn at the same time.
At the start of each Player turn, BEFORE drawing a card, each Player may pass 1 card from their hand to their partner.
Players must both defeat their respective Villains on the SAME turn to accomplish a win.
If a Player defeats their Villain before their partner, that Villain stays alive at 1 health, and play continues as normal.

Expanding and Upgrading the Deck of Wonders

As you play Deck of Wonders, you will unlock new cards that change the game and offer new deckbuilding challenges.
Each Villain will list multiple Legacy packs that can be unlocked while playing against them. Those packs will list the objectives/conditions required to open them. When the conditions are met, immediately open the pack, and add it to the game as instructed. Some packs will add cards into the Deck of Wonders, and some will add additional rules.
Once you defeat a Villain's Fated Form, their set is considered part of your collection. Add their set icon to the My Collection section on the back cover. You may now use their cards when deckbuilding against other Villains, and you may include their rule cards when facing other Villains if desired.

Upgrades

Over time the Deck of Wonders will grow more powerful, and will even start to change in response to your unique style and choices.
One copy of each minion and spell has an upgrade slot to the right of the card name.
Whenever you win a game, you may choose one upgrade to apply to one upgradeable card.
There are 7 upgrade types:
- +1 Player Health
- +1 Player Strength
- +1 Player Draw
- -1 Player Cost (applicable only to cards with a cost)
- -1 Villain Health (may not be reduced below 1)
- -1 Villain Strength (may not be reduced below 0)
- -1 Villain Draw (applicable only to cards with Draw)
There are more upgradeable cards than there are upgrades, so choose carefully! These upgrades will make your Deck of Wonders truly unique.
If you prefer to not put stickers on your cards, you can use the Upgrade Tracker (a table with a row for each of the 7 upgrade types and blank lines to write in card names), or use sleeves (not included).

Effect Glossary

Shield: Place this card under a minion in the play area. The first time that minion would take damage, make that damage 0 and discard this card. (Does not protect against Poison or Destroy effects.)
Taunt: This minion must be destroyed before any minions (or Villains) without Taunt are attacked. Spells may ignore Taunt.
Poison: Destroy any minion this minion deals damage to (including minions with Shield).

Example A: Opening Villain Draws

There is a Pixie Mesmerist on the Player side of the Play area, and no Villain minions yet. On their first turn, the Villain gets 3 draws:

Draw 1: The first card is Pixie Cavalry. Like all minions drawn by the Villain, it's played in the ready position.
Draw 2: The next card is Gnomish Servant. It has Draw 1 as its card text, so the Villain draws again. That card is Baited Trap, which destroys the Player's minion. Note that Baited Trap doesn't count as the 3rd draw because it was initiated by Gnomish Servant.
Draw 3: The final card is Earth Shield. The Player chooses which Villain Minion it goes on (they pick Gnomish Servant), but must draw again for the Villain. The card drawn is Hungry Wolf. Since Hungry Wolf doesn't draw additional cards, that completes the Villain's opening draws, and their turn progresses through the Battle Lines, Choose Target, and Attack phases. Since the Player doesn't have any minions in the Play Area, all 3 Villain minions will attack the Player directly. Ouch!

Example B: Player Turn

There is a Forest Troll and a Pixie Mesmerist on the Villain side, and a Treant Shepherd and a Pixie Cavalry on the Player side. The Player has an Earth Shield, a Hungry Wolf, and a Baited Trap in their hand.

The Player plays Earth Shield onto their Treant Shepherd.
The Player attacks the Villain Forest Troll with their Treant Shepherd. Normally both minions would be destroyed in the attack, but the Earth Shield reduces the damage from the Forest Troll to 0. The Forest Troll and the Earth Shield are discarded, and the Treant Shepherd is exhausted.
The Player plays Hungry Wolf. Note that it's played exhausted, and won't be able to attack this turn.
The Player chooses to attack the Villain with their Pixie Cavalry. They exhaust it and deal 2 damage to the Villain.
The Player is not able to play Baited Trap, because they don't have another card to discard.
The Player ends their turn, and turns all of their minions from exhausted to ready.

Example C: Battle Lines & Villain Attacks

The turn started with the Villain drawing Poison Toad. The Player's Pixie Mesmerist has the highest priority (4) so it has to go furthest left. The Treant Shepherd and the Hungry Wolf have the same priority, so the Player chooses what order they go in. Villain minions can be put in any order.

Layout 1: Villain side: Troll, Cavalry, Toad; Player side: Mesmerist, Wolf, Treant.

Choose Target: The Forest Troll can destroy the Pixie Mesmerist on its own (5 strength vs 2 health).
Attack: The Forest Troll exhausts and deals 5 damage to the Pixie Mesmerist. The Pixie Mesmerist deals 1 damage back to the Forest Troll, which isn't enough to destroy it, so only the Pixie Mesmerist is discarded.
Choose Target: There are more ready Villain Minions, so we return to the Choose Target phase. The Pixie Cavalry can destroy the Hungry Wolf on its own (2 strength vs 1 health).
Attack: The Villain Pixie Cavalry exhausts and deals 2 damage to the Hungry Wolf. The Hungry Wolf deals 3 damage back to the Pixie Cavalry, which is enough to destroy it, so both minions are discarded.
Choose Target: There is one more ready Villain Minion, so we return to the Choose Target phase. The Poison Toad's 1 strength normally wouldn't be enough to destroy the Treant Shepherd, but it has Poison, which means it destroys any enemy it deals damage to.
Attack: The Poison Toad deals 1 poison damage to the Treant Shepherd. The Treant Shepherd deals 3 damage back to the Poison Toad, which is enough to destroy it, so both minions are discarded.
Not great for the Player! They took no damage, but lost all their minions and are still staring down a Forest Troll.

Layout 2: Villain side: Toad, Troll, Cavalry; Player side: Mesmerist, Wolf, Treant.

Choose Target: The Poison Toad's 1 strength normally wouldn't be enough to destroy the Pixie Mesmerist, but it has Poison, which means it destroys any enemy it deals damage to.
Attack: The Poison Toad deals 1 poison damage to the Pixie Mesmerist. The Pixie Mesmerist deals 1 damage back to the Poison Toad, which is enough to destroy it, so both minions are discarded.
Choose Target: There are more ready Villain Minions, so we return to the Choose Target phase. The Forest Troll can destroy the Hungry Wolf on its own (5 strength vs 1 health).
Attack: The Forest Troll exhausts and deals 5 damage to the Hungry Wolf. The Hungry Wolf deals 3 damage back to the Forest Troll, which is enough to destroy it, so both minions are discarded.
Choose Target: There is one more ready Villain Minion, so we return to the Choose Target phase. The Pixie Cavalry can't destroy the Treant Shepherd on its own (2 strength vs 3 health), and there are no other Villain minions left.
Attack: The Villain Pixie Cavalry exhausts and deals 2 damage to the Player.
Better for the Player. The Treant Shepherd survived, but the Player took 2 damage and the Villain still has a Pixie Cavalry.

Layout 3: Villain side: Toad, Cavalry, Troll; Player side: Mesmerist, Treant, Wolf.

Choose Target: The Poison Toad's 1 strength normally wouldn't be enough to destroy the Pixie Mesmerist, but it has Poison, which means it destroys any enemy it deals damage to.
Attack: The Poison Toad deals 1 poison damage to the Pixie Mesmerist. The Pixie Mesmerist deals 1 damage back to the Poison Toad, which is enough to destroy it, so both minions are discarded.
Choose Target: There are more ready Villain Minions, so we return to the Choose Target phase. The Pixie Cavalry can't destroy the Treant Shepherd on its own (2 strength vs 3 health), but combined with the Forest Troll it can (2 + 5 strength vs 3 health).
Attack: The Pixie Cavalry exhausts and deals 2 damage to the Treant Shepherd, then the Forest Troll exhausts and deals 5 damage to the Treant Shepherd. The Treant Shepherd deals 3 damage back to both the Pixie Cavalry and the Forest Troll, which is enough to destroy both of them, so all 3 minions are discarded.
A great result for the Player! They took no damage, their Hungry Wolf survived, and all the Villain minions were destroyed.

Challenge Decks

Thanks to the generosity of our Kickstarter backers, here are 3 endgame challenge decks to try! You'll need all cards unlocked to be able to build these: Pixie Uprising, Oops, All Trolls!, and Drawn Together. (Deck lists are redacted in the source draft.)

Quick Reference

Turn Order

Player Turn
- Draw 1 (4 on opening turn)
- Play & Attack
- End Turn (Ready all Player minions)
Villain Turn
- Draw 1 (3 on opening turn)
- Draw Battle Lines (see below)
- Attack (see below)
- End Turn (Ready all Villain minions)

Battle Lines

Order Player minions from left to right in priority order (Player picks order for ties).
Order Villain minions from left to right in the order you want them to attack.

Villain Attack

Ready Villain Minions attack one at a time in order from left to right.
If their collective attacks will destroy the highest-priority (leftmost) Player minion, they attack it until it's destroyed.
Otherwise, they attack the Player directly.

Discard Order

All cards involved in a single spell or attack action are discarded together.
Otherwise, discard order is up to you.

Easy Rules to Miss

The first turn of the game is the only time either side will draw more than one card at the start of their turn.
You do NOT need to destroy all Villain minions before attacking the Villain directly. (The one exception to this is if a Villain minion has Taunt.)
If the Villain's collective attacks will not deal enough damage to destroy the leftmost Player minion, they target the Player directly instead. They do NOT target the next-highest-priority minion.
An attacked minion deals damage equal to its strength back to each attacker. It deals that full damage to every minion that attacks it.
A minion with 0 strength can still attack, and does 0 damage to its target. That 0 damage can be useful for removing spell effects like Earth Shield or activating special effects like Poison.