Epic Card Game
Epic Card Game Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Getting Started
This set comes with 120 cards (with the Epic card back), 8 double-sided tokens, and these rules. The cards are used to make decks. If a card instructs you to put a token champion into play, use the included tokens. If you run out, feel free to use scraps of paper or the like to represent more token champions.
To start a basic two-player game, shuffle the game cards and deal 30 to each player. These are their decks. Each player should have a place next to their deck for their discard pile. Cards are placed in the discard pile face up, and all players may look through any discard pile at any time.
Each player starts with 30 health. When you take any amount of damage, you lose that much health. You can track your health with dice, pen and paper, the Epic ScoreKeeper app, or however you want.
Randomly determine who will go first, then each player draws a five-card starting hand from their deck. Starting with the player going second, each player may "mulligan."
Mulligan rule
After drawing their opening hands, each player may choose any number of cards to put on the bottom of their deck, then draw that many cards, then lose that much health.
Winning and Losing
If your health is 0 or less, you lose the game. If you eliminate all of your opponents, you win the game. You also win the game if you would draw a card but have no cards left in your deck.
Events
Events represent the will of the gods impacting the mortal world. You may play events during any turn. When you play an event, do what it says on the card, and then put it into your discard pile.
Cost — Each turn, each player gets one gold. A card's cost is shown in its upper right-hand corner as a gold icon with a number. Some cards cost a gold (shown as 1 Gold) to play, while others are free (shown as 0 Gold).
Alignment — There are four alignments in Epic, each with its own color.
Rules Text — What the card does.
Card Type — There are two types of cards in Epic: Events and Champions.
Example card (Apocalypse, an Evil Event costing 1 gold): "Draw two cards. OR If it is your turn, break all champions." (©2015 White Wizard Games LLC, Illust. Souveraine)
Champions
Champions are heroes or monsters that stay in play and fight for you. You may only play them during the Main Phase of your turn (see "The Turn Sequence" below) unless that champion has the ambush keyword.
Class — The species and/or profession of the card. Some cards reference another card's class.
Offense — The amount of damage a champion deals in battle.
Defense — The amount of damage that must be dealt to a champion in a single turn to break it. (Broken champions are placed in its owner's discard pile.)
Keywords — The special abilities that champions have. Find a complete list under "Keywords and Terms" below.
Example card (Palace Guard, a Good Human Champion costing 1 gold, with 6 Offense and 8 Defense): "Tribute → You may banish target champion." "None shall pass." (©2015 White Wizard Games LLC, Illust. Souveraine)
Playing a Card
To play a card, pay any costs (if the card costs a gold, you lose your gold for the turn) and put the card face up on the table in front of you. No one can respond or otherwise interfere with you playing your card.
If it is an event card, do everything the card says in the order it says it, then put it in your discard pile.
If it is a champion card, it stays in play. Unless something happens to it, your champion will stay in play for the rest of the game, and you can use it to attack, block, and use its powers and abilities.
Note: A champion is deploying until you start your turn with it in play. A deploying champion can't attack or use powers, but it can block.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
Some cards have powers you can use. The cost to use the power appears to the left of the colon, and what the power does appears to the right. For example:
Expend: Deal 2 damage to a target.
Abilities
Some cards have abilities. You don't use abilities; they just happen. Some abilities are continuous, and some are triggered.
Continuous abilities — Continuous abilities are applied while the card is in play. For example:
Your human champions get +1 Offense.
Triggered abilities — Triggered abilities are produced when a condition is met. Triggered abilities will always have an arrow icon (→). The condition that triggers the ability is to the left of the arrow, and what the ability does is to the right. For example:
When this card is broken → Draw a card.
When a triggered ability's condition is met, the effect will happen the next time any player would be allowed to play cards. All triggered abilities must be dealt with before any additional cards can be played.
Champion Positions
There are three positions a champion can be in: prepared, flipped, or expended.
Prepared (vertically-aligned) — This champion is ready to attack, block, or use powers with an expend cost.
Expended (horizontally-aligned) — Attacking and using a power with an expend cost expends a champion. Once expended, a champion may not attack, block, or use powers with an expend cost.
Flipped (rotated 180 degrees) — Blocking an attack flips a champion. Flipped champions can't block again this turn, but may use powers with an expend cost.
Initiative, Making Plays, and Triggers
Players may make any number of plays when they have initiative. Plays include playing a card or using a power. Initiative passes between the players during the turn, but only one player has it at a time.
Note: Occasionally multiple triggered abilities will happen at once. In this case, the player who has initiative deals with all their triggered abilities first, in any order they wish, then the player to their left may do so, etc. When all triggers are resolved, the player with initiative may continue making plays.
The Turn Sequence
Start Phase
Both players lose the gold they had (if any) and gain 1 gold.
You draw a card (not on the first player's first turn) and prepare your champions. Then, deal with any "at the start of turn" triggers.
Main Phase
Make as many plays and/or declare as many Battle Phases (see below) as you'd like.
When you are done, announce that you want to end your turn. The other player gains initiative and may make any number of plays, then pass.
- If they didn't make plays, proceed to the End Phase (below).
- If they did, you may either proceed to the End Phase or continue in your Main Phase.
Battle Phase
When you attack, it starts a battle. Each battle phase is split up into five steps.
Choose Attackers step
The attacking player chooses which champion or group of champions will attack, and expends them.
- Only prepared champions may attack.
- Champions you played this turn are deploying and cannot yet attack.
Before Blocks step
The attacking player may make any number of plays, then pass initiative.
Then, the player receiving initiative may advance to the Choose Blockers step, or make any number of plays and pass initiative back to the other player.
Repeat making plays and passing initiative until someone advances to the Choose Blockers step.
Note: If the defender has an ambush champion they would like to use to block in the next step, this is their last chance to play the card. A champion entering play is not automatically declared as a blocker; the attacker might remove it first!
Choose Blockers step
The defending player chooses which champion or group of champions is blocking (if any). Those champions are flipped (rotated 180 degrees).
- Only prepared champions may block.
- If the attack is blocked, they remain blocked even if the blocker(s) leave play.
- If a champion blocks any attacker, the entire attacking group is blocked (even if some champions in the attacking group would otherwise be unblockable).
Before Damage step
In this step, the defending player may make any number of plays, then pass initiative.
Then, the player receiving initiative may advance to the Damage step, or make any number of plays and pass initiative back to the other player.
Repeat making plays and passing initiative until someone advances to the Damage step.
Damage step
No one may make plays during the damage step. Attacking champions deal damage to blocking champions (or to the defending player if the attack wasn't blocked). Blocking champions deal damage to attacking champions.
The player who controls a champion decides where it deals its damage, split however they like. All of the champions simultaneously deal damage equal to their offense, and champions broken by this damage are put in their owner's discard pile.
Then, deal with any triggered abilities that were produced during the damage step. Finally, deal with any "at the end of combat" triggers beginning with the player whose turn it is.
The attacking player resumes their turn in the Main Phase. They may attack again.
End Phase
No one may make plays during this phase.
Deal with any "at end of turn" triggered abilities, starting with the player whose turn it is.
The player whose turn it is discards down to seven cards (if they have more than that in their hand).
All damage is removed from champions and all flipped champions are prepared.
Keywords and Terms
Alignment (color) — There are four alignments in Epic, each with its own color. You can play cards of any mix of alignments in your deck. There is no restriction to what color cards you play, but sometimes you get bonuses for matching your colors. (See Ally Abilities and Loyalty.)
Airborne — Airborne champions may only be blocked by other airborne champions.
Ally Abilities — These abilities trigger when you play a 1-gold card of the listed alignment. (Free cards do not trigger ally abilities.)
Ambush — You may play a champion with ambush any time you are allowed play an event, even during an opponent's turn. Remember, your champions are deploying (see below) until you start your turn with them in play.
Banish — A banished card is put on the bottom of its owner's deck. If a player has multiple cards banished simultaneously, shuffle them first.
Blitz — Blitz champions may attack and use expend powers while deploying.
Break — A broken card is put into its owner's discard pile. A champion is broken if it takes damage equal to or greater than its Defense in a single turn.
Breakthrough — If you assign damage from breakthrough champions to each blocker equal to their Defense, any remaining damage from breakthrough champions may be assigned to the defending player. (Damage from events and other champions does not help.)
Deploying — Your champions are deploying until you start your turn with them in play. A deploying champion can't attack or use powers, but it can block.
Expend — To turn a card sideways.
Loyalty 2 — When a champion with loyalty 2 enters play, you may reveal two cards of that champion's alignment in your hand. If you do, you gain the effect listed after the arrow (→).
Tribute — When a champion with tribute enters play, you gain the effect listed after the arrow (→).
Recall — A recalled card returns from your discard pile to your hand.
Recycle — To recycle, you may put two cards in your discard pile on the bottom of your deck in any order. If you do, draw a card. Note: Recycling is optional.
Righteous — When a righteous champion deals damage → you gain that much health.
Token Champions — Token champions are treated just like normal champions, except when a token champion would leave play, return it to the token pile instead. (They can't go to someone's hand, deck, or discard pile.)
Transform — When a champion is transformed, put it on the bottom of its owner's deck and put the token into play as a completely new champion. Note: This is not banishing the card. If the champion was in battle, it is removed from battle.
Unblockable — Unblockable champions may not be blocked.
Unbanishable — While the champion is in play, it may not be banished.
Untargetable — While the champion is in play, it may not be the "target" of an event, power, or ability. Note: Untargetable champions can be chosen to receive damage in battle, and are affected by events that don't target (like Apocalypse).
Unbreakable — The champion will not be put into the discard pile from a break effect or from damage. (If you must break an unbreakable champion as part of a power's cost, you can't play that power.)
The Many Epic Formats
Limited
For Limited formats, each player creates a 30-card deck from a limited pool of cards.
Random 30 (2-4 players, more with two sets.) "Sealed Deck" without the cost of a new deck. Each player is randomly dealt 30 cards. Shuffle and play! If you like, deal out more cards and have players choose the 30 best cards for their deck.
Pack Draft (3-4 players, 5-8 players with two sets.) Deal out three 10-card "packs" to each player. Keep these separated. To start, each player looks through their first pack, chooses one card, puts it face down in a pile, and passes the rest of the cards to the player on their left. Each player takes the pack that was passed to them, and chooses another card for their pile. Keep doing this until each player's first pack is gone. Now do the same for the second pack, but instead you pass to the right. Draft the third pack by passing to the left again. You end up with a 30-card deck. Shuffle and play!
Dark Draft (2 players.) Take a shuffled Epic card collection of at least 100 cards. Deal 5 cards to each player. Each player takes a card out of their hand and drafts it, and passes the other 4 cards to the other player (at the same time). Then, each player takes two cards from this new hand and drafts them. The remaining two cards are discarded into a shared face-down discard pile. Both players have now drafted three cards. Repeat nine times to get a 30-card deck, shuffle and play.
Epic Cube Draft (8 players, 3 sets required.) Take three Epic card sets, and remove two copies of each unique card, leaving one copy of unique cards, and three copies of each non-unique card. Randomly deal out three 12-card "packs" to each player. Players then Pack Draft (see above) until each has a pool of 36 cards with which to build a minimum 30-card deck.
Constructed
Preconstructed (2-4 players per set) Each Epic set contains four Preconstructed decks. Simply separate all the cards by color, and you have four balanced decks!
Full Constructed (Any number of players) Each player builds a deck from their own Epic card collection. Decks must contain at least 60 cards, with no more than three copies of each card. Also, for each free card of an alignment, the deck must contain at least two 1-gold cards of the same alignment. (Example: If a deck has seven free sage cards, it must have at least fourteen 1-gold sage cards.)
Multiplayer
There are rules which apply to multiplayer games:
Each player begins with 1 gold. Determine which player goes first, and play proceeds clockwise.
The player that goes first draws a card at the start of their turn (unlike in a two-player game).
When a player is eliminated from the game, all cards that started in their deck also leave the game.
At the start of your turn, you lose all gold, then gain 1 gold. After your turn ends, you lose all gold, then gain 1 gold. Remember: You won't get another gold until your turn starts again, no matter how many other players are in the game.
Free-for-all — Players face off against each other sitting around a table. In Free-for-all, there are no restrictions on which player you may attack, and your events and champion powers may target any player. The winner is the last player remaining.
Hunter – First Blood — Same as Free-for-all, except that you may only attack the player to your left and you may only play events targeting the players to your left and right. Your cards can only affect you and the players to your left and right. The game ends when a player is eliminated; the player to their right wins (no matter who did the eliminating – so play carefully!)
Hunter – Last One Standing — Same as Hunter – First Blood, except when a player is eliminated the game continues. The person to their right gains 5 health, and draws a card.
Team Multiplayer
For Team Multiplayer games, each team is considered to be a single entity. Play until one team remains.
Hydra (An equal number of players on each team.) A team of players shares the same turn. Each player has their own deck, discard piles, champions, and gold, but they share a health total that begins at 30 times the number of players on the team.
Attacks are directed at an opposing team. A player's champions may attack and block in groups with teammates' champions.
...and even more. For more formats, including Raid and Emperor, please go to EpicCardGame.com/formats. More questions? EpicCardGame.com/rules. Want to compete with the best for the title of World Champion? EpicCardGame.com/worlds.
Credits
Game Concept, Design and Development: Robert Dougherty
Lead Game Development and Art Direction: Darwin Kastle
Additional Art Direction: Graphics Manufacture
Editing and Additional Game Development: Nathan Davis
Additional Editing: Ian Taylor
Lead Graphic Design: Kaile Dutton
Additional Graphic Design: Vito Gesualdi and Graphics Manufacture
Production Assistance: Tan Thor Jen
Marketing Lead: Debbie Moynihan
Playtesters: Ian Estrin, Debbie Moynihan, Barbara Gugluizza, Adam Podtburg, Andrew Hanna, Emila Ponikiewski, Michael Iwanicki, Michael Shliselberg, Alex Krasa, John Tatian, CJ Moynihan, Ian Taylor
Epic Card Game TM and © 2017 White Wizard Games LLC