Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Melee at Murdershroom Marsh Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Quick Reference
• Components
• Object of the Game
• Setup
• Match Play
• Start of Each Round
• The Cards
• Building a Spell
• Placing Your Spell
• Turn Order
• Reveal Your Spell
• Resolve Your Spell
• Magical Glyphs
• Power Rolls
• Targets
• Strongest & Weakest Foes
• Stronger & Weaker Foes
• Random Foes
• Adding Cards to Your Spell
• Creatures
• Dual-Glyphed Deliveries
• Cantrip
• Bad Trip
• Other Cards
  • Wild Magic
  • Treasures
  • The Dead Wizard Deck
• Reactions
• Control
• Epic Match Variant
• Full Spell Resolution Example
• End of a Game
• Combining With the Previous Games
• Credits
  • Cryptozoic Entertainment
  • Playtesters
  • Special Thanks

Quick Reference

This condensed play summary is printed on the inside cover for reference during play.

Start of Each Round: Each Wizard draws from the Main Deck until he or she has a full hand of eight cards. Each dead Wizard draws a Dead Wizard card.

Create Your Spell: Each Wizard places up to three different types of Spell Components face down in front of him or her.

Turn Order: Each Wizard announces how many Components are in his or her Spell. Wizards who played one card go before Wizards who played two cards, and they go before Wizards who played three. Ties are broken by the Initiative number on Deliveries. A Wild Card in the Delivery slot or no Delivery Component is Initiative 0. The higher your Delivery's Initiative, the sooner you act. If there is an Initiative tie, each tied Wizard rolls a die, and the high roller resolves his or her Spell first.

Resolve Your Spell: Read the name of your Spell in a Wizard voice. Resolve the effects of the cards in your Spell in the order they are read: Source, then Quality, then Delivery.

When You Die: The player that killed you gains a Kill Token. Discard your hand. Then draw a Dead Wizard card and discard any Treasures you own that don't have the word Everlasting on them.

Components

• 40 Source Cards
• 40 Quality Cards
• 40 Delivery Cards
• 8 Wild Magic Cards
• 8 Oversized Wizard Cards
• 25 Treasure Cards
• 25 Dead Wizard Cards
• 15 Kill Tokens
• 7 Last Wizard Standing Tokens
• 6 Skull Life Counters
• 5 Six-Sided Dice
• 1 Standee

Object of the Game

Blast your opponents into smoldering bits of goo. Score 1 point for each Wizard you kill. Score 1 point for being the Last Wizard Standing at the end of a game. Score the most points over three matches to win!

Setup

Combine all of the Source, Quality, Delivery, and Wild Cards into one Main Deck. Then shuffle each deck (Main, Treasure, and Dead Wizard Decks) separately. Each player chooses a Wizard to play.

Each Wizard starts each game with 20 Hit Points. Place a skull life counter on the 20 (found on your Wizard card) and use it to mark your gains and losses of Hit Points. Should you gain any Hit Points, your maximum HP is 25.

Place the Main Deck (the cards with the black backs) and the Standee in the middle of the play area. Place the Treasure and Dead Wizard Decks off to the side.

Match Play

A match consists of three games. A game consists of enough rounds for one player to win that game.

During each round, players will create Spells, blast their opponents, collect fabulous Treasures, and most importantly, try to survive. Each time you kill a foe, grab a Kill Token. That's worth 1 point at the end of the match. If you cream your last foe in a game, leaving only you among the living, you earn a Kill Token as usual, but also a Last Wizard Standing Token. LWS Tokens are also worth 1 point at the end of the match.

Start of Each Round

Each Wizard draws from the Main Deck until he or she has a full hand of eight cards. Each dead Wizard draws a Dead Wizard card.

The Cards

Your hand will consist of various Spell Components:

Source — Each Source is named after a legendary Wizard. When you cast your Spell, the Source will give credit where credit is due.

Quality — Each Quality allows you, the Wizard, to inject some of your own creativity into your Spell. These adjectives give your Spell flavor, often giving your foes a taste of the trauma they're about to suffer.

Delivery — A Delivery is the big BOOM — the cataclysmic finality of your Spell, sure to leave your foes bloodied and begging for mercy. Deliveries all have an Initiative number and require a Power Roll. (More on that stuff later.)

Building a Spell

Each Spell may contain up to three different Components. A Spell can contain no more than one of each type of Component (Source, Quality, and Delivery). These are all legal Spells: Source; Source + Quality; Quality + Delivery; Quality; Delivery; Source + Delivery; Source + Quality + Delivery.

Notice the nameplate banner? A full three-card Spell will always have a complete nameplate with a beginning, middle, and end. Sources are always the leftmost card of your Spell, Qualities are always found in the middle, and a Delivery is always the rightmost card of a Spell.

These are examples of illegal Spells: Quality + Quality; Source + Quality + Quality.

If a Wizard reveals an illegal Spell, he or she must choose and remove cards from it until the Spell becomes legal. Place those removed cards into the discard pile. Note that a player may never play more than three Components. If a player does, he or she must return the additional cards to his or her hand before announcing the size of his or her Spell.

Placing Your Spell

A Wizard must play all the Components of a Spell face down into the play area directly in front of him or her. You may stack your cards up, spread them out, or even keep them under your hand if you wish to hide the number of Components you are playing — opposing Wizards don't have the right to thumb through your cards to check. Here is what the table might look like when all Wizards have placed their Spells: Player Hero Card + face down Spell, arranged around the Dead Wizard Deck, the Main Deck, and the Treasure Deck.

Turn Order

When all Wizards are done placing their cards on the table, the order of Spell resolution must be determined. At this time, each Wizard should call out the number of Components in his or her Spell: one, two, or three.

Wizards who played one Spell Component take their turns before Wizards who played two or three Spell Components. Wizards who played two Spell Components take their turns before Wizards who played three Spell Components.

If two or more players declare the same number of Components in their Spell, then those Wizards announce their Initiative numbers.

Find your Delivery's Initiative number in the flaming ember next to the end of the card name banner.

You may peek at your Delivery to find this out, but don't reveal the card yet. A Wizard who didn't play a Delivery Component or has a Wild Magic card in his Delivery slot has an Initiative of 0. (More on Wild Magic cards later.)

The highest Initiative Delivery acts first. If there is a tie for highest Initiative, each tied Wizard rolls a die, and the high roller resolves his or her Spell first.

Example: In a four-player game, three players each declare three Components, while one player declares two Components. The player with only two Components will act first in the round. When that player's Spell is done resolving, the other three players call out their Initiative numbers. Let's say they are 17, 14, and 14. The 17 Initiative will act first amongst the players at three Components, as it's the highest Initiative. When that player's Spell is done resolving, the two players at Initiative 14 each roll a die to break the tie. The high roller will act first, then the low roller will act last in the round.

Reveal Your Spell

When your Initiative comes up, reveal the Components of your Spell. Now, in your best Epic Wizard Voice, read the name of your Spell in dramatic fashion in this order: Source, Quality, Delivery. Your play group can decide the proper punishment for a Wizard who fails to read the full name of their Spell before starting to resolve it.

If your Spell is missing any of the elements:

Missing the Source: Use your Hero's name or use your own name.

Missing the Quality: You don't have to add an adjective here, but feel free to make up something creative.

Missing the Delivery: Use any magical word, like evocation, conjuration, or invocation.

Resolve Your Spell

Resolve the effects of the cards in your Spell in the order they are read:

• Source first
• Quality second
• Delivery last

If you have multiple cards of one type (through card effects, not through Spell placement), resolve them in the order of your choosing.

If a new Component enters your Spell while you are resolving it, and it's of a type that you have already resolved, finish resolving your current Component, then resolve the new one. Example: Your Quality puts a Source into play, but you have already resolved your Sources. No matter. Resolve the new Source before proceeding to your Delivery.

Magical Glyphs

Each Spell Component has a magic type, represented by a word and a glyph on the card.

The five types of magic are:

Arcane — Hurt foes. Gain Treasure. Still time for tea.

Dark — Deal with forces beyond your control as you dispense unrighteous magiks.

Elemental — Ignite your foes, then laugh at their screams of fiery anguish.

Illusion — You never know what you'll get, except corpses.

Primal — Whether you heal damage or deal damage, it all revolves around deep wounds.

Power Rolls

When you make a Power Roll, look at the glyph on the card that requires the roll. You roll one six-sided die for every card in your Spell that has that glyph, including itself. If your Delivery has two glyphs, you get to roll at least two dice. Be sure to include your Creatures from previous rounds and your Dead Wizard cards from the previous game. They are also part of your Spell!

For example, if you play a Primal and Illusion Delivery Component but no other Components with Primal or Illusion glyphs, you'll roll two six-sided dice. If you had played a Primal Source and an Illusion Quality in that Spell, you would have rolled a total of four six-sided dice.

There are many other effects, combos, and Treasures that let you roll more dice with certain Power Rolls.

Targets

Most Spells have targets. Most of the time, your Spell will dictate its own target. Keep these targets in mind when creating your Spell! A target can be random: a foe on your left, right, or left and right; each foe; or various other criteria. If it's a healing Spell, the target will be you. The target of a Spell Component must be determined before any dice are rolled. Your target cannot be a Dead Wizard. If your Spell targets the player to your left and that player is dead, skip him or her and target the next player to your left.

Strongest & Weakest Foes

The strongest foe is the foe with the most Hit Points. The weakest foe is the foe with the fewest Hit Points. If there is a tie, you get to choose who you want to consider strongest or weakest from among those tied players. You are not your own foe, so if you are the strongest or weakest Wizard, you don't count.

Stronger & Weaker Foes

A stronger foe is any foe with more Hit Points than you. A weaker foe is any foe with fewer Hit Points than you. Choose a target from among your stronger or weaker foes. If a foe has the same amount of HP as you, he or she is neither stronger nor weaker.

Random Foes

Starting with the player to your left, distribute values on a single six-sided die to each of the legal targets for the effect. Then roll a die to see who the victim will be. So in a five-player game, you would assign 1 to 4 clockwise to the players next to you, then roll; re-roll any 5s or 6s.

Adding Cards to Your Spell

Some Spell Components can add cards to your Spell. Adding cards this way doesn't make a Spell illegal. Added cards should be placed vertically adjacent to the Components of the same type. If you have multiple unresolved Spell Components of the same type, you resolve them in the order of your choice.

Creatures

Creatures are a subset of the Delivery Component. Half of the Deliveries in this set are Creatures. The word Creature appears in the lower left corner of any such card. Creatures are unique in that they can stay in play at the end of your casting. Most Creatures have the word "KEEP" somewhere on them. When you Keep a Creature, leave it face up in front of you. You don't discard it with the rest of your Spell Components after resolving your Spell. Most of the time you trigger the Keep keyword by rolling well on Power Rolls. Some other card effects might help to Keep the Creature around.

With a face-up Creature in play, you have a new friend! This faithful companion is even willing to sacrifice its life for you. Anytime you would take any damage from a foe, you may instead choose to discard a face-up Creature you have in play. Doing so negates the damage to you, but not to other players (if the damage has multiple targets). Creatures cannot absorb self-inflicted damage. A Creature that is unresolved (face down) in your Spell is not eligible for this kind of loyalty. If a card deals multiple instances of damage, like 2 and then 2 more later, a Creature only blocks one instance of damage. If a card deals 2 damage, or 4 damage if you are the strongest foe (or whatever), that is a single instance of damage, so one Creature will absorb it all.

While protecting you like a guard dog is certainly useful, if your Creature survives until the next round, you get to attack with it again when your Initiative comes up. In fact, you must! You cannot choose to skip making a Power Roll for it.

• A "Kept" Creature does not add to the Spell Component card count that determines how quickly you cast your Spell. For example, if you play a three-card Spell and you have Kept two Creatures from previous rounds, you are still playing a three-card Spell, not a five-card Spell.
• If your Creature has no legal target, you still roll to see if you Keep it or not (whether it was new or was already in play).
• The glyphs on your Kept Creatures ARE counted amongst all of the glyphs for your Spell.

Count the glyphs that match your Kept Creature and roll, just as if it were part of your Spell. It's certainly possible to Keep a Creature around for several rounds if you are lucky enough to roll a KEEP result each time. But if you don't roll KEEP again, it is discarded at the end of your turn as usual.

• Discard all of your Creatures at the end of each game in a match.

If a card says to kill a foe's Creature, and then deal damage to that player, the Creature dies before it can jump in the way of any damage. Only cards that specifically target or mention Creatures can hit Creatures. You can't choose to hit a foe's Creature with generic damage. Only that foe may choose whether or not to have the Creature absorb the damage. If the damage is random, wait until the value has been determined before deciding. You don't need to decide before you know how much is coming at you. No matter how little or great the damage, the Creature absorbs it all, and then the Creature card is discarded. Zero damage does not kill a Creature.

When you die, discard any Creatures you have in play. You should have sacrificed them to stay alive, numbskull!

Dual-Glyphed Deliveries

Half of the Delivery cards in this set are Components that have TWO GLYPHS. In that case, you are rolling a minimum of two dice for your Power Roll, even without help from any other Spell Components. Of course, any Wizard worth their pointy hat is going to match some glyphs to finish resolving your current Component and then Delivery. So for example, if your Spell is Primal Source, Dark Quality, and dual-glyphed "Primal/Dark" Delivery, you'll roll four dice for your Delivery Power Roll! But even if you suck and your Spell is Illusion, Arcane, and Primal/Dark, you'll still roll two dice.

Dual-glyphed Delivery cards are also brilliant at helping out your Bad Trip cards, which you will learn about in a moment.

Cantrip

Cantrip is a new keyword found on Sources and Qualities that allows you to add more Components to your Spell when your Spell's Initiative comes up.

Next to the word Cantrip will be a discard requirement, such as two Sources, two Qualities, or two Deliveries. If you make the required discards from your hand, the Cantrip card is added to your Spell! Note that the Cantrip must be in your hand after the discard has been made. You can't put into play a Cantrip that you just discarded.

Because your Initiative has already started, adding cards does not make your Spell slower. You may add a Cantrip to your Spell at any time during your Initiative. If you add a Source during your Quality or Delivery resolution, or a Quality during your Delivery resolution, finish resolving your current Component and then go back and resolve the Cantrip before proceeding with the later Components.

Cantrips are a great way to clear your hand of too many duplicates of one card type. Additionally, Wild Magic cards count as all three card types, so they make discarding to "pay" for your Cantrips quite easy.

If you do not have the required discards to enact the Cantrip ability, you can still play the Cantrip as part of a Spell as usual. In that case, just ignore the Cantrip text and resolve it like any other Component. But there are several cards in this set that allow you to draw cards during your Initiative, so holding a Cantrip in your hand may prove worthwhile.

Bad Trip

Bad Trip is the other new keyword found on Source and Quality cards in the set. When you're seeing too many colors, you are feeling the effects of the Murdershroom on your brain. Typically, a lot of different glyphs in your Spell means your Spell will be weak. But a Bad Trip turns that on its head!

After resolving a Bad Trip card once, check the number of different glyphs in your Spell. Be sure to count any Dead Wizard cards, Creatures, and Treasures you have. If you have FOUR or more different glyphs in your Spell, resolve your Bad Trip card a second time! If you don't have enough different glyphs, the Component still resolves once. The first resolution might even trigger the second!

Other Cards

Wild Magic

You might be lucky enough to draw a Wild Magic card from the Main Deck. These special cards count as all three Component types: Source, Quality, and Delivery. (This is a change from the first two games, where WM cards had no type.) They make it easy to discard for Cantrips. Wild Magic cards take the place of any Component type when added to your Spell. For example, if you don't have a Quality in your hand but you still wish to play a three-Component Spell, you can place a Wild Magic card in your Spell to act as the missing Component.

When your Spell is revealed, immediately reveal cards from the top of the Main Deck until you find the type of Component you're missing. Add it to your Spell and then discard the Wild Magic card and the rest of the revealed cards. If you played more than one Wild Magic card in your Spell, repeat this process for each one. Read the name of your Spell only after you have replaced all of your Wild Magic cards.

Treasures

Treasures are powerful items that some Spell Components can award you. When you gain a Treasure, it is always placed face up in front of you for all to see. Treasures are never placed into your hand. But look out! Some crafty Wizards may try to steal your Treasures.

Most of the Treasures in this set have the keyword Everlasting, which has the effect: "Do not discard this Treasure when you die or at the end of a game." While you are dead, your Treasures cannot be stolen or destroyed. So dead Wizards and the Last Wizard Standing will all hang onto their Everlasting Treasures into the next game.

The Dead Wizard Deck

When a Wizard is slain, he or she discards the cards in his or her hand, discards his or her Treasures that don't have the Everlasting keyword, and immediately draws a card from the Dead Wizard Deck. Being dead isn't enough to put a Wizard completely out of the action. At the start of each new round of the game, each dead Wizard draws a Dead Wizard card. These cards will help you win the next game.

Some Dead Wizard cards have the words "Resolve now" on them. These cards resolve immediately when drawn. Discard the card after resolving it. If a Dead Wizard card would have you gain Hit Points, you don't come back to life and you don't get those extra HP at the start of the next game. If your Dead Wizard card kills a foe, you score a Kill Token. If that foe was the Last Wizard Standing, he or she still earns that token, and then he or she will get to draw a Dead Wizard card.

Reactions

Some Spell Components have the keyword "Reaction" on them. Reaction cards let you spring a surprise on a foe in case of your untimely death. If a Reaction card is in your Spell and you are unceremoniously killed before you get the chance to resolve the card with the word Reaction on it, you get the effect listed. Reaction cards might allow a Wizard with low HP to play a slower Spell and still get in some good licks even if they die before casting it. If your Reaction heals you, you don't die, and the player who killed you does not earn a Kill Token. Note that when taking lethal damage, your HP never goes below 0.

Reaction cards in hand do nothing. They must be waiting in the cards you've placed to be able to trigger. A Reaction can even trigger if you die due to self-inflicted damage, as long as you have not started resolving the Reaction Component. If your own Source kills you, and your Quality has a Reaction, it will trigger!

Control

You "control" cards that are in play in front of you. This includes Treasures, Creatures, Dead Wizard cards that give you a long-term bonus, and the Components in your Spell. You do not control the cards in your hand.

Note that a Creature in your Spell cannot be used to block damage unless it has resolved and you rolled a KEEP result.

Epic Match Variant

This longer playing time variant is great for two to four player games in which you want to play to a more dramatic ending. Instead of keeping track of kills, the only thing that matters is being the Last Wizard Standing. The last Wizard alive at the end of each game gets a LWS token. The first player to collect two LWS tokens wins the match!

Full Spell Resolution Example

In a four-player game, a foe who played a two-Component Spell has already acted. With an Initiative of 11, your Spell is the fastest of the three-Component Spells, so yours resolves first.

The Source of your Spell is The Sticky Icky's, so it will resolve first. It reads: "Add 1 die to each of your Power Rolls this turn. Bad Trip: If your Spell contains four or more different glyphs, resolve this again."

Your Spell doesn't contain four different glyphs so you aren't having a Bad Trip … but hold on! In your hand you spot a Cantrip "Purgatorium." You discard two Delivery cards from your hand and add the Cantrip to your Spell. The Cantrip is a Quality, so it doesn't resolve yet, but its glyph adds to your Spell right now!

You resolve The Sticky Icky's twice, as you now have four different glyphs in your Spell. You place two dice onto your Delivery to remind you.

Now that you have resolved your Source, you move on to your Qualities, of which you suddenly have two. You decide to resolve the Purgatorium first, which grants you a Dead Wizard card. You draw a Creamed Seaman Dead Wizard card, which will add an Illusion glyph to your Spells for the entire next game, but nothing right now. You set it a little off to the side face down.

Up next is your original Quality, Grunt-n-Runting. You draw a card from the Main Deck and reveal it to be a dual-glyphed Scrotsplosion. Since your Spell contains two Primal glyphs and no Elemental glyphs, the foe on your right takes 4 damage. After resolving the Quality, the card you drew goes into your hand. If it had been a Cantrip, you might have been able to add it to your Spell, even if it was a Source.

Now that your Qualities are done resolving, we move to your Delivery, which is Adult Responsibilities. It targets your strongest foe. Since two of your foes are tied for the most HP with 20, you get to choose which one to target. Now you need to make a Power Roll.

Your dual-glyphed Delivery only matches the Purgatorium that got Cantripped into your Spell. But you get to count BOTH of the glyphs on your Delivery anyway. So with two Dark glyphs, one Arcane glyph, and two dice from the Bad Tripping Sticky Icky's, you're rolling five dice. You roll a 14, which is well over the 10+, so you deal your target 6 damage, but take 2 yourself. Adult Responsibilities are a bit draining, no?

When you are done resolving all the Components of your Spell, discard each of your resolved Components, and the Wizard with the next highest Initiative gets to reveal his or her Spell and start resolving it.

End of a Game

When the dust settles and there is but one Wizard alive, the game ends and that Wizard earns a Last Wizard Standing token. In the unlikely event that a Wizard kills himself, leaving no Wizards alive, that Wizard still earns the Last Wizard Standing token, but not a Kill Token. You never earn a Kill Token for killing yourself.

All Treasures that don't have Everlasting, all Creatures, and all cards in each Wizard's hand are discarded at the end of each game. None of the decks should be reshuffled until they run out of cards. This ensures that you will see a wide variety of different cards during each game. After everyone has cleared their cards, Wizards with Dead Wizard cards should gather the bonuses those cards have granted (extra cards, Treasure, etc.) and then discard the Dead Wizard cards.

Now go fry some brains and suck down the fumes!

Combining With the Previous Games

Feel free to shuffle each of the different decks together, but that will be hard to shuffle! Another way to do it is to use a different Spell deck, Treasure deck, and Dead Wizard deck for each game of the match. It would be best to start with this set first, as the Everlasting Treasures will last throughout the other games.

If a Spell Component copies a Creature Delivery, it cannot KEEP. It reverts to a non-Creature at the end of your casting.

Credits

Created by: Cory Jones

Art by: RS Bixby

Game Design by: Matt Hyra

Cryptozoic Entertainment

• Co-CEO & Founder: John "Big Wand" Nee
• Co-CEO & Founder: John "Urijnam" Sepenuk

Developers: Matt "Dun-Dun" Dunn, Nathaniel "The Professor" Yamaguchi

Graphic Design: Larry "Fairy Fingers" Renac (Lead), John "Sparkle-Britches" Vineyard

• VP of Marketing: Jamie "Deadly" Kiskis
• VP of Operations: Leisha "Sleeves" Cummins
• VP of Creative: "The Splendid" Adam Sblendorio
• Project Manager, Games: Dekan "Farticus-Maximus" Wheeler
• Business Coordinator: Rumi "Lazuli-Luli" Asai
• Editor: Shahriar "The King" Fouladi

Playtesters

Richard Brady, Julien Guerand, Adam May, Shannah Linker, Katie Raccuglia, Nicholas Scamman, Michael Shaneman, Ryan Skinner, and many, many others.

Special Thanks

Rob Heinsoo, D&D All-Nighters, Carol Byrnes, Javier Casillas, Randall Ford, Kaitlyn Fox, Matt Hoffman, Mike Lauter, Alex Lim, George Nadeau, Colin Robinson, Rachel Valverde, MaryCarmen Wilber