Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Anarchy at the Arena

Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Anarchy at the Arena Rulebook

Table of Contents

Components

30 Source Cards
30 Quality Cards
30 Delivery Cards
8 Wild Magic Cards
8 Oversized Wizard Cards
25 Treasure Cards
10 Rally Cards
15 Dead Wizard Tokens
30 Applause Tokens (10 2s, 10 3s, 10 4s)
15 Champion Cards
6 Skull Life Counters
6 Six-Sided Dice
1 Anarchy Standee

Object of the Game

Butcher your foes into gory chunks! Score Victory Points (VP) with Applause tokens by killing your opponents and completing Champion Challenges until that last Dead Wizard token is claimed... ending the game immediately!

Setup

Combine all of the Source, Quality, Delivery, Wild Magic, and Rally cards into one Main Deck. Then shuffle each deck (Main, Treasure, and Champion) separately. Place the Main Deck (the cards with the black backs) and the Champion Deck in the middle of the play area. Place the Treasure Deck off to the side.

Each player chooses an oversized 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 all the Applause tokens facedown where everyone can reach them, then create a pile of facedown Dead Wizard tokens nearby, two for each Wizard in the game.

Start of Each Round

Each Wizard draws from the Main Deck until they have a full hand of eight cards.
Reveal a new Champion from the Champion Deck and resolve their Entrance effect.
Now it's time to look at the cards in your hand and build your Spell for the round!

The Cards

Your hand will consist of various Spell Components:

Source (S): Each Source is named after a legendary Wizard. When you cast your Spell, the Source will give credit where credit is due.
Quality (Q): A Quality gives your Spell flavor, often giving your foes a taste of the trauma they're about to suffer.
Delivery (D): A Delivery is the big boom, the cataclysmic finality of your Spell. Deliveries all have an Initiative number and require a Power Roll.

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. A Source is always the leftmost card of your Spell, a Quality is 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, they 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, they must return the additional cards to their hand before announcing the size of their Spell.

Placing Your Spell

A Wizard must play all the Components of a Spell and any Rally cards facedown into the play area directly in front of themself. You may stack your cards up, spread them out, or even keep them under your hand if you wish to hide the number of cards you are playing. Opposing Wizards don't have the right to thumb through your cards to check.

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 their Spell: one, two, or three. (Do not count your Rally cards as part of a Spell's Components.)

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 their Delivery slot has an Initiative of 0. (More on Wild Magic cards later.)

The player with the highest Initiative acts first. If there is a tie for highest Initiative, each tied Wizard rolls a die, and the high roller resolves their 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 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.

Resolve Your Spell

Before resolving your Spell, if you added any Rally cards to your Spell, resolve the Champion's Rally effect for each Rally card you added. Then 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.

When you are resolving your Spell, it is your turn. When you are done resolving your Spell and using any Treasure effects, it is the end of your turn. After any "end of turn" effects have resolved, discard your Spell cards in play and then the next player begins their turn.

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 you have in play that matches that glyph, including itself.

You can also add glyphs to your Power Roll with:

Champions
Dead Wizard tokens
Creatures

For example, if you play a Dark Delivery but no other Components or effects with Dark glyphs, you'll roll one six-sided die. If you had played a Dark Source in that Spell, you would have rolled a total of two six-sided dice.

Targets

Most Spells have targets. Most of the time, your Spell will dictate its 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.

Strongest and 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, each tied foe is affected. You are not your own foe, so if you are the strongest or weakest Wizard, you don't count.

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.

Dead Wizard Tokens

When you are defeated, you gain and turn face-up one of the Dead Wizard tokens set aside for the game. These tokens contribute a glyph to your Power Rolls, but are worth -2 Victory Points (VP) at the end of the game.

Applause Tokens

Applause tokens are worth 2, 3, or 4 VP. When you gain an Applause token, do not reveal it, and leave it facedown until the end of the game.

Creatures

Creatures are a subset of the Delivery Component. 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. 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 (facedown) 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 is new or already in play from an earlier round).
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 a KEEP result again, it is discarded at the end of your turn as usual.

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 whether or not to block the damage. 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.
Unlike previous Epic Spell Wars games, when you die, your Creatures are not automatically discarded. But, you could have sacrificed a Creature to avoid the damage that killed you, dumbass!

Other Cards

Wild Magic

These special cards in the Main Deck 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 play 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 card effects will award you. When you gain a Treasure, it is always placed face-up in front of you for all to see. Your Treasures remain in front of you between rounds and after you are killed. But look out! Some crafty Wizards may try to get rid of your Treasures.

When you die, your Treasures are not automatically discarded, but stick around from round to round until they are removed by a card's effect.

Rally

These unique cards in the Main Deck activate the Champion and boost certain Spells. When a player builds a Spell, they may include any number of Rally cards with it, but Rally cards do not add to a Spell's Component total when determining Initiative order.

When you play a Rally card as part of your Spell, activate the Champion's Rally effect before playing your Spell, and if a Spell Component has the Rally keyword, resolve the Spell's text in order, from top to bottom.

If you reveal a Rally card from the top of the deck during your turn, you MUST play it, activating Champions and Spells.

New Keyword: Rally. Rally is a keyword found on Source, Qualities, and Delivery cards. When a Component with Rally resolves, it first checks if you have played a Rally card along with your Spell. If you reveal a Rally card after a Rally keyword has resolved, you cannot go back and activate it.

Control

You "control" things that are in play in front of you. This includes Treasures and Creatures 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.

Champions

These (mostly) living beings of destruction have reached the heights of victory and stand unmatched among their peers. Bored by your pathetic Spells and measly Treasures, they do not see you as a threat, but as a plaything to torment and challenge before your ultimate demise. Rally in their honor and you may gain their favor! Complete their Challenges to receive their praise!

A Champion is made up of four parts, starting with their Entrance. When a Champion is revealed, its Entrance effect is activated and read aloud. Affected Wizards resolve the Champion's Entrance at the same time. If an Entrance effect kills multiple Wizards at once, those Wizards collect their Dead Wizard tokens at random. If an Entrance effect causes multiple Wizards to gain Treasures, but there are not enough Treasures, each Wizard rolls a die and the highest rolls gain Treasures first.

You may not set aside a Champion's Rally effect for later in your turn, but you may choose not to play a Rally card from your hand and save it for another round. When multiple Wizards are affected by a Champion's Rally, you may choose the resolution order.

A Champion's Challenge is an objective set for the round that, when completed, rewards that Wizard with an Applause token. When multiple Wizards complete an "End of round" Challenge, but there are not enough tokens to award, each Wizard rolls a die and the highest rolls gain Applause tokens first.

Lastly, a Champion adds their glyph to a Wizard's Spell. This acts just like having a Spell Component with the Champion's glyph, increasing the number of dice you'll receive for those glyphs in Power Rolls by 1. A Champion's added glyph does not count as a Spell Component.

Full Spell Resolution Example

At the start of this round in a four-player game, each player had 1 Applause token, so Blood Lord Krazztar's Entrance effect dealt 2 damage to each player. A foe who played a two-Component Spell has already acted. With an Initiative of 10, your Spell is the fastest of the three-Component Spells, so yours resolves next.

You included a Rally with your Spell, so it will resolve first. Krazztar's Rally effect reads: "Your foe(s) with the most Applause tokens takes 2 damage." Because all your foes have 1 Applause token, they each take the Rally damage.

Now that you have resolved the Champion's Rally effect, you move on to your Source, Lickity Stix's, and deal 2 damage to a foe. Then, because you played a Rally, you choose to pay 10 of your 20 HP to gain an Applause token.

Moving onto your Quality, GRRR-OOSSSSS, you heal 3 HP, which brings you to 13 HP, but not enough to gain an Applause token.

Now that your Quality has resolved, you move onto your Delivery, Angry Arena Audience. Checking the glyphs of your Spell, this is the only Elemental Component you have, granting you 1 die for your Power Roll. But, the current Champion, Blood Lord Krazztar has an Elemental glyph, granting you an additional die! You roll them both and get the sum of 10, so you deal 3 damage to your foes, which kills a foe and awards you an Applause token!

But this ain't over! At the end of the round, if you have the most Applause tokens, you'll win Blood Lord Krazztar's Champion Challenge and gain another Applause token.

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 their Spell and start resolving it.

Wizard Death

When your HP has been reduced to 0, you have been defeated! When defeated, do the following:

Reset your HP to 20 so you can start taking damage again right away... hoo-fuckin'-ray! If an effect lowers your HP below 0, your HP does not go into the negatives, nor does it carry over to your new HP total.
- For instance, if you have 1 HP and you receive 3 damage, your HP total becomes 0 and not -2, and when you reset your HP, you reset it to 20 and not 18.
Discard your hand. You lose any cards you were holding for that round, but if your Spell has not been revealed for the round, you get to keep it.
Gain a Dead Wizard token. When you gain a Dead Wizard token, you must turn it face-up for the remainder of the game. Remember, the glyph on these tokens is added to your Power Rolls!
Unlike previous versions of Epic Spell Wars, when you are defeated, you do not lose your Spell (as mentioned above), Treasures, or Creatures. Instead, you are brought back to life and keep flinging that hot magic!

End of Game

When Dead Wizard tokens have run out, the game ends immediately. Do not resolve Spells, Treasures, or the Champion's Challenge. The Wizard with the most Victory Points from Applause tokens, minus 2 points for each of their Dead Wizard tokens, wins! In the case of a tie, the tied Wizard with the most Applause tokens wins. If it's still a tie, the tied Wizard with the most Treasures wins. The rich win again. Fuck'n capitalism, right?

Specific Card Clarifications

One-Balled Willy's (and others like it): If you reveal a Rally card during the resolution of a Component, pause that card and resolve the Champion's Rally effect before moving on.
Omnipotentaint, Almighty-Righty: In a two-player game, once you damage your foe, there is not a different foe to damage, nor can you target the original foe again.
Dreamy Djinny: Your foe does not need to have 5 or more HP to activate this card, as they are taking damage, not paying HP. If that foe has 5 or less HP, this card kills them before you make your Power Roll.
Arena Standee: You read this far to find out what the Standee does. Well, jokes on you, asshole... it don't do shit!

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 Main Deck and Treasure Deck for each game you play.

Quick Reference

Start of Each Round: 1. Each Wizard draws from the Main Deck until they have a full hand of eight cards. 2. Reveal a new Champion from the Champion Deck and resolve their Entrance effect. 3. Now it's time to look at the cards in your hand and build your Spell for the round!
Create Your Spell: Each Wizard places up to three different types of Spell Components face down in front of themself. (You may add Rally cards with your Spell Components, but they do not count towards your Component total.)
Turn Order: Each Wizard announces how many Components are in their 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 their Spell first.
Resolve Your Spell: Read the name of your Spell in a Wizard voice. Play your Rally cards, resolving the Champion's Rally effect for each. Then 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 an Applause token. Then discard your hand, gain a Dead Wizard token, and reset your HP to 20. (Do not discard your current Spell, Treasures, or Creatures.)
End of Game: When the last Dead Wizard token is awarded, the game ends immediately. Subtract the negative Victory Points of your Dead Wizard tokens from the positive Victory Points of your Applause tokens. The highest total wins!