Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Quick Reference
• Components
• Object of the Game
• Set Up
• Match Play
• Start of Each Round
• The Cards
• Building a Spell
• Placing Your Spell
• Turn Order
• Reveal Your Spell
  • If your Spell is missing any of the elements:
• Resolve Your Spell
• Magical Glyphs
• Power Rolls
• Targets
• Strongest & Weakest Foes
• Stronger & Weaker Foes
• Random Foes
• Adding Cards to Your Spell
• Other Cards
• The Dead Wizard Deck
• Full Spell Resolution Example
• End of a Game
• Credits
  • Cryptozoic Entertainment
  • Marketing and Community
  • Playtesters
  • Special Thanks

Quick Reference

This condensed play summary is printed on the back 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.

Components

• 40 Source Cards
• 40 Quality Cards
• 40 Delivery Cards
• 8 Oversized Hero Cards
• 8 Wild Magic Cards
• 25 Treasure Cards
• 25 Dead Wizard Cards
• 7 Last Wizard Standing Tokens
• 6 Skull Life Counters
• 4 Six-Sided Dice
• 1 Mt. Skullzfyre

Object of the Game

Blast your opponents into smoldering bits of goo.

If you defeat each of your foes, you earn a Last Wizard Standing token.

Earn two of these, and you win the match!

Set Up

Shuffle each deck separately.

Each player chooses a Hero to play. Each Wizard starts with 20 Hit Points. Place a skull counter on the 20 (found on your Hero card) and use it to mark your gains and losses of Hit Points. You can raise your HP above 20 during play, up to a maximum of 25.

Place the Spell deck in the middle of the play area. Place the Treasure and Dead Wizard decks off to the side.

Match Play

A match consists of a number of short games. A game consists of enough rounds for a player to win that game.

During each round, players will create spells, blast their opponents, collect fabulous treasures, and most importantly, try to survive. The Wizard who can stand tall when all other Wizards have been disintegrated wins that game and earns a Last Wizard Standing token.

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: Source + Source; Source + Quality + Quality; Source + Quality + Delivery + Delivery.

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.

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. 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 18, 14, and 14. The 18 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.

Note: If the number of Components in your Spell changes before your turn, your place in the Turn Order sequence will change.

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 cantrip, conjuration, or invocation.

Resolve Your Spell

Resolve the effects of the cards in your Spell in the order they are read: 1. Source, 2. Quality, 3. Delivery.

Magical Glyphs

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

Arcane — Sophisticated magic splatters your foes while gaining you Treasure.

Dark — Risk a touch of magic backlash to send your foes to their messy deaths.

Elemental — Blast your foes to Kingdom Come.

Illusion — Quick and tricky spells that often allow you to choose your victims.

Primal — The forces of nature can either heal you or deliver a slow death to your foes.

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. In other words, if you play one Primal Component and it requires a Power Roll, you'll roll one six-sided die. If you had played three Primal Components in that spell, you would have rolled three six-sided dice instead.

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 or 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 & 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.

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.

If there is a tie, you get to choose who you want to consider stronger or weaker. If a foe has the same amount of HP as you, they are 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. (See example below.)

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.

Other Cards

Wild Magic: You might be lucky enough to draw a Wild Magic card from the Main Deck. These special cards don't have a Component type. Instead, they may take the place of any Component type. 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 card(s).

Treasure: Treasures are powerful items that several Spells 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.

Some Treasure cards have effects that look at Power Rolls. There are also some effects in the game that allow a Wizard to reroll a Power Roll. A Treasure like Fool's Gold does not take effect until after a Wizard has completed any rerolls.

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, 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. If the other Wizards take a few rounds to kill each other off, you will end up with several Dead Wizard cards. These cards will help you win the next game.

Full Spell Resolution Example

In a four player game, a foe who played a two-Component Spell has already acted. With an Initiative of 18, you are the fastest of the three-Component Spells, so yours resolves first.

The Source of your Spell is Bleemax Brainiac's, so it will resolve first. It reads: "Reveal the top two cards of the Main Deck. Each one with a glyph that matches a glyph in your Spell is added to your Spell. Discard the rest."

Drawing two cards off the Main Deck reveals a Quality called Mysterious and a Delivery called Fist O' Nature.

Now read the name of the Spell in your best Wizard voice. We'll wait.

Fist O' Nature is a Primal Spell Component that does not match any of the glyphs in your Spell, so it gets discarded, but the card Mysterious shares a glyph with a Component of your Spell. Its Arcane glyph matches the Arcane glyph of your Source. Since it's a Quality, it is placed into the Quality slot, or above it in this case, as you now have two!

Bleemax Brainiac is now done resolving, so we move to your Quality, but there are two of them. You get to resolve them in the order of your choice.

The card Mysterious deals damage equal to the number of glyphs and Treasures you have. You have three different glyphs in your Spell and no Treasures, so it would deal 3 damage. However, your Mind-Altering card will earn you (and a foe) a Treasure. Let's resolve that one first!

Mind-Altering reads, "Deal 3 damage to a random foe." To find a random foe from amongst your three foes you assign numbers on a six-sided die to each of your foes in clockwise order. Assign the player to your left the numbers 1 and 2, the next player 3 and 4, and the last 5 and 6. Then roll a die to determine which Wizard takes the damage. In addition to dealing damage, the Mind-Altering card reads, "You and that foe each gain a Treasure." So you each draw a card off the top of the Treasure Deck and immediately put those cards into play face up. You now have a Treasure!

You have drawn the The Demon Shoes, which reads, "This Treasure counts as a Dark card in each of your Spells." This may come in handy, as your Delivery Component is also a Dark card.

Now that you have finished resolving Mind-Altering, it's time to resolve your other Quality. Mysterious reads, "Deal 1 damage to the foe on your right for each different glyph in your Spell and each Treasure you have." You have three different glyphs (Arcane, Illusion, and Dark) in your Spell and one Treasure. Nice! So you deal 4 damage to the player on your right.

Finally, it's time to resolve your Delivery. Pact with the Devil targets your "strongest foe." Check on your foes' current HP. If there is just one player with the highest, that player is your target. If there are two or more tied foes, you decide which of those tied foes will be your target. When you have determined your target, it's time to make a Power Roll. You have one Dark glyph on the Pact with the Devil, but you have also acquired another Dark glyph by way of your Treasure. That gives you two dice to roll. You roll a 3 and a 5, totaling 8. The Pact card Power Roll table reads, "5-9: 2 damage." So you deal 2 damage to the target you previously determined.

When you are done resolving all the Components of your Spell, discard each of your resolved Components, and the next Wizard 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 token. Going out in a blaze of glory is never frowned upon in an Epic Spell War!

All Treasures 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 match. After everyone has cleared their cards, Wizards with Dead Wizard cards should then gather the bonuses those cards have granted (extra HP, Treasure, etc.) and then discard the Dead Wizard cards.

Now go melt some faces!

Credits

Created by: Cory Jones

Game Design by: Rob Heinsoo

Art by: Nick Edwards

Cryptozoic Entertainment

• President & CCO: "Uncle" Cory Jones
• CEO: John "Big Wand" Nee
• Chief Operating Officer: "The Greata" Scott Gaeta
• Chief Revenue Officer: John "Urijnam" Sepenuk

Developers: Mike "Snig" Donais, Matt "The Hydra" Hyra, Matthew "Sky Dunk" Place, Patrick "White Magic" Sullivan, Ben "Mystic Weiner" Stoll, Drew "Krunklestiltskin" Walker, "The Magnificent" Mike Girard

Graphic Design: Larry "Fairy Fingers" Renac (Lead), Marco "Arcticus" Sipriaso, "Necro" Nancy Unzueta, John "Sparkle-Britches" Vineyard

• Rulebook: Matt "Zorch!" Hyra
• Editing: Kate "The Editrix" Stavola
• VP Controller: Joanne "Limiter" Barron
• Director of Operations: Leisha "Sleeves" Cummins
• Brand Management: "The Greata" Scott Gaeta
• Associate Production Manager: Rachel "Sorceress Chica" Valverde
• Business Coordinator: Rumi "Lazuli-Luli" Asai
• Sales: Kurt "The Salamander" Nelson, Ming "Mo Shu" Wan
• Office Manager: April "Melt Your Bones" Jones

Marketing and Community

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Playtesters

Michael Alexander, Logan Bonner, Todd Burklin, Sean Dawson, Patrick "Big Deal" Dillon, Passion Donais, Eric Eschenbach, Lisa Eschenbach, Mike Fehlauer, Paul Hughes, Mark Jessup, Cory Jones, Erik Larsen, Rob Lightner, Max Magiera, Sunga Rose, Rob Watkins, Nathaniel Yamaguchi

Special Thanks

Valerie & Holiday Jones, Michael Kirchhoff, D&D, Big Gulps, Doritos, the word "Epic", Amy Keller, Tania & Brandon Sepenuk, Lieka, Gypsey, Travis, Charlotte