Mindbug: Tag Team
Mindbug: Tag Team Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Setup
Step 1: Choose Teams
Divide the 4 players into 2 teams of 2 players each. Each player sits across from their teammate (facing each other). Your two opponents sit on your left and on your right.
Step 2: Deal Mindbugs and Mindfrogs
Deal each player 1 Mindbug and 1 Mindfrog. Place them face up in front of them. See p. 4-5 for how to use them.
Step 3: Shuffle and Deal Decks
Shuffle the creature cards from the Tag Team add-on pack together with those from your favorite Mindbug card set. Deal each player 6 cards face down as their draw pile. Leave a bit of room next to your draw pile for a discard pile.
Step 4: Draw Hands
Each player draws 3 cards from their personal draw pile as their starting hand.
Step 5: Set Starting Life
Each team starts the game with 3 life that are shared by both teammates. To track life, each team takes a life tracker and sets it to 3.
Setup Diagram
The leaflet's overall setup diagram shows the four players seated in a circle, with Team 1 (Players 1 and 3) and Team 2 (Players 2 and 4) sitting across from their teammate. Each player's area is labelled as follows: 1 Mindfrog, 1 Mindbug, a Play Area, a Discard Pile, a Draw Pile (3 cards), and Hand Cards (3 cards). Each team has one Life Tracker (only one per team).
Playing the Game
Goal of the Game
Your team immediately wins the game when the opposing team's life is reduced to zero.
Drawing Cards
Whenever you have less than 3 cards in hand, you immediately draw cards from your draw pile until you have 3 cards in hand.
Table Talk
You are not allowed to reveal any content of your hand to your teammate. This includes showing, describing or alluding to one or more cards in your hand, in whole or in part, in any way whatsoever.
For tournament-style play, you are not allowed to communicate at all with your teammate. For casual play, it is recommended to agree with your group on a more relaxed level of table talk that includes some friendly banter.
Taking Turns
Players alternate taking turns in clockwise order. During each of your turns, you must take one single action. It is called the turn action. You may not choose to skip it.
You may choose your turn action among the following options:
- Play a single card or
- Attack with a single creature or
- Activate the Action effect of a single creature
If you are unable to take a turn action on your turn, you must skip this turn but you are not eliminated and your cards are not removed from the game. You may still interact with other players during their turns (such as using your Mindbug/Mindfrog or blocking an attack with one of your creatures). However, if your teammate is also unable to take a turn action on their next turn, forcing you to both skip successively, then your team immediately loses the game.
Playing a Card
Whenever you play a card from your hand, the opponent sitting on your left may use a Mindbug to take control of that card. If they pass, your teammate (sitting across from you) may now use a Mindfrog to take control of it. If they also pass, the opponent on your right may now use a Mindbug.
If any of them take control of it, you must take another turn action during this same turn. Otherwise, place the card into your play area and resolve its Play effects if it has any. Then end your turn. The opponent sitting on your left goes next.
All other rules of the normal 1 vs 1 mode for using a Mindbug apply to the 2 vs 2 mode.
Note: A Mindbug can only be used on a card played by an opponent. A Mindfrog can only be used on a card played by a teammate. It works the same way as a Mindbug in all other aspects. Mindfrogs do not count as Mindbugs for the purpose of effects that refer to them.
Attacking with a Creature
Instead of attacking an opponent, you attack the opposing team. Whenever you attack, the opponent sitting on your left may choose a single creature from their own play area to block the attack. If they pass, the opponent on your right may now block. If they also pass, your attack goes through and the opposing team loses 1 life from their shared life total. If this reduces their life to zero, your team immediately wins the game.
Game Terms
Allied Creature / Enemy Creature
When cards are in your play area and/or in your teammate's play area, they are called allied creatures. When they are in any opponent's play area, they are called enemy creatures.
Give a Card from Your Hand
Whenever an effect instructs you to give a card from your hand to another player, that player puts it into their hand.
Opponent
To make things clear, all new cards now use a more precise wording for the 2 vs 2 mode instead of the former ambiguous wording "the opponent".
All previous cards were originally printed for the 1 vs 1 mode before the launch of this new 2 vs 2 mode. Previous cards that read "the opponent" now receive an official clarification of their respective wording as follows:
- Trigger abilities (Play, Attack, Defeated, Action, Harvest, or with a specific trigger event such as those starting with the words "when" or "at the end of turn") now read "an opponent" instead of "the opponent". This means that you choose one of your two opponents.
Note that effects that directly affect life (such as "the opponent loses 1 life") do not require you to choose one of your two opponents because the opposing team shares their life total. For this reason, such life-related effects keep their original wording ("the opponent").
- Constant abilities (without a trigger) now read simply "opponents" instead of "the opponent". This means that both opponents are affected.
These updated and clarified card wordings for each card (along with exceptions for a few cards) can also be found online at http://mindbug.me/rules. Note that, when playing with the 1 vs 1 mode, these updated wordings are functionally identical to the former wording.
Refresh
If an effect lets you refresh one of your Mindbugs, you turn one of your used Mindbugs face up, so that you can use it again during the game. If all your Mindbugs are already face up, you do not gain anything from this effect.
Unused Pile
The remaining cards that have not been dealt to players form the unused pile. It remains face down. If an effect lets you draw a card from the unused pile, you take the top card from it and put it into your hand.
Variant: Epic Mode
For a longer 2 vs 2 game, you can play with the following rules.
Each player starts the game with 5 cards in hand and 5 cards in their draw pile, similarly to the 1 vs 1 mode. Each player has 2 Mindbugs and 1 Mindfrog.