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Table of contents:

Victory Conditions

A player wins when one of the following conditions are met:

Start of Game

Place your Shell cards in front of you so your Red Shell is the furthest from you, your Blue Shell is right next to you, and your Green Shell is between your Red Shell and Blue Shell, then determine who goes first by whatever means, so long as all players agree, and finally, draw 6 cards.

If a player dislikes their hand, they may mulligan, setting aside their hand and drawing 6 new cards, then shuffling their original hand into their deck. If they mulligan more than once, they must put a number of cards from their hand onto the bottom of the deck equal to the number of times they mulliganed, minus 1.

Round Structure

Mana Acquisition

All players draw a number of cards equal to 1 plus the number of their destroyed Shells and any effects that specifically activate during mana acquisition are activated. Effects cannot start a Stack during mana acquisition unless they are a “per round” or “per mana acquisition” effect, that effect is a Spell Cast Effect of a Spell that was cast by another effect, or that effect is forcefully activated by another effect.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, effects that activate during mana acquisition activate simultaneously with the draws.

The first mana acquisition of the game is skipped.

Once all players have drawn their cards and all Stacks have resolved, the round advances to the exchange.

Exchange

The turn player can cast a Spell, activate an effect, or pass, ending their turn. Activating a Slow or Fast speed effect starts a Stack.

Once the turn player passes, a Stack resolves during that player’s turn, or they activate a Burst speed effect and do not wish to activate any other effects, that player’s turn ends and it becomes the other player’s turn.

When all players pass in a row, one player has passed 3 times in a row, or a number of Stacks equal to 3 times the number of players have successfully resolved, the round advances to damage preparation.

Damage Preparation

Any effects that specifically activate during damage preparation are activated. Effects cannot start a Stack during damage preparation unless they are a “per round” or “per damage preparation” effect, that effect is a Spell Cast Effect of a Spell that was cast by another effect, or that effect is forcefully activated by another effect.

If a player has more than 6 cards in their hand at this time, they must discard cards until they have 6 cards in their hand.

Unless stated otherwise by the effect, effects that activate during damage preparation happen before the discard for the round.

After all players have no effects that activate during damage preparation and all players have discarded any cards they’re required to discard, the round advances to damage distribution.

Damage Distribution

When you store damage, that damage is added to your Stored Damage.

Once damage distribution starts, any effects that specifically activate during damage distribution are activated. Effects cannot start a Stack during damage distribution unless they are a “per round” or “per damage distribution” effect, that effect is a Spell Cast Effect of a Spell that was cast by another effect, that effect is forcefully activated by another effect, or it activated when the card is destroyed.

After that, all players choose a Spell in any opponent’s outermost Shell whose Mana is equal to or less than the amount of damage in their Stored Damage, then destroy that Spell and reduce their Stored Damage by its Mana. They repeat this until either they can no longer destroy Spells with their amount of Stored Damage, they destroy all Spells in their opponent’s outermost Shell, or they decide they don’t want to destroy any more Spells.

If a player loses all their Spells in a Shell during damage distribution, that Shell is destroyed, the Stored Damage of the player that destroyed the Shell becomes zero, and that player cannot take any more damage this round.

Once all players have distributed damage as they see fit, the round advances to mana acquisition and the first turn player becomes the player to the right of the first turn player of the previous round.

If a player has no Shells and any of their opponents have any amount of Stored Damage, that player loses. If all players have no Shells and some amount of Stored Damage, the player with the highest amount of Stored Damage wins. If all players have no Shells and the same amount of Stored Damage, the game ends in a draw.

Spells

Anatomy of a Spell Card

In the top left of every Spell card, there exists a teardrop-shaped Mana symbol. Its color is the color of its Mana, and the number inside is the amount of Mana it has. The color and amount of Mana is treated as the printed values unless they are in a Shell and an effect states otherwise.

To the right of that is its name.

To the right of its name is the Shell viability indicator. Spells can only be cast into Shells that are not greyed out on its indicator. If all the Shells a Spell is allowed to be cast into are destroyed, they are instead cast into the outermost Shell. If all Shells have been destroyed, the Spell is also destroyed after any of its Spell Cast Effects are applied, or immediately if it has no Spell Cast Effects.

Below all that is the effect.

At the bottom is a quote and the set symbol. These have no effect on gameplay.

Casting a Spell

When you cast a Spell, it is immediately put into a viable Shell of your choice, then that Spell’s Spell Cast Effects activate, if any. If all its viable Shells have been destroyed, it is put into your outermost Shell. If you have no Shells left or it has no stated viable Shells, it is destroyed.

If a Spell has any continuous effects, they immediately become active when the Spell is placed into a Shell.

To cast a Spell with a Spell Cast Effect, both its activation condition, if any, and its cost, if any, must be able to be met.

Shells

Concept of a Shell

Shells are a collection of cards, including exactly 1 Shell card. Spells are cast into individual Shells, granting the Shell Mana. The amount and color of the Mana provided are equal to the printed values, unless an effect states otherwise.

Anatomy of a Shell Card

At the top of every Shell card is its name.

Below that is the effect.

At the bottom is the quote and set symbol. These have no effect on gameplay.

Card Effects

Anatomy of an Effect

An effect begins with an activation condition, which may be empty.

After the activation condition, a speed symbol and/or the words “you can” may appear. Any non-Spell-Cast activated effect is optional, while any effect with the words "you must" and all Spell Cast Effects are mandatory.

Next, a colon will appear, followed by the cost, if any. If a cost is stated, it applies once the effect is activated, not when it resolves, then a semicolon will appear, and finally, the action(s) taken will be stated.

Some effects may have names or keywords before their effect. These will be separated from the activation condition by a —.

Reminder text may appear under an effect explaining keywords contained within. Not all cards will have reminder text for common keywords.

Effect Speeds

Burst speed effects, indicated by a before the effect, but after the activation conditions, can be activated any time the player has priority before or during Stack creation, or between effects of a Stack. If a Stack does not exist, activating a Burst speed effect does not allow the player’s opponent to respond and does not start a Stack, it resolves immediately. Otherwise, it acts like a Fast effect.

Fast speed effects, indicated by a before the effect, but after the activation conditions, can be activated any time the player has priority before or during Stack creation. Activating a Fast speed effect allows the player’s opponent to respond and adds the effect to the Stack.

Slow speed effects, indicated by a before the effect, but after the activation conditions, can only be activated as the start of a Stack.

Instant speed effects, indicated by a before the effect, but after the activation conditions, can be activated any time their condition is met and immediately resolve.

Effect Types

Spell Cast Effects

Spell Cast Effects are effects that activate when a Spell is cast. If a Spell Effect does not have an activation condition, or the activation condition neither requires the Spell be somewhere other than the hand nor ends in “you can,” it is a Spell Cast Effect.

Activated Effects are never Spell Cast Effects.

If a Spell has multiple Spell Cast Effects, only the ones that can currently activate at the time of their casting can be activated. Additionally, you can choose in which order such Spell Cast Effects are activated, assuming they are not slow speed.

For example, if a Spell has a Slow Cast Effect and a Fast Cast Effect, that Spell can be cast while a Stack is not taking place and will start a new Stack with the Slow Cast Effect as the first effect on the Stack and the Fast Cast Effect as the second effect on the Stack.

If that same Spell were cast during a Stack, its Slow Cast Effect will not activate, but the Fast Cast Effect will be put onto the Stack as normal.

If a Spell Cast Effect has an activation condition that is not empty, that Spell can only be cast if its Spell Cast Effect’s activation condition can be satisfied.

If a Spell does not have a Spell Cast Effect, it can only be cast at Slow speed and does not start a Stack, simply ending the current turn, unless an effect responds to its cast.

Activated Effects

If an Effect has an “X per Y” activation condition, the words “you can” at the end of its activation condition, an activation condition that requires being in a state where the player is conventionally unable to activate effects, an activation condition that requires the Spell is in a location other than a Shell, or is a Shell Effect without an activation condition, it is an Activated Effect.

Activated effects can be activated at any time that their activation conditions are met and the speed of the effect is appropriate.

Continuous Effects

Effects that have no speed symbol are Continuous effects. Continuous effects are permanently active, as long as their activation conditions are met, which can be met or unmet during a Stack’s resolution. If no activation condition exists, it is active as long as the Spell is in a Shell.

Effect Activation

An effect can be activated during your turn in the exchange while no Stack exists or when you have priority during a Stack. Unless stated otherwise, an effect cannot start a Stack when a player ends their turn (including by passing,) during mana acquisition, during damage preparation, or during damage distribution.

As long as an effect’s activation condition has been met some time during a previous Stack, that effect can be activated and added to the Stack if it is Burst speed, or immediately resolved if it is Instant speed.

Additionally, an effect can be activated if its activation condition was met during the resolution of the previous Stack. The order in which a player’s effects whose activation conditions were met as such can be added to the new Stack in the same order in which their activation conditions were met during the resolution of the previous Stack, and must be the first effects that player adds to the new Stack.

If more than one player has effects whose activation conditions were met during the previous Stack, the turn player gets priority, as always, even if the order in which their effect’s activation condition was met occurred after their opponent’s.

This does not prevent their opponent from activating the effect that would have otherwise been activated before the turn player’s effect.

Effect Resolution

To resolve an effect is to attempt to apply its actions. If an action cannot be applied in full, that action is unsuccessfully resolved and not applied; otherwise, it successfully resolves and is applied.

An action counts as resolvable at effect resolution if that action can successfully resolve.

If the words “you can” precede an action, its resolution is optional. Choosing to not resolve the action counts as unsuccessfully resolving the action.

Effect Negation

A negated effect is removed from the Stack and does not resolve at all.

Conjunctions

The words “and,” “then,” “also,” “and if you do,” “and after that,” “also after that,” and “otherwise” mean specific things when included inside an effect’s action.

“And” means the second action resolves at the same time as the first action resolves and both actions must be resolvable for either to resolve. Effects whose activation conditions are met by such actions can be activated in any order.

“Then” means the second action attempts to resolve immediately after the first action successfully resolves.

“Also” means the second action resolves at the same time as the first action would resolve and the resolvability of one does not impact the resolvability of the other. Effects whose activation conditions are met by such actions can be activated in any order.

“And if you do” means the second action attempts to resolve at the same time as the first action successfully resolves. Effects whose activation conditions are met by such actions can be activated in any order.

“And after that” means the second action attempts to resolve after the first action successfully resolved and both actions must be resolvable for either to resolve.

“Also after that” means the second action resolves immediately after the first action would resolve and the resolvability of one does not impact the resolvability of the other.

“Otherwise” means the second action attempts to resolve if and only if the first action attempts to resolve and is unsuccessfully resolved.

Conjunctions may be preceded by an asterisk. Such conjuncted actions all treat the action before the first asterisk to be their first action.

Targets

“That/those target(s)” and “it/they/them” mean specific things.

“That/those target(s)” means that the target(s) must still be a valid target(s) when the effect begins resolving as well as when it was cast.

“It/they/them” means that the target(s) need not be a valid target(s) once the effect begins resolving, just when it was cast.

The Stack

When a Slow or Fast speed effects are activated and a Stack does not exist, a Stack is started with that effect as the first effect on the Stack.

Once a Stack has been started, only Fast, Burst, and Instant speed effects can be activated until the Stack resolves. If a Fast or Burst effect is activated during a Stack, it is added to the top of that Stack.

Once all players agree to not activate any more effects during the Stack, the Stack begins resolving. During the resolution of a Stack, only Burst and Instant effects may be activated. Burst effects activated during Stack resolution pause the resolution of the Stack, allowing all players to resume adding Fast effects to the Stack.

As a Stack resolves, the top most effect resolves and is taken off the Stack. This repeats itself until the Stack is empty, whereupon the Stack has finished resolving.

Rounding

Unless stated otherwise on a card, decimals are always rounded down.

Remnant and Exhaust

When a card other than a Shell card is destroyed, it is sent to the Remnant Zone and becomes a Remnant card.

When a card is discarded, Detached from a card, or Exhausted, it is sent to the Exhaust Zone and becomes an Exhaust card.

Any card sent to the Exhaust Zone counts as being Exhausted, even if it was sent there because it was discarded or Detached from a card.

Erase

When a card is Erased, it is sent to the Erased Zone and becomes an Erased card.

Erased cards cannot be interacted with in almost any way. This includes being affected by a card’s effect, being targeted, or activating its effects. No information about Erased cards can be gathered by future effects, though information about said cards may be gathered by effects before the erasure.

Silence

A card that is Silenced has its effects negated and it cannot activate any effects.

Additionally, a Spell that is Silenced does not grant Mana to its Shell.

Tokens

Tokens are Spells that do not start in any deck and are placed into a Shell by a card effect.

Unless stated otherwise, a Token’s Mana is colorless.

Unless stated otherwise, a Token does not have a name and cannot be targeted by, and is unaffected by, effects that would interact with card names. If a Token is given a name, it will be in the form of “place a(n) X Token into a Shell,” where X is the Token’s name.

If a Token is destroyed, Exhausted, Erased, returned to a hand or deck, or placed into a location that is not a Shell, it simply disappears. It is still treated as having gone to the specified zone before disappearing.

Tokens can be used to pay costs of effects, even if the effect states a specific destination for the card.

A Token’s owner is considered to be the player who owns the Shell that Token was placed into when it initially came into being.

Layer Cards

In order to cast cards with Layer, you must Attach the listed Material(s) to that card. To do so, simply stack the Materials on top of each other, then place the Layer card on top of the stack of cards.

Materials that are currently Attached to a card are no longer treated as being in a Shell, and cannot be targeted by effects that would target a player’s Spells, unless they specifically include Materials.

That also means that the Materials cannot activate any activated effects and cannot apply any continuous effects, except ones that specifically require they be attached to a card.

Layer cards provide an additional amount of Mana to their Shells equal to the Mana of their Materials. This Mana is the color of the Layer card, not the color of the Material.

Detaching a Material from a card means to put that card into its owner’s Exhaust Zone. When Detaching Materials from a card, players may Detach whichever Material they wish from that card, unless stated otherwise.

Any time a Layer card would be cast, it requires Attaching appropriate cards to it, even if it was cast by another card’s effect; however, if the card is placed into a Shell, it does not get any Materials Attached to it.

If a card with Layer is destroyed, Exhausted, or Erased, its Materials are also destroyed, Exhausted, or Erased and can activate any effects they would apply when they are or would be destroyed, Exhausted or Erased, as appropriate.

If a card with Layer leaves a Shell for any other reason, its Materials are Exhausted and can activate any effects that activate when they are or would be Exhausted or Detached.

Tokens may be used as a card’s Materials. When this card would be Detached from the card, or when the card is removed from a Shell for any reason, the Token simply ceases to exist as normal.

If a card is Attached to a card by a card effect, it becomes the topmost Material of that card.

Players are not allowed to change the order of a card’s Materials.

When a Material is Detached, destroyed, Exhausted, or Erased, its previous Shell is treated as being the Shell in which the Layer card it was Attached to was in.

Deck Building

Main Deck

When building a deck, a player has 100 deck points they must fully and exactly use. Putting a Green Mana Spell into the deck uses up an amount of deck points equal to its Mana. Putting a Red Mana Spell into the deck increases your deck points by an amount equal to its Mana.

A player’s deck must have exactly zero deck points remaining to be a legal deck.

An amount of copies of a card can be put into your deck so that the total Mana of every copy of that card in your deck equals at most 6.

To complete a deck, a player must also include exactly 1 Red Shell card, 1 Green Shell card, and 1 Blue Shell card, which are not shuffled into the deck proper.

Extra Deck

Additionally, a player has an extra deck that is separate from their main deck. This deck must have exactly zero or 15 cards.

Each card in the extra deck must be a different card, and a card included in the main deck cannot be included in the extra deck.

Side Deck

Finally, a player may have a side deck. Your side deck may have up to an amount of unique cards in it equal to 10 plus the amount of Red Mana in your main deck divided by 12. An amount of copies of these cards can be added to your side deck so that the total Mana of every copy of that card in your side deck is at most 6.

If a card is included in your main or extra deck, it cannot be included in your side deck.

A player’s side deck can also include exactly 1 Shell card in addition to the above limitations.

Before all three games in a match, a player may swap cards from their main deck with cards from their side deck. The resulting main deck must still be a legal deck once the swaps have finished.

Public Knowledge

Unless a card effect states otherwise, the following are considered public knowledge, i.e. all players are allowed to know about and ask for clarification regarding their current state, including before the game:

Miscellaneous

If a Spell’s Mana is ever reduced to or below zero, it is destroyed.

After you return a card to a deck or search a deck to find a specific card, that deck is shuffled, unless the effect states that the card is returned to or came from a specific location in the deck, such as the top or bottom.

An effect cannot attempt to remove a Spell from a Shell in a specified way as a cost if that Spell has an effect stating that it cannot be removed from the Shell in that way. If an effect would attempt to do so as an action, that action unsuccessfully resolves.

If an effect or multiple effects would cause an infinite loop that does not result in the end of the game and does not allow a player to pass their turn, that loop halts after the 5th looping.