Spellbook gameplay
If you are new to Spellbook: Trading Card Game, this section will provide introduction to the game and the rulebook to refer to when you have questions.
BASIC TOPICS
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What's in the box?
Game box includes:
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2 decks of 75 spells
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40 double-sided element tokens
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40 health and damage tokens
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7 character cards
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game manual
How to read a Spellbook card?
Spellbook cards are formatted in a way that the information you need is always in the same place.
MANA COST
Mana is the resource used in Spellbook: TCG to cast spells. All spells have mana cost placed on the ribbon, on the left side of the card. Conjure Elemental mana cost is 4, which means you require 4 mana to cast this spell. It is also enchanted with the Apocalypse charm, which costs additional 3 mana. The whole spell costs 7 mana in total.
TYPE
Cards in Spellbook are divided into two types - Power cards and Charm cards. Powers are represented with a white ribbon, whilst Charms - with black. A charm can only be played attached to a Power card.
RARITY
Rarity represents the potential power of a card. There are three types of rarity in Spellbook:
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Common - representing the majority of the spells in the game.
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Rare - only 7 rare cards are allowed in a deck.
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Epic - only 3 epic cards are allowed in the deck.
ILLUSTRATION
An illustration depicting roughly what the spell looks like.
NAME
A name of the card. Note: Spells that create a summon always begin with Conjure.
ABILITY
Some cards have special abilities printed here. Abilities can often have emboldened numbers, which can be altered using other cards, if their ability text allows it. For ease of understanding, values like Damage, Health and Elemental tokens are followed by an icon representing that value.
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Damage
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Health
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Fire Token
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Ice Token
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Charge Token
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Shield Token
DAMAGE AND HEATLH
Summon cards as well as Wizards cards have imprinted values of them. Damage indicates the value deducted from the opposing summon's or wizard's health. If health value gets deducted to or past 0, this summon needs to be removed from play. Imprinted values can be altered using Health and Damage tokens.
Play area
HAND
You start the game by drawing a hand of seven cards. At the beginning of your turn, you draw cards up to seven (unless other rules state otherwise), then you are given an option to discard one card to your Mana pool.
MANA POOL
Mana pool is made up of cards discarded each turn. The game begins with three cards in your mana pool, discarded from the top of your spellbook. The more mana in the mana pool, the more powerful spells can be played each turn.
SPELLBOOK
Your spellbook is both your draw pile and health, which remains face down throughout the game. You lose the game if you begin your turn with no cards left in the spellbook.
GRAVEYARD
Your graveyard is your discard pile: summons that die and spells that were cast all end up in the graveyard. The cards in your graveyard should always be face down. Each player has their own graveyard. If you cast a healing spell on your wizard, cards from graveyard are used to replenish the spellbook. If a card moves from graveyard to spellbook, it always goes to the bottom of a spellbook.
WIZARD
The most important card on the battlefield, the Wizard represents your character. Each Wizard has a different unique ability that directly overrules the basic rules found on these pages. A Wizard, much like a summon, can be used to attack and block. It can also be affected by spells and charms.
SUMMONS
Summons not taking part in combat reside next to your wizard. If a summon has any charms attached, simply place them underneath the Conjure card.
ATTACKING SUMMONS
Summons performing an attack action are pushed towards the middle of the board. Opposing player can then declare his own summons to block your attacks, on a summon per summon basis. Any unblocked damage gets dealt directly to the attacked wizard.
SPELL QUEUE
Spell queue is formed out of all the spells cast in the spell casting phase. Spells are placed from the inner side outwards, and are resolved from the outer side inwards. Resolved spells end up as summons or in the graveyard.
Turn order
This section describes actions that you will take during a game, including discarding mana, attacking and blocking in combat as well as casting spells. Each turn proceeds in the same sequence. The active player (the player whose turn it is) gets to start casting spells and activating abilities, then each other player in turn order will too. When all players decline to do anything more, the game moves onto the next step.
DRAW CARDS
You must draw cards from your spellbook until you have 7 cards in your hand (even if you don’t want to). Note: Some characters alter the amount of cards drawn.
DISCARD MANA
You may put one card from your hand in your mana pool, face down. This step is not mandatory, but building up your mana stockpile allows you to cast more powerful spells later in the game.
DECLARE ATTACKERS
Alongside the wizard character, players also control summons created by their spells. These characters can be used in combat to attack the opposing player. Choose zero or more characters you control to attack.
Push attacking summons in your control up to the middle line of the play area. These summons are now attacking the enemy wizard. Your opponent now gets a chance to push his summons up to your attacking summons. This is called blocking. Each attacking character can only be blocked by one character. The opposing player may choose not to block, or to only block some of the attacking characters.
SPELLCASTING
Spellcasting is the most important part of the game. During this step players form spells from the cards in their hands. Spells are formed by combining a power card with up to two charm cards.
You may choose to cast a spell. This spell is placed next to the attacking and blocking characters in the center of the play area. If a spell was cast the opposing player may also cast a spell of their own. It is placed next to the previous spell forming a queue.
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CHARMS
A spell can also consist of up to two charms. You can recognize a charm card by a black ribbon on the left side of the card. They cannot form the spell on their own and always need an accompanying power.
Players alternate casting spells as long as the total mana cost of the spells they cast does not exceed the number of cards in their respective mana pools. The cost of the spell is the sum of the costs of the cards it is formed from.
When a player can no longer cast a spell or wishes not to do it, the spellcasting step ends. Note: It is possible for no spells to be cast if the active player decides not to cast a spell.
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POWERS
Each spell must consist of a power. You can recognize a power card by a white ribbon on the left side of the card. Powers form the core of a spell and declare what effect it has. Some powers also allow you to create summons.
You can differentiate a Summon by its health and damage tokens. If the Summon’s attributes are altered in any way, simply put a new damage or health token, replacing the previous one.
Charms can amplify the effect of the spell. For example, combining a power “Deal 2 damage to target character” with a charm “Add 2 damage” results in a spell: “Deal 4 damage to target character”.
They can also extend the spell’s functionality. A power “Deal 2 damage to target character” and a charm “Add 1 ice token” combined, form a spell “Deal 2 damage and deal 1 ice token to target character”. Note that when resolving this spell first the power effect are applied, and only after that the effect of the charms take effect.
If a spell would deal more than one different type of tokens it actually deals no tokens.
Charms can also affect summons. A power “Summon 2/2” with the charms “Add 1 shield token” and ”Spellpower +1” will result in a spell “Summon 3/3 with 2 shield token”. Spellpower affects all numeric values of the spell excluding the cost. Spellpower is applied as the last modifier to a spell. The order of charms is also important, because if switched there would only be 1 shield token.
Sometimes charms can have no effect. If you add a charm “Tokens +2” to a power “Give 2 health to target character” the resulting spell will be identical to the power.
SPELL RESOLUTION
In this step, all the spells that were cast are resolved in reverse order - from the end of the queue to the beginning (starting with the last spell that was cast).
When a spell that requires the target is resolved the caster must choose a valid target, even an undesirable one. If this is impossible the spell has no effect.
After the spell is resolved all of its cards are placed face down in the caster’s graveyard. The exception are summons. Summon spells (power and charms) are placed on the board under the caster’s control.
Note: A spell in the queue only becomes a summon after it resolves. As such it cannot be targeted as a character nor as a summon until it’s resolved. Spells in queue can only be targeted as spells.
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DEALING DAMAGE
Summons receive damage by subtracting the damage value from their health. If a summon's health drops to zero it dies and all its cards are placed in the graveyard face down.
Wizards receive damage by taking the top cards of the player's spellbook and moving them to the graveyard face down without looking. If the spellbook contains no cards the damage is ignored. The amount of cards moved is equal to the damage value.
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HEALING
Spells can also heal characters. Summons receive health by adding the health value to their health.
Wizards receive health by taking the top cards of their graveyard and placing them on the bottom of their spellbook without looking. The spellbook is not shuffled. The amount of cards moved is equal to the health value.
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DEALING TOKENS
During the spell resolution characters can be dealt tokens. If a character that has no tokens is dealt tokens place them on the character's card.
If the character already had tokens of the same type add the new tokens to the existing ones.
If the character had tokens of a different type remove those tokens and ignore the new ones.
At the end of their owner's turn each character with fire tokens receives damage equal to the number of fire tokens they have. Then one fire token is removed from that character.
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FIRE TOKEN
If a character with shield tokens is dealt damage the number of shield tokens is deducted from the damage value.
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SHIELD TOKEN
Characters with ice tokens cannot attack or block. If a character was assigned to attack or block and was dealt an ice token it stops attacking or blocking. At the end of their owner's turn each character with ice tokens loses one ice token.
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ICE TOKEN
If a character with shock tokens is dealt damage the number of shock tokens is added to the damage value.
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SHOCK TOKEN
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ATTACHING CHARMS
Some spells can also attach charms to spells and characters. Charms attached to spells are resolved as if they were part of that spell from the beginning. Charms attached to characters immediately take effect on that character and its tokens.
If such a charm was to be placed in the graveyard it is always placed in the original owners' graveyard.
COMBAT RESOLUTION
Characters deal damage equal to their damage value.
Each attacking character that wasn't blocked deals damage to the opposing wizard.
Each attacking character that was blocked deals damage to the corresponding blocking character. Simultaneously each blocking character deals damage to the corresponding attacking character.
Damage from characters is resolved exactly like damage from spells.