The Phases of a Turn

1. Start Turn

Some abilities (and effects like Uncovering) happen at the start of your turn. This is the phase when it all happens. And we mean all: every ability of a card in play (or special in hand) that says “at the start of your turn” can happen here, not just the first one.

Any abilities that expire at the start of your turn expire before any of those start-of-turn events.

2. Play Cards

On your turn play one minion, play one action, or play one of each… for free! You can play your cards in any order. You don’t have to play any cards. (To play titans, see Special Cards, Counters, and Other Rules .) In addition, some of your cards may have abilities that you can use during this time (see “Abilities” below for more details).

Minions

To play a minion, choose a base and put the minion card beside it, facing toward you. Do what the card says. (Card abilities that start with the word Special or Talent are a special case. No, really. See Terms and Phrases)

Actions

To play an action, do what the card says. Boom! Note that action cards come in two types: standard and non-standard. If it didn’t say to play it on a base or on a minion, then it’s a standard action, and you discard it after following its instructions. (If it did say to play on a base or minion, then it’s non-standard, and you leave it where it is.)

Abilities

Minions and non-standard actions often have abilities that work during the Play Cards phase. An ability labeled “Talent” can only be used once during this phase of your turn (see Terms and Phrases). Likewise, any ability that says, “on your turn” can only be used during your Play Cards phase.

3. Score Bases

After you are done playing cards, check to see whether any bases are ready to score (see The Big Score). If any are ready, you must start scoring.

This is the only time when bases are scored. If a base’s power meets or exceeds its breakpoint at other points of a turn, you still have to wait until the next Score Bases phase to do anything about it.

4. Draw 2 Cards

Just what it says: draw 2 cards.

If your hand is empty at other times of the game, you don’t get to draw a new hand; you have to wait for the Draw 2 Cards phase of your turn. On the other hand, if you need to draw, reveal, search for, or look at a card and your deck is empty, shuffle your discard pile and put it on the table face down—that’s your new deck. Start drawing from there.

After drawing, the maximum number of cards you can have in your hand is 10. If you have more than 10 cards after drawing, discard down to 10 (you may weep while doing so, as long as you don’t get the cards wet). If your hand is bigger than 10 at other times of the game, that’s okay: you wait until now to discard down.

5. End Turn

Just like the start, there’s a phase for the end of the turn. Things that happen here (like destroying a minion or drawing a card) happen first; if there is more than one, the current player chooses their order. After that, all abilities that expire here (like “+1 power until the end of your turn”) expire at the same time.

Finally, check to see if any players have 15 or more victory points. If so, see Game Over, Man! in The Big Score. Otherwise the turn is over and play passes to the player on the left.

Card Resolution Order

Playing a card will often trigger other cards, so here’s a handy guide for figuring out their order:

1. Resolve the card just played.
2. Finish resolving any other cards that are in the middle of resolving
3. Resolve any cards in play that are triggered by the card of step 1. If there are more than one, the current player chooses their order
4. Play and resolve cards in players' hands that are triggered by the card of step 1. If there are more than one, go clockwise from the current player. (see Me First in The Big Score)
5. Discard the card of step 1 unless it was played on another card.

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