This is a documentation for Board Game Arena: play board games online !
Gamehelpwizardsgrimoire
Overview
Reduce your opponent's health to 0 first
Turn
A turn is made up of 5 phases
• Choose a Spell
• Cooldown
• Gain Mana
• Cast
• Basic Attack
(For the first three turns of the game, players skip the mana/cast/attack steps and instead just choose 1 spell on their turn.)
Choose a Spell
From those on display, pick one and add it to your area
If your area already contains 6 spells, you must choose and discard an existing spell (one which has no cooldown mana on it) to make room
Cooldown
Remove a single Mana off all your spells
Gain Mana
Draw 3 mana cards, mana cards have values between 1 and 4
Maximum mana hand size of 10 cards
Cast
Any spell which is not on cooldown (i.e. has no mana cards beneath it) can be cast if the player wishes and is able to
Spend the number of Mana cards (not the card values) required and place these on the cast spell in a staggered way so it's clear how much mana is left
Some cards cost 0 Mana, so no cards are required
Basic Attack
You may discard a single Mana card and deal damage equal to its value (1-4)
As such, you may want to think about what Mana cards are generically used during the Cast phase
Spells in Detail
Spells have various effects as described on the cards
However, what's common between them is the information on the top left banner, which tells you THREE pieces of information
The number on the stack of cards icon tells you how many mana cards are required to cast it, and, in the same way, tell you how many cooldown turns until it can be cast again (ignoring potential other spell effects which could alter this)
The symbol in the circle tells you how it will activate, either immediate effect (Down Arrow), ongoing effect (Circle Arrow), or a delayed effect (Side Arrow). Immediate effects occur as soon as you cast it and that's it. Ongoing effects occur as long as there is still mana on the card. Delayed effects occur each time a mana card is removed from it, either through the normal cooldown or perhaps another spell's effect.
The colour of the circle tells you the type of effect. The effect itself is in the description, but the colour just gives you an at a glance idea of what it might do. Red circles deal damage, Green circles gain mana cards, Purple circles break the rules of the game in some way
Game End
The game ends the moment one player is reduced to 0 life, at which point their opponent wins!