Ability Cards:

• Ability Cards (right justified card names) sit face up in front of you and are never discarded.

• Ability Cards are played to the React Chain to use their Intention or Reaction effects.

• Once an Ability Card resolves, it is returned to you from the react chain and can be reused.

• Every Artist and most Summons have a corresponding Ability Card.

• Some Artists have additional Ability Cards that are not tied to a single unit but are just Ability Cards that they always have access to. (EX: Calligrapher’s Sheathing Respite).

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Action Cards:

• Action Cards (left justified card names) are shuffled into a deck and drawn into your hand.

• Action Cards are played to the Reaction Chain to use their Intention or Reaction effects.

• Once an Action Card has resolved, it is discarded into your own discard pile.

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Adjacent:

• Adjacency is ALWAYS orthogonal and NEVER diagonal.

• Moving to or targeting an adjacent space always refers to the 4 spaces orthogonally touching you

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Artists:

• Artists are the characters you can play as.

• Each Artist is represented by a corresponding unit tile on the board, or an Acrylic Standee in the deluxe version.

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Block Tokens:

• Block tokens are a specialized mechanic used by some characters, and can behave differently depending on the character.

• In general, a block token stays in the zone it is placed in until that zone takes damage, or until the end of the turn.

• When a zone with a block token takes damage, the damage is negated, and the block token is removed.

• In general, block tokens are NOT placed onto an Artist or Summon and do not follow them when they move.

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Damage (to Artists):

• When your Artist takes damage, flip 1 of your 3 Masterpiece Cards face down to their grayscale side.

• You lose after you’ve taken 3 damage (all 3 of your Masterpiece Cards are face down).

• A MP card being face down has no mechanical significance. It is purely a visual tracker of damage. Face down and face up MP cards both behave identically.

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Damage (to Summons):

• When a Summon takes damage, it is removed from the board.

• Functionally, this means every summon only has 1 HP. This is separate from the HP of your Artist.

• A removed Summon returns to your pool of available Summons and can be re-summoned in the future.

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Deck:

• Most Artists have a pre-built deck of 30 Action Cards.

• If your deck is empty when you try to draw, you immediately lose the game.

  • Some Artists do not have a deck and ignore this rule.

 

Draw:

• When you draw, take an Action Card from your deck and add it to your hand.

• If you already have 6 Action Cards in hand, you cannot draw, and attempts to draw simply fail.
• If you attempt to draw but your deck is empty, you immediately lose the game.

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Discard:

• Action Cards are discarded into your own discard pile after they resolve.

• Your discard pile is always face up and both players can look through it at any time.

• Ability Cards are never discarded.

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Exhaust:

• An Artist or Summon is either Exhausted or it is Not Exhausted (aka Refreshed).

• Artists and Summons typically exhaust themselves as a cost for their abilities.

• To exhaust an Artist or Summon, rotate their unit tile on the board 90 degrees. 

• Your artist being exhausted does not prevent you from playing cards.

• An Artist or Summon being exhausted does not prevent it from moving.

• All exhausted units are refreshed at the end of each turn.

• Attempting to exhaust an already exhausted unit fails and does nothing.

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Hand:

• Your hand is the set of Action Cards drawn from your deck. It is hidden from your opponent.

• Your max hand size is 6 Action Cards. You cannot draw while you already have 6 Action Cards.

 

Jump:

• Jump is a unique keyword that is a special form of movement used by some Artists.

  • When an Artist or Summon Jumps in a direction, they move in that direction until they enter an empty zone, skipping over all zones that were occupied by other units.​​

• Jumping in a direction with an adjacent empty zone is just a normal movement.

• Jumping in a direction where all zones are occupied until the edge of the board fails and does nothing.

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Masterpiece Cards:

• Every Artist has 3 Masterpiece (MP) Cards that combine to form a connected art piece.

• When you complete your masterpiece, you’ll Ascend your Artist by flipping over their ability card and removing all of your Masterpiece Cards from the Masterpiece Zone.

• When you take damage, you’ll flip one of your face up Masterpiece Cards over. This is ONLY to track damage, and has no mechanical influence on how the Masterpiece Cards work.

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Masterpiece Zone:

• There are 5 slots on the Masterpiece Zone.

• Each slot in the Masterpiece Zone can only hold 1 Masterpiece Card.

 

Move / Movement:

• You can attempt to move in any orthogonal direction when moving, not diagonal.

• Sometimes, the direction of movement is decided as a cost for the effect.

• If you attempt to move off of the board or into an occupied zone, the movement fails.

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Progressing your Masterpiece:

• You progress your Masterpiece once at the start of your turn during the Masterpiece Phase.

• After you complete your masterpiece and Ascend, you can still progress your Masterpiece as normal.

• You cannot complete your masterpiece while you are already Ascended.

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React Chain Tokens:

• There are 5 slots on the React Chain and 5 React Chain tokens.

• Each token has a pointed arrow in order to indicate Direction and can be placed on a zone in the board to indicate a Target Zone.

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Reference Sheet:

• This square card shows your Artist’s Passive abilities and setup instructions.

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Refresh:

• If an Artist or Summon is not Exhausted, it is considered Refreshed.

• To refresh a unit, undo the rotation on their unit tile on the board from being exhausted.

• You can only refresh a unit that is exhausted.

• Refreshing a unit that is already refreshed fails and does nothing.

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Standee:

• Standees represent your Artist and their Summons on the board in the Deluxe edition of the game

• In the base/retail version of the game, unit tiles are used instead of standees.

 

Start of Turn effects:

• If an effect says it happens at the start of a turn, that is a Start of Turn effect.

• Effects that happen at the start of YOUR turns only happen if you are the turn player that turn.

• Effects that happen at the start of every turn happen on both your turn and your opponent’s turn.

• If both players have a Start of Turn effect that need to resolve, the turn player resolves them first.

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Summons:

• Summons refer to units that are unique to each Artist. Not all Artists have Summons.

• Summons are represented by a corresponding unit tile on the board.

  • Acrylic standees in the deluxe edition.

• ​Summons are removed when taking any amount of damage.

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Summoning:

• Summoning a unit places that unit onto the board in an unoccupied zone refreshed.

• You can exhaust a newly summoned unit on the turn they are summoned.

• A removed Summon can still be re-summoned later in the game.

• You can attempt to summon in an occupied zone, it fails and does nothing.

• You can attempt to summon when you have no available summons, it fails and does nothing.

• Summoning a unit into a zone is not considered as entering that zone. Effects that trigger when a Unit enters a zone are not triggered by summoning a unit into that zone.

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Swapping:

• An effect to swap 2 units will switch the positions of those 2 units.

• Tokens that normally move with their Artist or Summon (EX: Ink Tokens) will move with those tokens during a swap as well.

• Swapping into a zone tile is considered entering that zone. Effects that trigger when an Artist or Summon enters a zone are triggered by swaps.

• If a swap would result in an invalid board state, the swap effect fails to resolve. (EX: Trying to swap with The Painter with an Armament summon that would end up outside of the board due to the swap.)

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Ties:

• In a few rare cases, it is possible for a single action to deal damage to both Artists at the same time. (EX: Sculptor’s Expending the Expendable action card.) This kind of damage is always simultaneous, and therefore can result in ties.

• There are no tiebreakers. If a single effect would deal the final damage to both players at the same time, the game results in a tie.

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Tokens:

• Many Artists have unique tokens associated with their personal passives.

• If a placed token is removed, it is returned to your pool of available tokens and can be used again.

• You cannot place more tokens than you have in total.

• An effect to place a token while you have no more tokens simply fails. 

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Occupied Zone:

• A zone is considered occupied if there is an Artist or Summon in that zone.

• Having tokens or tiles in a zone does not make that zone occupied.

• Movement into an occupied zone fails and is ignored.

• Summoning into an occupied zone fails and is ignored.

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Unit: ​

• A Unit refers to an Artist or Summon.

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Zone: ​

• A zone is a square on the Field Board.

• Only one Artist or Summon can be in a zone.

• Multiple tokens can share a single zone, unless the token’s effects say otherwise.

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Zone Tiles: ​

• Some Artists have a special component known as a Zone Tile.

• Each zone can only have 1 Zone Tile.

• Moving a zone tile into a zone that already has a zone tile fails and is ignored.

• Placing a zone tile into a zone that already has a zone tile fails and is ignored.

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