Pyre Rule Book

In Pyre, two players battle using Followers, Actions, and Item Cards to deplete their opponent's resources and claim victory.

How do you Win?

Use your Actions, Items and Followers to deplete your Opponent's resources and make them draw from an empty Storage Pile (a 10 card Life Deck) to claim Victory.

Deck Construction

• Deck Size: 50 cards total, Minimum of 40 in the Main Deck and exactly 10 cards in the Storage Pile (50 cards minimum).
• Card Limits: Up to 3 copies of any single card in your Main Deck. Only 1 copy of each unique card per turn.
• Resource Card: Includes a Resource card that does not count towards your deck limits.

Additional Supplies

• Dice: For tracking resources, stats, and random effects.
• Tokens: Represent cards or effects in play. Any distinct objects can serve as tokens.
• Notepad: For recording game information and tracking various elements.
• Card Sleeves: Protect cards and help differentiate between decks.
• Game Mat: Organizes your cards into designated Zones.

• Deck Zone: Face-down Deck. Draw cards from here.
• Storage Pile: Face-down Storage Pile. Draw cards from here when needed. If empty and required to draw, you lose.
• Resource  Zone: Place your Resource Generator here and use dice to track Fervor.
• Play Area: Where cards like Followers, Items, and Locations are placed.
• Graveyard: Where destroyed or used cards go.
• Ash Pile: Where Burned cards go.

• Card Name: Unique name of the card.
• Offering Cost: Fervor needed to play the card.
• Card Art: Illustrative design of the card.
• Region: Card’s story-based identifier.
• Unique Mark: Limits play and control to one copy per turn.
• Card Type/Sub-type: Defines the card’s role and additional traits.
• Rarity: Indicates card rarity but has no gameplay effect.
• Card Effect/Flavor Text: Details on the card's function and lore.
• Attack/Defense Value: For combat-related cards.
• Rekindle Value: Shows potential Fervor production if Burned.

• Black: Resource Generators - These cards produce resources during each of your resource phases. 
• Tan: Token cards - These cards do not go in the deck and are usually created as a temporary game piece.
• Green: Followers - Creatures that can usually only be played on your turn during your planning phase.
• Gray: Items - Usually have repeatable abilities that you can use each turn, they usually can only be played on your turn during your planning phase.
• Blue: Slow Actions - One time use cards that go to the graveyard after their abilities resolve. They usually can only be played on your turn during your planning phase.
• Red: Fast Actions - One time use cards that go to the graveyard after their abilities resolve. They can be played anytime their conditions are met or whenever you have priority. 
• Brown: Location cards - These cards come into play add affect the game state as well as these cards have a defense value that can be attacked.
• Gold: Indicates that a card is “Unique”.

Unique Cards:

Unique, this means you can only play 1 copy of each unique card per turn, you can only control 1 copy of each unique card (You are still allowed to have up to 3 copies of each unique card in your deck).

Resting and Ready Positions

• Ready (Vertical/Upright) Position: Active and ready for actions.
• Resting (Horizontal) Position: Inactive and cannot perform actions until returned to Alert.

• Static Abilities: Always active.
• Activatable Abilities: Activated by choice, often with a cost.
• Triggered Abilities: Activate under specific conditions.
• Fast Abilities: Usable anytime during play. (This includes on your Opponent's turn).

Setup:

• Both players reveal their Resource Generators.
• Each player builds and sets aside a 10-card Storage Pile selected and taken from their 50-60 card Main Deck.
• Shuffle and cut all Decks and Storage Piles.
• Place Decks and Storage Piles in their respective Zones.
• Determine the starting player via dice roll, coin toss, or Rock-Paper-Scissors.
• Each player Draws 5 cards. (First player skips their Draw Phase on their first turn.)

Mulligan Rule:

• Before starting, you can return any number of cards from your opening hand to the bottom of your Deck and draw until you have five cards.

1. Draw Phase: Draw a card from your Deck. The player going first skips this on their first turn. If your Deck Zone is empty and you would draw a card from your Deck, you lose.
2. Ready Phase: Return Followers and Items to the Ready Position (Vertical/Upright).
3. Resource Phase: Gain Fervor from your Resource Generator. (You will use Fervor to pay for cards or abilities).
4. Planning Phase: Play Followers, Items, Actions, and activate abilities by paying their Fervor costs if any. Slow Actions can only be played here.
5. Combat Phase:
6. End Phase: Declare the end of your turn. Resolve any end-of-turn effects, then if you have more than 7 cards in your hand discard cards from your Hand until you have 7 and allow your opponent to begin their turn.

Combat Subphases:

• (The player going first skips this phase during their first turn).
• Attack Declaration: You may choose a non-resting Follower you control, Rest that Follower to indicate you are declaring an attack with that follower and select a legal attack  target. (You cannot attack Resting Followers, Opponents Locations or your Opponent Directly while your Opponent has an Alert Follower and must attack/remove Alert Followers first before you are able to attack other targets).
• Direct Attack: If attacking a player directly, they draw a card from their Storage Pile, if they cannot then they lose the game.

Attacking Followers and Locations:

• Damage Step/Lethal Resolution: Resolve damage between attacking and target cards. (Resting Followers do not deal damage to the attacker) Then destroy cards if they have taken damage equal to or exceeding their Defense Value.
• Repeat: You may declare another attack with one of your non-resting followers or end combat and move to end phase.

 In this game, two players Battle each other using a variety of Followers, Actions, and Item Cards to defeat their opponent’s forces and be the first to make a player draw a card from their Storage Pile while they have 0 Storage Pile cards left.

This game is a consumable resources TCG where all cards in the game serve multiple purposes in different situations. For example after your Followers fall on the Battlefield they can then be used as a resource to play different cards later.

Where do I start?
Assemble your favorite Pyre TCG cards into a Deck that follows these rules: 

• Decks must have a minimum of 40 total cards and exactly 10 cards in your Storage Pile totaling to a Minimum of 50 cards.
• You can only have up to 3 copies of the same card in your Deck.
• You can only play 1 copy of each unique card per turn, you can only control 1 copy of each unique card.
• A Resource Card that does go into your Deck and does not count toward the deck limits.

When building a Deck consider creating a cohesive strategy out of 40-50 cards with up to 10 of those cards that might serve more niche or situational purposes, we will come back to these 10 or so cards later in the “Storage Pile” section.

What else might I need?

Dice: A few dice can help you keep track of game resources, stat changes, and quest advancements. They can also be used to determine random effects or who gets to take the first turn.

Tokens: Tokens are used to represent cards that can be created by card Actions or Abilities. If you cannot obtain official Pyre tokens then any object that can be used for a Token but needs to have two distinct ways to place it that can clearly indicate the card's position.

Notepad: A notepad can help you record information through a game such as cards your opponent searched for or revealed to you, resources, quest progression, times you were attacked or even a player's remaining “Storage Cards”.

Card Sleeves: Card sleeves can prevent your cards from getting bent or scratched, they can also help identify whose cards are whose and they can indicate what cards return to the deck or not. If you use card sleeves, the ones used for your Deck and Storage Pile all have to be the same so your cards aren’t marked.

Game Mat: The Game Mat helps you organize your cards during a Trial. When you use your cards you place them on the Game Mat. Different kinds of cards should be placed in different Zones to make it easier for both players to be able to understand what is happening in the game. Typically you would have your Deck and Graveyard on one side of the mat and your Resource Generator and Ash Pile on the other side of the mat and the storage pile being up front int he center. Everywhere else could be used to play followers, items and locations.

1. Deck Zone: Your Deck is placed face-down in this space. You draw cards from here to add to your hand. If a card effect requires you to reveal cards from your Deck, or look through it, shuffle it and put it back in this space afterwards.
2. Storage Pile: Your Storage Pile is placed face-down in this space. You draw cards from here when you are attacked by a Follower or a cards ability requires you. If a card or effect requires you to reveal cards from your Storage Deck, or look through it, shuffle it and put it back in this space afterwards. If you are ever required to draw cards from here and it is empty, you lose the trial (game).
3. Resource Generator Zone: Your Resource Generator is placed in this zone revealing the face that you intend to use during the game. You may also put dice in this zone on top of your Resource Generator to keep track of the Fervor you produces.
4. Play Area:  This is where you put cards that are in play, like Followers, Items, Locations, and some actions. 
5. Graveyard: When Follower, Item or Location is destroyed, and when Slow Actions and Fast Action cards are played, they’re sent face-up to this space. 
6. Ash Pile: Much like a Graveyard when cards are Burned instead of Destroyed they’re sent face-up to this space. 

• Black: Resource Generators - These cards add give you resources during each of your rekindle phases. 
• Tan: Token cards - These cards do not go in the deck and are usually created as a temporary game piece.
• Green: Followers - Creatures that can usually only be played on your turn during your planning phase.
• Gray: Items - Usually have repeatable abilities that you can use each turn, they usually can only be played on your turn during your planning phase.
• Blue: Slow Actions - One time use cards that go to the graveyard after their abilities resolve. They usually can only be played on your turn during your planning phase.
• Red: Fast Actions - One time use cards that go to the graveyard after their abilities resolve. They can be played anytime their conditions are met or whenever you have priority. 
• Brown: Location cards - These cards come into play add affect the game state as well as these cards have a defense value that can be attacked.
• Gold: Indicates that a card is “Unique”.

Unique Cards:

Unique, this means you can only play 1 copy of each unique card per turn, you can only control 1 copy of each unique card.

1. Card Name: This is the unique name of the card, no 2 cards will share the exact same name and some cards will refer to other cards by their exact names.
2. Offering Cost: This is the cost to play the card onto the play area, this cost must be paid with Fervor from your Resource Generator. If an Offering cost is 0 then that means you may play it without spending Fervor or if you have 0 Fervor.
3. Card Art: This is where the card’s amazing art and illustration can be found.
4. Region: This is an identifier ties cards together in the story of the game as well as it is sometimes referenced in card effects and abilities.
5. Unique Mark: In this example Vivian is Unique, this means you can only play 1 copy of each unique card per turn, you can only control 1 copy of each unique card.
6. Card Type: This defines the type of each card. In this example, Vivian is a Follower which means it is able to Attack and do Combat with other Followers, this also means that it has a Dark Green card border. 
7. Sub-type: This is where the Card Type is further defined and specified to give more information about the card and it gives it traits that connect it to other cards that share its specific Sub-type. In this example, Vivian is a Warrior which means she has an identifying Sub-types that can be referenced in other cards or share synergies with cards that share the Warrior Sub-types.
8. Rarity: This is where the cards' rarity is shown; these marks have no in-game purpose but can sometimes identify a card's importance or power.
9. Card effect or Flavor Text: This is where what the card does is explained. This can come in the form of when the cards ability can be used, the cost of using the card, the outcome of the card being used, what the card can interact with or even Key Words; common abilities that occur regularly and do the same thing as other cards that are identified with a few words instead of a full detailed description. This area can also include a card's flavor text, tidbits of lore, quotes and more.
10. Attack Value: Almost exclusively found on Follower cards, this is where a card's Attack Damage is displayed. The numerical value found here shows how much damage the card would do to another card in combat.
11. Defense Value: Almost exclusively found on Follower cards, this is where a card's Defense or Durability is displayed. The numerical value found here shows how much damage the card can take from combat, actions or abilities in a single turn. 
12. Rekindle Value: Found on all cards that can be put into a deck, the Rekindle area can be interpreted to show a card's life force, magic, will power ect. The numerical value found here is mostly used to determine how much Fervor the card would produce if Burned by a Resource Generator's Ability.

 Most cards are required to change from Alert to Resting when they attack or they use an ability with: "Rest,  ↻:" as apart of its cost. Some other cards may make cards enter the "Rest" position without using the  ↻  symbol.

1. Alert Position:

• Definition: This is the active or ready state of a card. In this position, a card is fully operational and can participate in actions like attacking, using abilities, or activating other effects.
• Examples:
  • Followers: Can attack and use their abilities.
  • Items: Can be used for their activated or ongoing effects.
  • Locations: Affect the game state and can be interacted with/Attacked.

2. Resting Position:

• Definition: This is the inactive or used state of a card. A card in this position is temporarily out of action and cannot attack, use some abilities, or be activated until it returns to the Alert Position.
• Examples:
  • Followers: Cannot attack or use abilities. This state is typically indicated by turning the card sideways.
  • Items: Cannot be used or activated again this turn. Often marked by turning the card sideways.
  • Locations: Cannot be used or activated again this turn. Often marked by turning the card sideways. Can still be attacked in most cases.

How Cards Change Positions:

• From Alert to Resting:
  • Followers: Move to Resting Position after attacking or using certain abilities.
  • Items/Locations: Move to Resting Position after using their abilities that require activation.
• From Resting to Alert:
  • Most cards return to Alert Position at the beginning of the Reset Phase or through specific effects unless stated otherwise.

The following are different kinds of Abilities in Pyre that are used and interacted with in different situations:

1. Static Abilities: These Abilities are always active depending on where the card is, this means that there is never a point where this card “Activates” or “Triggers” meaning these kinds of abilities do not inherently give your opponent an opportunity to respond to them. These kinds of abilities will not usually include words like “Activate, Trigger, When, If” but will usually include words like “While”.
2. Activatable Abilities: You usually use these types of Abilities by declaring its activation. There are some Activatable Abilities that have a cost to activate, like discarding cards from your Hand, Burning Followers, or paying Fervor. 
3. Triggered Abilities: These Abilities activate at specific times, such as “during the Rekindle Phase” or “When Played:”. 
4. Fast Abilities: These kinds of Abilities are usable during either player's turns so long as a certain phase isn't specified in its effect. These kinds of Abilities usually say things like “As a Fast Ability” or Use (Fast):.

 Let's Begin! A single game is called a Trial, and a Trial ends when one player wins or the game ends in a draw. Games are played in a best of 1 match where once a winner is determined the game ends. (It has been designed to mostly be a best of 1 kind of game but may become a best 2 out of 3 style of game). 

How do I Win?

You win a Game if: your opponent(s) have 0 cards in their Storage Pile or you win with a card’s special ability or your opponent(s) concede the game.

How do we Start playing?

Make sure you and your opponent each have a Deck of 50 cards, a Resource Generator card. Also, make sure you have all your extra items that your Deck might need, like dice, tokens or counters. Before starting a Game, follow these 5 steps:

1. After Greeting your Opponent and getting settled, both you and your Opponent reveal your Resource Generator to one another. 
2. After Resource Generators have been revealed you and your Opponent begin to create a 10 card Storage Pile from your 50 card pool, potentially trying to create a strategy to defeat your opponents strategy.
3. Once your 10 card Storage Pile is established you will shuffle it and your Deck separately and thoroughly and present them to your Opponent to either shuffle or cut themselves.
4. Once all Decks and Storage Piles are shuffled, cut and approved by each player you will then both place your Decks into the Deck Zones and the Storage Piles into your Storage Zones.
5. Determine who will start the game with a Dice roll, coin toss or Rock, Paper, Scissors. The winner may decide who will take the first turn of the game. Once decided, both players Draw five cards from their decks and the game begins. Both Players Draw 5 cards from their Deck and move onto pre game Mulligans (The player who is taking the first turn skips their first Draw Phase and Cannot Attack with Followers).
6. Mulligans: Before the game begins both players may look at their opening hands and starting with the player going first, those players put any number of cards from among their Hands onto the bottom of their Deck, then they draw cards from the top of their decks until they have 5 cards in their hands then you may choose to shuffle your Deck (You may only do this once).

How do Turns Work?

A Game progresses in a series of turns which are divided into phases, all phases must occur in order and each phase must be passed through as you take your turn and you cannot skip a phase.

1. Draw Phase
2. Ready Phase
3. Rekindle Phase
4. Planning Phase
5. Combat Phase
6. End Phase

Draw Phase: A player Draws a card from their Deck on each turn. IMPORTANT: The player who goes first cannot conduct their Draw Phase on their first turn. If a player has no cards in their Deck during the Draw Phase that player Draws a card from their Storage Pile, if a Player would Draw a card from their Storage Pile while it has 0 cards in it, that player loses the game. 

Ready Phase: You return your Followers and your Items to the Ready position (Vertical/Upright) during this phase.

Resource Phase: A player indicates the beginning of their turn by using one of their Resource card's Abilities, to gain Fervor. “Fervor” is the main resource of Pyre and acts like a kind of fuel, spiritual energy, or “mana”. It is a resource that is mostly gained via your Resource Generator's Abilities, but can also be gained by some Actions, Items and other Abilities. Fervor is mainly used to pay for a Cards Offering Cost or activate some abilities. Unused Fervor is stored (usually accounted for by Dice) and can be used at any time a card is playable.

Planning Phase: This is the Phase where you can play most of your cards. During this Phase you can play Followers, Items, Actions, activate most abilities and most importantly plan and think about the game and what steps/moves you are preparing to take. Slow Actions can only be played during this Phase as well as Most Followers and Items. Basically anything that does not say “Swift”, “Fast” or “Quick” can only be done during your Planning Phase.

Combat Phase: Now it’s time to battle with your Followers! Followers may attack the turn they are played, unless you are taking the first turn of the game. You do not have to Attack every turn, even if you have a Follower on the field. This phase is divided into steps:

1. Attack Declaration/Target: Select a Follower Rest that Follower (Unless it has Restless or there is another Exception) and indicate its intent to have it attack a legal target. (Attack Targets have a priority order that must be considered before attacking). Ready Followers must be attacked first, if there are no Ready Followers you may attack Resting Followers your Opponent controls, Locations your Opponent controls or your Opponent Directly. Attacking cards are forced to attack something, if the game state changes or their original attack target leaves play the attack must continue to a different legal target (For example if my Opponent controls two resting Followers and I choose to attack one of them or attack my opponents Storage Pile Directly and my opponent responds to that with an action or ability that makes one of those Followers Ready. Then my follower must now attack the Ready Follower because the board state has changed and the Ready Follower takes priority over any of the other targets).
2. Direct Attack: If a Follower successfully attacked a player's Storage Pile, the Player that was attacked draws a card from their Storage Pile, if they cannot then they lose the game.
3. Damage Step/Lethal Resolution: If the Follower attacks a player Directly then that player Draws a card(s) from their Storage Pile, if the Follower attacks an Ready Follower then the attacking Follower and its target deal damage to one another's Defense equal to their Attack Values. If the Follower attacks a Resting Follower then only the Attacking Follower deals damage to the Resting Followers Defense Value. Then If any Followers or Locations take damage equal to or more than their Defense value those Followers/Locations are Destroyed and leave play during this Phase, usually being sent to the Graveyard. Card effects related to leaving play or being destroyed. 
4. Repeat: Repeat the Attack Declaration through Resting steps till you either have no more followers to attack or no longer wish to attack.
5. Exit Combat: The turn player indicated that they no longer want to declare attacks, activate combat abilities, or play cards during this phase.

End Phase: The turn player indicates that they wish to make no further actions this turn until end of turn effects wear off and any cards that have taken damage equal to or more than their defense are destroyed and allows their opponent to begin their turn. If you have more than 7 cards in your hand discard cards from your Hand until you have 7 before your opponent begins their turn.

Do Tokens have Offering costs or Rekindle Values?

Tokens are considered to have a 0 Offering cost and a 0 Rekindle Value.

What Happens if I have no cards left in my Deck? 

In the event that a player ends up with 0 cards left in their decks, the game will continue as normal with each player taking turns, however players with no cards in their Decks are required to draw a card from their Storage Pile each turn during their Draw Phase since they cannot draw from their deck. Once a player's Storage Pile is empty and they are required to Draw a card from their Storage Pile whether by card ability or having to draw from it during the Draw Phase as stated previously, that player will lose the game.

What Happens When Players Play Cards in Response to One Another?  

Let's say for example James plays a Potion Item and before he gets to use it his opponent plays an Action card to destroy his potion, but James has a card that Negates an Action so he plays it against his Opponents Action that is trying to Destroy his Potion. We will work our way through this series of cards backwards, resolving each card one at a time starting with the most recent card played. James card Negates an Action his Opponent controls, that card being negated means that it will not be able to destroy James's Potion and that action is instead is sent to the graveyard, with no other effects or conditions being added to the “Stack” or “Chain” James is now free to continue his turn and try to use his Potion.

What Happens When Multiple Cards Activate at the Same Time?  

Let's say for example that James has a field full of Followers that all have Abilities that activate if they are sent to the Graveyard. James’s Opponent plays a card that Destroys all of James’s Followers and sends them all to the Graveyard. Each of James’s Followers will trigger their Abilities at the same time and they need to resolve. The player who owns or controls the triggering effects is allowed to resolve them in any order they would like one at a time, after each resolution your Opponent has an opportunity to interact with the changing game state. Then the next player in turn order must resolve their card abilities until all players are done. For example your Opponent has a Follower that triggers when it is sent to the graveyard too, the Turn Player must resolve  all of their card's Abilities before your Opponents begins theirs. Card effects will resolve regardless of if they are destroyed or sent to a different zone so long as they are not negated and do not require to be in a specific place to resolve, For example: if I activate an items ability and my opponent destroys that item, unless the items says that it must remain in play for its ability to occur, then I would still get that item’s ability resolution.  

What is Priority and How is it Determined?  

The turn player always starts with Priority, or the choice to activate a card first, in each phase or step of their turn. As long as the turn player has Priority, the opponent cannot play cards or activate Abilities, except for Abilities that activate automatically. The turn player can either: Use Priority to play a card or activate an Ability or Pass Priority to the opponent so they can play a card or activate an Ability. A player must pass Priority to the opponent when moving on to the next phase or step. Strictly speaking, you would always declare that you’re passing Priority before the end of every phase and step, and ask your opponent if they wish to play a card. However, for ease of play, announcing the end of your phases or steps implies giving up Priority. Therefore, when announcing the end of a phase, your opponent can just say “Before the end of your phase, I activate this card” and use a card. The turn player starts with Priority to activate a card or effect first. After a card’s activation, and at the end of each phase or step, Priority passes to the opponent.  

What Happens when a Follower has 0 Attack or 0 Defense?  When a Follower has 0 Attack, that Follower cannot declare an attack. When a Follower has 0 Defense, that Follower dies. 

How do I determine Random?  

When a card effect says to choose a card randomly, there is no official way of doing so, it is fine as long as neither player has a way of knowing which card is being chosen.  

Is there a Rule about Shuffling?  

There is no rule for how to shuffle, but while shuffling you cannot look at the cards you are shuffling, or arrange the cards and then shuffle them.  And the cards must be clearly randomized.

What Happens when I need to Search my Deck?  

Whenever an effect instructs you to search through your Deck, you can pick up your Deck and search through it for the appropriate card. You must shuffle your Deck after any time you search it and let your opponent shuffle or cut.  

Revealing Cards?  

When an effect says to reveal a card, you show it to all players. You may have to reveal a card from your hand, or from the top of your Deck. Revealing a card does not activate the card. Normally, revealed cards are returned to their original position after being looked at by all players.  

Discarding Cards?  

Discard means to send a card from your hand to the Graveyard. This can happen because of a card effect.  

Own or Control?  

Cards you “control” are the cards you have in play. Cards you  “own” are cards that originated from you, your deck, your storage pile and generally cards that you brought to the table. If a player takes control of a card from their opponent, move it to the new controller’s side of the field. If sent to the Graveyard, or returned to the Hand or Deck etc., it is always returned to the Graveyard / Hand / Deck / Storage Pile / Resource Generator zones of the original owner.    

What does it mean to Burn a card?  

Burning a card means that instead of that card going to the Graveyard or any other zone, it is sent to the Ash Pile.   

What does Destroy mean? 

A card is destroyed when it is sent from play to the Graveyard due to Combat Damage between Followers or by an ability that destroys a card.   

Can I interact with Resource Generator's Abilities?  

No. A Resource Generator does not target or pass priority to a player until after the Resource Generator has completed its ability or an ability triggers from the Resource Generator.

How do I Use My Items? 

Most items in the game have a “Rest ↻:” ability, this means that you must rotate the card into the Rest Position and then follow any additional costs Followed by a semicolon (;), then once the cost has been paid, the ability activates and passes priority to your opponent to respond, before the card resolves. 

If a player has an Alert Follower and a Location what am I allowed to attack?

Location cards cannot be attacked while there are Alert Followers unless there is an effect or Ability that says otherwise.