Cards

A card is a rectangular piece of cardboard following the standard MTG size (6.3 x 8.8 mm). The backs are all identically non-identifying, except for Extra Deck cards, and the fronts contain a series of common elements and symbols that indicate its characteristics, and texts for the name, type, flavour and effects.

These are the elements specified in each card:

name
flavour text (optional)
type: Creature, Artifact, or Monument
subtype (for artifacts): Equipment, Vehicle, Scroll, Trap
faction (if aligned): Men, Fey, Telur, Wynn
stats: attack, life, armor, movement, knowledge
Effect: one ore more effects
Arrows: none, single, double or triple for each direction

Cards can be played from your hand (or Extra Deck) onto the battlefield into any eligible zones.

An eligible zone must match the card type, be on your side of the field, be empty, and be active.

You can play cards face-up or face-down (also referred as "to set").

If you play a card face-up, you must choose an orientation as part of playing, and you must immediately pay the card's cost (if any). If you succeed, the card is summoned (otherwise it is send to the Graveyard).

If played face-down (set), the card is not summoned yet. You do not need to pay any cost. When a face-down card is flipped, you must immediately summon it, by paying its cost and choosing the orientation. If you fail, the card is destroyed instead. If summoned, first an orientation is picked for the face-up position of the card; then any When flipped-effects activate; Mana is collected; and finally When summoned-effects trigger.

Cards played from your Extra Deck, as well as Monuments, can only be summoned (i.e. played face-up).

Card Types

Creatures

Example Creature card showcasing some of its design elements.

Creatures are the most brittle of cards as they can be easily targeted by your opponent, and can also be attacked and destroyed by damage. However, they are the most useful cards for dealing damage to your opponent, and a core component of any deck.

Creature cards played faced down cannot be flipped directly. They are automatically flipped at any point if they are targeted (by an attack or effect; by you or your opponent).

Artifacts

Example Artifact card showcasing some of its design elements.

Artifacts are a bit more protected than creatures because they cannot suffer damage and are a bit harder to target, but still can be destroyed by your opponents effects.

Unlike Spell cards or Instants on other games, and very much like any other card in this game, unless otherwise stated (and except for Traps), Artifacts remain on the field until they are destroyed by some effect; while some artifacts have continuous effects, activation effects or triggers that can happen many times, others have one-of effects and essentially lock your zones, but can be definitely used for sacrifice fodder.

There are a few sub-types of Artifacts with special rules:

Equipment

Equipments are artifacts that have transferable attributes (stats and effects), called Transfer, that can be "transferred" to a creature. These are denoted by a beige square underneath the effect or status icon:

Every Equipment has an action Equip:

Equip: select a connected creature zone (can be empty or inactive); [this] is now [equipped] to that zone.

When an Equipment is summoned, its controller must immediately perform the Equip action.

The [equipped] zone is does not move with creature movement. Any face-up creature, while in that zone, immediately gets all the effects and stats transferred, and similarly, immediately lose them if they leave the zone.

At the end of the equipment's Move Action, or after it is rotated, the Equip action can be performed as part of that Move Action (optional).

If at any point an Equipment no longer connects to the [equipped] zone, it is no longer considered [equipped] to that zone, and must be re-equipped via the Equip (or Move) action.

Vehicle

Vehicles are artifacts that have stats, arrows and effects that can be transferred to a creature, similar to Equipments. They also must have a greater-than-zero Movement stat, and thus can move in the Artifact row. On top of that, as part of their Move Action, they can spend 1 movement point to be "crewed" or "uncrewed".

To do that, target a face-up creature you control from the vehicle and move the vehicle card underneath the target creature card. Now they are bound together and the creature gets the status and [equipped]-effects transferred, similar to an Equipment.

While crewed, the card is always kept underneath this creature as it moves and is destroyed if the creature is destroyed.

While crewed, Attack, Life, Armor and Movement stats are combined with the creature, alongside effects tagged with [equipped]. The arrows of the vehicle are also added to the creatures arrows (you can choose the vehicle orientation underneath the creature when crewing). Whenever a player would Rotate the creature, they can rotate each card independently. Vehicles cannot have Mana.

You can use another 1 movement point to "uncrew" the artifact back to a target empty active artifact zone or the empty active artifact zone immediately "below" the creature (even if not reachable by arrows).

Scroll

Scrolls have a powerful, one-off, "When summoned:" trigger-type effect, and then are essentially clutter until they can be destroyed.

They have a special rule regarding their Knowledge Stat: unlike other cards, they do not acquire Mana counters when summoned; in fact their "mana" is considered "spent" when their effect activate. However, their can still be sac'ed face-down to acquire a discount from Hidden Knowledge. Do note that, if you choose to do so, you can't also use the same Scroll as a artifact or generic card sac cost.

Traps

Traps must first be set and cannot be summoned the turn they are set. You do not need to disclose the that set artifacts are Traps.

Traps have one or more trigger-type effects, and once set, it can only be summoned when one of them would proc. Resolve the one effect being triggered (and only one), and then destroy the Trap.

Traps have the same special rule as Scrolls regarding their Knowledge Stat: unlike other cards, they do not acquire Mana counters when summoned; in fact their "mana" is considered "spent" when their effect activate. However, their can still be sac'ed face-down to acquire a discount from Hidden Knowledge. Do note that, if you choose to do so, you can't also use the same Scroll as a artifact or generic card sac cost.

Monuments

Example Monument card showcasing some of its design elements.

Monuments are extremely resilient as they cannot be targeted and do not interact with the targeting system. They are rare and you have only one Monument zone, and have effects that normally affect the entire battlefield.

Card Lifecycle

In order to prevent infinite loops and other broken shenanigans, DimRift observes a strict card lifecycle. While effects have full reign within these guidelines, rarely, if ever, they should be violated.