Turn Structure

At the start of the duel, each player must shuffle their main decks and offer for the opponent to optionally cut.

They also should setup the field and play area accordingly. The 3 central artifact zones on each player's side of the field should be activated using Summoning Tokens from the supply.

Then, players must play Jan-Ken-Pon (rock, paper, scissors) until one player wins; that player immediately picks who is going to start the game. If this not the first game of the match, and the previous duel had a losing player, that player gets to pick instead.

After that, each player will draw 5 cards from their main deck onto their hands (this is their starting hands).

Each player can then take turns to Mulligan until they are both satisfied. The Mulligan rule is: set aside your current hand and draw a new hand of X - 1 cards. After all rounds of Mulligan, shuffle the set-aside cards and your deck together.

Before the normal flow of rounds start, each player get a special Preparations turn. So the order goes as follows:

• Preparations Round
• • First Player's Preparation Turn
• • Second Player's Preparation Turn
• First Round
• • First Player's Turn
• • Second Player's Turn
• Second Round
• • First Player's Turn
• • Second Player's Turn

And so on. The rounds keep on going until the game ends.

Preparation Turn

A Preparation Turn is a special kind of turn players get before the actual turns start. It's a fair and balanced way for both players to be allowed to set their cards so they can be activated on their opponent's turn (even if they are not the first player). During this special turn, no effects can be activated, no cards can be summoned, and no events can be performed. In short, players are only allowed to set cards from their hands. There is also no need for phases in this turn; you do not conduct your draw phase, and you can set your cards in any order. You theoretically can set cards of any type but, of course, at the start of the game, you will only have artifacts zones activated, as you haven't performed any Campaign Events yet. So basically this is a "set artifacts face down on the starting zones" turn.

Turn Phases

Regular (non-preparation) turns are divided into a sequence of phases that must be followed in order (you can skip your Event if you want and then you will have only one uninterrupted Main Phase):

Start and End Phases

Nothing special happens in these phases as per the rules, but they exist and must be observed so that effects can resolve during them (if an effect says, at the start of the turn or at the end of the turn, for example). Since they are not the Main Phase, players can only do instant speed actions.

Draw Phase

During this phase, the turn player must draw one card from their main deck into their hand. This is mandatory, if there are any cards left. Again, only instant speed actions can be performed in this phase.

Main Phase

During your main phase, you can perform any slow or instant speed actions. Think of this as the main phase from MTG/Yu-Gi-Oh!.

Event

Each turn you can pick one Event to perform that turn, out of the 3 possibilities.

Regardless of which type of Event is picked (and which bonuses that particular event concedes), the Event is when the player can have their cards perform Actions.

Campaign Event

As a bonus for having chosen the Campaign Event, every face-up card with non-zero Movement (normally creatures) gets the Move Action added to their action pool.

At the start of a Campaign Event, the turn player must choose one of their inactive zones to activate. This is done by putting a Summoning Token from the supply onto it. If they already have all 11 Summoning Tokens, they draw a card instead.

Then they can proceed to Actions as normal.

This is probably the first event a player will do, because at the very first turn they won't have creature zones available to do any Battle, nor enough resources to Rift Summon.

Battle Event

As a bonus for taking the Battle Event, every creature you control gets the Attack Action added to their action pool.

Rift Summoning Event

If there are Souls available to Soulrift (either on the Aether or on your cards), you can choose to conduct the Rift Summoning Event.

During this event, the player will consume Souls to open a Dimensional Rift, allowing him to summon powerful cards from their Extra Deck.

First, choose the level of Soulrift that you wish to perform (min = 1; max = 3). The number will determine the rank of the cards you can summon.

Then, you can summon as many cards as you wish of that rank or below. For example, of a total of 3 Rank 0 Souls on the Aether, you can elect to Soulrift 2 to open a Rank 2 portal, and then summon any number of Rank 1 or Rank 2 cards from your extra-deck (by paying their costs).

At the end of the Rift Summoning Event, you might need to pay a price. If didn't succeed in summoning at least one card with rank equal to the rank of the portal, you will pay 3 life points per rank missing. For example, if you open a Rift of rank 3 but only managed to summon several rank 1 cards, you will pay 6 life as a cost for your greed. This is the equivalent damage associated with Soulburn.

Note that you cannot summon cards from your hand during this (or any other) event, as Summoning is slow.