正面对决

How to play 正面对决

A beginner's guide in English, based on the game's core rulebook (Ver. 1.0.1, PDF at laidapai.com/core-rules.pdf) and the summary at laidapai.com/rules/. If anything here differs from the rulebook, the rulebook wins. Card terms follow this site's translation glossary, with the Chinese term in parentheses where it helps you match a card.

Contents: The game in 2 minutes · Golden rules · Decks · Setup · Zones · Your turn · Paying costs · Playing a card · Combat · Damage & life · Attachments · Skills & timing · Keywords · Easy to mix up · Reading a card

Golden rules

• Card text beats the rulebook. If a card contradicts a rule, the card wins.
• Do as much as you can. If an effect asks for something impossible, skip just that part and do the rest. If it asks for a number and you can only do part of it, do what you can. Choosing "up to X" may be 0 unless a minimum is stated.
• "Cannot" beats "can". If one effect forbids an action another allows, the forbidding effect wins.
• Simultaneous choices go in turn order. If several players must choose at once, the turn player chooses first.
• Numbers never go below 0 unless an effect is directly adding or subtracting on a card's printed value — and even then, a value that would go negative counts as 0.

The game in 2 minutes

Two players face off, each led by a commander. Your commander has a life total, represented by face-down cards in your life zone. On your turn you ready your cards, reveal a tactics card, draw, then play cards and attack as much as you can. In combat, attackers and defenders compare power, with a dodge step that lets a readied defender add its flash point. You win by attacking the opposing commander successfully when its life zone is empty, by making your opponent draw from an empty deck, or by their concession.

Decks

Each player brings three piles, built before the game:

• 1 commander (统帅) — your leader. It starts on the battlefield, face-up on its front (unawakened) side, and can later flip to its awakened side with its Awaken ability.
• A 40-card main deck — units (角色牌), stratagems (锦囊牌), and attachments (附属牌).
• A 12-card tactics deck (兵法牌库) — tactics (兵法牌) only.

The main deck may contain only units, stratagems, and attachments; the tactics deck may contain only tactics. In each deck, you may include at most 3 copies of any one full card name — the full name, not just the character's name, so two cards of the same character with different titles count separately. The exception is basic (基础) tactics, which are unlimited in the tactics deck. A card's element does not have to match your commander's element.

Setup

1. Show both decks, then shuffle them face-down. Place your commander face-up, on its front (unawakened) side, in the battlefield zone.
2. Randomly decide who picks first or second. That player chooses whether to go first or second — no choosing by preference before the random pick.
3. The second player puts 1 supply token (辎重标记) in the tactics zone, which can be removed to pay 1 cost.
4. Resolve any "at game start" commander abilities, first player first, then second player.
5. Draw an opening hand: 4 cards if you go first, 5 if you go second.
6. Each player may mulligan once, starting with the first player: return any number of hand cards to the bottom of the main deck, draw that many, then shuffle the main deck.
7. Take cards from the top of your main deck equal to your commander's stamina, face-down, into your life zone. That is your life total. The card that was on top of the deck ends up at the bottom of the life zone; damage always takes from the top of the life zone first.

Zones

Battlefield order matters: neighbours are distance 1 apart, and each unit in between adds 1 to the distance. From your perspective, the commander's left is the left flank (侧翼) and its right is the right flank; several units may sit on each side, within the 6-unit limit. The two players' battlefield areas count as one shared battlefield zone, and a new unit must be placed at either end of your line or between two existing units.

Two zone rules that explain a lot of card text: when a card moves to a differently named zone, it counts as a new card — effects from its old zone stop applying, and "once per turn" limits reset. And a card that is not a tactic but ends up in the tactics zone counts as a tactic for paying costs, but it stays face-down, has no element, and no effect may turn it face-up.

Your turn — five phases

1. Ready phase — resolve "at turn start" abilities, then ready (return to upright) all your battlefield and tactics-zone cards.
2. Tactics phase — if your tactics deck still has cards, flip its top card face-up and upright into the tactics zone.
3. Draw phase — draw 1 card. If your main deck is empty when you must draw, you lose (see win conditions).
4. Main phase — play cards, use abilities, and attack, in any order and as many times as you like, as long as you can pay the costs. Declare the end when you are done. On the very first turn of the game, the first player may not attack with their commander.
5. End phase — resolve "at turn end" abilities (each such ability triggers at most once this phase), discard down to the hand limit if you are over it, and let "until end of turn" effects expire. If expiring effects or new triggers create more work, repeat the phase until nothing is left, then pass to your opponent.

Paying costs

Costs are paid from your tactics zone. A tactics-zone card that is upright is available; resting it (turning it sideways) marks it as used. That is why the tactics phase matters: it steadily grows the pool you can spend from. The second player's opening supply token is a one-off extra: remove it to pay 1 cost, and only when you are actually paying a cost.

Element requirement (属性需求). Most units, stratagems, and attachments also require tactics of matching elements in your tactics zone: each face-up tactic of that element satisfies 1 point of the requirement. For example, to play a card requiring two Wind, you must already have two Wind tactics face-up in your tactics zone. The requirement must be met even if the card is played for free or by an effect, and a skill's own element requirement works the same way. Commanders and tactics themselves have no element requirement of this kind.

Costs can be raised or lowered by effects; a cost that would go below 0 counts as 0. When you pay, rest exactly as many upright tactics-zone cards as the final cost — no more, no less.

Playing a card

1. Reveal the card you want to play.
2. Check timing. A Main (通常) stratagem may only be played by the turn player in the main phase, outside combat. A Response (响应) stratagem may only be played by the defending player in the response step. An effect may let you play a card outside its normal timing — except that a Response-only card can never be played outside the response step.
3. Check the element requirement (above).
4. For an attachment, choose a legal target first. If there is no legal target, you cannot play it at all.
5. Pay by resting tactics-zone cards (and removing supply tokens, if any).
6. Place it: a unit goes to a legal battlefield position, a stratagem goes to the discard pile and its effect happens immediately, and an attachment goes under its target (see Attachments). If any step fails, the play is undone back to before you revealed the card.

Playing a card is not the same as using an Ambush: Ambush never counts as playing the card, so it needs no element requirement and no cost unless its own text says to play something.

Combat — six steps

1. Attack — choose your attackers and a target, and rest all attackers. Resolve "when attacking / when attacked" abilities.
2. Intercept — the defender may have an adjacent, readied unit use Intercept (阻截) to become the target instead. Only one Intercept per combat, even if several units could intercept.
3. Response — the defending player may play Response (响应) stratagems or use Response abilities, as many times as they like.
4. Dodge — if the attacked unit is readied, add its own flash point (闪点) to its power. The defender may also discard flash-point cards from hand, one at a time, to add their flash points. An attachment's flash point only counts when it is discarded from hand this way — not while it is attached.
5. Resolution — the attack succeeds if total attacker power is at least the defender's power. See Damage & life for what success does to a commander versus a unit, and for "attack failed" triggers when it does not succeed.
6. End — resolve "at combat end" abilities (each at most once this step); "until end of combat" effects expire, repeating the step if that creates new triggers.

Before you attack, check two things

• Range: each attacker's range must be at least its distance to the target (neighbours are distance 1). If any attacker is out of range, the whole attack cannot be declared.
• Can it attack? A unit that entered this turn cannot attack unless it has Swift, and a rested unit cannot attack. You may attack with several units at once — that is a joint attack (联合攻击), which triggers both "when attacking" and "when jointly attacking" abilities.

Two exceptions to the normal attack rules: an attack caused by an effect does not rest its attackers, and a rested or just-entered unit may attack that way. And if, mid-combat, every attacker or every defender leaves the battlefield or changes controller, finish the current step, then skip straight to the end step.

Damage & life

Only commanders take damage, and damage is handled one point at a time:

1. If the damage is 0, or the defender's life zone is already empty, stop — no life card moves, and the attack is not counted as dealing or taking damage.
2. Otherwise, look at the top life card. If it has Ambush and the defender wants to use it, that card goes to the discard pile and its Ambush effect happens. If not, it goes into the defender's hand — this is not drawing a card.
3. Repeat for each point of damage, until the damage is used up or the life zone empties.

So a successful attack on a commander with life remaining deals exactly 1 damage (more with Breakthrough), and each point flips one life card. A commander whose life zone is empty is called dying (濒死): if a dying commander is attacked successfully, its controller loses the game on the spot — no damage step happens. The other ways to lose are: having to draw from an empty main deck, conceding at any time, or a card effect that says you lose (or your opponent wins). If both players would lose at the same moment, the game is a draw.

Execute (完杀) changes the damage step: when a unit with Execute attacks a commander successfully, life cards that would go to the hand from that damage go to the discard pile instead, and Ambush cannot be used on them at all.

Attachments

An attachment (附属牌) is played onto another card, not onto the battlefield on its own:

• You must pick a legal target before playing it; its first ability states what it may attach to. No legal target means no play.
• It slides under its target, with only its ability text and power/range bonuses showing, and those take effect immediately. It has no rested/readied state, and it counts as being in the same zone as its target.
• An attachment played onto an opponent's unit is still controlled by the player who played it.
• If its target leaves the zone, or stops being a legal target (for example, because control of the target changed), the attachment is detached and goes straight to its owner's discard pile. One attachment attaches to only one card at a time; moving it to a new target ends the old attachment.

Skills & timing

There are four kinds of skill: triggered ("when…" / "whenever…"), activated (with Main or Response timing and a cost before the colon), static (always on while the card is in play), and replacement ("as long as… then instead…"). A skill that says "you may" is optional; without "you may", do as much of it as you can. Effects happen in the order written on the card.

When several triggered skills fire at once, the turn player's go first, then the other player's; a player with several chooses their order as they go — except Ambush, which always goes before other simultaneous triggers. An activated skill's text before the colon is its cost: you must fully pay it (including any Rest, element, or card cost) before the effect happens. "If you do…" means the first part must fully happen for the rest to happen; "if…" means the stated situation must be true when the skill resolves. A "this skill may be used at most once per turn" limit is counted per card, and resets if that card changes zone.

Example

Suppose your attacker has power 4 and attacks a unit with base power 2. The defender is readied and has flash point 1, so in the dodge step its power becomes 3. Your 4 is at least 3, so the attack succeeds and the defending unit is killed. If the defender had instead discarded another flash-point card worth 1, its power would be 4, and your 4 would still succeed (equal is enough) — but one more point would have stopped you. If the target had been a commander, a successful attack would remove 1 life card instead of killing anything, and if that life zone was already empty, you would win.

Two damage details that come up a lot: when a commander takes damage, the life card flips into the defender's hand — unless Execute is involved (see Keywords), in which case it goes to the discard pile instead. And when a life card flips into the hand from damage, Ambush can send it to the discard pile instead and trigger its effect for free.

Keywords

Keyword	What it does
Main (通常)	Only in your own main phase, outside combat.
Response (响应)	Only by the defending player, in the response step.
Swift (神速)	Can attack on the turn it enters.
Breakthrough (破军)	+1 damage on a successful attack against a commander; multiple instances stack.
Execute (完杀)	On a successful attack against a commander, cards that would enter the hand from damage go to the discard pile instead, and Ambush cannot be used.
Intercept (阻截)	An adjacent readied unit, when its neighbour is targeted, can rest itself to take the attack.
Ambush (伏击)	When a life-zone card would enter the hand from damage, it goes to the discard pile instead and its written effect triggers without paying its cost.
Insight X (洞察)	An opponent must pay X to target it with a card or ability, or it cannot be chosen.
Elusive X (遁形)	An opponent must pay X to target it with an attack, or it cannot be attacked.
Advance (进军)	Main, cost 2, set this card face-down: one of your units gains +1 range until end of turn.
Retreat (撤退)	Main, cost 2, set this card face-down: return one of your units to the bottom of the main deck, then draw 1.
Awaken (觉醒)	A commander's activated ability: pay the printed cost and element requirement to flip the commander over; it stays flipped. Flipping is not entering or leaving the battlefield, and the commander's rested/readied state does not change.
Flash point (闪点)	The number shown by a card's flash-point marks. A readied defender adds its own flash point in the dodge step; any player may discard flash-point cards from hand in that step to add theirs.
Supply token (辎重)	A marker in the tactics zone. Remove it to pay 1 cost, but only while paying a cost. The second player starts with one.
Dying (濒死)	A commander whose life zone is empty. If it is attacked successfully, its controller loses immediately.
Flank (侧翼)	The units on one side of your commander — left flank or right flank. An effect that picks "a flank" picks one player's one side.
Flip (翻面)	Turn a card over. For a tactic, the Flip icon in its cost means turning that tactic face-down in the tactics zone; for a commander, Flip means turning it to its awakened face. On this site, Flip in card text is always shown with the icon above, and the word is kept so the meaning stays clear.

Easy to mix up

• Rest (横置) = turn a card sideways to show it has been used this turn. Ready (重置) = return it upright.
• Suppress (压制) = rest a unit and stop it from readying at your next ready phase.
• Die = any unit leaving the battlefield for the discard pile. Destroy is specified by an effect; sacrifice is chosen by you.
• Peerless (无双) — if same-named cards are in play at once, the Peerless one must be sacrificed until only one remains. The copy limit in deckbuilding, by contrast, counts the full card name.
• "Gain +X power/range" is temporary; printed base values do not change, and a unit whose power drops to 0 dies immediately. A commander's power dropping to 0 does nothing.
• Owner vs controller. Owner is who built the deck with the card and never changes; controller is who currently controls it. A card entering a non-owner's zone (other than the battlefield) goes to its owner's version of that zone instead.
• Draw vs "put into hand". A life card flipped into the hand by damage is not a draw — so "when you draw" effects do not fire, and it does not count toward drawing from an empty deck.

Reading a card

On this lookup site, each card's detail shows its element, series, type, cost, and — where it has them — attack (ATK) and range. Cost 99 on this site means the card has no ordinary cost (commanders and tactics) and is shown as "—". The element badge and the cost circle on the original art match the stats shown here. When a card flips, use the ↻ button in the detail to see its awakened face: it shares the front face's element, type, and cost, but its attack and range can differ.

Icons in English text and images. Element names in a cost are shown as the card's element badges (for example, two Wind badges + 3) instead of repeated words. The Flip symbol appears before the word Flip wherever a card flips — tactic costs and "Flip this card" on commanders. Timing words at the start of an ability (Main, Response, Ambush) appear as coloured pills, matching the original art.

Where to go next

• Full rules and edge cases (skill-resolution order, replacement effects, and more): the core rulebook itself, Ver. 1.0.1 (PDF): laidapai.com/core-rules.pdf — it governs. A shorter summary is at laidapai.com/rules/.
• Interactive learning: the laidapai homepage also offers a step-by-step in-simulator tutorial.
• Back to cards: use the Card Lookup link at the top.