6th Edition, Expansion 1

This is a minor revision to the 6th Edition rulebook. The example given for a battle in the "Creatures, Abilities, and Battles" section was outdated and inaccurate. This expansion fixes that.

6th Edition

This is the sixth published ruleset of Keeper of the Cards. Changes compared to 5th Edition, Expansion Pack 2 are:

• Added support for "variable limits": limits on how high variables in card texts are allowed to be set. Variable limits have been added to the costs and caveats that sacrifice or destroy cards from the top of your deck, as well as the cost and caveat that pay hitpoints. These limits in particular were added because allowing such large sacrifices opened the door to unbalanced OTK decks without much utility for anything else.
• Revised the card text allowing you to target resources. It can now only be used to target your own resources.
• Added a new activation cost: "Exhaust [x] of your resources." This activation cost is a net loss (it makes cards overall more expensive), but allows you to effectively spread out the resource cost over multiple turns, which can be useful for bluffing (making cards appear weaker than they actually are) and also allows you to spread out the cost of a card over multiple turns.
• Added several new target selection options, which are essentially appropriate ways of selecting cards from another player's deck, hand, or graveyard, their choice. These are useful especially for things like hand-destruction and deck-destruction strategies, which previously were cost-prohibitive.
• Added a rule preventing new chains from starting within effects. The practical implication of this is that when an effect causes a creature to be summoned or a spell to be cast, that summoning or casting cannot be chained to. You have to instead thwart the effect that would allow a creature to be summoned or a spell to be cast. This rule change is mainly to prevent possible confusion and insanity in large chains.
• Removed the rule prohibiting casting spells from the hand with activation conditions. That's right: you don't have to set spells with activation conditions as traps to activate them anymore. Setting spells as traps now serves solely to decouple the paying of costs for them from their activation, and to use as sacrifice fodder.
• Added several clarifications to the rulebook for conditions that were unclear.
• Added 9 new cards, found in "sets/set3.odg".
• Updated the following cards: "Slash and Burn", "Tornado".

5th Edition, Expansion Pack 2

An error in the rulebook has been pointed out to me, so I'm releasing another expansion pack to correct this. The only difference compared to Expansion Pack 1 is that outdated references to PDF files have been replaced with references to ODG files.

5th Edition, Expansion Pack 1

It's kind of embarrassing that this has to be the first expansion pack ever released, but it turns out that I made a mistake in Syncerus Caffer. It costed 1 less than it should. This release corrects that. There are no other changes compared to the 5th Edition release.

5th Edition

This is the fifth published ruleset of Keeper of the Cards. Changes compared to 4th Edition are:

• Modified the way damage is applied; instead of the defender choosing how to use the attacker's dice, the defender chooses a "defending order" for their creatures (before dice are rolled), and the attacker applies the dice however they want, but only to the first surviving creature in that defending order. In this way, the defender still has a way to control the way damage is applied, but not in such a way as to subvert the power of the dice. This also helps to prevent stalemates.
• Added a rule prohibiting attacking the same target multiple times in one turn. So for example, if you want to attack your opponent directly with four creatures, you must now use all of them at once; you can't use just one at a time. This rule was added to prevent "ratling" type decks from subverting defenses composed of strong creatures or powerful defensive spells.
• Added the option to name abilities on creatures. All existing example creatures with abilities have had names given to said abilities. This feature makes it easier to communicate what you're doing with your creatures, plus it's damn cool.
• The starting player now only either draws one card or plays one resource on their first turn. This should prevent any first-turn advantage from being too severe.
• Added (optional) coloring of play restrictions, so that they are easier to spot in passing.
• Changed the PNG size for cards (via a script) so that they're ready for printing via printing services, like the one offered by BoardGamesMaker.com. This entailed adding a white-colored "bleed area" to the images.
• Added a website link to the tip cards, so you can point people to the website by simply giving them one of your tip cards.
• Updated the tip cards.
• Re-arranged the sets so that each page now has nine cards.
• Removed the set PDFs; I found that these PDFs were never printed at the right size, so they're not terribly useful.
• Added 8 new example cards.
• Changed the following example cards: "Intimidation".

4th Edition

This is the fourth published ruleset of Keeper of the Cards.

Originally this was just going to be an expansion pack (mostly to fix some rather poorly performing 3rd Edition example cards), but then it occurred to me that I wanted to add some new effect texts, so I did so. Changes compared to 3rd Edition are:

• Fixed some minor formatting issues.
• Changed the ODT files to "flat" (uncompressed) ODT files (to make it more Git-friendly).
• Added a contributing guide ("CONTRIBUTING").
• Added more powerful versions of the healing effect that use dice rolls.
• Compacted the sets into two multi-page sets (for easier printing).
• Added 8 new example cards, 7 from me and 1 from @7jeronimo7.
• Changed the following example cards: "Spirit Board", "Sistrurus Miliarius", "Sistrurus Catenatus", "Holy Sacrifice", "Serpent's Temptation", "Boiga Cyanea", "Crotalus Horridus", "Naja Naja".

3rd Edition

This is the third published ruleset of Keeper of the Cards.

This edition was made to correct some errors in the 2nd edition release. Changes compared to 2nd Edition are:

• Clarified that responses to attacks happen before the actual attack, and that any creatures destroyed during that step cannot participate in the battle.
• Fixed a wording mistake on one of the caveats.
• Fixed some spelling errors and one minor grammar error.
• Added "destroy" variants of sacrifice-to-summon caveats.
• Added 16 new example cards.

2nd Edition

This is the second published ruleset of Keeper of the Cards.

Changes compared to 1st Edition are:

• Introduced mechanisms for revising and redacting (banning) card texts.
• Introduced a "caveat" system for reducing the resource costs of creatures.
• Resources are now placed into the Resource Zone unexhausted instead of exhausted.
• Each player now starts with 60 hitpoints instead of 100.
• Deck size is now 40-60 cards instead of strictly 50.
• Removed the cap on the amount of relief activation costs were allowed to provide.
• Introduced a padlock silhouette icon for cards that have play restrictions.
• Added several new ability components.
• Revised the activation costs based on exhausting your cards to only permit exhausting creatures.
• Redacted the creature damage effect.
• Redacted the player damage effect.
• Several clarifications and corrections for the rulebook and the card building guide.
• Added 8 new example cards, collected into set 5.
• Added an official card backing.
• Added "tip cards" for helping out new players.
• Changed the following example cards: "American Robin", "Bloodborne Transmission", "City Rampage", "Consolation", "Dark Necromancer", "Intimidation", "Lynx", "Magma Spawn", "Mammon the Dark Angel", "Mating Ritual", "Reckless Assault", "Sneak Attack", "Thunderstrike", "Tornado", "Vow of Vengeance".

1st Edition

This is the first published ruleset of Keeper of the Cards, with a small collection of 32 example cards (split into four sets).