How to play

Welcome

Nemesis Protocol is a card game for two players. Each of you leads a faction in a ruined, rebuilding world, deploys units onto the battlefield, and fights to take the other player's City to zero HP. The player who does it first wins.

Bring a deck of 30 cards and a pen for keeping track of HP and Scrap. The rest of this book teaches the game in the order you will meet it.

What you need

• A 30-card deck for each player, and the Champion that leads it (a Champion and its Nemesis are the two faces of one card).
• Something to track each City's HP (a die, a counter or paper) and a way to count Scrap if your deck makes it.
• Tokens for the small creatures some cards create. Any markers will do.

The Six Factions

Every card belongs to one of six factions, shown by its colour. Each follows a pillar, an idea about how the world should be remade.

A few cards are Neutral: Nemesis Protocol, The Witness and Benevolent AI. Neutral cards fit in any deck. Tokens are Neutral too, but they are made by other cards and never go in a deck.

Reading a Card

Kinds of ability

• On Entry: happens once, when the card enters the battlefield.
• Triggered: happens by itself whenever its condition is met.
• Passive: always on while the card is on the battlefield and enabled. A Champion's or Nemesis's passive, and any passive that says "while in play", also works while the card is disabled.
• Disable [card]: ... or Spend N Scrap: ...: an ability you choose to use, by paying its cost. A "Disable" ability needs the card to be enabled, and can be used in your Deployment or Reinforcement Phase or during any response window.

Stat changes read as +X/+Y: add X to ATK and Y to DEF. A Unit with 2 ATK and 2 DEF that gets +1/+0 attacks as a 3/2.

Building a Deck

• A deck is exactly 30 cards, plus one Champion from your Primary Faction.
• Choose one Primary Faction. You may also choose one Minor Faction and add up to 12 cards of it.
• Use at most 3 copies of any card. Nemesis Protocol is limited to one copy.
• The Galaxian deck: a Cosmic deck in which every Unit and Vehicle is a Galaxian may use Galaxians from any faction. All its other cards (Exploits and Enhancements) must be Cosmic or Neutral. A Cosmic deck with any Unit or Vehicle that is not a Galaxian follows the normal faction rules.
• Neutral cards fit in any deck and do not count toward the 12.
• Some cards say only one of them may be on the battlefield at a time. That limits how many you can have out, not how many you can put in your deck.

The Battlefield

Each player has a City to protect, a Frontline and a Backline for units, and a separate zone for Field Enhancements.

Frontline and Backline

• When you play a Unit, Vehicle or Champion, you choose whether it goes to the Frontline or the Backline. Tokens, and cards that other cards put onto the battlefield, go to the Frontline unless the card says otherwise. A flipped Champion or Nemesis goes to the Backline.
• Your Backline holds at most six cards. If it is full, you can't play a card into it, bring your Champion into it, or flip into it until a card moves up. The Frontline has no limit.
• The Frontline fights: only enabled Frontline units can attack or intercept.
• The Backline waits: Backline units cannot attack, be attacked by a normal attack, or intercept. They are safe, and still useful for their abilities.
• You may move an enabled unit from the Backline to the Frontline during your Deployment or Reinforcement Phase. It stays enabled, so it can still attack that turn. A unit cannot move back.

Enabled and disabled

A unit is enabled (ready) or disabled (resting, turned sideways). Only an enabled unit can attack, intercept or use an ability that asks for it. Attacking, intercepting and many abilities disable the unit that does them. At the start of your turn your disabled cards become enabled again.

A disabled card can still be targeted and destroyed. Being disabled does not protect it.

Field and Unit Enhancements

Field Enhancements sit in their own zone and are never in the Frontline or Backline. Unit Enhancements attach to a Unit already in play (not a Vehicle or Champion) and change its stats or give it keywords. A Unit Enhancement is never enabled or disabled, and it leaves the battlefield with its Unit.

Tokens and removed cards

A token that leaves the battlefield is simply gone: it never goes to the discard pile. A card that is removed from the game never reaches the discard pile either, and triggers nothing on the way out.

Starting the Game

1. Each player puts their City at 30 HP and starts with 0 Scrap.
2. Shuffle your deck and draw 7 cards.
3. Mulligan. Before the game you may put your whole hand back, shuffle, and draw a fresh 7. You may do this a second time, but the second new hand is 6 cards.
4. Decide who goes first. Players alternate turns.
5. The first player skips their Combat Phase on turn 1.
6. If you go second, on your first turn you may do anything a turn-2 player could: play cards of Value 1 or 2, and bring in a Champion of Value 2. From your second turn on, count normally: your second turn is turn 2, your third is turn 3.

If you must draw from an empty deck, your City takes 1 damage instead. There is no maximum hand size.

Your Turn

Enable Draw Deployment Combat Reinforcement End

Value and Scrap

A card's Value is the turn from which it can be played. Playing a card costs nothing. There is no mana. The one resource you spend is Scrap, a running total that carries from turn to turn and is gained and spent only by card effects. Reactive Exploits have Value 0 and can be played from turn 1.

Playing Cards

Response windows

A response window opens when you play a Unit Enhancement, Field Enhancement or Tactical Exploit, and once during every Combat Phase, even when no one attacks. It always opens, so it never shows what anyone is holding. A window is short and has exactly three steps:

1. The player who did not cause it may play any number of Reactive Exploits.
2. The player who did gets one chance to answer with Reactive Exploits of their own.
3. The window closes. It never opens a third round.

Reactive Exploits resolve in the order they were played, first played first.

Combat

Attacking

In your Combat Phase, choose any of your enabled Frontline units and say what each attacks: the opposing City or an opposing unit it is allowed to attack. You declare all your attackers at once. Each attacker becomes disabled.

Combat then runs in this order:

1. You declare all your attackers and their targets.
2. Your opponent chooses any interceptors.
3. Any choices about splitting damage are made.
4. One response window opens for the whole attack.
5. When it closes, all the damage happens.

If a card's ability disables an attacking unit before damage, that attack is cancelled and deals no damage.

Intercepting

After attackers are declared, the defending player may intercept: an enabled Frontline unit steps in front of an attack and fights the attacker instead of the original target. An interceptor becomes disabled. You may decline to intercept.

• Each interceptor blocks one attacker, but several interceptors may block the same attacker.
• A unit that is itself being attacked in this combat cannot intercept.

Damage

• An attack that nobody intercepts deals its ATK to its target: a City loses that much HP.
• A fight deals damage both ways at the same time: each card takes the other's ATK.
• A card that has taken damage equal to or more than its DEF is destroyed. Damage wears off at the End Phase, so a wound lasts only the turn it was dealt.
• If your attacker can't destroy all of its interceptors, you choose which ones to destroy and where the rest of its damage goes.
• If several attackers hit one of your units, you choose how that unit's ATK is split among them.

Keywords

A keyword changes who may attack or intercept, or how damage works. Its reminder text appears on the card.

Flying

Can only be attacked or intercepted by Battlefield Objects with Flying or Barrage.

Barrage

May target or intercept Battlefield Objects with Flying.

Evasion

Can only be attacked or intercepted by Battlefield Objects with Flying or Phase.

Phase

Can only be attacked or intercepted by Battlefield Objects with Phase.

Bypass

Can only be attacked or intercepted by Battlefield Objects with DEF 2 or more.

Kaiju

May only be intercepted by two or more Battlefield Objects.

Impact

If all intercepting Battlefield Objects are destroyed, remaining combat damage is dealt to the original target.

Save the Day

This Battlefield Object does not become disabled when attacking or intercepting.

Drift

The drifted Unit or Vehicle's Attack becomes 0 until the end of the Combat Phase.

These keywords protect in both directions: a card with Phase can only be attacked by, and when it attacks can only be intercepted by, cards with Phase. A keyword never stops its own card from attacking anything.

Champions and Nemeses

Every deck has a Champion: a powerful leader who waits beside your deck. A Champion and its Nemesis are the two faces of one card.

Bringing in your Champion

• A Champion has its own Value. From that turn on you may bring it in during any phase of your own turn, but never during your opponent's turn. It enters enabled, on the Frontline or Backline, as you choose.
• Its Activation Protocol happens once, when it first enters.
• Its Passive works as long as it is on the battlefield. Its Disable ability is yours to use.

Flipping to the Nemesis

• The Nemesis has its own Value. The flip opens on the turn before that Value.
• Flip during your Deployment or Reinforcement Phase, once per turn, with your Champion enabled and a free Backline space. Press it to its other face.
• The Nemesis enters disabled on your Backline. It enables at your next Enable Phase, which is the turn of its Value, and its Activation Protocol happens then.
• You may flip it back to the Champion the same way. The Champion likewise goes to the Backline disabled, and its Activation Protocol does not happen again. A card effect can also force a flip.
• If your Champion is still waiting beside your deck when its Nemesis's Value turn arrives, you may bring it in as the Nemesis instead. It enters enabled, and its Activation Protocol happens at once.

Example. A Nemesis with Value 5 can flip on turn 4. It is disabled until your turn 5 Enable Phase, when it wakes and its Activation Protocol happens.

Winning and Losing

You win when your opponent's City is at 0 HP or less. If both Cities reach 0 HP at the same time, the game is a draw.

Quick Reference