Gameplay

How to play GatekeeperDCG

Victory Condition

To deplete the enemies soul points. A persons soul points is equal to their deck count x 10. For example, a 40 card deck would yield 400 soul points.

Field

Each side of the board is each players domain. It is on their domain they can play cards from their hand. Each domain has 2 sides. The Frontline, which houses the players deck, has two sides, the offence and defense side. Some cards have bonuses when put into specific sides. The second side is the Backline. Cards can be placed facedown in the Backline to generate spirit, used in rituals, or placed as support in which they can use supportive abilities and not be targeted.

Spirit

The Gatekeepers spirit. Spirit is used for basically everything. It can release (activate) seals, use abilities, and amplify your Offense and Defense.

Armament

Players can refine their decks strategies by equipping Armaments. You must equip 2 Armaments, one weapon and one offhand for every fight. Weapons typically affect the damage you can deal and off hand typically have special affects you can activate.

Deck

The players seals they carried into the fight. The number of seals/cards in the deck determines the players soul points. A player can have a minimum of 50 cards and a max of 100. Every card has a DV, Deck Value. A gatekeeper can only have so much DV in his deck before the seals lose effectiveness due to dilution. This number is called the TDV, total deck value, and corresponds to the Gatekeepers level + 100. For example, a level 25 Gatekeeper can have 125 TDV. They can use low DV cards in order to have more cards in his deck and thus more SP (Soul Points) OR put high costed ones and have low SP.

Force

The players Offense and Defense capabilities in numerical form. All sealed subjects once summoned will give you their base Offense and Defense. For example, if a gatekeeper has 2 offense and 2 defense and plays a card that has 2 offense and 3 defense, the gatekeepers new offense would be 4 and deference would be 5. In the Beginning Combat phase players can spend spirit to multiply their offense and defense. The total number is called the Offense/Defense Force. For example if the above gatekeeper used 4 spirit on offense and 1 spirit on defense the gatekeepers Offense Force would be 16 and Defense Force would be 5.

Clashing

Players take turns simultaneously, meaning they cannot see what each other has done until the end of the turn. At the end of the turn players each player spends will to boost their offence and/or defense. If one players offense is higher than the others defense then whatever trump effects happen, this is called a Trump. Vice versa for defense against offence. For example, Player 1 paid 2 spirit to activate the following effect, "Offense Trump: Deal 20 damage". If player 1 wins the Offense Trump, player 2 takes 20 damage.

Turn Order

Start Phase > Plan Phase > Beginning Combat > Action >  End Phase

Start Phase

The start of the game. Both players draw 7 cards. They may shuffle their hand into their deck if they want to redraw, but every time after the 1st they must redraw one less card. This is called Mulligan. After both players mulligan or not they may set up to two cards into their Backline facedown. Once both players decide whether to do this or not the game proceeds into the Plan Phase.

Plan Phase

This is the phase where both players may play 1 card in support and summon/use other cards. They can set cards for temporary spirit and use abilities. Summoned cards don't activate until the end of the turn. Once both players are done they must hit ready and proceed into beginning combat.

Beginning Combat

Both players have 20 seconds to either pump spirit into Offense or Defense. Once the timer runs out or both players selected the game goes into Action.

Action

The game shows what each players new Offense and Defense force is. It then determines Trumps and conditions and automatically goes into End Phase

End Phase

AKA Combat Resolve. Effects in the action phase finalize at the END of the end phase. This phase allows players who have react abilities or special cards that can activate at the end phase to be used here in order to try and change what happened in the action phase. For example, if player two would take 30 damage he can use react ability, bastion, and reduce the damage hed take by half. So at the end of the END phase he only take 15. When the end phase is complete and all effects are finalized and the game transitions back into the Plan Phase