Section 11 of 13 · free · no account
Advanced play
Sequencing, tempo, how much to commit and when to spend an answer. The decisions inside a turn once you already know what every card does.
What this section covers
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1
Order inside a turn
The same three plays in a different order are not the same turn.
Mystic Poro has Vision: when it lands you look at the top card of your deck and may recycle it. Stalwart Poro just arrives. One of these gives you information you could still act on.
Mystic Poro, because Vision looks at your deck and you still have 2 energy left to react to what you see. Sequencing is free value: same cards, same turn, more information.
2 hands-on tests · Core Rules 163, 351 -
2
How much to commit
Send what the job needs. Every extra body is a bigger target.
Normally you would not commit into open runes. On 7 points you do, because the alternative is passing the turn to a player who gets to untap and answer at leisure. 3 plus 2 kills their 4, you conquer, and the game is over before their Reactions matter.
They are holding two Reactions and four ready runes. Every extra body at that battlefield is another card a single spell can catch. You already have the point; the second and third unit buy nothing and risk everything.
3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 172, 806 -
3
When to use the answer
One removal spell, several targets, and only one right moment.
Normally you would never spend removal on a 1 Might body. Here that body is holding a battlefield that wins them the game at the end of their turn, so it stops being a cheap unit and becomes the only thing that matters. Save your answers, except when saving them loses.
Pass and keep the answer. Your 3 Might unit already beats their 1 Might unit in a fight, so spending a card to kill it is paying a card for something your board does for free. The 4 cost in their hand is what the answer is for.
3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 806, 813 -
4
Splitting damage
Damage is assigned by you, and how you split it decides who dies.
All 2 into one of them kills it. Splitting one damage each leaves two units alive on 1 damage that heals at the end of the turn, which is the same as not attacking at all. When you cannot kill two, kill one.
If the numbers do not add up to two kills, put everything into the biggest thing you can actually kill. Two damaged survivors that heal at the end of the turn is the worst outcome available.
2 hands-on tests · Core Rules 173.4, 819 -
5
What holding up says
Ready runes and a card in hand are a threat whether or not you can back it up.
Pass with everything up. From their side this is indistinguishable from holding a Reaction, and it costs you nothing because you had nothing to cast on their turn anyway. Free bluffs are the only kind worth making.
Play it. Holding up runes on your own turn represents nothing, because the energy expires before their turn starts. A bluff that costs you a real play on your own turn is not a bluff, it is a wasted turn.
3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 806
How this section is taught
Advanced play is 5 lessons and 13 tests, played on a board with real cards. Every idea above is shown with the card that does it and then handed to you to perform. Get it wrong and the trainer names the rule you missed at the moment you miss it.
Core Rules cited in this section
163 172 173.4 351 806 813 819
Every clause number above is checked against the official Riftbound Core Rules and printed on screen inside the lesson, so you can read the rule the trainer is teaching from.