Card effects

What this section covers

1. 1

   Making them discard

   Play a card, watch it hit their hand, see exactly what left.

   Their hand drops by one and the card goes to their trash. Note who made which choice: the card let you choose the player, and in a real game they would choose which card unless the effect says otherwise. Reading exactly who decides what is most of playing effects correctly.

   The card says they discard, not that you choose. A real opponent bins their worst card, so you rarely take the one you wanted. Effects that let you choose cost noticeably more for exactly this reason.

   3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 422, 052
2. 2

   Costs written into abilities

   Some cards make you pay twice. Read before you commit.

   Pass. An ability with a cost you cannot pay is not an option you get to half use, and neither is a card in hand you cannot afford. Recognising a dead turn early stops you from making it worse.

   Any of the three was correct. The rainbow symbol is deliberately generic, unlike Bone Skewer’s Chaos pip which accepts nothing else. Telling those two apart at a glance is worth practising.

   3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 463, 464, 422

How this section is taught

Card effects is 2 lessons and 6 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

052 422 463 464

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.