Keywords

What this section covers

1. 1

   Accelerate

   Pay extra and the unit arrives ready instead of sideways.

   A point on the turn he arrived. Be precise about what Accelerate bought: an exhausted unit still holds a battlefield and still fights at full Might (rules 187.4.a and 460.2). What it cannot do is MOVE, and taking a battlefield you do not already control means moving into it. Without Accelerate he would have stood in your base until your next Awaken Phase, and they would have had a turn to answer him.

   Right call. Accelerate costs 1 energy and 1 Chaos power to save one turn, so it is only worth paying when that turn actually buys you something. With nowhere useful to go, it buys nothing.

   3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 805, 143.4
2. 2

   Shield, Deflect and Tank

   Three different ways of not dying, and they work nothing alike.

   You cannot. Tank means that unit must be assigned combat damage first (rule 815), so the Sentry behind it is unreachable until the Mouser is dealt with. Tank changes who gets hit.

   Mutated Mouser has Tank, so it must be assigned combat damage first. And with Shield 2 it defends at 3, so all 3 of your damage goes into it and the Sentry behind is untouched.

   3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 814, 809, 815, 826
3. 3

   Action and Reaction

   The two keywords that decide when a card is legal.

   Action abilities can only be used on your own turn during your Main Phase while you have priority. Reaction is the one that works on their turn. Confusing the two is how people lose games holding up answers they were never allowed to cast.

   Action means your own Main Phase or a Showdown (rule 806). Reaction is wider still: any time, even mid-resolution (rule 813). A card with neither can only be played on your turn, in an open Main Phase, with nothing else happening.

   3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 806, 813, 308, 309
4. 4

   Assault, Legion, Vision, Temporary

   Four more you will meet early, and what each is really for.

   Assault is +Might while attacking (rule 807), the mirror of Shield. Legion rewards you for having already played another card that turn (rule 812). Temporary kills the unit at the start of your next Beginning Phase (rule 816): a rental, not a purchase.

   Temporary kills the unit at the start of its controller’s next Beginning Phase. It is not a unit you build around, it is a unit you spend. Conquering with it now converts it into a point before the clock runs out.

   3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 807, 812, 817, 816

How this section is taught

Keywords is 4 lessons and 12 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

143.4 308 309 805 806 807 809 812 813 814 815 816 817 826

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.