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What every part of the board is, how you win, what goes in a deck, and a whole first turn played start to finish.
What this section covers
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1
What you are looking at
Every part of the board, pointed at one at a time.
The battlefields. Controlling these is the only way to score, and there are exactly two ways to do it. A Conquer is taking a battlefield you did not already control, and it scores the moment it happens. A Hold is still controlling one at the start of your next turn, and it scores then. Kill every unit they own and take no battlefields, and you are still losing.
Your runes. They pay for everything, in two different currencies: energy, which is colourless and pays the plain numbers in a cost, and power, which has a colour and pays the coloured pips. You start a game with no runes at all. Every one arrived from a separate 12 card Rune Deck by channelling, which just means moving runes from that deck onto the board.
3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 107, 108, 112, 315.3.b, 480.7 -
2
How to read a card
Every number, pip and line on a card, and which ones you check first.
Both die. Shield gives +1 Might while defending, so your 2 Might Poro defends as a 3 and that is enough to kill their 3 Might Stalker. But combat damage is dealt simultaneously (rule 460.2), and their 3 is lethal against your 3 as well. Shield bought you the trade, not the unit: without it your Poro would have died and killed nothing.
Evershade Stalker. A keyword in brackets is shorthand with its meaning printed underneath; a plain sentence is the whole effect. Both are binding, and card text always beats the rulebook when they disagree (rule 002).
3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 162.1.a, 163.1, 355.2.a -
3
What goes in a deck
Five separate piles, and only one is the deck people mean.
Each player brings three battlefields, built into their deck (rule 480.4.a). Before the game each player randomly selects one of their three and the other two are removed (rule 480.5). So a duel is played on two battlefields, one contributed by each player, and neither of you chose which of your three it would be.
Your 12 card Rune Deck is separate from your 40 card Main Deck (rule 104). You never draw runes into hand; you channel two out of that deck every Channel Phase (rule 315.3.b), and they arrive ready.
3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 101, 103, 103.3.a, 480.4 -
4
Setting up the table
Where each pile goes before the first turn.
The one in your base. You never move, exhaust or spend a unit you do not control, however close it is sitting. Control decides what you may touch, not position on the table.And again: your runes did not move. A unit pays for its own move by exhausting itself (rule 144.2), so runes are never spent on it.
Turn order is decided by any fair random method (rule 116). The player going second channels one extra rune in their first Channel Phase only (rule 480.7), so they open on three rather than two. That is the compensation for not going first.
3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 110, 111, 112, 114, 115, 480.7 -
5
Your opening hand
Draw four, swap up to two. Not a full mulligan.
Recycled means shuffled back into the Main Deck (rule 118.3), not binned. Nothing is lost, you may draw them later, and your deck count is back where it started. That is the whole mulligan: a swap of at most two, never a fresh hand.
The 2 drop uses your whole turn. Playing the 1 drop leaves one energy floating that empties at end of turn (rule 317.2.d), which is a turn you partly threw away.
3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 116, 117 -
6
A whole first turn
Draw, mulligan, channel, play one card, pass. The shape of every turn.
The leftover energy is gone. The Ending Phase heals damage, expires anything that said "this turn", and empties both rune pools (rule 317). Energy never carries, which is why a turn should end with an empty pool whenever you had something to spend it on.
The Ending Phase is the last of the six. It heals damage on every surviving unit, expires anything that said "this turn", and empties both rune pools. Unspent energy is lost, which is why you spend it rather than save it.
3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 117, 118.3, 315.1, 315.3.b, 315.4, 316, 317, 480.7 -
7
How you actually win
Eight points, two ways to get them, and one catch on the last one.
At 7 points, a Conquer only gives the winning point if you scored every battlefield that turn; otherwise you draw a card (rule 466.1.b.2). A Hold has no such restriction (466.1.b.1). Games do not end on one lucky push into an empty space.
Your 3 Might kills their 2 and takes the battlefield. Holding is scored in the controller’s Beginning Phase (rule 315.2.b), so contesting before their next turn starts denies the point outright.
3 hands-on tests · Core Rules 478, 467, 464, 459, 466
How this section is taught
Start here is 7 lessons and 21 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
101 103 103.3.a 107 108 110 111 112 114 115 116 117 118.3 162.1.a 163.1 315.1 315.3.b 315.4 316 317 355.2.a 459 464 466 467 478 480.4 480.7
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.