How to play Meldvale

Two players, 24 Life each, a 30-card deck. Get your rival to 0 first.

Your starter comes with a deck, so you can play your first duel without building one.

Reading a card

Cards come in two kinds. Monsters stay in your row. Tactics do one thing and go to your discard pile.

Cost: The tiles at the top left. A tile with an affinity's mark needs that affinity's Focus. A gray tile takes any Focus.
Level: The diamonds at the top right, 1 to 4.
Affinity: The color of the frame. It's also written under the painting.
Rules text: What the card does. Bold words such as On Level Up: say when it happens.
Attack and Health: Attack is the number at the bottom left. Health is at the bottom right.

Starting a duel

Each player shuffles their deck and draws 5 cards.
If your hand has no Level 1 monster, it is shown to both players and put on the bottom of your deck. Then you draw 5 new cards. This repeats until your hand has a Level 1 monster.
The first player is chosen at random. They don't draw a card on their first turn.

Your turn

Grow Focus. Choose an affinity. Its Focus grows by 1, and then all your Focus refills.
Draw 1 card.
Play. In any order, you can summon monsters, Level Up a monster, search, play Tactics, attack and Dismiss.
End your turn. If you have more than 8 cards in your hand, discard down to 8.

A turn has a timer: 45 s for your first turn and 35 s for each turn after it. When it runs out, your turn ends.

Focus

Focus is what cards cost. Every Focus belongs to an affinity.

You grow 1 Focus each turn, up to 8 in all.
You can grow Focus in at most three affinities in a duel.
A cost of 2 Water Focus and 1 generic Focus is paid with 2 Water Focus and 1 Focus of any affinity.
Focus you don't spend isn't kept. All of it comes back at the start of your next turn.

Monsters

Summon a Level 1 monster from your hand by paying its cost and choosing its place in your row.

Your row holds at most three monsters.
Your row can hold only one monster of a family at a time.
A monster can't attack or Level Up on the turn it arrives.
A monster that has just arrived is safe until your next turn. It can't be attacked, but you still can be.

To make room, you can Dismiss one of your own monsters. Pay 1 Focus and it goes to your discard pile.

Level Up

Once each turn, you can Level Up a monster that didn't arrive this turn. Play its family's next form from your hand onto it and pay that form's cost.

Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Crossform

The new form keeps the monster's place and its damage.
A monster that has already attacked this turn doesn't get another attack by Leveling Up.
A Level 4 form is a Crossform. It has two affinities, so you need Focus in both to play it.

Search

Once each turn, you can discard a monster card from your hand to search your deck for any card of that monster's family. The card you find goes to your hand and is shown to both players.

So a spare Level 1 in your hand is never dead weight. It can become the form you need.

Attacking

Each of your monsters can attack once a turn. It can attack an enemy monster that isn't safe, or it can attack your rival.

When a monster attacks a monster, each deals damage equal to its Attack to the other.
When a monster attacks your rival, they lose Life equal to its Attack.
Damage stays on a monster from turn to turn.
A monster is defeated when its damage reaches its Health. It goes to its owner's discard pile.

Guard, Shield and other words

Guard: Attacks must be aimed at a monster with Guard first. While your rival has a Guard, you can't attack them. A Guard that has just arrived doesn't work until it can be attacked. Prismhare has Guard.
Shield: A Shield stops the next damage to its monster, or the next enemy Tactic aimed at it, and then breaks.
Unique: A deck may hold only one copy of a Unique card.
safe: A monster is safe from the moment it arrives until its owner's next turn. It can't be attacked, and its Guard doesn't work yet.
On Summon, On Level Up, On Defeat: What follows happens when the monster is summoned, when it Levels Up into this form, or when it is defeated.
adjacent: Directly left or right in the same row.
mark: A label a card puts on an enemy monster. It does nothing by itself. Cards that speak of marked monsters say what happens.

Tactics

Play a Tactic on your turn by paying its cost. It does what it says once and goes to your discard pile.

A Tactic can be aimed at a safe monster.
Guard doesn't stop a Tactic.
A Shield stops an enemy Tactic aimed at its monster. The Tactic is still spent.

Winning

A player at 0 Life is defeated.
A player who has to draw from an empty deck is defeated.
You can concede a duel at any time.

Building a deck

A deck is exactly 30 cards.
It has at least 8 Level 1 monsters.
It has at most 4 copies of a card, and 1 copy of a Unique card.

Keep a deck to 3 affinities. Nothing stops you putting in more, but you can only grow Focus in 3 during a duel, so cards of a fourth usually can't be played. Plan one in the deck builder, or start from a starter deck.

Good to know

Safe protects the monster, not you. Your rival can still attack you.
A Guard that is still standing is still in the way.
A card you search for goes to your hand, not into play. You still pay its cost.
A Shield also stops an enemy Tactic.
A card of a fourth affinity can't be played once you have grown Focus in three others.