① Defense Zone. A card that successfully defends moves to the Attack Zone.
② Attack Zone. A card that successfully attacks deals damage to the defending player.
③ Game Changer Zone. Play cards with certain skills here for a continuing effect.
④ Discard. Played cards move here when destroyed. Play cards with certain skills here directly.
⑤ Deck. Draw cards from here. A player whose deck is reduced to 0 immediately loses.
⑥ Graveyard. Damage moves cards here from the deck. Cards here cannot be seen by other players.
⑦ Hand. Play cards from here. Cards here cannot be seen by other players.

The game is played in turns. Each player's turn has three parts:

• Draw cards from your deck until you have 3 cards in your hand.
  
• Play a card to either the Attack or Defense zone.
  
• Combat (if applicable).

Your deck is your life. When damage is dealt to you, you move that many cards from your deck to your graveyard. If your deck reaches 0 cards, you immediately lose.

You win by reducing all your opponents' decks to 0.

Under most circumstances, you may play a card to either the Attack Zone or Defense Zone. If you have a card with a Discard or Game Changer skill, you may play it to the corresponding Zone before playing the usual Attack or Defense card. (If a second card is played to the Game Changer Zone, the first is discarded.)

• If you play a card to the Attack Zone, first the opponent's Attack card (if there is one) will deal damage equal to its power to you; then it will move to the Discard Zone allowing your card to replace it, and your turn will end.
  
• If you play a card to the Defense Zone, it will battle the card in the Attack Zone if there is one (see Combat). If the Attack Zone is empty, your card will automatically move to the Attack Zone and your turn will end.

If one of your cards is already in the Attack Zone, you do not need to play a card. Your turn automatically ends.

Combat occurs whenever the Attack Zone and Defense Zone both contain a card. It is represented visually by the "Scales of Battle," a graphic that looks like the hands of a clock.

Combat contains 3 steps:

• First, the rarities of the two cards are compared. The higher-rarity card gets Advantage equal to the difference in rarity; i.e. a card with SR (gold) rarity facing an enemy with C (bronze) rarity would have 2 Advantage. This is represented visually by movement of the shorter clock hand towards the lower-rarity card.
  
• Next, each of the cards' attributes (Element, Species, Size, Means) are compared. For each attribute, either the attacker or the defender may gain 1 Advantage (see Attributes section). This is represented visually by the longer clock hand moving one mark towards the card with Advantage.
  
• The card whose total Advantage is greater wins the combat. This is represented visually by the color of the marks on the Scales of Battle; marks to the right of the shorter clock hand are red (attacker) and marks to the left are blue (defender), with the color of the longer clock hand's position determining the winner. If both cards have equal Advantage (both clock hands are on the same mark), the combat is a tie.

The losing card is moved to the discard pile. If the Attack Zone card won, it deals damage equal to its power to the defending player. If the Defense Zone card won, it moves to the Attack Zone. If the combat was a tie, both cards are discarded.