Golden rules and precedence

The rules that decide what happens when the rules themselves collide.

Card text beats the rulebook#

Where a card's text and the comprehensive rules contradict each other, the card wins. Everything else in this handbook is the default behaviour a card is allowed to override.

Restriction beats permission#

If one effect tries to make something happen and another effect forbids it, the forbidding effect wins. "Cannot" is stronger than "may" and stronger than "does".

The impossible simply does not happen#

• An instruction a player cannot carry out does nothing.

• An instruction a player can only partly carry out is carried out as far as possible.

• Making a game state become something it already is does nothing, and does not count as having happened.

• Doing something zero times, or a negative number of times, does nothing — and never happens in reverse.

• Where several effects each demand something and they cannot all be satisfied, the player must choose the option that satisfies as many of them as possible.

Numbers#

• Values attached to players and cards may be zero or negative unless a limit says otherwise.

• Where an action other than addition or subtraction would be based on a negative value, treat the value as zero.

• When a player is asked to choose a number, it must be zero or a positive integer — no fractions, no negatives. "Up to X" with no stated floor allows zero.

Who decides first#

The turn player. Where both players must decide something at the same time, the turn player chooses first and the non-turn player chooses afterwards, knowing what the turn player picked. Two refinements:

• if an effect applies to both players and involves a series of actions, the parts that involve no choice happen simultaneously, and the parts that involve choices start with the turn player;

• if both players must choose cards in a hidden zone at the same time, the turn player picks first without looking, then the non-turn player picks; anything to be revealed is revealed only after both have chosen.

Source: Comprehensive Rules ver. 1.00 (30 July 2026) §1.3 “Golden Rules of the Game”.