How to Play Planarist
A quick introduction to the basics of the Planarist Trading Card Game, including basic rules and a components list.
Required
Main Deck
A primary deck, “The Materium” plane. 40-60 cards.
Health and Mana Counters
Counters to track the health of creatures and your mana stockpile.
Your chosen leader of your forces. Your deck and scion should be chosen to compliment each other.
Scion Card
Optional
Check your cards to see if they require dice or some kind of special counter.
Game Pieces
You only need planar decks if your main deck cards can contact or use them.
7 - 20 unique planar cards each
Planar Decks
Setup
To set up a game of Planarist, each player places their shuffled main deck in the bottom right corner of their side of the board. They then place their selected Scion card above it. If they have planar decks, they are placed to the side of the main board, face down and shuffled. Any counters or tokens should be placed to the side for later use.
Each player then draws five cards. Flip a coin to see who goes first.
Example of a finished set up of Planarist, each side with different Scions and planar decks.
Planar Zones
Contacting
Planarist is a game of interdimensional interaction. Before a player can leverage these supernatural powers, they must first reach out spiritually into the planar void. In the game this is called “Contacting”, and some cards will state they have the ability to do so.
When a plane is contacted, flip the top card of the plane and place it in that plane’s “Contact Zone.” Any face up cards in a “Contact Zone” are now an extension of the player’s hand, and can be played into the game.
Banishing
Banishment is the act of sending cards from anywhere to a planar deck, face down, and shuffled. Mortal, non-planar cards are always sent to the plane of Death when banished. Planar cards, being immortal, unkillable psuedo-gods, return to the planar deck from whence they came, biding their time to make their return.
Preparation Phase
The first phase of the game is about resource management. In this order:
Draw - Draw 1 card.
Generate mana - Add mana to your stockpile equal to the total “Generate x mana” effects on your controlled cards. The scion card indicates this in the top left of its card.
Upkeep mana - Remove (pay) mana from your stockpile equal to the total “Upkeep: x mana” effects on your controlled cards.
The Scion’s mana generation each turn (top left corner)
Main Phase
The Main Phase is where all of the action of Planarist occurs. Any of the follow actions may be performed in any order.
The Player can:
Deploy a Creature
Set Spells
The Player’s creatures and scion can:
Summon Creatures
Cast Spells
Use Items
Attack
Activate Effects
Tapping
Note that most of the actions above are Creature/Scion actions. Planarist is a unit (creatures and scions) centric game. Some of these actions may require “tapping” the unit, changing its orientation. At most, units may be tapped twice to the “Exhausted” position.
Actions
Here is a full list of all actions that can be taken during a Main Phase in a turn of Planarist, both by the player and their minions.
Player Actions
Deploy a creature
(No taps) Once per turn, the player may place a creature that lacks summoning skill requirements from their hand to an open creature zone on their side of the board in an upright, “Ready” position.
A deploy creature (left) has no skill (purple or orange) triangle lit up in its corner, unlike a summon creature (right)
Set spells
(No taps) By paying 1 mana, the player may place any spell card from their hand to an open spell/item zone on the board. This allows them cast that spell, with a skilled enough creature to cast it, during their opponent’s turn to disrupt a strategic play!
Creature / Scion Actions
Cast spells
(1 tap) A creature or scion may pay resources to cast a spell from either the player’s hand or from their aligned plane’s contact zone. The required resources and skills are listed in the top left corner of the spell card.
For 2 mana, the North College Planarist has enough magic (3) to cast Spiritual Snap, which requires a minimum of 2 magic.
Summon Creatures
(1 tap) A creature or scion with sufficient skill must pay the resources on summonable creature card in the player’s hand or face up in the contacted planar zone that matches the summoner’s color. The summoned creature is placed on the board in the “Winded” position (1 tap).
For 3 mana, the North College Planarist has enough magic (3) to summon her contacted Psychic Leech, which requires a minimum of 2.
Use Items
(1 tap) A creature or scion with sufficient skill, may pay the resources on an item card in the player’s hand or face up in the aligned creature / scion’s contacted planar zone to use the item.
The North College Planarist taps to read a summoning scroll from hand.
(1 “ready” tap) Slay your foes with mighty attacks from a scion or creature with at least 1 combat point. Attacking takes focus and can only be done by cards that are “Ready” (upright). The player declares the attack by selecting an enemy creature or scion as the attack target.
The defender automatically counter attacks (0 taps), dealing their combat back to the attacker.
Attack
The Dark Disciple attacks and deals 2 damage to the North College Planarist, who deals 1 damage back. The Disciple has 1 health remaining, and the Planarist dies and is banished to Death.
Activate Effect
(? taps) A creature or scion with a special ability follows the instructions printed on its card to activate its special effect. These instructions may or may not require tapping, resources, or more.
The North College Planarist taps once and pays a mana to contact the denizens of The Vortex.
Card Classes
Creatures and scions often have skill specialization. Perhaps they are a skilled mage, proficient summoner, or dedicated soldier. A card’s class gives it special powers and abilities in Planarist. Here are the main three classes in Planarist.
Magical masters and arcane experts. Specialized spellcasters. Mages can tap together to support a “primary caster” of a spell. This adds their magic to the primary caster to cast a more powerful spell they otherwise individually could not.
The Mage class symbol.
Holy teachers and spiritual psychics. Specialized summoners. Diviners can tap together to support a “primary summoner” of a creature. This adds their skills to the primary summoner to summon a more powerful creature they otherwise individually could not.
The Diviner class symbol.
Experienced warriors and hardened battle veterans. Combat masters with the ability to block attacks meant for their allies. When an ally is targeted for an attack by an enemy, an upright, “ready” soldier may 1 tap to intercept the attack, giving up their automatic counter attack.
The Soldier class symbol.
End Phase
Once all desired actions have been taken, the player can move to the end phase. During the end phase, all tapped cards are fully “untapped” to the ready position, and then the opponent take their turn.
The first Scion to reach zero health loses the game.