Cards

You want Cards.
You need Cards.
Cards are power.
Cards will bring you glory.

That's why you're a Card Hunter.

Every ability your party has, every action you take, every sword swung and every spell cast...
... is on a card.
You literally won't get anywhere without using your cards. Movement is on a card, too.

Cards are the basic unit of the Card Hunter combat game. When it's your turn, you get to play one of the cards that your adventurers have drawn out of a deck that represents their entire stock of abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Yes, some of your own cards can actually do bad things to you while your opponent chortles. But that will only make your eventual triumph all the more sweet. You are planning to win, aren't you?

Card Origins

see also: Items

Each of your characters has a deck of 36 cards, plus a special one called the Default Move Card. For a party of three, that's a total of 111 cards to play with. (In the very early game for new players, while some game mechanics are being introduced, your characters may have fewer cards than that. But they grow up fast.) How do you get all those cards? Cards come from the Items that your characters equip: each item bestows certain abilities that translate into cards for your deck. For example, the item known as Puppeteer's Headband includes two copies of the Teleport Other card and one copy of Maze of the Mind. Those three cards are shuffled along with the other 33 cards, and if you draw Teleport Other or Maze of the Mind during play you will have an opportunity to cast a powerful magic spell. If your luck is such that you don't draw the cards, then you can't use the abilities of your Puppeteer's Headband. Of course, equipping other items can give you very different cards instead.

Using no items at all will result in a deck full of "default" cards, representing the sort of abilities that you have if you go into battle without any weapons and not wearing any armor. Those are some shameful, weak cards. But it does mean that you never need to worry about counting to see whether you have a legal deck size. By equipping any item onto your character, you substitute that item's associated cards for an equal number of cards you will no longer be using, and the total size of your deck doesn't change.

Default Move Card

The 36 cards in your regular deck come from items, but the Default Move Card has a unique origin. This card is assigned according to your character's Race: human, elf, or dwarf. The DMC is not shuffled into the regular deck with your other cards: rather, you get a new copy during the draw phase at the start of each round of play. (If you choose not to use the DMC in one round, you still get another copy in the next round.)

Parts of a Card

Parts of a Card: Bash

Each card packs a lot of information. On the right is an example of the card Bash, in both large and small sizes. (The samples are from two different preview versions, so they don't perfectly match each other — but all the parts are there.) Here's the breakdown:

Background Color

Background Color is one of the first things to see about a card. The color is a guide to how the card is used in play; in the case of Bash the red background on the left of the card and illustration denotes an Attack card. In addition, Bash has an orange background on the right side showing that it is also a Boost card. For more information on all the colors see the Card Colors article.

Title Bar

The Title Bar at the top of the card is probably the next obvious place to find information. The Title Bar includes the name of the card, and the color of the bar indicates the card's Quality Rating assigned by Blue Manchu. This preview has copper quality on the big version and silver quality on the small, because the devs changed the card properties in between previews.

Illustration

The Illustration follows immediately underneath the Title Bar. This artwork makes a card much prettier and more collectible.
A small icon in the lower right of the illustration indicates a Card's Rarity (not shown here. We need a newer picture!).

Card Info Bar

The Card Info Bar comes next under the Illustration. On the left side of the Info Bar are Keywords describing what types, if any, apply to a card. Often, protective or boosting abilities only apply to certain types or colors of cards. Bash is a Melee card that does Crushing damage, so any special abilities that affext those two types will work on Bash. On the right side of the Info Bar, you can read what specific Item placed this copy of a card into the deck. When you pay attention to what Items an enemy has equipped, you will have an idea what cards they have remaining to be played.

Instructions

Instructions may be found at the bottom of the card in one or more text boxes. These boxes tell the players (or, in this case, the game server) what to do when using the card. Many instructions use Keywords to save space, compressing some ideas that are often repeated into just one or two words. There are two kinds of text boxes, conveniently both are shown on Bash. A box that has black text on a light tan background will describe what the card does when played normally from the hand during your turn. The grey boxes with lighter text, on the other hand, give instructions for using this card as a Reaction, something that happens automatically when another card is played.

Icon Boxes

Icon Boxes are the small boxes attached to the Instructions. Some instructions are so common, they don't even get words! Of course, this is very helpful for the small card display. The Icon Boxes on a small card match the icons given in the larger set of instructions, so you can see the basics of what a card does without having to zoom in all the time. (The icons don't match in the sample because of an art revision that took place between the two pictures.)