The Dominion is laid out for a device held sideways. Turn your device to landscape to play.
You can change this any time in Settings: Allow portrait on small devices.Goal: win in any one of three ways: bring the enemy's Life (24 to start) to 0, make them run out of cards (Outlast), or score 7 Conquest by holding the Heart of the Dominion.
The middle of the table is the Dominion: the Heart (which you claim) and three Reaches. Each player has one follower position in each Reach. A Realm is laid on the Heart, where it changes the rules for everyone, or planted on a Reach as your shrine. A Reach card can be laid only on a Reach. The Heart stacks 2 layers; a third buries the oldest. Each Reach has one shared slot, and laying a card there buries the one already in it.
Plant on a Reach only when you have a follower there and the enemy has none. A veiled follower does not count. The Heart has no such limit. A shrine gives Belief only to the player who laid it, and only while that player's follower stands there. A Heart realm on a Reach gives +1 Belief for each of its bonuses, and its Heart effect does not apply. Attack-cost changes apply only on the Heart.
Belief shows how strongly your Main is remembered. It is passive and never spent: +1 per face-up follower, +1 more if the follower shares your Main's faction, plus shrine Belief from realms you laid on Reaches, up to 6. A veiled follower gives none, including no shrine Belief. At 3: +1 ATK, and your legend's Signature (or a fusion's Entwined Power) is free once per turn. At 5: +1 DEF. At 6: +1/+1 more. Belief resets when your Main is replaced.
Pay 1 Influence to set a follower from your hand face down in a free Reach. Legends cannot be veiled, and a veiled card never starts in the Main. While it is face down it fights with its printed Attack and Defense only: no keywords, no Belief, no support, and no Arrival. Your opponent sees only a face-down card. It does not count for planting, and it gives no shrine Belief.
If it is attacked and survives, it flips face up and its Arrival does not trigger. If it dies face down, it is revealed in your discard pile. On a later turn you may pay its cost minus 1 to turn it face up; then its Arrival triggers. If your Main slot is empty, you may pay that same cost to unveil it straight into the Main. Its Arrival triggers, and it can attack that turn. Attack traps can still fire against a veiled follower. A board wipe destroys it like any other follower. A revived follower always comes back face up.
A Main with no followers fades: -1/-1 at the start of each of your turns, up to -3/-3. A new Main has Grace for its first 2 turns. Fade never kills, and it clears as soon as you have a follower.
Each faction has 3 legends (mythic heroes and gods). A legend can only be played as your Main. Fulfil its requirement and it Awakens (+1/+1, permanently while it stays your Main). Play a legend of another faction onto an Awakened legend Main (paying its cost, and your current Main's requirement must be met) to form a Mythical Fusion: one of 189 creatures that keeps your followers, equipment and hold on the Heart. A legend of the same faction simply replaces. Every fusion you see goes into the Codex: Witnessed when you see it, Mastered when you form it yourself.
Every turn you gain Influence (2 at first, +1 more every 4 rounds up to 4). Holding the Heart gives no extra Influence (some Heart realms do). You can bank at most 8. Cards cost Influence equal to their rank. Attacking costs 1 and claiming costs 2 (never less than 1). You can also convert Influence into a Shield.
Hunger is a second pool, used by The Hollow. It starts at 0 and holds at most 10. It stays from turn to turn until a card spends it. You do not gain Hunger at the start of your turn unless a card says so. A Hollow deck shows it as ten stacked segments beside that player's Main, from deep mustard through burnt orange to oxblood. A deck that is not Hollow never shows the bar.
A card that says a creature dies means an actual death: combat, a destroy effect, or a creature finished because its Defense fell when a follower died. Replacing a Main or a follower, choosing a card to discard, an Offering, and a fusion leaving to bond do not count. A Fusion Breaker wipes creatures without a death.
Spend Influence 1:1 to raise a Shield. It absorbs damage to you and your creatures first, and it is persistent: it carries over from turn to turn until damage uses it up. One catch: at the start of your next turn it wears down by half the Influence you paid into it on your previous turn (rounded down: pay 1, lose 0; pay 3, lose 1; pay 4, lose 2). Shield from cards, traps and ongoing effects never wears down. The counter shows the coming loss, e.g. Shield 6 (−2 next turn).
Tap your Main and choose ⛨ Defend (free) to put it in Defense until your next turn. A shield token marks it. While defending it can't attack or claim and deals no combat damage. In exchange, attacks aimed at your Life (possible only while the enemy holds the Heart) hit your Main instead, so no damage reaches your Life. After your Shield absorbs its share, the Main survives if its remaining DEF is at least the blow, and it is destroyed if the blow is greater. You can't defend two turns in a row. Claims against a defending Main work as usual. If you hold the Heart, you score no Conquest while defending: you keep the Heart, but the point at the start of your next turn is skipped.
Each faction has a Sacred Rune, an ongoing card that costs 0 Influence. To play it, pay 5 Life (you need more than 5). It counts toward your limit of 2 ongoing cards, and it does not expire. While it is in play, at your draw step you may skip the draw, pay 1 Life (you need more than 1), and gain 1 Influence.
If your opening hand has no creature or trap you can afford on your first turn, you may redraw once: the whole hand goes to your discard pile and you draw the same number of new cards. It costs no Influence, and your first turn plays normally.
To claim the Heart, pay the claim cost and exhaust your Main. You need a Main whose ATK is at least the enemy Main's remaining DEF, or the enemy must have no Main. While you hold it you gain +1 Conquest at the start of each of your turns (none if your Main spent the round in Defense) and the right to attack the enemy player directly, unless Fusion Guard protects that player. Without the Heart you can only attack creatures. If your Main dies, you lose your hold.
The two creatures hit each other at the same time. Damage stays on a creature, and it dies when its damage reaches its DEF. Element advantage gives +1 damage, and the weak side deals -1 (Storm > Frost > Verdant > Jade > Sun > Spirit > Storm). Shade is outside that cycle: it deals no bonus and takes no penalty against any element. A Mythical Fusion that includes Shade neither gives nor takes that point, so its other element does not apply. Creatures can't act on the turn they arrive unless they have swift.
A trap is set face down (1 at a time). When its trigger happens (you are attacked, the Heart is claimed against you, or a Fusion Breaker is played against you), the game pauses and asks you: Activate it, or Let it pass. A trap you let pass stays face down and can trigger again later. The opponent never learns which trap you hold, or that you let one pass, until you activate it.
Unaligned spells that answer a Mythical Fusion. They can only be played while the enemy Main is a fusion, at most one a turn, and they cost a lot of Influence. If one resolves, every creature on both sides is destroyed (both Mains, all followers, equipment), both Beliefs reset and the Heart becomes unheld. Realms, traps and ongoing effects stay, and both players rebuild from hand. Max 1 per deck.
The fusion's owner may answer: pay 2 Conquest (the Breaker returns to its caster's hand; their Influence stays spent), or activate a breaker-ward trap (⛨; the Breaker is negated and discarded), or let it resolve.
This happens only when one Mythical Fusion attacks the other. If one fusion destroys the other and survives, its owner wins the match. If both fusions die in that same fight, the game goes on. A fusion that dies to a spell, a Fusion Breaker, another follower, or damage that spills over does not win or lose the match this way.
When your opponent forms a Mythical Fusion, you may fuse at once on their turn if your Main is an Awakened legend and your hand holds a legend from the other faction it can fuse with. You pay that legend's cost. You do not draw a card. If you decline, nothing changes. A fight between the two fusions uses Fusion Face-off: destroy the other and survive, and you win; if both die, the game goes on.
While your Main is a Mythical Fusion, enemy attacks can't hit your Life directly. They have to attack your fusion or one of your followers. Conquest still works. With no fusion in play, an enemy who holds the Heart can attack your Life directly as usual.
Every opponent plays one of four styles: The Oracle's Balance (Balanced) weighs every path, The Warlord's Oath (Aggressive) races your Life, The Warden's Vigil (Defensive) shields and waits, and The Sovereign's Claim (Claim-focused) marches on the Heart. The Trickster's Dice (Random) plays any legal move, and the four First rivals (Classic) are the old legacy AI.
Cards leave the board only when they die, expire (Ongoing), spring (Traps), are replaced or wiped (a new Main, or a Fusion Breaker), are buried (Realm layers), unravel (a fusion's sources when it dies), or fall with their holder (Equipment). Each of these is shown in the log with a ✖ and a flash on the board. Click Discard to see every card in a player's discard pile.