Aeon's End

Normally each mage starts with 10 life and Gravehold with 30. Follow the mage mat for starting hand, deck order and four breach orientations. Build a shared supply of three gems, two relics and four spells. Mix basic and nemesis-specific cards within tiers according to player count, then stack tier 1 above tier 2 above tier 3 and follow the nemesis setup.

Draw turn-order cards to determine each turn. Shuffle their discards only when a draw or reveal is needed and the deck is empty. Two players each have two player cards; four players each have one. Three players each have one plus a wild card whose recipient the team chooses. Add two nemesis cards in each case; true solo uses its own configuration.

A mage’s turn has casting, main and draw phases. During casting, spells prepared in open breaches are optional, while those in closed breaches must be cast. Choose their order, discarding each spell before resolving it. A spell’s damage normally targets one minion or the nemesis and cannot be freely split.

In the main phase, repeatedly play gems or relics, buy cards, gain charges, focus or open breaches, prepare spells and resolve applicable prepared effects or power-discard conditions in any order. Gained cards normally go immediately atop your discard. Two aether buys one charge for yourself, up to the mat’s limit. Activate a fully charged ability only at its stated time, removing all charges. Unspent aether expires at turn end and cannot simply be transferred to an ally. Each main-phase “while prepped” effect may be used once per turn.

Pay a closed breach’s focus cost to rotate it clockwise, or pay its currently displayed opening cost to flip it permanently open. Normally prepare at most one spell per breach, using an open breach or a closed breach focused this turn. A newly prepared spell normally waits for your next casting phase rather than resolving its cast effect immediately.

During the draw phase, put played gems and relics atop your discard in any order, keep unplayed cards, and draw up to five; there is no general maximum hand size. If your deck cannot complete a draw or reveal, use its remaining cards, then flip the whole discard pile to make a new deck without normally shuffling. Do not freely rearrange discards; specific card effects take precedence.

The nemesis resolves existing minion persistent effects and power countdowns from oldest to newest, resolving and discarding powers when their counters reach zero, then draws one card. Attacks resolve immediately and are discarded. Minions and powers resolve immediate text and enter play; their persistent effects or countdowns normally wait until a later nemesis turn. If a draw is required from an empty nemesis deck and the game has not ended, resolve Unleash three times using that nemesis mat.

At zero life a mage becomes exhausted: resolve Unleash twice, destroy one of that mage’s breaches and discard any spell on it, then remove all charges. The mage keeps taking turns but cannot regain life. Damage beyond the amount causing exhaustion, and subsequent damage to that mage, instead deals double damage to Gravehold. All mages exhausted means defeat.

The team immediately wins when the nemesis reaches zero life, or its deck is empty with no minions or powers in play. Zero Gravehold life, all mages exhausted, or a nemesis-specific loss condition causes defeat. Stop immediately when an ending condition is met, without finishing a turn-order cycle.