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DEMO COMING SOON

Manacaster x Kickstarter @ SPIEL Essen
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Welcome to Manacaster
Manacaster is a 1v1 fantasy card battle game where strategy and skill reign supreme. We aim to bring back the vibe of old school card gaming, with balanced game-play and no pay-to-win: just buy the game, get the full set of cards. Wishlist now on steam, and prepare for tabletop cards later this year!

Reignite Old Rivalries
With precision-balance and fast-paced combat, Manacaster is designed to satisfy your hunger for tabletop violence, deception, and strategy. If you feel nostalgic for the feeling of battling friends at the kitchen table, slinging monsters and spells until the early hours of the morning, this game is for you.

Launching Soon
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How To Play
Construct a deck of 50 Units and Actions and a separate deck of 13 Mana cards as resources, then dive in! Units are used to attack and defend, while actions can strengthen your forces or destroy enemy troops. Players can never stop an action or unit from being deployed, but they always get a chance for a rebuttal, as each player can only take one move at a time like in chess.

Plan Your Strategy
In Manacaster, skill leads to victory.
Players get to craft their opening hand
from a set of options, and both players
deploy a Mana resource of choice every
turn (up until turn 12), ensuring that
strategic decision making is more
important than the luck of the draw.

Inflict Massive Damage
Each of the elemental types in Manacaster possesses powerful Keyword abilities. Use Keyword combinations like Twinstrike and Heavy to push through extra damage, or Parry and Extract to deflect damage and gain Life Points. Click here to see the full list of Keywords and the rules!
What's Next?
Digital & Tabletop In The Works
Digital Version
Play Anywhere, Anytime
The steam game is now in Closed Beta, and we are giving out early access steam keys for content creators who wish to give it a shot. Public Demo coming soon, join our Discord to get involved and stay up to date!
Bring the Game to Life
Tabletop Edition
We will be launching a crowd funding campaign for Manacaster, with our first physical products coming in mid 2025. Join our email list to stay posted on product releases!
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Setting Up the GameManacaster is a strategic card battle game where players aim to reduce their opponent's life points from 20 to 0. • Each player prepares a 50-card Main deck and a 12-card Mana deck. • Set aside the Mana deck and shuffle the Main deck. • Randomly determine which player starts with Combat Priority.
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Drawing the Starting Hand• Look at the top 14 cards of your Main deck and keep 6 or 7. • If you kept 6, draw one more random card. • All players should have exactly 7 cards in hand. • Reshuffle unchosen cards back into the deck.
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Types of CardsUnits: Personnel that can attack or defend. • They remain on the board until defeated. Actions: Represent temporary or permanent effects. • Discarded after use. Mana: Provide one Mana per turn, used to deploy Units and Actions. • There are two types of Mana cards. Mono Mana: Provides one elemental type of Mana, ready to use immediately. Hybrid Mana: Offers a choice between two elemental Mana types. • Hybrid Mana enter tapped unless you pay 1 life point. • You may deploy an untapped Hybrid Mana for free on turn 12. •Deploy one Mana card each turn until your Mana deck is empty. •Mana cards stay in play, and untap at the end of each turn.
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Turn Structure• Starting Phase: Refresh cards, clear damage, remove temporary effects. • Pre-Combat Phase: With attacker acting first, both players may Deploy Mana, Units & Actions. • Combat Phase: Attack with Units (if you have Combat Priority). • Post-Combat Phase: Deploy more cards. Defending players act first after being attacked. • End of Turn: Both players draw a card. If you run out of cards to draw, you lose.
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Combat Basics•The player with Combat Priority chooses attacking Units. • Defending player selects blocking Units. • Resolve combat (see Combat Steps for details). • Unblocked attackers deal damage directly to the defending player. • Multi-Blocking Defenders can use multiple Units to block a single attacker. • The attacker then chooses how to distribute damage among blockers.
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Combat Steps• Declare attackers • Declare blockers • Resolve Ambush damage • Resolve standard damage • Apply combat-related effects
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Stacks & Order of OperationsWhen multiple triggers activate simultaneously, resolve in the following order: • Players gain life • Players draw cards • Players discard cards • Apply automatic beneficial Unit effects • Apply chosen beneficial Unit effects • Apply automatic negative Unit effects • Apply chosen negative Unit effects • Deal damage & apply life loss
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The Elemental KeywordsEach Elemental Keyword is associated with two different elements & each Element has access to three Keywords in total: HEAVY (Water & Metal) • When this Unit attacks and is blocked, any excess damage to the blockers is automatically passed along to the defending player. ALERT (Solar & Earth) • This Unit doesn't tap when attacking, allowing it to always block. AMBUSH (Solar & Lunar) • This Unit deals damage in the Primary damage phase during Combat, before most other Units deal their damage. TWINSTRIKE (Flame & Metal) • This Unit deals damage twice during combat: once in the Ambush damage phase and once in the Combat damage phase. PARRY (Solar & Metal) • When this Unit receives combat damage, it gains +DEF equal to the incoming damage, capped by this Unit's ATK. Triggers twice against Twinstrike. RIPOSTE (Lunar & Earth) • When this Unit blocks or is blocked by an enemy Unit, it gains +ATK equal to its own DEF, capped by the enemy Unit's ATK. REVENGE (Flame & Water) • When this Unit is dealt combat damage, it deals damage to the enemy Unit equal to the received damage, capped by this Unit's DEF. LEECH (Earth & Water) • When this Unit deals combat damage, you gain life equal to the damage dealt, capped by the enemy Unit's DEF. EXTRACT (Lunar & Flame) • When this Unit is dealt combat damage, you gain Life equal to the incoming damage, capped by this Unit's DEF.
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The Neutral KeywordsNeutral Keywords may appear on any card, regardless of its elemental costs. RAPID: Can attack the turn it's deployed. RALLY: +1/+1 when you deploy a Unit (until end of turn). FOCUS: +2 ATK when you deploy an Action (until end of turn).
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