King's Court

In this Death Match, players will be utilising various card effects to build up influence amongst the six great Royal Houses of the King’s Court - but you must have enough favour with the House left at the end of the game in order to score.

The Deck

The deck consists of 48 cards, in six suits (corresponding to each of the six Royal Houses), numbered from 1 to 8. Each number is associated with a particular action when played, and at the start of the game, the first player is dealt a hand of eight cards, while the second player is dealt seven cards. The player with more Garnets will decide if they will play first or second. The suits are Artois, Bellerophon, Castellia, De Bourgogne, Ellicta, and Febrois.

Set Up

Once the player with more Garnets has selected if they will play first or second, each player will receive their opening hand, and then privately assign their six Majority Bonus counters. The counters each player has access to are -2, +0, +1, +2, +3, and +5. Each player will assign one counter to one of the six Royal Houses. The majority bonus of each House is determined by the sum of the two counters there.

Turn Structure

Each turn cycles through three steps - first, the active player will draw one card, then play one card, activating its effect, and then choose one card from their hand to give to the other player. This gift card may not be the card that the player was given the previous turn. This continues until the draw deck is empty (which will occur on the first player’s turn) - the first player will finish their turn, and then the second player will conclude with an abbreviated turn consisting simply of playing a card - leaving both players with seven cards in hand.

Game End

When the game is complete, each Royal House is scored. Players score 1 point per Influence they have in each house, with each house also having a varying bonus score for the player with more Influence. However, if the sum of the numbers on the cards of that Royal House in your opponent’s hand exceeds yours, your score for that House is 0. For example, if Aaron has 7 influence in House De Bourgogne (with a majority bonus of +6), and Kevin has 3 influence, Aaron would score 13 and Kevin would score 3. However, if Kevin has the 7 of De Bourgogne in his hand, while Aaron only has the 2 and 4 of De Bourgogne, Aaron will instead score 0, and Kevin would score 3. Note that if Aaron had the 7 and Kevin had the 2 and 4, Aaron would score 13, and Kevin would score 0.

Card Actions

The effects of each card is as follows:

1 - Look at your opponent’s Majority Bonus counter in this Royal House. Switch two of your Majority Bonus counters. 2 - Place 2 Influence in this Royal House. 3 - Your opponent must choose a card of this Royal House to give you this turn, if possible. Place 1 Influence in this Royal House. 4 - Place 4 Influence in this Royal House. 5 - Move up to 3 Influence (from either player) from another Royal House into this one. 6 - Place 6 Influence in this Royal House. 7 - Move up to 4 Influence (from either player) from this Royal House into another one. 8 - Place 8 Influence in this Royal House.

Winning

Once the deck is empty, and scoring is complete, the player with the higher score will win! In the event of a tie, the player with a majority in more Royal Houses will win. If this is tied, the player with the most Influence on the board will win. If this too is tied, the player with the highest sum value of cards in hand will win.