Polar Power

🌺 Main Match 4: Polar Power 🌺

Be the strongest pole of them all.

Each meadow has one positive player and one negative player. Coils are played to power each meadow to be more positive or negative, but opposite polarities cancel. The meadows with the strongest powers give their players points, and the player with the most points wins.

RULES

📡 Each player has been privately assigned a polarity: positive or negative. Each meadow has one positive and one negative player. The two players in each meadow know their polarities, but not anyone else.

🀄 Each player also starts with the following:

• Five postcards in various colors: white, blue, black, red, green.
• Five coils of various strengths: 1, 1, 2, 2, 3.
• One stamp.

Postcards are tradable, but only one-for-one. Coils are also tradable, but also only one-for-one. It is not allowed to trade a postcard for a coil. Stamps are tradable freely.

At the start of the game, the power of each meadow is 0; it is neutral, not charged in either direction. During the game, each meadow will receive power to pull it to the positive direction or the negative direction. For example, a meadow might end up having -5 power, which is a power of 5 in the negative direction.

The game is divided into rounds. The game ends when the end game condition is triggered, or after 12 rounds have passed, whichever is earlier.

🀄 At the start of every round, you receive a stamp. There is no limit to how many stamps you can hold, and stamps do not expire.

🀄 Also at the start of every round, if you have no postcard (and consequently no coil either), you receive your starting resources again: five postcards and five coils in the same combination as your starting resources, as well as one additional stamp.

💎 In addition, you may buy stamps at one garnet each. You cannot buy postcards or coils; the only way to get more is to empty your hand.

🧠 In each round, you may submit any number of mails. A mail consists of one postcard (of any color), one coil (of any strength), and one stamp. You may only use resources that you have.

At the end of each round, your mails are processed. Each mail you submit gives an amount of power equal to the coil, in your polarity.

🎭 For example, you are a negative player in some meadow. You submit a mail consisting of a red postcard with a coil of strength 2. Red meadow currently has power +1. Then your mail will cause red meadow to have power -1; it is pulled by 2 in the negative direction, or in other words, +1 - 2 = -1.

After all submissions are processed, some players receive points.

• The meadow with the strongest power (largest absolute value, disregarding the sign) gives 2 points to the player in that meadow matching the polarity of the power.
• The second and third strongest meadows give 1 point each, in a similar fashion.
• The two weakest meadows don't give any points.

In case of a tie, take the lower amount of points. For example, if two meadows are tied for strongest, they give 1 point each (the points awarded for second strongest meadow).

In addition, the strongest meadow is overloaded. The meadow with the strongest power gets its power reset back to 0. In case of a tie for strongest meadow, all those meadows are reset.

💎 If your meadow is reset, you receive 1 bellflower. You get the bellflower regardless of whether you were the one that scored points or not.

📡 It is announced publicly how many mails each meadow receives (i.e. how many postcards have the meadow's color). It is also announced the net total power change of each meadow. It means you can also figure out which polarity gets how many points in each meadow, and the current power of each meadow.

👑 📡 The game ends once a meadow has a combined total of 7 or more points among both players in there, or after 12 rounds have passed, whichever is earlier. The polarities of each player are revealed, and therefore their total points. The players with the most points are the winners and receive one Token of Life each. If there is a single winner, they receive two Tokens of Life. The player with the least points loses and becomes the Elimination Candidate; if there are multiple losers, the winners vote for the Elimination Candidate.

👑 💎 You get garnets based on the number of points obtained by you or the other player in your meadow, whichever is smaller. If the lesser score is 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, you get 0, 1, 2, 4, 8 garnets respectively. If the lesser score is greater than 4, you still only get 8 garnets.

ADMINISTRATION

📌 🀄 Player items

You receive postcards and coils at the start of the game, and at the start of each round whenever you don't have any. Whenever you receive postcards and coils, you receive:

• Five postcards of various colors: white, blue, black, red, green.
• Five coils of various strengths: 1, 1, 2, 2, 3.

Postcards are tradable one-for-one. Coils are also tradable one-for-one. It is not allowed to trade postcards for coils.

You receive one stamp at the start of every round, as well as whenever you receive postcards and coils (including at the start of the game). Stamps are tradable freely.

You earn points throughout the game. Points cannot be traded.

📌 ⏰ Timing

Each round lasts for approximately 24 hours, except for the first round that lasts for approximately 48 hours. The deadline of every round is at 3pm UTC ( your local time); allow a few minutes for updating.

📌 🧠 Submission

Your submission consists of any number of mails (possibly zero). A single mail consists of:

• One postcard of any color; you have to declare the color
• One coil of any strength; you have to declare the strength
• One stamp (this is implicit, you don't need to state this)

All items used in a mail are used up.

If a mail is invalid (it uses an item you don't have, or the color/strength is missing), it is disregarded. Mails are processed from earliest to latest, so if you accidentally use a single item in two mails, only the earlier one is valid.

Remember that you may cancel your submission at any time before the deadline. To make it clear, I strongly recommend that all mails you make in a single round are in a single post.

📌 📡 Information

This game has the following pieces of information, along with how and when they are revealed to the players, if at all. If a piece of information is not in this list, it is likely not known to anyone, but feel free to clarify.

🔺 Announced to each meadow, at the start of the game

• Which player in the meadow has which polarity.

🔺 Publicly announced, at the end of every round

• The number of mails received by each meadow.
• The net total power change of each meadow.

--- Therefore, which meadow/polarity pair scores points, and how many.

--- Therefore, the current power of each meadow.

🔺 Publicly announced, at the end of the MM

• The polarities of each player.

--- Therefore, how many points each player has, and thus the winner and the loser of the MM.

🔻 Explicitly only known to you

• What postcards and coils, and how many stamps, you are holding right now.

📌 💎 ORG items

You can gain ORG currency in these ways:

• At the end of each round, if your meadow is reset (the power is set back to 0), you get a bellflower.
• At the end of the MM, you get garnets based on the number of points obtained by you or the other player in your meadow, whichever is smaller. If the lesser score is 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, you get 0, 1, 2, 4, 8 garnets respectively. If the lesser score is greater than 4, you still only get 8 garnets.

You can spend garnets in this way:

• You can buy stamps at one garnet each.