Suits Duel

A card game for 2 players by Nicholas Fletcher .

Suits Duel is a two player card game in which you attempt to destroy your foe's defenses. To assist you in this battle, you will summon battlers who will support you in your attacks and protect your shields. But beware the deadly storm, which will kill off the weakest so the strongest remain.

Setup

To set up a game of Suits Duel, you need a 52-card deck of standard playing cards.

Deal each player a 7 card hand. Put three cards face down in front of each player. These 3 cards are the players' shields. Put 1 card face up in front of each player's shields. This card is their first battler. Place the rest of the deck face down somewhere both players can reach. Next to the deck will be a face up discard pile, which begins empty.

Choose who will go first. That player starts the first turn.

Parts of a Turn:

When you start a turn, the first thing you do is draw two cards from the deck (but the player going first does not draw on the first turn). After drawing cards you enter the main part of your turn. During the main part of your turn, you can play as many cards as you wish from your hand to cast various spells. The spells you can cast are as follows:

Summon: To cast the summon spell, you need two cards of the same rank. Put one of them in the discard pile, and put the other in play as an addional battler, face up in front of your shields.

Attack: To cast the attack spell, you must play a card from your hand onto a battler belonging to your foe.

• If the attacked battler is unwounded, the card you play must be the same suit as one of your own face up battler, and the rank of your card must be within 2 of the battler you are playing it onto. For example if you have battlers of hearts and clubs, you could attack foe's unwounded 5 of diamonds with a 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 of hearts or clubs. King wraps around to ace so for example an ace can be attacked by a queen, king, ace 2 or 3. You must also have a battler of the same suit as the card played. Put the played card under the attacked battler as a wound card.
• If the attacked battler is already wounded, then your attack card's rank must be within two of the wound card (rather than the battler itself) and as usual the attack card must be same suit as one of your own battlers. Two wounds are sufficient to kill a battler, so the attacked battler, the old wound card and the new attack card are all discarded by placing them face up on the discard pile.

Heal: To cast the heal spell, you must play a card from your hand onto a wound card that is under a battler of yours. The suit of the played card must match the wounded battler and the rank of the played card must be within 1 of the wound card you are playing it on to (so a 5 could be healed with a 4, 5, or 6; king wraps around to ace). The chosen wound card is discarded along with the card played to cast this spell.

Counter: Unlike other spells, you can cast the counter spell on your foe's turn. To cast the counter spell, you must discard 3 cards of the same suit from your hand just after your foe casts a spell. Your foe's spell then has no effect, and all cards used to play it are lost. You can counter your foe casting the counter spell.

When you are done casting spells from your hand, you end your turn and if you have more than 7 card in hand you must discard cards from your hand until you have 7. Then, it is your foe's turn.

Breaking Shields:

If at any point a player has no battlers in play, they lose a shield. They must choose any one of their shields, flip it face up and put the card into play as a battler.

The Storm:

If a player would ever needs to draw a card while the deck has no cards left, the storm hits. When the storm hits, the player with the fewer battlers in play loses one shield (fliping it over to become a battler). If both players have the same number of battlers, both players flip a shield. Then shuffle all discarded cards and use them as the new deck. Afterward, the player whose turn it was to draw cards before draws the cards they should have gotten.

Ending:

If a player has no shields, they lose the game. If both players run out of shields at the same time, the game is a draw.

Jokers:

The game can be played with jokers in the deck. In this case the rules are changed as follows.

• The player who goes first draws one card on their first turn, instead of none.
• A new spell 'study' is added to the game.

Study: To cast the study spell, you must discard 2 cards from your hand. One of the discarded cards must be a joker. You then draw 3 cards from the deck.