Metabaloids™ Official Rules

Welcome to the World of Metabaloids
Metabaloids is a high-energy, creature-based strategy card game where metabolism is the key to survival. Gather your creatures, manage your resources, and outthink your opponents to be the last one standing.

Winning The Game:

In a 2-player game a player wins when the other opponent has no more cards left to draw from. 3 or more players, the fewest lost cards win. For a shorter game, play until the draw pile is empty, least lost cards is the winner. Ties are a wash.

Keyword Terms:

Promo Identifier: Marks special event cards.

Rarity:Top-left sphere & color, Green = Common, Blue = Uncommon, Red = Rare, Purple = Super Rare. Also shows card cost.

Card Name: Max 4 copies per deck. Rarity can be mixed into a deck.

Attack: Adds to the total in battle to go against the other players defense.

Metaboloids: Used to pay for cards from your hand into the reserve area. Discard cards to pay cost. This is where the creature’s energy comes from to go into battle.

Defense/Health: This is the amount of defense/health you have to help aid you in absorbing an attack from another player.

Collector Info: Promo if any, Promo Identifier, Set, Rarity and Card number, for instance, 1 C 1, check website for listings.

Game Zones/Special Rules:

Play Area: Active cards in columns (max 3x3). If none remains at turn’s end, lose 2 cards from draw pile.

Column Size: Before deployment, adjust to have max 3 x 3 grid. No column can be deeper than its width. Some cards might be a temporary exception to this rule.

Reserve Area: Cards played here with Metabaloids. Safe until deployed. After cards are placed in reserve you can’t move them until the deploy phase. After drawing, all cards in reserve must be deployed..

Draw Pile: Deck to draw from.

Discard pile: Where paid/used cards go.

Lost Pile: Where defeated cards go.

Unfinished Actions: If an ability you activate can’t resolve, lose 1 card to lost pile.

Event Cards: Special cards with unique effects; placed separately. Can be used at any time unless noted.

Game Setup

Draw Starting Hand:

Shuffle your deck, draw 7 cards into your hand. This is your starting hand.

Determine First player:

Each player cuts and reveals the Rarity/Cost number. Highest start (ties repeat).

Initial Deployment:

Now each player takes turns placing a card into the play area for free, up to the cost of the Rarity/cost of 7 points. Once 7 points are reached, they are done placing cards. One or more players could be done before turn order is done. Once you get back to the starting player, then that player takes his normal turn. See game play overview mechanics.

Turn Structure

1. Draw Phase 2. Use Abilities 3. Move Cards 4. Deploy From Reserve 5. Attack Phase 6. Restock Reserve/ End Turn

Draw Phase:

Draw until you have 7 cards in your hand. If you have 7 or more do not draw but don’t need to discard either.

Use Abilities:

Each card’s ability may be used once per card at any time, including during an opponent’s turn, as long as you can pay its cost and perform the action. Some abilities are exceptions to the play area rule or activate specifically during attacks. A card’s ability must be resolved before activating other cards’ abilities.

Move Cards:

You may move cards from one column to another column. However, it will cost you 1 Metabaloid point to move one card. Paid from Anywhere.

Deploy From Reserve into Play Area:

All reserve cards must be deployed into columns. They remain there unless they are moved by another card’s effect. If the play area is full 3 x 3 grid, then lose your reserve cards to lost pile. If you do not have any cards in the play area at the end of your turn, then you automatically lose 2 cards from your draw deck to your lost pile. When the last card is moved from reserve to play area, the deploying action ends. NOTE: read keyword terms in Games Zones

Attack Phase:

You can only attack from and to one column of each opponent per turn. You must initiate one attack per turn. You may initiate multiple attacks against different opponents each turn (in multiplayer game). You pay one Metabaloid to initiate battle. This card goes on your discard pile. If you can’t attack another opponent, then you lose one card to the lost pile, and it can come from anywhere.

• Attacker: choose column and card, then turn card sideways, this notes the attacking card.
• Attacker picks the defender's column and the card he is attacking. Turn that card sideways.
• Both players draw a card. Add its Rarity/Cost value to the attack or defense. Discard after totals have been calculated.
  Attacker adds this number to Attack numbers from each card in their column, plus card bonuses.
  Defender adds this number to the Defense numbers for each card in their column, plus card bonuses.
• Results: Higher total wins.
  If a tie, both players lose the drawn card to the lost pile.
  The person with the higher amount wins. The losing side calculates the losses as follows:
  • If the damage is less than the cards defense amount, then that card takes that damage even if it is one point of damage, the creature metabolism surges, burning the remaining points from that card and the card is sent to the lost pile.
  • Now turn the cards on the remaining column sideways. These cards are safe from attacks until reinforcements are deployed. Cards in safety can’t use abilities.
  • If the damage exceeds the defense amount, then any remaining damage is calculated as; (see Card losses).
  • Card Losses:
  If there are more attack points remaining after the initial damage, pay the difference from anywhere. The additional points needed to pay come from the number on the defense icon. If pulling from the discard pile, you must take the top card and use the defense number. If the defense number is zero, that card is still lost at zero points and you move to the next card.
  Card losses may also be paid from cards in players hand, calculated based upon cards’ defense.
  If they decide to take the points from the draw pile, then each card on the draw pile is considered only one point as you can’t look at the cards in your draw pile. If a card takes one point of damage it is lost.

Restock Reserve Area:

Restock cards into your reserve area if you want to. Pay Rarity/Cost using Metabaloid points from hand. Discard cards to pay cost. Excess points are lost. If you find that a card costs less than the amount of Metabaloids you have, you don’t save the difference, the amount in excess is lost.

Reshuffle:

When draw pile is empty, reshuffle discard pile to form a new pile. Cards in discard pile stay there until the draw pile runs out of cards. If you play a short game, see the Winning the Game section above.

Deck Building:

Deck Size: A starting deck is 45 cards. You can build a deck out of any combination of cards and rarity up to a maximum of 125 Rarity/Cost points with a max total of 45 cards. Or quick start option: all players use the standard 45 card starter deck. However, you can’t have more than 4 copies of the same named card in a deck.

Starter Deck Set 1 — Official Deck List (45 cards)

Creature Cards (44)

Boxelder Bug x2
Differential Grasshopper x2
Green Bottle Fly x2
Whitetail Dragonfly x2
Black Garden Ant x2
Rainbow x2
Stone Fly x2
Brown Soil Centipede x2
Monarch Butterfly x2
House Fly x2
Assassin Bug x2
Red Milkweed Beetle x2
Fire Fly x2
Cabbage White Butterfly x2
Mosquito x2
Dog Day Cicada x2
Ant Swarm x2
Fishing Spider x2
Sowbug x2
Polyphemus Moth Caterpillar x2
Bald Faced Hornet x2
May Fly x2

Event Cards (1)

Stone Wall x1

Bonus Promo Card (Limited Time Only — Not Part of Standard Deck)

White Admiral Butterfly ×1

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