Vex is a two-player card game — a clone of KeyForge — in which rival players race to unlock a shared vault. On each of your turns you channel a single house , marshal its creatures and artifacts, and gather Æmber : the raw resource that forges keys. The first player to forge three keys wins.
This rulebook is generated directly from the game engine's source. Every keyword, ability, and effect below is described by the doc comment on the code that implements it, so what you read here is always what the game actually does.
Each turn runs through eight phases in a fixed order. Most run on their own; two of them — choosing a house and the main phase — wait for the active player. Each phase carries its own rules, and abilities that trigger at the start or end of the turn resolve in the matching phase.
On the first player's first turn only, that player may play or discard just one card from their hand of their own volition — one or the other, not both. Using creatures to reap, fight, or take an "Action:" is unaffected. A card effect can let them play more: a card another card plays for them (Wild Wormhole, Phase Shift) does not count against the limit, and a grant to play a card (Subject Kirby, Captain Val Jericho) lets them play that card too. Only a bare in-house play of their own volition counts against the one-card allowance.
To set up, one player is chosen to take the first turn. That first player draws a starting hand of 7 cards; the other player draws 6. Then each player, starting with the first, may mulligan once: shuffle their whole hand back into their deck and draw a new hand of one card fewer — 6 for the first player, 5 for the second. A player who mulligans keeps the new hand. Chains cut the opening draw the same way they cut any draw, and a mulligan sheds no further chain.
The turn opens here. Abilities that trigger "at the start of your turn" resolve now, before you forge, so an ability that changes what a key costs or adjusts your Æmber acts before the forge phase reads it. You order your own start-of-turn abilities when more than one triggers.
You forge a single key if you can pay its cost — 6 Æmber by default — spending that Æmber. You forge at most one key per turn, and an effect can raise the cost or make you skip the phase. Keys are the win condition: forge your third key and you win the game.
You pick one of your deck's three houses as your active house for the turn. For the rest of the turn you may play from hand and use only cards of that house, except cards that ignore the restriction such as Versatile ones.
With a house chosen, you are offered your archived cards. You may take all of them into your hand at once — archived cards are set aside face-down on earlier turns, out of your opponent's reach. You are not prompted when your archives are empty.
The open phase, where you take your turn. In any order you may play cards from your hand, discard from your hand, and use your ready cards of the active house: a creature reaps for Æmber, fights an enemy creature, or takes an "Action:" ability, and an artifact takes its "Action:". Combat happens here — fighting is one way of using a creature. You stay in the main phase until you end your turn.
Ending your turn readies every card you control — turning your exhausted cards upright — and refreshes each creature's armor to full for the turns to come. Cards that entered play exhausted this turn ready here too, and the turn's own temporary effects expire as it ends.
You draw back up to a full hand — six cards by default, adjusted by effects. Chains cut your draw: you draw one fewer card for every 6 chains you hold, and shed a single chain only on a turn the reduction actually kept you from a card.
The turn closes here. Abilities that trigger "at the end of your turn" resolve now, last of all, so they see the board and hand the turn actually ends with. You order your own end-of-turn abilities when more than one triggers. Play then passes to your opponent.
Fighting is one of the ways you use a creature during the main phase, alongside reaping and taking an "Action:" ability; combat is not a phase of its own. Use one of your ready creatures to fight an enemy creature. Using it to fight exhausts it. First, any "Before Fight" abilities and the Assault and Hazardous keywords resolve; if these destroy either creature, the fight does not occur. Otherwise both creatures deal damage equal to their power at the same time — armor reduces the damage a creature takes, and a Skirmish attacker takes no damage back. A creature with damage equal to or greater than its power is destroyed, and both deaths are resolved together, so neither fighter's destruction changes the damage the other deals. Finally, if the attacker survived, its "Fight" abilities resolve.
Armor absorbs damage. A creature with armor prevents that much of the damage it would be dealt: each point of armor stops 1 damage, and armor spent this way does not come back until the creature's controller readies at the end of their turn. Armor never reduces a creature's power, and healing does not restore spent armor.
Every card is one of the following four types. A card's type determines where it goes when played and how it is used.
Every card also shows the same anatomy: a house icon in the upper-left corner (the faction it belongs to), the card name , its type , any traits (flavor labels such as Knight or Robot that other cards reference but that carry no rules of their own), and its rules text. Creatures additionally show a power value and, sometimes, an armor value.
An artifact is a permanent card you play alongside your creatures. It stays in play until something removes it and is typically used for its "Action:" ability.
A creature is a unit you play into your battleline. Once it is ready, it can reap for Æmber, fight an enemy creature, or use an "Action:" ability.
A gigantic creature is printed as two cards that share a name: a base half, which carries the creature's power, traits, keywords, and abilities, and an art half, which carries only its bonus icons. You need both halves to play it. Play either half and the whole creature enters your battleline as one creature; the base half stands in the battleline and the art half sits beside it. Both halves count as one creature for every rule. When it leaves play, both halves go together to the same place.
A tactic (KeyForge's "action" card type, renamed to free the word "Action" for the ability) is a one-shot card: its effect resolves as you play it, and it then goes straight to your discard pile.
An upgrade attaches to a creature as you play it, changing that creature's stats or granting it keywords and abilities for as long as it stays attached.
Keywords are standing rules a creature always has, printed on a line of their own at the top of the card's text box. A keyword needs no trigger — it simply changes how the creature behaves. Some keywords take a number (for example Assault 2 ).
A card with Alpha can only be played as the first thing its player does on their turn: it cannot be played once that player has played, used, or discarded any other card this turn (First Blood, Unlocked Gateway's counterpart). It is a restriction on playing, so it never appears as a granted or lost creature keyword.
A creature with Assault N deals N damage to the creature it attacks, immediately before combat damage is dealt. Zero means the creature does not have Assault.
A creature with Deploy may enter play at any position in its controller's battleline, not only on a flank — its controller chooses the spot as it is played ("Lion" Bautrem, Challe the Safeguard). It matters only while the creature is being played, so it too is never granted or lost.
Elusive: the first time this creature is chosen to be fought each turn, no pending fight damage is dealt by or to it. Later fights that same turn deal damage normally.
A creature with Hazardous N deals N damage to any creature that attacks it, before that attacker deals its combat damage. Zero means the creature does not have Hazardous.
A creature with Invulnerable cannot be destroyed or dealt damage (Ghostform, Nizak, The Forgotten). Damage aimed at it never lands, so it absorbs no armor and takes no chains of destruction, and every destruction effect passes it over. It is usually granted, and may be granted only while the creature is fighting.
A card with Omega ends the current step of the turn the moment it resolves: no more cards may be played, used, or discarded for the rest of that step, except through pending abilities and effects still resolving (Unlocked Gateway). Play then continues to the next step, so more cards can still be played later that turn. Like Alpha it constrains playing, not combat.
A creature with Poison destroys any creature it deals fight damage to — from its power or its splash — once that damage lands, however much power that creature had left. The poison creature is not destroyed by taking damage; only damage that reaches its power destroys it.
A creature with Skirmish takes no damage when it is used to fight: it deals its power to the enemy creature but takes none back.
A creature with Splash-attack N deals N damage to each neighbor of the creature it fights, simultaneously with the fight damage from its power. Zero means the creature does not have Splash-attack.
Taunt: this creature's neighbors cannot be chosen to be fought unless they have taunt themselves, so a Taunt creature shields the creatures beside it.
A few creatures have taunt that reaches one step further, shielding their neighbors' neighbors as well as their neighbors (Lady Loreena). A creature shielded only by such a distant taunter can still not be chosen to be fought while the taunter lives.
A card with Treachery enters play under your opponent's control (Scowly Caper). You still play it on your own turn and take any Æmber bonus it prints, but the moment it is in play it belongs to your opponent. It matters only as the card is played, so it is never granted or lost.
A card with Versatile may, once in play, be used (reap/fight/action) as if it belonged to the active house. It does not relax playing from hand — a Versatile card is still played only when its own house is the one chosen this turn.
Bonus icons are printed in a card's upper-left corner. After a card is played, its icons resolve one at a time, top to bottom, before the card's "Play:" ability. Two Vex rules differ from KeyForge: the card carrying an icon is the source of that icon's effect, and if a creature leaves play before or while its icons resolve, its remaining icons do not resolve.
A Capture bonus icon has a friendly creature its controller chooses capture 1 Æmber from the opponent. It does nothing when the opponent has no Æmber or the controller has no creature to hold it.
A Damage bonus icon deals 1 damage to a creature its controller chooses, friend or foe. With no enemy creature in play the damage must land on a friendly one.
A Draw bonus icon draws its player 1 card.
Enhance is a deck-generation rule, not an in-game one: when the deck is built, the listed bonus icons are added to random cards in it (up to five icons per card, counting printed icons), and the Enhance card itself gains nothing during play. A card may opt out of receiving Enhance icons, a Vex addition for cards a bonus would only weaken.
An Æmber bonus icon gains its player 1 Æmber from the common supply.
An ability is a line of rules text on a card whose trigger says when it resolves. When the trigger's condition occurs, the ability's effect (see Effects ) resolves. The triggers below cover every way an ability can fire.
An Action ability is one you resolve by using the card directly, without reaping or fighting; using it this way exhausts the card.
This ability resolves after any creature enters play, including creatures your opponent plays.
This ability resolves after any creature is destroyed, friendly or enemy, with the destroyed creature as "it" (Neffru gains that creature's owner 1 Æmber). It resolves only after the whole destruction is complete and the destroyed cards have reached their discard piles, so a card destroyed alongside them does not react.
Assault deals its damage before the fight itself resolves. When that Assault damage destroys the creature it attacks, the fight does not occur, and this ability resolves on the attacker; the destroyed creature is the one referred to as "it". It fires only when the Assault is the kill, not when the fight damage that follows is.
"In a fight with" names the timing window of a single fight: the moment power damage is exchanged between the two combatants. This ability resolves on a creature that survives a fight with the creature it is used against when that other combatant is destroyed in the exchange; the destroyed creature is the one referred to as "it".
This ability resolves after any creature is played from hand, friendly or enemy, with the played creature referred to as "it". Unlike After a Creature Enters Play it fires only on an actual play, not on a creature put into play by another effect, and it reaches every card in play whatever its battleline position, so an artifact can watch the whole board.
This ability resolves after a creature is played into a battleline position adjacent to the card holding it. A creature is only ever played onto its own controller's battleline, so only the controller's own plays reach it. It does not fire for a creature merely put into play by another effect, only for one that is played.
This ability resolves after any creature is used to fight — friendly or enemy — with the fighting creature as "it" (Shattered Throne makes it capture 1 Æmber). It fires on every in-play card, including the fighting creature itself. Fighting happens only on the attacker's own turn, so the fighter is always the active player's creature.
This ability resolves after any creature reaps — friendly or enemy — with the reaping creature as "it" (Orb of Invidius stuns whatever just reaped). It fires on every in-play card, including the reaper itself.
This ability resolves after a friendly creature is destroyed, with the destroyed creature as "it" (Spartasaur destroys each non-Dinosaur creature). It resolves only after the whole destruction is complete and the destroyed cards have reached their discard piles, so a card destroyed alongside them does not react.
This ability resolves after a friendly creature — the controller's own, itself or another — is used to fight, with the fighting creature as "it" (Lieutenant Gorvenal captures 1 Æmber). An enemy creature fighting does not fire it.
This ability resolves after a battleline neighbor of the card holding it is used to fight — the neighbor that fought is referred to as "it". It fires whether or not the neighbor survives the fight.
This ability resolves after a player chooses their active house. By default it watches only its own controller's choice; an each-player one watches either player's choice — its controller's or the opponent's — and resolves as the chooser (Snag's Mirror bars the chooser's opponent from that same house during their next turn).
This ability resolves after any player forges a key, its own controller or the opponent. The player who forged is the one it acts on, so "they" always means whoever forged.
This ability resolves after a Tactic is played — by either player — before that Tactic's own effect resolves, so the reaction acts on the board the Tactic is about to affect (Encounter Suit wards its host before the Tactic can reach it). It fires on every card in play whoever played the Tactic.
This ability resolves after an enemy creature is destroyed during its controller's turn (Pile of Skulls captures Æmber onto a friendly creature whenever an enemy creature is destroyed on your turn).
This ability resolves whenever a creature is destroyed while fighting — either combatant killed in the exchange of power damage — on a card whose controller is the enemy of that creature. It fires on a bystander, not on a combatant, so an artifact off to the side reacts to every enemy death in combat; the destroyed creature is the one referred to as "it".
This ability resolves after an enemy creature reaps, with the reaping creature as "it" (Pip Pip stuns the enemy that just reaped). Reaping happens only on the reaper's own turn, so this naturally fires only for the reaper's opponent.
This ability resolves after any upgrade enters play, whether you or your opponent attached it.
This ability resolves after the card that carries it is itself used — reaped or fought with, or fired as an "Action:". Unlike After You Use a Card, which fires on your other cards with the used card as "it", this fires on the used card itself, so an upgrade can punish its own host (Containment Field destroys its host after it is used).
This ability resolves after the card holding it prevents damage with its own armor. The amount just prevented is the total armor it spent absorbing the damage instance. Armor spent by a shield taking the damage in its place does not fire it, only armor the card itself spends.
This ability resolves after its controller discards a card from their hand, with the discarded card as "it" (Rock-Hurling Giant). Discarding from anywhere else — the top of a deck, the archives — is not this.
This ability resolves after its controller forges a key.
This ability resolves after its controller plays a card — a creature, artifact, or action — from hand. Putting a card into play by another effect is not "playing" it and does not fire this (that is TriggerAfterCreatureEnters). AfterCardPlayed narrows it to a house and/or type.
This ability resolves after its controller resolves a Damage bonus icon, with the creature that damage hit referred to as "it". It fires only for the resolving player's own icons.
This ability resolves after its controller resolves a Draw bonus icon. It fires only for the resolving player's own icons, and only when the draw actually drew a card.
This ability resolves after its controller uses a card — reaps or fights with a creature, or fires an "Action:" — with the used card as "it" (Veylan Analyst gains Æmber whenever you use an artifact).
This ability resolves after the opponent forges a key. It fires only on the opponent's forge, on the non-forging player's cards.
This ability resolves after your opponent plays a card (Teliga gains its controller Æmber whenever the opponent plays a card).
This ability resolves after Æmber is stolen from its controller. The number of Æmber taken in that single theft is available to the effect, so it can scale by it (Molephin deals 1 damage to each enemy creature for each Æmber stolen). A theft from the other player does not fire it.
A Before Fight ability resolves when a creature is used to fight, before any combat damage is dealt.
A constant ability is a continuous rule a card applies while it stays in play, with no trigger of its own — "Each friendly creature gains +1 power", or a card that grants every creature a keyword or a "Destroyed:" ability. Its effect applies for as long as the source card remains in play and stops the moment it leaves; applying it is not "using" the card and never exhausts it.
A Destroyed ability resolves as the card is destroyed, before it reaches the discard pile, so it can still act on the board it is leaving.
An End of Ready Step ability resolves at the end of its controller's "ready cards" step, once every card has readied (Greater Oxtet purges a card from hand to grow).
An End of Turn ability resolves during the end of its controller's turn, after cards ready and the controller draws (Shaffles drains the opponent at each turn's end). An each-player End of Turn ability instead resolves at the end of every player's turn — its own controller's and the opponent's — resolving as the player whose turn is ending, so "that player" is that active player rather than the card's controller (Pincerator).
A Fight ability resolves after a creature you used to fight has dealt and taken its combat damage and any resulting destruction has been carried out.
A Leaves Play ability resolves as the card leaves play by any route — destroyed, purged, returned to hand, archived, or shuffled away. It fires before the card's teardown, so the card is still on the board when it resolves. TriggerDestroyed is the narrower "only when destroyed" version.
A Play ability resolves right after you play the card from your hand. On a creature or artifact it fires as the card enters play; on an action it is the card's one-shot effect.
A Reap ability resolves after you use a ready creature to reap. Reaping gains you 1 Æmber and exhausts the creature; the ability resolves in addition.
A Start of Turn ability resolves at the start of its controller's turn, before they forge, so an ability that changes what a key costs still has time to. An each-player Start of Turn ability instead resolves at the start of every player's turn — its own controller's and the opponent's — resolving as the player whose turn is starting, so "that player" is that active player rather than the card's controller (Gambling Den, General Order 24).
This ability resolves when the opponent would forge a key, before that forge happens, so it can prevent the forge. It fires only on the opponent's forge, and the forging opponent is called "they". A prevented forge leaves the opponent's Æmber unspent.
An effect is the actual change an ability makes to the game when it resolves. Card text is built by composing the effects below; each one both prints its own rules text and carries itself out, so a card always does exactly what it says.
Only three zones of yours may hold a card your opponent owns: your battleline, your artifact line, and your archives. A card that would move to any other zone of yours — your hand, your discard pile, your deck — goes to its owner's matching zone instead. So an enemy creature abducted into your archives goes to your opponent's hand when you take your archives up, and to their discard pile if those archives are discarded.
Archiving moves cards into your archives: they are set aside face-down, out of the opponent's reach, and you may take them into your hand after picking a house on a later turn. Archiving from hand lets you choose which cards to set aside.
BelongToHouse makes each creature its Target selects belong to House for the given Duration, overriding the house it counts as for active-house checks (Brain Stem Antenna's host counts as Mars for the rest of the turn). The change is per-match state, dropped when the creature leaves play; RemainderOfPlayerTurn also drops it at end of turn, while UntilThisLeavesPlay keeps it until the creature leaves play.
A card that "cannot reap" is barred from one way of using it while every other way stays open — Tireless Crocag fights and uses its Action: normally. That is narrower than the timed, player-wide Restrict restrictions in effect_restrict.go, so it lives on the card definition rather than on state.
Capturing Æmber moves it from a player's pool onto a capturing creature, where it counts for no player until that creature leaves play, at which point it goes to the pool of the capturing creature's controller's opponent. A creature can only capture what the Source pool holds. Target is the creature that captures (this creature by default); Source is the pool the Æmber comes from; Per repeats the capture, choosing a fresh Target each time (Hypnotic Command captures once for each friendly Mars creature).
A "choose one" ability offers its controller a set of alternative effects and resolves only the one they pick; the options not chosen do nothing.
A conditional gates an effect behind a check on the current game state — the "If ..." clause a card opens with, e.g. "If your opponent has 7 or more Æmber, they lose 4 Æmber." The effect resolves only when the condition is met. Unlike a result gate (A -> B), which turns on an action succeeding, a conditional turns on a fact about the board.
Dealing damage puts that much pending damage on each creature the effect targets. Armor prevents pending damage first — each point stops 1, and armor spent this way stays spent for the rest of the turn — and whatever is not prevented lands as damage tokens. A creature whose total damage reaches or exceeds its power is destroyed. When one ability deals damage to several creatures they are damaged simultaneously and any that died are destroyed together, so no creature's destruction changes another's.
Destroying a creature removes it from play. When an effect destroys several creatures they are destroyed simultaneously: every one is tagged for destruction and stays in play while their "Destroyed:" abilities resolve, in an order the controller chooses, so each ability sees the others still present; only then does each creature still in play move to the discard pile, along with its upgrades. A destroy effect can target every creature or only those matching a filter, such as "each creature with power 3 or lower".
DiscardUntil digs through the top of your deck, discarding as it goes, until it turns up a card the filters admit or the deck runs out. With MayStop the controller may stop before a match. Every discarded card is recorded on the context and the matching card is left in context (ctx.It), so a following effect can act on the found card or the whole discarded run — Sound the Horns and Invasion Portal pair it with PutDiscardedIntoHand; Old Boomy archives the run with ArchiveDiscardedThisWay.
Drawing puts the top card of your deck into your hand. If your deck is empty when you must draw, your discard pile is shuffled to form a new deck first, so you only fail to draw when both deck and discard are empty.
An enrage is a status placed on a creature. While a creature is enraged, its controller must use it to fight on their turn whenever it is able to — it cannot reap or use an "Action:" ability while there is an enemy creature it can fight. If it cannot fight (nothing to fight, or an effect stops it), it is free to reap or act. After a creature is used to fight, its enrage is removed; this holds even when the defender is Elusive and takes no damage, because the fight still happened. Reaping does not remove enrage. Enrage otherwise persists until an effect removes it. Enraging applies this status to each creature the effect targets.
To exalt a creature is to place 1 Æmber from the common supply onto a chosen friendly or enemy creature. The Æmber sits on the creature, belonging to no pool, until it leaves play, then goes to the owner's opponent's pool. Exalting N times places N Æmber.
Exhausting a creature turns it sideways so it cannot be used again until it readies at the end of its controller's turn. It exhausts each creature the effect targets.
A chain is a penalty a card can inflict on its controller: while a player holds chains they draw fewer cards each turn — one fewer for every 6 chains — until the chains are shed, one on each turn the reduction blocks a draw. Gaining a chain is the cost some strong effects charge, so a card's power is paid for by a slower hand refill (see Game.drawStep).
To gain Æmber, a player moves that many Æmber from the common supply into their pool — the ability's controller by default, or their opponent when the card says so. A "for each" clause multiplies the amount by a running count.
A generic counter is a token placed on a card in play whose meaning is defined entirely by the card that reads it. It does nothing on its own; a card can hold any number of counters of a kind, and they are shed when it leaves play. The doom counter is one: Wretched Doll destroys every creature carrying a doom counter when there is one in play, and otherwise places a fresh one.
Graft moves a target card in play faceup under the resolving card, out of play (rulebook: Graft). The grafted card leaves play — firing its Leaves Play abilities, not Destroyed — and waits under its new host until that host leaves play. Spangler Box grafts a chosen creature onto itself.
Healing takes damage tokens off a creature — a fixed amount, or all of them at once. It can never remove more damage than is on the creature (a creature with no damage is unaffected), and it never changes a creature's power.
LoseArmor takes all the remaining armor off each creature its Target selects, and tallies what it took so a following effect can scale with it (Red-Hot Armor strips armor, then deals damage for each point stripped). The armor comes back when its controller readies, the same way armor spent absorbing damage does.
To lose Æmber, a player returns that many Æmber from their pool to the common supply. A pool can never go below zero, so a player told to lose more Æmber than they have simply loses all of it. Player may be EachPlayer, so both players lose. The amount lost is either a fixed Amount or a By loss of the pool (By: HalfRoundedDown, By: AllBut(5)) — set one, not both.
A "you may" effect is optional: it offers the controller the choice to resolve its inner effect or to decline it entirely. It models KeyForge's "You may <do X>", where passing is always allowed even when a legal target exists — the distinction that keeps Chuff Ape's "you may destroy another friendly creature" from ever being forced.
Moving a ward takes the one-shot shield off a warded creature and places it on another creature. Only a warded creature can be the source; if none is warded, nothing happens. The source loses its ward and the destination gains one.
Moving Æmber from your pool to a card takes that many Æmber out of your pool and sets it on the card, where it stays until something moves it off again. Parked there it only matters to a card that can spend the Æmber sitting on it — Safe Place, Pocket Universe.
Some cards in play impose that creatures must fight when used, if able (Little Rapscal). While such a card is in play, a creature that has at least one legal enemy to fight cannot be used to reap or to use an "Action:" ability — its only use is to fight. A creature with no legal fight target is unaffected and may reap or act as usual. The rule applies to both players' creatures.
NameHouse remembers the house a surrounding ChooseHouseThen picked on the source card, where it stays for as long as that card is in play. It is the writer half of a HouseLock whose house is not printed but named: Restringuntus chooses a house on play and bars its opponent from it until it leaves play. Player names whose choice the lock will constrain, and must match the card's HouseLock.
PlayFrom has the controller play a card out of their own hand or discard pile right now, ignoring the active-house gate — Phase Shift's off-house card, Sacrificial Altar's creature back from the discard pile. From names the source pile; House and Type narrow which cards may be chosen; Except inverts the house filter, so House names the house that may not be played ("a non-Logos card").
KeyForge prints the from-hand form as a permission held open for the rest of the turn ("you may play one non-Logos card this turn"); it is rendered and resolved as an immediate play instead, which needs no turn-scoped memory of an unspent allowance (see card-wording-rules.md rule 21). With no legal card in the source pile it does nothing.
PlayCardUnder plays the card placed under the resolving card, putting the one played in context (It) — Masterplan's and Jargogle's own "play the card under me." With more than one card underneath, the controller chooses which; it does nothing with none.
A +1 power counter is a permanent token placed on a creature that raises its power by one for as long as it stays in play; a -1 power counter lowers it. A creature can hold any number of counters, and they are shed when it leaves play.
Purging a card sets it aside out of the game entirely, in the purge pile, where no ability can reach it unless that ability names the purge pile. It is the most permanent way a card leaves play: a purged card never enters a discard pile and can never be drawn, played, or destroyed again.
PutUnderFromHand has the controller choose a card from their hand and place it under the resolving card, face up or face down. Masterplan and Jargogle place theirs facedown; Graft always places its card faceup. It does nothing with an empty hand.
PutFromHand puts a card the controller chooses from their own hand directly into play — Swap Widget swapping in a replacement creature. Type restricts the choice to cards of that type; House restricts it to that house; either's zero value allows any. ExceptSameName excludes a card sharing the name of the card currently in context (ctx.It), the "with a different name" clause — meant to follow a gate that left a card in context, e.g. Then{PutFromPlay, PutFromHand}.
PutFromPlay takes each card its Target selects out of play and puts it in a destination zone — the top of its owner's deck, their hand, or their archives — shedding the per-match state the card built up in play (damage, spent armor, Æmber on it, upgrades). The destination is required. Moving a card out of play this way is how a "Destroyed:" ability can save its own creature: the creature leaves for the named zone as it is destroyed, so it never reaches the discard pile. When several cards move to the top of the deck at once the controller chooses the order they stack.
PutUnderIntoPlay puts every card placed under the resolving card into play under its owner's control — Spangler Box's Destroyed ability returns the creatures grafted onto it. It does nothing with nothing underneath.
Readying a creature turns it upright again so it can be used, the opposite of exhausting. It readies each creature the effect targets.
RedirectFightDamage is a "Before Fight" effect: the controller chooses a creature (its Target), and the attacker deals its own fight damage to that creature instead of to the creature it is fighting (Gabos Longarms). It only redirects the attacker's outgoing fight damage — the attacker still takes damage back from the creature it fights. The chosen creature is stored on the game state for the fight in progress; the combat step reads and clears it.
A restriction forbids a player some action for a stretch of the game — "cannot use creatures to fight", "cannot play creatures" — rather than changing the board directly. A restriction can be a timed effect that lasts through a player's next turn, or a constant rule printed on a card in play; while it is active the forbidden action simply cannot be taken. When one effect says a player "cannot" and another says they "must" or "may" do the same thing, "cannot" wins.
A result gate resolves one action and then a follow-up, but only when the first action actually happened — written A -> B (destroy a creature -> steal 1 Æmber; purge a creature -> give a +1 power counter). The follow-up never runs when the gate does nothing: no valid target, an empty zone, or a declined choice. It is distinct from a conditional, which turns on a fact about the board rather than an action succeeding.
PutDiscardedIntoHand takes the card in context out of the discard pile and into its owner's hand. It is the tail of a dig through the deck (DiscardUntil) that just discarded the card. Type names what the dig stopped on so the tail reads "put the discarded creature into your hand" rather than a bare "it".
ReturnNamedToHand puts a card with a specific name that the controller chooses into their hand, taken either from a friendly creature in play or from their discard pile — Faygin recovering an Urchin. The controller chooses among both zones at once; an in-play creature returns to hand (shedding its in-play state) and a discard card is recovered.
RevealTopOfDeck reveals the top Amount cards of a deck to both players and binds the top one in context (ctx.It) so a following effect can inspect or play it (Chaos Portal plays it when it is of the chosen house). Set ChooseWhoseDeck to have the controller pick whose deck. Ordered routing steps then send chosen cards to a destination — hand, archives, discard pile, or purge — and a final step either reorders whatever the earlier steps left, or shuffles that deck (the revealed cards are still in it). It reveals as many as remain when the deck holds fewer than Amount, and does nothing on an empty deck.
Search is the KeyForge "search" keyword: the controller looks through one or more of their own zones — the deck, or the deck and discard pile — for cards matching a filter (any card, a named card, a trait, a type, or a house), reveals what they take, and moves it to their hand or archives. It can take one chosen card or every match. It does not shuffle: a search is always followed by a separate Shuffle, enforced by a card lint — except a search that puts its finds on top of the deck, which shuffles between finding and placing so the finds land on top of an already-shuffled deck (Digging Up the Monster).
Shuffle shuffles the controller's deck. With no source it is the plain "shuffle your deck" that follows a deck search (Orb of Wonder, Saurus Rex, Grumpus Tamer), kept a standalone effect so a search never bundles its own shuffle. Zones folds whole piles in first — the discard pile (Help from Future Self), the hand and discard pile (Screaming Cave), the archives and discard pile. FromPlay folds every friendly card in play and its upgrades in, then draws a card for each card shuffled this way (Timequake).
Stealing Æmber moves it from the opponent's pool into your own. You can only steal as much Æmber as the opponent actually has. How much is stolen is either a fixed Amount — optionally multiplied by a Per count — or a By share of the opponent's pool (By: AllBut(6) leaves them exactly six).
A stun is a status placed on a creature. A stunned creature must shake off the stun before it can do anything else: the next time it is used to reap, fight, or use an "Action:" ability, it is exhausted and the stun is removed instead of that action happening. Its constant abilities and any effect that does not require using it keep working while it is stunned. Stunning applies this status to each creature the effect targets.
SwapDeckAndDiscard exchanges the controller's deck with their discard pile and shuffles the new deck — Reverse Time turns a spent deck back into a fresh one. It differs from Shuffle{Zones: []Zone{Discard}} in that the old deck goes away into the discard pile rather than surviving underneath it.
A toll is Æmber a card in play makes its controller's opponent give in order to take an action with an artifact — playing an artifact, or using an artifact's ability. The opponent cannot take the action unless they can pay the toll, and the Æmber they give goes to the toll card's controller. (The mechanic keeps the name Toll, but its printed text always reads "give", never "pay".)
Triggering another card's ability is not using that card. The card does not exhaust, its use is not recorded, and nothing that watches for a card being used fires — only the abilities printed under the named trigger resolve, and they resolve for the player whose effect reached for them, as if that player controlled the card.
Unstunning a creature removes the stun status from each creature the effect targets, freeing it to act normally instead of having to shake the stun off.
A ward is a one-shot shield placed on a creature. The first time a warded creature would be dealt damage or would leave play — destroyed, purged, returned to hand, archived, put on or shuffled into a deck, or placed under a card — that damage or removal is absorbed: the creature stays, and its ward is spent. Even a single point of damage spends the whole ward. Ward intercepts every removal, even the controller's own. It covers only damage and leaving play; it does not stop a stun, an enrage, a capture, a change of control, or a loss of power. Warding applies this status to each creature the effect targets.
Each removal is absorbed separately. A creature whose ward absorbs a destruction and is then warded again absorbs the next removal with the new ward.
A ward gained after a creature is already destroyed does not undo the destruction. That creature still reaches its discard pile once the "Destroyed:" abilities finish. The new ward does absorb any other removal in the meantime, so a "Destroyed:" ability that tries to purge the creature is absorbed.