3 Areas of the Game

301 Areas

There are five areas where cards can exist: The World, a Deck, a Hand, The Abyss, and Banishment.

301.1 The World (Realms)

The World is the main area of the game, with 7 realms to conquer.
Realms are numbered based on the layout chosen at the start of the game. If a realm fails to open for some reason, its number doesn’t change.
There’s generally no limit to the number of Wonders, items, or lands that can be in a realm.

301.2 Deck

Each player brings a deck of cards they own. Deckbuilding rules depend on the format. See the deckbuilding section for more details.
Players can also bring an archive (token deck,) which counts as a subsection of their deck.
Cards you don’t own can’t go into your deck for any reason.

301.3 Hand

Draw cards from your deck into your hand. Then play cards from your hand into The World.
You normally keep the cards in your hand hidden, but there’s no penalty for showing cards in your hand to anyone.
Cards you don’t own can’t go in your hand for any reason.

301.4 The Abyss

The Abyss is the discard pile. Although it’s called The Abyss, each player maintains their own separate pile of cards in The Abyss.
Cards you don’t own can’t go in your Abyss pile for any reason.

301.5 Banishment

When cards are banished, they go to banishment and are effectively removed from the game.

301.6 Movement Between Areas

Whenever a card moves from one area to another, it loses all effects on it.
Whenever a card moves from one area to another, check its abilities to see if they trigger.
Movement-replacement effects work from any area of the game. Movement replacement effects use the term “instead” to replace the object’s movement with another effect.
Note that moving between areas refers to cards moving from a deck to hand, hand to The World, World to The Abyss, and so forth. Movement between realms refers to moving to a new location within The World and does not remove effects.

301.7 Inactive Realms

Realms that have not yet opened are called unopened, locked, or inactive. If a card, stone, or other game object would somehow enter or exist in an inactive realm, it’s banished instead.
Inactive realms are not part of The World.

301.8 Banished Realms

When a realm is banished, all stones and cards there are also banished.
A banished realm is an inactive realm.
Banished cards and other objects can’t interact with a banished realm since a banished realm is inactive.

302 Card Abilities In Various Areas

Card abilities are generally only active while in The World, or in the case of spells, when played. In general, cards do not have any abilities while in a hand, deck, The Abyss, or banishment. There are some exceptions to this, such as:

Cards that specify an ability while in a certain area such as The Abyss or Banishment.
For example, the eternal ability creates an effect when that card enters The Abyss from a deck.
Stat-defining abilities, which are abilities that specify a card’s power or other stat. These apply in all areas of the game.
For example, Gem Primordial says “This gets power equal to two times the current round.” This means on round 7 it has 14 power whether it’s in your deck, hand, or The Abyss.
Check a card’s abilities when that card moves from one game area to another.
Movement replacement abilities (using the term “instead”) work from any area.

Unless otherwise specified, card abilities only affect other cards in The World.

Sirius Aetherblade says “Opponents’ items with cost 2 or less and enemies with cost 2 or less are nullified.” This ability won’t nullify anything in The Abyss, a player’s hand, or other areas.

303 Deckbuilding

Each player brings a main deck with 50 cards. Tiers determine how many copies of a card are allowed in a 50-card deck.

303.1 Card Tiers

Legendary: 1x per deck
Primary: 2x per deck
Secondary: 3x per deck

303.2 DBS and Deckbuilding

DBS stands for Deck Balance Score, which is a point cost assigned to every card.
- When you build a deck, add up the DBS points of every card in that deck, and all token cards in its archive (token deck,) if any. The total deck DBS score is used for matchmaking and similar uses.
DBS numbers are not found on the card. They’re available in the official card database, available at play.wondersccg.com.
DBS is also a way of balancing overpowered cards and changing the metagame, so the values are expected to change on a regular basis.
Using DBS for matchmaking is optional for casual play.

303.3 Archives

You can start the game with an archive (token deck) in addition to your main deck. An archive starts with a minimum of 1 token and maximum 50 tokens.
When you create a token you can choose to select a printed one from your archive or use a stand-in piece to represent it. If you don’t have any printed tokens that meet requirements in your archive, you must use a stand-in.
The archive is face up, generally visible to all players, and is not shuffled or kept in any particular order. It’s used mainly as a pool of cards to select from.
Cards you don’t own can’t go in your archive for any reason.
Tokens have DBS points and their points are added to the DBS of the entire deck.

304 Additional Formats

Players can choose from a number of deckbuilding formats or play variants, as long as they agree ahead of time. In casual play, players can create their own Deck Balance Score categories. Check wondersccg.com for details.

304.1 Prerelease Format

The prerelease format ignores the core requirement to play core cards. Core cards can be played regardless of whether the player has any orbital links.
Players can include token lands in their starting decks.

305 Official Card Text

The official card database is compete.wondersccg.com.