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Rulebooks and FAQ

quozl

Not just a rat but a rat with a gun!
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Magic: Arena of the Planeswalkers rulebook

Battle For Zendikar rulebook

Shadows Over Innistrad rulebook

Bonus scenario from Walmart special edition

Hasbro has Printables of the unit and spell cards from the first master set and Zendikar:
Magic: Arena of the Planeswalkers Squad Cards
Magic: Arena of the Planeswalkers Spell Cards
Battle For Zendikar Squad Cards
Battle For Zendikar Spell Cards

FAQ
@Colorcrayons made a PDF printout with card-sized turn order player aids.

Matthew Boone asked Hasbro customer service some questions and he posted the answers here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cRFVryTIr8eTb6EAcGUOFaFtcWNOMPJAYD6-fktY380/edit

Magic the Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers
Consumer Care Questions and Responses


1. The Phoenix creature in the game has an ability called Rebirth that does something when the player "plays a sorcery spell" however, the blue spell Psychic Rebuttal can counter a played spell, does the Rebirth effect happen if the "played sorcery spell" is countered?

No. A spell that is countered is not considered played.

2. Can auras be attached to an army card in the army card graveyard or are they removed when the army card dies (as a result of all squad members being dead)?

Auras are attached to army cards that are in play, not in graveyards or reserves.

When all figures pictured on an army card have been destroyed, the army card is placed in your army card graveyard. When an army card is placed in your army card graveyard, any Enchantments attached to the army card are placed in their owner’s graveyard.

3. Can Rise of the Dark Realms bring back a squad creature from a dead army card (all other squad creatures on the card are dead as well)? Does the army card come back then, and with or without its old enchantments?

If a figure on an army card that is in your army card graveyard is returned to the battlefield, that army card is placed back in play.

When all figures are pictured an army card have been destroyed, the army card is placed in your army card graveyard. When an army card is placed in your army card graveyard, any Enchantments attached to the army card are placed in their owner’s graveyard.

4. Honor of the Pure, will the bonus still apply if all creatures in the enchanted squad are dead (and the army card was sent to the army card graveyard)? Or does Honor of the Pure go to the spell graveyard?

When all figures are pictured an army card have been destroyed, the army card is placed in your army card graveyard. When an army card is placed in your army card graveyard, any Enchantments attached to the army card are placed in their owner’s graveyard.

5. Exactly when can activated abilities such as Liliana's Snuff Out be activated? Anytime between action 2 and action 5 or only between actions when the army card is considered chosen?

Page 7, Arena of the Planeswalkers game guide under ACTION 2: CHOOSE AN ARMY CARD: You can only use activated abilities from the army card you chose. For example, you can only use Liliana’s Snuff Out ability on a turn in which you choose Liliana.

You can only use Liliana’s Snuff Out abilitity on a turn in which you choose Liliana. Snuff out can be used after Action 2 and before Action 3, or after Action 4.

6. Can spells be cast any time before action 3 and after action 4 or just immediately before and after those actions?

Spells can be played from your hand anytime after action 1 and before action 3 and again after action 4 and before action 5. You can play up to a total of 3 spells per turn.

7. For the red spell Circle of Flame, which figure is required to have the damage markers already, the figure that is taking the damage (probably an opponent's) or the figure that you control that is adjacent to the figure taking damage?

The figure that you control is the figure that is required to have the damage markers already.

8. Does Unsummon, the blue spell, remove damage counters? How do partial squad summons work?

Page 13, Arena of the Planeswalkers game guide under Returning a Unique Squad to Owner’s Reserve:
“Only figures on the battlefield are returned to an owner’s reserve. Any figures in the figure graveyard stay there. All attached enchantments are discarded to their owners’ graveyards. All damage markers are removed.”

Yes, when creatures are returned to a player’s reserve all damage markers on those creatures are removed. The same rules would apply for summoning a partial squad as for summoning a full squad. You would take any creatures on that army card and place them onto the battlefield on an empty space within 5 clear sight spaces away from the planeswalker that is summoning them. If there are any squad creatures on that army card that are already in the graveyard, they are still destroyed and cannot be summoned.

9. Does a creature under the effects of Mind Control act as a creature you control or your opponent controls for disengagements and moving through friendly creatures?

If you play Mind Control and target a squad creature your opponent controls, you control that creature while you are moving and attacking with the target creature.

You cannot use activated abilities. An example of an activated ability is Liliana’s Snuff Out. Currently, no squad creatures in Arena of the Planeswalkers have activated abilities.

A Mind Controlled creature would take a leaving-engagement attack from your opponent’s figure, not your own. However, the opponent who controls the figure who would make the leaving-engagement attack can choose to not take the attack.

Q. Can you summon the Blazing Firecats, play an enchantment on them, and then resolve your haste attack with one of the firecats?

A. When you summon Blazing Firecats you must immediately attack with one of the Firecats if you want to. You cannot summon the Firecats, then play spells, and then attack with using the haste ability.

Clarification on Dual Casting:

When using the the red spell Dual Casting, the played card does count towards the 3 spell per turn limit. Here’s an example:

You play Incinerate.
You play Dual Casting.
You select Incinerate to play again.
You have played 3 spells and cannot play another spell this turn.

The ability "Lay Waste” should trigger at the end of the Eldrazi Ruiner’s turn – not at the end of its attack.
 
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Nick Parenteau, a poster on bgg, has proposed this Clarified Turn Sequence in his review of the game (my own adds in parenthesis):

1. Draw cards
2. Summon units
3. Select active units & Cast spells (Up to 3)
4. Move units
5. Attacks
6. Cast spells (Up to 3, including those cast in Step 3)
7. End turn - increase turn tracker.
 
Nick Parenteau, a poster on bgg, has proposed this Clarified Turn Sequence in his review of the game (my own adds in parenthesis):

1. Draw cards
2. Summon units
3. Select active units & Cast spells (Up to 3)
4. Move units
5. Attacks
6. Cast spells (Up to 3, including those cast in Step 3)
7. End turn - increase turn tracker.

Erm... more like:

1. Draw cards
2. Select active units
3. Summon units
4. Cast spells (Up to 3)
5. Move units
6. Attacks
7. Cast spells (Up to 3, including those cast in Step 3)
8. End turn - increase turn tracker.

Units can only be summoned when your Planeswalker is the active unit. Also... well, you can cast spells before selecting the active unit and might very well want to do so as casting the spell can affect the tactical situation.

~Aldin, spell fluidly
 
Or more accurately and succinctly:

1. Draw a spell card & cast spells. *
2. Select an army card & cast spells. *
3. Summon (if planeswalker was selected) & cast spells. *
4. Move selected figure(s).
5. Attack with selected figure(s).
6. Cast spells. *
7. End your turn - Increase turn tracker, then player to left now takes their turn.

* You may only cast up to 3 spells during your entire turn.


Printable player aid cards may be downloaded from here:
http://planeswalker-arena.boards.net/thread/32/turn-order-cards

Note:
The distinction between Army card and units/figures is an important one. Things other than figures may be on army cards... ;) [sneaky ninja]

Artifacts with or without models for example. Events as another example. This is M:tG afterall. Many abstract ideas to be activated that don't require models. There is a large amount of design space heretofore not yet utilized.

The distinction may very well be irrelevant by the time this line is no longer supported. But as a magic player, I can see why they worded it the way that they did.

:2cents:
 
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TIL that you can only put pictures in the gallery:oops:

~Aldin, paginationed
 
I'm sure you guys know what you're about, but I just want to mention that I had no problem printing the rulebook out from Jim's source.
 
Can you summon the Blazing Firecats, play an enchantment on them, and then resolve your haste attack with one of the firecats?

When you summon Blazing Firecats you must immediately attack with one of the Firecats if you want to. You cannot summon the Firecats, then play spells, and then attack with using the haste ability.
 
Spells and end of Turn.

It looks like they developed the spell cards before they decided that instead of having each player have a "round" per game turn, they would have each player end a game turn and advance the Turn marker.

or some similar mess up in development.

This is why the Spells with end of turn conditions often don't make sense e.g. Inspired Charge , the defence bonus is useless. However if the same spells last until the begining of your next turn and are then discarded to the graveyard they all seem to work.

So I propose on spell cards the End of Turn condition ,means they last from when played or revealed(hidden enchantments) to the start of your next turn.

The first action of each Turn should be to discard to your graveyard any spells that last until the end of your turn.

Hopefully someone can take this up with the designer.
 
While I appreciate Jim's scan, I've been occasionally checking to see if the PDF eventually shows up on wizards.com or hasbro.com.

For the German speaking players, here it is :)
https://www.hasbro.com/common/docum...200c9a66/B276D09050569047F5B0A031A75FFA32.pdf

I've sent an email to Hasbro Customer Service, asking if they would also make the English version available.

Edit: Wow, fast response. They sent me an email with the following attachment:
https://glasq.com/gary/heroscape/rulebooks/Arena-of-the-Planeswalkers.pdf

No idea why they gave me this "landscape" version with two portrait pages on a single landscape page. :rolleyes:
 
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While I appreciate Jim's scan, I've been occasionally checking to see if the PDF eventually shows up on wizards.com or hasbro.com.

For the German speaking players, here it is :)
http://www.hasbro.com/common/docume...200c9a66/B276D09050569047F5B0A031A75FFA32.pdf

I've sent an email to Hasbro Customer Service, asking if they would also make the English version available.

Edit: Wow, fast response. They sent me an email with the following attachment:
http://glasq.com/gary/heroscape/rulebooks/Arena-of-the-Planeswalkers.pdf

No idea why they gave me this "landscape" version with two portrait pages on a single landscape page. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the info! Although the english pdf you linked doesn't work.
 
While I appreciate Jim's scan, I've been occasionally checking to see if the PDF eventually shows up on wizards.com or hasbro.com.

For the German speaking players, here it is :)
http://www.hasbro.com/common/docume...200c9a66/B276D09050569047F5B0A031A75FFA32.pdf

I've sent an email to Hasbro Customer Service, asking if they would also make the English version available.

Edit: Wow, fast response. They sent me an email with the following attachment:
http://glasq.com/gary/heroscape/rulebooks/Arena-of-the-Planeswalkers.pdf

No idea why they gave me this "landscape" version with two portrait pages on a single landscape page. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the info! Although the english pdf you linked doesn't work.
Works for me...
 
I just now was replacing the raw version I got from Hasbro with a cleaned up version of it, done by member @ctaylor. Instead of two rulebook pages on each PDF page (landscape), he made it one for one (portrait), plus he removed the trim marks.
 
While I appreciate Jim's scan, I've been occasionally checking to see if the PDF eventually shows up on wizards.com or hasbro.com.

For the German speaking players, here it is :)
http://www.hasbro.com/common/docume...200c9a66/B276D09050569047F5B0A031A75FFA32.pdf

I've sent an email to Hasbro Customer Service, asking if they would also make the English version available.

Edit: Wow, fast response. They sent me an email with the following attachment:
http://glasq.com/gary/heroscape/rulebooks/Arena-of-the-Planeswalkers.pdf

No idea why they gave me this "landscape" version with two portrait pages on a single landscape page. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the info! Although the english pdf you linked doesn't work.
Works for me...

Wait, now it does for me, lol. It doesn't work if I try to open it in another window. It works just clicking on it.
 
Just an FYI on the Eldrazi Ruiner:

Ok I have a question regarding the new expansion: Here is a link to the picture in question: http://postimg.org/image/gv4dhmivt/

It's on page 5 of the new expansion thread on the heroscapers.com website.

But anyway, my question is about the Eldrazi Ruiner for the 4 player scenario. It has 2 abilities that have me confused.

The first is Relentless which says "Whenever Eldrazi Ruiner destroys a figure in combat, it may attack again".

And then immediately after it has an ability called Lay Waste, which says "If no Planeswalkers are adjacent to Eldrazi Ruiner at the end of its attack, deal 1 damage to all figures your opponents control up to 6 clear sight spaces away".

I am wondering how this works? Does the Ruiner Lay Waste after every single attack, or just once? If a figure is destroyed by Lay Waste does it get to attack again? What counts as the end of an attack? Is it the end of all the attacks, or each individual one?

Thanks in advance!

***UPDATE***

"Thank you for your patience and I apologize for the long wait.

The ability Lay Waste”should trigger at the end of the Eldrazi Ruiner’s turn – not at the end of its attack.

The instructions will be updated to reflect this.

Again, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to reach out to us.

I hope you have a fun day!"
 
I encountered that in my first game with the Eldrazi Ruiner scenario. It's completely broken with the as-written intepretation. The vagueness of the wording has me wondering how much CVN was involved in this expansion, after the wording in the master set improved on Heroscape wording with greater clarity.
 
The scenario for Battle for Zendikar doesn't seem to be anywhere on the Internet. If I can figure out how to use the scanner, I'll upload that and also the Innistrad rulebook.
 
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