Card Properties
- Follower: A type of card. Followers enter the field when played and can attack enemies the following turn.
- Spell: A type of card. Spells activate their abilities when played, then immediately go to your cemetery.
- Amulet: A type of card. Amulets enter the field when played, after which their abilities become active. They can't attack or be attacked.
- Crest: A type of card. When you gain a crest, it goes to your leader area, after which its abilities become active. You can only have one of each crest in your leader area.
- Token: Tokens are cards like Puppet that are created during a match by the abilities of other cards. They are removed at the end of the match and can't be used in deck construction.
- Class: Cards belong to one of eight classes: Forestcraft, Swordcraft, Runecraft, Dragoncraft, Abysscraft, Havencraft, Portalcraft, or Neutral. Leaders also belong to a class. For example, Dreizehn is a Portalcraft leader and can therefore use Portalcraft cards. Neutral cards can be used by leaders of any class.
- Trait: Some cards have one or more traits, such as Puppetry. Traits don't have any effects on their own, but some abilities only affect cards with certain traits.
- Cost: The number of play points needed to play a card, indicated at the top left of the card.
- Attack (Stat): The amount of damage a follower deals to enemies when attacking or being attacked, indicated at the bottom left of the card.
- Defense: The amount of damage a follower or leader can take, indicated at the bottom right of cards. When a follower's defense falls to 0, it is destroyed. When your leader's defense falls to 0, you lose the match.
Battle Mechanics
- Deck: The 40 cards you play a match with. At the start of each turn, you draw one card from your deck. If you must draw a card when your deck is empty, you lose the match.
- Field: The area where followers and amulets are put when they're played or summoned. You may have up to 5 cards on the field at a time.
- Hand: The area where cards are held before they're played. You may have up to 9 cards in your hand at a time.
- Cemetery: Your cemetery holds shadows, which represent the cards you've used up. Whenever you play a spell, or an allied follower or amulet is destroyed, a shadow is added to your cemetery.
- Leader Area: The area where crests are placed. You may have up to 5 crests in your leader area at a time.
- Play Point: Points you spend to play cards. At the start of each of your turns, you gain 1 max play point, up to a hard limit of 10, and recover all of your used play points.
- EP (Evolution Point): Points you spend to evolve followers. You start the match with 2 points.
- SEP (Super-Evolution Point): Points you spend to super-evolve followers. You start the match with 2 points.
- Play: To "play" a card means using it from hand by spending play points equal to its cost.
- Turn: The player going first is decided at the start of a match, after which players take turns playing cards from hand, attacking with followers, and engaging amulets. You can't perform any actions during your opponent's turn. Turns last around 60 seconds before evolution becomes available and 75 seconds after.
- Attack (Action): Starting from the turn after an allied follower enters the field, you can attack with it once per turn to deal damage to an enemy. When attacking an enemy follower, the allied follower will take damage equal to the opposing follower's attack value.
- Redraw: After drawing your initial hand of four cards at the start of a match, you may redraw, or mulligan, any number of them once. You won't draw the exact same card, but if you have multiple copies in your deck, you may end up drawing a different copy.
- Bonus Play Point: When going second, you can press the orange +1 Play Pt button during your turn to gain a bonus play point to use that turn. The button will refresh at the start of your sixth turn if used, so you can use it up to twice per match.
- Evolution: Evolving a follower gives it +2/+2 and the ability to attack enemy followers on the same turn it entered the field. An evolved follower can't be evolved again. Evolution is unlocked on your fifth turn if you're going first and your fourth turn if you're going second, after which you can spend an evolution point to evolve a follower once per turn. You can't evolve and super-evolve using evolution points in the same turn.
- Super-Evolution: Super-evolving a follower gives it +3/+3 and the following abilities:
- This follower can attack enemy followers on the same turn it entered the field.
- During your turn, this follower can't be destroyed by abilities, and damage it takes is reduced to 0.
- Whenever this follower attacks and destroys an enemy follower (either with the attack itself or an ability), deal 1 damage to the enemy leader.
- Super-evolved followers are also considered to be evolved followers.
- Super-evolution is unlocked on your seventh turn if you're going first and your sixth turn if you're going second, after which you can spend a super-evolution point to super-evolve a follower once per turn.
- You can't evolve and super-evolve using evolution points in the same turn.
Keywords
Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond features new and returning keywords from the original game to represent a card's ability. Additional keywords to represent several preexisting abilities have been added in the new game to increase the clarity and readability of cards.
Below is the complete list of all keywords and what they do, in alphabetical order.
- Aura: Can't be selected by enemy abilities.
- Bane: Destroys any follower that attacks or is attacked by the follower with Bane, after damage is exchanged.
- Barrier: Reduces damage taken by the follower or leader to 0 once before being removed.
- Combo: The number of cards you've played this turn. Some abilities require your Combo to be at or above a certain number to activate. When playing a card with such an ability, that card counts toward your Combo.
- Countdown: A counter that ticks down by 1 at the start of each of the controller's turns. The card is destroyed when its counter reaches 0.
- Engage: Can be activated once per turn by pressing the Engage button. Some Engage abilities cost play points to activate.
- Enhance: Activates when the card is played from hand if the player has the required number of play points remaining. The Enhance cost replaces the card's normal cost.
- Evolve: Activates when you evolve or super-evolve the follower using EP or SEP.
- Fanfare: Activates when the card enters the field after being played from hand.
- Intimidate: Can't be attacked by enemy followers.
- Last Words: Activates when the card is destroyed.
- Necromancy: Activates if you have the required number of shadows in your cemetery by consuming them.
- Overflow: The state of having at least 7 max play points.
- Reanimate: Summons a copy of the allied follower with the highest base cost destroyed that match and gives it the Departed trait. The cost of the follower must be equal to or less than the specified number. If there are multiple eligible followers, one is chosen at random.
- Rush: Allows the follower to attack followers on the same turn it enters the field.
- Storm: Allows the follower to attack on the same turn it enters the field.
- Super-Evolve: Activates when you super-evolve the follower using SEP.
- Ward: Prevents enemy followers from attacking anything without Ward.
