Ruling — Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

← Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Gamebg-129437-en-1e

Setup

1. Each player shuffles a personal deck of 8 S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents and 4 S.H.I.E.L.D. Troopers, then draws 6 cards.[1]

2. Put all S.H.I.E.L.D. Officers, Wounds, and Bystanders on the board in the appropriate spaces.[1]

3. Pick 1 Mastermind at random and put it on the board, with its 4 Mastermind Tactics facedown underneath it in random order.[1]

4. Check which Villains this Mastermind "Always Leads".[1]

5. Pick 1 Scheme at random and follow its "Setup" instructions.[1]

6. Put the number of Scheme Twists specified by the Scheme into the Villain Deck.[1]

7. Add 5 Master Strikes to the Villain Deck.[1]

8. Add a specific number of Villain Groups, Hench/Villain Groups, and Bystanders to the Villain Deck based on the number of players.[1]

9. Shuffle the Villain Deck and place it face-down on the Villain Deck space.[2]

10. Pick 5 Heroes at random and add all of their cards to the Hero Deck (70 cards total; add a 6th Hero if playing with 5 players).[1][2]

11. Shuffle the Hero Deck and place it face-down on the Hero Deck space.[2]

12. Flip 5 cards from the top of the Hero Deck faceup into the 5 Hero Spaces in the HQ.[1][2]

A Turn

1. Choose a player to go first; players take turns in clockwise order.[2]

2. Play the top card of the Villain Deck.[1][2]

* If the card is a Villain, move it into the "Sewers" city space.[2]

* If a Villain entering a space causes another Villain to be pushed, move the existing Villain one space toward the Escaped Villains pile.[2]

* If a Villain is pushed off the fifth city space, it "escapes" into the Escaped Villains pile and KOs a Hero from the HQ that costs 6 or less.[2]

3. Play cards from your hand, using them to recruit and fight.[1][2]

* Play each card in your hand one at a time in any order.[3]

* Follow what the card says, including using Recruit Points to recruit more Heroes and Attack to defeat Villains.[3]

* Special abilities on cards can override the rules of the game.[4]

* If a card tells you to do something and you cannot do all of it, do as much as you can.[4]

* If a special ability requires a choice and it is not obvious who should make it, the player whose turn it is makes the choice.[4]

* Keep played cards in front of you until the end of your turn.[3]

4. Discard your hand and draw 6 new cards.[1][2]

Winning and Ending the Game

* Team Victory: Players win a team victory if they successfully attack the evil Mastermind four times.[5]

* Individual Victory: The player with the most Victory Points in their Victory Pile wins an individual victory.[6][5]

* Mastermind Victory: The Mastermind wins for evil if they complete their dark Scheme.[5]

* Final Showdown: In a Showdown Turn, players play cards as normal to produce Recruit Points and Attack, adding them into a single Showdown Total.[6] The player with the highest Showdown Total wins the Final; if there is a tie, a Super Showdown occurs.[6]

[1] RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook · p.13 · Initial Setup · Villain Deck · Hero Deck · On Your Turn

[2] RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook · p.5

[3] RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook · p.7 · Step 2) Play Cards from Your Hand, Using Them to Recruit and Fight · Hero Card · Superpower Ability

[4] RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook · p.9 · Special Abilities on Cards · 'Your Heroes' & 'Heroes You Have'

[5] RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook · p.2 · Overview · Online How-to-Play Videos · How to Win · How the Evil Mastermind Wins

[6] RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook · p.12 · fourth Mastermind Tactic. · Whichever player has the highest Showdown Total wins the Final · Tied Final Showdowns · Game Contents

The sage rests. The game continues.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 202 ms · ask 10449 ms · total 10654 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 10654 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 11, "score": 0.048412, "snippet": "For most groups, the best way to teach the game is just to start playing it. There's no need to explain every single detail before you begin. Instead just tell people the overall theme and goal of the game, pointing to the different elements as you mention them. You can use your own words, or say so", "headingPath": "How\tto\tTeach\tthe\tGame · Solo Play · Solo Setup · Scoring", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.046343, "snippet": "Special abilities on cards can override the rules of the game. Some cards tell each player to do something. In those cases, the player whose turn it is does it first. Then go in clockwise order. If a card tells you to do something, and you can't do all of it, then do as much as you can. For example:", "headingPath": "Special\tAbilities\ton\tCards · 'Your Heroes' & 'Heroes You Have'", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.045455, "snippet": "For each of those Heroes, add all 14 cards for that Hero to the Hero Deck. That’s 70 cards total. •If you are playing with 5 players, add a 6th Hero. Starting the Game • Shuffle the Villain Deck. Put it face-down on the Villain Deck space. • Shuffle the Hero Deck. Put it face-down on the Hero Deck s", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.044557, "snippet": "In a Showdown Turn, you don't play the top Villain card, you don't recruit Heroes, and you don't fight Villains. Instead: Play the cards in your hand as normal, using those cards' special abilities as normal, and producing Recruit Points and Attack as normal. Add together all the Recruit Points and ", "headingPath": "fourth Mastermind Tactic. · Whichever\tplayer\thas\tthe\thighest Showdown\tTotal\twins\tthe\tFinal · Tied\tFinal\tShowdowns · Game Contents", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.042964, "snippet": "Masterminds use different abilities during fights, represented by 'Mastermind Tactic' cards. All four 'Mastermind Tactic' cards have the same Attack number, but they each have different 'Fight' effects on them. When you fight a Mastermind: Choose a random card from the four face-down Mastermind Tact", "headingPath": "Mastermind\tTactics · Winning\tthe\tGame :", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.04207, "snippet": "Then refill the empty space in the HQ with a new card from the Hero Deck, faceup. Whenever there is an empty space in the HQ for any reason, you refill that space immediately with the top card of the Hero Deck, faceup. You can even recruit a Hero, see what new Hero appears in its place from the Hero", "headingPath": "How\tto\tRecruit\ta\tHero: · How\tto\tFight\ta\tVillain: · Your Victory Pile · Step 3) Discard Your Hand and Draw\t6\tNew\tCards · Masterminds", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "For your first game, follow the setup rules on the following page, using the specific card stacks listed there instead of choosing card stacks at random. After your first game, every game of Legendary uses different Heroes, Villains, Masterminds, and Schemes, so there are always new challenges to ma", "headingPath": "Your First Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "When a player defeats the fourth Mastermind Tactic, that player finishes their turn and draws six cards as normal. Then it's time for the Final Showdown between the players and the Mastermind! Each player in turn now takes a special 'Showdown Turn,' starting with the player on the left of the player", "headingPath": "Final Showdown (Optional)", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 13, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Initial\tSetup · Villain Deck · Hero Deck · On\tYour\tTurn", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Step 2) Play Cards from Your Hand,\tUsing\tThem\tto\tRecruit and\tFight · Hero Card · Superpower\tAbility", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Special\tAbilities\ton\tCards · 'Your Heroes' & 'Heroes You Have'", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Overview · Online How-to-Play Videos · How to Win · How the Evil Mastermind Wins", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}, {"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "fourth Mastermind Tactic. · Whichever\tplayer\thas\tthe\thighest Showdown\tTotal\twins\tthe\tFinal · Tied\tFinal\tShowdowns · Game Contents", "sharpsignalDocId": 382}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 382 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 382 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.88218 of 2385 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 26, 2026 07:54 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	How to Teach the Game · Solo Play · Solo Setup · Scoring	p.11	0.048412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Special Abilities on Cards · 'Your Heroes' & 'Heroes You Have'	p.9	0.046343 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)		p.5	0.045455 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	fourth Mastermind Tactic. · Whichever player has the highest Showdown Total wins the Final · Tied Final Showdowns · Game Contents	p.12	0.044557 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Mastermind Tactics · Winning the Game :	p.8	0.042964 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	How to Recruit a Hero: · How to Fight a Villain: · Your Victory Pile · Step 3) Discard Your Hand and Draw 6 New Cards · Masterminds	p.8	0.04207 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Your First Game	p.2	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Final Showdown (Optional)	p.11	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 42 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Special Abilities on Cards · 'Your Heroes' & 'Heroes You Have'	p.9	#2	0.046343 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	fourth Mastermind Tactic. · Whichever player has the highest Showdown Total wins the Final · Tied Final Showdowns · Game Contents	p.12	#4	0.044557 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Overview · Online How-to-Play Videos · How to Win · How the Evil Mastermind Wins	p.2	#9	0.029572 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Cooperative and Competitive Play	p.10	#13	0.027973 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Initial Setup · Villain Deck · Hero Deck · On Your Turn	p.13	#16	0.026688 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Step 2) Play Cards from Your Hand, Using Them to Recruit and Fight · Hero Card · Superpower Ability	p.7	#11	0.028898 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	How to Teach the Game · Solo Play · Solo Setup · Scoring	p.11	#1	0.048412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)		p.5	#3	0.045455 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Initial Setup · Villain Deck · Hero Deck · On Your Turn	p.13	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)		p.5	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Step 2) Play Cards from Your Hand, Using Them to Recruit and Fight · Hero Card · Superpower Ability	p.7	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Special Abilities on Cards · 'Your Heroes' & 'Heroes You Have'	p.9	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	Overview · Online How-to-Play Videos · How to Win · How the Evil Mastermind Wins	p.2	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game — Rulebook (corpus doc 382)	fourth Mastermind Tactic. · Whichever player has the highest Showdown Total wins the Final · Tied Final Showdowns · Game Contents	p.12	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 202 ms · first delta 4260 ms · total 10654 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 202 ms · ask 10449 ms · gateway work 10654 ms · total 10654 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3952
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 811
tok/sec: 129.3 tok/sec — 811 output tokens in 6.273 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 44s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 3s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 311), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.