Ruling — Duel for Cardia

← Duel for Cardia

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Duel for Cardiabg-447243-en-1e

To play Cardia, follow these steps:

Setup

1. Sit opposite each other.[1]

2. Place all signets, modifiers, and ongoing tokens within easy reach at one end of the table.[1]

3. Place the location cards in a face-down stack next to the supply, ensuring the chevron on the back points to the direction of play.[1]

4. Each player takes 16 cards marked with a "I" in the lower right corner.[1]

5. Shuffle your 16 cards face down and place them in a stack in front of you to create your draw pile (deck).[1]

6. Draw the top 5 cards from your deck into your hand.[1]

7. Each player takes 2 summary cards marked with a "a" in the upper right corner.[1]

Gameplay

Each round consists of three phases:

1. Phase 1: Play cards

* Each player chooses 1 card from their hand and places it face down on their side of the play area, opposite the opponent's card.[2]

* Place the next cards in the direction of play next to the previously placed encounter.[2]

* Reveal cards simultaneously and compare their influence.[2][3]

* The card with the higher influence wins the encounter and gains a signet from the supply.[2][3]

* If both cards have the same influence, the encounter is a tie; no signet is placed, and you skip Phase 2.[3]

2. Phase 2: Activate ability

* Only the player whose card loses the current encounter immediately activates the ability of the losing card.[3]

* When activating an instant ability, resolve it immediately once.[4]

* When activating an ongoing ability, place an ongoing token on that card.[4]

* If an encounter is a tie, you skip this phase.[3]

3. Phase 3: End of the round ability

* Each player draws 1 card from their deck.[5]

Winning the Game

The game lasts several rounds until one player wins.[2] You win the game if:

* You are the first to collect 5 signets on your cards.[2]

* In Phase 1, your opponent cannot play a card (if both players cannot play a card, the player with more signets wins; if tied, it is a draw).[5]

* In Phase 2, you activate an ability that says you win the game.[5]

* At the end of a round, you have 5 or more signets on your cards.[5]

* In the event of a tie where both players have at least 5 signets at the end of a round, continue playing until one player has more signets or wins another way.[5]

[1] RULEBOOK Duel for Cardia — Rulebook · p.2 · seTup · Die KarTen

[2] RULEBOOK Duel for Cardia — Rulebook · p.3 · objecTiVe anD Gameplay · rounD oVerView · 1. play carDs

[3] RULEBOOK Duel for Cardia — Rulebook · p.4 · 1. play carDs · 2. acTiVaTe abiliTy

[4] RULEBOOK Duel for Cardia — Rulebook · p.5 · 2. acTiVaTe abiliTy · Ongoing ability

[5] RULEBOOK Duel for Cardia — Rulebook · p.7 · enD of The Game · Detailed example of a round

One rule clearer, zero feelings hurt.

🔧 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 93 ms · ask 4535 ms · total 4630 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 4630 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 3, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Cardia is a duel. Every round, you play 2 cards facing each other . This is called an encounter . The played card with the higher influence gains a signet . The lower card activates its ability . Played cards stay in play and can be affected by abilities. Signets that have been won can change sides ", "headingPath": "objecTiVe anD Gameplay · rounD oVerView · 1. play carDs", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.047643, "snippet": "Your summary cards have infos and reminders to help you through your first game. If you have further questions, check the keyword section (pp. 9-11) or a specific card (pp. 11-13). Once you know the game, you can find ways to switch things up in the following section. After you have played a few gam", "headingPath": "Detailed example of a round · aDjusTinG The DifficulTy · DecK ii · schaupläTze -", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.047163, "snippet": "Some abilities force you to discard cards from your hand, your deck or played cards. You can no longer use discarded cards. Place cards you discard face up into your discard pile . Return any tokens on a discarded card to the supply. You can look through your and your opponent's discard piles at any", "headingPath": "Discard:", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.046898, "snippet": "Reveal cards: Now, reveal your cards at the same time and compare their influence . The card that has the higher influence wins the encounter. Take 1 signet from the supply and place it onto the winning card. Tie: If both cards have the same influence, the encounter is a tie and no card wins or lose", "headingPath": "1. play carDs · 2. acTiVaTe abiliTy", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.046176, "snippet": "Each location has a rule that applies for the entire game. We explain the individual locations on p. 13. You are looking for an even greater challenge? At your own risk, you can play with more than one location at the same time. Once you are familiar with both decks, you can choose to combine them. ", "headingPath": "schaupläTze - · combininG DecKs · Influence:", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.045476, "snippet": "The game ends immediately if one of the following conditions is met: Phase 1: Your opponent cannot play a card. You win the game! Phase 2: You activate an ability that says you win the game. You win the game! Phase 3: You have 5 or more signets on your cards at the end of the round. You win the game", "headingPath": "enD of The Game · Detailed example of a round", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.044949, "snippet": "Sit opposite each other. Place all signets , modifiers ? and ongoing tokens within easy reach at one end of the table (see image above). 1 Place the location cards in a face-down stack next to the supply. The chevron on the back points to the other side of the table, indicating the direction of play", "headingPath": "seTup · Die KarTen", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.043496, "snippet": "Some abilities allow you to add influence to a card. Take a modifier ? with the indicated value from the supply and place it on the appropriate card below that card's influence. Note: In some cases, you will need several modifiers to represent the needed value (e.g., +7 = ). The values of all modifi", "headingPath": "Modifying influence · 3. enD of The rounD", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "seTup · Die KarTen", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "objecTiVe anD Gameplay · rounD oVerView · 1. play carDs", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1. play carDs · 2. acTiVaTe abiliTy", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "2. acTiVaTe abiliTy · Ongoing ability", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "enD of The Game · Detailed example of a round", "sharpsignalDocId": 707}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 707 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 707 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 0.88763 of 1851 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 5, 2026 13:27 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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	objecTiVe anD Gameplay · rounD oVerView · 1. play carDs	p.3	0.048916 (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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	Detailed example of a round · aDjusTinG The DifficulTy · DecK ii · schaupläTze -	p.8	0.047643 (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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	Discard:	p.10	0.047163 (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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	1. play carDs · 2. acTiVaTe abiliTy	p.4	0.046898 (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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	schaupläTze - · combininG DecKs · Influence:	p.9	0.046176 (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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	enD of The Game · Detailed example of a round	p.7	0.045476 (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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	seTup · Die KarTen	p.2	0.044949 (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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	Modifying influence · 3. enD of The rounD	p.6	0.043496 (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 14 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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	seTup · Die KarTen	p.2	#7	0.044949 (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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	objecTiVe anD Gameplay · rounD oVerView · 1. play carDs	p.3	#1	0.048916 (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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	enD of The Game · Detailed example of a round	p.7	#6	0.045476 (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
#4	RULEBOOK Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	2. acTiVaTe abiliTy · Ongoing ability	p.5	#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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	DecK i clarificaTions	p.11	#9	0.029199 (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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	Discard:	p.10	#3	0.047163 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	1. play carDs · 2. acTiVaTe abiliTy	p.4	#4	0.046898 (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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	schaupläTze - · combininG DecKs · Influence:	p.9	#5	0.046176 (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 Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	seTup · Die KarTen	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	objecTiVe anD Gameplay · rounD oVerView · 1. play carDs	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	1. play carDs · 2. acTiVaTe abiliTy	p.4	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	2. acTiVaTe abiliTy · Ongoing ability	p.5	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Duel for Cardia — Rulebook (corpus doc 707)	enD of The Game · Detailed example of a round	p.7	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 93 ms · first delta 1540 ms · total 4630 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 93 ms · ask 4535 ms · gateway work 4630 ms · total 4630 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2796
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 615
tok/sec: 202.3 tok/sec — 615 output tokens in 3.040 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 13s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 4s 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 640), 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.