The Miras 9 TCG Comprehensive Rules

This document is the comprehensive rules authority for the current pre-alpha version of The Miras 9 TCG.

When sources conflict, apply the latest published functional errata, then current card text, then these comprehensive rules, then Quick Play or reminder text.

A card may create an exception to a general rule. A prohibition using “cannot” prevails over an effect that merely permits the prohibited action.

Players must fully pay costs and choose all required legal targets before playing a card or activating an ability. An action that cannot meet those requirements cannot begin.

Resolve instructions in written order. After legal activation, resolve as much as possible unless all of the effect is replaced or prevented. “May” instructions are optional.

Game values used in calculations cannot be less than 0 unless a card explicitly says otherwise. A tracked counter may retain its recorded value when needed by an effect.

A card’s name, card ID, type, traits, alignment, cost, ATK, GRIT, ECHO, printed text, and functional rules define its game identity where present.

Primary card types are Unit, Site, Ship-Site, Equipment, Event, and paired Planet/Spirit. Unit traits may further identify Characters, Spirits, Vehicles, or Ships.

The owner is the player whose deck or paired Planet/Spirit included the card. The controller is the player currently directing it. Ownership does not change unless a rule explicitly says so.

Cards on the board, in Discard, and in Exile are public unless face-down status says otherwise. A player may inspect their own Hand and other private information available to them, but not an opponent’s hidden cards.

When a random or ordered hidden pile changes zones, preserve the required order. The Main Deck is not searched, reordered, or revealed without an effect that instructs it.

Tokens are game objects but are not deck cards. If a token would leave the board, it ceases to exist after its departure is processed.

A deck contains exactly one paired Planet/Spirit card and at least 30 other cards.

A deck may contain no more than three copies of a Unit, Equipment, or Event with the same card ID.

A deck may contain no more than two copies of a Site or Ship-Site with the same card ID.

Tokens and both faces of the paired Planet/Spirit are excluded from the 30-card minimum.

No alignment-based deckbuilding restriction exists unless a current format or card rule explicitly creates one.

Each player places their paired card Planet-side up, prepares their deck, and establishes Exterior, Interior, and Space lanes.

Each player chooses a starting Site, Ship-Site, or Space Site from their deck and places it in a legal lane. Complete any prompted setup-resource instructions.

Shuffle the remaining Main Deck and draw five cards. Each player may take one mulligan by shuffling their entire hand into the Main Deck and drawing five new cards.

Determine the first player by an agreed random method. The chosen first player begins the first Awaken Phase.

A player loses at the start of their turn if their Main Deck, Resource pile, and Used pile are all empty. Cards in Hand do not prevent this loss.

A player also loses if required Battle Damage remains and they have neither Echo nor a card in Hand, Main Deck, Resource, or Used with which to resolve the next point.

From the shared front line toward each player, the lanes are Exterior, Interior, and Space. Each player’s Exterior edge touches the opponent’s Exterior edge.

Each lane has a Site position. A basic lane token represents that location until a Site or Ship-Site overlays or occupies it.

Personal card zones are Main Deck, Hand, Resource, Used, Discard, Exile, and Planet. Cards may also be on the board, attached, embarked, or En Route.

“At a Site” and “in a lane” refer to the same board column when evaluating attacks, presence, Manifest, Pressure, and movement unless an effect narrows the location.

A real Site played over a basic lane token supplies that lane’s current identity, resource value, abilities, and access restrictions.

A Ship-Site is a mobile location, not a Unit. It may carry legal crew, take wounds, and be defeated under its own rules.

A turn proceeds through Awaken, Action, Attack, Move, and Attune, then passes to the opponent.

During Awaken, ready the active player’s tapped cards. Their En Route cards arrive, become ready, and remove their En Route marker.

The active player then chooses one innate card-flow action: draw the top Main Deck card, or move the top Main Deck card to Resource.

The active player may generate any amount up to their available generation maximum. Generated resources move from Main Deck to Resource.

Action is the normal phase for playing Units, Sites, Ship-Sites, Equipment, and Events, using Action abilities, and embarking or disembarking.

Attack is used to declare attack waves, assign blockers, open reactions, and resolve combat or Battle Damage.

Move is used for normal movement and may also be used to embark or disembark. Attune is used for Manifest, Pressure, Restore, Resource-to-Hand draws, and end-of-turn effects.

When the active player passes the turn, their Units that entered play that turn stop being Unattuned unless an effect says otherwise.

To play a card, announce it, choose all required modes and legal targets, pay its costs, and place or resolve it as instructed.

A Unit must enter a legal Site or lane for its type and card-specific access rules. A card-specific deployment permission overrides the normal lane restriction.

Equipment attaches to a legal host. It remains a separate card and follows its host unless detached, dropped, defeated, or moved by an effect.

An Event normally resolves during Action, is placed in Discard after resolving, and may use a different window if labeled or worded as a Reaction.

A tap symbol or instruction in a cost requires a ready, Attuned source. Activating an ability does not tap its source unless tapping is a stated cost or effect.

“Once per turn” tracks the named card, ability, Site, or player as written. Changing control or status does not refresh a spent limit unless an effect explicitly does so.

Development abilities and other abilities that name a phase may be used only in that phase. Contextual actions such as attack, movement, Manifest, and Pressure remain phase-specific.

To spend a resource, move the top card of Resource to Used unless an effect permits another selection. Spending does not reveal the card unless another rule requires it.

If a cost requires multiple resources, pay all of them before the card or ability resolves. A player cannot voluntarily make a partial payment.

Resource generation moves cards from the top of Main Deck to Resource, up to the chosen legal amount and available maximum.

During Attune, the active player may move any number of cards from Resource to Hand. This is a draw from Resource, not from Main Deck.

Echo is a player-held value used for Planet awakening, Restore, card effects, and payment of Battle Damage. Echo cannot fall below 0.

Cards in Main Deck, Resource, and Used form the start-of-turn survival clock. Hand joins those zones only as a possible source for resolving Battle Damage.

A ready card is upright and available to pay tap costs. A tapped card remains in play but cannot pay another tap cost until readied.

Units normally enter play Unattuned. An Unattuned Unit cannot attack, block, move, Manifest, Pressure, use a tap ability, or contribute ATK to Battle Presence.

An En Route card has left its origin but has not arrived. It does not establish Battle Presence and cannot normally attack, block, or be chosen as an active Unit.

When an enemy En Route Unit is Spotted, it becomes active and attackable for the duration specified by the Spot effect. Ship-Sites are exempt from Spot Check.

A ready, Attuned, non-defeated, non-En-Route eligible Unit establishes Battle Presence at its Site or lane. Legal embarked Characters or Spirits may establish presence through their host.

An unmanned Vehicle or Unit-Ship does not attack, block, move, Pressure, or establish Battle Presence. A card with Crew 0 or “always manned” is an exception.

Normal movement costs 1 resource, taps the moving card, and makes it En Route until its controller’s next Awaken. Card text may change the cost or arrival.

Characters normally move among Exterior and Interior Sites; Spirits may access any Site including Space; Vehicles normally use Exterior; Unit-Ships normally use Exterior and Space.

Embarking and disembarking are free during Action or Move, do not tap the boarding Unit, and may be repeated while every host, access, and capacity rule remains legal.

Only eligible Units owned by the host’s controller count toward manning. Vehicles, Ships, and Ship-Sites cannot themselves embark on another host without explicit permission.

A host cannot exceed its Crew Limit. Embarked Units travel with a moving host and retain their own status unless movement or card text changes it.

A friendly Ship-Site normally moves between friendly Exterior and Space for 1 resource. Contesting an enemy Exterior or Space, or returning from that contest, costs 2 resources.

A Ship-Site cannot contest enemy Interior unless card text permits it, and two Ship-Sites cannot occupy the same Site.

At a friendly Site, a Ship-Site covers and replaces the underlying Site’s generation and abilities. While contesting an enemy Site, that opponent keeps its generation but loses access to its Site abilities.

A legal attacker is ready, Attuned, active, able to attack, and at the same Site or lane as its legal opposing Unit, Site, or Ship-Site target.

Declaring an attacker taps it. The attacker remains committed even if its stats change, unless it leaves combat, becomes illegal, or an effect ends the attack.

The defender assigns legal ready, Attuned, active blockers at that Site or lane. Assigned blockers tap and become committed to the attack.

A blocked attacker deals its full effective ATK to each blocker simultaneously. The attacker takes retaliation equal to the combined effective ATK of its blockers.

An unblocked attack against an opposing Unit resolves simultaneous combat: each combatant deals its effective ATK in wounds to the other.

An unblocked attack against a standard Site assigns Battle Damage to the defending player equal to the attacker’s effective ATK.

An unblocked attack against a Ship-Site does not assign player Battle Damage. The attacker wounds the Ship-Site and simultaneously receives the Ship-Site’s retaliation; an unmanned Ship-Site has 0 retaliation.

Only one full attack wave may be made at a Site during a turn unless a card grants an additional attack. Complete the seven-step sequence in 11.9–11.15. A card-granted extra attack is a separate single-Unit wave after the current wave finishes; it does not reopen the Site for other attackers.

Declare the wave. Choose one Site, all ready, Attuned attackers participating there, and their legal targets. Confirm together; pay declaration costs and tap attackers. There are no reactions halfway through selecting the wave.

Reactions before blocks. The defender gets the first opportunity. Both players may play legal Reactions or reaction-speed abilities, including responses to each other.

Declare blockers. The defender assigns all legal blockers and confirms them together. They tap, and their assignments become committed.

Reactions before damage. The attacker gets the first opportunity. Both players may react and respond. This is the last opportunity to rescue a Unit from combat damage.

Deal damage. Determine remaining participants and current stats. Apply prevention and replacement effects; deal all combat wounds in the wave simultaneously and establish player Battle Damage. No ordinary reaction can interrupt damage.

Resolve consequences. Remove defeated cards, handle attachments and triggered effects, and settle Battle Damage and Blackwake through their defined procedure.

After the wave. Both players have a reaction opportunity involving survivors, starting with the attacker, before another Site or the next phase. Damage already dealt remains dealt; defeated Units cannot escape.

A Unit leaving the attack Site, leaving play, changing controller, or becoming defeated is removed from that wave. Returning or readying does not rejoin it. Tapping or readying an already committed combatant does not by itself remove it. Check current combat modifiers at damage resolution, not declaration.

An attack stays blocked once blockers are committed, even if all of them leave or are defeated. It deals no damage to its original target in that case. Surviving blockers still fight normally. If an unblocked Unit or Ship-Site target becomes illegal, the attack deals no damage; never substitute a standard Site or choose a new target unless an effect expressly permits it. Other attacks in the wave continue.

Raithe, Government Weapon: when his attack defeats a Unit and he survives the wave's simultaneous damage, Killing Machine readies him and grants one extra attack. He may use it after step 7, alone, with the normal reaction and blocker windows. Each qualifying extra attack may grant another. A ready effect without explicit extra-attack permission does not bypass 11.8.

Apply damage prevention, reduction, and replacement before placing wounds. A Unit or wound-bearing Ship-Site is defeated when its wounds equal or exceed its effective GRIT.

Excess damage to a Unit or Ship-Site does not spill over to the opposing player unless a card explicitly creates that effect.

Resolve Battle Damage one point at a time. For each point, either spend 1 Echo or discard one card from Hand, Main Deck, Resource, or Used.

The damaged player chooses the payment source for each point and may change sources between points. Main Deck, Resource, and Used cards are taken from the top unless an effect allows a choice.

Blackwake is checked only when Battle Damage from an unblocked standard-Site attack discards or reveals a card from Main Deck, Resource, or Used. Hand payment does not trigger Blackwake.

A Blackwake instruction may replace that card’s discard or create its printed effect. Optional costs, choices, and targets must still be legal and paid.

A defeated card goes to its owner’s Discard unless a rule or card changes its destination. Equipment attached to a defeated Character or Spirit drops at that Site instead of following it to Discard.

When a host is defeated at Space, Units aboard it are discarded. When a host is defeated at Exterior, Units aboard survive tapped at that Site.

A defeated awakened Spirit returns to its Planet slot Planet-side up rather than entering Discard.

Manifest and Pressure are Attune actions available to eligible Characters, Spirits, Vehicles, and Unit-Ships. A Vehicle or Ship must be manned.

To Manifest, the Unit must be at a friendly Site or lane with no active enemy Battle Presence. Tap it and gain Echo equal to its current effective ECHO.

To Pressure, the Unit must be at an enemy Site or lane with no active enemy Battle Presence. Tap it and reduce the opponent’s Echo by its current effective ECHO, to a minimum of 0.

Excess Pressure does not become Battle Damage. Pressure affects cards or other values only when a card explicitly says so.

Only one Unit may Manifest at a friendly Site or lane each turn, and only one Unit may Pressure at an enemy Site or lane each turn.

A Vehicle or Unit-Ship uses its own ECHO for Manifest or Pressure, not its crew’s, unless an eligible ability explicitly substitutes or compares a crew member’s ECHO.

A Ship-Site cannot use ordinary Manifest or Pressure because it is not a Unit. A current card ability may grant a distinct action, such as allowing an embarked Character to Manifest.

Enemy Units aboard a Ship-Site prevent Pressure there even when those occupants would not otherwise establish ordinary Battle Presence.

To Restore during Attune, spend exactly 2 Echo and place the top card of Discard face down on top of Used. Repeat only while each new Restore can be fully paid.

The paired card begins Planet-side up in the Planet zone and tracks that player’s Echo and awakening condition.

During their own turn, a player may Awaken in any phase when they can pay that Planet’s current Echo threshold and satisfy its other requirements.

Awakening flips or deploys the paired Spirit as instructed by that card. Different Planets may use different thresholds and Spirit forms.

An awakened Spirit enters ready and Attuned unless its card or awakening instruction states otherwise.

A defeated awakened Spirit returns to the Planet slot Planet-side up. Wounds and temporary modifiers do not remain unless a card explicitly preserves them.

Activated abilities use reaction or interrupt timing unless their own text names a phase, action, trigger, or response window.

A triggered ability checks its condition when the described event occurs. Resolve required defeat and damage consequences before reopening ordinary reactions; make each card-specific triggered choice through its defined procedure.

A replacement effect changes an event before it occurs. A prevention or reduction effect is applied before wounds, discards, or other final consequences are placed.

Use current effective values whenever an action resolves. Static modifiers apply while their source and conditions remain active; temporary modifiers expire at their stated duration.

If every target becomes illegal before resolution, a targeted effect resolves without affecting those targets. Costs already paid are not refunded unless an effect says so.

“This Unit,” “this Site,” or “this card” refers to the source. “You” and “your” refer to its controller; “opponent” refers to the opposing player.

When an older printed card differs from the current functional card record, use the current functional text and errata while preserving the physical card as its identified card ID.

During each wave reaction window, only the player with priority may announce a Reaction or a reaction-speed activated ability. Announce its targets and choices and pay its costs before the opponent receives priority. The pending effect waits on the reaction stack; later responses resolve first. Ordinary phase actions, new attacks, and phase or turn advancement are unavailable until the wave finishes.

A pass hands priority to the other player. Any newly announced effect resets the consecutive-pass count. Two consecutive passes resolve only the top pending effect. Resolve it completely, check defeat and required consequences, then give priority to the attacking player. Two consecutive passes with an empty stack close the current window. Passing once never waives the right to respond to a later play.

Combat damage is not a pending reaction and cannot be responded to between calculation and delivery. Leaving before damage prevents a Unit from dealing or receiving that combat damage. After damage, only a survivor may use an escape effect, subject to its targeting restrictions. Lethal damage defeats a Unit before another ordinary reaction opportunity. Battle Damage payment and Blackwake cannot undo combat damage or erase Battle Damage already established.

Specific current functional card text overrides a conflicting general rule; current functional text and errata override older printings. Apply an exception only to the permission it grants. “Ready this Unit” and “this Unit may attack again” are distinct permissions. Escape Route still requires its printed eligible Unit, Battleground Site, and adjacent friendly destination; the after-wave window does not waive those requirements.

ATK is offensive strength. GRIT is the wound threshold for defeat. ECHO is the value used by Manifest, Pressure, and specific effects.

Attuned means a Unit has completed its entry delay. Ready and tapped describe whether a card can pay a tap cost; the terms are independent.

Battle Presence is active control pressure established by eligible Units at a Site or lane. It restricts Manifest, Pressure, and certain deployment or card effects.

En Route is the normal movement delay. Spotted temporarily exposes an eligible En Route Unit to active interaction.

Battle Damage is player damage caused by an unblocked attack against a standard Site. Combat wounds against Units and Ship-Sites are not Battle Damage.

Blackwake is a card-specific response to eligible Battle Damage cards revealed from Main Deck, Resource, or Used.

Aftershock and the older manual Site Battle procedure are tabled prototype mechanics and are not part of current official play unless a currently supported card effect explicitly invokes a defined portion.

The internal engine name used by development tools does not identify a separate player-selectable ruleset. These pages describe the single current official Attack and Battle Damage rules.