How to Play

The field is divided into 2 rows. The Garden (front row) is where combat and most interactions take place, and the Alley (back row) is where a lot of prep work is done. You can portal entities from the Alley into the Garden by using your gate.

Each gate in the Azuki TCG has a unique effect that activates when you portal entities, and the gate’s effect scales based on the gate power of the entity being portaled. The gate mechanic is really what makes the Azuki TCG unique. You can mix and match any gate with any leader as long as your gate has the same element as the leader, which allows for very flexible deck building and unique playstyles.

You start the game with 0 IKZ, and at the beginning of every turn, you gain 1 additional IKZ, and you can tap your IKZ to play cards or activate abilities. So the longer the game goes, the more IKZ you have to play with each turn, which you can use to play more powerful cards.

During your main phase, you can take actions in any order, including playing cards, activating card effects, portaling entities, and attacking, so ordering your actions really matters.

Entities have “Cooldown” and cannot attack the same turn they are played; leaders, on the other hand, can always attack but have no base attack, so you need to equip them with weapons in order to attack. You can always target opponent leaders in the Garden for attacks, but you can only target tapped entities in the Garden.

When you declare an attack, your opponent also has a “response” window to play response spells or activate response abilities. Combat damage is simultaneous, so 2 cards entering combat would deal damage to each other based on their attack, and they would be destroyed if their health is reduced to 0. Damage on entities reset at the end of each turn, but damage on leaders is permanent.