Origins Battle
The simple, beginner way to play. Smaller decks, two to fifteen minute games, and everything you need to learn the characters before the long game.
2
Players
20–25
Cards in a deck
2–15
Minutes a game
5
Defeats to win
1 d6
Per player, plus health counters
AlphaWant to help make the game better?
Tribes of Wondervale is currently in its Alpha phase. While the game has undergone extensive internal playtesting and advanced statistical modeling, we believe great games evolve through community engagement. Some mechanics represent deliberate design choices after significant debate, including choices that could have gone either way. Others may continue to refine over time as real players bring new perspectives and strategies into the Vale. If you have thoughtful feedback on gameplay, balance, pacing or clarity, we welcome it. Wondervale is being built for the long haul, and early player insight helps shape the future of the universe.
Need to learn what the cards mean?
Before starting, review the Card Overview page to see how each character card is set up for gameplay: health, power, offense, defense and the tribe marks.
01What Origins Battle is
Origins Battle is the simple, beginner way to play Tribes of Wondervale. A game takes anywhere from 2 to 15 minutes. Our other mode, Ascension Campaign, is a longer, more strategic game, the kind more common for trading card games.
That said, while not required to enjoy it, strategy can certainly be at play in Origins Battle. How so? Deck building.
Deck building is how you choose which characters go into your deck, and it is where you get the most out of Origins Battle. Will you choose more defensive characters or more offensive power? What about health? How many different tribes? The combinations are endless. Find your favorites, build your tribe, and win the battle.
02How to win
To win, either:
- Your opponent has no characters left on the battlefield (see The battlefield), or…
- You defeat 5 of your opponent's characters first.
03What you need
At the table
- 2 players.
- A deck of 20–25 Tribes of Wondervale cards each.
- Health counters, or any other way to track health: paper, plastic counters, a phone app.
- One six-sided die (d6) per player. A phone dice roller works too.
Not used in Origins
- Intellect. It appears on the cards but only matters in Ascension Campaign.
- The tribe bank and the discard pile. Tribe cards attach straight from your hand, and there is one defeat pile.
04To start
Shuffle and draw
Shuffle each deck. Both players draw 5 cards. If your draw has no apprentice character cards (apprentices have no preceding unit in the bottom-left corner), reveal your hand, return the cards, reshuffle and draw again until you have at least one apprentice.
Place your battle position
Place 1 apprentice in battle position, typically at the front of your side of the table.
Fill the benchoptional
Place up to 2 apprentices on your bench, immediately behind battle position. Players are encouraged to place at least one, to avoid an early defeat.
Keep the rest
The remaining cards stay in your hand.
Roll for first
Both players roll a die. The higher roll goes first.
05The battlefield
This is your side of the table, laid out the way the playmat prints it. Origins Battle uses four of its zones; the two greyed out belong to Ascension Campaign. Characters in your hand are not in play.
Opponent's battle position
Same places as the upcoming playmats. Playing Origins on the mat, leave Discard and Bank empty.
Not used in Origins Battle
06Turn overview
On your turn, do the following in order.
Draw
Draw 1 card. There is no maximum hand size.
Deployoptional
Play, upgrade, switch and/or enhance a character. See Deploy.
Actionoptional
Attack. See Action.
End turn
Your opponent begins at step 1.
07Deploy
You may do any, and all, of the following. You may also choose to do nothing.
- Play an apprentice from your hand to the bench, if space allows. Only apprentices may be played directly from your hand to empty spaces on the bench.
- Upgrade your character or characters. See Upgrading.
- Switch your character in battle position with one character on the bench.
- Enhance a character or unit by attaching a matching tribe card to one of your characters on the battlefield. See Enhancement.
08Upgrading
Apprentice → Guardian → Hero
To upgrade a character or unit:
- You must have the next version of a card that is in play in your hand. The relationship is shown in the lower-left corner of the card in your hand.
- The character you place it on must have already survived one full turn.
- Guardian and hero cards cannot be played from your hand without their preceding card already in play.
- When a character upgrades, place the new card on top of the preceding one. Its health resets to the new card's maximum. The combined group of cards is called a unit.
09Enhancement
- A maximum of one tribe card per character card may be played on each character card.
- The tribe card must be attached to a character of the matching tribe shown on the card.
- When attached, the tribe card adds +50 to the character's (or unit's) health.
- Enhancement may only be performed during the deploy step of your turn.
- It may be applied to apprentices, guardians or heroes, and remains attached while that character is still alive.
During a character upgrade, any previously attached tribe card remains attached to the unit.
10Action
Attack with your character currently in battle position.
Rules
- You may only attack the opponent's character currently in battle position. Bench characters cannot be attacked.
- Apprentices cannot attack on the turn they enter play. Characters become ready at the start of their next turn.
Neither player may attack on their very first turn of the battle.
Combat, in order
Try a combat: Blizzmaul attacks Jawbarr
Roll as many times as you like. Modifiers come straight from the cards.
Attacker
Blizzmaul
- d6 roll 4
- Offense on card +5
- Strong vs Abyssal (green) +1
Defender
Jawbarr
- d6 roll 3
- Defense on card +3
- No tribe bonus vs Aegaryn +0
- Both players roll a d6.
- Add modifiers. Strength vs the opponent's tribe: +1 (shown in green on your card). Weakness: −1 (shown in red).
- Calculate scores. Attacker total = roll + Offense ± 1 modifier. Defender total = roll + Defense ± 1 modifier.
- Hit or miss. If the attacker's total is higher, the attack hits. If the attacker rolls a natural 6, it is a critical hit and lands regardless of the defender's score. If the totals are equal, or the defender's is higher, the attack misses.
- Damage. On a hit, the defender takes damage equal to the attacker's Power. Subtract it from health. There are no counterattacks in Origins Battle.
Defeated characters
- When a character's health reaches 0, place it in the defeat pile.
- Immediately choose a bench character to replace it in battle position.
- If a player has lost their character in battle position and has no bench character, or has had 5 characters defeated, they lose the game.
If that player has an apprentice in their hand when this happens, one time each game they may call an Emergency Replenishment and play the apprentice out of their hand straight into active battle.
Spotted something unclear, or a rule that plays differently at your table? These rules are still in their Alpha phase and your feedback shapes the next version. Send rules feedback.