1. Deck construction
Each side needs exactly one Leader card, a 50-card main deck, and a separate 10-card DON!! deck. Your main deck can only contain cards whose color appears on your Leader (a mono-color Leader gates you to one color; a dual-color Leader lets you mix two).
- 50 cards in the main deck (Characters, Events, and Stages).
- Max 4 copies of any single card number.
- 1 Leader. Sets your color identity and starting Life total.
- 10 DON!! cards. Your resource deck. Always 10, not customizable.
2. Game setup
- Both players shuffle decks and place them face-down in the Deck area.
- Place your Leader face-up in the Leader area.
- Rock-paper-scissors to decide who picks turn order; that player declares first or second.
- Both players draw 5 cards. You may mulligan once (reshuffle and redraw 5).
- Place cards from the top of your deck equal to your Leader's Life value face-down in the Life area.
- First player begins.
3. Turn structure (five phases)
3.1 Refresh Phase
Return any DON!! given to Characters or your Leader back to the cost area, rested. Then set every rested card (Leader, Characters, Stages, cost-area DON!!) to active.
3.2 Draw Phase
Draw 1 card. Exception: the player going first skips this on their very first turn.
3.3 DON!! Phase
Place 2 DON!! from your DON!! deck face-up into your cost area (active). The first player gets only 1 DON!! on their first turn.
3.4 Main Phase
Where the game is played. Repeat any of the following actions in any order until you pass:
- Play a card. Pay its cost with DON!! to bring out a Character or Stage, or activate a [Main] Event.
- Activate an effect. Anything marked [Main] or [Activate: Main].
- Give DON!!. Slot active DON!! under your Leader or a Character for +1000 power per DON!! (your turn only).
- Battle. Attack with the Leader or a Character. No attacks on turn 1.
3.5 End Phase
"End of your turn" effects fire, "during this turn" effects expire, the turn passes.
4. Combat
Battles happen in four steps. Each card has a Power number that becomes the attack/defense value.
- Attack Step. Rest your active Leader or active Character to declare an attack. Target the opponent's Leader or any of their rested Characters.
- Block Step. Defender may rest a Character with [Blocker] to redirect the attack onto itself.
- Counter Step. Defender may discard cards with a Counter value (the bottom-right number, or [Counter] Event cards) to temporarily boost the defending card's power until end of battle.
- Damage Step. Compare attacker's power vs. defender's power. If attacker ≥ defender, the attack lands. A landed attack on a Character K.O.'s it (sent to trash). A landed attack on a Leader removes 1 Life card, and the player adds it to hand (triggering its [Trigger] if any).
5. Winning the game
Two ways to win:
- Damage out: the opponent has 0 Life cards and takes another point of damage on the Leader.
- Deck out: the opponent has 0 cards left in their main deck.
Both players check defeat conditions at the next rule-processing step; conceding ends the game immediately and can't be blocked by any effect.
6. The six colors
Each Leader belongs to one or two of the six colors, and your deck inherits that color identity:
- Red. Aggressive, Rush + power-pumping.
- Green. Tempo, rests opposing Characters.
- Blue. Bounce/control, returns Characters to hand or deck.
- Purple. DON!! ramp, plays bigger Characters earlier.
- Black. Cost reduction, removal at lower DON!! curves.
- Yellow. Life manipulation and Trigger payoff.
Next steps
Build a deck in the Deck Builder, copy a tournament list from Decklists, or browse every printed card in the Card List. For matchup data and tier rankings see the Meta page.