Play the Game

First, you'll see our loading screen while we pair you with a player of similar level or an AI. You can use this time to read Deviants' Factions lore and some playing advice from the team.

The Initiative

Then, you'll see an animation of a coin toss in the center of the screen. Each side of the coin is marked with one of the players' Avatars. The game randomly decides which of the two players will have the Initiative on the first turn.

Whenever the game needs to resolve Actions generated by Triggered Abilities, it may happen that several cards trigger their abilities at the same time. There is a specific order to resolve these events, and Initiative plays a key role in case of a "tie" between two cards that belong to different players. There are game actions that must be performed by both players, such as drawing a card at the beginning of the turn or reordering the cards that remain on the Board when a turn ends. To decide who does this first, you must take into account which player has the Initiative.

Initial Hand

Whenever you enter a game, a viewer shows you your starting hand. If you like it, you can select the Keep button to start the game with this hand. If you would rather try your luck, you can select the Redraw button. When you Redraw, you will be dealt a new 3-card hand. You can only Redraw once per game. These cards then go to the third layer, on your side of the Board, from where you can play them.

Turn Structure

Once both players have received their starting hands, the game begins. A game of Deviants Factions consists of a series of consecutive turns that both players play together until one of the two HQs is destroyed. A turn is composed of the following steps:

• Draw step

• Development step

• Fight step

• End step

Draw Step

In this step, each player receives a card from the top of their deck.

Development Step

Each player can play a card from his or her hand or pass. For this, the player who has the initiative takes part. Once he has played, it is his opponent's turn to act.

To play a card you must take it and drag it onto the first layer of the board and drop it. If a card is played, the leftmost available position on the board will be used. Characters and technologies use different rows. The row that corresponds to the Characters is located just above the Technologies row.

If, at some point, you already know what you are going to play in your next Development step, you can leave that card for autoplay. To do so, simply drag it out of your hand and release it as you would when playing a card. A card on autoplay moves to the bottom right corner of the first layer and waits there. When it is your turn to play a card during the next Development step, if there is a card in autoplay, it's played automatically.

You can change your mind either by putting another card in autoplay to replace it or simply by dragging the card back to your hand.

Fight Step

During the Fight Step, a clash of Characters takes place in each column containing at least one Ready Character. Clashes start on the left with Slot 1 and continue to the right until every column containing at least one Ready Character is addressed. Note that if a Character changes Slots mid-fight, it may happen that they end up attacking more than once during a turn or not even attacking at all, depending on whether their new column has attacked or not this turn.

For more details on the Fight Step, read the "Character Clash and Attack Types" section.

End Step

Characters on the board reduce their Planning by one. Then, cards on the board are grouped to the left without leaving any empty Slots. The turn ends and the next one starts immediately.