Berserk

Berserk is Vulcan Forged's collectible card game (CCG) in the VulcanVerse ecosystem, where players can use their Berserk-specific and VulcanVerse Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). Players can use these Berserk NFTs to enter higher leagues as well as use their VulcanVerse vulcanites to gain a competitive edge over free-to-play players.

How to Play

Basic Rules

The objective of the game is to reduce your opponent to 0 life points. Players take turns playing cards from their hand and attack their opponent's creatures or hero directly.

There are currently 2 types of cards in Berserk: Creature cards and Spell cards. Creature cards are played to 1 of 7 spaces on the board, and can only be played if there is room to do so. Spell cards can be played at any time during your turn.

Each player has a deck of exactly 30 cards.

Reading a Card

Each Berserk card contains 6 key pieces of information.

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1. Lava Cost - top left. This tells you how much lava the card costs to play
2. Rarity Gem - top right. This colored gem provides an indication of the rarity of the card (typically correlated with power and value)
3. Name of the card - the middle of the card displays the name
4. Attack Strength - bottom left. This tells you the base attack stat for the card (only creature cards have an attack stat)
5. Health - bottom right. This tells you the base health stat for the card (only creature cards have a health stat)
6. Ability Text - center. This explains what effects the card may have, either when played, or when attacking

Leagues

In Berserk, there are three leagues available to play in: Starter, Mythic, and Legendary. The league you play in is dictated by how many NFTs you own, the rarity gem associated with each NFT, and the level of the vulcanite you choose to be your hero.

Card Rarity

There are five levels of rarity for cards in Berserk: common, rare, mythic, epic, and legendary. The rarity of the cards in your deck will determine which of the three leagues you are able to play in. The higher the rarity, the higher the league you will have to play in.

Vulcanites

Vulcanites serve as the player's hero. Although vulcanites are primarily used in VulcanVerse, owning a vulcanite higher than the free level 0 companion does carry a competitive advantage in Berserk. If your vulcanite is level 1 or higher, your hero will have an ability that can be triggered once per game. Level 0 companions do not possess this ability. Currently, here are the abilities available for each vulcanite level 1 and higher (abilities subject to change):

Level 0

No abilities for any of the following free companions:

- Corpse Rat

- Drakonewt

- Fae Fox

- Mountain Sprite

- Orestiad Goat

- Royal Caladriole

- Spirit Owl

- Storm Crow

Level 1

- Phearei, Dryad of the Woodland Glades: once per combat, deal 1 damage to any target while ignoring taunts

- Tomyios, Kobalos of the Sink Hole: once per combat, switch damage and health points of any card on board

- Venomtail of the Dunes of Doom: once per combat, poison your opponent

- Wolfshadow, He Who Howls in Darkness: once per combat, deal 2 damage to a random enemy card

Level 2

- Aelio, Storm-Swift Queen of the Harpies: once per combat, your hero gains immune for one turn

- Alpha of the Deep Forest: once per combat, deal 3 damage to your opponent

- Soter, Lord of the Woodland Herds: once per combat, deal 3 damage to your opponent

- Syna the Spiderling, Spawn of Arachne: once per combat, set one enemy card's damage to 0

- Trapjaw of the Crypts of Darkness: once per combat, reduce the health of targeted enemy card by 50%

Level 3

- Chthonius of They Who Despoil: once per combat, set one enemy card's health to 1

- Lost Shade: once per combat, stun one enemy card

- Medusa of the House of Death: once per combat, stun on enemy card

- Satyr Youngling: once per combat, silence an enemy card

- Velosina of the Sacred Stables: once per combat, silence an enemy card

Level 4

- Blubberjaw of the Flames of Hell: once per combat, deal 1 damage to all cards on board

- Thunder of the High Steppes: once per combat, get +5 health

Level 5

- Charon, Ferryman of Souls: once per combat, summon one Spartoi Peltast

- Chiron, First Amongst Centaurs: once per combat, silence the enemy hero indefinitely

- Kallisto, Battle-Bear of the Deep Woods: once per combat, silence the enemy hero indefinitely

- Kopis of the High Steppes: once per combat, summon rip and rend on board

- The Nemean Lion of the Desert: once per combat, deal massive damage to an enemy card

Level 6

- Asterion, Master of Minotaurs: once per combat, summon 2/3 Blacksmith on board

- Numatox, Cockatrice of the Desert: once per combat, poison all enemy cards on board

Putting in all together

Depending on the cards within your deck and the vulcanite you choose as your hero, you will be shown which leagues you can play in. The following are the requirements for each league (note that all neutral, or free, cards are allowed in every league):

- Starter League: common NFTs and vulcanites up to level 1.

- Mythic League: common, rare, and mythic cards, and vulcanites levels 0-3. A minimum of one NFT must be within your deck.

- Legendary League: all cards and vulcanites allowed. A minimum of five NFTs must be within your deck.

Board Layout

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The board is made of several distinct zones. The main board (1), your deck (2), your graveyard (3), your hand (4), your lava counter (5), your lifepoint counter (6), and the turn timer (7).

The main board has space for seven cards to be summoned at any one time.

Your deck is made of up exactly 30 cards. When you run out of cards, you will not lose the game immediately, but you will stop drawing cards.

Your graveyard shows all the cards you have played during the game. Both players can see all cards in either graveyard.

Mulligan Step

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At the beginning of each game, there is a special one-off turn. You draw your initial five cards, you may then select any number of them to return back to your deck, before shuffling and redrawing the selected cards. This is a critical step in ensuring you have a playable hand at the start of the game.

Taking a Turn

Each turn has three distinct phases: upkeep, main phase, and end of turn.

During the upkeep phase, your available lava is set to the maximum available this turn. You then draw cards, and status effects wear off if applicable.

During the main phase, you can play cards and attack with creatures, in any order you like. The main phase lasts for 60 seconds, but you can choose to end your turn early. You may attack any creature you choose, or the enemy hero directly, unless prevented from doing so by the effects of a card.

End of turn cancels any active spells if you haven't selected a target, and applies any damage over time (DoT) effects where applicable.

Lava

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Lava is the fuel for your spells. You start each turn by refilling your available lava, and the amount you have access to goes up with every passing turn, allowing for bigger and bigger plays as the game progresses.

Player 1 starts on 1 Lava, and Player 2 starts on 2, to offset the advantage from going first. Lava then increases by 1 point each turn up to a maximum of 10.

Lava is not carried over from one turn to the next; anything you don’t use is wasted, and your total refills at the beginning of each turn. You cannot hold more than 10 lava at one time.

Card Draw

You draw two cards per turn, or up to a maximum hand size of six (whichever is lower).

After turn seven, card draw increases to three cards per turn, or up to maximum hand size.

At turn 12, card draw increases again to four cards per turn.

This keeps games of Berserk fast-paced and energetic as they go on. This allows for big plays, but a big risk as you burn through what's left of your limited 30 card deck.

List of Effects

Berserk has an array of abilities and spells that can impact the course of a game. Many cards will simply explain what they do within the ability text of the card. But for some cards, keywords are used to describe abilities that are otherwise too wordy, or show up on several different cards.

The following are the various different card effects:

- Armour: adds armour to your hero, each stack of armour blocks 1 instance of damage and is then removed

- Blessing: provides a positive effect to a friendly card, specific details are on each card

- Curse: provides a negative effect to an enemy card, specific details are on each card

- Destroy: target is immediately destroyed (goes through immunity)

- Empower: your hero gains attack points for a specified amount of turns

- Heal: restores health points to either your hero or creatures

- Immortal: when your hero is immortal your life points cannot be targeted by enemy attacks or spells

- Immune: immune creatures cannot be affected by any targeted spells, abilities, or attacks

- Lifesteal: heals itself during combat, equal to the damage dealt

- Parry: when this creature attacks, reduce defending creature's stats by a specified amount. A creatures attack cannot go below 1 (this effect triggers before combat)

- Poison: applies a negative debuff that deals 2 damage at the end of turn for each stack of poison, Poison lasts for 1 turn, but applying additional stacks will refresh the timer

- Rage: creature gains +1/+0 during your upkeep step

- Reborn: the first time a reborn creature dies, it is resummoned with its base attack and health points

- Reflect: when this creature receives combat damage, return up to a specified amount of that damage to the attacker.

- Revenge: when this card dies, it destroys its attacker

- Silence: remove all positive buffs from target (including taunt)

- Sleep: when a card is first summoned it is asleep, and cannot attack until your next turn

- Stealth: this creature cannot be targeted until it attacks

- Stoneskin: when a stoneskin creature takes damage, the attacker is stunned for 1 turn

- Strike: a strike creature has multiple attacks

- Stun: a creature that is stunned is unable to defend itself, and will be unable to attack for 1 turn

- Summon: summons an additional card to the board when played, provided there is space to do so

- Taunt: forces creatures to attack this card before being able to target any other creatures, or hero life points directly

- Undead: does not suffer from sleep. Able to attack immediately when summoned

- Vendetta: whenever this creature takes damage, it gains attack points