OK Sparklings! Listen up! You’re not ready for the multi-verse, but when I’m finished with you, you will be! We are going to go over the basics of Magic Junior until you get it right, so listen up!
Now don’t you be minding ol’ Captain Jorta, young Sparklings. He may be as hard as a darksteel ingot on outside, but he’s a big ol’ teddy bear on the inside. Just listen carefully and we’ll have you slinging spells like you’re in the Gatewatch in no time. OK? Good, let’s go!
1) place a deck of cards in front of each player (off to one side)
2) place five castles, face-down, in front of each player
3) place the boss off to one side. Adults bosses have 16 life and child bosses have 20 life. You will need some way to track life (beads, chips, a countdown slider, a die, etc…)
4) each player draws three cards
5) the youngest player goes first
6) at the beginning of your turn, you:
a) untap (turn vertically) all your cards
b) remove one tired counter from each friend
c) draw a card
d) flip over one castle (until all castles are flipped)
7) during your turn, you may:
a) cast a spell, friend, hat, etc…
b) fight
c) tap cards to perform other actions
(you can do these actions in any order, but you may only fight once per turn. Also, you cannot perform other actions while doing any other action. for example, you cannot cast spells while fighting or cast spells on your opponent’s turn. In Magic terminology, this means all actions are performed at sorcery-speed)
8) To cast things:
a) Look at the mana value on the card (upper right-hand corner of the card)
b) tap (turn horizontally) the correct amount of castles that have the same colors as the card you are casting and add up the the mana value of the card
c) Friends and hats are placed above your castles and remain in play (on the battlefield), spells are used and then discarded immediately to the “away” pile (graveyard).
d) Friends enter play with at least one tired counter on them (unless otherwise noted on the card), and cannot attack or tap while they have a tired counter on them
9) To attack:
a) Only friends who are not tired can attack. Friends that are tired can still block.
b) The attacking player taps any friends they want to attack. The opposing player is the target of the attack, not their friends.
c) The defending player can then block each attacker with one or more friends. Or they can choose not to block at all.
d) After blocks are assigned, the powers of all friends are compared. If a friend takes more damage than their power, they “go away” (are removed from the field and placed in the away pile).
e) The attacking player decides where damage is assigned, so if a defender blocks with two or more friends, the attacker gets to choose which one goes away.
f) Any unblocked damage is assigned to the player. If that player’s life total reaches zero, they lose the game.
10) Winning and losing. If your life total reaches zero, you lose the game. If your deck has zero cards in it, you do not lose the game. When both players run out of cards, and there is a stalemate on the field, the game is a draw.