Summoner Wars is a competitive 2-player card game that is played on a battlefield board. Each player wields a deck of 34 cards. The most important card in a player’s deck is their Summoner. When only 1 player’s summoner remains on the battlefield, that player wins!

There are 3 types of cards: Units, Structures and Events.
UNITS can move around the battlefield and can attack other cards on the battlefield.
STRUCTURES, like units, are cards that go on the battlefield and can be attacked. However, structures cannot move or attack. The most common structure is a gate. Gates are important because newly summoned units must be placed adjacent to a gate.
EVENTS can turn the tide of battle with their specified effect. Events are played in the indicated phase and events with the ACTIVE keyword on them stay in effect until the start of your next turn.

Each player starts the game with their Summoner already on the battlefield, along with a few other cards. The exact starting setup is indicated on the back of each Summoner card.

All of a player's cards that don’t start on the battlefield are shuffled to form a draw pile. The first player to take a turn starts with 2 magic and their opponent starts with 3 magic. Each player draws a starting hand of 5 cards.

Players will alternate taking turns until a player has won the game by destroying their opponent’s summoner. A player’s turn is broken up into 5 phases:

Summon units from your hand by paying their cost and placing them adjacent to one of your gates.

Move up to 3 of your units up to 2 spaces each. Units cannot move diagonally or through other cards.

Build any number of gates or other structures by paying their cost and placing them adjacent to your summoner or on an empty space in your back 3 rows.

Attack with up to 3 of your units. To attack, follow these steps:

• Declare a Target: Melee units ( ) can target adjacent cards. Ranged units ( ) can target cards up to 3 clear straight spaces away.
  
• Roll: Roll a number of dice equal to the attacking unit’s strength.
• Add Damage: Add 1 damage to the target for each symbol rolled that matches the attacking unit’s / symbol. results are ignored unless otherwise specified.

Each damage reduces a card’s life by 1. When a card's life reaches 0, it is destroyed and discarded.
If you do not target any enemy cards with an attack, add 1 damage to your summoner at the end of this phase.

Discard any number of cards from your hand. Gain 1 magic for each.

Draw back up to a hand of 5 cards. If your draw pile becomes empty, do NOT reshuffle your discard pile. You cannot draw cards while your draw pile is empty.
After you’ve finished your turn, it becomes your opponent’s turn. Play continues until only 1 summoner remains on the battlefield.

The full rulebook (with glossary) and other rules resources can be found on the Summoner Wars game page at PlaidHatGames.com.