Ruling — Mandala

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Mandalabg-264241-en-1e

### Setup

1. Place the play mat in the middle of the play area between the two players.[1]

2. Shuffle the sand cards thoroughly and place them face down beside the play mat as the draw deck, leaving space for a face-up discard pile.[1]

3. For each of the two Mandalas on the play mat, draw 2 cards from the deck and place them face up in the Mountain.[1]

4. Place an action overview card in front of yourself.[1]

5. Draw 6 cards from the deck and put them into your hand.[1]

6. Draw 2 cards from the deck and place them face down in your Cup.[1]

7. Determine who goes first (e.g., the oldest player).[1]

### Course of Play

1. Players alternate taking turns beginning with the first player.[2]

2. On your turn, you must take one of the following three actions:

* **Build Mountain & Draw:**

* Choose exactly 1 card from your hand and place it face up in one of the two Mountains, respecting the Rule of Color (each of the 6 sand colors may only appear in exactly one of the three areas within an individual Mandala).[2][3]

* Spread out the Mountain cards so they are easy to see.[3]

* Draw up to 3 cards from the top of the deck and add them to your hand, up to a maximum of 8 cards.[3]

* Check if you completed that Mandala (all six colors are present in the Mountain and its two Fields).[3]

* **Grow Field & No Draw:**

* Choose 1 or more cards of one color from your hand and place them face up in one of your two Fields, respecting the Rule of Color.[2][3]

* Spread out the cards in your Field so they are easy to see.[3]

* You must keep at least 1 card in hand; you cannot end your turn with no cards in hand.[3]

* You do not draw any cards this turn.[2][3]

* Check if you completed that Mandala.[3]

* **Discard & Redraw:**

* Choose 1 or more cards of one color from your hand and place them face up in the discard pile.[2][4]

* Draw an equal number of cards from the deck and add them to your hand.[2][4]

* You do not play into the Mountain or Field of either Mandala this turn.[4]

### Completing a Mandala

1. When a Mandala is complete (all 6 colors are present), it must be destroyed at the end of that turn.[5]

2. Starting with the player who played the most cards in their Field (or the player who did not play the last card if Field counts are tied), players take alternating turns to choose one of the colors present in the Mountain.[5]

3. When you choose a color, claim all cards of that color from the Mountain.[5]

4. If the color is not already in your River, place exactly one card face up in the first empty space in your River (starting from the left at space 1) and place any remaining cards of that color face down in your Cup.[5]

5. If the color is already in your River, place all claimed cards face down in your Cup.[5]

6. Continue turns until all colors in the Mountain have been claimed.[5]

7. Place all cards in both Fields of the Mandala in the discard pile.[5]

8. If the game is not over, draw 2 cards from the deck and place them face up in the Mountain of the empty Mandala.[5]

9. Note: If a player has no cards in their Field when a Mandala completes, they must place all cards they claim in the discard pile instead of their River or Cup.[6]

### End of the Game

1. The game ends when the draw deck is exhausted or one player adds a 6th color to their River.[7]

2. If the deck is exhausted, reshuffle the discard pile to create a new deck and continue playing until the next Mandala is completed.[7]

3. If a player adds a 6th color to their River, the game ends once all cards in the Mountain of the Mandala being destroyed have been claimed.[7]

4. At the end of the game, any cards remaining in hands or in incomplete Mandalas are discarded.[7]

5. Reveal the cards in your Cups and sort them below your River cards.[7]

6. Score points for cards in your Cup that match a color in your River (the value is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 points depending on

[1] RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook · p.2 · Setup

[2] RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook · p.3 · Course of Play · B - GROW FIELD & NO DRAW · C - DISCARD & REDRAW · The Rule of Color

[3] RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook · p.4 · A - BUILD MOUNTAIN & DRAW · B - GROW FIELD & NO DRAW

[4] RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook · p.4 · C - DISCARD & REDRAW

[5] RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook · p.5 · Completing a Mandala · DESTROYING A MANDALA · a) If you claim cards of a new color, not present in your River:

[6] RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook · p.5 · No cards in a Field

[7] RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook · p.6 · End of the game · Exhausting the Deck · Adding a 6th Card to a River · Scoring · ANNA'S RIVER

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 81 ms · ask 6339 ms · total 6421 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6421 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 3, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "Beginning with the first player, you alternate taking turns until the end of the game. On your turn, you must take one of the following three actions, which will be explained in detail on the following pages: or Play cards of one color into one of your Fields. Do not draw any cards this turn. Check ", "headingPath": "Course of Play · B - GROW FIELD & NO DRAW · C - DISCARD & REDRAW · The Rule of Color", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "Place the play mat in the middle of the play area, between the two of you. Shuffle the sand cards very thoroughly and place them face down beside the play mat as the draw deck . Leave space beside it for a face-up discard pile . For each of the two Mandalas on the play mat, draw 2 cards from the dec", "headingPath": "Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.046898, "snippet": "If you cannot or do not want to play cards, you can instead discard cards from your hand and replace them with cards from the draw deck. When you choose this action, do the following in this order: Choose 1 or more cards of one color from your hand and place them face up in the discard pile. (The Ru", "headingPath": "C - DISCARD & REDRAW", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.046875, "snippet": "A tactical card game for 2 players aged 10 and up, playing time: 30 minutes The Mandala: the symbol of an ancient and sacred ritual. Colored sand is laid to create a symbolic map of the world, before the pattern is ceremonially destroyed and the sand cast into the river-an ever repeating cycle of li", "headingPath": "Object of the Game · Components · 110 playing cards:", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.046642, "snippet": "As soon as cards of all 6 colors have been played into a Mandala (consider the cards in its Mountain and its two Fields) , the Mandala is complete and must be destroyed at the end of that turn; this may cause the game to end (see next page) . Starting with the player who played the most cards in the", "headingPath": "Completing a Mandala · DESTROYING A MANDALA · a) If you claim cards of a new color, not present in your River:", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.045688, "snippet": "Cards in the Mountain will be claimed when a Mandala is completed, and added to your Rivers and Cups to earn points at the end of the game. When you choose this action, do the following in this order: Choose exactly 1 card from your hand and place it face up in one of the two Mountains. You must res", "headingPath": "A - BUILD MOUNTAIN & DRAW · B - GROW FIELD & NO DRAW", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.044776, "snippet": "The end of the game is triggered when the draw deck is exhausted or one of you adds a 6th card to their River. If the draw deck is exhausted, reshuffle the discard pile to create a new draw deck. Then continue playing until the next time a Mandala is completed. The game ends immediately after that M", "headingPath": "End of the game · Exhausting the Deck · Adding a 6th Card to a River · Scoring · ANNA'S RIVER", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "If one player has no cards in their Field when a Mandala completes, both players still take turns to choose colors in the Mountain as usual, but the player with no cards in their Field must place all of the cards they claim in the discard pile. They do not add any of these cards to their River or Cu", "headingPath": "No cards in a Field", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Course of Play · B - GROW FIELD & NO DRAW · C - DISCARD & REDRAW · The Rule of Color", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "A - BUILD MOUNTAIN & DRAW · B - GROW FIELD & NO DRAW", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "C - DISCARD & REDRAW", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Completing a Mandala · DESTROYING A MANDALA · a) If you claim cards of a new color, not present in your River:", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "No cards in a Field", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "End of the game · Exhausting the Deck · Adding a 6th Card to a River · Scoring · ANNA'S RIVER", "sharpsignalDocId": 530}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 530 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 530 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.90195 of 3121 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 05:49

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	Course of Play · B - GROW FIELD & NO DRAW · C - DISCARD & REDRAW · The Rule of Color	p.3	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	Setup	p.2	0.048387 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	C - DISCARD & REDRAW	p.4	0.046898 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	Object of the Game · Components · 110 playing cards:	p.1	0.046875 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	Completing a Mandala · DESTROYING A MANDALA · a) If you claim cards of a new color, not present in your River:	p.5	0.046642 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	A - BUILD MOUNTAIN & DRAW · B - GROW FIELD & NO DRAW	p.4	0.045688 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	End of the game · Exhausting the Deck · Adding a 6th Card to a River · Scoring · ANNA'S RIVER	p.6	0.044776 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	No cards in a Field	p.5	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 8 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	Setup	p.2	#2	0.048387 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	Course of Play · B - GROW FIELD & NO DRAW · C - DISCARD & REDRAW · The Rule of Color	p.3	#1	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	Object of the Game · Components · 110 playing cards:	p.1	#4	0.046875 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	End of the game · Exhausting the Deck · Adding a 6th Card to a River · Scoring · ANNA'S RIVER	p.6	#7	0.044776 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	No cards in a Field	p.5	#8	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	A - BUILD MOUNTAIN & DRAW · B - GROW FIELD & NO DRAW	p.4	#6	0.045688 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	Completing a Mandala · DESTROYING A MANDALA · a) If you claim cards of a new color, not present in your River:	p.5	#5	0.046642 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	C - DISCARD & REDRAW	p.4	#3	0.046898 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	Setup	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	Course of Play · B - GROW FIELD & NO DRAW · C - DISCARD & REDRAW · The Rule of Color	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	A - BUILD MOUNTAIN & DRAW · B - GROW FIELD & NO DRAW	p.4	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	C - DISCARD & REDRAW	p.4	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	Completing a Mandala · DESTROYING A MANDALA · a) If you claim cards of a new color, not present in your River:	p.5	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	No cards in a Field	p.5	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Mandala — Rulebook (corpus doc 530)	End of the game · Exhausting the Deck · Adding a 6th Card to a River · Scoring · ANNA'S RIVER	p.6	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 81 ms · first delta 1409 ms · total 6421 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 81 ms · ask 6339 ms · gateway work 6421 ms · total 6421 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2776
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1024
tok/sec: 206.2 tok/sec — 1024 output tokens in 4.967 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 14s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 461), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.