Ruling — Hero Realms

← Hero Realms

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Hero Realmsbg-198994-en-1e

### Setup

1. Shuffle the Market Deck and place it facedown on the table.[1]

2. Deal the top five cards of the Market Deck face-up in a row to create the Market.[1]

3. Place the 16 Fire Gem cards in a single stack, face-up, next to the last card in the Market.[1]

4. Leave a space next to the Market Deck for a Sacrifice Pile.[1]

5. Each player shuffles their personal deck and places it facedown in front of them, leaving room for a discard pile.[1]

6. Randomly determine which player goes first.[1]

7. The first player draws three cards.[1]

8. The second player draws five cards.[1] (Note: In other formats, the first player starts with 3, the second with 4, and others with 5 [2][3]).

### Gameplay

Players alternate taking turns proceeding clockwise.[4][3] Each turn consists of three phases:[4]

**1. Main Phase**

During this phase, you may perform the following in any order, as many times as you are able:[4]

* Play a card from your hand (there is no cost; place it face-up in front of you).[4]

* Use the expend, ally, and/or sacrifice abilities of any of your cards in play.[4]

* Use Gold to acquire new cards from the Market or Fire Gem pile.[4][2] To acquire a card, subtract its cost from your Gold Pool and place the card in your discard pile.[2]

* Use Combat to attack an opponent and/or their Champions.[4] To attack a Champion, subtract Combat from your pool to deal damage; if damage equals or exceeds the Champion's Defense, the Champion is stunned and moved to its owner's discard pile.[2] To attack an opponent, subtract Combat from your pool to lower their Health.[2] Note that you cannot attack a player or their non-guard Champions if they have a prepared guard in play.[5][6][2]

**2. Discard Phase**

During this phase, you must do the following:[7]

* Lose any remaining Gold in your Gold Pool.[7]

* Lose any remaining Combat in your Combat Pool.[7]

* Put all in-play Items and Actions into your discard pile.[7]

* Put any cards left in your hand into your discard pile.[7]

* Prepare all of your Champions.[7]

**3. Draw Phase**

* Draw five cards.[7] (Note: If your deck is empty when you need to draw, shuffle your discard pile to create a new personal deck [7]).

* Your turn ends.[7]

### Scoring and Ending the Game

* Each player begins with 50 Health.[4]

* Health is your score.[4]

* A player is defeated if their Health is reduced to zero or less.[6]

* The last player standing wins.[4][3]

[1] RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook · p.1 · SETUP · Ally Abilities · Sacrifice Abilities

[2] RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook · p.2 · Acquiring Cards · Attacking · Hunter - First Blood (3+ players)

[3] RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook · p.2 · MULTIPLAYER RULES · Free-For-All (2+ players) · Basic Cards · Imperial Faction · Guild Faction · Necros Faction

[4] RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook · p.1 · HOW TO PLAY · Main Phase · Playing Cards · Actions and Items · OVERVIEW

[5] RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook · p.1 · Personal Deck and Keeping Score · Using Abilities

[6] RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook · p.2 · Health · Combat · CREDITS · Gold · Expend · Guard · …

[7] RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook · p.2 · Hunter - Last One Standing (3+ players) · Hydra (4 players, 2 players per team) · Discard Phase · Draw Phase

🔧 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 89 ms · ask 5113 ms · total 5205 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5205 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 1, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "Players alternate taking turns. Starting with the first player, play proceeds clockwise. Each turn has three phases: ◆ Main Phase ◆ Discard Phase ◆ Draw Phase Any time during your Main Phase, you may perform any of the following, in any order, as many times as you are able: ◆ Play a card from your h", "headingPath": "HOW TO PLAY · Main Phase · Playing Cards · Actions and Items · OVERVIEW", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "Some card abilities will give you Gold. When you gain Gold, it goes into a Gold Pool which you may add to and spend from over the course of your Main Phase. Gold is used to acquire cards from the Market or from the Fire Gem pile. A card's cost is found in its upper-right-hand corner. To acquire a ca", "headingPath": "Acquiring Cards · Attacking · Hunter - First Blood (3+ players)", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.046898, "snippet": "To set up the game, shuffle the Market Deck and place it facedown on the table. Then, deal the top five cards of the Market Deck face-up in a row next to the Market Deck. These face-up cards make up the Market. Next to the last card in the Market, place the 16 Fire Gem cards in a single stack, face-", "headingPath": "SETUP · Ally Abilities · Sacrifice Abilities", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.046875, "snippet": "Each player begins the game with a personal deck containing a Shortsword, a Dagger, a Ruby, and seven Gold. We suggest you keep score with pencil and paper, but for your convenience we've also included health-tracking cards. To use them, line up the appropriate side of the 'tens digit' card just und", "headingPath": "Personal Deck and Keeping Score · Using Abilities", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.046154, "snippet": "Expend abilities are indicated by in the text box. To use this ability, turn the card sideways. You can use the Expend Ability of cards at any point during your Main Phase, including the turn you play the card with an Expend Ability. Weary of war, the Emperor crafted a bold new strategy: peace throu", "headingPath": "Expend Abilities · The Basics · Name, Card Type, & Subtype ↓ · Primary → Ability · Champions", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.045724, "snippet": "Same as Hunter - First Blood, except when a player is eliminated the game continues. The person to the eliminated player's right gains 10 health and draws a card. Last player standing, wins! Each two-player team begins the game with 75 health. All players on a team share a health score. Each individ", "headingPath": "Hunter - Last One Standing (3+ players) · Hydra (4 players, 2 players per team) · Discard Phase · Draw Phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.045228, "snippet": "Hero Realms is designed to support a wide variety of ways to play. Unless otherwise specified, the standard rules apply to the following game formats. To find other formats, or to share format suggestions, please visit herorealms.com/multiplayer. This is the default way to play. Randomly determine s", "headingPath": "MULTIPLAYER RULES · Free-For-All (2+ players) · Basic Cards · Imperial Faction · Guild Faction · Necros Faction", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.043905, "snippet": "Players start the game with a score of 50 health. If your Health is reduced to zero or less, you are defeated. When this icon is found in a card's text box, it indicates an amount of Health you gain. When this icon is found in a card's text box, it indicates an amount of Combat you add to your Comba", "headingPath": "Health · Combat · CREDITS · Gold · Expend · Guard · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP · Ally Abilities · Sacrifice Abilities", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Acquiring Cards · Attacking · Hunter - First Blood (3+ players)", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "MULTIPLAYER RULES · Free-For-All (2+ players) · Basic Cards · Imperial Faction · Guild Faction · Necros Faction", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "HOW TO PLAY · Main Phase · Playing Cards · Actions and Items · OVERVIEW", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 1, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Personal Deck and Keeping Score · Using Abilities", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Health · Combat · CREDITS · Gold · Expend · Guard · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Hunter - Last One Standing (3+ players) · Hydra (4 players, 2 players per team) · Discard Phase · Draw Phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 398}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 398 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 398 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 0.87393 of 1983 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 15, 2026 06:38

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 Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	HOW TO PLAY · Main Phase · Playing Cards · Actions and Items · OVERVIEW	p.1	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Acquiring Cards · Attacking · Hunter - First Blood (3+ players)	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 Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	SETUP · Ally Abilities · Sacrifice Abilities	p.1	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 Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Personal Deck and Keeping Score · Using Abilities	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 Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Expend Abilities · The Basics · Name, Card Type, & Subtype ↓ · Primary → Ability · Champions	p.1	0.046154 (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 Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Hunter - Last One Standing (3+ players) · Hydra (4 players, 2 players per team) · Discard Phase · Draw Phase	p.2	0.045724 (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 Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	MULTIPLAYER RULES · Free-For-All (2+ players) · Basic Cards · Imperial Faction · Guild Faction · Necros Faction	p.2	0.045228 (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 Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Health · Combat · CREDITS · Gold · Expend · Guard · …	p.2	0.043905 (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 9 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 Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	HOW TO PLAY · Main Phase · Playing Cards · Actions and Items · OVERVIEW	p.1	#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
#2	RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Personal Deck and Keeping Score · Using Abilities	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
#3	RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Expend Abilities · The Basics · Name, Card Type, & Subtype ↓ · Primary → Ability · Champions	p.1	#5	0.046154 (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 Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Hunter - Last One Standing (3+ players) · Hydra (4 players, 2 players per team) · Discard Phase · Draw Phase	p.2	#6	0.045724 (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 Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Health · Combat · CREDITS · Gold · Expend · Guard · …	p.2	#8	0.043905 (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
#6	RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	SETUP · Ally Abilities · Sacrifice Abilities	p.1	#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
#7	RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Acquiring Cards · Attacking · Hunter - First Blood (3+ players)	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
#8	RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	MULTIPLAYER RULES · Free-For-All (2+ players) · Basic Cards · Imperial Faction · Guild Faction · Necros Faction	p.2	#7	0.045228 (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 Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	SETUP · Ally Abilities · Sacrifice Abilities	p.1	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Acquiring Cards · Attacking · Hunter - First Blood (3+ players)	p.2	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	MULTIPLAYER RULES · Free-For-All (2+ players) · Basic Cards · Imperial Faction · Guild Faction · Necros Faction	p.2	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	HOW TO PLAY · Main Phase · Playing Cards · Actions and Items · OVERVIEW	p.1	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Personal Deck and Keeping Score · Using Abilities	p.1	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Health · Combat · CREDITS · Gold · Expend · Guard · …	p.2	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK Hero Realms — Rulebook (corpus doc 398)	Hunter - Last One Standing (3+ players) · Hydra (4 players, 2 players per team) · Discard Phase · Draw Phase	p.2	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 89 ms · first delta 1512 ms · total 5205 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 89 ms · ask 5113 ms · gateway work 5205 ms · total 5205 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4593
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 647
tok/sec: 179.7 tok/sec — 647 output tokens in 3.600 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 37s 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 327), 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.