Ruling — Mystic Vale

← Mystic Vale

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Mystic Valebg-194607-en-1e

### Setup

1. Shuffle your 20 card deck and place it face down in front of you.[1]

2. Turn over the top card of your deck and place it back on top of your deck face up; this is your on-deck card.[1]

3. Place your on-deck card in your play area to create the start of your field, then turn over a new on-deck card.[1]

4. Repeat the previous step until you have two Cursed Lands in your field and a third one on-deck.[1][2]

5. Take a number of mana tokens equal to the number of players, including the token with the starting player symbol.[1]

6. Place the tokens so their active side is face up and shuffle them.[1]

7. Each player takes one token at random and turns it over so the spent side is face up.[1]

8. The player with the starting player symbol is the starting player.[1]

### Taking a Turn

During your turn, you must take the following phases in order:

1. **Planting Phase**:

* Choose to either pass or push.[2][3]

* If you pass, skip immediately to your Harvest Phase.[2][3]

* If you choose to push, place your on-deck card into your field to the right of any previously played card.[2][3]

* Resolve any 'When Played' abilities on that card.[2][3]

* Turn over the top card of your deck and place it back on top of your deck face up as your new on-deck card.[2][3]

* Determine if you have Spoiled.[2][3]

* If you have not Spoiled, repeat the steps of the Planting Phase until you either pass or Spoil.[2][3]

2. **Harvest Phase**:

* If you chose to end your Planting Phase before Spoiling, you complete your Harvest Phase.[2]

* Count up your various symbols, resolve 'Harvest' abilities on cards in your field, score points, buy vale cards, and buy advancements.[2]

* This can be done in any order.[2]

3. **Discard Phase**:

* (No specific steps provided for the Discard Phase, though it follows the Harvest Phase).[3]

4. **Prep Phase**:

* While your opponent is beginning their turn, you can prep your field.[4]

* Play your on-deck card as the first card in your new field and resolve 'When Played' abilities on that card (if any).[4]

* Turn over the top card of your deck as a new on-deck card.[4]

* Continue to place your on-deck card into your field, to the right of any previously played card and resolve any 'When Played' abilities, until you have three or more showing (in your field and your on-deck card).[4]

### Ending the Game

1. When the tokens in the pool run out, finish playing the current round so each player gets an equal number of turns, then the game ends.[4]

2. If tokens run out and a player would still gain tokens, take them from the tokens left in the box.[4]

3. Players count their points.[4]

4. The player with the most total points is the winner.[4]

5. If there is a tie, the player with the most combined level 3 advancements and level 2 vale cards wins.[4]

6. If a tie persists, players share the win.[4]

[1] RULEBOOK Mystic Vale — Rulebook · p.6 · 5. Setup Fields · 6. Determine Starting Player

[2] RULEBOOK Mystic Vale — Rulebook · p.24 · 1. Player Decks · 2. The Commons · 3. Vale Cards · 4. Setup VP Tokens · 5. Setup Fields · 6. Determine Starting Player · …

[3] RULEBOOK Mystic Vale — Rulebook · p.8 · How to Play · Taking a Turn · 1) Planting Phase

[4] RULEBOOK Mystic Vale — Rulebook · p.13 · 4) Prep Phase · End of the Game

One rule clearer, zero feelings hurt.

🔧 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 193 ms · ask 7325 ms · total 7521 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 7521 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 8, "score": 0.048172, "snippet": "The starting player takes the first turn of the game . When a player finishes their Discard Phase, the next player clockwise around the table takes a turn . Players continue taking turns until the end of the game . When a player is taking a turn, they are considered the active player . During your t", "headingPath": "How to Play · Taking a Turn · 1) Planting Phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 566}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.048139, "snippet": "While your opponent is beginning their turn, you can now prep your field. Play your on-deck card as the first card in your new field and resolve 'When Played' abilities on that card (if any) . Then turn over the top card of your deck, as a new on-deck card . Continue to place your on-deck card into ", "headingPath": "4) Prep Phase · End of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 566}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.046751, "snippet": "During the game you will always have 20 cards . Your cards will be in one of four locations: your deck , your field , your discard pile , and you will have one on-deck card . During setup, players will create their starting field and on-deck card. Each player makes their starting field using the fol", "headingPath": "5. Setup Fields · 6. Determine Starting Player", "sharpsignalDocId": 566}, {"page": 24, "score": 0.046402, "snippet": "Each player should shuffle their deck and place it face down in front of them . Take out all the Fertile Soil advancements and place them in a separate deck . Separate all the other advancements into decks denoted by their level symbols . Shuffle all of the level 1 advancements and count out a numbe", "headingPath": "1. Player Decks · 2. The Commons · 3. Vale Cards · 4. Setup VP Tokens · 5. Setup Fields · 6. Determine Starting Player · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 566}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.044118, "snippet": "You will not be able to buy vale cards for your first few turns since you need to have spirit symbols and none of your starting cards have any . There are 4 spirit symbols in the game: Animal Spirit Forest Spirit Sky Spirit Wild Spirit You will put these symbols on your cards by adding advancements ", "headingPath": "Buy Vale Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 566}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.044002, "snippet": "John D Clair Rules of Play", "headingPath": "™", "sharpsignalDocId": 566}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Each player takes a deck of 20 sleeved starting cards (cards belonging to a specific deck are denoted by their card back) . Each player's deck should have 9 Cursed Land, 3 Fertile Soil, and 8 blank cards . Each player should shuffle their deck and place it face down in front of them. The commons is ", "headingPath": "1. Player Decks · 2. The Commons · . Level 1 Advancements · . . Level 2 Advancements: · . . . Level 3 Advancements:", "sharpsignalDocId": 566}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Separate the vale cards into a level 1 deck and a level 2 deck. Shuffle the level 1 deck and turn over 4 cards face up, then do the same with the level 2 deck . Level 1 Vale Cards Level 2 Vale Cards Player Deck Place the tokens in a pool based on the number of players: 2 players - count out 23 and l", "headingPath": "3. Vale Cards · 4. Setup VP Tokens", "sharpsignalDocId": 566}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "5. Setup Fields · 6. Determine Starting Player", "sharpsignalDocId": 566}, {"page": 24, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1. Player Decks · 2. The Commons · 3. Vale Cards · 4. Setup VP Tokens · 5. Setup Fields · 6. Determine Starting Player · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 566}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "How to Play · Taking a Turn · 1) Planting Phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 566}, {"page": 13, "quote": null, "headingPath": "4) Prep Phase · End of the Game", "sharpsignalDocId": 566}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 566 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 566 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 0.88357 of 2319 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 24, 2026 18:39 UTC

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 Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	How to Play · Taking a Turn · 1) Planting Phase	p.8	0.048172 (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
#2	RULEBOOK Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	4) Prep Phase · End of the Game	p.13	0.048139 (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 Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	5. Setup Fields · 6. Determine Starting Player	p.6	0.046751 (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 Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	1. Player Decks · 2. The Commons · 3. Vale Cards · 4. Setup VP Tokens · 5. Setup Fields · 6. Determine Starting Player · …	p.24	0.046402 (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 Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	Buy Vale Cards	p.10	0.044118 (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 Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	™	p.1	0.044002 (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))	26
#7	RULEBOOK Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	1. Player Decks · 2. The Commons · . Level 1 Advancements · . . Level 2 Advancements: · . . . Level 3 Advancements:	p.4	0.030769 (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 Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	3. Vale Cards · 4. Setup VP Tokens	p.5	0.029851 (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 34 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 Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	4) Prep Phase · End of the Game	p.13	#2	0.048139 (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 Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	5. Setup Fields · 6. Determine Starting Player	p.6	#3	0.046751 (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 Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	Mindful Owl	p.17	#11	0.02837 (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 re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	Cleansing Rain · Dawnsinger · Deadwood Harvester · Earthchant Chorus	p.16	#13	0.028219 (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 re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	3. Vale Cards · 4. Setup VP Tokens	p.5	#8	0.029851 (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 Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	1. Player Decks · 2. The Commons · 3. Vale Cards · 4. Setup VP Tokens · 5. Setup Fields · 6. Determine Starting Player · …	p.24	#4	0.046402 (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 Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	Game Overview · Components · For the First Game	p.3	#12	0.028259 (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 re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	How to Play · Taking a Turn · 1) Planting Phase	p.8	#1	0.048172 (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 Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	5. Setup Fields · 6. Determine Starting Player	p.6	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	1. Player Decks · 2. The Commons · 3. Vale Cards · 4. Setup VP Tokens · 5. Setup Fields · 6. Determine Starting Player · …	p.24	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	How to Play · Taking a Turn · 1) Planting Phase	p.8	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Mystic Vale — Rulebook (corpus doc 566)	4) Prep Phase · End of the Game	p.13	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 193 ms · first delta 3612 ms · total 7521 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 193 ms · ask 7325 ms · gateway work 7521 ms · total 7521 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3123
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 777
tok/sec: 202.1 tok/sec — 777 output tokens in 3.845 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 16s ago)
gateway schema (read from the running child): schema head 0042_definer_search_path (live revision not readable by this principal)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 60h, checked 4s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
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 498), 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.