Ruling — Challengers!

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Challengers!bg-359970-en-1e

To setup the game, follow these steps:

1. Take the parks according to your player count and place them on the table.[1]

2. Give a Tournament Plan to each player according to the number of players.[1]

3. Each player sits at the park half where the icon and background color matches the first line of their Tournament Plan.[1]

4. Place the flag of the matching color in the middle of each park.[1]

5. Sort all Trophies into piles according to their round number and shuffle each pile separately.[1]

6. For each park, create a face down stack of Trophies by drawing one from each pile and stacking them in descending order (7 at the bottom and 1 on top).[1]

7. Place a stack on the Trophy icon of each park.[1]

8. Form a general supply with the fans.[1]

9. Place the 3 card trays (A, B, C) at a spot that is easy to reach.[1]

10. Take all the cards of the Basic City Set.[1]

11. Select 5 of the 6 additional Sets and put the remaining one back into the box.[1]

12. Separate all cards of each Set by Level (A, B and C).[1]

13. Shuffle all Level-A cards together and place them face down as the Level-A-Pile in the corresponding card tray.[1]

14. Repeat these steps for Level B and Level C.[1]

15. Each player takes the 6 cards of the Starter Deck matching the icon of their Tournament Plan.[1]

16. Each player leaves a free space at the right of their deck for their exhaust pile.[1]

17. If playing with an odd number of players, the Robot substitutes for a missing player.[2]

18. Place a Tournament Plan that corresponds to your player count next to the park half indicated in the first line of the Tournament Plan.[2]

19. If all players agree, it is recommended to use the Tournament Plan that only shows the icon for the Robot.[2]

20. Place the Robot's Deck (the Robot start cards (S)) next to its Tournament Plan.[2]

21. For higher difficulty levels during setup, shuffle the R cards and:

* Level 2: replace the Alpha-card with a random R-card, and the robot's opponent puts the top card of their deck on their exhaust pile.[2]

* Level 3: follow Level 2 instructions and additionally replace the Beta-card with a random R-card.[2]

22. If playing solo mode, follow the setup with the Robot as described.[3]

23. For a special challenge in solo mode, shuffle the 3 SOLO cards with the other Robot cards (R) before randomly replacing 1-5 of them.[3]

24. For higher difficulty levels in solo mode:

* Level 4: follow Level 3 instructions and additionally replace the Good Bot-card with a random R-card.[3]

* Level 5: follow Level 4 instructions and additionally replace the C.H.A.M.P-card with two random R-cards.[3]

[1] RULEBOOK Challengers! — Rulebook · p.2 · setup · deck phase · Move to another park if necessary. A · Overview of a Tournament Plan:

[2] RULEBOOK Challengers! — Rulebook · p.3 · the robot · 2-player game

[3] RULEBOOK Challengers! — Rulebook · p.3 · solo mode

Rule found, game on.

🔧 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 236 ms · ask 4438 ms · total 4679 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 4679 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 2, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "1 Take the parks according to your player count and place them on the table. Give a Tournament Plan to each player according to the number of players. Then, each player sits at the park half which icon and background color is depicted in the first line of their Tournament Plan. 2 1-2 3-4 5-6 7-8 2 3", "headingPath": "setup · deck phase · Move to another park if necessary. A · Overview of a Tournament Plan:", "sharpsignalDocId": 807}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.048131, "snippet": "If you play with an odd number of players, the Robot substitutes for a missing player. Place a Tournament Plan that corresponds to your player count next to the park half indicated in the first line of the Tournament Plan. If all players agree, it is recommended to use the Tournament Plan that only ", "headingPath": "the robot · 2-player game", "sharpsignalDocId": 807}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.047379, "snippet": "7 7 AUTOCORRECT You play alone against the Robot. The rules of the 2-Player game apply, as described above. In contrast to the multiplayer game, the Robot collects the Trophies it has won and can also win the game immediately if it has at least 11 fans more than you. Follow the Setup with Robot as d", "headingPath": "solo mode", "sharpsignalDocId": 807}, {"page": 1, "score": 0.045928, "snippet": "A GAME BY JOHANNES KRENNER & MARKUS SLAWITSCHECK Will your dream team succeed? Helped by your Bard, your Kraken just captured the flag! You're now waiting for your opponent's attack ready to fight back with your Necromancer and your Rubber Duck! From outer space aliens to deep-sea creatures, improba", "headingPath": "RULEBOOK · CONTENTS", "sharpsignalDocId": 807}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Draw 5 cards from the available Level Pile of the current round. The letter A, B or C shows the available Level Pile. The amount of card icons shows how many cards you can pick and add to your deck. Pick 2 cards from LevelA-Pile. Discard the cards you did not pick in the discard compartment of the c", "headingPath": "Draw and pick cards. B · Remove cards from your deck (optional). c · match phase · Total power of the cards =", "sharpsignalDocId": 807}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Card's base power + power bonuses As soon as the total power of your card(s) is equal to or higher than the total power of the card of your opponent, take the flag and place it on your latest revealed card. You must not reveal more cards than needed to get in flag possession. Your latest revealed ca", "headingPath": "Total power of the card = · There are 2 ways to win: · final & game end", "sharpsignalDocId": 807}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Designers: Johannes Krenner & Markus Slawitscheck Producer: Sophie Gravel Game Editors: Martin Bouchard, Roman Rybiczka & Julian Steindorfer Illustrator: Jeff Harvey Graphic Design: Bree Lindsoe & Martin Roy Consultant Cultural Sensitivity: Calvin Wong Tze Loon Follow us on: /1moretimegames /planbga", "headingPath": "CREDITS", "sharpsignalDocId": 807}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "When you reveal a card without keywords, you must immediately resolve the effect of the card as much as possible. Important: If a card gets an immediate power bonus, that card keeps it even in flag possession. When you reveal a card with bold keywords, these indicate when their effect applies or wil", "headingPath": "effects", "sharpsignalDocId": 807}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "setup · deck phase · Move to another park if necessary. A · Overview of a Tournament Plan:", "sharpsignalDocId": 807}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "the robot · 2-player game", "sharpsignalDocId": 807}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "solo mode", "sharpsignalDocId": 807}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 807 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 807 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 0.89034 of 2143 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Oct 9, 2026 10:13 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 Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	setup · deck phase · Move to another park if necessary. A · Overview of a Tournament Plan:	p.2	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	the robot · 2-player game	p.3	0.048131 (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 Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	solo mode	p.3	0.047379 (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 Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	RULEBOOK · CONTENTS	p.1	0.045928 (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 Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	Draw and pick cards. B · Remove cards from your deck (optional). c · match phase · Total power of the cards =	p.2	0.031746 (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 Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	Total power of the card = · There are 2 ways to win: · final & game end	p.2	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
#7	RULEBOOK Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	CREDITS	p.3	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
#8	RULEBOOK Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	effects	p.3	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 Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	setup · deck phase · Move to another park if necessary. A · Overview of a Tournament Plan:	p.2	#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 Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	the robot · 2-player game	p.3	#2	0.048131 (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 Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	Total power of the card = · There are 2 ways to win: · final & game end	p.2	#6	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	effects	p.3	#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
#5	RULEBOOK Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	CREDITS	p.3	#7	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 Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	RULEBOOK · CONTENTS	p.1	#4	0.045928 (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 Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	Draw and pick cards. B · Remove cards from your deck (optional). c · match phase · Total power of the cards =	p.2	#5	0.031746 (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
#8	RULEBOOK Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	solo mode	p.3	#3	0.047379 (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 Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	setup · deck phase · Move to another park if necessary. A · Overview of a Tournament Plan:	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	the robot · 2-player game	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Challengers! — Rulebook (corpus doc 807)	solo mode	p.3	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 236 ms · first delta 1108 ms · total 4679 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 236 ms · ask 4438 ms · gateway work 4679 ms · total 4679 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3213
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 701
tok/sec: 201.3 tok/sec — 701 output tokens in 3.482 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 38s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 3h, 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: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question): setup

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 742), 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.