Nexus - Official How to Play. Complete, Clear, Concise Board Game Tutorial

Choose the two factions to work together and destroy your opponents in Nexus. And today we'll be teaching you how to play Nexus published by Red Zen Games. We're using a prototype copy of the game, so the rules and components may not be final. And do check out the link to the project page in the video description below.

And hi everyone, it's Stella and Tarant. Welcome to Mean University. And hey, if you enjoy this video after watching, like, subscribe, and comments. You know what to do. All right, now let's get to the classroom. Nexus is a fast-paced two-player battle game in which players will craft a deck comprising two factions and will use their attacks to try to break through their opponent's defenses and to destroy the opponent's nexus.

It's a back and forth battle as each player begins with 30 energy in their nexus and the first to destroy their opponent's nexus will be the winner. To set up a standard game, shuffle the faction randomizer cards and deal four face up on the table. Flip the coin, which will be included in the final production to determine which player has initiative.

This is effectively the first player for the purposes of setup, although first player in the game proper may change. Now, draft your factions. Whoever has initiative will choose one faction first. Then the player without initiative chooses two and the player with initiative is left with the final faction.

Take the decks of cards matching your factions. There should be 15 standard cards in each deck and you'll shuffle them together to form your complete deck. If your faction includes any cards marked as token, then set them aside before shuffling all the remaining cards into the deck. Be sure to check the rule book for any special rules related to your faction.

You can then set your faction randomizer cards aside. Each player uses the included counter to set the starting energy for their nexus to 30. And in this video, I'll be using a pair of d10s. Whichever player had initiative now chooses which of the two players will be the first player in the game. Both players draw a starting hand of five cards from the tops of their decks, look at them, and may do a single mulligan by setting aside any number of cards, redrawing to five, and shuffling the mulligans back into the deck.

You're now ready to play. Nexus is played in turns, starting from the first player and going back and forward until someone's nexus is destroyed and the end of the game is reached. At the start of the game, the board will be empty. But as the game goes on, there will be unit cards coming into play. At its most basic, a player turn is resolved in four phases resolved in order.

These are draw, action, attack, and end of turn. In the draw phase, you'll draw one card from your deck to your hand. In the action phase, you may play one card, and this usually involves bringing a unit into your battlefield. Additionally, if you have any ready units with exhaust effects, then you may exhaust those units to resolve their effects.

Third is attack. If you have any units with red attack effects, then you may use them to attack your opponents. Either your opponent's defensive units if they have them, or their nexus or other units if they don't. Attacking units and some defensive units may be destroyed in the battle. In the end of turn, you'll rery any exhausted units and play will pass to the other player.

So now let's go through some definitions. This here is what your play area will look like. You'll have your faceown deck and your hand which is hidden from your opponent. There are two types of cards within your deck and hand. These are units and events. Units have a silver border and at least one colored number box while events have a golden border and no such number.

Units generally end up in a face up area in front of you called your battlefield. And anytime a unit enters your battlefield, it is said to be deployed. Based on the types of boxes showing on them, there are three types of units. Attack units, which have a red circle, defense units with a blue shield, and support units with an orange hexagon.

It is possible for a single unit to count as more than one type of unit. Events, on the other hand, never enter your battlefield. Their effects are resolved when they're played and sent to this face up pile known as your graveyard. There are three ways for a card to end up in your graveyard. It can be discarded, destroyed, or burned.

The end result of this is always the same. It simply means the card goes to your graveyard. The only difference is that some effects might trigger off one but not the others. The first step of your turn is to draw one card. Take a card from your deck and add it to your hand. The first player skips this on the very first turn of the game.

If your deck is empty when you go to draw, whether in this phase or any other, shuffle your graveyard to form your new deck. Then draw the cards you need. The second phase of your turn is the actions phase. And here you may play one card from your hand and resolve the exhaust effects on any number of ready cards in your battlefield.

You may do this in any order. If you choose to play an event, resolve its effect, and discard it. If, on the other hand, you choose to play a unit, you deploy it, adding it to your battlefield. When you deploy a unit, whether it's by playing it or by some other effect, resolve its deploy effect. This is a once-off effect, resolved only when deployed.

If the card you play has a link icon, which is this yellow diamond, then you may play another card immediately. You may do this any number of times as long as you keep playing cards with the link icon. All units you deploy during the action phase, whether it's deployed by playing or through another effect, are deployed ready.

The other thing you can do during the action phase is exhaust a ready unit from your battlefield which has an exhaust effect to resolve that effect. Remember, newly deployed units in this phase enter ready, and therefore you can use an exhaust effect in the same action phase when a card is deployed.

Some card actions will let you deploy a card during this phase, in which case deploy it following the normal rules and resolving any deploy effect. Some effects will also let you play a card for free. In each case, this does not count towards your one played card per action phase. You're limited to at most eight units in your battlefield.

And if you ever wish to deploy a ninth, then you must burn one of the other eight to your graveyard. The third phase of your turn is attack. And here, any or all of your attack units may launch attacks against your opponent. If multiple units attack, resolve each attack in full, one after the other.

The first step of an attack is to exhaust a ready attack unit. As we saw in the summary, units which attack are usually destroyed as well, but there are some card effects which might protect it. So this step of exhausting means that even if that occurs, the unit cannot attack again. Choose a single valid target for the attack.

There are three types of standard valid target. A defensive unit, a support unit, or the opponent's nexus. Attack units are not valid targets unless they also have a defense or support type. Choose a single valid target. And if there are any defensive units in the opponent's battlefield, then you must choose a defensive unit as the target.

resolve the battle. If the attack strength equals or exceeds the defensive strength, then the defensive unit is destroyed. If there was any excess strength, then it is lost and then the attack unit is destroyed. If the attacking unit's strength is less than the defensive unit's strength, the defensive unit is not destroyed, but its defensive strength is reduced for the rest of this turn.

Here for example the two strength is reduced by one leaving one strength. That way after finishing the attack and destroying the attack unit I could attack with another strength one unit which is enough to destroy the siege commander. Defense lost in this way lasts only for the current turn. If this were the layout at the start of the play phase, I could attack with the arcane dryad destroying it.

And while Siege Commander's defense would reduce to one temporarily, it would revert to two at the end of my turn. If all once there are no defensive units in the opponent's battlefield, then for each attack, you have the choice of whether to attack the nexus or one of the support units. If you choose a support unit, it works in exactly the way as attacking a defense unit.

So here, perhaps I attack with the forest warden and then an arcane dryad to destroy this battering ram. If you choose to attack the nexus, reduce the nexus's energy by the strength of the attack. Many other things may occur during the attack phase, as there are often card effects which are triggered by the destruction of that card.

With certain factions, this can lead to some interesting combinations of things occurring. In some specific cases, cards may be deployed during an attack phase. Anytime this happens, you still resolve any deploy effect if it has one, but any card deployed during an attack phase enters play exhausted, meaning it won't be able to attack this turn.

Many factions have attack units with the keyword trample. And when you attack with trample, any excess damage after destroying the targeted unit is applied to the opponent's nexus. To be clear, you must trample through to the nexus. You cannot choose another unit to attack. If your attack unit is allowed to attack other attack units, resolve it the same way you would as against the support unit by comparing against the unit's attack strength.

When using a unit with such a power, you must still first attack a defensive unit if present. The final step is end of turn. Ready any of your exhausted cards. And if any cards suffered damage but weren't destroyed, whether that's yours or your opponents, they are effectively restored to their maximum health.

If you're holding more than 10 cards in your hand, you must burn down to 10. With the standard rules understood, let's have a look at a few other card effects and definitions. Some abilities will target opponent units of a certain level, and level is the highest number in one of a unit's boxes. This is a level two unit, and so is this one.

This diamond icon represents your nexus's energy. So, this would be a way to heal your nexus. Some units have reaction effects represented by the lightning bolt. And when the card is in your battlefield, this effect is resolved automatically whether it's your turn or your opponents. When the trigger condition is met, an effect with no icon next to it is a passive effect, and this is permanently in effect as long as that unit is in the battlefield.

A keyword in a small rectangle is a trait for that card and it will be referenced by some other cards using itallic text. So here, searching my deck for a dragon and deploying it would mean finding a card in my deck with this dragon box. There are also many cards which allow you to deal damage as part of their effects.

If the effect specifically says deal damage to the opponent's nexus, then it damages the nexus regardless of which units are in play. If it simply says deal damage, then you must choose a single target. This can be any unit, including an attack unit or the nexus. However, much like an attack, if there is a defense unit in play, you must choose a defense unit.

Damage from this sort of an effect can also gain trample. And just like for an attack trample, any excess damage will flow through to the nexus. Finally, with so many effects comboing off each other, it's possible that multiple effects may come up simultaneously. And when this happens, resolve first the passive effects, then reactions, then chains, then deploys, and then exhausts.

within each category. If both players are activating, the active player plays first. And if there are multiple effects within the same category, choose the order of resolution. Other than this, the extra rules which will come into the game are the rules specific to the factions. And I won't go through all of them here, but I will talk about token cards.

If a faction has tokens, it's a set of cards which sits separately to the deck. and some cards and effects will allow you to gain them or otherwise place them into the game. For the siege masters, for example, every time a siege engine card is destroyed, the player gains a gear. Unless otherwise stated, gears are simply kept in a prominent place so that you know that you have them.

They're not considered in play or in your battlefield and don't count towards any of your hand limits. The tokens themselves or then other cards that interact with them will tell you how to use them. For the siege masters, for example, three gears can be spent back to the token pile to play a siege engine for free.

The game ends immediately if any player's nexus is reduced to zero or fewer energy. That player has lost and the other player is the winner. If both nexuses are reduced to zero energy at the same time, the game is a tie. Nexus can be played over several different game modes. The way I described before saw the player with initiative draft one faction, the other player draft two, leaving one for the initiative player, and the players playing a single match with those pairs of factions.

Winner of the match wins the game. You could choose to play the back and forth mode. In this mode, you draft your two factions in the usual way, and you play the first match, taking note of which player won and by how much. That is, how much energy did that player's nexus have left when winning. Then the players swap decks and play again.

Again, determine the winning players remaining health. And the total game is decided on aggregate scores of the two matches. You could play the best of three. Lay out eight factions. The player with initiative chooses one. The other player chooses two. Initiative chooses two. Opponent chooses two. And initiative chooses one.

Secretly and simultaneously. The players choose which of their two factions will make up their deck for the first match, leaving the other two aside. Play the first match with these decks and then play a second match with your other decks. If after two matches, the scores are one match each, then each player secretly chooses a third combination and plays the deciding match with that.

If you want to play more casually, you can also simply shuffle the randomizers and deal two to each player, or lay out every faction, letting the initiative player first pick two and the other player choose two thereafter. Thanks for watching, and if you like this video, maybe you'd like to watch this next one.

Have a great day. Bye.