How to Play

Genezoa is a dynamic trading card game featuring extinction and life on Earth. You and your friends take on the role of celestial beings known as Creators, and while exploring the universe, you stumble upon an Earth-like planet devoid of life. You decide to each have rule over a continent and the goal of the game is to create Animals from Earth that you can use to battle with and best the other Creators until yours are best suited to survive in this new world. What kind of Animals will you create?

Card Types

Animal – Animal cards are the primary focus of the game. The Animals you create facilitate your strategy and help you gain resources and advantages.

Size value

Effect text

Food value

Attack value

HP value

Age

Habitat

An Animal card has four numerical values on it and two quantitative values:

An Animal’s HP determines how much damage it can take before getting exterminated. HP can be reduced by various effects, but primarily through attacking or defending. If an Animal’s HP reaches 0 for any reason and for any length of time, that Animal is considered exterminated. An exterminated card is sent to your Extinction Zone.
An Animal’s Size value determines its cost to play. Every Animal has a numerical size and is also classified between small, medium, and large, indicated by an S, M, or L, respectively. Animals with a size that is 1-3 is small, 4-6 is medium, and 7-10 is large. In order to create an Animal from your hand, you must spend Food equal to its size. Once during your turn, you may also “Free Create” a Small Animal, that is, create a Small Animal from your hand without paying its food cost.
An Animal’s Attack value determines how much damage it can do to other Animals. When one Animal attacks another Animal, the defending Animal reduces its HP by the attacking Animal’s attack. The attacking Animal also takes damage equal to the defending Animal’s attack. Combat is further explored in the “Playing a Turn” section of the rules.
An Animal’s Food value determines how much food you gain when you discard that Animal. This will be explained further in the “Food” section.
Finally, Animals have an Age and Habitat. The Age and Habitat of an Animal will help it interact with different cards and effects. These effects will typically specifically mention the Age or Habitat of that Animal. Animals that have more than one age or habitat will receive all instances of an effect that interacts with those Ages or Habitats.

For example: If the current Era is “Silurian” (All Cambrian and Ordovician Animals Shrink by 1), then an Animal like “Coral”, which has “All Ages” will shrink by 2. 1 for the Cambrian and 1 for the Ordovician.

Situation – Situation cards are cards with powerful effects that you can play for no cost. The effect of that card is applied immediately upon resolution of playing that Situation card from your hand and the card is placed in the Extinction Zone after the resolution of the effect. Situation cards can only be played once per turn.

Extinctions – Extinction are unique Situation cards that typically have dynamic effects that clear the field in some way. After an Extinction is played, you must also change the Era card. Extinctions are Situations and count towards your one Situation per turn. Changing the Era card will be covered in the Era cards section. Because of the strength of Extinction cards, there is an additional cost of flipping a card in your Survival Zone upside down. This will be covered further in the “Win Conditions” section.

Mutation – Mutation cards have a food cost to play, denoted on the upper right corner of the card. In order to play a mutation card, there must be an Animal on the field you can underlay your mutation under. Mutations give Animals different abilities and increase or decrease their power on the field. They can be used for various strategies, forcing your opponents to adapt. Mutations must be played onto a legal Animal target. If there is not legal target, you may not play that Mutation. When you play a Mutation onto an Animal, place the Mutation underneath that Animal such that the name of the Mutation is still visible. Repeat this process if you play another Mutation onto that same Animal while maintaining the visibility of the previous Mutation. There is no limit to how many Mutations can be played onto a single Animal. However, you may not play more than one copy of a Mutation onto any one Animal. Mutations must be on the field and properly equipped to an Animal at the time of resolution for its effect to resolve. If an Animal becomes unaffected by Mutations, it loses all Mutation effects, whether it is being targeted by an opponent’s Mutation or it is mutated by your own Mutations, as long as it remains unaffected.

Some Mutation cards don't change Animals you control and, instead, allow you to interact with your opponents on their turns. This can potentially gain you advantage, or force your opponent to rethink their strategies. Mutations that can be played on another player’s turn will specifically have that effect described in their effect. When a Mutation is played in response to an opponent’s action, it creates a Series. This will be covered further in the “Series” section.

When a mutated Animal is exterminated and goes to the Extinction Zone, all the attached Mutations also go to the Extinction Zone.

Era – Era cards are kept in a separate 10 card deck known as the “Era Deck”. Era cards have effects that apply to all players and are only active while the Era card is face up on the field. When an Extinction event occurs or another effect that changes the Era occurs and the Era is being switched, there is a specific order that the effects occur:

First, the player who owns the Era card currently in effect puts that card on the bottom of their Era deck.

When an Era card is removed from the field, any Animal that was affected by the effect of that Era will remain with those changes until they leave the field.

Next, the player who activated the card to change the Era takes an Era card from the top of their Era deck and puts it in the Era Zone. That Era now takes effect.

In cases where an Era change would make an Animal’s HP 0, that Animal would be exterminated, and a Survival Draw is NOT performed.

Tokens – There are some cards that create “Tokens.” Tokens are placed in your Animal zones but are not Animals. Tokens cannot be mutated or affected by any card that refers to Animals. Tokens do not possess a size, food value, age, or habitat. When you exterminate a token, you do NOT perform a Survival Draw, since tokens are not Animals. Tokens also do not give food upon being exterminated. Tokens are real cards that you may own and keep outside of your deck for use in the game as the effects appear. But, unlike any of the other cards, if you do not possess Token cards, you may use an external placeholder or proxy to indicate the existence of the token, including dice, paper, etc. Whatever is your preference. Exterminated tokens do not go to the Extinction Zone and are instead removed from the game entirely.

Food

Every player has a Food Stash. You may choose to indicate this with dice, paper and pen, a calculator, or whatever you choose to keep track of it. The Food Stash does not have an upper limit.

There are several ways to gain Food:

Discarding cards during your turn. Animal cards can be discarded for its Food value. Situation or Mutation cards can be discarded for 1 Food. You may only discard card(s) for Food once per turn, but you may discard any number of cards.
For example: You can choose to discard three cards in your hand for Food all at once, but you may not discard one card for Food, take another action, then discard for Food again.
Any time an Animal you control is exterminated, you gain 1 Food. If multiple Animals are exterminated at once, you gain 1 for each Animal.
Herbivory and Carnivory are battle effects that can help you gain food. Details in “Keywords” section.
Some cards allow you to “steal” food from an opponent. When such card effects occur, your opponent loses that amount of Food, and you gain an equal amount of Food.

Food is used as a currency to play Animals and Mutations. When you spend Food to play cards, you subtract that amount of Food from your Food Stash. The Food Stash is considered public information, and all players have the right to know how much Food another player has in their Stash.

Building a Deck

The Main deck consists of 60 cards. It is built with Animal, Mutation, or Situation cards. You may only have up to three copies of any card name in your deck.

The Era deck consists of 10 Era cards. Similarly to the Main deck, you may only have up to three copies of any Era in your Era deck.

Setting the "Field"

Survival Zone

Era Zone

Animal Zones

Era Deck Zone

Extinction Zone

Main
Deck
Zone

The game is played on a “field”, simply the surface on which you play the game. When the game refers to the field, it refers to all cards in the Animal Zones controlled by all players. When setting up the game, you may use the above diagram as a guide. If you are playing with more than two players, you may feel comfortable changing the location of the Era Zone in order for every player to comfortably see the Era. There are six types of zones in the game:

Main Deck Zone – Where the player keeps their Main deck.

Extinction Zone – Where cards that have been used are placed. Animals and Mutations that are exterminated, Situations, and all discarded cards go here after they’re used.

Animal Zones – An Animal or Token is placed into one of six open Animal zones. If all the zones are occupied, you may not create new Animals.

Era Deck Zone – Where the player keeps their Era Deck

Era Zone – Where the current Era is placed.

Survival Zone – After performing a Survival Draw, this is where you place the card from your hand. Once you have five cards here, you win the game. Covered further in the “Win Conditions” section.

Playing a Turn

Decide on what player goes first. For example, you may choose to roll dice or play rock-paper-scissors. Whatever way works for you.

After deciding the first turn player, every player shuffles their main deck and Era deck and sets them in the appropriate zones. Each player sets their Life value total to 15 and their Food Stash to 0. You may choose to indicate these values with dice, a calculator, or pen and paper. Whatever suits your preference.

Every player starts the game with 6 cards in their hand by drawing the top 6 cards from their Main deck. Your hand is always visible to you but should be kept hidden from your opponents. If you would have more than 9 cards in your hand by the time your turn ends, you must discard down to 9.

The first turn player then activates the first Era card from the top of their Era deck.

Every player has a turn and after one player’s turn ends, the next player’s turn begins. This continues throughout the game. There are Five phases to each turn: Draw Phase, Main Phase 1, Attack Phase, and Main Phase 2, End Phase.

Draw Phase – Draw two cards from the top of your deck. The first turn player only draws one card on their first turn. If you only have one card remaining in the deck, you draw one instead. If you have zero cards to draw, you immediately lose.

Main Phase 1 – During the main phase, you may perform the following actions:

Free Create – You may play a small Animal from your hand for no cost. You may only do this once per turn.

Play a Situation – You can play a Situation Card. You may only do this once per turn

Create Animals – You can create any number of Animals from your hand by paying their food costs.

Discard for Food – You can discard any number of cards to the Extinction Zone to add to your Food Stash. You may only do this once per turn.

Play a Mutation – You can play a Mutation for its Food cost.

Attack Phase –

Animals may not declare an attack on the turn that they were created. An attack may not be declared by the first turn player even if they play an Animal that can attack on the turn it is created.

Each Animal can declare an attack on an opponent’s Animal. If an opponent does not control an Animal, they can declare an attack directly to their opponents’ Life value.

Stages of an Attack:

Attack Declaration: You choose one Animal you control to attack one Animal an opponent controls. Ravenous and any other effects or mutations that happen on attack declaration occur. If the opponent you choose to attack does not control any Animals, you can attack their Life points directly.

Battle: Animals deal damage to each other simultaneously. If an Animal’s HP reaches zero in this stage, they are considered exterminated and are sent to the extinction zone. Herbivory occurs during this time. Effects that directly interact with damage that an Animal would receive or deal occur during this time.

While defending Animals deal damage to attacking Animals, if an attacking Animals dies due to a defending Animals defense, that defending Animal is not considered to have exterminated the attacking Animal. In these cases, Carnivory does not occur and a Survival Draw does not occur.

Resolution: Any effect that happens when an Animal attacks or is exterminated now happens. Carnivory and Herbivory happen during this time.

The Attack phase continues until every Animal you control that you want to attack with declares an attack. If an Animal you control can attack more than once in one turn, you must attack with that Animal in sequence.

For example, if you control “Tyrant Lizard” (whose effect allows it to attack more than once) and “Placerias” and your opponent controls two Animals, you may not declare an attack with Tyrant Lizard, then “Placerias”, then go back to Tyrant Lizard. If you are choosing to use Tyrant Lizard’s effect, it must attack again directly after its first attack.

In cases where an opponent controls only Animals that can’t be attacked by the type of Animals you control, you may NOT bypass that opponent’s Animals to attack directly and instead must find an alternative way to deal with your opponent’s field.

Main Phase 2 – You may perform any action that you could perform in Main Phase 1. However if you played a Situation, Free Created an Animal, or discarded for Food during your Main Phase 1, you may not do that again, as you can only do those things once per turn.

End Phase – After your Main Phase 2, you can declare your turn over.

Attack Phase

Searching the Deck:

If, for any reason you look through your deck, whether it is to create from the deck, add from the deck to hand, or otherwise, you must shuffle your deck after the resolution of that effect and your opponent is allowed to cut the deck, if they choose to.

Series

Any card played or action taken by a player is the start of a Series. A Series is simply the order in which effects on the field resolve. There are certain Mutations that indicate that you can play them in response to an opponent’s actions. Those Mutations are added to the Series. In a Series, players may continuously play cards that can respond to the previous card in the Series until no player wants to make a response. All cards played in a Series enter the field and the Mutations are equipped properly, but their individual effects do not resolve until the Series starts resolving. A Series starts resolving from the last card played and ends with the first card played. No cards or effects may be played until that Series finishes resolving. If the effect of a card in a Series is no longer applicable due to a card that has previously resolved in that Series, the effect of that first card will fail to resolve. If there are any effects that would have occurred during the Series, they instead start a new Series after the initial Series has ended. The order in which those effects resolve can be chosen by the turn player.

All actions can start a Series, but only Mutations that indicate that they can respond to certain actions can be played in Series.

Win Conditions

There are three ways to win the game.

1. The primary way to win the game is to collect five cards in your Survival Zone. When you exterminate an Animal your opponent controls and send it to the Extinction Zone, you must draw 1 card then choose a card from your hand and place it in the Survival Zone. This is referred to as performing a Survival Draw. This effect occurs when you exterminate an Animal through any means except Extinction Situations or Era changes. In order to play an Extinction Situation, you must flip a card in your Survival Zone upside down. An upside down card still counts toward the total cards needed to win.

2. The second way to win the game is by reducing your opponents’ Life value to 0. You can reduce your opponent’s Life value by attacking them directly with your Animals. If your opponent controls Animals, you must exterminate those Animals first before you declare an attack on your opponent’s Life.

3. And, finally, if any player would draw from their deck but cannot due to not having cards left, they immediately lose.

Multiplayer Adjustments

In games with more than two players, there are some rule variations:

No player is allowed to declare an attack until every player has had a turn. This is true even if an Animal has “This card may attack on the turn it was created”.
When choosing attack targets, you may choose to attack any Animal controlled by any player at upon any declaration. If a player does not control any Animals, you may attack that player's Life directly.
With every 2 additional players, the Survival card numbers necessary for victory increases by 1.
- 2 players (standard) - 5 Survival cards
- 4 players - 6 Survival cards
- 6 players - 7 Survival cards
- etc.
With every 2 additional players, the total life value increases by 5.
- 2 players (standard) - 15 Life
- 4 players - 20 Life
- 6 players - 25 Life
- etc.
If an opponent’s Life value drops to 0, they are removed from the game and the rest of the game continues as normal.
The game ends immediately when one player collects the requisite number of cards in their Survival Zone.

Keywords

Grow (X) – Increase an Animal’s HP, Attack, Food, and Size by X

Shrink (X) – Decrease an Animal’s HP, Attack, Food, and Size by X

Ravenous - When an Animal with Ravenous declares an attack on an opponent’s Animal, you may exterminate a mutation from the defending Animal.

Carnivory – When an Animal with Carnivory exterminates an Animal with an attack, you can gain Food equal to the exterminated Animal’s Food Value.

Herbivory – When an Animal with Herbivory takes damage, you can gain 1 Food.

Hoarding – If an Animal has Hoarding; while it’s on the field, when you discard a card(s) for Food, you can draw 1 card. If you control more than one Animal with Hoarding, you can draw 1 for each Hoarding Animal.

Herd Behavior – If an Animal you control has Herd Behavior, then it grows by 1 for each other copy of that Animal you control.

Survival Draw – This is the name of the action taken when you exterminate an Animal an opponent controls and you draw one then place a card from your hand into the Survival Zone

Mutate – This is the name of the action a player takes when they play a Mutation.

Poisoned – When an Animal is Poisoned, they are indicated as such by being turned sideways and at the end of each turn, they take 1 damage. Poison damage bypasses all damage mitigating effects, such as Burrowing.