Millennium Blades

To set up Millennium Blades, each player receives a player board, three sell markers (four if playing with three players), a character card (powers are disregarded in the first game) along with six matching friendship cards, and three cubes of their chosen color. The store and aftermarket boards are placed in the center of the table, ensuring players can reach them. The store deck is prepared by shuffling all core, five expansion, four premium, and three master card packs together. Promotional packs (two bronze, two silver, one gold) are sorted, with one bronze and one silver set reserved for prize support later in the game. The two metagame card sets are shuffled individually and placed face-down on their designated spots on the aftermarket board. Each player receives one starter pack and three cards from the top of the store deck, which are kept in hand. Finally, all cash denominations are assembled into wads of ten bills (five face-up, five face-down) and placed to the side as a bank.

The primary objective of Millennium Blades is to accumulate the most victory points (VP) by the end of the game. Victory points are earned through various means, including performance in tournaments, the value of card collections built throughout the game, any remaining Millennium Dollars, and friendship cards collected through trading. Players must strategically balance deckbuilding for immediate tournament success with long-term collection goals and financial management to maximize their overall score.

The game is typically played over three rounds, each comprising a deckbuilding phase and a tournament phase. For a first game or if any player is new, an optional pre-release tournament is played before the first deckbuilding phase. The deckbuilding phase is conducted in real-time over three timed segments (two 7-minute segments, one 6-minute segment). During this phase, players simultaneously acquire new cards from the store, sell or buy single cards in the aftermarket, fuse cards to obtain powerful promotional cards, and engage in real-time trading with other players. Once the deckbuilding phase concludes, players move to the turn-based tournament phase. In the tournament, players take turns playing single cards from their hand to their tableau, activating card effects, and may initiate clashes with opponents. The player who ranked highest in the previous tournament (or the player who most recently opened a booster pack in real life for the first tournament) starts the turn order, which then proceeds clockwise.

Scoring occurs at multiple points throughout the game. During the tournament phase, players earn rank points (RP) based on the effects of cards in their tableau. These points are tracked on their player board. At the end of each tournament, players receive a set amount of victory points (VP) based on their rank (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.), with later tournaments awarding more VP. If there's a tie in rank, the VP for the tied positions are summed and divided evenly among the tied players, rounded down. At the very end of the game, after all rounds are completed, players tally their total VP. This includes accumulated tournament VP, VP from their card collections (based on the number and type of cards), 1 VP for every four remaining Millennium Dollars (rounded down), and VP from any friendship cards collected. The player with the highest total VP is declared the winner.

The game concludes after the third tournament round (or the second if the optional pre-release tournament was played at the start). All players then total their accumulated victory points (VP). This total includes VP earned from all tournaments, VP from their final card collections, VP from any remaining Millennium Dollars (1 VP for every $4, rounded down), and VP from any friendship cards they have collected. The player with the highest total VP is declared the Ultimate Millennium Blades Champion. In the event of a tie, tie-breakers are applied in a specific order: first, the player with the most VP from tournaments wins; if still tied, the player with the most VP from collections wins; if still tied, the player with the most remaining money wins; and finally, if still tied, the player with the most points from friendship cards wins.