How to Play Marvel Hero Rush

Marvel Hero Rush looks like a lot when you first open a starter deck, but the core idea is simple. Once you play a couple of games it clicks. Here's everything you need for your first one. The basic idea Each player has four Battle Zones. You fill yours with heroes and villains, then attack your opponent's side. If you hit a zone that's empty, you score a Rush Point. First to 9 wins. So the whole game is a race: keep your own zones full and punch holes in theirs. What you need A 50-card deck and 9 Rush Point cards. A starter deck (SD01 to SD04) comes with both, plus a paper playmat. Use the playmat, it makes learning the zones way easier. Reading a card Every character has four things you care about: Level: how big it is. Lv 1 to 3 are free to play. Lv 4 and up cost you other characters (more on that below). Power: how strong it is in a fight. Higher Power wins. Range: how far it can attack. R1 hits the Front, R2 also hits the Wings, and R3 reaches the Back too. Effects and keywords: whatever special stuff the card does. The board Your four Battle Zones are the Front, two Wings on the sides and the Back. Each holds one character. Behind that is your Base , which is basically your bench. It holds up to 6 cards, including face-down ones. Characters in your Base can't attack. Characters that lose a fight or get used to pay for something go to your Retreat Zone . Rush Points you score go on your Timeline . Setting up Shuffle your deck and put your 9 Rush Points face down next to it. Decide who goes first. Draw 6. If you want to mulligan, put the cards you don't want on the bottom of your deck, draw that many, then shuffle. The first player decides first. What you do on your turn First, draw 2. Then you get to do a bunch of stuff in whatever order you like: Base Deployment: once a turn, put a card from your hand face down in your Base, then draw 1. Do this pretty much every turn. Summon: play up to 3 characters into your Battle Zones or Base. If you're going first, only 1 on your first turn. Move: each character can move once between your zones and Base. Not ones you just played, though. Activate: use any Activate abilities on your cards. Then you attack (the first player skips this on turn 1), both players get a chance to use Counter cards, and at the end of your turn you discard down to 9 cards if you have more. How summoning works There's no mana. Lv 1 to 3 characters are free, just put them down. For Lv 4 and up, you retreat your own characters whose levels add up to exactly that card's level. Face-down cards in your Base count as Lv 1 each. So to summon a Lv 5, you could retreat a Lv 3 and two face-down Base cards. This is why Base Deployment is so good. You get a free card, and you get a Lv 1 to spend later. How fights work At the start of your Battle phase, you can rearrange up to 4 of your characters between your zones, once per turn. Then you attack in order: Front first, then your Wings (you pick which one goes first), then your Back. Each one can attack once, or skip. When you attack, pick a target your character can reach with its Range. That can be one of their characters or an empty zone. Both players get a chance to respond, and then you compare Power. Higher Power wins and the loser retreats. If it's a tie, both retreat. Scoring An empty Battle Zone is called an Opening . If your attack on an Opening goes through, take the top card of your Rush Deck and put it on your Timeline. That's a point. Keywords you'll see Counter: can be summoned during a Counter step, even on your opponent's turn Blocker: once per turn, pulls an attack onto itself Double Strike: attacks twice Assault: beating a character also scores you a point Air Raid: can attack a filled zone like it's empty Unique: only one of it on your field at a time How you win Get 9 Rush Points on your Timeline, or make your opponent run out of cards in their deck. A few tips for your first games Never leave your Front empty. Every character can reach it, so it's the easiest point your opponent will ever get. Base Deploy every turn. Free card, free summoning fuel. Think about Range when you place your characters. Put your best defender where their attackers can actually reach. Don't hold onto a hand full of Lv 5s and 6s you can't pay for. What's next? Grab a starter deck in a color you like and just play it a bunch. When you're ready to build your own, read our Marvel Hero Rush deck building guide . For products, email us at support@hobbycollect.co . (This is the quick-start version of the rules. If you're heading to a tournament, give the official rulebook a read too.)