Know Your Cards.
Know Your Power.
Every card in your deck has a job. Learn the five card types, what the colors mean, and how rarity works - so you can build smarter decks and make sharper plays.
The Big Picture
Think of your deck like a well-run kingdom.
Imagine you're building a small kingdom from scratch. You need soldiers to fight, land to generate income, powerful one-time events to change the tide of battle, equipment to make your soldiers stronger, and laws to shape how everything works. That's exactly what the five card types do:
Characters
Your soldiers
Holy Sites
Your land
Miracles
Your events
Artifacts
Your equipment
Covenants
Your laws
The kingdom simile: A kingdom with only soldiers and no land goes bankrupt. A kingdom with only land and no soldiers gets conquered. A great kingdom has a balance of everything - soldiers on the front lines, land producing income, events to respond to surprises, equipment to strengthen troops, and laws that give you the edge. A great deck works the same way.
Characters
Your soldiers on the battlefield - the heart of every deck.
Characters are like chess pieces on a board. You place them on the battlefield, they fight for you, and they stay there until they're destroyed.
ATK (Attack) - The damage they deal. A character with 6 ATK hits like a truck.
DEF (Defense) - Their health. When it reaches 0, the character is destroyed and goes to the graveyard.
Summoning Sickness - Characters can't attack the turn they arrive. Think of it like they just stepped off the boat - they need a turn to get their bearings.
Field Limit - You can have up to 7 characters on the battlefield at once. Quality over quantity matters.
Think of it this way: Characters are your employees. You pay their salary (Faith cost) to hire them, they show up to work (enter the battlefield), and they do their job (attack and defend) until they retire (get destroyed). The more you pay, the better the employee.
How Character Combat Works
Attack a Character
Both characters deal their ATK to each other simultaneously. It's like two warriors clashing swords - both take damage.
Attack the Player
If the opponent has no characters to block, yours strikes them directly - dealing ATK as damage to their health.
Destruction
When a character's DEF (health) reaches 0, it's destroyed and sent to the graveyard. Damage stays between turns - it doesn't heal automatically.
Holy Sites
Your fuel - without them, nothing else works.
Holy Sites are the gas in your car. You can have the fastest engine in the world (powerful characters), but without fuel (Faith), you're not going anywhere.
One per turn - You can play only one Holy Site each turn, during the Faith or Summon phase. No exceptions.
Free to play - Holy Sites don't cost any Faith. They generate it. Think of them as investments that pay off every single turn.
Permanent boost - Once played, a Holy Site increases your Faith pool forever. Turn 1 you have 1 Faith, turn 2 you have 2, turn 3 you have 3 - if you play one every turn.
Color matters - A Kingdom Holy Site produces Kingdom Faith (gold). You need the right color of Faith to play cards of that faction. A special Divine Holy Site adds +1 to every color at once.
Think of it this way: Holy Sites are like planting fruit trees. Each tree you plant (one per turn) gives you fruit (Faith) every season (every turn) for the rest of the game. Miss a planting season and you fall behind - your opponent will be harvesting 5 fruit while you're still stuck at 3.
How Faith Grows Each Turn
If you play a Holy Site every turn, here's how your Faith pool grows - and the kind of cards you can afford:
Miracles
Powerful one-shot effects - play them, and they're gone.
Miracles are like fireworks - spectacular, powerful, and over in a flash. You play them, their effect happens immediately, and then they're gone to the graveyard.
Instant resolution - The effect happens the moment you play the card. No waiting.
Single use - After resolving, the card goes to your graveyard (discard pile). You can't use it again.
Varied effects - Miracles can deal damage, heal your health, draw extra cards, destroy enemy characters, or create other powerful effects.
No ATK/DEF - Miracles don't have attack or defense stats. They're not fighters - they're game-changers.
Think of it this way: Miracles are like calling in an air strike. Your soldiers (Characters) are on the ground fighting every turn, but sometimes you need a single, devastating move from above to clear the field. That's a Miracle. Use it at the right moment and you can completely flip a losing battle.
When to Use Miracles
Board Clear
Your opponent flooded the field with characters? A damage miracle can wipe them all out at once.
Finishing Blow
Opponent at low health? A direct-damage miracle can deliver the final points of damage for the win.
Emergency Recovery
Healing miracles can save you when you're on the verge of defeat - buying you time to mount a comeback.
Artifacts
Persistent equipment that makes everything else better.
Artifacts are like power tools in a workshop. A carpenter can build with bare hands, but give them a saw and a hammer, and suddenly they're building twice as fast. Artifacts make your whole operation run better.
Stays in play - Unlike Miracles, Artifacts persist on the field after you play them. Their effect is ongoing, not one-time.
Passive bonuses - Artifacts typically boost your characters' stats, reduce costs, or provide other continuous advantages.
No ATK/DEF - Artifacts can't fight. They're not warriors - they're the weapons and relics your warriors use.
Stackable - You can have multiple Artifacts in play at the same time. Their effects all apply.
Think of it this way: If Characters are your athletes, Artifacts are their training equipment. A runner without shoes can still run - but a runner with great shoes runs faster, longer, and wins more races. Artifacts are the advantage that compounds every single turn.
Covenants
Ongoing enchantments that change the rules of the game.
Covenants are like changing the rules of a board game while you're playing it. Imagine halfway through a game of basketball, you declare: "From now on, every shot I make counts double." That's the kind of advantage a Covenant gives you.
Ongoing enchantment - Covenants stay in play and their effect applies continuously, every turn, until they're removed.
Game-warping - While Artifacts buff your characters, Covenants can change how the entire game works - boost Faith generation, alter combat outcomes, or penalize your opponent.
No ATK/DEF - Like Miracles and Artifacts, Covenants don't fight. They're the silent laws governing the battlefield.
Artifacts vs. Covenants - what's the difference? Think of Artifacts as personal gear (they improve your characters directly), and Covenants as laws of the land (they change the environment of the whole battlefield). Both stay in play, but they shape the game in different ways.
Why Colors Matter
Colors aren't just decoration - they're the foundation of your strategy.
Every card has a faction color. Here's the crucial thing: to play a card, you need Faith of its color. A Kingdom (gold) character needs Kingdom Faith. A Prophecy (blue) miracle needs Prophecy Faith. Your Holy Sites produce Faith of a specific color, so the colors you pick for your deck determine everything.
Think of colors like different currencies. A Kingdom Holy Site prints gold coins. A Prophecy Holy Site prints blue coins. A Kingdom character wants to be paid in gold coins - you can't pay it with blue. (The one exception is Divine - Divine Holy Sites produce a little of every currency, and Divine cards accept any color of Faith.)
The Color → Faith → Card Pipeline
Holy Site
Produces Faith of a color
Faith Pool
Accumulates & refreshes
Play Cards
Spend matching Faith
Why Stick to 1–2 Colors?
The Problem with Too Many Colors
Imagine you have cards from 4 different factions. You need Kingdom Faith, Prophecy Faith, Wisdom Faith, and Wrath Faith - but your Holy Sites only produce one color each. You'll constantly have the wrong color of Faith and cards stuck in your hand you can't play. It's like having dollars when the store only accepts euros.
The Advantage of Focus
With 1–2 colors, almost every Holy Site you play produces Faith your cards actually need. You'll be playing cards on curve from turn 1, while your opponent with 4 colors is still struggling to find the right Faith. Focus is power.
Quick Faction Color Reference
Card Rarity
Not all cards are created equal - rarity reflects biblical prominence.
In The 12 Tribes™, a character's rarity is based on how many books of the Bible they appear in. A character mentioned in one book is Common. A character woven throughout 20+ books - like Moses or David - is Mythic. Rarer cards tend to be more powerful, with better stats and stronger abilities.
Think of rarity like hiring at a company. Common cards are your entry-level workers - reliable, affordable, and you can have lots of them. Mythic cards are your world-class executives - extraordinary talent, high salary (Faith cost), and there are very few of them in existence.
Common
— 996 cards · 1 bookThe backbone of any deck. Low Faith cost, solid stats, easy to collect. Like dependable foot soldiers - not flashy, but essential. Every great army needs its rank and file.
Uncommon
— 683 cards · 2–4 booksA step up. These characters show up in several biblical books, suggesting greater importance. Better abilities and more interesting effects. Like your team captains - they lead from the front.
Rare
— 158 cards · 5–10 booksSignificant biblical figures who appear across multiple books. Powerful abilities that can shape the course of a game. Like your star players - the ones your strategy is built around.
Legendary
— 28 cards · 11–20 booksMajor biblical figures - kings, great prophets, founding patriarchs. Game-changing abilities and premium stats. Like having a hall-of-fame coach - they transform your entire team. Expect names like Solomon, Elijah, and Aaron.
Mythic
— 21 cards · 21+ booksThe absolute most prominent figures in all of Scripture - characters whose stories span dozens of books. These are the rarest and most powerful cards in the game. Moses. David. Jesus. Abraham. When one of these hits the battlefield, it can end the game. Like a once-in-a-generation talent - the kind of card decks are built around.
Important: Rarer doesn't always mean better for your deck. A well-built deck of mostly Commons and Uncommons with a clear strategy will beat a random pile of Legendaries with no plan. Rarity gives you powerful tools - but strategy decides who wins.
Quick Reference
| Type | Has ATK/DEF? | Stays in Play? | Costs Faith? | Simile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🛡️ Character | Yes | Yes - battlefield | Yes | Soldiers / employees |
| ⛪ Holy Site | No | Yes - permanent | Free | Land / fruit trees |
| ✨ Miracle | No | No - graveyard | Yes | Fireworks / air strikes |
| ⚱️ Artifact | No | Yes - persistent | Yes | Power tools / shoes |
| 📜 Covenant | No | Yes - ongoing | Yes | Laws / house rules |
Now You Know the Cards
Explore the full library of 1,886 cards, build your first deck, or jump straight into a guided tutorial match.