mundane

Worked examples

Two plays, traced step by step, to show how priority and the stack actually flow. The mechanics behind them live in how to play and, exactly, in the specification. The cards named here — Helpful Roommate, Throw a House Party, Noise Complaint — are just convenient examples; the full card library is documented with the engine.

We’ll call the players A (the active player, whose turn it is) and B (the opponent).

Example 1 — a quiet turn: playing a permanent

It’s A’s turn. A has just woken up: Time is back to 5 and A has drawn a card.

The turn walks Reset -> Wake Up -> Plan. (Each of those handoffs is just both players passing with an empty stack — nothing dramatic happens.)
Plan. A plays Helpful Roommate (a Person, cost 2). A’s Time drops from 5 to 3. The Roommate goes onto the stack, and — because the stack just changed — A gets priority back.
A has nothing else to do, so A passes. Priority moves to B.
B doesn’t want to interfere, so B passes too. That’s everyone in a row, and the stack is not empty — so its top item resolves. Helpful Roommate is a permanent, so it simply lands on A’s board and stays there. A gets priority again.
The stack is now empty. A passes, B passes — and with nothing waiting, Plan ends and Do Stuff begins. The same quiet pass-pass walks the turn through Do Stuff and Wind Down, after which the turn hands off to B (whose Time resets to 5, and who draws).

Net result: A spent 2 Time and now has a Helpful Roommate on the board.

Example 2 — the counter: responding on the stack

This is the play the whole priority system exists for. Same setup: A’s turn, Plan phase, empty stack, A holding priority with 5 Time. A is holding Throw a House Party (a Task, cost 3, which would deal 3 to B’s Composure). B is holding Noise Complaint (an Instant, cost 1, which counters a task on the stack) and has at least 1 Time to spare.

A plays Throw a House Party. A’s Time drops 5 → 2. The Task goes on the stack, and A gets priority back.
```
stack (top -> bottom):
  [0] Throw a House Party   (A)
```
A doesn’t respond to their own Task, so A passes. Priority moves to B.
B responds. Instants can be cast whenever you hold priority — even on the opponent’s turn. B casts Noise Complaint, targeting the House Party. B’s Time drops by 1. Because it was cast after the House Party, it lands on top of it. The stack changed, so priority snaps back to A.
```
stack (top -> bottom):
  [1] Noise Complaint       (B)   <- resolves first
  [0] Throw a House Party   (A)
```
A has no answer, so A passes. Priority moves to B. B passes too. Everyone has passed in a row and the stack is not empty, so the top item resolves first: Noise Complaint. It counters the House Party — lifting it off the stack and sending it straight to A’s discard, unresolved. Noise Complaint, having done its job, then goes to B’s discard.
```
stack: empty
```
The House Party never resolved, so it never dealt its 3. B’s Composure is untouched. With the stack empty, A and B pass once more and Plan ends.

Net result: A spent 3 Time for nothing; B spent 1 Time to make sure of it. That’s the payoff of holding an Instant and waiting — last onto the stack, first to resolve.

This site is open source. Improve this page.