Useful Notes / Lycee TCG

In a nutshell, Lycee TCG is a competitive card game where players pit characters from Visual Novels against each others. Despite the unsavory reputation of their source materials, this TCG is almost entirely Safe For Work.

Structure of the Cards

Mito Mashiro from Tayutama. This is a Creature card.

"Lending" ^note Remand + Vex, depicting Alyssa Klein Felmina from World Lovers Organization. This is an Event card.

"Buchubuchu-san" ^note The Item is the seemingly useless baubles in her hands, supposedly., depicting Orihara Kozue from Chaos;Head. This is an Item card.

"Running", depicting Noumi Kudryavka and her dog Strelka from Kud Wafter, which is a Spin-Off of Little Busters!.

Character Cards

Lycee equivalent to Creatures. A Character card has...

1. Card Name: Self-explanatory. ^note Some Character cards specify that they are also treated as having name other than the one printed, these are usually different versions of a character.
2. Attribute: Think of them as the Colours of Magic: The Gathering. These are Snow, Moon, Flower, Lightning, and Sun, plus Attribute-less. Each Attribute have their unique strength and weakness. Some cards can have more than 1 Attribute.
3. Use Cost: You have to pay this cost to put this character on a field.
4. EX: How much this card cover when you discard it from your hands to pay the cost of something else. "Mana drought"? What Mana drought? ^Addendum Due to an error, the sample picture doesn't include the 4th marker. The EX is the number right below the shield of the top left corner, in this case its value is 1.
5. Field Limitation: Which fields this character can be summoned onto. ^note Some effects can move a Character from one field to another when it's in play, such effects aren't subject to this limitation.
6. AP: The Character's Attack Power. One of the Ability Scores.
7. DP: The Character's Defense Power. If the character attacks or blocks opponent character whose AP equals or exceeds the character's DP, the character is downed in battle and sent to dustbox. One of the Ability Scores.
8. SP: The Character's Support Power. A Character can add its SP value to another character during a battle, elaborated below. Flower-attributed characters are especially good at this. One of the Ability Scores.
9. Standard Abilities: Abilities that are shared by characters across this game.
10. Special Ability: Ability that's unique to a particular character. Special Abilities are always named, such as false Tohno Michiru's "Chiru-chiru Kick!"
11. Card Number: Self-explanatory. ^Addendum Note that Parallel cards have alphabet added after their number.

Event Cards

Lycee's equivalent to Spells. An Event card has...

1. Card Name: Self-explanatory.
2. Attribute: See above.
3. Cost: See above.
4. EX: See above.
5. Effect: What will happen if the player succesfully use this card.

Item Cards

Lycee equivalent to Equipments. An Item card has...

1. Card Name: Self-explanatory.
2. Attribute: See above. Unlike some TCG, Items in Lycee are rarely non-Attribute.
3. Cost: See above.
4. EX: See above.
5. Effect: The effect gained by the Character that has this Item attached to it. Some Items can even give a Character new Special Ability.

Area Cards

Lycee's not-exactly equivalent to Enchantment. These are more like Geo Effects. An Area card has...

1. Card Name: Self-explanatory.
2. Attribute: See above.
3. Cost: See above.
4. EX: See above.
5. Effect: The effect that lingers on the field where the Area is on.

Structure of the Fields and Zones:

Fields

• Fields are where your character stands on.
• There are 3 Attack Fields (AF) and 3 Defense Fields (DF), for a total of 6 fields.
• A row of Attack Fields or Defense Fields belonging to a player is called an order. For example, a character can Support another character on the same order.
• Both AF row and DF row are divided into columns: Left, Middle, and Right. For example, a character's Special Ability might target another character on the same column, or it might target a character that's on a Middle field.
• Only 1 character can stand on any given field.
• Barring effects, a character can't be moved from one field to another.

Dustbox

Cards that are discarded go here. In other TCG, it might be called "graveyard" or "discard pile". Each player can look into any dustbox, any time.

Deck

The deck of cards that you assembled. Cards in deck are stacked face down, and players can not look into the content of any deck, except if an effect says so.

Cost and Field Limitation

Cost

To summon a Character or play an Event (or Item, or Area, or Ability), you must pay the cost printed on it. A cost is paid using coverage generated by discarding cards from your hands.

• The cost of a card must be paid at the same time that card is used.
• The coverage generated by a discarded card is its EX value.
• The coverage has the same Attribute(s) as the card that it's generated from.
• The Attributed part of a cost must be paid using coverage that has the same Attribute as that part.
• The Attribute-less part of a cost (indicated by yellow Star or Stars) can be paid using coverage from a card of any Attribute
• If the coverage generated equals or exceed the cost, then the card or effect is played.
• Exceed coverage of a cost is lost, you can't save the excess to pay another cost.

Some Abilities also has cost.

• The cost of an Ability is the icon(s) next to its name.
• Attribute icons means the cost is equal to the number of those icons plus another part(s) of the cost.
• Rest icon means you have to Rest the source of this Ability. Which means that if you can't Rest it —possibly because it's already in Rest state— this Ability can't be played.
• Text printed in blue after the Ability indicates another part of the cost that you have to pay. If you somehow can't pay it —such as having to discard 3 cards from your deck when you only have 2— this Ability can't be played.
• A zero icon means that the Ability doesn't have a cost to play. It's "free". ^Addendum However, such Abilities usually either have an arbitrary limit on how many times it can be played in a turn, or the effect of this Ability is too disadvantageous if you play it repeatedly.

Field Limitation

Which fields a character may be summoned onto. The Field Limitation has the appearance of the sixth face of a six-sided dice, located below the cost of a card.

Turn Structure:

1. Start Phase
   1. Wakeup Phase: Each characters on the fields belonging to the player of the current turn become Awake. ^Addendum Characters with Tax-Wakeup require you to pay a cost to Awake it. Meanwhile, Characters with Tax-Trash is sent to dustbox if you don't pay its Tax-Trash cost. Also, some cards can make a Character unable to Awake during this sub-phase.
   2. Warmup Phase: The player of the current turn draw 2 cards from his or her Deck. ^Addendum Some cards can cause a player to draw more or less than that amount during this sub-phase.
2. Main Phase: There are several things that players can do during a Main Phase, but some of them can only be done by the player of the current turn.
   1. Summon Characters: (Player of the current turn only.) The player of the current turn summon a Character onto a field belonging to him or her. ^Addendum Some Characters can be summoned even if you're not the player of the current turn.
      1. Player summon a Character onto any field belonging to him or her, specified as he or she declare that he or she is summoning a Character.
      2. A field can only have 1 Character on it.
      3. A player can't have 2 or more Characters with same name in play under his or her control, even if each of those Characters have different card number, illustration, and/or Special Ability. ^Addendum Some cards explicitly state that you can have more than 1 of them in play under your control.
      4. A Character can only be summoned onto a field that is allowed by its Field Limitation.
      5. The character enter play after you pay its cost. ^Addendum Some effects can change the cost of a Character to something different than the one printed on it.
      6. A Character enters play Awake. ^Addendum Some Characters specify that they enter play Resting. Some effects can force a freshly-entering Character to Resting right after it enter play.
      7. A Character can not [Declare Attack] or [Play Special Ability that requires Resting it] until your next turn.
      8. A Character can [Declare Defend] or [Declare Suppport] during the turn it enter play.
   2. Use Special Abilities: A player can use the Special Ability of a character in a field belonging to him or her.
      1. Unless it specifies otherwise, a Special Ability can be use any number of times, provided its cost is paid by its player. ^Addendum However, a significant portion of Special Abilities state that they can only be used once per turn. A few of them even once per game!
      2. If a Special Ability doesn't have a cost, its effect is always active. (Its player can not use it, as its effect is triggered and resolved automatically.) ^Addendum A very few cards can suppress such Always-Active Special Abilities.
      3. Unless it specifies otherwise, a Special Ability can be used even though it's not the turn of its player. ^Addendum About half of the Special Abilities say that they are only usable during your turn.
   3. Use Standard Ability: A player can use Standard Abilities of a character in a field belonging to him or her. (Step, Escape, etc.) Elaborated below.
   4. Use Events: A player can use Event Cards in his or her hands to bring various effects into play. Used Event Cards are discarded.
      1. Unless it specifies otherwise, an Event Card can be used even though it's not the turn of its player.
   5. Use Items: A player attach an Item in his or her hands to a Character in play.
      1. An Item must be placed as such that it's obvious to each players which Character it's attached to.
      2. An Item can only be attached to 1 Character in play. It can't be attached to 2 or more Characters simultaneously.
      3. A Character can only have 1 Item attached to it. ^Addendum You can't just attach an Item to your Character if it already has an Item attached to it.
      4. A player can attach his or her Item to a Character controlled by his or her opponent.
   6. Use Areas: A player place an Area in his or her hands on a field.
      1. An Area must be placed as such that it's obvious to each players which field it's on. (Place it below a Character.)
      2. An Area can only be attached to 1 field. It can't be attached to 2 or more fields simultaneously.
      3. A player can place his or her Area to a field belonging to his or her opponent.
   7. Attacking: (Player of the current turn only.) A player use a character on his Attack Field to... attack. Elaborated below.
3. End Phase
   1. Triggered Effects: Effects that last "until the end of turn" expires here. Effects that are triggered "at the end of turn" are fired to stack here.
   2. Hands Trimming: Each players who exceed maximum hand size —7 is the default— discard card from hands until he or she doesn't exceet it. (Some cards can change the maximum hands size of a player to a number higher or lower than 7.)
   3. Restore Ability Score to Base Value: Each Characters' Ability Scores return to their Base Value, which is their number on the card. Some Change to Ability Score can defy this restoration.
   Wow, that's a lot of addendums!