How to Play
Smash Battles
Story Cards
Super Cards
Build a Deck
Watch a Full Game
To use presorted decks or not to use presorted decks?
That is the question!
To get you started, the game comes with presorted decks. If you’ve screwed those up and would like to play with them again, click on the buttons below to see how to reconstruct them.
Once you get into the swing of the game, we strongly encourage players to build their own decks. See the “Building a Deck” tab below for how to do it.
| DECK #1 |
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Characters: |
| Cat Lady |
| Implausible Man |
| Chillax |
| Queen of Diamonds |
| El Bow |
| Sands Sheriff |
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Story Cards: |
| Discontinued! |
| Plot Hole! |
| Largesse! |
| Put on your dance pants! |
| Recall, recall, recall! |
| Discard is my favorite! |
| Clones have more fun! |
| Decompression Ray! |
| X Forced! |
| DECK #2 |
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Characters: |
| Fossil Fool |
| Cool Man |
| Doctor Wizard |
| The Quitter |
| Seagal |
| Crimson Crustacean |
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Story Cards: |
| Discontinued! |
| Zero issues! |
| Dinoshark rampage! |
| KRAKA-THOOM! |
| Year One! |
| Who spectates the Spectator! |
| Don’t make me angry! |
| What doesn’t kill you makes you incredibly, incredibly powerful! |
| Origin is the new smash! |
| DECK #3 |
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Characters: |
| Ghost Pirate |
| Help Centaur |
| Wilder Ness |
| Zebro |
| Power Walker |
| Ninja Noir |
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Story Cards: |
| Globulus! |
| New mutation! |
| Golden age! |
| Spies dislike us! |
| Demolicious! |
| Don’t make me angry! |
| Origin is the new smash! |
| Decompression Ray! |
| Danger’s a foot! |
| DECK #4 |
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Characters: |
| Dark Unicorn |
| Night Pony |
| Rage Ranger |
| Mister McMimmic |
| Doctor Deciduous |
| Eugene Djinni |
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Story Cards: |
| Shub Lubberbeth, The Writhing Thing From Worcester!! |
| Blockbuster! |
| You’ve been conned! |
| KRAKA-THOOM! |
| Gone parking! |
| Retcon! |
| Flashback! |
| Variant cover! |
| What doesn’t kill you makes you incredibly, incredibly powerful! |
| DECK #1 |
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Characters: |
| One Man Army |
| Gila Dancer |
| Non Prophet |
| Stunt Double |
| Rumble Bee |
| Pink Dolphin |
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Story Cards: |
| Ultimate Wars! |
| Infringement! |
| That seems logical! |
| Don’t make me angry! |
| Rogue robots! |
| Demolicious! |
| Futility belt! |
| Discard is my favorite! |
| What doesn’t kill you makes you incredibly, incredibly powerful! |
| DECK #2 |
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Characters: |
| Moth Mother |
| Witch Whatnow |
| Imaginary Friend |
| Gamblin’ Man |
| ThingamaBarb |
| Stormy Heather |
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Story Cards: |
| Globulus! |
| Infringement! |
| Plot hole! |
| New mutation! |
| Rogue robots! |
| Anti-weather machine! |
| Natural disaster grudge match! |
| Futility belt! |
| Dreaded judge! |
The goal of Super Powered Smash Masters™ is to defeat all the rival characters with at least one of your team’s characters left standing.
If all of your characters are defeated, you lose!
The game is played with a variety of cards that do different things. There are 5 types:
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Character Cards |
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|---|---|---|
| Win or lose by the Characters you choose! Every Character has an innate Power printed on the card that makes them special. This power stems from their Power Type: Mutant, Magic, Nature, or Gadget. It costs a turn to use most powers. Some powers are passive and “always on”, and do not cost a turn. |
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Super Cards |
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| A Super is an extra-powerful ability. Each Character has a Super Card that can only be played while the matching Character is on your team, unless the card says otherwise. When played, in addition to its effects, a Super Card also revives its matching Character if they’re stunned, making them active again. |
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Smash Cards |
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| The most basic kind of attack. Play Smash Cards to attack one rival Character, or play them to counter a rival’s Smash Card. If a Smash Card isn’t countered, the rival is stunned. |
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Team-Up Cards |
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| They’re like Smash Cards, but the stakes are higher! A Team-Up Card can be played at any time during a Smash Battle. If it isn’t countered by another Team-Up Card, the rival is not just stunned, they are defeated. Team-Up cards can be used to counter normal Smash Cards, but normal Smash Cards cannot counter Team-Up Cards. Important: You MUST have at least two active teammates to use a Team-Up Card!! |
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Story Cards |
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| These cards affect ALL teams (including the team of the player who plays the card, unless it says otherwise). Story Cards add a bit of narrative to the game, and they’re incredibly powerful. Use them at your own risk! |
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Before you start playing, every player needs a “Character Stack” and a “Deck”.
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Character Stack |
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|---|---|---|
| Choose 6 of your toughest, brawniest character cards. This is your team! The only rule is: no duplicate characters. |
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Deck |
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| Choose 40 non-hero cards that compliment your characters. A few guidelines: – Each card in your deck must be unique. No duplicates of Supers or Story Cards. (Smash and Team-Up cards are ok.) – No more than 20 Smash Cards in your deck! – No more than 5 Team-Up Cards in your deck! – It’s a good idea to have corresponding Super Cards for each character in your character stack. |
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Some Deckbuilding TipsStarting a Deck: We usually start building a deck by counting out 20 Smash cards and 5 Team-Up Cards – the maximum number of each card currently allowed (but you can use fewer of each if you like). That leaves 15 additional cards to form your Deck, not including the 6 Character cards. Choosing Character cards: Look closely at the character cards and their powers. Think about possible synergies. We often find it works best if you have a strong mix of two power types* – for instance, mostly Mutant and Gadget characters. Choosing Super cards: We ALWAYS include all of the Super Cards associated with each character included in the Character Stack. 15 minus 6 leaves 9 more cards to play around with. Filling out the Deck: After the Supers, we start including Story Cards that work best with those characters. For instance, if you don’t have a healer like Cat Lady or Help Centaur, it’d be a good idea to add a Story Card like “Flashback!” that revives your stunned characters. Or if you’re making an all Nature deck, you might want to stay away from “Gone Parking!” – which defeats all Nature characters. (But if you know that your opponent has a soft spot for Pink Dolphin then, by all means, throw “Gone Parking!” in there!) *Including a small number of characters with a third or fourth power type can sometimes save one’s bacon. |
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1. Once you have assembled your deck, place your red cards face down on the left. This is your Character Stack. Shuffle your blue cards and place them face down on your right. This is your Deck. (If you’re left-handed, do the reverse.) (If you’re ambidexterous, just pick one and stop being such a show off!)
2. Draw 5 cards from your Deck into your Hand. You can look at them, but don’t let others see!
3. Now look through your Character Stack and choose 3 Character Cards. Place them in a row in front of you face down. This is your Team. The other 3 remain in your Character Stack for now.
4. When all players have chosen their teams, everyone flips their Character Cards over at the same time.
You’re ready to play!
Flip a coin (or a car) to see who goes first. Play moves clockwise.
On your turn you can do one of the following actions:
– Attack a rival character with a Smash Card.
– Attack a rival character with a Team-Up Card.
– Use a character’s Power.
– Play a Story Card.
– Play a Super Card.
– Place one of your stunned characters into the Defeated Pile and draw a new one from the Character Stack to replace them.
– Discard an unwanted card in your Hand and draw another from the Deck.
If you can’t perform an action during your turn (or choose not to), you MUST Discard.
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RULE: |
| Always maintain 5 cards in your hand. If you play a card, immediately draw a new one to replace it. |
Smash Cards are a basic attack that a character performs against a rival character.
To Attack, place a Smash Card in front of an active character on your team and announce which rival character you’re attacking. Then draw a card to replace that one. Remember: “Play a card, draw a card!”
– If a character is attacked and can’t counter with a Smash Card of their own, the character is Stunned.
– If an attacking character can’t counter a counter, then the attacking character is Stunned.
– Players can counter back and forth as long as they have Smash Cards to counter with. (Don’t forget to draw new cards!)
– When a character is Stunned, rotate the card sideways.
– Stunned characters are defenseless. They can’t Attack or Counter with Smash Cards or Team-Up cards, nor can they use their Powers.
– If a Stunned character is attacked, the character is Defeated. Place it in the Defeated Pile.
– A Super card can Revive its corresponding character, if they are already stunned.
– If all the characters on a team are stunned, you can still play Super and Story cards.
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RULE: |
| Maintain at least 3 characters on the table. When one is defeated, draw a new one from the Character Stack. |
– Team-Up cards can be used at any point during a smash battle – like a smash card – but, once played, a Team-Up card can only be countered by another Team-Up card. Now the losing character isn’t just Stunned, they are Defeated.
– You must have two active characters on your team to use a Team-Up Card.
– If using a Team-Up card to initiate an attack, choose one of your characters to be the “lead” attacker. If you lose the battle, this character will be Defeated. The second character is not affected by the outcome of the battle.
– Team-Up cards can be used in place of Smash Cards in any facet of the game (for example, in response to a Story or Super card) but the same rule always applies: you must have two active characters to use a Team-Up card.
The last team left standing, wins!
– Only draw new cards when your hand has less than 5 cards.
– Only draw new characters when you have less than 3 characters on your team.
– Do not change your character’s positions. If a character is Defeated, place a new character in the vacant spot.
– If there are two empty spots, you may choose where to place your new characters .
– You may choose NOT to use your character’s powers.
– If you play a card that allows you to draw more cards, draw one card to maintain 5 cards in your hand, and then draw the new cards.
– Some powers allow you to acquire more than the standard 5 cards in your hand… but for the sake of balance, no hand should have more than 10 cards.
– If your Deck runs out, reshuffle your Discard Pile to make a new Deck. Easy!
– It is illegal to cause yourself to lose the game. You may face steep fines.
– Powers of stunned Characters aren’t available until the turn after they’ve been revived.
– Unless stated, you can’t choose a different Character to attack part way through a Smash Battle.
– If you’ve reduced a child to tears… you might be trying too hard.
– Super Powered Smash Masters is best played with 2 – 8 players, but we’ve looked into this, and apparently there’s no legal way to enforce that rule. Just know that we’re watching. Always watching.
– It is illegal to cause yourself to lose the game. You may face steep fines.
– If a card you’re playing says “all teams”, it includes your own team.
– Powers of stunned characters aren’t available until the turn after they’re revived.
– If Cool Man is the last character on a team, his Super Card does not kick him off the team.
– Reshuffle your deck when you run out of cards.
– If you’ve reduced a child to tears… you might be trying too hard.