How to play Cypher

Cypher is a deckbuilding card game where you harness the power of fallen mages (essence) to drive back the evil forces puring out of the rift on the Shattered Isles.

The basics

After you build your deck and head into battle, you will see a number of things at your disposal. First is your card hand, comprised of randomly selected cards from your deck. Combine cards to build up your attack to match the enemies defenses. If your attack matches then you will successfully defeat that monster. However is your attack is too low or too high, you will take damage from that monster.

"These demons are otherwordly, we must be precise in our attack." - Lysander, Elder Mage

Below are two example videos. One is a loss and the other is a win. Both examples also show the mulligan ability mid combat.

Other items

Along side your cards, you have three additional items you can use to prolong your fight with the demons. First is your potions, you have three per run and each one heals you for three health. Next is a mulligan ability. This lets you generate another random hand in case your current hand is lacking. You can mulligan in the middle of combining cards but you can only mulligan once per fight. Lastly is a special mage abiligy called Concordia. This power was imbued to you by the elder mage and lets you cast a spell that instantly vanquishes a monster. But you only have enough energy to cast Concordia once per run.

Essence

Essence is the driving force behind your attacks. You collect essence from defeated monsters that you can then use to buy new cards from the shop.

Monster levels

During your battles the monsters you face will increase in power. Everytime you cross the threshold you will encouncter new monsters as well as go up against more powerful foes. Also, be wary, there are rare encounters where you can battle against an augmented versions of monsters. These encounters are rare but are even more deadly.