How to Play Challengers! Board Game (Beginner Guide)

Challengers! is a deck building board game where players duel each other for a chance to compete in the the final match to determine the winner.

Getting Started

1. There are a total of 7 rounds.
2. Each round pairs of players duel each other.
3. All players receives a Tournament Plan card (see image above) which shows which field they will play in each round (symbol on the left – essentially it determines who they will verse).
4. All players start with the Basic City Set which includes 3x (1) Newcomers, 1x (2) Talent, 1x (3) Dog and 1x (4) Champion.
5. All cards have a base power (number at the top of the card) but some cards have special effects.

Step 1: Drawing and Removing Phase

• At the start of each round players draft cards (the Tournament plan shows how many cards and from which deck to draft from eg. Round 1 all players draft 2 cards from Deck A).
• 5 cards are drawn from a shuffled deck for players to draft from (some rounds let players choose which deck to draft from eg. Round 3 players can draft either 2 cards from Deck A or 1 card from Deck B.
• Players have 1 chance to redraw cards. Eg. When drafting 2 cards you may first pick 1 out of the 5 cards then redraw 4 cards to draft your final card.
• Lastly you can discard any amount of cards (you may choose to discard none) to trim your deck.

Tip: For beginners aim for a max of 7 unique cards in your deck.

Step 2: Match Phase

For the most part Challengers! is an auto battler where cards typically resolve themselves without much input from the player.

1. First shuffle your deck.
2. Determine who starts with the flag with a coin toss.
3. The starting player reveals their top card. This card is now in possession of the flag.
4. Next the attacking player (player not in possession of the flag) reveals cards until the power of their revealed cards is equal to or greater than defending card. The attacking player now takes the flag (Note: only the top card counts towards defending power).
5. The defending player benches their cards and now is in attacking position.
6. Players take turns taking the flag until one player is unable to do so. This happens when:
   – The attacking player is out of cards and is unable to take the flag.
   – The defending player loses the flag but doesn’t have enough space to bench their cards (players have 6 bench spaces).

The winner takes the trophy of the round. Trophies are worth fans and reward more fans in later rounds.

Note: Duplicate cards can be benched all on 1 spot.

Step 3: Final Round

• After Round 7 the two players with the most fans face off against each other to determine the winner.
• Ties are in favor of whoever has the most trophies. If there is still a tie the player with the highest round trophy wins.
• The finals do not have a drafting phase but players can discard to trim their deck.

Not sure what cards to draft? Check out our Challengers! card tier list.