Coffin Boggy's TCG

Largely plagiarized from Yugioh, Magic: the Gathering and Monster Rancher Battle Card, Coffin Boggy was designed to be a card game requiring little luck, no math, and rapid gameplay. So far only Lydia and Eric Cochrane have been able to play it succesfully. Coincidentally they are the creators of the game, but welcome you to try it out.

How to play:

Perparation: Download page 1 page 2 page 3 page 4 page 5 page 6 page 7. Open the files and print them two copies of each page to play against someone. Next, print a page of backs for each page of cards (that's 14). Next, get a friend, girlfriend, or some other person who can help you. Cut out each card and glue it to one of the backs until you have two identical decks. Congratulations, you have completed the toughest step.

Deck Building: It's time to play! Pick out 30 of your favorite cards. Depending on time constraints, you can increase or decrease the card limit. Shuffle your deck and draw six cards.

A Note on Turns: It turns out that in any fight, the person who throws the first punch wins. Thus there are no turns in Coffin Boggy's. Before each step both players consider their move and, when they are ready, play the cards face-down at the same time. Then they flip the cards.

Field: Place your deck to your right. On your side of the table, there is a central area called your "guts pool" where you will place your guts each turn. If you want to, you can place cards there too and just call them guts. Above the guts pool is your North Quadrant, and to its left is the West Quadrant. I'm sure you can guess where the South and East Quadrants are. To your far left is a discard pile. Your opponent has an identical setup, so naturally his West Quadrant will be on your right instead of left. Right now you only have a deck and a hand, but we'll soon fix that.

North/West Turn: In the first turn, players can only play one card face-down in each of the North and West Quadrants. Choose the monster you want to use (monsters have an attack number and their card has a brown background) and place it face-down in the North Quadrant. Choose whatever spell card you want and place it face-down in the West Quadrant. You can choose to play one or both or neither. When your opponent has done the same, flip every card face-up. If any card has an effect that is activated on the flip, do what it says. Otherwise, the cards do nothing but wait there.

Guts Break: You had your fun and now it's time to pay for it. At the top right of each card is the number of guts required to play that card. Take that number of cards from your hand and place them in your guts pool. Don't worry, you'll get those cards back eventually. If you cannot pay for a card because of a card effect or because you miscounted, send whatever card you cannot pay for to your discard pile and apologize for being a moron. Note that, if you wanted to replace a monster from previous rounds in your North/West turn, you can shove it into the guts pool to make room for a new monster. This counts as 1 gut and saves your monster from what could be a dangerous situation.

South/East Turn: I bet you regret fielding all of those expensive monsters now! Choose whatever monster you want and place it face-down in the South Quadrant. Place whatever magic card you want in the East quadrant. When your opponent has done the same, flip the cards face-up. Take another Guts Break and prepare for battle!

Battle, Stage 1: First, the effects of all magic cards happen simultaniously. Whenever possible, every magic card is allowed to act on the game. For example, if one magic card destroys every monster on the field and another protects one monster, every monster is destroyed but the proteced one. If a third magic card returns a monster destroyed this turn to the field, it does so after the monster is destroyed.

Battl Stage 2: Next, the monsters in the North Quadrant engage in battle. Both monsters attack the respective north quadrant. If there is a monster there, the monster with the lower attack is destroyed. All destroyed monsters are discarded. If an empty quadrant is attacked, the player discards cards equal to its attack. To discard cards, draw the number you are discarding from your deck and cherry-pick your least favorites before sending them to the discard pile. If you do not have a deck, choose the discarded cards from your hand. If you have neither a deck nor hand, you can send cards from the field to the discard pile. But if it has come to that you may just want to give up.

Battle Stage 3: The same thing happens in the South Quadrant. After all cards have been discarded, the victorious monsters are left in their North or South Quadrant. Each player picks up their guts and puts them at the bottom of their decks. They draw six cards, regardless of what is in their hands, and begin again until one player has every card in his discard pile and the other player has won.

Some Extra Rulings: If a monster is not attacking, you can treat it as a monster with 0 attack. This will only happen if a magic card or the monster's effect disalows it from battle unless some requirement is met. Let's make a complicated example. Suppose your opponent bids for control of your Hippo (Hippo attacks the lowest bidder) and wins. He also has a monster in the North Quadrant. Since both attacks happen simultaniously, and as a rule of thumb as many effects happen as possible, you discard cards equal to Hippo's attack (since she is attacking your empty quadrant) and Hippo is destroyed because she in effect responds to your opponent's monster with 0 attack. I've lost you, haven't I? Monsters attack quadrants. If there is a monster there with lower attack or one who is not allowed to attack, it is destroyed.

There are some cases in which monsters can attack multiple quadrants (Oasis Finders, Tomi-Dicho, and Hippo). If they are attacking the North Quadrant they must do so in Battle Stage 2, just after all the northern monsters attack but before the southernly monsters attack If they are attacking the South Quadrant they must do so at the very end of Battle Stage 3. If they attack something with higher attack, they are destroyed regardless of whether the monster with higher attack already attacked. If they find an empty quadrant they attack it regardless of what will or has happened.

We had a lot of fun making and playing Coffin Boggy's, and hope you do too. The best part is that you get to make up your own rules. Hate how powerful Hippo is? You could nerf her by making her effect a blind auction. Make your own rules, your own cards, your own fun, whatever.