YOUR SETUP

a. Gather and shuffle all 52 playing cards (exclude the extra-love () cards) into a deck. Deal 8 cards to yourself, placing them face up in a row above your player mat in any order.

b. At the beginning of round 3 only: Look at the green or red lightning on the top card of the Vancardian deck. Draw the topmost card of the matching event deck and place it face up on top of the event deck.

Resolve that card’s round 3 event (left side), which applies only during this round.

c. At the beginning of rounds 1-4:

i. Gain 1 stamina token from the general supply.

ii. Draw 3 story cards. Play 1 of them face up on your player mat over the number for the current round and discard the other 2.

d. At the beginning of round 5: Choose 1 of your 2 superhero cards, play it face up on the superhero space on your player mat, gain its benefits, and discard the other.

e. Charge abilities: Place your stamina tokens on your abilities to charge them:

i. Each story card shows its stamina cost in the upper-left corner. Most cards have a single cost, e.g., is a single 2-stamina cost. If an ability has two costs, you may choose how many to pay to vary its utility. Costs with are tied to “Remove” abilities.

ii. “When Charged” abilities that cause cards to be exchanged with a Vancardian must be performed after “Vancardians’ setup”.

iii. Your character mat shows a character-specific ability and stamina cost. This ability can be charged and used like story card abilities.

iv. If you have excess stamina, it remains in your stamina supply for the rest of the round and may not be placed later during that round.

f. Choose alignment: Place your alignment/VP dial with your chosen side up: red hero (your goal is to win tricks) or purple villain (your goal is not to win any tricks).

VANCARDIANS' SETUP

a. Set the 4 extra-love () cards off to the side.

b. For each Vancardian, deal 8 playing cards and place them face up in a row from left to right in the order they were drawn.

c. Draw the topmost card from the Vancardian deck and resolve the effects (right side) (if any) written next to the round number of the current round:

Replace X: Draw X playing cards and place them as the rightmost cards of each Vancardian’s hand from left to right in the order drawn.

• If you play hero, discard from each Vancardian’s hand X non-love () cards in value order from lowest to highest. Change to love () if they run out of non-love () cards.

• If you play villain, replace Vancardian’s X highest cards, including love ().

Add X: Discard the rightmost card in each Vancardian’s hand, then place an extra-love () card with the value X on it as the leftmost card.

Move X left: Move the rightmost love () card (if any) in each Vancardian’s hand to be the leftmost card. Do this X times. If no card was moved for a Vancardian do Replace X instead for her.

d. Resolve any “When Charged” abilities that you delayed during step e.ii because they cause cards to be exchanged with a Vancardian.

Reminder: The Vancardians always choose the hero alignment.