Lockhart's Instructions

You and your opponent are wizards and/or witches dueling at Hogwarts(©) School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Many spells and magical creatures will 'damage' your opponent, which means your opponent has to discard cards from his or her deck. You win when your opponent's deck runs out of cards. Sounds simple enough?

The Dueling Club's much commented adviser, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, has kindly provided us with the Wizard's Dueling Rulebook. The Rulebook contains everything you need to know about playing the Harry Potter TCG,whether you are a Starter,Advanced, or Expert level player.

Lessons give you the power you need to play other cards. When you play a Lesson card, all you need to do is take it from your hand and put it on th table. Lessons stay on the table ('in play') after you play them.

Creatures damage your opponent's deck-not other Creatures. They stay on the table ('in play') after you play them.

Power needed: This is indicated on the upper right hand corner. You must have the indicated number of Lessons already on the table to play the particular card. Only one of your Lessons has to match the given symbol.
Damage each turn: Your opponent discards this many cards from his or her deck every turn. The damage happens on step 2 of your turn. Your Creature doesn't do damage on the turn that you play it.
Health: This is the amount of damage your Creature can take when a Spell card is played against it. If your opponent's Spell card does this much damage or more to your Creature, discard it.

To play a Spell card, show it to your opponent, do what it says and put it in your discard pile. Spell cards don't stay on the table like the other cards do. You can only play Spell cards on your turn.

Power needed: This is located at the upper left hand corner. You must have the indicated number of Lessons aleady on the table to play the card. Only one of your Lessons has to match the indicated symbol.

What the card does: This is what happens when you play the card.

Back Up

The Starter Set comes with two different decks of 40 cards each, excluding your Starting Character. It also comes with a playmat which will guide you on the position of your cards on the table.

Pick which deck you want.
Put your Witch or Wizard card in the 'Wizard/Witch' spot. The card you picked is now your Starting Character. It never leaves the game, and you may use its abilities during your turn unless otherwise specified.
Shuffle your deck and put it on the 'Deck' spot.
Draw 7 cards for your starting hand.
Decide who goes first. You can use any number of methods such as tossing a coin or playing a round of rock-paper-scissors.

Step 1. Draw a card from your deck and put it into your hand. Do this first every turn.
Step 2. Damage your opponent with your Creatures that are already on the table.
Step 3. You have 2 Actions. You can use an Action to:

Play a Lesson card; or
Play a Creature card; or
Play a Spell card; or
Draw an extra card.

You can do the same Action twice instead of doing two different Actions.

Back Up

Adventure cards are a new kind of card you can play to give your opponent a challenge to overcome. You don't need any Lessons on the table to play Adventure cards, but you have to use 2 Actions to play them instead of 1. Each player can have only one Adventure on the table ('in play') at a time, so if you already have an Adventure in play, you can't play another one. An Adventure card has three parts:

Effect: This is what the Adventure does as long as it's in play.
To Solve: This is what your opponent needs to do to solve the Adventure. She can do this any time during her turn after she's drawn her first card, but she has to solve the Adventure all at once- not one piece at a time (unless otherwise specified).
Opponent's Reward: If your opponent solves the Adventure, she's the school hero! The Adventure card will say what her reward is. Then you put the Adventure card in your discard pile.

Item cards need a certain amount of Power to be put into play. Once you play them they stay on the table unless some card tells you to discard them. Some Items, such as Wands and Cauldrons give you extra Power- just like Lessons, but even better. Other Items have all sorts of different effects.

When playing, you always start with a Character card in play that represents you. In the advanced game, you can also have other Character cards in your deck. You use up 2 Actions to play Character cards.
Once you've played a Character card, you can use its special ability any time during your turn after you've drawn your first card.

UNIQUENESS

All Character cards, and a few other special cards say 'Unique' on them. This means that there can only be one of them in play at a time. The only exception is if you and your opponent both have the same starting Character. Otherwise, once a Unique card is in play, nobody else can play another copy of that same card.

KEYWORDS

Some cards have special words on them that other cards, or the rules, refer to. These keywords come right after the type of card. Examples are the keywords Healing, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Wizard, and Witch.

Back Up

To play a Match card, you need the required amount of Power and you use up 1 of your Actions. There can only be one Match on the table ('in play') at a time. A Match card has two parts:

To Win: This is what a player needs to do to win the Match. Unlike Adventures, it doesn't all have to be done at once. So a plyer might win Practice Match by doing 2 damage to his or her opponent one turn and 3 more the next turn. (This means each player needs to keep track of how much damage he or she has done towards winning the Match. Also, unlike solving an Adventure, either player can win the Match.
Prize: The winner gets the prize explained on the card. When a player wins a Match, the Match is put on the discard pile of the person who played it.
Back Up