Cosmopolis is a central metropole in a modern world.
With most problems of scarcity virtually eliminated its occupants submerse themselves in popular culture, practice of Card Dueling has taken over all culture, top Duelists are the venerated celebrities and most personal beefs are settled with Car Duels, ones proficiency in the has far reaching consequences for social status.
Dueling Cards is a Trading Card Game, its cards are developed by multiple rival companies trying to win over the population with attractive cards. Logically this should result in continuous power escalation, as the companies would try to develop cards that beat all competitor's products, however this isn't the case. That is because Card Development is a Spirit Art, the cards can only be created out of Metaphysical creatures from the Unseen World. There exist people with special powers that can converse with the spirits inside their cards, and even transport a duel to the Unseen World, where winning and losing has much greater consequences.

You are a duelist in Cosmopolis. Put together a deck, if it is powerful enough, you might become a top duelist on the cities leaderboards.

First, choose a win condition, the thing you aim for in order to win the game.
- Fielding an Ace card, you have one super powerful card, you must try to get it in your hand and then set up a specific condition in your hand or board to be able to summon it. This requires a powerful engine.
- Clearing the enemy field, you try to keep your opponent's minions off the board, so they can't obstruct you from hurting your opponent directly. This doesn't require a strong engine, as most cards in your deck will help you towards your goal, whenever you draw them.
- Chip damage, you specialize in dealing damage to your opponent with effect damage, which bypasses enemy minions and doesn't require you to field your own. You'll need some special defense abilities to avoid damage without having minions to shield you.
- Game Ender, the logical extreme of an Ace card, once the conditions have been met you don't just have a strong board position, you win the game, this is a lot harder too. A deck like this is exactly as strong as its engine.
- Mill, you focus on making your opponent draw out their entire deck, if they have to draw when their deck is empty they lose the game. This is a risky strategy, as drawing an extra card is usually a big advantage and you need to achieve a deck out before the enemy can make proper use of their hand size.

Secondly, choose an engine, the way you achieve your victory condition.
- Effect minions, fielding these minions helps you towards you win condition. There's natural restrictions to the amount of minions you can summon in a turn.
- Drawbacks, you use up a resource, like your hand size, your life points, or your minions, to advance towards your win condition, every time you must weigh the trade-off for your over all position or your immediate situation.
- Counter, you must react to the actions of your opponent in order to advance towards your win condition, for instance, collecting counters based on what abilities they activate, or enchanting their minions to be used a certain way. This style of play is contingent on the kind of deck your opponent has, but can be a pretty hard counter against a specific kind of enemy, luckily, most amateurs play pretty similar decks, they follow a meta.
- Luck, your cards make use of gambling and randomization in order to get the position you need, there's a much wider probability spread to your effectiveness in a duel than other decks.
- Recall, you have many spell effects that allow you to use specific cards multiple times, whether by adding them to your hand from the discard pile, copying their effects or some other method, your techniques will see a lot of recursion. That does mean you're dependent on a lynchpin card to make your engine work.

Lastly, choose a gimmick, an effect your deck makes use of in some way, for its win condition, its engine, or both.
- Shuffling cards into the deck.
- Summoning from the discard pile.
- Decreasing minion stats.
- Increasing minion stats.
- Extra summoning.
- Minions interacting in specific ways.
- Changing minion control.
- Revealing information. (about cards in hand, on top of the deck, or something else)

With your deck designed, it's time to decide what kind of person you are.
- High Society, you belong to a rich elite of duelists, you are connected to a card development company and play a deck from their line up. Choose one company, you can only have cards from their line. Choose an extra win condition.
- Expert, you have a lot of experience playing this game. Your income is dependant on winning duels. Choose an extra Engine.
- Mundane, you're just a regular person, Card Duels are only important to you as a hobby and for social inclusion, that you don't have a very streamlined deck, but it's one you had fun putting together. Take one less engine, choose an extra gimmick and an extra win condition.
- Criminal, you use Card Duels to commit petty crimes, and that's how you survive. Choose an extra Engine and an Extra win condition.

The different card developers:
Hippogriff: the people that reintroduced the ancient dueling rites to a modern audience, they are known for gimmicky cards with technology themes.
Kaizu Corp.: a former arms manufacturer, led by an eccentric billionaire, they create cards themed after dragons and battle, often focused on powerful minion stats.
The Order of the Feather: a secritive society delving into the mysteries of Spirit Art, their cards are very Mystic focused with a strong emphadid on mythological themes.
Orstett Inc.: an eco-company with a political agenda towards nature preservation, their cards follow a theme of plant- and animal life and use life points regeneration.
Haskov People's Republic: A rogue nation with nationalized card development, their cards are equal parts propaganda and military hardware, focusing on themes of self-sacrifice and sabotaging enemy plans.