Ostium

Players: 1–3 players
Play time: 40 min
BGG rating: 7.1

The everlasting conflict between eternal enemies spread to yet another world! Huge planar gates are opening and hordes of powerful creatures are pouring into the land to fight the final battle for dominance. There can be only one winner! Ostium is a turn-based, deck building card game. Each player uses their planar gates to summon creatures that fight to destroy the gates controlled by other players. The creatures use their abilities and fight. Each creature has its own set of abilities, which grow more powerful, if the creature is supported by other creatures from its clan. The creatures can also fuse with energy channeled directly from a planar gate to deal crushing damage to the opponent’s gates or creatures. Each turn has two phases. In the first phase, the player can bring more forces to the battlefield and use special abilities of the summoned creatures. The second phase is combat, where all the extra powers, channeled energy, and clan synergies lay waste to the enemy forces. The player can summon creatures directly to the battlefield (and place them in attack or defense rows) or the discard pile. The order in which the cards are placed in the deck, drawn, and played can decide the outcome of the game, since neither the deck, nor the discard pile are shuffled. The way the creatures are placed on the battlefield also greatly affects their abilities and power. Ostium was initially designed as a duel game, but you will also find solo mode and 3 player match rules described in the official game rule book. A typical game usually takes 30 to 45 minutes. —description from the designer