Take Up Arms is a highly lethal, tactically unforgiving card game where every point of damage counts — and the cost of war is paid from your own hand. No mana. No mercy. Only the Fallen.
Take Up Arms is a lethal, battle-focused trading card game built on tight resource management and strategic positioning. Unlike traditional card games, there is no accumulating "mana" or "energy." To deploy your forces, you rely on the Fallen Zone economy: every card costs 0 to 3, and to pay it you must expend cards from your own hand or active field, sending them to the Fallen.
Every play is a heavy commitment. Your soldiers are fuel just as much as they are combatants — and the general who spends them carelessly will find the line broken and the war lost.
Your objective: break through the enemy line and reduce your opponent's 20 Life Points to zero. Build a deck with 40 to 60 cards, drawing from medieval knights, tribal war chiefs, modern armor and anti-air defenses.
Every card bears a cost on the blue 0–3 scale:
To pay a cost of 2, sacrifice 2 cards from your hand or field directly to your Fallen Zone. The dead are never wasted, though — some cards, like the Guard Soldier, keep fighting from beyond the grave.
Build your deck from historical and tactical assets spanning the entirety of warfare — then customize your 5-lane front line to crush the enemy. Six card types make up your war machine. Click any card for a full field briefing.
Success in Take Up Arms means mastering a tight 0–3 stat scale. Every single point of Attack and every point of HP is a massive advantage — there are no 8/8 monsters here, only soldiers, steel, and the math of attrition.
Learn deck building, setup, combat timing, reactions, and every keyword in the complete player guide.
Attacks are declared one at a time, and defense is a depletable resource. When a 1-ATK hero strikes a 3-HP defender, the defender drops to 2 HP. Damage persists between turns unless an effect restores HP. When HP reaches 0, the card falls to the Fallen Zone. This is a true war of attrition.
Expend 1 card to Retreat into an open Tactical slot during either player's turn. Physical attacks cannot damage the unit for the rest of that turn, but card effects still can. Return during a Main Phase on a later turn for no cost.
From Turn 2 onward, if the enemy Front Line is empty, you may attack their Life Points directly—even if Tactical Equipment remains. Units with Pierce don't wait for a clear lane — when they destroy a defender, the excess damage bleeds straight through to the opponent's Life Points.
When an Action, attack, or effect is declared, players can respond with Reactions until both pass. Resolve the last played response first, working back to the original action. If a target or source is destroyed or moved before its effect resolves, that effect fails.
The playmat is divided into positional zones that dictate your every tactical option. Hover, tap or focus a card slot to see its role in your war effort.
Swipe or scroll sideways to explore the full playmat.
Hover, tap or focus any card slot to review its battlefield role.
A sample exchange using the cards above — watch how the Fallen Zone economy, reactions, and attrition warfare interlock.
Your General, the Native Chief, uses his once-per-turn command from the Command Zone: add 1 Action card from your deck to your hand. Knowledge is cheap — your opponent draws a card too.
You play Cavalry, expending 1 card from your hand to the Fallen Zone as payment. A cost-0 hero charges from your deck into an empty front-line lane. It can't attack the turn it arrives — but the lane is no longer open for a direct strike.
Your veteran hero carries a Grenade (+1 ATK / +1 HP). Instead of attacking, he pulls the pin: every enemy hero and tactical card loses 1 HP. That damage is persistent — it carries over between turns unless an effect restores HP.
The enemy readies a targeting Action against your wounded hero — but your Anti-Air Tower stands in the Tactical Zone, raising the cost of every targeting card they play by +1. They pay 3 for a 2-cost strike, feeding three cards to their Fallen.
Before their effect resolves you reveal Saw It Coming from your hand. It's a heavy price — 3 cards to the Fallen — but their Action is stopped dead and sent to their graveyard, and its death-rattle effects never trigger.
Furious, the enemy declares an attack on your Cavalry-summoned recruit. But your Guard Soldier fell in battle last turn — and from the Fallen Zone, you remove him from play to STOP the attack cold. In Take Up Arms, even your graveyard fights.
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