Spelldawn is based on the game Android: Netrunner. This page provides an overview of the differences for players who already familiar with that game. For a more comprehensive rules overview, see How to Play.
The most significant difference between Spelldawn and Netrunner is that turns in Spelldawn happen completely independently: players cannot take actions or make decisions of any kind during their opponent's turn.
Terminology Mapping
This table shows the mapping between concepts from Netrunner and concepts in Spelldawn. This is an approximate guide for reference purposes, not all of these terms work in exactly the same way in both games.
| Netrunner | Spelldawn |
|---|---|
| Corp, Runner | Overlord, Champion |
| Credits | Mana () |
| Clicks | Action Points () |
| Run | Raid |
| Server | Room |
| Rez | 'Summon' or 'Unveil' |
| R&D, HQ, Archives | Vault, Sanctum, Crypts |
| Stack, Grip, Heap | Deck, Hand, Discard Pile |
| Agenda | Scheme |
| Asset | Project |
| Upgrade | n/a |
| Operation, Event | Spell |
| ICE | Minion |
| Program, Icebreaker | Weapon |
| Hardware, Resource | Artifact |
| Sentry, Barrier, Code Gate | Infernal, Abyssal, Mortal |
| Killer, Fracter, Decoder | Infernal, Abyssal, Mortal |
| Central Server, Remote Server | Inner Room, Outer Room |
| Start of Runner turn, Start of Corp turn | Dawn, Dusk |
Rules Differences
Actions
As discussed above, players in Spelldawn cannot act during their opponent's turn. Cards that can be activated outside of a player's main phase do not exist. Instead of being able to rez cards at any time, Overlord cards provide specific rules for when they are revealed. For example, a project card with "Unveil at Dusk" will be turned face-up if the Overlord has sufficient mana to pay its unveil cost at the start of their turn.
Both players in Spelldawn receive for their turn. The Champion player automatically draws a card at the start of their turn in the same manner as the Overlord, and also loses the game if their deck runs out.
The 'level up' game action in Spelldawn is similar to the 'advance a card' game action in Netrunner, except that it distributes a level counter to each card in the target room which can be leveled up. Scoring in Spelldawn is always immediate, schemes can never have more level counters on them than their level requirement.
Playing Cards
The Overlord player in Spelldawn starts the game with 3 inner rooms (the Vault, the Sanctum, and the Crypts) and 5 outer rooms, and cannot create more during a game. If all 5 rooms are occupied, additional schemes and projects cannot be played.
'Upgrade' cards do not exist in Spelldawn. Each room can only ever have one occupant.
Minions defending a room are limited to a maximum of 4. Playing an additional minion into a room beyond this limit causes the innermost minion to be discarded. There is no additional increasing cost in Spelldawn to play minions beyond the first minion in each room.
'Memory Units' do not exist in Spelldawn. The Champion can play up to 5 weapons, after which playing a weapon causes the oldest weapon to be discarded. The Champion can play a maximum of 8 artifacts, after which playing an artifact causes the oldest artifact to be discarded.
Hand Size
Both players in Spelldawn have a maximum hand size of 7 cards. If they have more than 7 cards in hand at the end of their turn, they discard their oldest (leftmost) cards until they are below their maximum hand size.
Minions
Minion cards are automatically summoned during a raid if the Overlord has sufficient mana available to pay their summon cost. There are no 'subroutines' which can be individually broken, instead each minion has a Combat ability which fires if they are not defeated during a raid.
Instead of having a 'strength', minions have a health value. In order to defeat a minion, the Champion must sufficiently raise the attack of one of their weapons to deal damage equal to the health value. Some minions also have a shield value, which is an amount of mana which must be paid in order to target them with a weapon.
There are three types of minions and weapons called Infernal, Abyssal, and Mortal. These function in a similar manner to the Sentry/Barrier/Code Gate system from Netrunner -- only a matching weapon can be used to defeat a minion.
Raids
During a raid, there is no option for the Champion to 'jack out' between encounters. Each minion must be encountered sequentially unless a card effect ends the raid.
Cards do not have a separate 'trash cost' in Spelldawn. Instead, the Champion may destroy a project card by paying mana equal to its unveil cost.
Deckbuilding
Decks in Spelldawn are always 50 cards for both players, and can contain no more than 3 copies of a card. The Overlord deck must contain at least 20 scheme points.
Instead of an 'influence' system for cards, identity cards simply specify the number of cards from other factions (called 'schools' in Spelldawn) that are allowed to be in a deck.
Other Concepts
Traces, link strength, bad publicity, and virus counters do not exist in Spelldawn. There is no direct equivalent to tags, but they have some mechanical overlap with Curse Cards.