Kortstrid resolves on a 4×4 board (16 spaces). Both players reveal a constructed 9-card deck.

• Hands begin with five cards.
• Four cards remain inverted in reserve.
• After each placement, if reserve has cards remaining, automatically draw exactly one reserve card into hand.
• Alternating turns continue until every cell fills.

When your card occupies a grid space, evaluate each orthogonal neighbor owned by your opponent. Compare the touching directional values—the newly placed attacking face versus the defender’s opposing face. Allied cards never contest one another on placement. Winning a contest captures the neighbor, transfers control, refreshes Integrity to the victorious margin, and may apply damage / elemental / modifier-derived bonuses layered from the authoritative rules packages.

Element matchup bonuses add directly to directional comparisons before capture resolution. Separate damage-modifier sockets allow Slashing, Arcane, Blunt, and their siblings to amplify pressure against specific defensive or weakness icons carried by opponents. Exact tables live in `@kortstrid/card-rules` (elements.ts, modifiers.ts).

Captures ding Integrity rather than vaporizing decks. Drop a card’s Integrity to zero and it shatters locally: the victorious player plants a dormant remnant that yields Echo Materials. The digital collection row is unaffected—battle shatters are echoes, not account deletion.

When the grid saturates, the player controlling the majority of dominated cells—including shattered remnants they own—claims the match.

1. Compare remaining reserve card rarity tiers (canonical order).
2. Highest combined North/East/South/West directional sum breaks parity.
3. Highest aggregate modifier-score breaks parity.
4. Otherwise record a mutual draw.