Elementa hero illustration
Giulio Fellin / Elementa

Elementa.

An illustrated card game inspired by Tarot, Briscola and the five elements of Wu Xing. Choose your edition and language to read the rules.

In Elementa, every card's effective value can change depending on the other cards in play.

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ELEMENTA 2 VS 24 players · 2 teams · 3 cards per player

Deck composition

Elementa uses a deck of 40 cards:

  • 35 regular cards belonging to five suits corresponding to the Wu Xing elements: earth, fire, wood, water and metal. Each suit has seven cards, numbered from 1 to 7.
  • Five special cards, called relics.
Earth
Fire
Wood
Water
Metal

The number in the upper-right corner of a regular card is its base value. The two bottom corners display the destroying suit and generating suit, following Wu Xing.

Anatomy of a regular card

Destroying suitEarth · −1
Regular Water card (base value 7): suit and base value at the top right, destroying suit Earth at the bottom left, generating suit Metal at the bottom right.
SuitWater
Base value7
Generating suitMetal · +1
Example: a Water card with base value 7; Earth decreases its value and Metal increases it.
Relic Clavis Finium et Initiorum, with the name at the bottom

Anatomy of a relic

Relics are special cards: they show only their name at the bottom, with no suit, base value, destroying suit or generating suit. Their effective value in a hand is always 0.

Name only, at the bottom

Clavis Finium et Initiorum

Standard rules — 2 vs 2

Players

Four players form two teams, with teammates sitting opposite each other and players from opposing teams alternating around the table.

Objectives

The primary objective is to capture all five relics. The secondary objective is to earn points by winning hands.

Start of the game

After shuffling, the dealer deals three cards to each player, one at a time, clockwise. The player to the dealer's left is the first active player.

Playing a hand

The active player selects one card and places it face up. The other three players each play one card clockwise. Once four cards are on the table, calculate their effective values:

  • For each regular card, start with its base value, subtract the number of cards on the table belonging to its destroying suit, then add the number belonging to its generating suit.
  • A relic's effective value is always 0.

The player who played the card with the highest effective value wins the hand. If several cards tie for the highest value, the first of those cards played wins. The winner collects all four cards face down as captured cards and becomes the next active player.

If cards remain in the deck, each player draws one card, clockwise starting with the active player. Play continues until all cards have been played.

End of game and scoring

If one team has captured all five relics, that team wins automatically. Otherwise the team with the most points wins. Count the cards captured by the team as follows:

  • +5 points for each captured card with base value 1;
  • +3 points for each captured card with base value 7;
  • +1 point for each captured card when at least two other cards with the same base value have also been captured.