Mage Fortress — a card duel of mages

The rules in two minutes

Each mage has a tower and a wall in front of it. The wall takes ordinary damage first and the rest goes through to the tower. Cards are paid for with resources, and buildings produce resources every turn.

Each building gives one unit of its resource at the start of your turn. The opponent's cards can knock buildings down — all the way to zero, and then that colour's income stops.

How a turn works

Three ways to win

If both mages meet a condition at the same moment, it's a draw. Ordinary damage breaks the wall first, while tower damage goes straight past the wall.

A turn lasts 15 або 30 seconds — the duel's creator decides. When time runs out, the game discards the least useful card for you, and 6 missed turns in a row lose the game. The deck is chosen when the duel is created too: standard (each card once, the discards are reshuffled later) or infinite (every card is drawn at random from the whole set, repeats possible).

All 102 cards

The deck holds 102 cards, equally red, blue and green, costing from 0 to 25. Eight cards are free, ten marked ↻ let you move again, and the trickiest ones swap walls, even out buildings or steal resources. These are the cards that most often decide a game:

The legendary dragons

The three most expensive cards in the game are dragons. Dragon (25 troops) deals 20 damage and takes 10 mana and a barracks from the enemy. Dragon's Heart (24 ore) adds +20 wall and +8 tower. Dragon's Eye (21 mana) raises the tower by 20 at once.

Here is the whole deck. Hover over a card (or tap it on a phone) to read its effect.

Eight battlefields

A battlefield sets the starting tower and wall, the number of buildings and the winning goals. Every field starts with 5 ore, mana and troops. Short fields suit a fast aggressive game, long ones an economy and patient building.

Archmage's Citadel has the lowest winning tower — tournaments are played there. Free Steppe is the longest field: one building of each kind and a very high goal. In Azure Valley and Misty Harbour the wall starts at 50, so early attacks hardly reach the tower, and Seaside Fortress starts with five buildings of each kind — resources pour in.

Where to play: bots, duels and tournaments

Duels with bots

The lobby has its own board, «Play bots for gold», where opponents are always waiting. Bots join your gold requests and post their own; if you want to play people only, tick «Do not accept bots».

A bot's skill goes from 0 to 100%. The ranks are Novice, Amateur, Skilled, Master, Grandmaster and Titan. A weak bot sometimes moves at random; a strong one weighs its options, from about 60% starts guessing your hand from the cards not yet seen, and from 75% plans its next turn as well. And the bot plays fair: it never sees your cards.

Duels with players

You can challenge a friend straight from their profile — that duel never shows in the lobby. Other people's games can be watched live in the «Playing now» block on the home page. If your connection drops, you have 90 seconds to get back to the table.

Tournaments every hour

Every hour knockout tournaments start in the Archmage's Citadel, for gold. Registration stays open for 10 minutes, a turn lasts 20 seconds and a game no more than 10 minutes. When time runs out, the higher tower wins, then the higher wall, then more resources.

Half of the players share the prizes — everyone who wins at least one match. The further you go, the bigger the share:

Gold tournaments are filled up with bots, so the bracket is always full. The commission is 0%. The champion gets a cup in their profile. You can also set up a personal tournament for 2–64 players with your own fee and entry by link. All the details are in the tournament rules.

Elo rating

Every player has an Elo rating: it starts at 1200 and never falls below 100. Beating a strong opponent brings more points than beating a weak one. Draws and tournament matches don't change the rating.

Statuses: from Novice to Archmage

Your status sets the stake limits and the size of the Supreme Mage's gift. New players start with the first status.

The Supreme Mage and gifts

The Supreme Mage gives you gold every 6 hours for your loyalty to the kingdom: answer a simple sum and the coins are on your balance. The amount depends on your status; with premium it's 5 000 gold. The same Gifts page has a field for gold codes.

The gift catalogue holds hundreds of items on nine shelves: flowers and bouquets, jewellery, cars, sweets, plush toys, cards, magical artefacts, pets and holiday gifts. Send a gift to yourself or any player, with a caption of up to 140 characters or anonymously. Received gifts show in your profile: hide them, pass them on or move them to the trash.

A made-to-order gift costs 100 USDT: artists draw five variants, you pick one, and it stays one of a kind with a «Made to order» badge. Gifts raise a player in the «Popular» list.

The market

At the market, gold turns into advantages at the table and in the lobby. Prices are current, taken from the site settings:

The mantle helps if you'd rather not show your stats; premium suits those who play every day; lifting a request and the Mage's priority find you an opponent faster. Everything you buy is listed under «My purchases».

The wheel of fortune

A spin costs 25 000 gold and the prize lands at once. The wheel has 32 sectors: gold, moon cards, the mantle, premium, the Mage's priority, adepts, gifts and extra spins. Free spins are used before paid ones. «A gift of your choice» lets you take any catalogue gift up to a set price. The odds are public:

Adepts of the Mage: bots that play for you

An adept is your own bot. Buy one from the Mage, give it a budget and send it on a shift: the adept finds requests, plays and brings the money back with the result. Its record stays with it, so a strong adept sells well.

Adept IQ grows by 1% every 100 wins and can be trained. An adept never plays its owner or the same owner's other adepts. Opponents see its nick ending in _adept. Selling an adept to another player carries a 10% commission; one player can own up to 10 adepts.

Fair play

The game runs on the server, not in the browser: your browser never receives the opponent's hand or the deck order, and the server rejects any illegal move. You can check the deal:

The outcome doesn't depend on the stake, status or purchases. Bots don't see your cards; a strong bot wins by calculation, not by peeking.

Players, friends and the Hall of Fame

In «Players», search for opponents by nick, filter by online, friends, verified and popular, and sort by rating, gold or activity. A profile shows the win rate, duel history and your head-to-head score, an album of up to 20 photos, gifts, adepts, tournament cups and awards. From a profile you can write, add a friend or challenge them to a duel at once.

Private messages go between friends, up to 1000 characters. Contact details are hidden automatically so nobody lures players to other sites.

Every page has a global chat with a slow mode and a swear filter; links are cut out.

The Hall of Fame is four monthly boards of 10 places: wins over bots, wins over players, most gold and the best win rate (from 5 games a month). Making a board earns an award in your profile.

On any device

Mage Fortress comes as an Android app and runs in the browser on a computer, tablet and phone. On a computer you play a card with a click or keys 1–6 and discard with a right click. On a phone one tap sends a card to the table, and a handy menu sits at the bottom of the screen.

The Mage's Cabinet lets you set the table look, 7 card art styles, a light or dark theme, sound and privacy: hide your balance, age or online status. The game speaks 29 languages, and support answers tickets with email notifications.

Frequently asked questions