THE GANG
SURVIVOR
Attacks your lowest-Health Fighter; your Boss once the CPU has 3+ Fighters.
VS CPU turns Cataclysm Arcade into a solo game that still feels like PvP. The CPU plays by the real rules — real deck, real Coins, real costs — piloted by a handful of deterministic priorities instead of a human brain. It is predictable the way a person is predictable: you can learn its tendencies, bait its traps, and still get punched in the mouth.
01 1P SETUP
- Two Boss-led decks: two sealed packs, or any two legal decks. Pack play ignores faction rules.
- CPU Boss face up — its faction sets its Personality (below).
- You draw 4. The CPU deals its top 4 cards face down in a row, left to right — the Queue. Its Level draws go face down on the right end.
- The CPU plays by all normal rules: track its Coins openly, it pays every cost.
- You are Player 1 at Level 1; rotate first player each Level as normal. Last Boss standing wins.
02 THE QUEUE — the CPU’s hand
- Hidden, in draw order. During DEPLOY, scan left to right: face-up (stuck) cards first, then flip face-down cards as you reach them.
- Play the first legally playable card found. Fighters need level ≤ current Level.
- Weapons: wield to its highest-Attack Fighter without one; else its Boss, if legal.
- A flipped card it can’t play yet (Level or Coins) stays face up in place: a telegraphed threat.
- A flipped Tactic with no legal target fizzles: discard it, keep scanning.
03 ACTION LADDER — each CPU action, first legal rung
- 1LETHAL — if any single affordable attack kills your Boss, it makes that attack.
- 2DEPLOY — re-wield a loose CPU Weapon (same targeting as new Weapons); otherwise scan the Queue and play the first playable card.
- 3SPECIAL — use its Boss’s activated ability, if it can pay and still afford at least one attack this Level.
- 4ATTACK — its highest-Attack ready unit it can afford (ties: lowest Attack Cost). Target per Personality.
- 5PASS
Early Levels it develops for free; once its Queue jams with high-level cards, it converts Coins into attacks — same arc as a human.
04 TRAPS — responses
- The scan flips a Response with no combat relevance (Coins, draw, buffs) → pay its cost and resolve it immediately, like a Tactic. That’s the DEPLOY action.
- Combat-relevant Response → armed Trap: face up above the CPU Boss. Arming is free — the scan continues.
- Traps fire automatically and mandatorily at the first moment they matter: an attack they could blunt or punish (fire before damage), or a CPU unit about to die.
- If several qualify, the one preserving the most CPU Health fires first.
- Response abilities on CPU units (Block, etc.) are permanently armed Traps — same firing rules, CPU pays the costs. Defensive ones fire only to prevent a death — chip damage can’t bait away its taps. Table tip: park a spare coin on any CPU unit that has one, so you don’t forget it’s loaded.
★ GOLDEN RULE
Ambiguous choice — target, mode, order? The CPU picks whatever hurts you most right now. Still tied: lowest Health, then leftmost.
05 PERSONALITIES — the CPU Boss’s faction sets its targeting
THE PREDATOR
SHIFTER
Attacks the highest-Health Fighter it can kill in one attack — once per level; after its first Fighter kill, your Boss.
THE MACHINE
SYNTH
Attacks your Boss — unless you have 3+ more Fighters than it; then your lowest-Health Fighter.
TWIST: SPECIAL ungated
THE TRICKSTER
MYSTIC
Alternates every attack: your Boss, then your lowest-Health Fighter, repeat.
???
APEX
LOCKED — NO APEX BOSS DETECTED IN THIS SET.
NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHING…
06 THE CABINET
DIP SWITCHES
- EASY
- the CPU’s opening Queue is 3 cards.
- NORMAL
- as written.
- HARD
- the CPU gains +1 Coin every Level.
- EXPERT
- HARD, plus its Boss starts with +2 Health.
- TURBO DRAW
- mod — Queue empty at a Level’s start? The CPU draws 2 that Level. For low-curve decks.
HI-SCORE
- 100×your Boss’s remaining Health
- +500won before HURRY UP
- −300per Continue used
Enter three initials. A blowout score usually means you found an exploit — report it for the next patch.
THE GAUNTLET optional campaign
- Line up several CPU Bosses; keep your one deck the whole run.
- One Credit per fight — a loss ends the run, or spend a Continue (−300).
- Every win raises the next fight’s DIP setting by one.
07 LEVEL TRACKER — lives in your browser, survives interruptions
YOUR BOSS–
CPU BOSS–
Tap a number to set current Health. Set each Boss’s printed Health at the start (EXPERT: CPU +2).
| LVL | 1ST | SET | YOUR COINS | CPU COINS | YOU SPC | CPU SPC |
|---|
Level start ritual: rotate first player · both draw 1 (CPU: face down, right end of Queue; TURBO: 2 if its Queue is empty) · gain Coins = Level number · Level 8+: HURRY UP. Then tick SET. Fill coin bubbles as they’re spent — the dashed bubble is the HARD/EXPERT extra.
08 PATCH NOTES — new challengers. balance changes. no refunds.
v0.3.1 2026-07-06
- Unit Response abilities (Block, weapon-granted Responses) are now permanently armed Traps: same timing, CPU pays all costs, and defensive ones fire only to prevent a death — chip attacks can’t bait its taps away.
Driven by: a table question — the rules covered Response cards from the Queue but not Response abilities printed on units in play.
v0.3 2026-07-05 · “THE ESCAPE CLAUSES”
- THE PREDATOR now kills at most one Fighter per level; after its first Fighter kill, it attacks your Boss.
- THE MACHINE now recalibrates: your Boss — unless you have 3+ more Fighters than it; then your lowest-Health Fighter.
- THE RUSH (Apex) benched — no Apex Boss exists in the set, so it can’t be tested. It returns when one ships.
- Tracker: Coin cells became fill-in bubbles; Boss HP columns removed in favor of the cross-off tracks.
Driven by: playtests 2–4. Target-locked personalities got cracked from both directions — THE MACHINE ignored a go-wide board, THE PREDATOR chaff-fed on Head Rats and never touched the Boss (17 HP blowout, 2200 pts) — while the pressure-splitters (TRICKSTER, GANG) played close every time. Every personality now splits pressure eventually.
v0.2.1 2026-07-05
- ATTACK rung: ties now break to the lowest Attack Cost — same damage, cheaper, more attacks per level.
- Tracker: added a YOU SPC checkbox beside CPU SPC.
Driven by: playtest 4 (Sky mirror, won Level 9 at 4 HP — first HURRY UP firing, closest game yet). The checkbox exists because a certain player benched Sky’s ability until Level 8.
v0.2 2026-07-04
- DEPLOY now re-wields a loose CPU Weapon first (a Weapon whose wielder died had no rule).
- SPECIAL moved above ATTACK, gated: only if the CPU can pay and still afford one attack that level. Synth’s twist became “SPECIAL ungated.”
- Added the TURBO DRAW mod; clarified that Tactics and Responses pay their printed Coin cost; added the Level Tracker.
Driven by: playtest 1 (Charlotte beat Eff, Level 7, 5 HP). Eff’s Rat engine never ran because ATTACK starved SPECIAL; an orphaned weapon sat on the board; the Queue emptied by Level 4 against flat P&P curves.
v0.1 2026-07-04
- Initial release: the Queue, the five-rung action ladder, Traps, the Golden Rule, faction Personalities, the HURRY UP timer, DIP switches, and the hi-score table.
Driven by: a brainstorm about making Cataclysm Arcade playable solo — two packs, no dice, no charts, and an opponent that feels like PvP rather than a dungeon.