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Rounds and Seconds

A round is 6 seconds long: one second per card played, ending after 6 cards have been played or passed.

The round

• A round = 6 seconds (terminology borrowed from D&D 5e).
• One second per card played. Playing a card — or passing — consumes a second.
• A round ends after 6 cards have been played or passed.

Burn-down — every second

The track advances once per second, not once per round. At the end of each second, in order:

1. All cards on each player's burn-down track shift one column to the right, one step closer to expiry.
2. Cards that fall off the end of the track go to that player's water debt pile, where they sit until end of round — see Water and Prestige.

A duration-3 card played on second 1 is therefore live for seconds 1–3 and expires as second 3 ends. (Ruled 2026-09-28: per-second burn-down, confirmed by the stock set.)

Old hands may still say "tick" — same thing.

See Cards and Deck for the track itself.

End of round

1. Each player totals the water costs of the cards in their water debt pile — that total is the water debt.
2. Pay the debt from your water supply. If you can't pay, you are on your last legs — see Water and Prestige.
3. The debt pile goes to the discard pile.

Start of round

At the start of the next round, each player's discard pile is shuffled back into their deck. Players cycle back through their whole card pool over time — a deck is thinned temporarily, never permanently depleted.

The first round is preceded by a setup phase — see Loadout and Setup.