NC NeuroscapeCard Database
Complete Rules Reference

How to Play Neuroscape

Neuroscape is a competitive cyberpunk TCG for 2+ players. Defeat your opponents by being the last player standing — reduce their bioframe or mainframe health to zero, or pull off a mic drop victory.

Card Types

Cards are separated into five general types, plus RAM which is the resource used to play them.

Mainframes

Your mainframe is a supercomputer integrated into your nervous system. It runs all your cards and has 3 slots — top, left, and right — where protocols, trojans, and viruses can be played. Once all three slots are filled, no more cards can be played on that mainframe until a slot is cleared.

Each mainframe has a unique mechanic. Some give extra bioframe or mainframe health; others have activated abilities. All mainframes in Genesis cost 4 RAM.

RAM

Memory used by your mainframe to play characters, abilities, cyberware, and programs. To use RAM, the player Runs it (rotates it 90° clockwise).

  • Play RAM from your RAM deck during your draw stage, or use abilities/programs that generate RAM.
  • No limit to how much RAM you can attach to your mainframe.
  • Committed RAM — used by persistent cards (characters, cyberware, certain programs). Does not refresh.
  • Available RAM — not in use. Refreshes during your refresh substage.
  • If you don't have enough committed RAM for your persistent cards during stability check, your mainframe becomes unstable and you must roll a D20 for each character and program. Roll 0–10: it crashes. Roll 11–20: it survives.

Characters

The backbone of your arsenal. They attack, defend, and use abilities. Characters are persistent — once played, they stay until destroyed, damaged beyond defense in combat, or force quit.

  • Shown as ATK/DEF (upper number = attack, lower = defense) or X/X.
  • Have a persistent RAM cost — the RAM used to play them becomes committed until they leave play.
  • Three ability types:
    • Activated — pay a cost to use. Swift (play anytime, interrupt). One per round per character. Characters that are running can't activate abilities.
    • Triggered — fire when a condition is met. Can't be interrupted by swift cards.
    • Passive — constant effect while the character is in play.
  • Duel — a special activated ability where the character directly fights another character. Pay cost, run the character, select target, perform a swift check, then both deal attack damage to each other.

Cyberware

Attach to a character's gear slots to boost attack, health, or add effects. Four slot types with matching gold tabs: Head, Left Arm, Right Arm, Legs.

  • Each slot and cyberware card has a level 1–3 (1–3 gold tabs). Must match or exceed the cyberware level.
  • Not persistent — RAM used refreshes next turn.
  • Psychosis: each cyberware has a psychosis value. If total psychosis > base defense, the character becomes psychotic by the difference. At attack stage, roll D20 — if ≤ psychotic level, the character attacks its controller.
  • Tethers connect two characters via cyberware slots. Stay in play if one character is destroyed; destroy if both are.
  • Malicious cyberware can attach to any character in play, including opponents'.

Programs

Divided into several sub-types:

  • .EXE — one-time effect, play only during primary or secondary stage. Not persistent. RAM refreshes. Goes to recycle bin after playing.
  • Protocols — persistent, stay in play until destroyed. No persistent RAM cost.
  • Viruses — protocols played on opponent's mainframe. Negative effects. Play during primary/secondary stage only. No persistent RAM.
  • Trojans — played face-down on opponent's mainframe for 4 RAM during main or secondary stage. Can be activated any time a swift action could be played, but not until after the turn they're played. No persistent RAM.
  • Scripts — can be played at any point. Swift — can interrupt anything. Once played, go to recycle bin.
  • Drugs — played on characters, swift, no persistent RAM.
  • Environments — change the virtual location. One at a time (unless replaced). Persistent. No persistent RAM. Play during primary/secondary stage.

Deck Building

Main Deck

  • 40–60 non-RAM cards
  • Max 4 copies of any given card
  • Legendary cards: up to 4 in deck, but only 1 copy of any legendary in play at a time

RAM Deck

  • Exactly 25 RAM cards
  • Max 4 special RAM cards
  • No limit on basic RAM cards

Starting the Game

Both players draw 5 cards. After looking at their hand, each player may put any number of cards on the bottom of their deck and draw that many replacements — once per game only.

Turn order: roll a D20. Higher roll chooses first or passes. Ties re-roll. First player draws 1 card on their first turn only.

Turn Structure

1. Maintenance Stage

  1. Card Effect — any cards with card-effect-substage triggers resolve.
  2. Stability Check — if not enough committed RAM for persistent cards, roll D20 for each. 0–10 crashes, 11–20 survives. If still unstable, roll every stability check until stable.
  3. Force Quit — optionally force quit any persistent cards (characters, programs, cyberware, environments) into your recycle bin.
  4. Draw — draw 2 cards total from either deck in any combination. First turn: draw 1.
  5. Refresh — refresh available RAM and running characters (rotate back 90° counterclockwise). Committed RAM stays. Character abilities refresh.
  6. Swift Check — other players may play swift actions. If all pass, move to primary stage.

2. Primary Stage

  1. Deploy — play characters, programs, cyberware you have RAM for.
  2. Swift Check — other players may interrupt. Pass to move on.

3. Battle Stage

  1. Psychosis Check — for each psychotic (not running) character, roll D20. Roll ≤ psychotic level: character attacks its controller (can be blocked).
  2. Attack — announce attacking characters, they become running (rotated 90° clockwise).
  3. Swift Check
  4. Block — defending player assigns blockers. Multiple blockers per attacker allowed; attacker chooses order.
  5. Swift Check
  6. Damage — blitz damage (simultaneous), non-blitz damage (simultaneous). Unblocked attackers hit bioframe. Overrun: excess damage beyond blocker's defense hits bioframe. Triggered abilities resolve now.
  7. Swift Check before secondary stage.

4. Secondary Stage

Same structure as primary stage — deploy and swift check.

5. Final Stage

Remove damage from characters. End-of-turn effects expire. Pass to next player (unless a card like Deja Vu says otherwise).

Order of Operations

Swift actions (scripts, activated abilities, trojan activations) can interrupt each other. When a swift action is played, any player may interrupt it with another swift action, which goes on top of the order of operations. This continues until all players pass.

Then everything resolves top to bottom — reverse order of play.

Counter removes a card or ability from the order of operations entirely — it never resolves.

Triggered abilities can't be interrupted by swift actions. If two trigger at the same time, the active player's goes first.

Example: Player A activates Iron Maiden's Iron Fist (+2/+0). Player B interrupts with Hex's Counterhack (changes + to -). Order of operations:

1. Counterhack — changes + to -
2. Iron Fist — gives -2/-0 (was +2/+0)

Win Conditions

  • Reduce opponent's bioframe health to 0 or below
  • Reduce opponent's mainframe health to 0 or below
  • Opponent has no cards left in their main deck when they reach the draw stage — they're eliminated
  • Mic drop victory — successfully activate a card or ability that states "If X, you win the game"

All players start with 20 bioframe health and 20 mainframe health.

Official Resources

This reference condenses the official Neuroscape rules. For the complete rules, see the official resources:

Neuroscape Wiki — Rules Official How to Play Comprehensive Rulebook (PDF)

This is an unofficial fan reference. Card artwork and game mechanics are the property of Perception Squared / Neuroscape TCG. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Perception Squared.