Lost ChaptersLost Chapters Beginner Guide: Your First 10 Games
Short version: pick a one-color Leader, play the First Chapter campaign, then play your first few matches against the AI on Easy. Spend your crystals every turn, charge the enemy Leader when it is safe, and keep one Counter in hand for your rival's big turn.
Start with the First Chapter
The fastest way to learn Lost Chapters is the First Chapter, a short guided campaign of four battles. Each battle introduces one idea at a time: playing characters, charging, Life cards and Counters. You can replay it from How to Play in the game at any time, and it costs nothing.
After the campaign, the game asks you to choose a first deck. Every option is a complete 40-card deck that you own outright, built around one of the historical Leaders: Nikola Tesla (Gold), Dr. King (Cobalt), Amelia Earhart (Emerald), Blackbeard (Garnet) or George Washington (Quartz). There is no wrong answer, but each one teaches a different style:
- Earhart is the simplest: your explorers fly over blockers and hit the enemy Leader.
- Blackbeard is aggressive and rewards charging every turn.
- Washington is sturdy and forgiving when you make a mistake.
- Tesla fills the board with tokens and teaches you to spend every crystal.
- Dr. King is a patient deck that grows stronger the longer the game goes.
Starter decks for every historical Leader stay available, so you can try the others later.
How a turn works
Every game starts the same way. Each player's Leader is face up and stays in play all game. The top 5 cards of your deck are set aside face down as your Life, then you draw 5 cards and may mulligan once. A coin flip decides who goes first. The first player skips their first draw and can't charge on their first turn; the second player gets one bonus crystal on each of their first two turns.
Each of your turns has five steps:
- Refresh: stand up your rested cards. Your crystals come back.
- Draw a card.
- Crystals: gain 2 more crystals, up to a maximum of 10.
- Main: play cards, infuse crystals and charge, in any order.
- End: damage and "this turn" effects wear off.
Charging and Life
To attack, you charge: rest one of your ready characters (or your Leader) and pick a target. You can charge the enemy Leader, or an enemy character that is already rested. Characters that are standing up are ready to defend, so they can't be charged.
The defender can block with one of their ready characters, or play a Counter (an event marked Moment) using crystals they saved. When a charge hits a Leader, the defender takes the top card of their Life and puts it into their hand. That lost chapter is not wasted: it might be the card that saves them. If it is a Triumph event, they may play it for free right away.
You win by hitting a Leader that has no Life left. A player also loses if they have to draw from an empty deck.
Reading the board
Look at three things before every move:
- Who is standing up? Ready enemy characters can block. Rested ones can be charged.
- How many crystals did your rival keep? Unspent crystals mean a Counter, or a Brace that makes a defending character hit harder, might be coming.
- How much Life is left? Each Leader shows its remaining Life. When your rival is low, every Leader hit matters more than trading characters.
Long-press a card on a phone, or hover on a computer, to read it. Keywords such as Explore, Guard and Swift are explained on the card and in the keyword glossary.
The five mistakes new players make
- Not spending crystals. Crystals you don't use refresh next turn anyway. If you have nothing to play, infuse them into an attacker for +1 power each, or keep them on purpose for a Counter.
- Charging into a full board. A charge into an untouched field of blockers often just trades your best character away. Charge when the enemy has fewer ready blockers than you have attackers, or when your attacker has Explore.
- Ignoring the Leader. Your Leader can charge too, and its passive works all game. Read it at the start of every match.
- Forgetting the Command. Every Leader has a once-per-match Command you can call from your second turn. A well-timed Command often decides the game, so plan the turn you will use it.
- Filling the field with small characters. Your field holds 5 characters. Playing a new character onto a full field means trashing one of yours, so keep a slot for the card that matters.
Your first 10 games
Play your first five games against the AI on Easy, the default. Switch to Normal once you win more often than you lose, and to Hard when Normal feels comfortable. Then try a friend room or the ranked queue, or Free-for-All with three to five players.
Matches earn gold and XP, and gold buys card packs that grow your collection. When you are ready to tune your deck, read the deckbuilding guide.