One descent into the Warren of Embers to free the caged Commodore Guff — three wardens, no road back up. Each room is a fresh game against a foe you have not yet met — you declare attacks and it blocks; it strikes and you answer. Only your life and your loot carry deeper into the dark.
▸ How it plays — read me first
Set your deck colors up top (the mana symbols). This is your commander's color identity — it powers protection-from-color and tells the enemy what it's facing.
Log your board below. Each creature, artifact, enchantment and walker has a ⚙ properties drawer: color, legendary/token, abilities (passive/active), mana it taps for, dies to graveyard or exile, phase out, protection from a color, an attack tax (mana/life the enemy owes to attack), and set as commander.
Designate your commander from any creature or planeswalker. It lives in your command zone; deploy it (you pay its cost), and if it dies it returns to the zone with rising tax — just like the enemy's.
Phase flow: the enemy takes its turn, then you take yours, through every step (untap → upkeep → draw → main → combat → main → end). One Continue button walks the phases; the enemy spends visible mana, draws from its deck, and casts.
Your attack: pick attackers, Swing — the enemy assigns blocks by AI; the engine resolves trample, deathtouch, strikes, lifelink, protection, etc. Enemy attack: its attackers appear and you assign blockers.
Resolve or counter each spell the enemy draws and casts. Removal auto-applies to your board but skips hexproof, phased-out, and protected creatures (protection-from-red stops red sources, protection-from-black stops black ones); what it destroys goes to your graveyard or exile per the card's setting.
The descent: you go down into the Warren of Embers to free Commodore Guff, the caged founder of the Conclave. Three generals bar the way to his cage — two wardens (a mono-red aggro warlord, then a mono-black attrition tyrant) and finally Vael himself, a red-black final boss and the only one fielding a planeswalker. You learn each warden's name only by beating it. Vael cannot be truly killed — the deathless Ember he forged keeps relighting him — but break his hold here and the founder walks free. Between rooms your life and loot carry over; the battlefield, counters, and the enemy reset to a fresh game, and your commander waits in the command zone. Earn loot by clearing rooms, and restock at the 🛒 Merchant between descents — once you descend, the Merchant is closed until the level ends. Tap 📖 Lore or ❓ Tutorial any time.
Difficulty💰 0standard
Your deck colorstap the mana symbols for your commander identity — sets up protection-from-color and informs the enemy
⟡ You carries between rooms
40/ 40 lifei
☠ —enemy general
0/ 0 life
Mana: 0
Max attackers (Silent Arbiter → 1):Max blockers:
Enemy mana now:0
Per-turn modifier (ritual + / stax −):0
❄ Freeze mana (tapped down)i0
Note Direct damage (burn, walker abilities) hits the boss's life. Creature damage reaches it through combat below.
✦ —
—loyalty
⚔ Enemy's creatures 0
No tokens yet.
✶ Enemy's artifacts, enchantments & emblems persistent effects · ⚡ auto on its upkeep
＋ emblemartifacts/enchantments are cards the enemy casts (deck tools) — they enter the board below as real permanents
⚔ attack tax (player pays)generic enemy attack tax; per-permanent taxes set in each permanent's ✎ drawer
＋ resourcethe enemy cracks its own Treasure for mana when short (P16.3)
🂠 Enemy's zones deck · graveyard · exile
Library: 0Hand: 0Graveyard: 0Exile: 0
scry · look · mill · exile · discard · shuffle
Graveyardblack can interact
Exileout of the game
🛡 Your board the enemy reads & fights this
→ search your library or all of Magic; onto the Stack
Deploy token
＋ resourcei
Creatures
Artifacts
Enchantments
Planeswalkers
Emblems
🗡 Your attack pick attackers · enemy blocks
Tap an attacker to select it, then Swing. Tapped/defender creatures can't attack.
⚰ Your zones graveyard · exile
Graveyard 0↑ return to play · ⊘ exile
Exile 0out of the game
♾ Enchantments in play persist until destroyed
🧰 Tools dice · coin · counters · notes
Dice
BoardwipeN
Bulk counters×
Return to hand
All permanents → library
Counterspoison 0/10 cmd-dmg 0/21 energy 0exp 0⚔ enemy: poison 0/10 · cmd-dmg 0/21 · energy 0 · exp 0
🜨 Battles & Planes defense counters · planar die
Planar die
Current plane
Battles attack to remove defense counters
🜂 Turn flow Turn 0
Pre-game — set up your board
📜 Dungeon Log
Combat
🜟 The Stack top-down
Your casts and the enemy's responses pile up here — the TOP resolves first. Enemy targeted spells auto-hit your tracked board on resolve; your permanents auto-enter your board.
resolves & clears — the phase advances only on Continue ▸
Solo Commander RPG · Engine v43
Guff's Gauntlet
A solo Commander dungeon-crawl. You are an off-plane planeswalker, pulled to the plane of Ashveil by the Conclave's last cry — their founder, Commodore Guff, lies caged in the Warren of Embers, the downward maze of the tyrant Vael, who reigns by a deathless flame of his own forging. Build a library of your own cards, choose your difficulty, and descend to break Guff out. Three wardens hold the dark between you and his cage, and you learn each one's name only by beating it out of them.
Profile
Difficulty
Saves (offline)
Full save = everything (profiles, gold, in-progress game). Library = only your cards & tokens, to share between profiles.
⟳ Autosaves as you play — close any time and pick up where you left off.
⚔ Campaign — the descent into the Warren
Descend the dungeon level by level to free Commodore Guff. Your life, gold and unused items carry between levels; the run is forward-only, and starting a new run erases the old one — one campaign at a time. Wardens you beat here unlock for free play in the 🏟 Sandbox.
💰 0 goldBuys stow for your next descent · Merchant closes once you descend
🏟 Sandbox — free play
Replay any warden you've beaten in the ⚔ Campaign — pick a foe and a difficulty and fight a single battle, no dungeon walk. Every battle starts fresh at 40 life. The Sandbox keeps its own gold and inventory, fully separate from the Campaign.
💰 0 goldDifficulty
🃏 Card Library — —
📥 Add real cards to import from Scryfall or a decklist, or ✎ Create a card to build your own. Deploy drops a card onto your board; Cast puts it on the stack. Tokens use the quick-make below and deploy in bulk.
▾ Cards
▾ Tokens
Quick-make a token
🛒 The Wandering Merchant — 0 gold
A hooded figure and a cart that shouldn't fit on these stairs. The Merchant trades the gold of the slain for supplies — and asks no questions. Your gold endures between games. The Merchant only trades between descents: what you buy is stowed in your pack and joins your 🎒 satchel when your next descent begins. Once you've descended, the stairs close behind you — no new wares until the level ends. A few wares — Acid Flask, Cleansing Antidote, Cinder Bomb, Whetstone, Iron Buckler, Arcane Tome — are Merchant-exclusive and never drop as loot.