Resources
Resources During Other Actions
Learn when resource abilities can pay a cost immediately, and where unused resources are cleared.
Guide overview
What you’ll learn
- Separate the special payment permission for Reaction Add abilities from the usual moments when a spell can be played.
Guide content
Understand the concept
Resources, EnergyA resource used to pay numeric Energy costs. Energy has no domain and is spent from your Rune Pool.View in Glossary and PowerA resource used to pay Power costs. Power normally has a domain that must suit the requirement; Universal Power can pay for any domain.View in Glossary , are paid from your Rune PoolThe temporary supply of generated Energy and Power waiting to be spent, not the physical Runes in your Base. Every player's pool empties at the start of each Main Phase and at the end of each turn; this removes unused resources, not Rune cards.View in Glossary . Usually you can generate them before playing something, but a ReactionA timing keyword that includes Action's permissions and also permits a card or activated ability while a Chain is waiting. You still need the proper opportunity, normally Priority; it does not allow an interruption halfway through resolution.View in Glossary ability that AddPut the stated Energy or Power into your Rune Pool. Activated and triggered Add abilities resolve as soon as finalized; spells that Add resources use the Chain normally.View in Glossary resources has a special permission to work at the moment a payment is required. The word Add alone is not enough: the kind of object providing it matters.
Immediate abilities and ordinary spells
A Triggered AbilityAn ability started by a stated event or time, usually introduced by "when" or "at." It goes on the Chain when its condition is met.View in Glossary or Activated AbilityAn ability you choose to use by paying the cost before its colon. Its effect is written after the colon.View in Glossary that Adds resources resolves immediately once finalized: once its required choices, cost payment and legality check are complete. Resolving means carrying out its instructions. It does not wait for players to pass PriorityThe right to take a legal action now. Only one player can have Priority at a time, and having it does not remove a card or ability's timing restrictions.View in Glossary , and its finalization or resolution does not pass priority or FocusThe opportunity to act in a Showdown when the Chain is empty. Gaining Focus also gives Priority; you need both to act. Passing Priority during a Chain does not itself pass Focus.View in Glossary . A spell that Adds resources still waits on the ChainAn off-board zone that holds cards and abilities during the process of playing them. Cards and abilities on it are public information.View in Glossary like another spell. It can receive Reactions before resolution.
This matters when you need Energy now. An already available Add ability can supply it when the rules allow that ability to be used. You cannot begin paying for one spell, insert an Add spell into the payment, and pretend that spell has already resolved. Prepare those spell-generated resources earlier, in a window where the spell can legally be played and resolved.
Pay with Energy Conduit
You are playing a card whose total cost is 2 Energy. Your Rune Pool contains 1 Energy and your Energy Conduit is ReadyReady means a card or rune is available to be used for something that requires it to Exhaust. Ready objects are kept upright.View in Glossary . During the Pay Costs step of playing that card, use Conduit’s Reaction Add ability: ExhaustTo Exhaust something, turn it sideways to show that it has been used for an action or cost that requires it to Exhaust.View in Glossary it as its cost, finalize and resolve the ability immediately, then add 1 Energy. Your pool now has the 2 Energy required. Pay it and continue the original card’s play process.
The opponent cannot insert a Reaction between Conduit’s immediate finalization and its resource addition. That does not protect the original card from later legal Reactions. Nor does it remove Conduit’s cost: an Exhausted Conduit cannot pay another Exhaust cost without first becoming Ready.
Card example
Energy Conduit
The Exhaust cost and Reaction Add text work together: the ability generates 1 Energy immediately during a required payment. The 3-Energy printed cost belongs to playing the gear, not to each activation.
Gear
Energy Conduit
[Exhaust]: [Reaction] — [Add] [Energy 1]. (Abilities that add resources can't be reacted to.)
A payment can occur inside another effect
The same permission applies when an instruction asks you to Pay resources during the resolution of a spell or ability, or during an action with no ordinary priority window. Reaction Add abilities finalize and resolve immediately even there. You do not interrupt that resolution to perform an unrelated action.
For an abstract example, an ability resolves and offers “pay 1 Energy; if you do, draw 1.” Your pool is empty, but a Ready Conduit is available. Use its permitted ability at that payment, produce the Energy, pay it and complete the drawing instruction. If you decline an optional payment, follow the effect’s consequences. If it is a required card or ability cost, you must pay the full legal cost to proceed.
Track the pool across phase boundaries
Unused resources do not disappear merely because a Chain ends or a Showdown changes Focus. They remain in the pool until spent or cleared by the rules. Every player’s Rune Pool empties at the start of the Main Phase before start-of-Main-Phase effects, and again in the expiration procedure at the end of the turn.
Example: an effect generates 1 Energy during your Beginning Phase and you do not spend it. Channel and Draw do not by themselves clear it, but it will be lost when Main Phase begins. Energy generated by a start-of-Main-Phase ability is produced after that clearing, so it can be available for later Main Phase actions. If you retain it until the end of the turn, the expiration procedure removes it. This applies to opponents’ unused resources too.
Keep in mind
Key points
- Reaction Add abilities can supply resources during a required payment.
- Add spells still use ordinary spell resolution.
- Track unused Energy and Power until the specified pool-clearing boundaries.