Cyberpunk TCG Advanced Guide: Rules, Mechanics & Deck Building | Part 2/2

---

Welcome back choom, Anketsu here, and welcome back to my Cyberpunk TCG guide PART 2!

In Part 1, I focused on the bare essentials: enough rules to sit down, set up a game, understand your cards, and play your first match without getting completely lost.

But if you’re planning to take Cyberpunk TCG a little more seriously, that’s not quite enough.

In this second part, we’re going deeper. We’ll look at the mechanics we only touched on before, the more complicated interactions, deckbuilding rules, timing, combat details, and all those little rulings that start to matter once you’re playing against someone who knows the game just as well as you do.

Think of Part 1 as your first game;
This is what you need to know before you sit down at your first tournament.

Now grab a seat, relax, and enjoy the guide!

---

Building Your Deck: Legends, RAM & Colors

Alright, now that you know how to actually play Cyberpunk TCG, let’s talk about something we only touched on in Part 1: building your own deck.

This is where your 3 Legends become even more important. They’re not just characters you’ll use during the game — they also determine which cards you’re allowed to bring into your deck through a system called RAM.

Start With Your 3 Legends

As we saw in Part 1, every Constructed deck starts with exactly 3 Legends. They stay outside your main deck, and there’s one important rule: your 3 Legends must have unique names.

So even if two Legends have different subtitles, you can’t use them together if they share the same name.

The first thing I want you to look at when choosing your Legends is the RAM value in the top-right corner.

You’ll notice that every Legend has a color and a RAM value. That RAM determines how much of that color you can use in your main deck.

There are four colors in Cyberpunk TCG:

Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow.

Understanding the Four Colors

You don’t need to memorize every card or mechanic associated with each color, but knowing their general identity will help you understand what kind of deck you’re building.

Color	General Identity	What It Tends to Do
Red	Maximize, amass, overpower	Builds power, values high Gig values, and favors direct fights and destruction.
Green	Align, gather, execute	Cares about matching values, groups of Units, Legends, and precise setups before striking.
Blue	Minimize, hack, disable	Reduces Gig values, lowers opposing Power, and leans heavily into Programs and disruption.
Yellow	Diverge, equip, repurpose	Manipulates Gig values, specializes in Gear, and uses resources in flexible ways.

These identities aren’t hard rules. A Red deck can still use disruption, and a Blue deck can still fight Units. The colors simply give you an idea of the strategies and mechanics each one tends to favor.

So when you’re choosing your Legends, don’t just look at their RAM. Look at what kind of game you actually want to play.

How RAM Works

Let’s say one of your Legends has 2 Green RAM.

That means your deck can include Green cards with a RAM value of 2 or less.

Now imagine your three Legends give you:

• 2 Green RAM
• 2 Green RAM
• 2 Red RAM

You now have a total of 4 Green RAM and 2 Red RAM available.

So you can use Green cards up to 4 RAM and Red cards up to 2 RAM.

And here’s the important part: RAM only applies to the color it belongs to.

Your Green RAM doesn’t help you include a Blue card, and your Red RAM doesn’t help with Yellow cards.

If you want to build a multi-color deck, you need Legends that provide enough RAM for each color you want to use.

Choosing Your Cards

Once you’ve chosen your Legends, you can start filling your main deck.

For a regular Constructed deck, you need:

• 40 to 50 cards, not counting your 3 Legends;
• no more than 3 copies of the same name and subtitle combination;
• every card must fit within the RAM limits provided by your Legends.

So here’s my advice when you’re building your first deck: don’t start by looking at 40 random cards and trying to make them work together.

Start with your Legends.

Look at their colors, check their RAM, and then look through your collection for cards that fit those limits.

Think of it like this:

Legends → RAM → Colors → Cards.

That’s the basic framework you want to follow.

One More Thing: RAM Isn’t a Cost

This is an easy mistake to make when you’re starting out, so remember it.

RAM is not something you spend during the game.

You don’t lose RAM when you play a card, and you don’t need to generate RAM during your turn.

RAM is simply a deckbuilding restriction. Your Legends determine which cards you’re allowed to put into your deck before the game even begins.

There’s one tournament-relevant detail worth remembering, though: your RAM Limits are locked when your deck is built. If one of your Legends is removed from the game later, your RAM Limits don’t change.

Once you’re sitting at the table, you can forget about RAM and focus on actually playing your cards.

And that’s really all you need to know about the system.

Your Legends aren’t just powerful characters you’ll reveal during the game. They’re also what determines the cards your crew can bring to Night City in the first place.

Next, let’s take a closer look at those Legends, because there’s a lot more going on with them than we covered in Part 1.

Understanding Legends

We already covered the basics of Legends in Part 1, so let’s build on that.

Your 3 Legends aren’t just special characters sitting beside your deck. They’re also resources and a source of powerful effects, which means you’ll constantly have to decide how and when to use them.

Face-Down or Face-Up?

As we saw in Part 1, your three Legends start the game face-down and in a random order.

You can’t look at them beforehand, but when you Call a Legend, you can choose any one of your face-down Legends to reveal.

That means you still don’t know exactly which Legend you’re going to get until you choose one and flip it face-up.

Calling a Legend

To Call a Legend, you pay 1 €$ and flip one of your face-down Legends face-up.

If that Legend has a CALL effect, that effect triggers when the Legend is Called.

There’s one small detail worth remembering here: the Legend keeps its current Ready or Spent state when you flip it face-up. Calling it doesn’t automatically make it Ready.

So don’t just reveal the Legend and move on. Check the card immediately for a CALL effect, then keep track of whether that Legend is Ready or Spent.

We’ll look at exactly when these effects happen and how they interact with other cards in the next section.

Legends Are Also Resources

You can also Spend a Legend as 1 €$ to help pay for a card or effect.

This works whether the Legend is face-down or face-up.

So if you need 3 €$, you can pay with Eddies, Legends, or a combination of both.

But there’s a catch: when you use a Legend as €$, you’re giving up the opportunity to use that Legend for something else.

Maybe you could Call it later. Maybe it has a useful ability. Maybe you simply want to keep it available.

So don’t think of your Legends as three extra Eddies.

They’re resources, but they’re also part of your crew.

Spend Abilities

Some face-up Legends have abilities that require you to Spend them.

As with the Spent/Ready system from Part 1, you Spend the Legend to use the ability, and it becomes Ready again during your next Start Phase.

This creates an important choice: do you use the Legend’s ability, or do you use it as €$?

Once you’ve Spent it, you can’t spend it again until it becomes Ready, unless another effect readies it.

So before you Spend a Legend, ask yourself:

“Is this the best use for it right now?”

One Legend, Several Jobs

During a game, a Legend can:

• Be Called to reveal it and potentially trigger its CALL effect;
• Be Spent as €$ to pay for cards or effects;
• Be Spent to activate one of its abilities;
• stay Ready because you may need it later.

That’s the real value of the Legend system: every Legend is both a resource and an option.

And now that we know what Legends can do, let’s look at when their effects actually happen — because that’s where Cyberpunk TCG gets more technical.

Card Timing: PLAY, CALL, ATTACK & DEFEATED

In Part 1 I mentioned timing triggers, but we left the details for later. Now let’s look at what those words actually mean.

In a tournament, knowing when an effect triggers is just as important as knowing what it does.

PLAY

A PLAY effect triggers when you play that card.

Normally, you’ll play a card from your hand by paying its Cost, but the important part is that the card must actually be played.

For example:

PLAY: Draw a card.

You pay the Unit’s Cost, play it from your hand, and its PLAY effect becomes pending.

But putting a card onto the Field through another effect isn’t automatically the same thing as playing it. If an effect simply tells you to put a Unit onto the Field, you shouldn’t assume its PLAY effect triggers. If the effect specifically tells you to play the card, however, its PLAY effect works normally.

So when you see PLAY, think:

“Did I actually play this card? If so, check its PLAY effect.”

CALL

CALL is tied specifically to Calling a Legend.

When you flip a Legend face-up through the Call a Legend action, check it immediately for a CALL effect.

If it has one, that effect becomes pending when the Legend is revealed.

So don’t just reveal the Legend and move on — always check what happened when you Called it.

ATTACK

An ATTACK effect triggers when a Unit attacks.

For example:

ATTACK: Draw a card.

The effect becomes pending when you Spend the Unit to declare the attack, before your Rival gets the chance to react.

That’s an important detail because ATTACK effects resolve before the React Step begins.

So when you attack, don’t immediately ask your Rival if they want to react. First check your attacker’s ATTACK effects and resolve any pending effects.

DEFEATED

A DEFEATED effect triggers when the relevant Unit is defeated and moved to the Trash.

It doesn’t trigger simply because the Unit was attacked or entered a Fight.

During a Fight, effects triggered by the Fight itself are resolved first. Then the Fight’s result determines which Units are defeated. Once a Unit is actually defeated and moved to the Trash, its DEFEATED effect becomes pending.

So don’t check DEFEATED just because a Unit lost a Fight — check it when the Unit is actually defeated.

When Multiple Effects Trigger

Sometimes the same event can trigger several effects.

When that happens, those effects become pending. You can’t just resolve them randomly.

If both players have pending effects, the turn player resolves all of their pending effects first, followed by their Rival’s.

If you have multiple pending effects of your own, you can choose the order in which to resolve them.

There’s one more rule worth remembering: a pending effect must finish resolving before another pending effect can resolve. If something triggers while that effect is resolving, the new effect simply becomes pending and waits its turn.

A good habit is to ask yourself every time something happens:

“Did that trigger anything?”

Unit played? Check PLAY.
Legend Called? Check CALL.
Unit attacks? Check ATTACK.
Unit defeated? Check DEFEATED.

The timing word tells you when the effect becomes pending. Then you resolve it according to the normal rules for pending effects.

Once you get into the habit of reading cards this way, the timing system becomes much easier to follow.

Now let’s look at what happens when your Rival gets the chance to interfere with your attack.

Quick, Blocker & the React Step

Now let’s look at the three main ways you can interfere with an attack: Quick effects, Blocker, and Call a Legend.

QUICK

A card with QUICK can be used during your Main Phase or as a reaction to your Rival’s attack.

For example, if your Rival attacks with a powerful Unit and you have a QUICK effect that changes its Power, you can use it during the React Step, before the attack is resolved.

You still have to pay its Cost, but you don’t have to wait for your own turn.

QUICK is your main way of playing effects at the right moment during your Rival’s attack.

BLOCKER

A BLOCKER Unit can be used to redirect an attack.

If you have a Ready Unit with BLOCKER, you can Spend it during the React Step and make that Unit the new target of the attack.

So if your Rival attacks your Gig Area, you can use a Blocker to turn that attack into a Fight against your Unit instead.

The Blocker completely replaces the original attack target, so the attack continues as though your Rival had attacked that Unit in the first place.

This is why you should think carefully before Spending a potential Blocker during your own turn.

CALL A LEGEND

You can also Call a Legend during your Rival’s attack by paying 1 €$.

If the Legend has a CALL effect, it becomes pending when you reveal it and will resolve according to the normal rules.

Remember that Call a Legend is limited to once per turn, so you can’t keep revealing Legends throughout the same React Step.

React Step

During the React Step, the defending player can take as many reactions as they want, in any order, as long as they have a legal reaction available.

After a reaction creates any pending effects, those effects must be resolved before the defender can take another reaction.

That means a React Step isn’t necessarily just:

Attack → one reaction → Fight.

You might react with QUICK, resolve the resulting effects, then use a BLOCKER, resolve its effects, and even Call a Legend afterward if you haven’t used it yet.

These three options give you different ways to respond to an attack:

QUICK lets you modify the situation.
BLOCKER lets you redirect the attack.
CALL A LEGEND lets you introduce another effect at the right moment.

You don’t have to use a reaction just because you can. Sometimes the best defensive play is simply to let the attack happen and save your resources for something more important.

Next, let’s look at what happens after the reactions are over, and how Fights and Steals are actually resolved.

Fight & Steal Resolution

We’ve already covered how an attack is declared and how the defender can react. Now let’s look at what happens when the attack is resolved.

Fighting Units

When an attack targets a Unit, compare the Power of the two Units.

The Unit with the lower Power is Defeated and moved to the Trash. If they have the same Power, both are Defeated.

This is where the DEFEATED timing we just covered comes into play.

Always use the current Power at the moment of resolution, since other effects may have modified it during the attack.

Stealing Gigs

When you attack a Gig Area, compare your attacking Unit’s Power with the value of the Gig you’re trying to steal.

A Gig can be stolen when your Unit’s Power is equal to or greater than its value.

For example, a Unit with 5 Power can steal a Gig showing 5 or less, but not one showing 6.

If you successfully steal a Gig, move that die to your Gig Area. Its value stays the same, so your Street Cred increases by that amount while your Rival’s decreases.

That’s really the key difference:

Fight → compare Unit Power.
Steal → compare Unit Power with Gig value.

Once you know which comparison to make, the result is straightforward.

Eddies & Resource Management

We covered the basics of Eddies in Part 1, so let’s focus on the details that matter when you’re playing competitively.

Selling Cards

During your Main Phase, you can Sell a card from your hand once per turn, but only if that card has a Sell Tag.

When you Sell a card, reveal it to your Rival, then place it face-down in your Eddies Area. It becomes a Ready Eddie worth 1 €$.

So you’re always making the same basic trade:

one card → one Eddie.

The card doesn’t go to the Trash. It becomes an Eddie instead.

This makes Selling an important decision, especially when your hand contains cards you may need later.

Managing Your Eddies

When you spend an Eddie, it becomes Spent and will Ready again during your next Start Phase.

So always keep track of how many Eddies are actually available before making your next play.

Remember that you can also spend Legends as €$, but Legends aren’t actually Eddies and don’t become part of your Eddies Area.

Legends as Resources

As we covered earlier, a face-down Legend can be spent as 1 €$.

A face-up Legend can also be spent as 1 €$, but only if it has a Sell Tag.

This is where you need to be careful: unlike an ordinary Eddie, a Legend may have abilities, a CALL effect, or a Go Solo ability.

So spending one can give you the resource you need, but it can also mean giving up another potential use for that Legend.

The key is to think of your Eddies and Legends as two different ways of paying the same €$ costs, while remembering that Legends can have other uses.

And when you’re planning a turn, don’t forget that some resources may be needed for your Rival’s React Step as well.

---

FINAL THOUGHTS

And that’s it! You made it through the whole thing.

If you’ve followed both parts of this guide, you now have pretty much everything you need to sit down, build a deck, and actually play Cyberpunk TCG without constantly wondering what the heck is supposed to happen next.

You probably won’t remember all of it after reading it once and honestly, you don’t have to. Grab a deck, play a few games, and come back to this guide whenever you run into a rule you’re not sure about. That’s exactly what these guides are here for.

I’ll be following Cyberpunk TCG as it grows, so if you’re getting into the game, keep an eye on Anketsu.com. I’ll be covering new cards, decks, strategies, expansions, and whatever else shows up in Night City.

And if you enjoyed this guide, don’t stop here. Check out my other TCG guides and articles on the site.

Now go build your crew, grab those Gigs, and try not to get flatlined on your first night in Night City.
See you in the next one!

---

F.A.Q. 🚨