How to play Harry Potter Card Game:

You must build a deck of 50 cards ( max 4 copies per card ) plus one "Partner" leader Card.
Your leader card is always in play.
The basic goal of the game is to attack your Opponent's "Partner" with Characters 4 times, the first 3 times you peel off a "Life Card" then the 4th is victory.

To begin

Each player reveals their Partner, randomly determine who will go first ( Winner of randomisation doesn't get to pick )
Each player Draws 7 and then may choose to Mulligan, if you mulligan shuffle back your hand and Draw 7 new cards, you may only do this once.
Place the top 3 cards of your Deck face down in the Life area
The Player Going second may place a free MP CARD in their MP Field, this is a one time use extra MP and is discarded once used.

Phases

Players' turns consist of the following phases

Standby Phase

The following happen in order:

Resolve start of turn effects
Draw 1 card ( If it is the first player's first turn, they must then discard a card )
Ready ( untap ) all cards
You may place 1 card into the MP Field if it has a purple MP icon at the bottom of the card

Main Phase

You may peform the following in any order you like:

You may Play Characters, Items, Locations and Events, Paying their costs by Resting cards in the MP Field
Activate (Declare) or (Use) effects
Attempt to Duel ( attack ) the Opponent's Partner or Rested Character with your Characters
"Return" Characters to the Main Field

End Phase

The following happen in order:

Resolve End of Turn triggers and effects
Discard down to 7 if you have more than 7 cards in hand

Paying Costs

To pay a cost, Rest a number of Cards in your MP field that have a total number of Purple MP Icons equals the cost of the card

Playing Characters

When you play a character, you may not play a card who's Card Number matches another Card you already control
You can have 3 seperate Harry Potters but not two copies of Harry Potter 01-003
Select to place them in the Main or Support Field
Characters with no AP or DP Stats may only be played to the Support Field
There are 3 main field slots and 4 support field slots, if these are all full you may choose to discard one to make room as part of playing the new card

Playing Locations

Locations are always played to the Support Field
There are 4 support field slots, if these are all full you may choose to discard one to make room as part of playing the new card

Playing Items

Most Items are played to support field as with locations
Items with (Equip) are instead attached to a Character and placed under their card.
Items with (Use) resolve once their costs are paid and do not enter the field

Playing Events

Events resolve once their costs are paid and do not enter the field

Playing Magic

Alternitively to paying their cost, a Character with a Magic Icon of equal or higher cost can be rested
The Magic icon is a small star in the green area at the top of Characters, representing the ability to use wand magic
Magic cards resolve once their costs are paid and do not enter the field

Returning a Character

By discarding a card of the same Card Number you may promote a Character from the Support Field to the Main field
This character may immediately attack unless it was also Played this turn, you may not attack again if that Card already attacked this turn
Clarification: You cannot attack multiple times with the same card or cheat summoning sickness by using the support field and returning

Dueling

Characters who have been Played this turn may not be use to declare a duel
To duel:

first rest a character and declare the target, this can be the opponent's Partner Card or any of their Rested Characters
The attacker may now activate any (Assist) effects during this phase
The defender may Rest a character to block, changing the target of the attack to themself
Once blocking has been determined, Players may use Duel effects to influence the outcome of the Duel
The Attacker's AP ( Red Circle ) is compared to the Defender's DP ( Blue Circle )
- If the Attacker's AP is higher then the Defender is Downed, they may either move the card to their Support Field or Discard the Character
- If the Defender's DP is higher, nothing happens.
- If the Defender has (Counterattack) then the AP vs. DP comparison is done bother ways and the Attacker and/or Defender may be Downed as appropriate

If the player succesffuly attacked the Partner without being blocked, one of the defender's life cards is flipped over and The Defending player may:

Add the Card to their MP Field
Add the Card to their Hand
Trigger a BREAK effect the card might have before sending it to the discard pile unless told otherwise

Dueling with multiple Characters

You may attack with multiple Characters in one Band, if you do their AP is treated the sum of the AP of the Characters in the Band

(Trigger)(Attack) effects on all Characters in the band will trigger and you may resolve them in the order of your choice
If the Defending Character has (Counterattack) they may choose which Attacker to apply the counter attack to

Misc Rules

The card number is represented by a parent number and a child number. a lowercase letter may appear after the three-digit child number, but this is not included in the card number for determining if Cards are the same
If multiple Effects are activated at the same time, the turn player Decides the order of resolution with Turn player Effects having priority
A Character who's DP is reduced to 0 or less is moved to the support field ( or may be discarded )
Rules and Keywords may key off of Tags which are enclosed in [] and names which are enclosed in in 「」
An Effect that would Down a Character doesn't do anything to a Character in the Support Field

Keywords

P-Link: This effect is only active if your partner has the listed tag or name
Haste: They may act the turn they enter play
Charge: They may act the turn they enter play
Assist: The controller of this card may use this ability when declaring an attack, this is applied before any (Trigger)(Attack) effects
Always: Effect is always in play, if it has following conditions, then this effect is active while those following conditions are met
Trigger: Automatically Triggers when the following condition is met
- Enter: Effect activates when the Card enters the Field
- Attack: Effect activates when the Card Declares an attack
- Block: Effect activates when the Card Declares a block
- Down: Effect activates when the Character is downed ( regardless of if you move them to support or discard )
Declare: The controller of this card may Choose to activate this effect when the following condition is met
- Your Turn
- Opponent's Turn
- Duel
BREAK: Optional Effect when revealed as Life