You don't build a deck: you build a style

You walk the dojos learning techniques. What you choose to learn —and what you choose to let pass— is what ends up defining you: how you open, how far you chain, what you do when your edge is broken. At the end of the Path you don't have a list of cards: you have a way of fighting.

One question, every turn

You don't play a card: you build a chain. Every technique has an opening and an ending, and it only links to the technique that fits. You lay them face down, and when both duelists are done, the two chains meet position by position.

The longer the chain, the more damage it carries. But every position is a clash, and a technique that loses its clash adds nothing. You build the chain. Your opponent decides how much of it lands.

The edge, the feint and the guard

Attack beats Maneuver. Maneuver beats Defense. Defense beats Attack.

When two techniques of the same type meet, no number saves you: the position goes to whoever holds the initiative — and if nobody holds it, both cancel out. Win a position and the initiative is yours on the next one. The duel has momentum, and taking it from your opponent is half the craft.

Two schools, two stretches of the wheel

• Kurenai River — water. Its techniques live in the low values and link into each other readily: the river doesn't strike, it drags.
  
• Mount Okuribi — ember. Its techniques live in the high values and open harder: fire doesn't flow, it catches.

The two schools overlap on only a handful of values. Mixing them means fewer techniques that link — and a deck built on purpose to bridge the gap.

After every duel, you choose

No opponent hands you a prize: they offer options and force you to keep only a few. Techniques for your repertoire or materials for your steel, and they rarely both fit. A style is defined as much by what it takes in as by what it lets pass.

Paths

Each school keeps combinations that only work if you build your deck for them: a precise pattern of edges and feints that pays off when it closes. The easy ones you'll see in almost every duel. The masterful ones will make you build the whole deck around them. They are the philosophy you try to prove inside the fight.

Your katana is not an ornament

The pieces you gather matter for what they share: their region, their material, their element. The forge asks for a specific commission, and you decide what you hand over and what you keep. Like matching affinities, but with steel.

The Dojo Path

A campaign across regions where you choose your opponent at each stage, and each of them fights their own way: the one who drags, the one who holds, and the one who makes you finish fast.

And when the Path is done

• Free Duel — your decks against any rival.
  
• Daily Challenge — a fixed duel, the same one for everybody, every day.

What it is, and what it isn't

• A single-player game, paid and complete. You buy it once.
  
• No microtransactions, no passes, no energy. Not now, not later.
  
• No always-online requirement.