Oathen: an esports-inspired tactics card game for 1 to 6 players
An esports-inspired tactics card game for 1 to 6 players
Eleven-time award-winning tabletop game
Complete control of your deck
Oathen is a class-based arena combat card game, designed around the same balance mechanics you find in competitive esports. It does away with the lucky drawing and shuffling of yesteryear. Instead, you choose the exact cards you want to play every round.
No more winning or losing because of good draws, stacked hands, or fighting for resources. Oathen determines victory through outwitting, outmaneuvering, and outplaying your opponents.
Oathen on Steam
The same game, built for your screen. Oathen’s digital port is coming to Steam.
Play online with friends, or fill empty seats with bots and jump straight in.
Every rule, cooldown and card effect is handled for you, so you can focus on outplaying the room.
How a round works
Try it: Nyxa’s first round
Pick the four highlighted cards from Nyxa’s Skillbook: a Prep, a Battle, an Enhancement and a Blitz. Then lock in your plan.
Hand 0 of 4 chosen
Skillbook
Hand
Played
Opponent
Played cards go onto your Cooldown Track. The stronger the card, the longer it’s out of the game. Once abilities shift off Cooldown 1 and back into your Skillbook, they become available again.
Your Skillbook 0 of 4 planned
Round 1. Plan your cards.
The arena
The arena is built from randomized tiles: a 5×5 grid for a duel, or 6×6 for three to six players. The tiles start hidden, like fog of war. Step into a hidden space and it’s revealed for the rest of the game.
About half of the arena are Barrens. The rest are temples, shrines and armories, traps like war camps and swamps, and treasure chests. Push an enemy into a pit trap and the arena does the work for you.
Lunging Stab is Nyxa’s quick strike. It can hit a target in her own space or in any of the eight spaces around her, and its cooldown is just 1. Pick it, then click Bravus when he’s in reach.
Throw Knife flies in a straight line in any of the four cardinal directions, and hits the first target it meets. Line Nyxa up with Bravus, pick it, and click a lit space in his direction.
Dark Grip is a Blitz Action: it can be played at any point while Battle Actions are being played, whether it’s your turn or not. The target gains a Root condition, which cancels out their next [Move] card.
The six heroes in the box
Every game starts with each player choosing a character. Each one has a deck of 20 cards made up of their own unique abilities.
Nyxa
The Assassin · Melee
Nyxa is a melee mage class who can manipulate the shadows around her.
Bravus
Agnarsson · Melee
Bravus is a highly mobile melee hero that specializes in getting up close and personal with his targets, dealing damage to multiple enemies, and dishing out piercing damage attacks.
Sgrian
The Reaper · Melee
Sgrian is a spike damage dealing character who relies on his minion, called the Haunt. When playing abilities, he can play them from his body's locations, or his Haunt's position. When performing his standard abilities, he starts to apply fear as a condition on his targets. Then when using some of his attacks, they can feed off of that fear to gain enhanced effects.
Quinn
Leader of the Black Hand · Ranged
Quinn is a ranged damage dealer / support combatant that uses flintlock weapons. Through a wide range of different shots, he can mix and match ammo to apply roots, pierce armor, push targets into traps, and many other effects that can help through the course of the game.
Isolda
Queen of the Icengard · Ranged
Isolda is an icemage that uses long ranged piercing spells on her enemies, and abilities that let her freeze them to the ground.
Eldheim
The Firestorm · Ranged
Eldheim is a fire mage that is capable of dishing out devastating damage, but that damage can also be inflicted on himself if he's not careful.
2027 Oathen Tournament
Details for our upcoming tournament to be released soon.
The world of Oathen
Read the lore behind the heroes and the arena in the Library.