NULL, VOLT, STASIS: The Cards That Flip a Round

The numbers do the work. The specials decide who is still smiling when the turn ends.

NULL

Play NULL on any dock, full or empty. On a stack it is a pass-through. The value underneath still counts, and the dock opens to any colour. On an empty dock it opens with no value and no colour. The next card writes both.

Out of turn, NULL is a shield. Drop it to block incoming damage and pass that damage on. That still counts as a play. Take the hit with no NULL and you draw the full pile and skip.

On Final Firewall a held NULL is how you stay empty.

VOLT

VOLT is useful. Play it on a 1, a 2, a 9 or a 10. It counts as a 1 and as a 10, so it keeps a sequence alive instead of killing the dock. You get another beat in the same turn. That extra card is the reason you hold it.

People read VOLT as a brake. It is not. It is a 1. It is a 10. It is another play.

STASIS

STASIS plays on 4, 5 or 6. It adds one damage and it does not end your turn. Keep going. Use it to climb through the middle of a dock when the easy edges are gone.

Tripwire and Defuse

Tripwire is the 10. Defuse is the 1. Either one resets the stack, adds a damage, and hard-stops the turn. Those reset cards sit aside and come back when the draw pile dies. Do not treat them like normal 1s and 10s. They are the detonators.

Grey still opens colour. Plus and minus still shift a value by 1, separate from the one-higher or one-lower match. Learn those two layers once and the specials start reading like verbs instead of icons.

Then take the same cards into the browser and throw them at a mimic. The paper will feel familiar.