Playing the margins

Nowhere on a chessboard is simply safe; every square can be attacked by something. Three cards in the Built Deck catalog add a place that isn't a square at all. Flank March sends one of your pieces off the board to the margin. Rally brings it back. Close the Border captures everything that's out there, yours and your opponent's alike. Here is how they play in a real game.

What the margin is

The margin is off the board, and it's not the opened ground of fighting beyond the edge. A piece in the margin stands on no square. It doesn't move, doesn't attack, doesn't give or block check and isn't captured by normal play. It's parked, and nothing on the board reaches it: no capture, and no card that targets a square.

Each side has its own margin, and both are public. The piece waits there until you play Rally and it comes home, or someone plays Close the Border and it's gone.

Flank March costs two Braincells and moves one of your pieces there. The king can't go. You can march more than one piece, but each march is a card, and you only get one card a turn.

Rally brings back the first one out

Rally also costs two, and two conditions on it decide whether it's any use. It brings back your longest-marched piece, onto the square it left, if that square is empty.

The first condition means the margin is a queue. You don't choose which piece comes back. March a knight on turn five and a rook on turn nine, and Rally returns the knight.

The second means your opponent can lock a piece out. If your bishop left c1 and they put anything on c1, the bishop isn't coming back until c1 clears. The square a piece leaves is public, so before you march, ask how easily your opponent can fill it. A square deep in your own camp is hard for them to reach. One in the middle of the board they can fill with a pawn.

Close the Border is a card for the other player

Close the Border costs three and captures every piece in both margins. Note the word: captured, not killed. A piece lost this way is a normal capture, credited to its owner, so ordinary resurrection cards get it back, and so does your opponent's Ransom.

The card punishes whoever has more in the margin. If you've marched a rook and your opponent has marched nothing, Close the Border costs them three Braincells and a card and wins them a rook. If neither of you has marched anything, it's a dead card in their hand.

So the margin is safe from the board and not from the one card made for it. Before you march a piece worth protecting, look at what your opponent has already played and ask whether their deck would carry Close the Border.

When the margin is a shelter

Flank March earns its slot when a piece is about to be lost and has no good square to go to. A rook forked with your queen: march the rook and keep both. A knight that has wandered too deep, with no retreat square that isn't covered: march it, and the hunt is over.

Timing is the other half. If your opponent is spending cards to attack one piece, march it the turn after they've committed, not before, so their cards are already gone when the target is.

When the margin is a mistake

A piece in the margin does nothing, and your opponent plays against a board with one fewer of your pieces for as long as it stays out. A rook marched to safety and left there for ten turns is, for those ten turns, a lost rook that also cost two Braincells. A march needs a return plan: the Braincells for the Rally, and a leaving square you can keep clear. Without both, the march is a slow loss dressed up as a save.

Never march a piece your king needs. A defender in the margin is not defending.

And don't march to dodge an even trade. If their knight takes your bishop and your pawn takes back, marching the bishop out saves a bishop and gives them a free knight. The margin is for pieces you'd lose for nothing, not pieces you'd lose for something.

The margin as a threat

Close the Border only hurts a player with pieces parked. If your deck carries it and your opponent's carries Flank March, every piece they march is one you can take for three Braincells whenever you choose. Attack a piece hard enough that marching it is the obvious save, let them march it, then close the border. They lose the piece they thought they'd saved, plus the card and the two Braincells it cost to park it.

So: march a piece that's about to be lost for nothing, from a square you can keep clear, with the Braincells for the Rally in sight. And if you'd rather punish the margin than use it, one Close the Border does the job.