3. Battlefields
Control and contested
Who a battlefield belongs to, and what starts a fight over it
At the start of the game, both battlefields belong to nobody. A battlefield becomes yours when your units take it, and stays yours for as long as you have a unit there. When your last unit leaves or dies, it's nobody's again. Having a battlefield like this is called being in of it.
Control is what the earlier pages meant by a battlefield "you have". You can play a unit straight to a battlefield you control, but not to one you don't.
A battlefield whose ability helps whoever controls it
A battlefield's ability works for whoever controls it. says "When you hold here, draw 1," and "you" is its controller, whoever brought it. While nobody controls it, "you" is nobody, so it does nothing.
Contested
When you move a unit onto a battlefield you don't control, that battlefield becomes . It's up for grabs, and a fight over it is coming. What kind depends on who's there:
- Nobody else's units: a short window for both of you to play cards, and then it's yours. Taking an empty battlefield covers it.
- Your opponent's units: a combat, covered in Fights.
Moving onto a battlefield you already control doesn't contest it, and neither does playing a unit there.
You don't take control the moment your unit arrives. Control only changes hands once the fight is over, and only if your units are still there.
Note
"Empty" isn't the same as "nobody's". A battlefield can be empty and still be your opponent's, for a moment: if their last unit there leaves, they lose control of it as soon as nothing is on the chain.