At the very heart of the game are two aspects: guessing what your opponent will do. From you card choices to types of attacks, you must anticipate you opponent's next move.

This guessing starts with your deck. You have to decide which cards will be able to attack and defend against the opposing deck. If you are heavy on close-range attackers, you might find yourself helplessly standing and watching your cards get defeated from a distance.

Since distance attacks tend to be weaker than distance attacks, if an enemy card brings you into close quarters you might be quickly finished off.

As one of the producers of Kongai stated, it's a complicated form of rock-paper-scissors.

When you first play Kongai you can pick three starter cards from the basic list. Unfortunately, you don't get items. Also, if you pick the wrong cards (the weak cards), you're stuck.

So, to get more cards and items, you have to play the Kongregate feature games. By beating the challenge for the feature games, you'll add cards to your master deck. As stated on the Kongai site: "You can earn cards in Kongregate's collectible card game (CCG) by completing time-limited challenges on the site... Once you've done this within the time frame, you'll unlock a card on your Kongregate account. Cards are the same for everyone on each challenge."

The challenges are weekly and there are sometimes more than one challenge, so you can sometimes add multiple cards to your deck each week.

Also, there are random card drops for winners of matches. The drop rate is reportedly 3% to 5% with some players experiencing anything from 1.5% to 50%.

Game play follows these phases:

Maneuver Phase allows you to pick close, far, or pass.

Combat Phase is when you pick your attack, to intercept, or to switch out your card.

In the Maneuver Phase, you choose to pass or "Get Close" or "Get Far." Moving will cost you 50 energy while passing costs nothing.

Consider your card and your opponent before moving. Taking a 50 energy loss can cripple you in the next round.

This is where most of the action is.

You can attack (or use a special ability), rest, intercept, or switch out a card.

Attack is when you pick what kind of attack or ability you will use. You have to consider energy cost, effect, and speed of the attack. Also, if your opponent switches on you before your attack, you waste the energy.

Rest is when you take a pass to gain energy. When you're out of options, it's all you can do.

Intercept is a command that will make your card attack a fleeing opponent card. If your opponent doesn't swap cards, you waste at turn. If your opponent flees and you don't intercept, your attack is wasted. It's all a guessing game.

Swap is running away and putting in another card. If your opponent intercepts you take damage and have to stay in. Sometimes it's better to stay in for one more round than getting killed on an intercept.

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