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Skills are active ability cards used during a match, modeled after chess pieces rather than RPG stat boosts: you equip a small, fixed set of specific moves, not a growing pile of power.

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The 5 launch skills

Skill effects are executed entirely on the game server, never on-chain. On-chain, a skill is only an effectType identifier (e.g. "WILD_DAUB"); the server maps that identifier to real game logic. See Architecture.
Skins (a separate, purely cosmetic line: board themes, daub effects, avatar frames, victory animations) carry no gameplay effect at all.
wild-daub

Wild Daub

Mark one cell on your own board without that number being called.Charge: 1×/match · Countered by: Nullify
double-call

Double Call

Call 2 numbers instead of 1 on your turn.Charge: 1×/match · Countered by: Nullify
ghost-call

Ghost Call

The number you call this turn is only marked on your own board, not on opponents’ boards.Charge: 1×/match · Countered by: Nullify
cell-swap

Cell Swap

Swap the numbers between 2 cells on your own board mid-match.Charge: 1×/match · Countered by: None (resolves immediately)
nullify

Nullify

Not used proactively; spent as a response to cancel one skill an opponent just used.Charge: 1×/match · Countered by: timing (must respond within the 15-second window)

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One skill per turn

A player can use at most one skill on their own turn, and only while it’s their turn. Cell Swap resolves immediately; Wild Daub, Double Call, and Ghost Call each open a Nullify window (see below) before resolving, if an opponent is holding a Nullify charge.

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Nullify: the counterplay window

Whenever a player uses Wild Daub, Double Call, or Ghost Call, any opponent currently holding a Nullify charge gets a 15-second window to respond:
  • Nullify: spend their Nullify charge to cancel the skill entirely (the effect never happens; the original caster’s charge is still spent regardless).
  • Pass: let it resolve normally.
  • No response within 15 seconds: the window auto-resolves as a pass, so an AFK or silent opponent can never stall a match indefinitely.
This is what keeps the skill layer closer to rock-paper-scissors than a raw power comparison: having a strong skill queued up doesn’t guarantee it lands.

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Loadout: max 2, verified on-chain

Each player can equip at most 2 skills per match. Setting a loadout requires:
  1. The room is in standard mode (loadouts don’t exist in Casual rooms).
  2. The player has linked a wallet (via a sign-a-nonce flow; no plaintext address is ever trusted).
  3. The chosen skill IDs pass on-chain verification: the server checks actual NFT ownership (SkillCollection.balanceOfBatch), that the skill is marked active in the SkillRegistry, and that it respects that skill’s maxPerLoadout, before the loadout is accepted.
Loadouts are frozen the moment the match starts (playing phase): no swapping skills mid-match. Players who don’t set a loadout still play normally, without skills, same as a Casual room. Free players remain fully competitive, since Casual mode (no skills, no wallet required) is a complete, equal-footing way to play.

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Why it isn’t pay-to-win

Two design choices keep this from becoming pay-to-win:
  • Effect strength is flat across rarity tiers. A common copy of a skill and a rare copy of the same skill do exactly the same thing in a match. Rarity changes flavor (visual identity, animation, cosmetic flourishes), never raw power.
  • Hard caps everywhere. Max 2 skills per loadout, typically 1 charge per skill per match, and a direct counter (Nullify) to every proactive skill. Owning more NFTs does not let a player stack more advantage into a single match than these caps allow.

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Premium identity per skill

Each skill is designed as its own character/mascot with dedicated visual assets: icon, card illustration, an in-match cast animation (an exploding daub, a spectral ghost-call, a spinning cell swap), and a frame/effect that gets more elaborate at higher rarity (static to animated to full effect). The NFT metadata structure reserves image and animation_url slots plus rarity attributes for exactly this purpose from day one, so visual assets can be dropped in later without touching the contracts or server (see the GET /metadata/:id.json response shape).