How to play Three Seals: the element cycle, the seals and the masters

Three Seals: Dojo Duel is a card game about three elements and a lot of nerve. You sit across a low table from a master of the night temple, play one card a round, and try to complete your shelf of seals before they do. A duel takes a few minutes. Learning it takes one. Getting good takes longer, which is the fun of it.

This guide covers everything you need for your first duels. If you would rather learn by doing, you can play it now in your browser.

The element cycle

Every card has an element: fire, wood or water. The three beat each other in a circle:

• Fire burns wood.
• Wood soaks up water.
• Water puts out fire.

No element is strongest. Each one wins against one and loses against the other, so every card you hold is both a threat and a risk.

How a clash is decided

Each round, you and the master each choose a card. Then the two cards clash.

1. Different elements: the cycle decides. Your fire against their wood wins; your fire against their water loses.
2. Same element: the higher number wins. A fire 11 beats a fire 9.

The winner of the clash puts their card on their shelf; a card that loses its clash never reaches a shelf. The game shows every clash with its own small scene: flamethrowers for fire, tsunamis for water, sprouting wood and earthquake fissures, so you always see why a card won.

The seals: how to win

Every card also carries a seal in one of several colours. Your shelf is where the duel is decided. You take the duel as soon as your shelf holds either:

• three different seals of one element, for example three fire cards with three different seal colours, or
• one seal of each element in three different colours: a fire, a wood and a water card, each with its own seal colour.

The rule in both cases is that the seals must all be different. Three fire cards with the same seal colour do not win. So a strong card is not enough: you also want the right card for your shelf.

Peek, Redraw and Power

You have three special moves. Each can be used once in a duel, so timing is everything.

• Peek shows you the master’s hand for that round.
• Redraw throws away your hand and draws five new cards.
• Power adds 3 to your card for that round.

Power is at its best in a same-element clash, where the number decides. Peek is at its best when you are one card from winning and cannot afford a loss. Redraw is your way out of a hand that cannot finish either kind of shelf.

The masters and the clock

You face the masters of the temple in order, and each one has a personality and a clock.

Master	Title	Time per turn
Peanut, a squirrel	Hasty Apprentice	12 seconds
Tosby, a tortoise	Patient Master	9 seconds
Huma, an owl	Grand Master	6 seconds

The clock is real: if you hesitate for too long, the master picks a card for you. Peanut is quick and a little scattered. Tosby reads your shelf and closes the doors you are trying to open. Huma looks less at your cards than at your habits, so playing the same way every time is the quickest way to lose to her. After the black belt, the shadow masters arrive, and the ladder does not end.

Belts and ranks

Winning earns belt points. You climb from the white belt to the black belt, then through the dan ranks, and the belt you hold shows on your character. You can choose from 13 karate animal avatars.

Two rules keep the climb friendly: losing never costs points, and winning streaks earn bonuses. On iPhone and iPad, Game Center has two leaderboards, Belt Points and Total Wins.

Tips for your first duels

• Count the shelf, not the score. Before you play, look at which seals you still need. A card that wins the clash but gives you a seal you already have may be worth less than it looks.
• Watch the master’s shelf too. If they are one seal from a win, the clash in front of you matters more than your plan.
• Save Power for a same-element clash. Plus 3 is decisive when the numbers decide.
• Do not freeze against Huma. Six seconds is short. Decide what you need from the round before the cards are dealt.

Where to play

Three Seals runs in any modern browser at play.sealduel.com, free, with no sign-up. It plays fully offline, has no ads and no accounts, and collects no data. It is available in 11 languages. The iPhone and iPad version is coming to the App Store soon, with progress kept in your own iCloud.

For news, the game’s world and its characters, visit threeseal.com. We wrote about why each of our apps gets its own world, including the night temple, in Every app is its own world.