Smash Up: Monster Smash Rules
Smash Up: Monster Smash Rules
Monster Smash uses the normal Smash Up rules and emphasizes +1 power counters. The four factions are Vampires, Mad Scientists, Giant Ants, and Werewolves. AEG has since released official Titans for all four factions; those current Titan rules are included here.
+1 power counters
Each +1 power counter on a minion adds +1 to that minion's power while the counter remains there. Transferring a counter moves both the physical counter and its power effect. Because the counter affects the minion, protection from another player's cards can prevent an opponent from placing, removing, or transferring counters when the normal protection rules apply. Counters on non-minions have no effect unless a specific ability says otherwise.
Vampires
Vampires destroy weakened minions and convert destruction into permanent power.
The Count: After a minion is destroyed, its counter benefit may be placed on a minion at the destroyed minion's base. Its Talent can reduce any eligible minion's power until the start of your next turn.
Heavy Drinker: The minion destroyed for the cost may be a low-power minion at Heavy Drinker's base or one of your other minions on any base, as the current wording allows.
Fledgling Vampire: It gains its counter when played from somewhere other than your hand. Its Special can bury it after you destroy another minion.
Wolf Pact: This Fusion is both a minion and an Action depending on how it is played. If used as a minion, “another one of your minions here” means a minion other than Wolf Pact; that other minion may also be the minion that received the temporary -1 power.
Stakeout: Its Talent can be enabled by any decrease in another player's power at that base, including negative power, destruction, or movement.
Castle Blood: If the base ability buries a minion you do not control, you take control of the buried card. A buried Monster uncovered there is likewise controlled by the player who controls the buried card under the current rules.
Ancient Lord: This later official Vampire Titan accumulates counters before entering play and amplifies counter placement once active.
Mad Scientists
Mad Scientists build +1 counters, spend those counters for extra plays, and frequently sacrifice their own minions for larger effects.
Igor: Its Ongoing ability works while Igor is in play. It triggers when Igor goes from play to the discard pile after scoring or destruction, but not when an Igor is simply discarded from a player's hand.
Body Shop: Resolve the current card text as written: the counter total is based on the selected minion's power. If another effect prevents the destruction, do not assume the entire Action automatically fails unless the wording explicitly makes the later effect conditional on successful destruction.
Grave Situation: Returning a minion to hand instead of destroying it means that minion was not destroyed, so abilities that trigger from destruction do not trigger from that replacement.
The Bride: AEG later added this official Titan. Its abilities turn counter placement/removal and sacrificing minions into card draw and extra Actions. Keep its counter and activation state separate from minion counters.
Giant Ants
Giant Ants distribute +1 counters across a colony, transfer them as needed, and can recycle low-power Workers.
Worker: If a Worker is about to go to the discard pile while Death on Six Legs is active, its counter can be transferred away before checking the Worker's condition. If it then has no counter, its own return-to-play ability may qualify.
Who Wants to Live Forever?: The search benefit is not dependent on the destruction succeeding. If the chosen minion is protected or you have no eligible minion to destroy, the search portion still resolves under AEG's clarification.
We Will Rock You: Determine the power increase when the Action resolves. Later changes to the number of counters do not recalculate the already-created temporary bonus.
Death on Six Legs: This later official Titan may collect a counter from a minion before that minion goes to the discard pile and can convert the colony's counters into extra Action support.
Werewolves
Werewolves rely on temporary power bursts, especially on the turn a base is about to score.
Pack Alpha: Its before-scoring boost applies to your minions already in play at that base. It does not automatically apply to minions played afterward.
Frenzy: The same principle applies: determine which minions qualify when Frenzy resolves; later minions do not inherit the earlier bonus.
Leader of the Pack: The controller of the Action gets the extra-Action benefit even if the Action is attached to another player's minion. A tie for highest power still qualifies.
Moontouched: The controller of Moontouched receives the draw when its attached minion is tied for or has the highest power, even if another player owns or controls that minion.
Marking Territory: Current errata makes the breakpoint reduction last only until the end of the turn.
Standing Stones: The extra Talent use still must satisfy the Talent's prerequisites. If using the Talent moves the card away or otherwise makes the prerequisite false, it may not be usable again.
Great Wolf Spirit: This later official Titan lets cards at its base use Talents a second time on your turn and can move between bases when its current play conditions are met.
Accessibility play notes
Power counters should never be communicated only visually. Whenever counters are added, removed, or transferred, announce the card name, old count, new count, and resulting current power when that matters. When temporary power changes are created, say when they expire.
When Grave Situation or another replacement effect changes destruction into a different movement, announce explicitly that the minion was not destroyed. For Vampires' buried cards, announce owner, controller, and base. For Titans, keep each Titan beside its current base and announce all counter changes and Titan movements.