Official Rules for the Grand Tournament

Official Rules:

When playing Word & Iron there are two methods of play. Both methods are designed for two player games. First is the Grand Tournament and second is a Pitched Battle. Often players will have a Grand Tournament right before a Pitched Battle and the winner of the Grand Tournament will acquire an additional resource to be added to their realm before the Pitched Battle. Technically a Grand Tournament can be played in a limited way with only one 72-card starter deck shared between two players. To get the full experience two separate 72-card starter decks are recommended. To play a Pitched Battle two separate 72-card starter decks are required.

Rules for the Grand Tournament:

Separate your resource cards and shuffle them. Draw 2 resource cards off the top of your shuffled resource deck and lay them facedown. Then draw the 3rd resource card and lay it face up. This 3rd resource card will be then placed to the side to be offered to the winner of the Grand Tournament.
Separate your champion and soldier cards into two different decks. Shuffle your soldier and champion cards. Champion cards do not partake in direct combat (Joshua 5: 13-15). Champion cards aid soldiers by adding to their ranks of power. Whenever you draw a champion card it goes into your reserves. Reserves will be explained in a moment.
After shuffling your champion and solider cards, each player will draw off the top of their soldier deck and lay five cards out in a horizontal line facing the other player. These first five cards are called your contestants and must all be soldier cards.
Next is your champion deck. Shuffle and draw three campion cards off the top of your champion deck. Lay these three cards behind your row of contestants. This is called your reserves.
After you each have two rows of five soldier cards facing each other and behind the rows of soldier cards you each have a row of three champion cards your cards are in place to commence the Grand Tournament. Contestants will challenge the other contestant directly across. This is called a match. When two contestants compete the contestant with the higher number in ranks of power wins that match. However, champion cards can be called in by either player to aid in winning that match. Champion cards can be called upon to aid in a match in any order. All cards may only be used once.
Flip a coin and the winner of the coin toss will select who will start off the first match of the Grand Tournament and which cards partake in the first match. After the first match the matches continue left to right from the orientation of the player who started off the first match. Matches start over at the beginning of the row of contestants if there are any cards remaining.
When partaking in a match and you wish to be aided by one of your champion cards you must first declare which champion card you will use before you challenge the opposing card. If you are the one being challenged, you must declare before defending if you are going to use the aid of a champion card. An example of the proper terminology would be to say, “I challenge your knighted heavy calvary with my archer. I will use the aid of Talon to give my archer five times the ranks of power.”
Matches continue until all the contestants have partaken in a match. It is not necessary to use the aid of all the champion cards. After all the contestants have met their challengers, the Grand Tournament is over and the player that has the highest number of won matches wins the resource card as their prize.
If playing a Pitched Battle right after a Grand Tournament the winner of the Grand Tournament may add the resource they just won as extra resource card to their realm so that the winner of the Grand Tournament has five resource cards in their realm and the other player has four resource cards in their realm. Additionally, the resource card is the winners to keep.