Step onto the platform.

Players: 2–4. Each player chooses a Lifter card and places it face-up in front of them. Lifter cards show your weight class, starting hand size, starting Energy, and passive ability.

Choose an edition: Olympic (Snatch + Clean & Jerk) or Powerlifting (Squat + Bench + Deadlift). The lift pool for the first discipline is laid out face-up in the center. All players share the same pool.

Deck: Shuffle the 95-card support deck. Deal each player their Lifter's starting hand size. Place the deck face-down in the center.

Order: Determine who goes first randomly. Play proceeds clockwise. In a 2-player game, both players resolve simultaneously.

Each round has three steps: Draw → Select → Resolve.

Draw: Draw 2 cards from the support deck (unless a card or passive modifies this). Your hand has no maximum — hold everything you've drawn.

Select: Pick one Lift card from the shared pool. It must meet the minimum weight rule — equal to or heavier than your previous attempt; strictly heavier than your last Good Lift. Commit your selection face-down. Play up to 2 support cards face-down alongside it.

Reveal: All players flip simultaneously. The lightest selected weight resolves first, continuing in weight order — exactly how a real meet runs.

Resolve: Apply support card effects, then roll 2D6. Meet or exceed the Lift card's Difficulty and it's a Good Lift. Fall short — No Lift, take a Fatigue Token.

After all players resolve, the round ends. Energy does not recover between rounds within a phase. Between phases, all players fully restore Energy.

Each player picks one Lifter card before the game. Lifters are asymmetric — different starting hand sizes, Energy pools, and passive abilities mean every Lifter plays differently.

Passive abilities are always active unless the card says otherwise. They don't require Energy to use. Some trigger once per phase, some once per meet — track uses on a scrap of paper or a spare card.

Signature Lift cards are paired to their Lifter. At setup, place the Signature card face-up next to your Lifter — everyone can see it, but only you can select it from the pool. It's available every phase it matches the current discipline.

Lifter cards are available for both Olympic and Powerlifting editions. Olympic Lifters can play Powerlifting and vice versa — their passives apply regardless of discipline.

Each Lift card has a Difficulty rating (2–12). Roll 2D6 — meet or exceed Difficulty for a Good Lift.

Modifiers stack in this order: start with the card's base Difficulty → apply passive effects → apply Technique card modifiers → apply Interference → apply Fatigue penalty → apply Scoring Mode modifier. Minimum Difficulty is always 2.

Fatigue penalty: Each Fatigue Token you're carrying adds +1 to the Difficulty of your next attempt. Tokens can be cleared by Good Lifts (1 token per good lift during recovery) or Energy cards.

Clean & Jerk (Olympic only): Resolves as two sequential rolls. First roll is the Clean at Difficulty −1. If the Clean fails, it's a No Lift and you take Fatigue. If the Clean succeeds, roll again at full Difficulty for the Jerk. A missed Jerk after a successful Clean does not give Fatigue — you got to the shoulder.

Each Lifter starts with an Energy pool (shown on their card, typically 5–8). Energy is spent to play certain Technique cards — costs are listed in the restriction line of the card.

Energy does not recover between rounds. It fully resets at the start of each new phase (Snatch → C&J, or Squat → Bench → Deadlift).

Energy cards restore Energy immediately when played — they can be played at any point during your turn, not only as support cards. You can play an Energy card before selecting your lift, or after.

Running dry: If you can't pay a card's Energy cost, you can't play it. Plan your Energy across 3 attempts — burning it all on round 1 leaves you without Technique support in rounds 2 and 3.

Each No Lift gives you 1 Fatigue Token (unless a card or passive prevents it). Fatigue Tokens add +1 to Difficulty per token on your next attempt.

Fatigue caps at 3 tokens. Tokens are cleared one at a time — 1 removed per Good Lift during the recovery step, or immediately via certain Energy cards.

Bombing out: Three consecutive No Lifts in a single phase and you bomb out. Your score for that discipline is 0 — it doesn't count toward your Total. The lifter is eliminated for that phase only; they continue in subsequent phases.

Consecutive misses reset on a Good Lift. Two misses then a good lift resets your counter to zero — the third miss rule only applies to three misses in a row.

Your score for each phase is your best successful lift in that phase (kg). Total = sum of best lifts across all phases.

Olympic: Total = best Snatch + best Clean & Jerk. Maximum possible: 2 numbers.

Powerlifting: Total = best Squat + best Bench Press + best Deadlift. Maximum possible: 3 numbers.

If you bomb out of a phase, that phase contributes 0 to your Total.

Tiebreaker: Equal Totals go to the lighter weight class — exactly as in real competition. Lighter lifters win ties. This is the only role weight class plays in the standard game.

Scoring variants (optional): Restricted Pool limits which lift weights each weight class can access. Bodyweight Difficulty adjusts the roll target based on weight class. Both variants are documented in the full ruleset.

Platform Edition is designed for competitions, back rooms, and anywhere you don't have dice. It uses the same deck with one addition: a 36-card Roll deck that replaces the dice entirely.

Roll deck: 36 cards distributed to exactly mirror 2D6 probability — six 7s, five 6s and 8s, and so on down to one 2 and one 12. Shuffle it separately. On each attempt, flip the top card instead of rolling. Reshuffle when it runs out.

Match format: Single phase, 3 attempts each. Fastest format is first to 2 Good Lifts. Full format plays out all 3 attempts, highest total wins.

Energy: Tracks as normal — no tokens needed, use spare cards face-up/down as markers.

Fatigue: Tilt your Lifter card slightly sideways on a miss. Fully sideways on two misses. No tokens required.