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I have two questions related to purchasing cards:
When can you purchase a card? Is it only during your turn or you can just go ahead and buy cards as long as you have cubes even if it's another player's turn?
When does the card take effect? If you purchase a card during your turn, can you already use it on that turn or do you have to wait for your next turn?
Rules are here.
Purchasing Cards:
Turn Overview
- Rolling and rerolling the dice
- Resolving the dice
- Buying cards (optional)
- End of your turn
So you can only buy cards during your turn, and only after rolling and resolving the dice. One exception to this is if you have the Opportunist card, in which case you can buy newly revealed cards even when it's not your turn.
Using Cards:
Cards marked Discard
Monsters immediately resolve these then discard them.
Cards marked Keep
Monsters keep these cards for the remainder of the game (sometimes the card will indicate it is discarded under certain circumstances.)
Keep cards generally indicate on them when they can be used (e.g. when attacking, when you are attacked, at the start of your turn). A Keep card that does something at the end of your turn can be used on the turn that you bought it (e.g. Solar Powered).
Normally*, you may only purchase cards during the Buying cards phase of your turn, i.e. after you've finished rolling your dice and have resolved the effects (e.g. gotten your energy, healed your health, attacked or scored your victory points from the dice).
* I say "normally" because if you have the Opportunist card, you actually have the option of purchasing a new card as soon as it is revealed.
If the card is a Discard card, its effects happen immediately (before any other action), so you don't get to choose to use it or to wait or keep it - a Discard card produces its effect/ability as soon as purchased. If the card is a Keep card, it comes into play immediately. For example, if you buy Dedicated News Team, and immediately after in the same turn, you purchase another card (supposing you have enough energy), you will instantly score the +1 Victory Point for the purchase.
