Each player has a goalie, two defensivemen and three forwards. The defensivemen may or may not be "bruisers" who can injury other players. Each card has a value from 0-11. Higher is better. During a turn, a player can do one of three things:
When you draft a player, you just discard a player you don't like and replace him with the top card of the same type of player (you don't show what you discarded or got).
When you trade with another player, you pick a card at random from his hand and then replace it with one of your players of the same type (and you can't give back the card you got). This is somewhat risky as you might get a poorer player than you get. But, if you know that someone has a strong team, it is a good way to balance things out.
Finally, you can play a game. During a game, you each play one card and then simultaneously reveal it, and score goals according to the following rules:
After each round, you play another round from your remaining hand, until six rounds have been played. That is the game. Highest number of goals wins. If there is a tie, you replace injured players and have sudden death.
You have to challenge each player before you can challenge anyone a second time.
The first person to get to 9 victories wins the game. This is actually a variant rule. The real rules say the first person to win 9 games plays against the 2nd place team (best of 7), but that seems boring for everyone else.