Questions about Gameplay

Hey there! I've been playing and collecting Chaotic cards since it initially came out, and it seems that every time I go back to play it, I learn that I've been doing something wrong. Therefore, I wish to break down some confusing things to me, and hopefully get some answers!

Battlegear - Can you ONLY flip the battle up at the beginning of combat, and if the creature is engaged?

Energy - Does the energy stat reset to the scanned energy after each combat?

Turn - What classifies as a turn? One full combat, or one attack in combat? Or one of yours and your opponents attacks?

Mugic effects - Do mugic effects, such as gain 30 energy or gain recklessness 10, remain in place, even after the combat where they were initially put into play?

Moves - Can you move one creature or many in one turn? If many, are there limitations? Do you have to attack/move, or can you just end your turn?

Swift/Range/Defender/ - Not at all sure what these do.

Mirage Location - I see some locations that say "Mirage Effect" at the bottom. What exactly are these, how do you trigger these, and i hear that these locations can "disappear"?

Danians - I have always found Danians very confusing, especially infecting/uninfecting creatures and Hive. Infecting creatures - is it for the full combat, or does it last until something uninfects them? Same with Hive - once its active, is it active until something deactivates it, or until the end of that combat?

Stat resets - If I use an attack that lowers my opponent's speed by 20, but then they code me the next turn, do their stats reset after the combat, or does the reduction remain?

Invisibility Strike - I've always assumed this, but never have been for sure. Let's say I have Prince Mudeenu with Strike 20, and I use Timeslow, does that do an extra 20 damage even though the base damage is 0?

Aqua Shield - I know it gives you an extra 5 energy, and when you sacrifice it you gain 15, but when you sacrifice it, do you lose the 5 you had when it was equipped?

Locations - When engaged creatures gain something such as "Exhaust Disciplines 5", does that stay, even after combat? And if it says all creatures gain "Exhaust Disciplines 5", does that stay even after the location changes? (For instance, Mommark's Catapult Tower gives creatures you control Swift 1. Does that remain even after the location goes away? And by your, does it mean all creatures, your being whoever is reading the card, or your meaning the one who controls the card?)

Proboscar - I love Proboscar and how he can move anywhere on the battleboard, but I'm confused about the rest of his ability. Do the creatures just initially switch places before combat and the winner returns to their original spaces after combat?

Well, those are the questions I could think of right now, please answer any that you can, I'll really appreciate it, and if I think of anymore I will post them!

well to start here's a link to the rulebook https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/11746153/pdf-rule-book-chaotic-trading-card-game

in case you haven't read it, it has alot of answers to your questions.


buut just to be thorough I'm gonna do em all too

Important note for all these there is the qualification "unless a card effect says otherwise"

Battlegear- yes battlegear is face down until a creature becomes engaged, there are some battlegear that say it starts the game face up but it will say so on the card, if it doesn't its face down till combat. once a gear is face up it stays face up for the rest of the game.

Energy- one of the most important rules in chaotic is that at the end of the turn, all damage is removed from creatures, also all effects of attacks, mugic, activated effects AND triggered effects also end. so essentially everything is sort of reset at the end of turn.

Turn- a turn starts with a player revealing a location then they move creature, may have a combat, then move more creatures. at which point they end the turn. while there are ways to have more than 1 combat per turn (dread tread for example) usually a turn is 1 full combat.

Mugic effect- as I said in the energy rule all mugic, activated abilties and triggered abilites end at the end of turn (they used to say that on every mugic but later didn't to save space).

moves- each creature can make 1 move per turn, if a creature moves into a space that has an opponents creature in it the two creatures have a combat, the winner stays in the space. you can't start more than 1 combat per turn. you can move your creatures before or after combat as long as you only move each one once per turn.

range/swift- a creature with swift X may move an additional X spaces when it moves, so if I had swift 1 I could move 1 additional space for a total of 2 (it still must be all in one move) . Range only works when paired with swift, it allows creature to move through opponents creature or your own without starting combat if you end your move on an opponents space you  still start a combat though.

Defender- if an opponent starts a combat with one of your creatures and a creature next to it has defender you can swap the defender with the other creature and have the defender fight instead. if a creature has a restriction (ex: defender earth) it could only defend that type of creature (ex: creatures with earth)

Mirage- Mirage locations use there normal effect while active just like any other location. however when they become inactive instead of going to the bottem of the location deck there owner can place them on the field on any space (even spaces with creatures in them) the space the mirage is in has the mirage effect but ONLY that space. there can only be 1 mirage on the field at a time so if a new one comes in the old one is put on the bottom of the location deck.

Infection/uninfection- if a danain effect "infects" a creature put a parasite token on it. any creatur with a parasite token is considered infected. parasite tokens count as mandiblors (no matter who's creature there on) when you count mandiblors for various danain cards. so lets say you have 2 mandiblor creatures and your opponent has 2 creatures and all 4 are infected. if you'd have the 2 you control plus the 4 parasites for a total of 6 mandiblors. uninfection as you might guess just removes the parasite from the creature.

Hive- Hive basiclly just a simple switch its either active or inactive. Hive starts the game off inactive but there are lots of effects to activate it (they'll say activate hive) don't forget though that these effects end at the end of turn so next turn hive will be inactive again. if and effect says "Hive: *instert effect here* then that creature has the effect as long as hive is active for example "Hive: water 5" means you have water 5 while hive is active and don't while its not.


stat reset I'm saying this again cause its very important effects of attacks, mugic activated ablities and triggered abilites end at the end of the turn. if its any of those things it ends at the end of the turn.

Strike- strike deals makes the creature do extra damage with there first attack each combat even if that attack did no damage to start, so mudeenus timeslow would do 20 damage in that scenerio


Aqua sheild- when a battlegear becomes unequipped you lose its innate effects which in the aquashields case is the 5 energy (making the heal a bit worse)

Locations- your question is a bit tricky since it depends on the type of effect. remember triggered abilties aka. ones that happen at a certain time, last till the end of the turn even if the location goes away in the middle, look for phrases like "at the beginning of combat" "when this becomes the active location"  ect. innate effects of locations are only on as long as the location is active. they WON'T have a specific time they'll just have an effect ex "engaged Creatures have exhuast courage 5" "Creatures have fire 5" "creatures may only play generic mugic" ect. those type of effects will go away if the location changes mid turn. \\

proboscar- as you said proboscars first effect is easy to understand he can move to any open space. for his 2nd effect remember that the way to start a combat is to move your creature onto the space of an opponent creature. normally this puts you on there space and you fight for who stays there. with proboscar when he moves onto an opponents space he instead pulls that creature onto HIS space and they fight there instead (this effect is useful for pulling creatures away from defenders or to a spesific spot)


hopefully that clears things up again I'd give the rulebook a good read and if you have additional questions after that lemme know

Thank you so much, this has cleared everything up for me! I really appreciate you taking time of your day to help me, and if I have anymore questions won't hesitate to ask!

Chiodosin1 wrote:
hopefully that clears things up again I'd give the rulebook a good read and if you have additional questions after that lemme know

Another question has popped up that seems very simple, yet I can't see, to find an answer to, so I decided to take to the forums once more; for Tornado Tackle (reshuffling your attack deck), is that including the discard pile or no? Also, something that I didn't think is possible that I doubt is, if a creature has an ability that cost a mugic, such as Ranun, you can't pull the mugic counter off of another creature, correct? That second one I believe I know to be true, but just wanted to double check while I'm thinking about it.

When abilities like Tonornado Tackle, state reshuffling your attack deck. You mix your attack discard into your attack deck before the shuffle.

You can't pay for a Creature's ability with another Creature's Mugic counters.

Thanks so much for the answers, you guys are extremely helpful! I try not to ask too many questions in burst, but I really want to make sure that I'm playing the game right, and two more questions came across last night when I was playing with my buddies.

Frafdo the Hero - How Frafdo gains 45 energy when he's the last creature left, is that a one time thing, or, going into each new combat, does he gain 45 energy to his scanned energy?

For cards like Accelerated Unity, dealing damage for each tribe in your army, would the creatures have to be alive? Its wordsd different on Unified Tribecharge, saying for each tribe you control, so would the creatures have to be alive then, and does Tribeless count towards this or no, since they are technically a Tribe but...they're tribeless?

Each time Frafdo the Hero goes into combat he'll gain 45 energy.

The creatures has to be alive to count (unless another ability were to say otherwise). Creatures that are in the discard, do not count as creatures you control.

Don't feel bad for asking questions. You'll always find someone willing to help answering them.

king is totally right, also tribless is not a tribe its a creature with no tribes as the name suggests (there are 5 tribes total).

I think your confusion comes from poor card wording. this happens on cards and when it does they fix them with whats called errata, which are basically changes to cards wording to make them more clear or fix issues.
if you wanna check out card errata, all the cards on the collection page (top of the forums) have them in the description or you can use this list. you don't HAVE to know these to play but they can be helpful for spesific questions like these
https://chaoticbackup.forumotion.com/t794-errata-comprehensive-rules

so for your cases in spesific, first up accelrated unity has been errated to "deals 5 damage for each tribe you control beyond the first" this makes it clear that you have to CONTROL the creature to count aka they can't be in the discard.

next is one of the most common errata (seriously most of the errata in that list are just this change) they used to have cards so that permament effects (aka innate ones) and temporary effects (aka triggered and activated ones) both used the word "gain" so it was confusing. now permanent effects use the word "have". you can use the errata list if your not sure or look for timing activated effects you have to choose when to use them, and triggered effects have phrases like "at *time*" or "when *event*".

so for frafdo in spesific you'll see first off he doesn't have a certain time, and 2nd in the errata it says "frafdo has an additional 45 energy" meaning its a permanent boost as long as you have no other creatures.

Welp, thank you guys so much for being so helpful! I find myself much less confused about the card game now, and can now share the knowledge with all of my friends!

Is it standard rule to say that when a creature is infected it counts as a mandiblor? I've never heard of anything like that in the rulebooks or the pdf rule book posted.

Originally, when ZOTH came out the token itself counted as a mandiblor (not the creature). But now, with an errata, cards which count "infected creatures" must do so explicitly. You'll see the errata changes in the text box on TCO (if not on the card image). 

For example: Purge Dirge:

Original wrote:Deal 5 damage to target Creature for each Mandiblor you control, then Uninfect all Creaqtures.

Errata wrote:Deal 5 damage to target Creature for each Mandiblor you control and each Infected Creature in play, then Uninfect all Creatures.

So even when a Danian card which says to only count Mandiblors in it's ability I can include any infected creatures controlled by either myself or my opponent?

It depends on the card. In early sets yes. But after they made the change in M'arrillian invasion, the card must explicitly say it.

Take for example: Kapalor http://www.tradecardsonline.com/im/selectCard/card_id/177493/cards_lang/

every card that say "for each mandiblor you control" also counts infected creatures now if it didn't say so already, the only exception is mandiblor might.

Another question -
For something like darkened dunes, where it says creatures with Earth that you control gain Swift and Range, how would that work? I was under the impression that once you revealed a location, that was it, it was time to attack and then you could move your creatures afterwards that didn't attack. Would it be for the creatures that didn't attack, or am I wrong, and you reveal the location before you move?

Its a passive ability. Its for all creatures you control. That means you can use swift and range to engage a creature 2 spaces away from your creature with earth. You reveal the location as the first step in your turn. So yes its before movement phase. After combat you can still move creatures that didn't attack (as long as you don't start a new combat).

In the picture below, a creature in space x can attack and begin combat with the creature in space y. 
  [y]
[ ][ ]
[ ][x]
  [ ]

just to clairfy turns go like this
1. reveal a location
2. move any creatures once each, if a creature moves into an opponent's creatures space those two creatures have a combat. (you must move at least 1 creature but you do not have to start a combat)
3. do the combat (if you started one)
4. move any creatures that haven't moved yet if you wish
5. end the turn