You suck at this game, but don't worry. We can fix that! This guide will be divied into four broad categories: Mechanics, Elements, Decks, and then the Cards themselves. But that's just giving you the blocks to play with, little one, from there it's up to you to build with them.
Part One: Mechanics!
There are a few major mechanics that differ from other CCGs like elements. The first is Quanta. Quanta is the resource used to casr spells. Each of the 12 elements (we'll get into those in the next segment) has its own quanta pool, which can go up to 75. A certain type of quanta can only be used to play the corresping element's cards. For example, you can cast a
spell with
. That's just silly.
Quanta comes mostly, but not exclusively, from Pillars and Pendulums. There is a Pillar and Pendulum for every element in the game, and each will generate one quanta per turn of it's element with one exception of Quantum Pillar, which generates 3 quanta randomly distributed among your 12 pools. Sometimes, you may see creatures which generate quanta, such as Firefly, or the spell Nova, which costs nothing and generates one quanta of every element.
Now that you have an understanding a Quanta, we'll move to the types of cards; there are three of them: Permanents, Creatures, and Spells. Permanents are cards you play and usually have a static effects, an effect at the end of your turn, or an ability.
Creatures have stats and deal damage to your opponent. More on the specifics of that below, but for now we just know that some creatures have abilities and some don't. Some abilities are passive, some active. Passive skills cannot be removed by the
rare weapon Lobotomizer, while active ones can.
Spoiler for Hidden:
is a huge help against decks with active abilities such as
, whose ability is to double it's attack until the end of your turn.
however, cannot be lobotomized, because it's ability is passive and cannot be removed.
And then there's poor
with no ability at all, but is very cost efficient in stats.
The next big mechanical step is that creatures attack at the end of every turn. There are exceptions with being frozen or delayed. It'd be more accurate to say that a creatured actions are processed at the end of every turn, then the player's permanents. Usually in Elements, the order of resolution doesn't really matter. But sometimes it does. But right now it doesn't. By the time it matters, you'll be well experienced and prepared to deal with it.
Ok, we understand this? Perfect.
Part Two: Elements!
There are 12 Elements in Elements, and each Element has different elements give it tis strengths and weaknesses against other Elements. Still with me? No? ...Oh.
There are 12 Elements, and each is stronger and weaker against certain other elements. Better? Too bad.
The elements are divided into 3 quartets, and from there, 6 pairs.
The Quartets also have cool names.
The Material elements: Water, Fire, Earth and Air.
The ones that everybody knows. The pairs are
&
and
&
.
-Water has great versatility, but is weak on its own.
-Fire has great offensive ability and is good at keeping enemy creatures is check, but is fragile.
-Earth has creatures that are very hard to kill. They're beefy and do considerable damage, but are expensive which gives you time to deal with them, or ignore them entirely and go for the jugular, as they say.
-Air
is the best element, no question. What I mean to say is that Air's creatures are not too expensive, and have good damage. On top of that,
Air also has the best shields in the game Air has good defensive potential to slow the opponent down.
The next Quartet is the Spiritual elements: Life, Death, Light and Darkness.
You may have noticed the big "Reigned by Darkness" banner at the top of the forums by now. I'll get into that in a bit. Elements first.
The pairs of this quartet are, obviously,
&
and
&
.
-Life has two uses: Killing its opponent quickly or dying very slowly. Yep.
-Death is much the same, in that it can kill its opponent quickly, but can also play a slower game with poison to kill slowly but inevitably.
-Light is almost strictly a defensive element on its own. It takes another element to make it agressive, but don't take that to mean it's weak. If we were to take a look at the greatest stall decks of all time, I guarantee you they'd have
in them.
-Darkness is a bit of this, and a bit of that. It's got some damage, some healing, some control. A very well rounded element.
The Final Quartet is the duos and Entropy & Gravity and Time & Aether.
"But, Tim, those aren't elements!" Shoosh yourself, yes they are.
-Entropy is based mostly in chaos and randomess, with card effects being unpredictable.
-Gravity is a more contant thing. High health creatures, plenty of control and the ability to bypass shields with Momentum.
-Time is a great supporting element, which can be offensive or defensive depending on the elements you use it with.
-Aether is a concept you may not be familiar with. Think of Aether as the plane between planes, shifting in and out of reality. Most of it's creatures are untargetable, and half the time, the player is too, thanks to Dimension Shield
OP OP!.It has great rushing power and stall potential in the same element, put both together and you've got yourself a strong mono. Lame.
Ok. We've covered the elements. Remember that "Reigned by Darkness" banner? Well it from a big event called War. In the Elements community there is whats known as the Major Event Cycle consisting of three events: Trials, War and Brawl.
In Trials, each element holds a competition pitting the defending Master against challengers, trying to grab the title of Master.
The Master of the element then leads a team they draft in War, and goes against the other 11 Masters to see which element is the greatest. Darkness won the last War, so they reign the forums. It's just bragging rights and a fancy and a fancy forum banner.
Brawl is less of an in-game pvp events and more to let members of the community let their creative juices flow. More details of each events can be found on the forums!
