What the cards don't tell you...

[Higurashi]

Aye, older players tend to differentiate between active abilities, activated abilities, statuses and symbol statuses. A single card can have all of these conditions.

- Active abilities are written out under the creature and apply without player input. They can be lobotomized, which means they can also be replaced by some other active abilities. Among spells, only Acceleration and Liquid Shadow have a lobotomizing effect and therefore have double use as creature control spells against creatures like Phoenix. They can also be used as a last ditch effort to remove abilities like Queen on Firefly Queen or Scarab on Pharaoh.

- An activated ability is a type of active ability. This requires the player to click the card to activate and sometimes select a target as well. These are sometimes written out under the creature like a proper active, sometimes not. Can be lobo'd.

- Statuses can be viewed on the "back" of the card by moving your cursor over it. It includes statuses like frozen, delayed and immaterial. Only some of these can be removed, and only by unique means (Quint removes frozen, Adrenaline helps with delayed).

- Symbol statuses are only visible thanks to a symbol on the creature. Adrenaline, Momentum, Immaterial, wise, infected and purified. These are treated uniquely.
Adrenaline can't be removed without removing the creature and isn't visible either as an active ability or a status.
Momentum adds an active ability upon play that can be lobo'd.
Immaterial is both a status symbol and a status that is applied when a creature is given the active ability either upon being played (Immortal, Phase Dragon) or by playing Quint on the creature. As such it's actually a three-part condition that could be lobo'd if the creature could be targeted.
Wise can only be applied to immaterial creatures and changes the nature of the attack from physical to spell type. This means on-hit effects like vampiric cannot be applied with the attack of a wise creature, however the creature doesn't lose the vampiric active ability. An Antimattered wise creature still heals the opponent since it applies negative damage rather than a kind of on-hit effect.
Infected can only be removed by Purify.
Purify can only be removed by infection.

In addition to these conditions, a card can also have a passive ability that you can view on its back. These are abilities like ranged and airborne, which allow the creature to bypass Wings. Currently there's only one interaction here; airborne can be removed with the activated ability Web.
Devourer is also a passive ability, so lobotomizing a Devourer only removes its activated ability Burrow. Devourer, like the poisonous abilities, only apply on the first and last turn of a creature which is a way of balancing the way they interact with Adrenaline. The difference is that the poisonous abilities are active abilities and therefore can be lobotomized.

[FancyPants]

Thanks this was a good read!

Is it wise to just go after buffing up one with multiple buffs or spreading out the buffs across other cards?

[Higurashi]

That depends on what you're up against. An Air deck may be packing Shockwaves which gives you an incentive to put creatures above 4 HP (or more in case of Thunderstorm). An Aether deck may be packing Lightning, which puts the threshold at 5 HP. Fire may pack Fire Bolts, which gives you increments of 3 (6 damage at 10 and so on). Time, Earth, Gravity, Water and Entropy may pack Reverse Time, Basilisk Blood, Gravity Pull, Freeze or Antimatter, which makes you want to spread the buffs out and/or consider using burrow.

Regardless of these conditions, it's natural to want to increase the HP of low-HP high-attack creatures like an evolved Graboid (Shrieker), or of especially valuable creatures like Mind Flayer if you're up against Pharaoh or Firefly Queen. Or maybe you got an early Forest Spirit in a Nova rush deck and you get the best reason to use Improved Blessing instantly.

Immortals and Phase Dragons are unique in that Shard of Wisdom doesn't just increase attack but also allows them to bypass shields. This means you usually want to spread the Shards out since this lessens the effect of damage reduction shields and creature control shields (Fire Shield, Thorn Carapace and Skull Shield). That said, you can often count out your turns to win and find out you'll win faster by stacking the shards on one Immortal/Phase Dragon. Or maybe you're up against a Light or Life deck and you want to stack the shards because you could still win with your unbuffed creatures if your opponent played a reflective shield.

[Monox D. I-Fly]

- Symbol statuses are only visible thanks to a symbol on the creature. Adrenaline, Momentum, Immaterial, wise, infected and purified. These are treated uniquely.
Adrenaline can't be removed without removing the creature and isn't visible either as an active ability or a status.
Momentum adds an active ability upon play that can be lobo'd.
Immaterial is both a status symbol and a status that is applied when a creature is given the active ability either upon being played (Immortal, Phase Dragon) or by playing Quint on the creature. As such it's actually a three-part condition that could be lobo'd if the creature could be targeted.

Does it mean that a creature can have both Adrenaline and Momentum at once?

[Espithel]

- Symbol statuses are only visible thanks to a symbol on the creature. Adrenaline, Momentum, Immaterial, wise, infected and purified. These are treated uniquely.
Adrenaline can't be removed without removing the creature and isn't visible either as an active ability or a status.
Momentum adds an active ability upon play that can be lobo'd.
Immaterial is both a status symbol and a status that is applied when a creature is given the active ability either upon being played (Immortal, Phase Dragon) or by playing Quint on the creature. As such it's actually a three-part condition that could be lobo'd if the creature could be targeted.

Does it mean that a creature can have both Adrenaline and Momentum at once?

Yep. Upped Chargers are also in one of the adrenaline sweet spots, too.

[Higurashi]

And it's also why Unstoppable Adrenastaffs is quite a thing to behold (and quite a thing to lobotomize). 2 statuses and an ability, Adrenaline, Momentum and regenerate working in tandem. At both 2 and 3 attack the Staff gets 4 attacks, and attacks are the same thing as turns for each individual card. That's why you don't upgrade the Staff if you're planning on using Adrenaline on them. In addition, as we all know, 3 attack is where Adrenaline adds the most amount of damage, proportionally speaking.

[Monox D. I-Fly]

Okay, now...

In addition to these conditions, a card can also have a passive ability that you can view on its back. These are abilities like ranged and airborne, which allow the creature to bypass Wings. Currently there's only one interaction here; airborne can be removed with the activated ability Web.

Can we have any way to see the card's back when we are in the Manage Deck menu? I made a Wind Guardians deck consisted of Phoenixes, Vultures, and Cockatrices then someone pointed out that Cockatrice couldn't fly, something couldn't be checked unless the card in question is on the field.

[Higurashi]

Not in-game, however the Wiki should have info of that nature.

[CactusKing]

sorry about the bump, but I found an error in the original post.

Malignant cells won't be killed by flooding.

Malignant cell is the only neutral creature, and the flooding card says neutral creatures are immune to it's effects. So the cards do tell you after all.

[dragtom]

Malignant cell is the only neutral creature

flying weapons.