1. BUILDING AN ARMY1.1. GENERALSWar will have 12 Generals, one for each Element. Masters are the Generals of their Element by default. If a Master is unable to join War, he or she will appoint a replacement General (Sr. Member or above). If a Master does not appoint a General, one will be picked by the Council. Generals start with
30,000 points, which will be used for building their team and their vault.
1.2. PLAYER AUCTIONPlayers wanting to join War must submit their own War application topic in the
War Auction board, where they should include relevant information.
Players may ban up to 3 Elements from bidding on them, however, each ban increases the minimum bid for that player by
50 points. Players must include their in-game name. All War matches must be played by them through that same in-game name.
Players may also select up to 3 favorite Elements. The Generals of these Elements receive small advantages when bidding on that player in the auction.
Banned and favorite Elements may not be changed once bidding starts.
Note: the player auction is a big part of the War event, so unfortunately there are no guarantees that you will get to join the team you want. Players who later refuse to fight for the element that bought them, or who become inactive and fight with zero motivation, will be removed from the event and banned from the next War. The only way to get to join a specific team is to convince the General of that element to bid high on you. Bidding lasts 4 days and consists of a 1-day blind auction and a 3-day open auction (plus overtime). Each General recruits 4 players from the auction. Depending on signups, this may increase to 5 players.
1.2.1. BLIND AUCTIONThe blind auction will last 24 hours. During this time, Generals may resend their bids at any time. Only the last PM received from each General will be considered.
All Generals are to send a list of bids
to the Warmasters. Generals may blind bid on up to 4 players, as long as they are not on the player's ban list.
All blind bids are limited to the lowest possible bid (e.g. No bans = 50 points, 1 ban = 100 points, 2 bans = 150 points, etc). If there is a tie, the General higher on the player's favorite Elements list will be considered to have the higher bid. If none of the tied Generals are on the player's favorite Elements list, these generals have a minimum raise of 50 points on that player in the open auction.
1.2.2. OPEN AUCTIONThe open auction lasts for 3 days. At the beginning of the open auction, the Warmasters will reveal all bids from the blind auction, and the General who placed them. Generals will bid using the following template:
[color=yellow][size=72pt]20 points[/size][/color]Once a bid has been posted, it is final. Editing or removing a bid is strictly prohibited, and will lead to a penalty.
The minimum raise is 50 points,
plus 20 points if the previous bid was from the blind auction,
plus 20 points for each overtime phase,
minus 20 points if the General is on that player's favorite Elements list,
or the General currently holds the highest bid.
If a player has zero bids at any point in the auction, the overtime phase increase will not apply for the first bid.Generals can only have a maximum of 4 winning bids on 4 different players at a time. Also, Generals can only bid on a maximum of 15 different players throughout the entire auction. Generals can bid on these players as many times as they like. This limit is irrespective of whether you are winning or losing (or have lost) the auction. Generals may raise bids on these players irrespective of who the last vote was. (i.e. if it was their own, or an opposing General.)
The maximum total bid is 2500 points. This means that all 4 bids should not add up to more than 2500 points.There is one universal auction clock during the open auction. When the clock is running, Generals can bid on anyone. When the clock stops and there were no new bids made during the last 24 hours, the auction is over. If there
were new bids made during the last 24 hours, we go to overtime, the clock gets reset back to 24 hours, and the minimum raise increases by 20 points. Players that currently have no bids on them at the start of each overtime will
not have a minimum starting bid increase.
When overtime begins,
if no bids were placed on a player during the previous 24 hour phase of the auction, the player will be locked into the team with the current highest bid. Players will not be locked into teams during the open auction phases - player locking only begins at the start of the first overtime phase.
1.2.3. BATTLE BIDDINGAny player that was bid on in the last five minutes of any phase will enter "
Battle Bidding" status, in which their individual auction clock will be fixed, and the minimum bid will not be increased. Battle Bidding status ends when no new bids are placed for five minutes - additional bids will reset the Battle Bidding timer to five minutes. Generals may continue to bid on the player until the end of the Battle Bidding. At the end of Battle Bidding, if the General who held the highest bid before entering Battle Bidding remains as the leader, the player will be locked into that team as per standard overtime rules. If a different General holds the highest bid at the end of Battle Bidding, the player will
not be locked into the new General's team, and overtime will proceed as normal. There is no limit to the number of times a player can enter and leave Battle Bidding status over the course of the auction.
Generals win 4 players for whom they bid the most
and they were the highest bidder. If there is a tie for highest bidder leftover from the blind auction, the general higher on that player's favorite elements list wins the player. If neither General is on that player's favorite Elements list, the player decides which team to join.
Spoiler for Example:
If a General had made the following bids:
Player A - 800 points (highest bidder)
Player B - 750 points (3rd highest bidder)
Player C - 600 points (highest bidder)
Player D - 500 points (highest bidder)
Player E - 500 points (2nd highest bidder)
Player F - 400 points (2nd highest bidder)
Player G - 300 points (highest equal bidder from blind auction, not a favorite Element)
Player H - 200 points (highest equal bidder from blind auction, favorite Element)
They would win players A, C and D because they have the highest bid for those players, and player H as they had the highest-equal bid and were highest in the player's favorite Elements list.
This team would cost 800 + 600 + 500 + 200 = 2,100 points. Generals start with 30,000 points, and the remaining points go towards building the Vault - thus, the team would have 30,000 - 2,100 = 27,900 points to spend on cards for the Vault.
Bidding is essentially a choice between buying expensive veterans and starting with a point disadvantage, buying cheaper, less experienced players but keeping a point advantage, or anything in between.
If a General fails to win the required 4 players, he or she is forced to buy one or more remaining players with a price of the minimum bid that can be made at that time.
2. PREPARATION2.1. SECRET FORUM SECTIONEach team has a hidden subboard visible only to its members, Warmasters and non-participating Administrators. All discussions held here MUST be kept secret. A player caught telling team secrets to anyone outside their own team will face consequences decided on a case-by-case basis, possibly including being permanently banned from all Elements community PvP Events. Please don't publicly talk about
anything that goes on in these boards.
2.2. MEMBER ROLES1. General: Responsible for coordinating the team. If a team member is unable to duel, the General should arrange a substitute.
2. Lieutenant: Second in command. They should be the first to fill in for Generals when necessary.
3. Soldiers: The rest of your team. The soldiers will be able to consume certain boosts (described later in this post.)
2.3. THE VAULTThe Vault is your heart in War. Not only does it supply cards for deckbuilding, but acts as "hit points" for the team.
If a team falls below 50 cards, they will be eliminated. These cards do not include pillars/pendulums/mark cards.
Points that were not used during the player draft will be used to buy cards to form the team starting Vault. Market prices for cards can be found
here. You have an infinite supply of pillars/pendulums/mark cards, which do not need to be purchased from the market.
Vault building rules:- at least 50% of cards in the Vault must be in your Element.
- maximum of 24 per card from your Element
- maximum of 9 per card from other Elements
- you may not have Relics in your Vault.
Cards in the Vault are always unupgraded. During deckbuilding, unupgraded cards may be taken from the Vault, and transformed into upgraded cards for that deck, up to the limits mentioned below. If you move an upgraded card back to the Vault, it becomes unupgraded.
"Mark of ..." cards are considered in the element they feature.
Important! Vaults are virtual. Players are not given cards taken from the Vault, nor are any cards removed from their account if they lose. Players must own the cards on their Elements game account in order to use them. If a player doesn't have a specific card in their account, they cannot use it, even if that card is listed in the Vault. Try to pick cards that your teammates are able to access.3. STARTING A ROUNDWar consists of multiple
rounds. Each round lasts one week, and will consist of two phases: Deckbuilding (4 days) and Dueling (3 days.)
3.1. DETERMINING OPPONENTSThe number of cards in the Vault determine how many players from each team participates in a round:
| 0-49 cards | = | team is eliminated |
| 50-74 cards | = | 2 players fight |
| 75-99 cards | = | 3 players fight |
| 100-124 cards | = | 4 players fight |
| 125+ | = | 5 players fight |
Opponents will be determined randomly by Warmasters, with the constraint that, if possible, no team will play another team more than once within a given round. If there are an uneven number of players fighting during a round, the team which has to field the largest number of players will have a bye, meaning one player in that team will skip the round. If there is more than one team which must field that number of players, then the bye will go to the team which has had the fewest byes so far out of those teams. If there is a tie for the team which has had the fewest number of byes, it will go to the team with the most cards out of those teams.
Duel pairings will be made public by Warmasters. Event Cards designed by Warmasters will be included, which will have a global effect upon all teams during that round.
In rounds 2 and 4, teams are intentionally seeded against teams they did not play in the previous round.
3.2. DECKBUILDINGTeams must build a deck for each player fighting during the round.
Each Soldier is able to use one boost per round. The boost used must be different than any boost used by another Soldier in the team. These boosts must be submitted in the Element's private board. It should be titled "Round X Boosts" and you simply need to say the player name and the boost used. Deckbuilding rules:- combining all decks may not use more than the Vault carries. Upgraded cards in decks are counted as unupgraded cards in the vault.
- at least 50% of the cards must be in your Element.
- Generals, Lieutenants, and Soldiers may use up to
11,8,4 upgraded cards respectively,
with 4 extra in-Element upgraded cards.- teams may spend a Relic to grant 1 extra upgrade to a deck. There is no limit to how many Relics may be spent per round, however, Event Cards may change the ability of Relics each round, so pay close attention.
Explicitly Illegal Decks: Teams may title their illegal decks "Suicide". If so, they will not be penalized beyond a 0-3 result.
You must
not edit your decks, salvage, discard, etc. after the deckbuilding period ends. Doing so will result in a penalty, regardless of what the change was.
3.3. DUELSPlayers will contact their opponent to try find a time that suits both. If the fight does not happen, both players lose by default, unless one player is clearly more active in trying to find a suitable time. Warmasters will determine who the most active player is.
Matches are best-of-five, which means that each battle's winner is the first player to win 3 duels. Remember, you must play all duels with the same deck and mark.
3.4. INACTIVE PLAYERSIf it looks like a member won't be able to fight during a round, the team has various options:
1. Temporarily replace a member with any other member. Temporary replacements use the same exact deck, number of upgrades, and mark as recorded for that player. The first substitution each round is free. After the first substituted game, the opposing team chooses which cards the winning team will salvage from the deck - these cards may not be transmuted.
2. Permanently replace a member with a player who submitted an application, but didn't end up on a team.
3. To permanently replace a General (as leader of the team), every other member must agree that the General needs replacing, and a consensus must be reached on who the new General will be. Warmasters will remove the General from the team at no cost. If a new player needs to be added, see above.
Note that a substitute may not use ANY cards the player they are replacing does not have.
3.5. DISCONNECTS & DESYNCSIf your opponent times out, and the AI takes over, you
must have a screenshot to claim the win.
Desyncs will result in both players playing against the AI, unless
both agree to restart the duel. A screenshot of the winning turn vs. the opponent's AI must be provided in order to claim a win or replay. If both players beat the AI, and one player takes a screenshot while the other does not, then the player with the screenshot wins. In the event both players win or lose, and both present screenshots, a re-duel will be ordered. The exception to this rule is if both players agree that one player would have won/lost if it were not for AI misplays. All games can be appealed to WMs, but there must be indisputable evidence provided that one player would have clearly won. Whether one player would have clearly won is decided strictly, and providing more information makes it more likely that an accurate ruling will occur.
If the desync causes strange things (impossible changes in game state, not including instant-win/lose) to happen, take a screenshot, and the duel will be replayed.
4. POSTBATTLE4.1. WINNING A BATTLEThe
winner of the duel starts a new topic in the "Battle Results" section, indicating the teams, the member roles, & the score. Member roles are abbreviated (Gen, Lt, Sld). For example if "KingKiller" from
fights "LordOwner" from
& wins 3-1, he will start a topic that could be titled in one of the following ways:
(Air Gen) KingKiller 3 - 1 (Water Lt) LordOwner
(Air Gen) KingKiller 3 - 1 LordOwner (Water Lt)
(Air Gen) KingKiller 3 - (Water Lt) LordOwner 1
(Air Sld) KingKiller 3 - 1 (Water Gen) LordOwner
(Air Lt) KingKiller 3 - (Water Sld) (Sub) LordOwner 1 (use SUB to indicate that someone else played instead of LordOwner) In that topic, KingKiller will post his deck, and should summarize the match. LordOwner will then reply to that
same topic with his deck. He may also talk about the battle if he so chooses. Everyone may post in the topics after LordOwner replies.
If the player who played the match is not available to post their deck immediately afterwards, one of their teammates must do it. If this happens, the player should post in the same topic as soon as they are available.
The winning team salvages cards from the opponent's deck. The winning team MUST pick
6 cards to copy from the deck of the losing player into their vault unupgraded. These cards become part of the Vault.
When salvaging cards into your Vault, you may choose to transmute them into cards of your own element instead.
Salvaged cards may be transmuted at a two to one (2:1) ratio into any in-element card which you do not already have 12 copies of in your Vault.4.2. LOSING A BATTLEWhen a team loses a battle, they have to
discard cards from the deck used and/or the Vault according to the chart below. Cards that are left in the deck after discarding are returned back to Vault. The discards may not be pillars/pendulums/mark cards, as these do not exist in the Vault.
| Round | Discards from Deck | Discards from Vault | Total Discards |
| 1 | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2 | 8 | 2 | 10 |
| 3 | 11 | 4 | 15 |
| 4+ | 14 | 6 | 20 |
- "Discards from Vault" may be chosen from the vault and/or the losing deck.
- "Discards from Deck" may only be chosen from the losing deck. If there is less than 0/4/8/12 non-pillar/pendulum/marks cards in the deck, the remaining cards will be taken from the vault.
4.3. WINNING WARA team wins War by being the last team standing, or by having the largest vault out of all participants in the last round if none of them remain standing. The winning team of War earns:
- a forum award icon:
- the forum "Reigned by" image will be changed to show which Element won
- a Mark/Nymph reward code will be given to each worthy member (as decided by an administrator)
If two or more teams still have at least 50 cards in their Vault, the next round begins.
5. PENALTIESPenalties are issued when a team somehow breaks the rules or disrupts War. A penalized team must discard from their Vault at the round's end. The following are guidelines, and Warmasters will determine penalties on a case-by-case basis.
Minor penalty: 5 cards. For small mistakes which do not disrupt the course of the event.
Medium penalty: 20 cards. For larger infractions which cause minor delays to the event.
Major penalty: 40 cards. For major infractions which seriously disrupt the event.
BACKROOM DEALSConspiring with other teams is forbidden. Even discussing already public information ruins the spirit of the event, making it less fun for everybody.
HAVE FUN!War is a very exciting event and, despite being a lot to take in at first, is a fantastic opportunity for newer players to drastically improve their skills by working closely with experienced veterans. While the main appeal of War may be total Elemental domination, the primary goal for all players should be nice and simple - have fun!
To see how War is in reality, visit the War Archive subboard. Some things were done differently during previous Wars, but the same principles remain.
