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
20,000 points
1.2. PLAYER AUCTIONPlayers wanting to join War must start 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 also select their 3 favorite elements. The Generals of these elements receive small advantages when bidding on that player in the auction.
Both banned and favorite elements cannot change once bidding starts.
Note: Player auction is a big part of 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. 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 5 players from the auction.
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 5 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.
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 for each overtime phase, minus 20 if the Generals is on that player's favorite elements list or the General is equal first (i.e. no General has a winning bid for that player) from the blind auction.
Generals can only have a maximum of 5 winning bids on 5 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.
Maximum total bid is 2000 points. This means that all 5 bids should not add up to more than 2000 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. When minimum raise increases, starting bid also increases. This means that during the the 1st overtime, starting bids are 20 higher (0 bans = 70 points, 1 ban = 120 points…).
Generals win 5 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.
Bidding is basically a choice between buying expensive veteran players and starting with a points disadvantage, buying cheap newbies but having a points advantage, or anything in between.
If a General fails to win the required 5 players, he/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. Basically, don't publicly talk about
anything that goes on here.
2.2 MEMBER ROLES1. General: Responsible for coordinating the team. If a member is unable to duel the General should coordinate 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. More on this later in the 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/pends/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 infinite supply of pillars/pends/mark cards and they do not need to be purchased.
Vault building rules:- At least 50% of cards 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. So try to pick cards that your members are able to access3. STARTING A ROUNDWar consists of multiple
rounds. Each round lasts 1 week and will consist of 2 phases: Deckbuilding (4 days) and Duels (3 days)
3.1 DETERMINING OPPONENTSAmount of cards in the Vault determine how many players from each team participates on 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 no team will play another team more than once within a given round if possible. If there are an uneven number of players fighting during a round, the team which has to field the most 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. Included should be Event Cards designed by Warmasters. Event Cards have a global effect upon all teams during that round.
In Rounds 2 & 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.
This is where boosts come in. Each soldier is able to use 1 boost. The boost used must be different than the 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 name and the boost used. Deckbuilding rules:- Combining all decks must 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
9,6,4 upgraded cards respectively,
with 3 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 attentionExplicitly 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 that the opposing team chooses how much salvage you receive (up to 4) if you win the match.
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 & DESYNCSDisconnects are treated as Desyncs, in a way. If your opponent times out/goes away, and ai takes over, you must have a win screenie to claim a win.
Desyncs will result in both players playing against the AI unless both agree to restart the duel. Screenshot of the winning turn vs 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 reduel 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 insta-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
4 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, except for Shards.4.2 LOSING A BATTLEWhen a team loses a battle they have to
discard cards from the deck used. Cards that are left in the deck after discarding are returned back to Vault. Remeber, the discards cannot be pillars/pends.
| Loss in | Discard |
| Round #1 | 6 cards |
| Round #2 | 9 cards |
| Round #3 | 12 cards |
| Round #4+ | 15 cards |
4.3 WINNING WARIf you're the only team left, or nobody is left and you have the largest vault out of anyone who participated in the last round, you've won. The winning team of War earns:
- Cool forum award icons.
- The forum "Reigned by" image will be changed to show which element won.
- And a Mark/Nymph reward code for each worthy member (as decided by an admin)
Otherwise a new 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: 3 cards. Small & harmless things like posting an illegal deck by mistake.
Medium penalty: 6 cards. For bigger infractions like not doing what they are supposed to do because of inactivity.
Major penalty: 12 cards. For major infractions like seriously disrupting the whole 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.
To see how War is in reality, visit the War Archive subboard. Some things were done differently during previous Wars but the principles remain.
