Field

A **Field** is the location where every battle takes place. Except for Turf War, every game mode generates one. Dungeon of Trials, Global Events, Journey, and Divine Arena have predetermined fields, while Hall of Fame, Brawl and Gold Mine generate random ones each time.

A field has a total size of 6x4 squares and is divided into player side and enemy side.

 Example of a field

## Notation

The following notation assigning rows to letters and columns to numbers is used in the wiki (see Journey Guide) and on Discord. The below is a notational representation of the example field above.

## Play Order

*Do note that none and all of this matters because it will make or break a showdown with very low HP and a full board*

A random side will be chosen at the start of the match to start the game off. Each side may only play a single card per turn and Warlord Skills cards may be played with no limit and only ***BEFORE*** you play a card from your hero deck ( as playing such a card will end your playing phase ). However the turn they are unlocked is fixed and unique to each Warlord, with the exception of **Sudden Death**.

**Sudden Death** skill cards are drawn once at the start of the turn, from turn 11, and may be accumulated indefinitely and used all at once. Note however that damage values of *ALL* **Sudden Death** skill cards scale in damage when left unused, with the formula: **[Turn number]÷2 (rounded down)**. Meaning you do want to save them and only use them if you can manage to kill the enemy Warlord on that same turn.

## It's time for a lecture about skills

*Do also note that some ( rare ) skills are incredibly bugged or act in a strange manner and may even disobey these rules in extreme cases in the weirdest ways, this is a GENERAL guide | MINA I'M LOOKING AT YOU*

Any action by a unit on the board is determined by its **Activation Phase** and its **Minor/Major Turn Order**.

Most of which, if not all of which are intuitive if you think hard enough.

**Major Turn Order**: Yes it's just whose turn it is at that given moment as the **Turn Phase** cycles are affected by this. Also, if both boards have global **trap** type skills like 'Any Death: Deal Damage to Enemy Warlord' the skill on the player of the turn's side will proc [ activate ] first in the event any unit dies. Or Before Attack:

**Turn Phase Cycle**: Congrats for~~not~~ making it past basicity! Here, we have the basic phase cycle: Start of Turn ~> Drawing Phase ~> Playing Phase ~> Combat Phase ~> End of Turn. READ YOUR SKILL DESCRIPTIONS, their **Activation Phases** are stated there. These are the major priority brackets most skills are categorized by.

**Minor Turn Order**: *Finally something you actually need to think about!* The Minor Turn Order separates the activation of skills in the same priority bracket by dictating the order of which units are allowed to **Act** ( yes **Attacking** order too ). The order is as follows, **top-down rows** and **center map column-outer map columns**|mirrored basically. Eg. Your first tile to act is **A3** while the opponent's first tile to act is **A4**, likewise your last tile to act is **D1** and the last for your opponent is **D6**. Psst! Hey you there! Frost Totem/Tree can delete enemies in 1 turn, if you understood this you'd know how and why.

**Combat Phase**: ~~Hah! if you thought that was the end you're so wrong.~~ During the **Combat Phase**, units **Attack** one by one following the **Minor Turn Order**. However, there is yet another layer of priority when dealing with how skills activate and when damage is calculated! BEHOLD. Before Attack ~> Attack Damage ~> Attack Skills ~> Attacked Skills ~> Death. Yes! Death is last, which is exactly why Grace's numerous **smite** activation may not break through Shadow Shaa-Moona's Mental Shields even if her Eclipse Shard has technically been 'killed' by Grace's **attack** damage or her **smite** damage, as the Eclipse Shard is not considered 'dead' by the game yet [ note this is in a single attack, an extra attack completely refreshes the cycle except it skips the '**Before Attack**' phase ].

**Trap Skills**: Don't we all love **trap** type skills? These skills activate as and when WHENEVER their activation condition is met [ no fixed phase priority structure ], cutting into priorities the moment the skill is activated. ~~MINA I SWEAR YOU ARE WEIRD.~~ Examples of **trap** type skills are 'Block, Invulnerability, Mental Shield, Any Death' etc. [ Note Block and Invulnerability ( 9999 Block ) are the same thing, and like Mental Shield immediately trigger when the target takes damage, which is why Alex can hit a Lancelot for less damage before **silencing** him and a Hanzo with Mental Shield for 0 damage and yet still **silence** him.

**PLAY SKILLS**: *YOU THOUGHT DIDN'T YOU!* These activate before runes and ally/enemy appear skills - like Bastet's damage.

**Runes and Effect Tiles**: … Anyway these have the lowest priority in their respective priority groups. Runes take effect at the very end of all 'placement/appear' skills. Yes Blair's Mental Shield will activate first, allowing the unit spawned to tank a huge damage rune from a Yuri for example. All Start of Turn skills are played before Effect Tiles trigger too, allowing Agony to **smite** full health enemies before dying to a Pirate damage tile.

Final note, some changes to turn priority may be made by Pano and not discussed, they might also be localised to certain heroes. Another exception I forgot to mention was Santa, as his 'Transform' on attack skill seems to act even later than the priority of Death, meaning that if his physical attack KOs a hero and it dies, if the hero had any 'on death' skills, they will be triggered and Transform will not activate, this is also true with Dead Lord. ( Which is why a level 1 variant of Santa is often times more suited for actual use, if not a heavily underleveled variant so his HP pool does not immediately get vaporised by any small tick of indirect damage. )

## Decoration

At the start of a fight, there may be several Runes, Pentagrams, Decorations and frozen Heroes present.

  Decorations Decoration/Caesar's Head Decoration/Dark Tree Decoration/Wooden Totem