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Cardmaster Conflict is a Java-based Collectable Card Game. The game is designed to automate every aspect not requiring user choice. Cards have special effects, rarity, and everything you would expect out of your average physical card game. All commands are done through the bot. This guide explains how to play the game.
Contents |
Getting Started
For those of you who have played Magic, there is a quick-start guide here.
The first thing you need to do is check the Create New Account page. Just follow the instructions on the page, inputting your username, your e-mail address, and your password. Your e-mail address won't be publically viewable, and it won't be used to send spam.
Next, you need to choose a starter deck. You have a choice of three starter decks per main expansion set. Each one is 40-50 cards with a decent spread of mana, commons, uncommons and a few rares. The Light decks are primarily defensive, the Dark decks are primarily offensive, and the Grey decks are good all round. Mechanical Chaos is the exception, and should probably be avoided as it is the most complex. If you can't decide which deck to start with, just remember that you can find all the cards in booster packs or even purchase extra starter decks.
After finishing on that page, you should be sent an e-mail confirmation to the e-mail address you signed up with. Just follow the instructions on that, and you should be ready to start playing. Your new account will come with 1000 points to spend in addition to your chosen starter deck.
If you don't receive your e-mail confirmation, you can get your account verified by posting on the forum, or on the IRC chat.
The Matchmaker
When you log in and click on the "Play" button, you will be taken to the chat room, or Matchmaker. This allows you to chat with other users, play with other users, and trade with other users. At the top are four buttons, which switch your mode.
- Play - This mode lets you play against other users in the same mode.
- Trade - This mode lets you trade with other users in the same mode.
- Chat - This mode doesn't let you play or trade, but can be used to simply chat with other users.
- Away - This mode is functionally the same as Chat, but lets others know that you may not be available to reply to them.
Each player's box includes their Avatar, their wins and losses, their mode icon, and other miscellaneous icons.
If you want to challenge a user, make sure that you are in the same mode (The OK! icon should indicate this) and then click on their info box. If they then click on your info box, the game will automatically start. Please don't spam challenges against the same users, as this fills up their chat box and can be quite annoying.
Matchmaker Icons
 | - User is in Play mode. |  | - User can be challenged to Trade or Play. |
 | - User is in Trade mode. |  | - User has donated to Cardmaster Conflict. |
 | - User is in Chat mode. |  | - User is an Administrator. |
 | - User is in Away mode. |  | - User has won a number of official Tournaments equal to number of icons. |
Decks and Points
All of the cards you own will be held in decks. Every time you buy a booster pack, starter deck, trade, or obtain cards by most other methods, you will generate a new deck. Each deck has a name and a number. The name is what you call it, and the number is how the CMC program indexes it. The name shows up in the deck management screen and will also be announced when you first start a game. However, only the deck number will be shown on the menu to the right under "Primary".
Deck Management
To manage your decks, click on the Decks button. You will receive a few choices.
View Deck
This will show you the contents of your deck. Here, you can see detailed information about each card, including the rarity, sell value and number in the deck. At the bottom is the total deck size, the deck's number, and a "Sell Entire Deck" command.
Selling individual cards will instantly sell them, whereas selling the entire deck will prompt for confirmation first. All cards sold go to the Public Store for others to purchase at approximately three times the sell price. The deck is then deleted unless it is the Primary Deck (see below).
Set Primary Deck
No matter how many decks you have, you can only play using one at a time. The deck you play with is your primary deck; its name is appended with (Primary), and its number is displayed with your stats on every page. To change your primary deck, choose the new deck you want to play with and click "Switch Deck". Please ensure that it is large enough to play with. Primary Decks cannot be deleted even with the sell all/move all cards commands.
Move Cards
This command lets you choose two decks to move cards between. The contents of the two decks are displayed in two columns, and besides each card is a [-] button, a number, and a [+] button. The number denotes the amount to be moved, and the buttons change the amount. Once you have selected the cards you want to move and the quantities, click "Move Cards!" at the top of the screen to move them. You can move cards both to and from a deck at the same time. "Return to decks" will take you back to the same screen again, but the numbers of each card will be updated.
Move Entire Deck
Moves all cards from the first deck to the second deck, and then deletes the first deck unless it is the Primary Deck. This command cannot move a deck into itself.
Set Deck Name
For ease of keeping track of your decks, you can give them names. The names appear in the deck management screen and in an announcement at the start of each game.
Create Empty Deck
Creates a new, empty deck named "Generic Deck".
Remember that you may need to refresh the Decks page to see any changes that might have occurred.
Points
The currency of Cardmaster Conflict is points. There are four ways to get points: winning, losing, selling cards, and trading. You can spend points on new starter decks, booster packs, singles, avatar parts and in trading.
Whenever you win a game, you get a number of points equal to:
200 + (Opponent's Wins) + (Opponent's Losses)/5 (Maximum of 400 points)
When you lose, you gain about half the points:
50 + (Opponent's Wins)/2 + (Opponent's Losses)/10 (Maximum of 200 points)
Regular booster packs cost 800 points and contain 15 cards: 9 commons (rarity 1-60), 5 uncommons (rarity 61-85), and 1 rare (rarity 86-100). Booster packs for Unknown Expeditions and Masterwork Tools cost 250 points and contain 3 cards of unspecified rarity.
The starter decks available are the same as when you first signed up. Each one costs 3000 points.
To buy singles from the public store or personal stores, select a deck and browse the selection.
Avatar parts can be bought at the store in the avatar section. Note that there is currently no way to sell or trade avatar parts.
The Cards
Card Types
There are five types of cards; Monsters, Effects, Spells, Modifiers and Locations. A brief overview of each of the types is located below. For further information, see the individual pages of each type.
Monsters
| An example monster | Monsters are the bread and butter of most decks. They are a reusable force that can hurt your opponent, hurt other monsters, and protect you from your opponent's monsters. You can only call monsters into play during your Play phase. Normally, they come into play dizzy, which means they can't attack, block, or use any of their activatable abilities. Many monsters also have special abilities. Some of the more common special abilities can be found below, in the glossary. Other special abilities will generally be explained on the card itself. Further information can usually be found by searching for the card on this wiki. You can have up to 5 monsters in play at a time, one at each of the bottom slots on your side. |
Effects
| An example effect | Effects are the other kind of reusable card. They are played during your play phase, just like monsters. In addition, they may have passive and activated abilities, of the latter can only be used while undizzy. Unlike monsters, they have no attack or life and can not attack or defend. Fortunately, this makes them harder to destroy. Like monsters, to use an effect's activated ability, click on the Ability button, then on the effect, then on a target if one is required. This can be done at any time while the effect is undizzy. If the ability begins with |
Spells
| An example spell | Unlike other types of cards, spells can be played at any time. Spells that can be cast will be highlighted. To cast a spell, just click on the spell, then on the target if required. All spells are described in the text of the card, and all spells have an ability speed. |
Locations
| An example location | Locations are special in that there is only one location slot, and both players use that one slot. When a location is played, it automatically replaces the existing location. Any abilities on a location affect both players, though only the person that played the location pays its mana cost. Locations can not be sacrificed. All games begin with a Plains as the location, which has no ability. |
Modifiers
| An example modifier | Introduced in Mechanical Chaos, modifiers are cards played during your play phase on existing monsters or effects. They can be seen in the "Mod" mode (click "Mods"), and entities that have modifiers attached to them gain a mod icon ( ). They are permanent - the only way to remove a modifier is to remove the card it is attached to. Each entity can have at most one modifier on it. Any ability of the modifier is run by the parent entity - this means that any ability that dizzies as a cost will dizzy the parent entity, not the modifier. To activate abilities given by the modifier however, one must hit the ability button and then go to mod mode and select the mod rather than the entity it is attached too. Modifiers themselves are not entities and cannot be seen or counted or affected by other cards in play. Allying and Power does, however, count seperately on a modifier. Thus a card with allying having a mod with allying will count twice towards the number of allies.
|
Card Breakdown
A breakdown of the cards can be seen here:
- Mana Cost : The mana cost shows how expensive the card is. It is shown in he order of Dark mana (
), Light mana (
), and Grey mana (
).
- Sac Value : The sac value shows how much mana you can get for sacrificing the card during your sacrifice phase. Spells, locations and modifiers have no sac value.
- Dizzy Indicator : The dizzy indicator will show a ring of stars if the card is currently dizzy, a red cross if the card will not undizzy at it's next draw phase like normal, or both if both are true.
- Card Name : This is the name of the card. If a card is Unique you can't play a second with the same name until the first is removed.
- Card Image : This has no affect on the game, but can help you remember what each card is other than by name alone.
- Card Type : Certain spells and abilities affect different cards depending on their monster type, effect type or modifier type.
- Card Text : The card text will tell you any abilities the card has, and sometimes has flavor text.
- Expansion Set : This symbol tells you which expansion the card comes from.
- Attack/Life : Attack and lifepoints are generally only on creatures. Some effects will have a numerical counter here though.
Ability Speed
All spells, and some monsters, effects and modifiers will have a speed attribute. 
means the ability is instantaneously resolved. Other cards range from 
being the fastest, to 
being the slowest. If two cards or abilities of the same speed are played, the cards from the active player resolve first. If there's still a tie, the cards in the tie are resolved in the order they were played. Aside from cards labeled , no spells or abilities are resolved until both players have clicked on the Ability Resolve button. If a spell/ability no longer has a valid target when it resolves, it fizzles; You still pay the cost for it, and you lose the spell, but it has no other effect. Further information is available at Speed System.
Playing the game
When you start a game, the CMC program will randomly decide who goes first and announce which decks they are playing. Both players will draw 5 cards and start with 1 mana of each color. The person who goes first will not draw a card during their first draw phase. The person going second will draw a card, but will not generate any mana on his first turn. That is, both players start their turn with the same amount of mana, and the second player gets an extra card.
The Playing Field
Here is what the playing field looks like:
- 1: These tabs will let you see the cards in your hand, in your graveyard, or information on all cards seen in the current game.
- 2: These are the cards in your hand. If the tabs were used, the cards from your graveyard or card information would be here instead.
- 3: This is your opponent's information. It is also where you click if you want to target your opponent. The icons are as follows:
-
: Cards in hand
-
: Cards in deck
-
: Cards in graveryard
-
: Life remaining
- : Dark mana, Light mana and Grey mana.
-
- 4: Whenever a spell is cast or you put your cursor over a card, it will be enlarged here.
- 5: This is your information. It is also where you click to target yourself. The icons are the same as in your opponent's information.
- 6: This row is where all of your opponent's monsters are.
- 7: This is the row where your opponent's effects are.
- 8: This is the row where your effects are.
- 9: This is the row where your monsters are.
- 10: The control buttons. These are as follows:
- Next : Takes you to the next phase.
- Ability : Lets you use the ability of a monster, effect or modifier in play.
- Mods : Switches the view to show attached modifiers, and back again.
- Cancel : Will cancel untargetted abilities and spells, reset attackers or blockers, and undo the first click on surrender.
- Ability Resolve : Will resolve all spells and abilities with a speed other than
. Both players must click this.
- Surrender : Will let you immediately lose the game. You must click it twice. Please don't use this if the person is a turn away from winning. Just let them finish you off.
- 11: This is the game events window. It will display all cards played, phases changed, abilities trying to resolve, the results of combat, and a myriad of other useful pieces of information.
- 12: This is the chat window. Enter your own chat below. There are also some chat commands.
- 13: This is the location slot. All games begin with a Plains in play.
Order of Play
The Draw Phase
This phase is entirely automated. During this phase, you draw a card, gain 1 mana of each color, and all of your effects and monsters undizzy. You also gain more mana for any cards you have which generate mana. You also lose mana for any cards with a maintenance. If you have more than 8 cards in your hand, you will be forced to discard down to 8.
The Sacrifice Phase
Most monsters and effects have a Sacrifice Value, denoted by the mana values shown below the cost. During your Sacrifice phase, you can double click on any monster or effect you control. This will give you mana equal to the Sacrifice Value of that card, but will also destroy that card. See Sacrifice for further details regarding the sacrificing of your entities.
Note that Sacrifice is very frequently shortened to sac, and Sacrificing shortened to saccing.
The Play Phase
During this phase, you can play monsters and effects. Any monsters or effects that you can afford to cast will be highlighted. Just click on the card you want to cast, and then on the open slot you want to cast it to. Monsters go in the bottom row, and effects go into the row above it. Most monsters and a few effects come into play dizzy and can not block, attack, or use any abilities.
To use the ability of an undizzy monster or effect, click on the Ability button, then on the monster or effect you want to use. To cast a spell, just click on the spell card in your hand. Both abilities and spells can be done at any time (this just seemed a good place to reiterate their use).
The Attack Phase
To attack, click on the undizzy monster you want to attack with, then either click on your opponent or a monster. Repeat until you have assigned all the attackers you want. Remember, you can change the target of each of your monster's attacks, but there is currently no way to cancel attacking. Monsters cannot be attacked by more than one attacker: any additional attackers switch to attacking the player directly.
The Defense Phase
This phase only happens if your opponent declared any attackers. During the Defense phase of your opponent's turn, you are in control of the phase, meaning that the phase ends when you are ready.
If your opponent has directly attacked one of your monsters (by choosing your monster as the target of his attack), then both monsters will be highlighted in the same color. A monster being directly attacked must block that attacking monster and no others, unless the attacking monster is removed from combat. Any monsters that are not dizzy and are not being directly attacked can choose to block a monster that is not directly attacking a monster and that is not blocked by another monster.
| Winged Demons are 50/35, NPC is 0/10, Brick Wall is 0/60 and Stone Golem is 45/45. |
| Player A controls two Winged Demons and an NPC. Player B controls a Brick Wall and a Stone Golem. Player A has the NPC directly attack the Brick Wall, and has both Winged Demons attack Player B directly. Player B can not choose to block either of the Winged Demons with the Brick Wall, because it is blocking the NPC. Player B's Stone Golem can choose to block either Winged Demon however, since they are attacking Player B directly. The Stone Golem cannot block the NPC. If Player B casts a spell to dizzy or destroy the NPC (Firebolt or FMV for example), the Brick Wall would then be free to block a Winged Demon. |
If your monster attacks your opponent and is not blocked, it will deal damage equal to its attack power to your opponent. If your monster attacks your opponent and is blocked, half of the damage beyond what is needed to kill the monster will damage your opponent, rounded down. Monsters that directly attack other monsters will never deal overflow damage.
| Continued from the example above... |
| Player B chooses to block one of the Winged Demons with their Stone Golem. The first Winged Demon will deal 50 damage to Player B. The second Winged Demon will deal 50 damage to the Stone Golem; 5 more than enough to kill it, so Player B will take an extra 2 Spillover damage. The Stone Golem will also deal 45 damage to the Winged Demon; 10 more than enough to kill it. Because the Stone Golem is defending however, there is no overflow damage. Player B takes a total of 52 damage this round. |
The Attack Resolution
This phase will happen regardless of whether or not your opponent attacked. During the Attack Resolution phase of your opponent's turn, you are in control of the phase, meaning that the phase ends when you are ready.
The Attack Resolution phase is basically a last chance for you to use your monsters' and effects' abilities before they undizzy in your draw phase.
Victory
|
| An example closing splash screen |
There are many ways to win a game: You can beat lower your opponent's life to 0 or below; Your opponent can be forced to draw from a depleted deck (this is known as "decking"); Your opponent can surrender or timeout; Or you can play a card which has a special win or lose condition.
It's customary to say "Good Game" before dealing the final blow or drawing the last card or such. After the game is complete, you should be taken to a splash screen detailing the result, the number of points won, and what dealt the final blow.
For further detail, see the Victory condition page.
Game Commands
While in the game, there are a few special commands you can type.
- /me: Emotes. So if HailSpork typed "/me is the greatest player ever." it would display "HailSpork is the greatest player ever."
- /surrender: You lose the game. This functions the same as the surrender button.
- /invisible: If you type this, you will tell your opponent that you want to make the game invisible. If your opponent also types this, then your game will no longer appear on the observe list.
- /visible: If your game is invisible and you type this, your game will once again be open for observation.
Trading
To begin trading, go to the matchmaker and enter Trade mode. Now, challenge another trader. Once the person challenges you back, you will both go to the trading room.
The trade screen is as follows:
- 1: These are the cards the other player is offering you.
- 2: These are the cards you are offering the other player.
- 3: These are the cards in your current deck.
- 4: The other player's information.
- 5: This is the amount of points the other player is offering you.
- 6: Your information.
- 7: This is the amount of points you are offering the other player.
- 8: Your point control. This lets you adjust the amount of points you're offering.
- 9: This displays your current deck number and lets you select other decks.
- 10: This enlarges the currently selected card so you can see more detail.
- 11: Chat.
If you want to add a card to your offering, select the appropriate deck, scroll through your deck until you find it, and click on it. If you click on a card that you're offering, it goes back to its original deck. Each click only adds or removes one card at a time. To add points, type the number of points you want to add, and hit the plus button. Hitting the minus button takes points away. You can't trade negative points, nor go into debt (by trading at least). Once you hit lock, you can not change the cards or points you are offering. If you are both locked, you can hit ready. Once you are both locked and ready, the cards and points will be exchanged and you will both leave the trade room. You will also have a new generic deck containing any cards you would have received (or an empty deck if you didn't get any).
Note that the uppermost deck in deck management is always the first to load for trading. You can save a lot of time by keeping this deck empty, and only putting cards that you wish to trade into it. This saves the client from having to load up your entire collection, and saves you time. In extreme cases, having too many cards in the uppermost deck could severely lag the trade menu or even freeze it.
Profiles and Avatars
The Profile button lets you set your own profile and view the profiles of other people. It also shows titles according to things such as the number of games played, the number of points you own, etc.
The Avatar button lets you customise your avatar, which is your game appearance. You can purchase new avatar parts, and change which parts you are wearing. Note that there is currently no way to sell avatar parts.
For further detail, see the Profile and Avatar pages.
Rules
A breach of these rules will result in punishment ranging from a warning to a ban.
For further detail, see the Rules page.
Glossary of Keywords
The following is a list of terms you will commonly see on cards, along with their explanations.
: This represents a card's activated ability. Click on the ability button, then on this card to use, and then a target (if required). Can't be used while the card is dizzy.
: This is a card's activated ability that dizzies the card when used.
- X: This denotes a cost of X Dark mana. If there's no number, it means one Dark mana.
- X: This denotes a cost of X Light mana. If there's no number, it means one Light mana.
- X: This denotes a cost of X Grey mana. If there's no number, it means one Grey mana.
- Dizzy: Dizzy cards have a ring of stars in the upper-right corner. They can not block, attack, or use abilities.
- Unique: You can only have 1 of this card in play at any time. Unique does not count as a monster type.
- Fleeting: Cards with Fleeting will be destroyed at the beginning of your turn.
- Entity: Refers to either a Monster or an Effect, but not a Modifier, Spell or Location.
- Generate: Cards with generation provide the mana indicated at the beginning of your turn.
- Heal: Healing removes the most recent (and only the most recent) damage dealt to the target monster. It also removes Poison and Burn.
- Invisible Attack: Monsters with Invisible Attack can only be blocked by other monsters with Invisible Attack.
- Maintenance: A cost that you pay at the beginning of your turn. This is not voluntary. If the cost is not paid the entity is destroyed.
- Merging: When targeting a certain other card (listed after this ability), they form a new card with stats which may be based on the original two cards.
- Obliterate: Target card is removed from the game without triggering on-death abilities and without putting it into the graveyard.
- (Color) Damage: X%: This monster takes X% damage against monsters of the chosen color when blocking or attacking. Multicolor monsters always assume the highest damage.
- Second Life: This card returns to your hand when destroyed. Some cards will list a cost to pay for this ability, which is not voluntary. If not paid, the Second Life doesn't activate.
- Sneaking: (Color): This monster may not be blocked by monsters of the chosen color.
- Speed Summon: This card does not come into play dizzy.
- Spell Immune: This card can't be targeted by spells. It is still vulnerable to spells that do not target.
- Ability Immune: This card can't be targeted by abilities. It is still vulnerable to abilities that do not target.
- Touch of Death: X%: This monster has an X% chance of destroying any monster it damages in combat.
- Decoying: If there is a monster with Decoying in play, a monster without Decoying cannot be targeted by spells or abilities.
- Quick Hit: When attacking, this monster takes no combat damage if it kills the other monster via combat damage, and the other monster doesn't also have Quick Hit.
- Entrenching: The monster cannot be directly attacked.
- Lifebar: Any lifepoint changes to this monster (both damage and gains) are reduced to one, simulating an old-school game lifebar.
- Provides X Power: This card gives you X power, used by cards that require power.
- Allying: X: Essentially, replace with "This card has Allying. If you control X cards with allying (including Location and Modifiers):"
- Face Down: The card's back is shown, and all information about it is hidden. If you have any in play, your mana totals are estimated as their theoretical maximums, which assumes that all Face Down cards cost zero mana. Attacking, defending, or using an ability removes Face Down from that card.
- Boss: This card ignores all destruction spells and abilities, and can't be targeted by them.
- Status Symbols: From time to time, a card may have one or more small symbols in the upper left of it's card art while in play. These are status effects, and are gained/removed for various reasons. See Status effect for a list of symbols and descriptions.
Well, those are the instructions. They make a lot more sense once you try it a few times. If you want some more advice, you can ask in the chat room, go to the forum, or check out the Newbies' Guide to Deckbuilding. Or in case you missed it, here is a link to the Quick start for Magic players.
Good luck!
