Buddyfight Mechanics - Ability

There's been a lot of discussion regarding how the various abilities (not keywords) work in the game, and Bushiroad's admittedly been pretty confused themselves regarding how stuff works. Remember how their official rules document was so bad, I had to make a more understandable one myself? Dark days, man.

Thankfully, things are much more figured out now and at least a few knowledgeable individuals are well-read on the rules and can explain clearly what the hell goes on in the mechanics of the game. My suggestion is, if you have a question, don't try asking people at your locals (cuz they're usually wrong) but go on the Facebook group and ask - smart people will help you out (alternatively, you could just ask here).

But even experts aren't always correct, and we've had many cases where both sides seem accurate and justified - now what? Bushiroad is pretty forthcoming with email support for all their games, so it's a good idea to either email them questions or ask someone to do it for you. Remember to be clear and very precise with diction, as English is not their first language and they have to give picture-perfect answers; they'll nitpick every misunderstanding you type.

Anyways, the topic of discussion today is abilities and how they work! There are three major types of abilities outside of the keyworded ones like Double Attack and Soulguard: Activated, Automatic, and Continuous. We'll spend a brief time looking at each one and how it interacts with Play Timings to make this game flow as a whole.

[Act]ivated Abilities

Activated abilities (henceforth shortened to "Act") are abilities that can be chosen to, not surprisingly, activate upon will. Every Act ability, unless otherwise noted, can be used as many times as the user wants, provided that they have enough resources or meet the requirements for its resolution. That's a lot of flexibility and power, so Act abilities are fairly balanced by being only usable during the turn player's main phase. If you're not the turn player, you can't choose to activate an Act ability, ever (unless Counter, of course). This is pretty important.

Act abilities will always have the [Act] symbol next to them. Examples of monsters with Act abilities include Psychic Knife Dragon, Dragowizard, Gan Alchimia, and Tempest, Garo-oh. If you notice, anything that gets placed on the field can have an Act ability as well, as Shinobi Scrolls demonstrates. Card that are face-up in the soul or in the drop zone also qualify; these are all "public zones" and Act abilities can be used from them, based on the conditions of the Act (can be used from drop, soul, etc). If there are no conditions given, the Act ability may only be used on field.

Before, Bushiroad had this really weird deal with the "may" clause and Act abilities that had activation costs. No more. Now, all Act abilities have no activation cost. Whenever you want to use one, you simply perform a declaration of intent. This declaration includes the ability name, which monster is using the ability, and the target of the ability, if any. After this, your opponent gets one chance to use any Counter they like. That Counter, if used, gets resolved first, and then the ability will resolve as long as the conditions can be met and the (resolution) cost can be paid. This includes abilities that were once ruled to have a declaration/activation cost like Gan Alchimia. Bushiroad decided to make things simpler for us (and them), so be thankful!

I mentioned a long time ago that it's impossible to negate an Act ability via destruction. This is true - unless the ability specifically requires the monster to be on field, the ability will resolve even if the monster is removed. We're talking about things like Merlin, Shiden, Iron Chain Dragon, and the like. Since Play Timing starts the instant your monster hits the field, and since turn player gets the first priority in Play Timing, there is a 100% guarantee that any monster called can use its Act ability at least once...unless it's destroyed as a result of an effect that has higher priority, like a stand-by effect. More on this later.

If an Act ability has the Counter keyword attached to it, it allows the ability to be used in any Play Timing and in response to other abilities as per Counter regulations (one chain deep).

[Auto]matic Abilities

Automatic abilities (Auto) are abilities that need to be triggered. They are always in a state of "listening", and when a certain event happens that qualifies for their trigger, they raise their flag, hustle along to stand-by mode, and wait patiently for the next available Play Timing to resolve. If they don't have an available Play Timing, or if play cannot continue without the resolution of the ability, they go into "interrupt" mode and start their very own Play Timing. Sounds complicated? It kinda is, but it's also pretty simple. Let's talk through this using an example, Art of Explosive Hades Fall.

Art of Explosive Hades Fall was one of the first Set cards to have an Auto effect and thus set the standard for a lot of similar effects after this. The trigger for Hades Fall is "when a monster enters your opponent's field". If you look at the "Flow of a Call" section of the rulesheet, you can see this occurs at the last step. So at this step, Hades Fall activates and goes into stand-by mode. What happens next? Surprisingly, not the resolution of Hades Fall. At this point, the monster is simply transitioning states and the game isn't at a point where it can properly stop - so it doesn't. Your opponent can earn a life through Buddy Call, the game goes through a Resolution Check, and then the turn player (your opponent) starts a Play Timing. He has priority, so he actually gets to activate any on-call (but not Act) abilities that went on stand-by before you even get a chance to resolve Hades Fall - even though it triggered ages ago. This is what I mean by "next available Play Timing" - if there's a Play Timing designated for the effect, then it resolves there.

You'll see this occurring most during Battle, as Bushiroad has specifically slotted the Play Timings with regulations on what kind of Auto effect (after an attack, deals damage, destroys) will resolve where. Since Auto effects are triggered and don't necessarily have to be resolved, but still start their own Play Timing chain, it means that your opponent has un-counterable Counters when replying to them. This hurt the Hero Legend World deck a huge amount, as link attacking with King Arthur or Gawain would allow the opponent to cast a negate in response to the "gain Penetrate" effect and you couldn't Breathen Gard that.

What happens when you have to resolve a stand-by ability, otherwise the game gets funked up? There's rare situations where this does occur, and in those situations the stand-by creates an interrupt and starts a Play Timing in the middle of freaking nowhere. The player not resolving the stand-by gets a chance to Counter as usual, and once the ability has resolved play continues.

All on-play, on-attack, and "when~" type abilities are Auto abilities. Since these triggers can happen at any time and in any fashion, Auto abilities will never have the Counter keyword attached to them.

[Cont]inuous Abilities

Continuous abilities (Cont) are always on. As long as the ability fulfills the stated conditions, the ability can be active even in a non-public area, like the deck. This matters for cards like Super Lethal Formation, which is treated like Lethal Formation in all zones (including the deck). This allows cards like Agent Ninja, Linzo to search out Super Lethal Formation even though its original name isn't Lethal Formation (and you can run 4 Lethal 4 Super in a deck). If the card has no condition stated (or if it's not some name thing), then the Cont ability will only activate on the field. 

Examples of Cont abilities include Armorknight Harty, Phantom Ninja, Kashinkoji, and Great Fate, Frozen Stars. Most Set cards have Cont abilities because they are always in play and cannot be destroyed through attacks, allowing their Cont effects to be active for long durations of time.

Since Cont abilities have no activation or trigger or whatever, they will never be associated with a Play Timing. This is true even if the card effect must be "triggered" to become active like Frozen Stars. The difference is between the wording of "when/at the time of" and "if/whenever it happens". You may have to read the context of the word to figure out which is which, as they both use similar terminology. A small difference can matter the world.

Case Example: Champion Wrestler

Time to tie all the effects together! This example is probably the clearest in explaining how the timings work for everything and allows you to see the interactions between Auto effects and resolutions. We'll start with the troublemaker, Champion Wrestler Asmodai. He's got a really ridiculous on-play Auto effect "Back-drop as Many Times as You Like" that allows the Asmodai player to pitch X number of cards to destroy X number of cards on your opponent's field. To add to the madness, Bushiroad has stated that since the targeting of "B-daMTaYL" is totally dependent on the number of cards discarded, and since the number of cards discarded is variable until resolution, Champion Wrestler gets to choose destruction targets after discarding all the cards in any order that he likes. Yeah. That means that for X cards he pitches, he can freely choose one-by-one X cards to kill and have them die mid-resolution. How insane is that? Not even stuff like Dragon Barrier can stop Asmodai since he doesn't have to commit to any targets until he drops the cards. And if Dragon Barrier is cast preemptively, Asmodai can just drop an extra one to kill the monster twice if needed.

Asmodai's effect is great, but it gets into a little bit of trouble when dealing with the likes of Tsukikage and Death Tallica. These cards have abilities that grant them pseudo-Soulguard - they can prevent themselves from leaving the field using something other than soul. What happens when Asmodai targets them for B-daMTaYL? Let's see it in action.

Magic World vs. Katana World. Katana has Tsukikage in the center, Shiden on the right, Hayate on the left, Super Lethal Formation Set, and Five Heavenly Swords, Onimaru equipped. Somehow, the player still has four cards in his hand, all of which are non-monster cards.

Magic World is the turn player. He pays two gauge and drops Champion Wrestler, Asmodai from his hand. "Alright, activate B-daMTaYL. Any response?" "Nope, and please don't call it that, it sounds stupid." The Magic World player rolls his eyes and proceeds to dump 5 cards from his hand; he's going for the big plays, a complete board wipe. Now that he's stocked up on the amount of snipes he gets (5), he starts to choose. "Tsukikage first." "Okay. Continuous ability activated." Since Tsukikage would be destroyed, the ability Nanomachine Body Replacement goes into stand-by and waits for the next Play Timing. 

But! The next Play Timing is after the resolution of B-daMTaYL, and the Magic Player needs to know if Tsukikage will leave the field to continue his resolution. So the interrupt happens. We now have clarification on the exact nature of this interruption: Tsukikage's ability, as a Continuous ability, is triggered and will resolve without Play Timing. Kinda. The Katana player gets to choose whether or not to actually use the ability so it's kinda like a Play Timing, but the Magic player isn't allowed to respond to it in anyway with Counters or whatever (so the shenanigans end there). This is in-line with the rules, and is the most recent ruling by our overlord Bushiroad.

Katana player decides to ditch a non-monster to save Tsukikage, and it's back to Magic player's resolution. He's got 4 more pops available, but he really wants to clear that center first, so he shoots Tsukikage again. And again. And again. And again. Finally out of cards, Katana has to concede Tsukikage to the craziness that is Champion Wrestler and Magic, fresh out of cards but feeling quite victorious, can proceed to finish Main Phase and enter Battle.

Of course, the story ends with the Magic player being a total scrub and falling for a tech'd Secret Sword, Comet, getting Champion Wrestler wiped from the field and dropping dead against Shiden + Hayate + Onimaru with no cards in hand, quite the anecdote regarding field control and stupid Magic World players. But the tale remains true and shows how stand-by effects work and overlap, how the triggering system prioritizes and how one of the quirkiest interactions in the game really goes down.

Well, I hope you had fun reading this. If you're feeling really confused about all of this, maybe its time to review those Bushiroad official rules and my Detailed Flowchart, whichever is more understandable. I think it's great that Buddyfight has this level of complexity with their "chase" system - it certainly adds to the strategic and competitive value of the game.

That and the fact that I can't get enough of people's mindblown faces.

All images used obtained from the official Bushiroad website and used here solely for reference purposes. Future Card Buddyfight!, logos, and respective content belong to Bushiroad. Large images belong to the Buddyfight! Wikia.