Something I’ve noticed come up a lot is people asking questions about how to resolve effects. Whether it’s because of habits from other card games or just being new and confused people get thrown off by how to resolve the many effects that happen in Vanguard. The general rule of thumb is you resolve everything in order, as much as you can. Skills that trigger at the same time go into standby and you can choose which order you wish to resolve them. Unlike Yu-gi-oh, there aren’t cases of missed timing or effect chaining to throw off the momentum of a turn. There are a few weird situations of course, and I’ll address those when we get to them but for now let’s start with breaking down how to resolve an effect.

The Basics

For the sake of simplicity I’m gonna break down a card I’ve already covered before: Dragdriver Luard.

You remember this guy from my Shadow Paladin post right? So let’s break down how this skill works.

First we need to look for the trigger condition. In this case it would be When this unit is placed on V. This means the game will check to see if his effect would trigger when he is first placed on V via striding. Now you’ll notice with Luard there’s another condition attached to his skill, which is Ritual 3. This means that when the game checks for the trigger condition you must be at Ritual 3 or the skill will NOT be put in standby. Now why is that relevant? As I said before skills that trigger at the same time will all be put in standby and you can choose the order your resolve them. If you remember Dragheart Luard, he had a skill when your G-unit strides that allows you to retire 1 unit and call 2 new G1 or less. So you would think “Oh I can use the stride skill to kill my G1 for ritual THEN use Dragdriver right?”. That is incorrect. Because the game checks trigger conditions the moment they are met, if you do not fulfill all the conditions necessary to put the skill on standby it fizzles out and you cannot use it unless you can meet the conditions again and the skill isn’t 1/turn (we’ll cover 1/turn in a bit). So if you Stride Dragdriver at Ritual 2, and use Dragheart’s stride skill to get to 3 you still cannot use Dragdriver.

However, if we continue on with Dragdriver’s skill you’ll notice he also gives +1000 power for every G1 in drop to the unit he calls. I bring this up because it’s relevant for another instance of timing checks. So let’s say you strode Dragdriver, had all the conditions needed to put his skill on standby, and proceed to pay the soul-blast cost to call a G1. Now you’re gonna think “Oh well I’m gonna soul blast the G1 I rode to get more power for my called unit, but is that wrong?” No it is not. Because you’re paying the cost before you resolve the skill, that G1 you soul blast will be counted when you resolve the power gains part of his skill. This also applies to many older G-units that say “If you have X number of cards face up in your G-zone do Skill Y”

Let’s use Lambros as an example of this. Let’s say you first strode some non flipping unit like Tidal Bore or something and go into your Lambros turn with 1 face up unit in G-zone. When you go to resolve Lambros’ skill you’ll pay the cost before his effect checks for Face up G-units. So when you stand your 2 RGs and check for the +10000 power there will be 2 face up units and you can give them that power.

1/turn

Now let’s move on to that other term I brought up before 1/turn. When an effect has the 1/turn emblem it means you can only resolve that skill the moment it’s trigger condition is met. Older cards had a long sentence attached to them that say “This skill cannot be used for the rest of the turn” and then it also adds “Even if you do not pay the cost this skill cannot be used for the rest of the turn”. Both the 1/turn emblem, and that long sentence mean the same thing. So what that means is: as soon as you meet the conditions to trigger the skill you must pay the cost to resolve the skill right then and there or else the skill fizzles out and you cannot use it for the rest of the turn.

Let’s use Dragonic Overlord “The Legend” and Dragonic Overlord (break ride) as an example of this. So let’s say you break ride “The Legend” onto Overlord. Legend will gain 10k and the restand skill. Then you pay the cost of The Legend’s GB2 to give him that restand skill as well. Both of these skills have the same trigger timing “at the end of the battle this unit attacks a rear-guard”. Both of these skills also have the 1/turn clause attached to them. So when Legend attacks a rear guard you have to make a choice. You can either CB1 and discard 1 to use the Break Ride restand, or you can discard 3 to use The Legend’s restand. Once you choose to pay the cost for one the other fizzles out and can no longer be used even though you didn’t pay the cost (as specified on Overlord Break Ride). So if you attack a second rear guard thinking you can restand again well too bad the 2nd restand skill has fizzled out and you just wasted your turn.

Turn Priority

The next thing we’re gonna cover is turn priority this one will be short since it’s pretty straightforward. In Vanguard the turn player resolves all their standby effects before their opponent. So when multiple skills trigger at the same time for both player the turn player gets to do all their shit before their opponent.

Very basic scenario this time. You attack the vanguard with tidal assault and they guard with Bellog. Because you are the turn player Tidal Assault restands before Bellog can retire him. Because he is no longer resting he can’t be killed.

Partial Resolutions

Next on the list is partial resolutions. Another thing with Vanguard in addition to rather straightforward effect resolutions is you can resolve a skill halfway. So if you meet the conditions to trigger a skill but can only resolve half of it you do as much as you can. So if you decide to pay the cost of a skill, just because you want to pay the cost, you can do it as long as you meet the trigger condition.

We’ll use Alter Ego for our example here. The trigger condition for his skill is “When your G unit Stride” This means you can choose to pay the cost when you stride on top of him. Even if your opponent has no rear guards to lock, you can still pay the cost just to lock one of your own units. You’ll also get the 5k since the skill doesn’t say you only get it by locking an opponent’s rear guard. So the resolution of the skill looks like this:

Check trigger condition > pay cost > try to resolve clause 1 > try to resolve clause 2> continue trying to resolving each clause as they come until skill is fully resolved.

The Magic Words (no it is not please)

There are a few magic words in Vanguard effects that affect how skills are resolved. An effect that has the words “If you do x” in it means you have to have resolved the previous clause in order to resolve the next clause. “Then” also functions in a similar manner, however you don’t necessarily have to fulfill the previous clause, you just have to meet the conditions to pay the cost of the skill . (see Lambros above)

An example of this is Dragonic burnout.

And then there are works like “may” and “up to” which make effects optional.

A good example of this is Phantom Blaster “Diablo” and Carnivore Dragon. Phantom’s skill has the magic word “may” in his guard restrict clause. So let’s say you use the skill, and your opponent decides “you know what I’m just gonna double g-guard anyways” because the skill has the word “may” in it they can choose not to retire 2 rear-guards since they have no reason to. Compare this to Carnivore. He does not have the magic word in his effect. So if your opponent decides “I’m okay with 4k to the front row” they cannot decide to not retire anything they MUST do it. Even if they only have 1 Rear Guard to retire they MUST retire it, and then you gain the 4k anyways.

Carnivore also has the other magic word which is “up to” so if you have less than 3 units or decide not to put power on a rear guard for some reason you don’t have to choose 3. You can choose 0, 1, 2, or 3.

Multiple Effects at once

One last thing to cover in terms of effect resolution YOU CANNOT RESOLVE A SECOND SKILL IN THE MIDDLE OF RESOLVING A SKILL IN PROGRESS!!!!! I put it in bolded italics all caps letters because this is very important. I will reiterate YOU CANNOT RESOLVE A SECOND STILL IN THE MIDDLE OF A SKILL IN PROGRESS. It’s a mistake I’ve seen come up fairly often when playing on Cardfight Area. People will start a skill, then in the middle of that skill, trigger a second skill which they proceed to try and resolve while the first skill is still active. THIS IS WRONG AND YOU CANNOT DO THIS.

In most cases this is done because resolving the second skill before the first one is finished would lead to that first skill being resolved in a more advantageous manner. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHY YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DO IT.

For this one I’m gonna use Sunshine Vert and Sunshine Clear as the example since I’ve been guilty of this mistake before. In this situation let’s say you used Sunshine Vert without a G3 in your hand. But you do have Clear so you decide to call her out with the intent of bouncing her with Vert’s skill to search out a G3 Vert to do the reride with. YOU CANNOT DO THIS. Sunshine Vert’s skill must be FULLY RESOLVED before you even think about resolving Clear. So if you use Vert’s skill and bounce Clear back to you hand you CAN! NOT! use Clear’s skill to search out a Vert before you reride. This applies to every card in the game for every effect. If you use Aurageyser to retire Arsur YOU MUST DO YOUR TOP CHECK BEFORE SHUFFLING ARSUR BACK TO THE DECK. If you soul charge Prankster Girl of Mirrorland with Harri’s stride skill YOU MUST CALL A UNIT BEFORE SOUL CHARGING WITH PRANKSTER GIRL. One last time YOU CANNOT RESOLVE A SECOND SKILL IN THE MIDDLE OF A SKILL IN PROGRESS! I know I’m being a little hostile on this one, but in this particular case you are breaking the rules to give yourself an advantage which is cheating and cheating is bad.

EDIT #2

It was pointed out to me that I forgot to explain ACT AUTO and CONT.

ACT abilities are ones without trigger timings. Their cost can be paid anytime during the main phase so long as you meet whatever conditions are present to pay the cost. The Legion mechanic itself is an ACT ability so in most cases you cannot legion and stride in the same turn (Metalborgs are getting a new stride that allows you to legion the heart though which is the only exception at the time of this post).

AUTO abilities are ones like I described Dragdriver Luard, where they have a specific trigger timing and the game checks to put them in standby whenever that timing is met. I’ve already talked about the ins and outs of AUTOs in depth in the beginning.

CONT abilities are ones that are always active, within some limitations set by the effect itself. Most of them are passive abilities like power gains, but some of them are actual skills that can be proc’d and resolved. In the case of the latter effects you can proc that effect anytime during your turn, except in the middle of resolving a different effect.

For simplicity let’s use Overlord again for an example on an ACT. So you can see the start of his GB2 is an ACT ability where you can pay the cost to give him 15k, triple drive, and the restand AUTO ability. Being an ACT means you can use it anytime during the main phase. So let’s say you didn’t have a G3 in hand to discard for the cost so you decide to use Lizard hero Undeux to search out an Overlord. You can then use that card to pay Legend’s cost, since it’s an ACT.

Overlord, conveniently, also gains an AUTO skill. We’ve already covered AUTO abilities in detail during the “Basics” section but just to reiterate: There’s a trigger condition for the skill, “At the end of the battle that this unit attacked a rear-guard” in this case, the skill goes into standby if you met that condition, then you can choose whether or not to pay the cost and resolve it. You may choose the order in which you resolve multiple AUTOs that activate, and being the turn player lets you resolve standby AUTOs before your opponent. 1/turns must be paid and resolved the first time they go into standby or they fizzle out and cannot be resolved the rest of that turn.

As an additional note Triggers are auto abilities that go into standby when they are revealed in the trigger zone. This is why G4 Darkface denies triggers with his skill and why Stand Triggers proc Rush. Do note that triggers are part of their own separate step in the attack phase so turn priority will not apply to them, they will always be first since they are activating in a step that comes before AUTO abilities that trigger “when this unit’s attack hits” . That extra step is also why Freezeray is annoying as fuck since taking damage is also a separate step before “on hit” would trigger. But the nuances of the many phases in a turn are a seperate post.

Finally our CONT examples. In this case I have 2 separate examples of the CONT. In either case the effect is always active, or in Globe’s case always on standby to be resolved. So with Kamususanno since it’s a passive ability that 2k will always be on all your units the entire time he’s on your V. With Globe since she’s has an actual ability that you can resolve, the easiest way to think of it is that it’s always on standby to be resolved. So you would activate the skill, check your card, put it back, then the skill goes back into standby for when you want to check again. This includes between trigger checks because as I said earlier, triggers are AUTO abilities that go into standby when they’re revealed in the trigger zone.

EDIT:

Adding in a link to the rules page on the Vanguard website, which includes the comprehensive rules http://cf-vanguard.com/en/howto/

And a direct link to the comprehensive rules: http://cf-vanguard.com/en/wp/wp-content/uploads/Cardfight-Vanguard-Comprehensive-Rules160701.pdf though this may become outdated with further updates

I hope this helps out people who are confused about how effect resolution works. As always thanks for reading!