As a follow up to my post about Effect Resolution I’m gonna be covering the various phases in a turn, when effects trigger and resolve, and the order in which things would happen.

Of course this is all covered in the Comprehensive Rules but that can get technical and boring to read so I’m gonna try to break this all down in a more casual and simple manner.

So let’s start with all the phases in the game.

They are:

Stand Phase

Draw Phase

Main Phase

Battle Phase

End Phase

The battle phase also has various sub steps in which effects trigger and resolve so I’ll be breaking those sub steps down when I get there.

Stand Phase

During the Stand Phase the turn player will stand all units they are in control of, with the exception of units stunned by the effects of Megacolony.

During this phase any AUTO abilities with the trigger timing of at the beginning of the turn go into standby and can be resolved.

After resolving all effects that are standby you would move into the Draw Phase.

Draw Phase

After the Stand phase comes the Draw Phase.

In this phase you draw a card from the top of your deck.

Any effects that trigger at the beginning of draw phase would go into standby and resolve here.

Then you draw the card

After drawing you may choose to G-Assist.

When you G-assist your Vanguard cannot be G3 or higher, and you cannot have a card that is one grade higher than your current Vanguard. You must also have at least 2 cards in your G-zone. You G-assist by revealing your hand to your opponent, so they can confirm that you are unable to ride the next grade. Then you check your top 5 cards for one card that is a grade higher than your Vanguard. You reveal the chosen card to your opponent, then add it to your hand. If you add a card you remove 2 cards from your hand and 2 cards from your g-zone from the game. You do not have to remove anything if you did not add a card to your hand. Shuffle the deck after.

Ride Phase

After G-assisting you move into the Ride phase.

Any effects that trigger at the beginning of ride phase go into standby and resolve here.

During this phase you can choose to normal ride a unit that is the same grade or 1 grade higher than the current Vanguard onto the Vanguard circle. Effects that trigger When this unit is placed on V would standby and resolve here.

After choosing to Normal ride, you may proceed to the Stride Step.

Striding may only occur if both players are at G3 (Sebreeze excepted due to his ACT). G-Units that trigger When this unit is placed on V would standby and resolve here.

One thing to note, in light of the Honorary Professor Support, is that the Ride Step and Stride Step are separate from each other. Under normal circumstances you cannot pass break ride effects onto a stride unit. This is because break rides would trigger “when a <clan> unit rides this unit”. And as specified above you would resolve the effect BEFORE moving into the stride step. The new Honorary Professor “Cath Sauvage” is an exception as I described here.

Main Phase

After riding proceed to the Main Phase

Skills that trigger At the beginning of Main Phase standby and resolve here.

During the Main Phase you can perform several actions in any order as many times as you wish.

You may choose a card from your hand and call it onto a R circle.

You may trigger and resolve any ACT abilities, within whatever limitation the ability has.

You may take 2 units in the same column and exchange their positions. If there is an unoccupied circle in the same column as a Rear Guard you may move it into that circle. You may not exchange units in different columns.

Battle Phase

And now for one of the 2 complicated phases. The battle phase has several sub steps in which effects will trigger and resolve. There are also other technicalities within the battle phase concerning how battles function including things like boosting.

The basics of battle

A battle is counted as one continuous battle from the moment the battle begins. Even if a battle is cut short due to something like Denial Griffin it still counts as a battle. This is relevant for Aqua Force and the Wave mechanic since it counts the number of battles that have occurred.

If you attack a Vanguard it is considered “a battle where (chosen unit) has attacked a Vanguard” and for the Vanguard attacked “a battle where (attacked Vanguard) has been attacked”. The same applies to rear guards.

If somehow the attack is redirected from one of the unit types or another then the type of battle will also change to the relevant unit. So if you redirect an attack from V to R it will change from “a battle where (unit) has attacked a Vanguard/a battle where (V) has been attacked” to “a battle where (unit) has attacked a Rear-Guard/A battle where (R) has been attacked”

Now moving into the various steps of battle.

Start Step

In this step you decide whether or not you wish to attack.

Any effects that would trigger at the beginning of the start step would standby and resolve here.

If your units are rendered unable to attack for whatever (like being stunned by Megacolony), then the game automatically assumes that you have chosen not to attack.

Attack Step

In this step you choose which of your units will be attacking and begin the battle with the chosen target.

First the battle begins.

Then any effects with the timing At the beginning of the attack step would standby and resolve here.

An example of such a unit is Enigmatic Assassin.

After those effects are resolved you would choose one of your standing units and rest it to declare the attack, if there are no standing units then you proceed to the close step of the battle phase.

At the same time you would choose a unit in the same column as that unit and rest it to boost. The boosting unit adds it’s power to the boosted unit for the duration of the battle.

The 2 chosen units are referred to the “boosted unit” and the “boosting unit”

If either of the 2 units are removed from the original circle they were on then the other unit will no longer be boosting/boosted. This means that if you boost a unit and the boosting unit is removed from the R circle it was boosting from, the power gained from boosting would be lost.

Let’s create an example scenario for this using one of my favorite units Semilunar Magus.

So in this scenario let’s say you attack with Stellar, boosted by Semilunar. Stellar becomes the “boosted unit” and Semilunar the “boosting unit” At this point the attack would be for 14k. You declare a card for Semilunar and get it correct. You decide to pay the cost of putting Semi into soul to draw 2 cards. Because Semilunar has been removed from the R circle she was boosting from Stellar, Stellar is no longer the “boosted unit“. The power would then decrease back to 9k. This applies if your boosting unit was removed any other way like being retired by Defeat Flare.

After choosing a unit to attack/boost skills with the timing “When this unit attacks” and “when this unit Boosts” would standby and resolve.

A thing to note is that resolving on attack/on boost skills happens AFTER attacking/boosting has been declared. So if you superior call a unit behind the attacking unit using an “on attack/boost” skill you CANNOT boost with the called unit.

After resolving “on attack/boost” skills proceed to the guard step.

Guard Step

At this step the non-turn player may choose to place any number of guards on the guard circle.

Skills with the timing “At the beginning of the guard step” would standby and resolve here.

After resolving “beginning of guard step” effects the defending player will perform one of the following one at a time

Choose a card from their hand and place it on G circle If both players are at G3, discard a heal trigger to superior call a G-Guardian to G circle from G-zone Move a unit with the “intercept” ability from front row (unless a card skill allows “intercept’ from back row) to G circle Pass/No guard

You would then choose which of the attacked units you are defending. There are cases of units being able to attack multiple units at once Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion is an example of this.

The power of the attacked unit is increased by the shield value of the defending unit.

Then effects that trigger “When this unit is placed on G” OR “When a unit is placed on G” would standby and resolve. This timing is important because of cards like Mayhem Tiger

After resolution the defending player may choose to repeat one of the guarding actions actions until they are satisfied and pass back to the attacking player, with “on Guard” skills standing by and resolving each time a new unit is placed on G

If you are unable to guard for any reason you are automatically considered as having chosen to pass.

After all guarding have been completed proceed to the Drive Step.

The drive step is when you check the top card of your deck for a trigger and add it to your hand. Generally this will happen only on the vanguard attack, with the only exception at the moment being cards that were given the “drive check” ability by Shibarakku Buster.

First skills with the timing “at the beginning of the drive step” would standby and resolve.

An example of this is Vanargandr. It is important to note that the drive step takes place AFTER the guard step. This means Heteroround Dragon CANNOT shuffle away Vanargandr’s stack.

If the drive of your unit for whatever reason is 0 or less you would skip to the end of the drive step (main example is rear guards who generally have 0 drives Shibarakku Buster aside).

Otherwise you would put the top card of your deck into the trigger zone. If the card revealed is of the same clan as one of the units on your V or R circles then you would resolve any triggers indicated on the guard.

Skills that are active In the trigger zone would standby and resolve here. This would include triggers themselves or something like Daibazooka.

Repeat this for as many drives as the attacking unit has.

After performing all indicated drives and resolving skills proceed to the damage step.

Damage Step

At this step you compare the power of the attacking unit to the power of the defending unit. If the defending unit has equal or less power, and has not been given the effect of “cannot be hit“, then the attack would hit.

If either the attacking unit or the defending unit has been removed from the field, changed owners, or moved to a different circle during the battle the attack does not hit. An example of something that removes attackers is Denial Griffin. An example of something that can remove defending units is Raphanna.

Note skills that activate “On hit” DO NOT trigger and standby yet at this stage.

If the attack hits a Vanguard then the attacker would deal damage equal to the number of criticals it had when the attack hit. In the case of units in the Legion state you will only count the criticals of the Legion Leader. If the unit has 0 or negative criticals somehow no damage will be dealt. You will not deal negative damage.

The defending player will perform a trigger check with the top card of their deck in the same manner as the attacking player would during the drive step equal to the number of damage they are receiving.

Skills that activate in the trigger zone standby and resolve here.

THEN skills that activate “When a card is put into your damage zone” would standby and resolve here. This fucker is an example of such a card.

Note that this check timing is STILL BEFORE “On hit” and “end of battle” effects resolve. So hit and run units like Melem and Darkside Princess CAN be locked by Freezeray before they poof.

Retire all rear guards that have been hit and all guardians.

THEN NOW skills with the timing “when this unit’s attack hits” would standby and resolve.

After resolving all on hits proceed to close step.

Close step

This step is to resolve all actions at the end of the battle.

Skills with the timing “at the beginning of the close step” or “At the end of the battle” that were not already on standby (refer back to Melem or Darkside Princess) would standby and resolve here.

Then once everything has been resolved all attacking units/attacked units will no longer be in that state.

If you still have more battles to perform this attack phase go all the way back to the start step and repeat this entire process for every unit that can still attack.

If there are no more units that can battle proceed to the End Phase

End Phase

And now for the other complicated phase, the End phase!

Like the battle phase a million things happen in the end phase as well, and they can get just as complicated due to weird timings and rulings Bushiroad has released.

First all of these things happen SIMULTANEOUSLY.

Unlock all locked units (except Omega locked units) Undelete all Deleted units Return your stride units to the g-zone

All skills with the timing “When a card is unlocked“, “when returned to G-zone” and “when turned face up” all standby and resolve here.

Note that because all 3 of those things happen simultaneously the turn player can resolve any standby effects with one of those 3 timings BEFORE the non-turn player.

An example of this is Fernyiges vs Chaos Breaker. According to the comprehensive rules, because Ferny’s skill doesn’t fully resolve until after resolution occurs on the 3 timings i mentioned above, Chaos can do his thing before Ferny can.

Because this is really tricky and technical I’m gonna copypasta the comprehensive rules verbatim here:

6.8. End Phase

6.8.1. The phase in which several actions are resolved at the end of a turn. This phase is done in the following order:

6.8.1.1.The turn player performs the following simultaneously.

6.8.1.1.1. Return all locked cards on that player’s field to a normal state by turning the cards face up.

6.8.1.1.2. Return all deleted units to a normal state by turning the cards face up.

6.8.1.1.3. Put all G units on the vanguard circle to the G zone in a face up state.

6.8.1.2. Each automatic ability with the timing “when a card is unlocked”, “when a card is put to face up”, and “when put to G zone” triggers and are put to stand by. Then, resolve a check timing.

6.8.1.3. Each automatic ability with the timing “At the beginning of end phase” and “at the end of turn” that have not become stand by in this end phase becomes stand by.

6.8.1.4. Resolve a checking timing. After completing all the actions in the check timing, all effects with “until end of this turn” will cease to exist.

Because the Comp. Rules say to resolve a check timing on “unlock” “return to g-zone” and “turned face up” BEFORE it says to resolve a check timing on “end of turn” and “beginning of end phase” all of Chaos’ unlock related skills go off first.

Anyways it’s all laid out already but after resolving the 3 timings, you standby and resolve skills with the timing “end of turn”

An interesting technicality occurs here regarding Nightrose and the keyword Hollow. Units that are Hollowed will retire at the end phase. Nightrose’s GB2 can revive units 1/turn. So you can revive a unit Hollowed and then have it die due to being in the Hollowed state. This is usually abused with Grenache to get multiple countercharges at once.

However this trick does not actually work with Negrolazy according to Bushiroad. I have no idea why it doesn’t if you chose to pay the cost but Bushiroad says it can’t so it can’t.

Link to the ruling for reference.

And now finally, if there’s nothing else to resolve you can pass the turn to your opponent.

Hope this helps people understand the intricacies of the various phases in a turn.