BATTLE SPIRIT

Posted by : Shella and The All Anime Selasa, 12 Februari 2013

The Battle Spirits Trading Card Game is a two-player collectible card game (CCG) jointly developed by Bandai and Sunrise, Inc. The card game is part of the Battle Spirits franchise which also includes several anime series, manga serializations and other merchandise like toys and video games.
The game was released in Japan in September 2008 where it quickly became one of the top selling trading card games of the year.^[1] Due to this popularity, it was released in the United States by Bandai of America on August 14, 2009.
NEEDS UPDATE: Bandai provides massive organized play support for the game in both the US and Japan. In the United States and Canada hobby retailers can sign up to receive bi-monthly kits to support weekly tournaments with prizes ranging from promotional cards to deck boxes and highly coveted play mats. A new
booster set is typically released once every three months.

Steps

The steps are as follows:

•1:Start Step: Signals the start of your turn.
•2:Core Step: Take one core and add it to your reserve. WARNING: This step is skipped in the first round.
•3:Draw Step: Draw one card from your deck.
•4:Refresh Step: Refresh all spirits and take back cores in your trash (if any).
•5:Main Step: Summoning, leveling up spirits, using magic, placing nexuses and braving starts here. No summoning, braving or moving core is allowed in other steps (except Flash timing and swift summoning).
•6:Attack Step:WARNING: This step is skipped in the first round. Attacking starts here. The steps are as follows:
••6a: Decide which spirit attacks.
••6b: Flash timing:The defender has the right to use magic first.
••6c: The opponent decides whether to block or take a life. If taking a life, skip 6e.
••6d: Flash timing: Again, the defender can use magic first.
••6e: Check BP. Higher BP wins.
•7: Turn End. Signals the end of your turn.

Repeat until game ends.

Card Types

Spirits: Spirits are summoned mainly to attack the opponent and reduce their life but are also used to protect your own life.
Magic: Players use Magic to change the game field environment by causing a variety of different effects from providing BP (Battle Point) boosts to drawing more cards. They can drastically change the pace of the game.
Nexus: The places of the Battle Spirits world that give your spirits special power are called “Nexuses”. Players use them to change the field and gain an advantage over their opponents.
Brave: A fourth type of card introduced about two years into the Japanese game's life. They act like other Spirits, but can be 'Braved' onto other Spirits, combining effects and attributes.
Burst: They can be spirits or spells which act as trap cards that activates when certain conditions are met, like: "When the opponent takes your life" or "When opponents use Summon/Attack effects"

Card Rarity

The card rarity in Battle Spirits goes as follows:

Common:Cards which do not have good effects and some even do not have effects. Mainly low cost spirits.
Uncommon: Spirits which are better than common cards but still weak, medium cost.
Rare: In the US version, they are all foiled cards except for starter rares. Costs range from 5-7.
Master Rare: Foiled cards, much like rares. Costs range from 6-7.
X Rare: Special foil with an X in the effect box background. They typically feature much more powerful effects than other tiers of rarity, normally high costs. Costs range from 2,4-12.
Mythic X Rare: Full Print Card with an BS in the effect box background. Only one in the universe. Won in a national tournament.

The Six Colors

The Battle Spirits world is set with six colors; Ruby (Red), Emerald (Green), Amethyst (Purple), Diamond (White), Sapphire (Blue), and Topaz (Yellow). Each color stems from a different variety of precious gem.

Red: Red cards are mainly aggressive and have many effects that are activated when the player is attacking. Red cards also have many destructive effects that change the game situation drastically. One of the typical cards is “Flame Tempest”. It destroys all spirits with 3000BP or less.

Green: Green cards have comparatively cheap costs and high BP for their costs. They are good at generating cores in which they can give a player an early resource advantage in the game. An example is "Potion Berry". It enables you to add a core to your reserve.

Purple: Purple cards are good at causing pain to your opponent outside of the battle. Purple is notorious for effects that play with the core layout of their opponent, like removing core from opposing Spirits in an attempt to deplete them. They also have many cards which enables you to draw more. One of the typical cards is “The Shackles of Doom”. It prohibits spirits with only one core on them from attacking or blocking. It stalls the game and gives you enough time to draw a killer card.

White: White cards are mainly defensive and many have effects that activate when they block. Even when you have less spirits than your opponent does, white spirits will protect your Life with their strong defensive power. One of the typical cards is “Pure Elixir”. It refreshes all of your exhausted spirits. Two more coveted magic cards are "Holy Elixir" and "High Elixir". They increase your life by 1 and 2 in the flash timing.

Blue: Blue cards are gladiators and other powerful warriors that have trained hard to achieve the next level of power. They mainly have the power to demolish your opponent's deck. The "Stone-statue" is a great example of this type of effect because just by playing him you send the top card of the opponents deck to the trash zone.

Yellow: Yellow cards may look weak compared to some other spirits when looking at things like cost and BP but have amazing effects that give you a powerful advantage when it comes to magic. Yellow is great at working with other colors to boost the power of their magic and allows you to change the outcome of a game no matter how much stronger the opponent may seem. One of the many ways that yellow helps you is with the card “Trickster” by allowing you to reuse a magic card you've already played.

Card Mechanics

There are spirits with keywords that help identify a spirits effect.

Rage: Spirits with Rage have the effect texts as follows: if an effect gives a spirit Rage, it gets the following text: (When Attacks): Your Opponent must block if possible. This effect is in Red.

Windstorm X: Spirits with Windstorm have the effect texts as follows: if an effect gives a spirit Windstorm X, it gets the following text: (During Your Battle Phase): Each time this spirit is blocked, your opponent exhausts the specified number of unexhausted spirits they control. This effect is in Green.

Brilliance: Spirits with Brilliance have the effect texts as follows: if an effect gives a spirit Brilliance, it gets the following text: (During Your Battle Phase): While this spirit is battling, each time you play a spell card, at End of Battle Step, move that spell card from your Trash to your hand. This effect is in yellow.

Crush: Spirits with Crush have the effect texts listed as follows: if an effect gives a spirit Crush, it gets the following text: (When Attacks): Move cards from the top of your opponent’s Deck to their Trash equal to this spirit’s LV. This effect is in blue.

Curse: Spirits with Curse have the effect texts listed as follows: If an effect gives a spirit Curse, it gets the following text: (During Your Battle Phase): If this spirit is blocked, destroy the spirit that blocked this spirit at End of Battle Step. This effect is in purple.

Immunity: Spirits with Immunity: X have the effect texts listed as follows: If an effect gives a spirit Immunity: X, it gets the following text: (Permanent): This spirit is unaffected by the effects of cards your opponent controls with the listed color(s) X. This effect is in white.

Swift: Spirits with Swift have the effect texts listed as follows: If an effect gives a spirit Swift, it gets the following text: (Flash Step): This spirit may be summoned from your hand during the Flash Step. In that case, the cost of this spirit and cores to be put on this spirit must be paid or moved from your Reserve. This effect is in green.

Awaken: Spirits with Awaken have the effect texts listed as follows: If an effect gives a spirit Awaken, it gets the following text: (Flash Step): You may move any number of cores from spirits you control to this spirit. This effect is in red.

Undead X: Spirits with Undead have the effect texts listed as follows: If a effect gives a spirit Undead X, it gets the following text: When spirits are destroyed, if the card with Undead is in the trash, you may re-summon it at cost if the spirit which was just destroyed meets the Undead cost of X. This effect is in purple.

Assault X: Spirits with Assault have the following effect: Assault: X (When Attacks) During this turn for the number of times stated above, you can exhaust one Nexus in order to refresh this Spirit. This effect is in blue.

Ultra-Awaken: Spirits with Ultra-Awaken have the effect texts listed as follows: If a effect gives a spirit Ultra-Awaken, it gets the following text: (Flash Step): You may move any number of cores from spirits you control to this spirit. Each time you move cores to this spirit, this spirit is refreshed. This effect is in red and is only given to "The PhantomStarDragon Gai-Asura","The EarthDeityDragon Gai-Asura" and "Slave-GaiAsura".

Charge: Charge is a special ability which premiered in SD10. Rather than being restricted to a particular color, like most other special abillities, it is restricted to light spirits.

The effect of charge is different for each color. Red: Increase the BP limit of your destruction effects by 1000.
Purple: Increase that the cores move from spirits by 1
Green: Increase the number of opposing cards exhausted due to your effects by 1
White: Increase the number of spirits refreshed by your effects by 1
Yellow: Decrease your BP- effects by -1000.
Blue: Increase the cards moved from your opponent's deck to their trash due to your effects by 1.

Rush: Rush is a special ability which premiered in SD11. Rather than being restricted to a particular color, like most other special abilities, it is restricted to dark spirits.

Rush encourages mixing colors, as it requires keeping a different color symbol on your field to activate, designated on the card. Similarly to a nexus, for as long as you have the conditions fulfilled, the rush effect remains active. The actual effect of rush varies from spirit to spirit. Currently, these are the known symbol conditions:
Red: Purple Symbol, Blue Sumbol
Purple: Yellow Symbol, Red Symbol
Green: Blue Symbol, White Symbol
White: Green Symbol, Yellow Symbol
Yellow: White Symbol, Purple Symbol
Blue: Red Symbol, Green Symbol, Purple Symbol

Set Releases (In Order)

A player must have at least 40 cards in their deck. Players can purchase booster packs to increase the number of cards they have. Expansions are sets of cards that build upon the foundation laid out by the base set, the original set of cards released.

BS-01 Call of the Core (released 08/14/09): The base set that introduced the original four colors Red, Purple, Green and White.

BS-02 Rise of the Angels (released 11/13/09): This set introduces the new color Yellow as well help additional support for the original four colors.

BS-03 Scars of Battle (released 02/05/10): This set introduced the next new color Blue, completing the six colors of Battle Spirits so far.

BS-04 Ascension of Dragons (released 05/07/10): This set focuses on dragons and the new two gem spirits that if they were to do damage they would take two life instead of one. Unlike the previous three US sets, it contained not only cards from Japanese series 4, but around half of series 5 as well.

BS-05 Dawn of the Ancients: (released 09/10/2010): This set introduced two new effects key words; Rage and Windstorm. This set contain the rest of set 5 and half of the Japanese set 6.

There are currently a total of twelve expansions available in Japan as well as numerous decks, special sets and promotional cards.