Elemental Battle

A simple and well-loved card game

Did ya hear that the Lord's wee son lost loads of the family gold in a game of elemental battle at me bar?
The way the lad swore... I betcha his father wasn't happy when he came on back home.

— Nell, bar owner

Elemental Battle is a cardgame often played by the Northern Humans as well as the Treil. The game originates from the Treil Iwachi, but a human traveller brought the game with him back home around a hundred years ago.

Rules of Elemental Battle

The game is played by two players, with all 50 cards in play. At the beginning of the game, 10 cards are taken out, 2 of each type. The two players are now presented with a card of each type and they can pick 3. The rest goes back into the card-pile and it's shuffled before it is split into 2 even halves and given to the two players.
Now, each player chooses a card each, lay them face down and turns them around at the same time. One of them will win the card-battle, or it will be tied.

by Ninne124

The illustration shows what other cards each type would win and lose to in an elemental card battle.

If you win the elemental battle, you get to take both cards and put them into the bottom of your card deck.
If you tie you have to choose two more cards on the spot, then lay them in whatever order you'd like while your opponent does the same. These two act as their own separate elemental battles. If it ends in a win for both, the players take back their own cards and put them back into the pile. If it ends in either two wins to the same person or in a tie and a win, the player who won takes all the cards into their pile.
If you lose an elemental battle, you lose your involved cards to your opponent.
The game is won when a player possesses 45 or more cards in their deck.

Whenever a card is laid down in battle, another can be drawn. The player should have 3 cards in their hand at all times. Cards are drawn after the current elemental battle has been settled.
In case of a tie, no cards are drawn before all of the three elemental battles (the tied and the two new) are settled.

Primary Related Location

Morlea

Related Ethnicities

• Northerners
• Treil

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Type
Cardgame
Players
2

Number of cards
50 (10 of each)
Card-types
5. Fire, nature, water, earth, air.

Strengths and weaknesses

Type	Wins over	Loses to
Fire	Nature Earth	Air Water
Nature	Water Air	Fire Earth
Water	Fire Earth	Air Nature
Earth	Air Nature	Water Fire
Air	Fire Water	Earth Nature

I always lose in Elemental Battle... I've heard there's some sort of strategy, but I simply can't seem to understand what they all mean.

— Machel, aka the old fool of Bechlea

You wanna play? Ma gave me a deck!

— Olly

Strategy

Starting cards

You can either choose three cards which are all besides one another.
Example: fire, nature, water.
If you don't do that, you'll end up with the 2-1 pick, where you take two cards that are beside each other as well as the card which are besides neither.
Example: fire, nature, earth.

The first card

Most games you'll have absolutely no idea what card your opponent is going to choose as their first, therefore, yours will also have to be random. Unless of course, you know the general strategy your opponent uses.

The second card

If you and your opponent has laid your cards and you've either won or lost the battle, you'll now have a clear view of what cards you should and should not choose. If your opponent has just used the fire card, there is no need to put down a card which would win against fire, because there's a lower chance they have the fire card on hand again.
You should, however, lay down a card which would lose to fire, as there is now only one other card that can win over that one.
You can also make the opposite play, laying the card which would win over the card you would've chosen in the step above. This is a good idea if you know your opponent usually uses this strategy.

by Ninne124