This Guide is dedicated to the Goddess, Elmekia and the God, Gary; the only two Egregoroi to achieve divine transcendence through social rank progression.

1# Life or Death
2# Game Modes and Formats
3# Gear
4# PVP: Your Kung Fu Is Weak
5# Cognitive Stamina
6# The Luck You Experience Proceeds From Your Prior Decisions
7# This Is The Best Computer Game Ever Made

"You fell victim to one of the
classic blunders! The most famous is never get
involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly
less well-known is this: never go in against a
Sicilian when death is on the line!! Ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! Ha ha ha--



I'll commence this guide with the most elementary data to keep your Egregoroi from exploding.

MAGIC BOLTS KILL. ALWAYS ASSUME OPPONENT HAS AT LEAST 2 MAGIC BOLTS IN ITS DECK AND 3 MAGIC BOLTS IF OPPONENT BINDED MAGIC BOLT

(Up to Maximum of 2 copies of a spell spawn from Deck in addition a spell bound to your gear, Cantio Compositus is a Green Sorcery Talisman that when activated might randomly spawn a Magic Bolt card, a withered Magic Wood can spawn a Magic Bolt card)
^ *Glory to Gary for clarifying this for me*

Magic Bolt is a 100% chance to successfully cast Range 3 Deathray Combining Half Magic Power +50 vs. Target's Defense. This much so far every guide will mention, but many valueable parts of this guide are not mentioned elsewhere. Such is the type of wisdom stored in Hegemony's Guild Vault which is available to all of our Agents.

It is common to Bind the Magic Bolt Talisman and Mega-Bolt is a popular choice. Often games come down to dismounting opponents leaving them vulnerable as your wizard closes in for the kill. However, Bolts are not gauranteed to kill. A typical Egregoroi (the name of wizards like you who congenitally possess a spark of divinity) has Magic Power 100. Against 40 Defense as is typical that means bolts often have 72%+ chance of lethal. If you miss then unless you have a unit blocking for you or unless you are mounted then you are open to a counterfire Magic Bolt. If your build's (gear loadouts & strategy to wield them are called Builds) main win condition is Magic Bolt then you may experience an upper limit on how much you can possibly win around the percentage that Bolt succeeds or fails. Vigilant armor is often 60 Defense. Against Vigilant such a Bolt-Win Strategy is successful around 68% of the time. There are Egregoroi who don't mind a soft ceiling and then others believe in alternate ways to deliver lethal that are more reliable than a Bolt to the face.

If you have a solid upper-hand and you risk exposing your position over a 72%-to-kill Magic Bolt AND you would have won without the risk THEN that 72%-to-kill Magic Bolt is in actuality a strict 28% chance of losing with nothing to gain. Keep reading that sentence until it makes sense.

EVERY GAME YOU START BY CLICKING ON OPPONENT STAFF TO READ THEIR STATS AND ANALYSE THEIR TALISMAN BINDS. EVERY SINGLE GAME. KNOW THEIR MEGA THRESHOLD.

Egregoroi are cunning; orchestrating your demise with Magic Bolt as the coup-de-grace is the most common way you die. Celeris is a Heroic Talisman (Orange). It allows +1 Movement. So, 3 hex movement. Add +3 hex threat range due to Bolt Range. Now your opponent has 6 Hex Threat Range and You Have Five Hex Threat Range. Always count your distances and understand what you are in range of. Celeris costs 35 mana. If you drag your spells to your mega area on your staff in the lower-right corner and let go then you lose the spell, but gain 8 mana. You can continue burning cards with diminished returns for a maximum of 35 Mana. Therefore, Celeris may activate on Turn 1 or Turn 2. Even though opponent's Celeris is not activated Now, you must account for it in your expectation of opponent's Bolt Threat Range. There is a similar Sorcery (green) talisman named Cantio Secutus allows +1 Spell Range. Going second in turn order in a 2 person duel will grant 6 mana as a token of compensation. Cantio Secutus is 40 mana to activate and that compensation means Cantio Secutus must be considered Active when deducing Bolt Threat Range BUT if opponent goes first then they Cannot activate Cantio Secutus without killing a unit, disbelieving, failing to cast a spell, moving onto a Mana Flux resource, or inhabiting a Magic Wood that dies off. None of that is possible on the first couple turns generally so you don't have to worry about Cantio Secutus at that time. Mega-spells are mana resource dumps that often increase range of magic attacks. Finally, Wings magic item adds +1 Movement and FLYING. So, assume that your opponent could at any time cast Wings and use the extra hex threat range to kill you. Oh, there is Pontacto which adds +1 range to Magic Bow BUT its expensive at 35 mana and a less frequent build

MANA SPRITES ARE NOT WORTH DYING FOR.

But you will die for mana sprites. It's right there adjacent to you, in range. Opponent is 'most likely' engaged (pinned by losing agility rolloff) and so cannot close in to threaten you. Or you will tell yourself you can leap onto a mana flux and its ok because you'll cast Tangled Vines which is a impenetrable wall of 200 Defense and surething 80% chance to successfully cast. Except opponents can win unlikely agility rolloffs and walls are extremely weak to Decree or Vengeance magic attack or you think you live in a universe where your Egregoroi can tank just one measely rat. You think that because the skeleton with 10 Defense guarding and adjacent to the mana sprite dies at 82% to your wizard's 50 combat attack that the skeleton won't this time dodge and kill you next turn. You'll think that because you died for a mana sprite that there is something wrong with the game and some will always point out that such ill-begotten variance makes the game 'unplayable'. Despite your many coming demises this line of advice leads me to another crumb.

MASTER PLAYERS SUCH AS ELMEKIA ARE VERY CAUTIOUS YET CAPABLE OF TABLE-TURNING BOLD MOVES WHEN CALLED FOR

I've seen Elmekia more than any other player pass up Magic Bolt-to-Kill opportunities. The game must be going badly for her to risk bolting a wizard with Vigilant armor. Players like her don't take unnecessary chances and minimize opponent's ability to force them to take unfavorable chances. Most players respect 5 Hex Bolt range assuming range enhancing talismans aren't binded by opponent. Mature players assume opponent has Crystal Wall which is a 4 hex range crowd control spell. Goo is 3 hex range to cast, but can annex a further hex so is range 4 sometimes.

HONE YOUR INSTINCTS

This is something that cannot be taught. There are reasons for choosing to move between two hexes when far from conflict or threat that aren't fully understood to the conscious mind, but will make or break a game three turns later. In Go the term for a vague misgiving in an area far from conflict is Ajai. The ability to 'Know' when to disbelieve is a strong skill. Practice with illusions. If you have the sente (tempo, initiative) opponent must choose between units to block, or mount, or disbelieve. Since opponent only dies if it disbelieves and is wrong then opponent will not disbelieve if their position has any hope of success. Always keep an eye at your alignment distribution in remaining unrevealed cards in your deck. The distribution is to the right of your hand. If you have a Neutral card or several then sometimes it's rewarding to burn cards, not for mana, but to draw that un-binded Bolt to deliver lethal.

ALWAYS WATCH THE TAPE

You have the opportunity to review your game via clunky video recording. Utilize this and learn to assess your play and your opponent's play. Look for the details and see how they count; the details that go unnoticed during the heat of play. Egregoroi play against each other, but are literally seeing entirely different games before them. 'Seeing the game', like witchsight, is the difference between seeing random misfortune or the misplay.

There is so much more to life and death. The elementary basics that come before the basics! But, I'm only imparting scraps afterall, so I move on....

Once there was simply Chaos Mode and we called it Chaos Reborn for there was only one mode. The unworthy flooded steam reviews with supercilious ignorance as hostile as human stupidity can be. From their tears Law Mode was constructed. New wizards enjoyed the ease of Law Mode and so the game was cleaved in twain.

It is a common misperception that Law Mode removes chance from the game. It does not. Law Mode is often thought to reward skill; that it is a skill variant as opposed to the luck-based variance of skil-punishing Chaos Mode.

The difference comes down to whether you think being forced to account for failure adds or detracts from your enjoyment. More subtle, since Law Mode was hastily constructed it uses the same mana values as in Chaos Mode for spells even though the spells are radically re-valued in Law Mode due to rule changes. This means builds in Law Mode are skewed to top-tier spells and top-tier surefire builds. Rapid development of elite units is possible in Law Mode and so its more of a build vs. build contest. Chaos Mode is well balanced and choices made while playing are complex and more significant.

Both Modes are fun to play and there is no accounting for taste. Law Mode tends to resolve in favor of the player who has efficiently spent mana to build momentum beyond opponent capacity to recover the difference in power disparity. First turn can win some duels in Law Mode outright while duel maps are sometimes too small to avoid aggro push. Law Mode incentivizes counting how much mana opponent is spending or likely has and deploying your own illusions while waiting for your mana to replenish. Creature-centric strategems are far superior to wizard-centric strategems in Law Mode. Remember that a Bolt from a 270 Magic Power Wizard can explode target wizard with Defense 40 in one shot. About 190 Attack Power can kill Defense 40 target Wizard in one shot. Goo is overpowered as is Crystal Wall, but Goo is stronger. Mature rat play wins games.

Chaos Mode is not a consecutive win mode so much as a wins per games-played mode. Even great players can lose 4+ games out of ten. Winning six out of ten is sufficient to place highly in League PVP. Chaos Mode is a risk-management exercise and you will learn that variance is unpredictable and unlikely roll outcomes are frequent. Remember that as long as your wizard is alive and you do not give up that you can still win or draw no matter what you face. Try out every strategy that you can think of. Every talisman combination you think is promising. Forge every staff and type of bodygear. Improve on builds that opponents use against you. Learn different styles of play. Know your win conditions inherent in your build and general strategy. Are you creature-centric or wizard-centric? Do you have a planned response for if your opponent mounts on the first turn? Every build has a counter-build. Every staff is countered thematically by another staff. Powerful megas are often expensive on alignment-based staffs with high spell utility. They can be dangerously cheap on creature sub-type staffs that sacrifice utility for speed, penetration, flying, Magic Weapons, or Undead.

New Players report to the Realms. Collect your 106 talismans from gold purchases in the cities. Once you've got them you can create any buid any other player can create. No gear-gates. No Loot Box. Playing realms in Law Mode is not sporting as its far too easy and inflates your score considerably. Campaigning in the realms is the best way to learn the game for new players. It is difficult to solo especially at the beginning without talismans to bind. Value learning over winning.

Duels are fun, but not terribly competitive and there aren't always enough players who are online to play against. Despite often low numbers of wizards online the game is hopping via Asynchronous Gameplay. Join Custom Asynchs and pay close attention to special rules agreed upon prior to the game.

Join League. Join League. Join League. You'll find it the most competitive format and it will improve your game. If you win often you may need only 20 or so games played in a month. If you aren't on hotstreaks you may need up to 40 or more games played in a month to place. That comes out to 20-35+ turns taken every two days. Do your asynchs AFTER you eat a meal for emotional equilibrium and improved focus.

Classic Mode harkens back to ancient iterations prior to talismans and each wizard has uniform bodygear/staff. It tends to have a wilder variance and a distinctly different rythym in its gameplay compared to Equipped. Classic Law is inactive and is really a nub format. Classic Chaos is lively. Equipped Law is apparently duel-focussed. Equipped Chaos League is challenging and instructive.

Every single player in the game has their own playstyle and most seem to stick to one of several builds if not one build.

IN CHAOS MODE I CAN TAKE A GOLD MEDAL WINNER'S BUILD AND NOT BE ABLE TO WIN A GAME WITH IT. DEVELOP THE BUILDS THAT FIT YOUR TEMPERMENT AND PLAYSTYLE.

There are 3 types of Bodygear. Heroic, Vigilant, and Mage Armor. The most important aspect of each turns out to be whether an armor requires an Orange talisman, requires a Green talisman, or is Vigilant and thus requires a Green or Orange Talisman.

Orange Talismans are 'Heroic'. They enhance your wizard and sometimes mounted wizard. The Orange Talisman that allows an adjacent unit to attack a second time is crucial in Law Mode. Mana spent activating Orange talismans is mana that isn't going towards your Mega or activating a Major Talisman unit buff. Too many high-cost talismans/Mega mean that fewer talismans are actually used per game. Passive Talismans that don't require activation save you mana and are constantly useful while unactivated talismans are equivalent to handicapping yourself with empty talisman slots. Ask yourself if you prefer units with a +5-10% boost to attack/defense rolls or your Mega Win Condition a turn or two earlier.

Green Talismans are 'Sorcery'. They manipulate your hand of cards and enhance magic attack capability. There are 3 ways to gain cards. 1) Volaticus Duplus. High-cost 35 mana for a Chance to clone an adjacent unit by casting it. Volaticus Duplus when well-timed is a like a pocket Mega. It is also interesting to juke your opponent with illusions using this talisman. 2) Exemplum Funis: This puts a unit you kill into your hand for 12 mana with escalating mana costs to repeat the activation. When a game goes late Exemplum Funis wins games. Use it to copy a Goo Spell or two when the opportunity arises. 3) Bind Magic Wood talisman. You get 5 trees that protect your wizard and surrounding units. Chance beginning every turn for a Magic Wood to wither which grants you 10 mana, but leaves your wizard unprotected. A withered Magic Wood also grants you a random new spell. This is the only way to get the CHAOS unique spell. It's a 50% chance to randomly place every unit in a different hex on the board. Used correctly it can be decisive in your favor.

There are Blue Magic Talismans. Only Mana Acculum is efficient in 3+ multiplayer formats. Mana Invisium (sp) is strong in Law Mode. It gives you mana when your illusions are disbelieved. 10 mana per detection. When facing an opponent using this I refrain from disbelieving if at all feasible. Blue Talismans are for spell-boosting in the clinch or landing that first or second Mega spell OR often the best way of activating the legendary Romero transmutation talisman. This 68 Mana Red talisman gives you immortality, immunity to attacks from the living including Dragons, and a turpid tenacious Hellstank.

So, Heroic Gear CANNOT have a Green & Red Talisman. Vigilant CAN have Orange/Green, Green/Red, or Orange/Red, but not Orange/Red/Green. Mage Armor CANNOT have an Orange & Red Talisman. Red talismans are powerful transmutations, alignment manipulations, and wizard-centric necromancy.

Heroic Gear is 40 or 50 Attack Power, 40 Defense is standard, Agility is 70 so harder to pin down, and Magic is typically 100-120. 120 Magic Power has a higher chance to execute with Magic Bolt, protects the wizard from Paralyze, protects units, but you will have fewer cards in the deck. That means fewer chances to get a variety of cards. An Armory Staff with 17 or 18 card deck often has few creatures for example. I don't see the point in Heroic Gear with less than 40 Attack Power as it makes more sense to use Mage Armor with Attack Power lower than that. 50 Attack Power is a Strong close combat attack, but you'll stil miss. A sword puts you at 130 Attack Power and remember you will still miss. A wizard can use it's awesome close combat attack once. 4 summoned units use often less effective attacks with better efficiency. 4 units can die to 4 attacks, but a wizard is limited to one kill at a time barring use of Metafortis or Retaliate.

Vigilant Gear is amazing. 60 Defense is a significant improvement to your lifespan and can forgive mistakes that with a lesser Defense lose the game. You might be able to tank a rat if you're feeling lucky. Attack is maximum of 30 which is respectable. Often wizards go with 10 Attack and swing the extra points into a larger deck. Vigilant tends to have the smallest deck sizes and more limited Magic Power. Agility is only 40 and so you can be engaged by things like spiders, etc. Vigilant Gear is famous for defying Magic Bolts to the face with panache.

Mage Armor is ballistic. You can create a glass cannon Magic Power build or a high-deck size build or some mix of the two. 20 Attack Power is good enough, often enough. Tends to be a creature-centric bodygear choice. WIthout Mega Carmen the Mage Power tends to be 140-180. Mega Carmen is a Green 45 mana Talisman that boosts Magic Power by 50%. Magic Attacks are risky, but when they are successful they devastate. Magic Bolt and Mega Bolt become super lethal when Magic Power is 160+ Units are highly resistant to Magic Attack from opponents. Be sure to take advantage of opponents who skimped on their Magic Power leaving them with 90 or 80. Low Defense Mage Armor is vulnerable to Goo.

There are many staffs. Observe the spells that are inherently more common to each staff. Become familiar with their mega costs and which Mega spells are available. Sometimes you prefer to bind talismans that are in line with staff-based spells. Sometimes you prefer to bind contrasting spells to account for drawbacks. Non-creature spells and/or Buff Talismans are common binds for the Creature Staff for example. Chaos staffs and Law Staffs flourish when alignment is in their favor. They need alignment advantage to cast their lower chance elite units. Neutral spells are easier to cast and strong in the mid-range. Neutral can become outclassed if alignment swings too far in favor of Chaos or Law. Clementine is a Red Talisman (Transmutation) that in my hardly humble opinion is the second most powerful mechanic in the game. For 5 mana you reset alignment to Zero and you can repeat this activation up to five times. It sterilizes Law and Chaos causing around half or more of their staff-based spells to fail.

There are 3 inputs important for staffs. Hand size. Hand size is often skimped on, but shouldn't be unless your strat is to min-max your mega or your spell-boost. As an exercise try creating a Large Hand Size staff. Give it 16 cards. You'll see in principle why seeing more of your cards increases your ability to use the right spell when you need it. No need to burn through spells trying to find a binded spell buried at the bottom (Magic Bolt is often the last card in your deck). Still, spell-boost can be critical at a clinch moment in Chaos Mode. In Law Mode I find it extremely valuable. Spell Boost translates into cheaper mana cost per unit in Law Mode. My Law Mode build maximizes Spell Boost on a Creature staff so ALL of my creatures are cheap. That means I get more Unit for the mana I put into them and this dynamic accumulates efficiency as the game progresses. I burn fewer cards to get my mid-tier units out early which gives me more burn mana to activate my Major Buff Talisman or save for a Mega Vampires. It's also much harder for opponents to predict how much mana I really have and what I'm capable of casting. The last input is the one most often maximized - Mega Activation Cost. A cheaper cost can mean casting that Mega more than once in a game. Mega's can be game-crushing, but recall that the stronger ones are less likely to successfully cast. Dragons is 60%. Vampires is 70%. Its a good idea to have alignment in favor or invest in spell-boosting for important Mega casts. Since Mega casts are automatic success in Law Mode that removes the balancing mechanism so Elite Mega Creature Spells are king in Law Mode. A cheaper Elite Mega can land on turn 2 or 3. Since mega activation cost inflates in Law Mode it is can be usually only activated once.

Dispel is the most important mechanic in the game in my estimate. Doesn't seem like much. 5 mana per Dispel. Seemingly worse, it destroys your own unit. Dumb right? With dispel you can setup Growth and Structure Spells to protect you, claim territory, and walk through your dispelled terrain to deliver lethal. A.I. is often caught unawares by Dispel tactics and but for it Realms would be considerably tougher. Players are caught unwares too. With Dispel you can attack wizards from a single vector using a horde. SImply attack, dispel unit that fails to kill, move in next unit, attack, dispel if unit fails to kill, and repeat until lethal. Sometimes opponent has first turn and moves two hexes forward only to fail something like a goblin spell. You can move two hexes forward and Crystal Wall through the Mana Sprite between you. Your opponent needs to teleport or take a bolt to the face when you dispel 4 crystal wall hexes, march onto the Sprite, and execute. This maneuver is hated by many wizards and some think Crystal Wall is OP for it. Really, it isn't Crystal Wall, but Dispel that allows for this turn 2 execution. If you have rats out and they are within range of Vampires/Zombies/Draughar activation talisman then decide whether its better for the rat to absorb an attack or to dispel the rat to avoid feeding your opponent. In Law Mode you may find your Dragon at the end of its warranty and near death. Instead of allowing your opponent to reap 20 Mana for slaying your dragon you should attack one last time and then dispel it. You pay 5 mana and opponent loses 20 mana and no mana profit for attacking high defense elite unit over two or three turns. If you have Raise Dead or Raise Hell in your deck/build you can summon Growths to place on top of grave sites to protect them from dying units replacing the dead elite unit you want to eventually raise. Just dispel the shadow wood or tangled vine, etc. and raise your Undead Dragon.

When I first started playing I routinely timed out because there are so many options and ways to play spells. I had no idea what was a typical use of a spell or what to be wary of. Walking into bolt range happened so often I was berated by the victors for spoiling their fun. Take advantage of Spectating games played between other wizards. Pay attention to which spells are cast in what order. What does the wizard do after missing 3 spells in a row? How does the wizard extend the game and fend off pursuit? Spectating is also useful for seeing what you'll be up against when running Duels. I suppose you can setup Custom matches against A.I. opponents, but I believe you're better off tackling a level 4-8 realm. If you can beat an A.I. who has 4 or 5 units to start vs. your lone wizard then you'll have figured out what is most efficient to cast in the critical first 3 turns. You'll feel like playing a Human who starts with zero ally units just like you a less stressful task. If you get accustomed to facing numerical superiority then you'll keep a cool head when you find yourself behind when facing a human. Remember to be flexible too. Respond to the situation and not the rote progression of blue/red colored spells high percentage to lower percentage. That is often a good strat, but sometimes you need the off-color spell or to pace your casting with a neutral spell. If you want to shift the alignment to Chaos remember that you want your opponent to help you. You cast a skeleton which is easy. Opponent misses an Elf Archer. Then you cast a goblin. Now you're at 5% chaos alignment and opponent Needs to land a unit soon. You can at this point cast your neutral eagle just to pace your casting. Your opponent may bite on the 5% and land a chaos spell. Cast another neutral spell and if your opponent then casts chaos you'll have around 10% chaos alignment. Your Hellhound is 60% and your Vampire is 50%. Cast an Illusion Vampire to boost your alignment into a sweet spot range for your Chaos units. Its worth it even if the illusion is disbelieved; either way you're in the driver seat at that point. You can see why Clementine cuts Chaos/Law alignment strategies off at the knees. Clementine allows me to play my aligned cards out and after I cast my last one I activate Clementine and pull the ladder up so my opponent gets zero alignment to help with the elite units still held onto. Then with Clementine you work your way up the other aligned color and reset when you feel like crushing your opponents efficiency again. Clementine is vicious and just behind Dispel in that regard.

Mounted Wizards are Strong. It's not necessary to have a mount. I have builds where it isn't a priority. However, you need to be able to deal with them. Pegasus is extremely dangerous and more so against unmounted wizards. 4 hex mobility, sword, magic bolt combine to combo wizard after wizard. A manticore sacrifices mobility for staying power, agility, and a mean attack. Manticores are the best mount and look boffo when their agility is higher than adjacent opponent causing them to maintain a Rampant posture. Screen shot time. Unicorns are great. Elephants need buffs or they are very risky. You think you can get stuck in the front line, but even a low Magic Power wizard can Decree an unbuffed elephant or Paralyze it. Once dismounted a wizard is a sitting duck. Be cagey with other mounted wizards if you are mounted. The advantage is with the wizard who attacks first with a Bolt to dismount opponent. You don't want to be the first wizard dismounted. You fall behind in sente (tempo) and may lack a safe way of delivering a counter-bolt to dismount in return. When playing 3+ multiplayer games bear in mind that your opponents will sometimes cooperate by nailing your mount to force the second opponent to waste its bolt killing you. If you can get your opponents to use up their win conditions on each other your prospects of winning vastly increase. Also, refrain from killing opponents if the advantage is rendered to a powerful opponent. Why kill a wizard to benefit someone else? Never kill a wizard if doing so opens you to a Bolt from the last wizard standing.

A theme I'm noticing is that in PVP you want to subtlely suborn your opponent's action so their play works towards your ends and never give your opponents what they want. If your opponent binded Wings then wait until its Wings is cast before landing your Icarus Tower in range. Cast illusion rats and bait your opponent into chasing them down with a vampire or two in hopes of feeding. Paralyze your opponent's zombie, but don't kill it so the unit blocks other units from moving and Line of Sight. Walk a Paladin next to a Spider. Don't attack so next turn spider webs Paladin. Now the Paladin is protected from the Air Elemental closing in. Magic Attack the spider and your Paladin is temporarily safe. Don't get greedy with Magic Wood. Better to cast two Magic Wood you can protect than give your opponent 30 man a from the trees you can't protect. If your opponent has 7 cards and Bind to Hand talisman it may be tempting to Magic Attack the opponent directly and disrupt their hand or force a Bolt discard. If you are in combat with a Retaliate unit/wizard remember to cast illusion Pegasus before your next attack. The Pegasus cannot be disbelieved before it absorbs the potential retaliate hit. If you have Volaticus Duplus you can cast two illusion Pegasi to abuse retaliate-opponents. On battlefields where there are zero Mana Sprites be very cautious with your units and starve your opponent of mana. If you think your opponent burned a slew of cards for an activation then draw the game out so you're still casting in the last five turns. If you get blobbed next to your blobbed units you can Crystal Wall your units, dispel the wall, and use the freed units to free your wizard. So much more to share, but out of room. I only just got started.

Learn to deal with frustration. When you've missed your 3rd Mega cast in a row. When your bolt fails to kill thereby leading to your own death in a game you 'ought' to have won. When a realm mechanic reduces advancement after an hour or so of time invested down to a 60% chance of success on a single roll and the roll fails - for the third straight attempt on that realm. When you play turn after turn of asynchronous competition and nothing goes your way.

Sadly, the perfect computer game exists in a universe that objectively exists and is apparently utterly indifferent to what you or I think should happen when we play this game. If you play long enough you will experience every unfair event that is conceivable. I realized a dynamic in my second year of playing that is deeply ironic. The better you get at Chaos Reborn the more unfair events are going to have to be for you to lose. And everyone loses. Its just that the better you get the more frustrating your losses will appear to become. If a loss was any less a travesty we tell ourselves and often accurately know we would have won. That seems to be a constant experience in Chaos Reborn - demands for resilience in the face of disappointment.

You know most of the disappointment has illusory basis, right? Games that in my first six months were impossible and an indictment of the poor fundamentals of Chaos Reborn causing me to howl in rage at times - most of those 'tough-luck' games are won with trivial effort now. It's becoming edifying to accept how horrifying my losses typically have become. Reality check: we humans have unfortunate biases and expectations in respect to statistics that stretch the limits of absurdity. I, at least, discount my positive experiences and over-value bitter outcomes when they replace rosy forecasts. Something inside me feels an injustice mars my segment of the universe when my Combat-honed Demi-God fails to decapitate a Skeleton with a Magic Sword. I don't feel that a commensurate deeply ingrained sense of felicity accompanies my decisions in games where I know better than to attack a Skeleton when I don't really, really have to. I feel mildly put out as I restrain myself once again and look ahead to the next move. I should be feeling elated at the good fortune of being able to pass up another needless attack on a Skeleton knowing how dark it can be to fail that needless attack.

Hegemony is a PVP guild and a theme I impart to its members is to Be Dangerous. No matter how impossible the game has become or how its gone - up to the current turn - remember the point isn't to win, it's to make the best move one can conceive of and delivering lethal is always possible as long as one's wizard remains alive. I still get frustrated, but I'm also better about walking away when I can tell my focus is myopic and I'm short-term fixated on recent setbacks. Its absurd how many games I've agonized over in half the turns I took in them that i end up winning by the end. And, these types of games are definitely the types I NEVER won in my first six months of playing. It's embarassing to win a game when I've curdled at its turn-by-turn vicissitudes.

Find a long-term perspective that works for you and hold onto it. And make sure you EAT before you play asynchs or competitively. Sleep and Eating make a profound degree of difference in human decision-making and emotional equilibrium. My favorite players to play with are players like Blobka and Clef and Ozu just to name a few. Whether the luck tides are up or down these kinds of players actually mean it when they wish good luck to their opponent to start a game. They seem to enjoy the Activity of playing Chaos Reborn and discount the particular outcomes.

Learning & Fun > Winning Itself & Silly Ideas That Statistics Isn't Fair & Inability To Be Happy With Long-Term improvement & Overlooking A Chance to Be Happy For Fellow Players

The three inputs used to determine what spells you cast and know about, how much leeway you have for boosting a spell you want to succeed, and the pace required to reach your Mega Win Condition is determined by you.

You choose between countless permutations of talisman combinations to insure you have the spells, buffs, or capacities required to deliver lethal.

You choose your own Defense Rating, Agility Chance of Engagement, Effectiveness of Magic Power, and Combat Attack Power.

Aside from totems buffs and height modifications to attack rolls your choices paired against your opponent's selections determine your opportunities, disparities, and advantages.

When your Bolt fails a 72% chance to kill most of us curse our rotten luck because then we don't have to consider that if we had selected Mage Armor with 170 Magic Power our luck would magically smell like roses as the same bolt now kills. Same luck.

When a Giant dies to a rat attacking uphill we curse our egregious luck and the last thing we consider was our decision to bind Goo rather than a Gardilor passive buff giving 10% defense to all creatures. The difference between Giant dying to a rat and hell to pay in Gilder is persuasively a barely considered preference of Goo over 105 other talismans including defense buff talismans that would have saved the Giant, and Gilder.

I can keep doing this. At some point we must admit that we can't tell where bad luck ends and our all-important prior decisions begin. Or are we demanding that we have our Goo and our Giant or else something is wrong with the game? Because that is often what groans concerning variance in Chaos Mode amount to.

If you set the dice roll outcome aside and analyse every element that sets the standards for whether a roll is successful in the first place you will identify aspects of your game where improvement is promising. Cursing luck does not improve game and when you can admit that then it doesn't feel as good to do so either.

Yes, we live in a universe wherein the top computer game available is relatively unknown product of 2014 by a team lead by Julian Gollop. He is famous for X-Com, but Chaos Reborn is Snapshot's labor of love. The remake of Lords of Chaos that ran on an obscure British platform named ZX Spectrum during the Dark Ages, that is, the 1980's. Foremost among the game's accomplishments is exceptional game balance in Chaos Mode. Can you even name another balanced computer game?

Major game developers figured out that balanced games are naturally resistant to exploiting disparity to drive profit margins. Majors foster gear-gates and pointless choregraphed raid routines. They tailor character and unit specs to highlight flavor of the month comps, OP new additions, flood their games with character formulas designed to tier differently so they can play whack-a-mole as they nerf and buff with caprice. They are open about this and defend their policies by stating "its what players really want". They don't want equal access or fair playing fields; apparently they want loot boxes and the option to bully other people who invested less $.

The Lore in Chaos Reborn is ludicrously deep for a $10 product. I can attest that the lore is superior to WoW. It's on almost par with Second Edition D'n'D I'd say; better in some ways. Which is to say its bonkers good and it would be a weirder thing if the game rules weren't so tightly woven with the lore. Every unit and ability is steeped in thematic relevance. Read the frickin' 50-Page Full Print, Gorgeously Illustrated Lore Guide. Enthusiasts created a professional radio production based on Chaos Reborn lore background. There are books, well-written tales meant for adults and there is no bikini armor.

The Realms suffer only from the reckless ambition of the development compared to the funds available. Even in an unrevised state the Realms are singular acheivements in gaming. It doesn't seem like much at first, but in Chaos Reborn players who play consistently may rank to a level that allows them to create their own realms that are roughly tethered to the lore. No limit to how many realms a player can create. Almost anything fantastically realistic is possible; any story arc you can imagine that compensates for the basic plot device of regicide. Unlike Mods the Realms are sold with the game and are quality tested before publication. Can you name a single computer game that you have played in your entire life that allows players to fashion content that is sold with the base product? It costs $10,000 to have a kickstarter developer make a single minor character in a game with your name and approximate facial features. The developer retains all rights as to what that character does, is, and means to the game. Blizzard will never in this millenia allow its players to design a single area of a single level of any game they will ever make. No developer, even Bethesda, has ever actually considered it. The closest equivalent I can find is the DRM-plagued Mod-hybrid Neverwinter Nights, an updated 20th century proto-MMO.

The Chaos Reborn gamer community is civil as Chess, if not Go. Multi-national players from all walks of life, backgrounds. I once happened on a Live Custom Game between two players who have played Lords of Chaos or Choas Reborn EVERY SINGLE SATURDAY SINCE THE DARK AGES, THAT IS, THE 1980's.