Competitive Card Casting - Modern Tournament Format
FROM THE FILES OF THE CARD ENFORCEMENT AGENCY
[The following file is a selection from the required readings of Casting 101, a lower division class at the National Card Academy of Cascadia. This reading is offered after successfully passing the first quiz as an introduction into the system of casting currently used in international tournament. Cadets review the material for a month then practice match strategy for the rest of the semester with card substitutes. They are tested on this material via SimCard duels - explained in another reading - before facing an end of semester match series to test their knowledge. Cadets are graded on their performance in the matches as well as their effective usage of strategy. Jacob placed fourth in his class in the casting matches; the Cadets who placed first through third all attended prestigious private card academies before registering for national service.]
Ever since the fifth International Card Casting Tournament was held in Caracas, the majority of official tournament casting has been conducted by the same format - with only minor changes to the rules or card ban list each year. This competitive rule set has formed the basis of modern competitive casting, with even the majority of illegal Casting Operations and Tournaments being conducted by these rules. These rules are separate from Street Matches, which are a form of illegal Casting conducted in an unorganized manner - typically as a part of a separate crime such as robbery or mugging.
At present, all forms of casting for sport are regulated by the International Federation of Card Casting - or IFCC. This organization is an independent international governing body for the usage of cards in a competitive setting, and cooperates closely with the other international governing bodies of more historically recognized sports (such as Tennis, Swimming, and Football). It has been a part of the International Olympic Committee for over 30 years now, and has even produced several forms of competitive casting that have made their way into the summer Olympic games each year. While the following format is not included in the Olympic Games (it was determined not to have enough of a human element, and was passed over for Individual Casting Combatives), it is the most popular format currently used in Competitive Casting across the globe, and is amongst the most exciting form to watch.
Turn Phases and Turn Order:
Modern Competitive Casting is highly regimented, with a very specific order of events happening each turn. There are a few exceptions to the rule, but those exceptions are highly context specific, and will be discussed later in the reading. Currently, turns in tournament format matches are conducted with the following phases, written in the order they are conducted in: Draw Phase, Creature Phase, Spell Phase, Snare Phase, and Special Phase. These phases are literal, with each one allocated for the type of card or card action they are named for. Phases are completed once a Caster conducts an action from the following phase or elects their turn, with the phase order being non-reversible. If a caster chooses to move from one phase to another (or to skip a phase entirely) they cannot go back, and must wait to conduct the phase action they missed in a future turn.
Draw Phase: The shortest phase at the start of each turn, often treated by Competitive Casters as a part of the following Creature Phase due to its brevity. During the phase the caster draws a single card and adds it to their hand; once the card is drawn it is immediately available to be used in the match.
Creature Phase: The phase where the majority of a majority of a match occurs. During this phase Casters may summon and use their Creature Cards, engaging them in battles with each other an opposing casters. Most matches are ended during this phase, via a direct attack from a creature to another caster. While current casting regulations requires end of game attacks to be non-fatal, accidents do still occasionally occur throughout the competitive season. For this reason all competitive casters are required to carry a Resignation card, which halts all attacks before they can reach their targets. Creatures cast during this phase are able to be used for attacks and other actions the same turn they are cast, however they can only attack or do such actions once. Casters can use every creature they have summoned during this phase, granting a strategic benefit towards casters who have managed to summon more creatures in a game. If a Creature card attacks a card with a Defense stat higher than its Strength stat, it is destroyed. If a Creature Card attacks a card with a lower Defense stat than its Strength stat, the opposing card is destroyed.
Spell Phase: The third phase of a turn, where a competing caster is able to Cast non-reactionary Spell Cards. Spell Cards cast during this phase are typically activated immediately upon their casting, though a few have specialty effects that allow them to be cast outside the Spell Phase - typically reactionary effects that stop the casting of a card or negate a card effect. This phase is also the one when competitive casters are allowed to use Equip Cards on themselves or their creatures. Casters may use as many Spell Cards as they have available in their hand during this phase, but may only Equip one card per target object per turn. If they are using a separate Equip Deck - as is standard in most Competitive Casting tournaments and throughout Cascadia - then casters are allowed a maximum of three equips total during the Spell Phase. While the Creature Phase tends to be one of the longest phases in competitive casting, the Spell Phase is one of the most dynamic; high level competitive matches often feature multiple rounds of back to back casting during a given spell phase, as the casters summon reactionary spell cards back and forth in response to each other’s actions. This phase has been an audience favorite since competitive casting was first introduced, with heavy push back to almost every change that has been proposed to the phase itself.
Snare Phase: The final active phase of a turn, when a Caster is able to set their Snare Cards. This is the second shortest phase of a turn in most matches; while casters are also free to summon any snares they have previously cast, the nature of Snare Cards adds a lot of volatility towards the assumption they will be used at this time. The Snare Phase is considered the most strategic portion of a caster’s turn, as cards set during this phase typically remain on the field long after they have been played.
Special Phase: The final phase of a turn, and the one which has the least amount of caster control over its end results. The Special Phase is entered after a caster elects to end their turn, and is initiated automatically upon this happening. During the Special Phase all outstanding and continuous card effects are engaged, following the order of the Phases of each turn. This means that in the special phase card effects are resolved first in any remaining creature effects, then spell effects, then snare effects - with the effects of the cards summoned by the caster who’s turn just entered the special phase being resolved before the effects of an opponents cards. This order can be interrupted by Spell and Snare cards designed to react to or negate the effect of another card, sometimes resulting in long and dramatic Special Phases that change the dynamic of a duel.
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Competitive Match Organization and Basic Rules:
Just as modern competitive matches follow a specific structure for their turns, so to do they follow a specific structure for the matches themselves. Every official match begins first with a chance selection to determine which caster goes first. In early internationals this was conducted via coin toss, however in modern tournaments this has been conducted via dice roll. Casters will select a number between one and twenty, and a 20 sided die is rolled to determine who starts the match. The caster with the closer value to the rolled number has the first turn; if casters select numbers equidistant from the roll then the higher number is chosen to go first. This was changed in the fifth international tournament after a referee was caught intentionally obscuring the results of the coin toss to favor certain casters, and has been popular with audiences in subsequent international broadcasts.
Once a caster is selected to go first their turn is conducted in an identical fashion to future turns, with the exception that no Creatures summoned that turn may attack, and no spells cast during that phase may directly affect or cause damage to the opponent. The latter point regarding spells has been fairly contentious, and there are regular adjustments to the rules to accommodate loopholes and workarounds as they are discovered. One such change occurred during the most recent internationals in Barcelona, when a ruling was made by the IFCC stipulating that any field equips placed during the first turn cannot have any effects which detrimentally affect the statistics of another caster’s cards - a ruling that was made after a competitor from Cambodia had all their cards Strength stats reduced by 1000 points due to a particularly strong Field Equip Effect against Fae type cards placed in the first turn.
Matches are then conducted according to their regular turn order and phase order until a Win Condition is met, or a draw is declared. Once a match has begun the turn order may not be altered nor changed, with any card that has the capability of doing so being banned in official tournament (see banned and illegal cards below). Once a card has been used to its maximum extent in a turn or defeated by another card or caster it is moved to a special destroyed pile, and cannot be re-used or summoned except by special card effect. Casters may only cast and use the cards they have drawn into their hand - unless a card effect explicitly says otherwise, and with the exception of equip cards stored in an equip deck - and must ply with a truly randomized and shuffled deck. All modern deck boxes produced around the world are required to have auto-shuffling features, and all decks are shuffled by the tournament referees before each match to avoid potential cheating or shuffling bias.
Ending a Match
As of now there are three common Win Conditions that are seen in competitive matches: Resignation, Caster Damage, and Deck Depletion. Competitive matches may also end in a Draw, which is viewed as a neutral ending where neither competing caster won or lost.
Resignation as a Win Condition is met when one or more Casters in a match play the equip card Resignation - a unique equip card that can be played at any time, for any reason, and immediately ends a match and all actions ongoing. Effects that are partially resolved will be halted unresolved, and the opposing caster will be declared the winner in of the competitive match. This is the most common Win Condition in modern competitive tournaments, as most casters place the resignation card shortly before an opponent can attack them as a caster directly.
Caster Damage as a Win Condition is met when a Caster is dealt direct personal damage by another player to such a degree that they cannot continue the match without permanent detrimental impact to their physical health. This typically occurs via a direct attack by an opposing casters creatures, usually after defeating that casters creatures in the creature phase. Current Card regulations stipulate such an attack must be non-fatal in nature, but several accidents have occurred that have resulted in permanent disability or death in tournament. Missing limbs and significant injury have become so common in tournament that amendments have been proposed at the end of every international tournament for the past 8 years to more tightly regulate bodily injury, but none have been successful in passing. A coalition of permanently disabled casters and the families of those who have passed has emerged on the international stage in the past 3 years that is advocating for further change, and it is hypothesized the next international tournament in New Delhi will finally see change. It is highly recommended that Cadets immediately cast the Resignation card the moment their is any potential for Caster Damage in a match they participate in; evidence of injury due to refusing to cast Resignation is grounds for expulsion from the Academy, and could bar a cadet from any federal service if the injury and evidence is severe enough.
Deck Depletion as a win condition is the least common in modern competitive tournament following the restructuring of the fifth International Competitive Casting Tournament, and occurs when a caster attempts to enter their draw phase, but cannot due to having no available cards left in their deck to draw. Deck Depletion is inevitable in matches that go significantly longer than the average match time in competition. As deck sizes have expanded in modern tournaments - with the average now hovering at 72 cards out of a maximum 75 across all entrants in the international competitive circuit last year - this has become exceedingly rare, requiring over 50 individual turns to reach. The most notable recent example of this win strategy was the semi-finals match of the International Tournament in Berlin 4 years ago, when the third and fourth place casters took over 2 and a half hours to resolve their match. Despite the length of time required to induce such a win condition it has been rarely challenged or amended from the current ruleset, as long term matches often become crowd favorites due to their intense nature.
The final way to end a competitive casting match is a draw, which is declared if a match ends in any conditions other than the ones outlines above. The most common forms of Draw are match interruptions - when an outside event out of the control of either caster causes the match to halt - and medical emergencies. The latter is commonly disputed and hotly debated, however medical emergencies which result in a caster being unable to continue the match that were not caused by an opposing caster are still considered a draw. This has been vocally supported by a variety of national and international medical organizations, who argue that to allow for these medical conditions to be counted as losses would result in those with medical disabilities being unable to have the same accessibility to competitive casting, and would encourage those with medical issues or injuries to continue casting even when doing so would cause significant - and possibly permanent - detrimental impacts to their physical or mental health. A medical emergency can be declared by either a tournament official or a caster, and once verified by a medical professional is non-appealable by either party.
