This is my first time creating content for Chrono Ma:Gia and may continue to do so if this proves successful

Introduction

Chrono Ma:Gia is the newest game to be released by GungHo and is a digital card game. In essence, the game revolves around carefully planning each turn to outmaneuver your opponent through Creatures, Spells, and Magia Skills.

While GungHo has released an official Beginner’s Guide, I feel it is still valuable to present my own perspective along with tips and tricks not covered already.

As a fair warning, Chrono Ma:Gia was only released on April 9, 2018 so the meta is still fluid and things may change quickly over time. Furthermore, I am by no means an expert in this genre but still have a modest amount of experience playing Hearthstone at a somewhat competitive level years ago. As such, this article will be placing most of the focus on early game management and how to avoid newbie pitfalls and get the most out of your game experience.

One distinct advantage of staring Chrono Ma:Gia now is being right on the cusp of Powercreep since everything is new. Furthermore, the learning curve will be gentler since less cards have been released compared to what will be available in a year’s time. Finally, there are currently very generous Login Bonuses during the first week and should be taken advantage of.

Video commentary

–video coming soon–

Community resources

All gaming communities have valuable player-created resources and Chrono Ma:Gia is no exception. I strongly encourage you to join either the Community Discord Server as well as checking out their Reddit Page.

Rerolling

Rerolling is a common term within most mobile games and is the process of restarting your game until you acquire a powerful starting Creature.

For Chrono Ma:Gia, rerolling means you complete the tutorial, open as many packs as possible, then clearing data/deleting the game and starting again until you acquire something “good.”

However, from my experience, the need to min/max your Rerolling is partially tied to your patience level along with the rarest cards being only marginally better overall. However, if your starting Pack of Cards yields 5 Commons, I would reroll.

With this in mind, it may simply be better to start the game with a handful of useful cards (Rares/Super Rares) instead of strictly chasing that one elite Creature. Just remember that you can always craft a specific card at a later date.

Terminology

All games have a certain degree of technical jargon and Chrono Ma:Gia is no exception. The following list may help as you advance through the game.

The Deck

As with any card game, the majority of the focus will be on crafting a viable deck to play with. Each deck consists of exactly 20 cards and you can only have 2 copies of each card. Legendary ones have a small exception as you can only have 1 copy in play at a given time (you can have multiple Legendaries, just not the same one twice).

You can quickly swap in and out cards that may not synergize with your strategy or as new cards are opened/crafted.

Bear in mind that with only 20 cards and a starting hand of 4, games can go quite quickly which is nice because you would not have to suffer through a bad match up for too long.

Card rarities

Cards come in 4 distinct rarities:

• Legendary (L)
• Super Rare (SR)
• Rare (R)
• Common (C)

This can also be found on each card in the top right corner. Thus the following card has the Legendary rarity as indicated by the L in the top right corner.

While Legendary Cards are unique and powerful, you can only use 1 per deck along with only working best in a deck that can accommodate them.

Play screen

The play screen may feel overwhelming at first, but this handy reference image will prove invaluable moving forward.

Magia Points (MP) – #2/8

Magia Points is the currency used to play Creatures, Spells, and some Magia Skills and is restored by a certain value at the start of each of your turns (caps at 15). You do not have to use every single point each turn and is often advantageous to keep extra in reserve to play more expensive cards later on.

Life – #4/10

Life is a representation of how much damage a Gifted can take before it is killed. Reducing Life to 0 results in the game’s conclusion but to help prevent a complete snowball, each time a Gifted takes damage, they will gain 1 Magia Point (MP) for each point of Life lost. Thus, taking 5 damage will grant that player 5 MP. This is important for planning out turns as you may not want to give your opponent too much MP at the beginning.

Defense – #3/9

Defense is a special trait utilized by several Gifted and can be thought of as a passive damage reduction. Each point of Defense will reduce any incoming damage by that value. Thus, in the above image, the Player’s Gifted will be able to reduce all incoming damage against her (not her Creatures) by 3. As such, any attacks of 3 or less will not deal any damage.

The Gifted – #1/7

The Gifted are the characters/heroes/summoners/champions of the game that have varying degrees of power and strategy. Each one can choose from up to 9 different Magia Skills to use along with a unique stat distribution.

Skillgear – #6

Each player’s Skill gear is unique to their Gifted and is further customized by choosing their Magia Skills.

Magia Skills

Magia Skills are unique powers each Gifted can wield and come in three tiers. Within each tier you are able to select 1 to go into battle with and these will influence your strategy and deck composition.

Creatures

Creatures are the characters Gifted can summon onto the battlefield and each one has a unique array of abilities and uses.

Setting a Creature

Setting a Creature is the process of spending MP to play that card onto the battlefield. However, it will remain facedown until the start of your next turn when it is summoned.

From the above image, this Set Creature cost 4 MP to play and gives a general indication of the power/potency is has.

One important aspect of Setting a Creatures is that is gains “invulnerability” as it cannot be targeted or damaged and the only way to skip this process is by using a Magia Skill or Spell.

Summoning a Creature

After a Creature has gone through their Set phase, they will be summoned into battle. This turns the card face up and triggers any abilities and enables them take an action which is usually attacking the enemy.

Once summoned, a Creature is able to be interacted with and potentially killed.

Creatures at a glance

MP Cost

The MP required to play the Creature

Attack

The amount of damage this Creature deals with each attack (can attack once per turn unless otherwise indicated)

Health

The amount of damage the Creature can sustain before being slain (removed from play)

Vanilla stats

Vanilla stats is a term used to describe the raw stats of a Creature. Thus, one with 5 Attack and 6 Health would be referred as a 5/6 with the MP cost either before or after.

Special Ability / Skill

Most Creatures have a special ability that is either passive or triggered upon being summoned.

This may be referred to as a “Battlecry” (Hearthstone term) if the Creature performs an ability when summoned. These do not occur when a Creature is Set, only when Summoned.

Typing

Each Creature can have 2 typings: a playing card suit (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs) and a classification (eg. Mortal, Aquatic, etc.)

The typings are important because they are what triggers your Magia Skills so building a deck that encompasses the correct typings is key to success.

Misc Creature terms

Stealth

Stealth Creatures are “invisible” in that they cannot be directly targeting by attacks or spells but are still vulnerable to abilities that do not require a target. However, the owning player can interact with them and can also use them to attack if they do not care about the Stealth mechanic.

Taunt

Taunt forces all attacks to target that particular Creature. This is invaluable for protecting your Gifted or other valuable Creatures.

Rush

Rush enables a Creature to completely bypass the Set phase and become immediately summoned. This is valuable as it allows you to both deal unexpected damage as well as triggering more Magia Skills than what your opponent would have expected.

Just bear in mind these cards tend to have a higher cost in MP as they can activate right away.

Rush cards are often best used on Creatures that have the typing requirement for your Tier 1 Magia Skill as it will enable you to cast your Magia Skill from what was once an empty board.

Level Up Summoning

Level Up Summoning is a unique and exciting aspect within Chrono Ma:Gia as it enables you to empower any Creature by summoning over one that is already in play.

The process is quite simple, you pay 1 additional MP to summon a Creature from your hand over top one that is already Summoned and in play.

Doing this will result in the base Creature being overwritten but is compensated by the new Creature gaining augmented stats as it levels up.

Performing a Level Up Summon on a an existing Creature will upgrade the new one to Level 2. Playing a Creature from your hand onto a Level 2 will result in the new Creature achieving Level 3 which is the maximum.

Successfully performing a Level Up Summon will grant the following stat buffs at their respective level:

• Level 1: no bonuses
• Level 2: 1 Attack / 2 Life
• Level 3: 2 Attack / 4 Life

Level Up Summons are vital to success as it enables even basic Creatures to gain meaningful stats along with providing more value for lower MP Creatures to act as the sacrificial base.

Misc terms

Various terms that do not fall under any specific category

Graveyard

The Graveyard is where cards that have either been discarded, used up, or slain go. For the most part, this area is out of play; however, specific cards enable you to interact with the Graveyard and potentially bring them back into play.

Obliterate

When a card is Obliterated, it is completely removed from play and there is no way to bring it back. This is important as it prevents players from interacting with cards that were sent to the Graveyard.

Shields

Shields are a special mechanic creatures can obtain and will prevent any damage from occurring if it is 2 or less. However, any damage at or above 3 will break the Shield and enable them to be damaged as normal.

Fixed Damage

Fixed Damage is damage that deals the exact amount listed and ignores Shields and Defense. This is naturally powerful against Gifted with innate Defense or Creatures who have low Health but possess Shields.

Stun

If you stun a Creature, it is unable to perform an action; however, it can still be interacted with. Thus, you can attack a Stunned Creature or Level Up Summon on top of them. Furthermore, their Taunts and typing for Magia Skill still take effect.

Stone

Stone is a status effect that removes a Creature from play for a turn. The Creature is still present on the board, but cannot be interacted with in any way. That means you cannot attack it or rely on their taunt.

Stone is generally more effective than Stun as it further delays the player from using that spot on the board as well as bypassing Taunts.

Lethal

Lethal is an expression used to describe when you have a killing turn. This takes into consideration the cards in play and in your hand along with how much damage you are able to produce. As such, you should always plan out how you could potentially win and ignore everything else if you have the chance at delivering a Lethal blow.

Currencies

All games have special currencies and Chrono Ma:Gia is no exception.

Magia Gold (G)

Magia Gold is the premium currency that is used to purchase additional card pack. Magia Gold can be earned slowly overtime via login bonuses and achievements or can be quickly acquired by purchasing with real life money (IAP-ing).

It is advisible that you try to only spend your Magia Gold on the 10-pack bundle as it will guarantee a Super Rare card.

Suit Pieces

Suit Pieces are the four different colours/suits that are displayed below your Magia Gold. These are used to either purchase new Gifted or craft specific cards. These are also earned via log in bonuses and achievements but are unable to be purchased with real money. However, you can break down cards for small amounts of Suit Pieces.

This process of breaking down a card is a permanent action that will destroy that card from your collection but is useful when you have excess number of duplicates.

What constitutes a “good” card?

Despite Chrono Ma:Gia being a newly released game, the overall genre is longstanding and knowledge from other card games is easily transferable.

When looking at a card, the rarity does provide a reasonable indication as to the overall potency, but an intelligently crafted deck (and Magia Skills) will outperform one with as many high rarity cards randomly dumped in.

As such, it becomes important to understanding how a card can be considered “good” when examining them in a vacuum (ignoring all other factors).

Value

For the most part, we are looking for a card that provides significant value when played. This means it can favourably “trade up” in that it can either accomplish more for it’s MP cost compared to other options or remove 2 or more cards from your Opponent.

Chrono Ma:Gia decks only allow 20 cards so being able to remove 2 or more with a single one results in you coming out ahead overall. Thus, you want to examine each card and try to determine how it can provide more value for your deck.

From the above example of Nyx, she has the capability to remove up to 3 opposing Creatures and still deal 4 damage afterwards. This is tremendous value overall despite the high MP cost.

However, even more basic cards can still Trade Up or find value with they bring deck/typing synergy. Generally speaking, a Creature with a Battlecry/Special Ability that deals instantaneous damage when summoned is amazing because it can either remove a low HP Creature and attack another or remove a larger threat.

For example, the Common Mimic has amazing value overall:

For 2 MP, you are able to instantaneously deal 2 damage to the Creature in front of it, attack for 1, but can also trigger any Diamond/Construct Tier 1 Magia Skill. Thus, with the Gifted Karin, you can deal 5 damage for 2 MP (Mimic Sneak Attack, Mimic Basic Attack, Magia Tier 1 Skill). Furthermore, after activating your Mimic and using your Magia Skill, you can quickly Level Up Summon over top of them.

If you find yourself with several key/valuable cards, it may be wise to build a deck around them and find complimenting Magia Skills/Gifted to use them on.

Magia Skills & Creature Typing

Each Gifted has 3 tiers of Magia Skills with each tier having 3 different options. This leads to numerous different compositions and deck builds because you must use specific find Creatures with specific typings.

From the above image, Sheathing Strike is the Magia Tier 1 Skill and actually requires 1 MP to cast. However, there is no type restriction to cast and can be done via an empty board.

On the other hand, this set up requires you to have a Diamond present to cast Shoulder Slice:

Both Magia Skills have the same net effect, but their casting requirements are different.

Further examination of the second image reveals that in order to cast Steel Blade, you must have a Spade, Diamond, and Construct creature on the board.

if you recall from above, each Creature can have 1 suit typing and 1 classification typing. Thus, you can fulfill the Steel Blade requirements with 2 Creatures provided one of them had a Construct and Spade/Diamond Typing. In order to cast Moonlight Strike, one must have a Spade, Diamond, another Diamond, and Construct Typings on the board (3 Creatures total).

This makes deck synergy immensely important because the key to success is being able to tap into your Magia Skills on a regular basis as they tend to have great value for their MP cost.

As such, you will either build a deck around your Magia Skills or find a Gifted who can utilize the types of Creatures you own.

As a final remark, you can only use 1 Magia Skill each turn regardless of how many are unlocked.

Keep in mind that if a Creature is killed, removed via Level Up Summon, or affect by Stone, they will not provide their typings for Magia Skills

Level Up Summoning – Advanced tactics

Level Up Summoning is another mechanic you need to master when playing Chrono Ma:Gia. The process is quite simple, but the opportunities for advanced usage are endless.

In essence, you will be Setting a Creature from your hand over top an already Summoned Creature for 1 additional MP. This will “consume” the base Creature and empower the one you Set over top. This can be done two times to raise a Creature to Level 3.

• Level 1: no bonuses
• Level 2: 1 Attack / 2 Life
• Level 3: 2 Attack / 4 Life

This is important for two reasons: it enables low MP cost Creatures to have more merit as well as being able to “preserve” a card that has already expended it’s usefulness.

Enabling low MP Creatures

Generally speaking, low MP costing Creatures provide less value compared to those that cost more. This can be either attributed to their lower vanilla stats or weaker on-play effect, but regardless of what makes them low costing, you still want to get as much value out of them as possible.

Thus, the ideal scenario is to play your low MP Creature, utilize their abilities, then Level Up Summon over top of them. As such, the lower MP cost can help compensate for the additional 1 MP you have to pay for a Level Up Summon and the augmented stats justify the cost.

Preserving a Creature

For the most part, many Creature’s main value is realized on their first turn summoned: they use their Battlecry and attack an enemy. However, some may provide more value the longer they are on the field due to higher stats etc. As such, they may become debuffed/wounded over time. For example, you may have a Taunt Creature with 8 HP but it was reduced down to 2 HP over time.

As such, it will most likely be killed on your opponent’s next turn and by performing a Level Up Summon, you can preserve their usefulness by donating stats to a new Creature.

This tactic can be used to waste your opponent’s resources/time/cards and should be done when you see your Creature is about to die.

Regardless of why you are using a Level Up Summon, always attack with the base Creature before Summoning over top to gain as much value out of them as possible

Dealing damage to Gifted grants MP

Many card games feature various Rush-style strategies in which the goal is to overwhelm your opponent with fast-acting Creatures and effectively zerg them down before they can muster a defense.

However, Chrono Ma:Gia has a built in counter: each point of damage dealt to a Gifted will give them 1 MP. Thus, dealing 7 damage to your opponent will give them 7 MP. This is an interesting turn of events as it will enable them to play a high costing card right away and potentially counter your Rush.

This is a nice tactic as I remember from my Hearthstone days that Face Hunters were horrible to play against and it felt like a lot of luck was required from either end to win.

However, you may not be playing a Rush-style deck, but you may not wish to give your opponent free MP at the beginning when you are fighting for Board control.

Abusing Instant Summoning

The entire Set mechanic provides another interesting spin on your game play experience and is a reasonably predictable mechanic. However, using cards with Rush can surprise your opponent (especially if doing a Level Up Summon as it grants additional Attack), but forcing a Set card to be instantly summoned is even more powerful.

Through either Spells or Magia Skills, you are able to convert a Set Creature into a Summoned one. This will trigger their Battlecries but also enable you to interact with them.

If playing on yourself, it will grant you the opportunity to take an action with them and is usually used to surprise your opponent; however, if you change a Set Creature from your opponent into a Summoned one, you can remove it from the board before they get to take an action.

Generally speaking, players will use the Set mechanic to protect their Creatures until they can be used, but by forcing them into a Summoned state can ruin their plans.

As such, it is often more valuable to instantly Summon your opponent’s Set Creature to remove it from play and prevent it from taking an action.

What to do first in Chrono Ma:Gia

After reading the various guides/articles available, you will want to begin your adventure after starting with something reasonable (I would reroll if your first pack is 5 Commons). Once this has been accomplished, it is best to play through the Story Modes first.

This mode will not only gently ease you into the world of Chrono Ma:Gia, but will also provide you with numerous rewards including Suit Pieces, Magia Gold, and free card packs.

Furthermore, the Story Modes will utilize pre-set decks and will help showcase many Common and Rare cards. This will help familiarize you with how these cards work as well as the basic mechanics of the game.

The difficulty level is modest but can be somewhat challenging towards the final Chapters. However, you can retry a failed attempt as there is no limit/cap on your play time.

Once you have played through all 4 story modes, you will have unlocked 4 additional card packs which while also giving a better understanding of how the game and cards works. Furthermore, it will be easier to begin building a custom deck once you have more cards at your disposal.

Basic Deck building

This section could very well be an entire article, but for the purposes of this introduction guide, I want to make it reasonably simple and straight forward.

There are a few ways to approach deck building and either takes into consideration your own card game experience, what you have at your disposal, along with any preference you have for play styles.

However, I feel it is best to either build around a few core cards or the Magia Skills you wish to use.

If completely lost, you can always choose the preset decks and swap out the more basic cards for stronger replacements that fulfill the same typing requirements. By that I mean if you remove a Spade, replace it with another Spade card.

Core cards

After opening numerous packs, it is possible you will have acquired a few strong cards that you may want to build around.

However, you need to examine their typings and find a complimenting Magia Skill.

For example, if your best Creatures are Diamonds or Constructs, you will want to find a Gifted that can use either of those in their Tier 1 Skills. Thus, using the Gifted Karin may be wise as her Tier 1 can use either Diamonds or Constructs.

Magia Skills

The other basic approach to deck building is finding a set of Magia Skills that you would like to utilize. Once those have been selected, you will want to filter your Creatures by the required typings while placing priority on activating your Tier 1 Skill first, then Tier 2. Tier 3 will most likely be difficult to achieve overall if you are missing many cards from your Collection.

Spells versus Creatures

When deck building, you will want to have a healthy mixture of Spells and Creatures and I wish to explain their differences.

Creatures take time to summon but are able to potentially provide more value in the long run provided they last for more than 1 turn. On the other hand, Spells provide instantaneous value when played but generally provide no further value beyond that.

Thus, Spells should be viewed as cards to give yourself a boost in a pinch. They tend to have more raw value than a Rush Creature assuming the Rush Creature does not live to take a second action. Thus, having some spells as removals is valuable. You are able to spend less MP to deal more damage then if you used a Rush Creature.

However, you do not wish to over populate your deck with Spells because they only provide value when they are played. Furthermore, you should never go for your opponent’s Gifted with your Spells unless you are going to end the game then or shortly after since you would have otherwise wasted a card. Remember, you do not have to use all of your MP each turn.

Choosing your starting hand

When you finally enter a match, you will be given a hand of 4 cards and asked which you wish to keep.

Assuming I know nothing about your deck, it is advisable to try and keep a Creature who can be played early on (factor in your starting MP and regeneration rate) as well as being able activate your Tier 1 Magia Skill.

Thus, if your Tier 1 Skill required a Clubs, try to keep a Clubs typing Creature that can be played.

What to spend your Suit Pieces on

Due to the fact that the game meta is fluid and that we do not know what will rise to the top, it is best to not actually craft cards. This is because you can either open them at a later date along with not knowing if it will actually help you advance overall.

As such, it may be better to invest in a Gifted provided you have a modest card collection already.

This is because a Gifted cannot be acquired in any way outside of purchasing. Thus, it is an investment that cannot go bad and may open new doors for your own game play experience.

Basic game play strategies

As mentioned above, you want to try and ensure your cards “trade up”. This is achieved by your Creature or Spell being able to remove 2 or more cards from your opponent. Thus, having a Creature live for more than 1 turn after being summoned is the somewhat key to success.

For example, lets say you have drawn half of your deck and currently have 1 Creature on the board along with 3 cards in your hand. Your opponent has 2 cards in hand with 1 Creature in play. This means you are currently 1 card ahead and assuming everything trades equally, you should win.

Now, this is a highly simplified scenario, but if you have card advantage, you tend to win. Thus, by keeping a Creature alive for more than 1 turn enables them to potentially remove 2 others in their lifespan. Conversely, if they are able to remove 1 Creature after being summoned and then required a Spell plus Basic Attacks to kill, you still came out ahead.

With this in mind, ample usage of your Magia Skills will be another key to victory. If your Magia Skill enables you to deal 2 damage and is used to remove 2 Creatures over the course of the game, you may come out ahead. This is important because Magia Skills are “endless” in that you can use 1 every turn it is available and should be the priority if it can remove an opposing card.

Thus, if you only required 2 damage to finish off a Creature, use your Magia Skill instead of a Spell card. This will allow you to use the Spell card in a future turn and the Magia Skill since it is available every turn.

Defending Creatures do not fight back

Defending Creatures not attacking back was perhaps the most surprising mechanic in Chrono Ma:Gia. This is partially biased from my Hearthstone experience because if you attacked a Creature and were unable to kill it, they would hit back for their Attack value.

This enables small Creatures to “gang up” on a larger one and chip them down until they are killed. Thus, a Defending Creature with 5 HP can be killed by 3 Creatures with 1, 2, and 2 damage with none of them taking any in return.

This is important as you should always try your best to remove as many Creatures from your opponent as possible. This will enable you to maintain board control.

Board control

Board control is a term used to indicate who has more Creatures in play and thus “in control.” If you have board control it is often harder for your opponent to catch up as you have a stronger presence and are better able to Level Up Summon.

Furthermore, if you are in possession of instant Summon abilities, you can force your Opponent’s Set Creatures into play and can potentially kill them before they can do anything.

Unless you have a plan on ending the game this or next turn, you should always try and remove your opponent’s Creatures.

Be mindful of Gifted damage

Every time a Gifted takes damage, they will gain MP equal to the damage suffered. This is important because you do not wish to give your opponent too much MP before you have established board control.

For example, if you have 2 Creatures on the board and your opponent has 1, you should naturally remove it, but you may have leftover damage to spend.

Thus, it may be beneficial to not hit their face if they are already low on MP. This is because hitting them will grant them additional MP and may enable them to play a key expensive card. As such, it may sometimes be better to forgo hitting them until you can build up a stronger board presence as it is easier to deal with a single Creature each turn compared to several plus spells.

Conclusion

Chrono Ma:Gia is the newest game to be released by GungHo and brings a fresh spin on digital card games. Furthermore, by starting the game right away at the beginning, you are better able to keep abreast with Powercreep along with taking full advantage of the Launch Celebration login rewards.

Depending on the reception to this article, I may continue to produce Chrono Ma:Gia content moving forward.

Let me know what you think about the game and whether or not you would like to see more content in the future.

If you wish to add me in Chrono Ma:Gia, my ID is: 249,983

Happy Ma:Gia-ing! (I need a new sign off, Ma:ntasticGIA?)

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