300 Combat and the Activation

300.1Combat model

1. 300.1aCombat is simulated on the server, then played back for each player. Playback does not depend on connection speed: a high-ping player starts later but watches the round at the same rate.
2. 300.1bThe simulation advances in fixed steps. Every timer in these rules — charge, status duration, tick interval — advances on that fixed step.
3. 300.1cRandom outcomes are seeded and deterministic. Re-simulating the same battle produces the same result.

300.2Charge and Speed

1. 300.2aA unit activates when its charge completes. Charge time in seconds is 1 + 7 / (1 + Speed / 50).
2. 300.2bAt 0 Speed that is 8 seconds. The curve is asymptotic to 1 second and never reaches it, so Speed has strong diminishing returns.
3. 300.2cSpeed is clamped to 0 for this formula, so Dread, Crippling Scream, and any other Speed loss can slow a unit to the 8-second floor but never past it.
4. 300.2dFreeze multiplies the rate at which charge accumulates by 0.5. Stun stops it entirely.
5. 300.2eCharge progress is preserved, not reset, by Stun, Freeze, Entrap, and Dormant.
6. 300.2fA Shock-forced activation restores the unit's charge state afterwards, so it does not disturb the normal cycle.
7. 300.2gA quick reactivation — from Cascade or a reactivate roll — uses a 0.1 second cycle, then the unit returns to its normal charge time.

300.3The activation sequencepage

One activation resolves in this order. Every ordering ruling in Chapter 800 is a consequence of this list.

1. 300.3-1The unit's charge completes.
2. 300.3-2Keyword auras are refreshed and stats are flushed, so the activation reads current values.
3. 300.3-3The primary enemy target is selected by Focus-weighted roll, filtered by Rabid.
4. 300.3-4The Feral misfire roll is made. On a hit, the whole activation redirects to a random unit — ally or enemy — instead.
5. 300.3-5Scrip activation-start effects resolve. The activating unit pays off its own accumulated Interest here, and a Penny rolls its Stock mint and fires the Penny-activated channel here.
6. 300.3-6Activation-start triggers fire. Giant Tool packages on the "ally activated" event resolve here, with armor-setup Tools, packages, and effects — the ones carrying a Crush or a Smash — hoisted to the front. Poach fires here.
7. 300.3-7Rabid records the unit actually being attacked, including an ally hit by a Feral misfire.
8. 300.3-8New-target rune effects fire if this is a target incarnation the unit has not attacked before. This is a rune lane; no card Passive listens to it.
9. 300.3-9Bloodletting pays its cost, from the first eligible unit in board reading order. This can kill the payer. If the chosen payer cannot pay — a Tool or a Hub — the activation is aborted here, before damage.
10. 300.3-10Base damage is computed from the ability formula against the unit's live stats.
11. 300.3-11The ability fires: the cast event and every projectile are emitted.
12. 300.3-12Immediate rune effects resolve.
13. 300.3-13The ability's pre-effects resolve.
14. 300.3-14Activation effects resolve. Ordinary Crush and Smash effects are hoisted to the front as armor setup; everything else keeps authored order. Initiative effects gate here, and Initiative repeats resolve immediately after the first pass. Lucid effects resolve last, only if the unit is at full Vitality.
15. 300.3-15Base damage plus all bonus damage accumulated in the previous step is dealt to the primary target as one instance. The target's own retaliation — Thorns, Riposte, Retort — resolves inside that step, before anything below it.
16. 300.3-16Boss Reflect resolves, if the target has it, dealing 5% of the damage the hit just delivered back at the attacker.
17. 300.3-17On-hit rune effects resolve.
18. 300.3-18Post-damage effects resolve, in authored order. Maim, Cull, and most riders live here. They read the target's post-damage state.
19. 300.3-19Giant Tool packages on the post-impact pass resolve.
20. 300.3-20The Scrip Interest rider is applied if it was not consumed natively.
21. 300.3-21The reactivate roll and then the Cascade roll are made.
22. 300.3-22Activation followups run: Giant Tool post-activation packages, then post-activation rune effects, then Haywire, then Supercharge on adjacent allies.
23. 300.3-23Overclock settles last. If the activating unit still holds stacks, it rolls its blowout here, after everything above has read them.

1. 300.3aAn activation that finds no living target skips the attack entirely but still resolves its immediate rune effects.
2. 300.3bAn activation whose damage formula is invalid is aborted before any effect resolves.
3. 300.3cAn activation that deals 0 damage, or whose target died earlier in the same step, skips the damage step but still resolves its post-damage effects.
4. 300.3dNothing is granted for activating by itself. A unit gains Focus, Power, or any other stat on activation only where its card says so.
5. 300.3eA boss activation runs this same shape: armor setup, then the activation lane, then the delivery, then the post-damage lane. That is what makes a keyword behave identically on a boss and on the minion beside it.
6. 300.3fA boss picks its primary target the same way too. Rabid stops it repeating last activation's victim, and a Feral misfire can redirect the swing onto its own minions. Rabid remembers whichever unit was actually attacked.
7. 300.3gBonus damage a boss's keywords add folds into the single base hit rather than landing as a second strike, so the target pays its Armor once. On a spread delivery it joins the budget before the split, so a spread keyword is worth the same total a single-target one would be.

300.4Effect timing lanes

1. 300.4aEvery authored effect belongs to one lane: activation, post-damage, or a trigger channel.
2. 300.4bActivation-lane effects resolve before the base hit and may add bonus damage to it.
3. 300.4cPost-damage-lane effects resolve after the base hit and read the resulting board state.
4. 300.4dTrigger-channel effects resolve when their event fires and are not part of the activation lanes.
5. 300.4eAn effect flagged "once" fires at most once per unit per battle, and only spends its charge when it actually resolves — a gated or rejected effect can still land later.
6. 300.4fAn effect flagged "once per target" tracks its charge per target, so it can resolve again against a different unit.

300.5Overtime

1. 300.5aAfter 60 seconds every combatant begins taking overtime damage once per second. Tools and Hubs are excluded, because they discard combat interactions. An Entrapped unit is not: overtime is environmental rather than an ability.
2. 300.5bOvertime damage grows with the square of the seconds past the threshold: at N seconds past 60, it is N x N.
3. 300.5cAn overtime tick is an ordinary damage instance and runs the pipeline in 500.1, so Armor reduces it and Insurance and Shield absorb it, spending those points with their full consequences. The match clock is nobody's attacker, though, so a tick answers no Thorns, no Riposte, and no Subrogated Insurance.
4. 300.5dA combat is hard-capped at 120 seconds.
5. 300.5eOvertime exists to end stalemates and is not intended to be survived.