We Played the Japanese Version of ZENONZARD: Artificial Card Intelligence Before Its Global Release!

ZENONZARD: Artificial Card Intelligence is an online card game set for release in May 2020 across 56 countries and regions in English. Players will team up with AI to fight against AI. By playing the currently available Japanese version, well introduce its basic rules and unique Force system. We also participated in a battle to show you what this game is all about!

Playing ZENONZARD, a card game where you fight alongside AI, in Japanese!

BANDAI, famous for its Carddass card vending machines, has released the smartphone card game ZENONZARD as the first installment in its new AI Carddass series.

The game tackles a whole new genre, combining a card game and AI which enables you to receive support and play analysis during battles.

Before the global release of ZENONZARD, we played the currently available Japanese version to bring you our guide and review of the game!

A Simple Mana Cost Style Card Game

ZENONZARD uses one basic rule: spending Mana to summon cards.

Veteran card players will quickly get the hang of this rule, but the game incorporates Force and moving Mana, which sets it apart from other games.

Win the battle by depleting your opponents life to 0.

Winning a battle is simple too; the first player to deplete their opponents life down to 0 comes out victorious.

There arent any cards that allow you to win by special conditions, so the game can be enjoyed as a traditional card game. Perfectly timed attacks and counters can make or break a player.

Once there are no cards in your deck, its all over.

Losing all your life will leave you defeated, but just like in other card games, having no more cards in your deck will also leave you biting the dust.

A player wont lose as soon as their deck has no cards left, but being unable to draw any will cause you to lose the battle.

Most of our battles ended before one of our decks ran out of cards. But remember, some battlescan stretch out and a deck that requires drawing a lot of cards can end the battle before you know it.

Card types are split into three main groups.

The card types that appear in ZENONZARD are split into three main groups.

Field Minions are used for battle, Base Minions are placed as Mana, and Magic cards can be used as soon as theyre played.

Of course, cards have their own effects, but when playing them, their positions on the field and general roles dont change. Make sure to check them out before you head into battle.

Card Types and Their Attributes

There are exceptions, such as Token cards which can be summoned by another cards effect.

Turns have three phases.

Turns during battle are split into three phases. Moving through these phases advances the game.

As you will see in the chart below, the Standby Phase and Mana Phase dont require much time. Most of the battle takes place within the Main Phase.

Decisions such as choosing what to attack and how you use your Mana are crucial to winning, as well as showing off a players skills!

Use Flash Timing to make your escape!

Normally, the player cant move an inch if their opponent doesnt attack during their turn.

But by using Flash Timing, the player has a chance to act during their opponents onslaught.

Using Mana allows the player to activate the [Flash] magic effect and summon minions with the [Swoop] effect. With Flash Timing, turn the tables on your opponent in the blink of an eye!

A lot of Yellow Light Kingdom Kanatana cards have the [Swoop] effect, so players are able to create a deck built for counter attacks.

Terminology

Using Force and Movement to Expand Your Strategy

Weve covered the basic rules of the game, but Force and Movement, unique to ZENONZARD, require a deeper explanation.

Use Force to activate a powerful effect.

ZENONZARDs unique Force system allows you to choose two passive skills for a deck.

Using Force lets you activate effects such as strengthen attack minions, reduce life damage, secure Mana to use during the opponents turn, and much more. This makes the game more complex and fleshed out.

Even if you build an identical deck, different Forces alter a players moves and strategies, making deck building all the more fun and interesting.

Some Force Effects Youll Encounter

The players life is altered by Force life.

Force has life assigned to it just like the player. Minions are able to attack both the player and their Force.

Once the Force sustains damage and its life is reduced to zero, its destroyed and loses its effect. Its easier to gain the upper hand by destroying your opponents Force before charging in with everything youve got.

Force life and the players life add up to 12, so take into account your Force effect and life when making your decision.

[How to Calculate the Players Life]
12-(Force : 1 + Force : 2)=Players life

Reduce/increase your Mana and board using the Mana Movement System.

The Mana Movement System does exactly as the name suggests: it allows the player to move theircards.

More specifically, minion cards are able to move from base to field and field to base, allowing the player to stock Mana and strengthen their board.

Players are able to move once during their turn, but the number can be increased by the effects of Force and minions.

Moving skillfully and devising strategies, such as increasing Mana to use in the next turn or increase chances to attack by moving minions to the field, is one of several paths to winning in ZENONZARD.

Moving is a unique rule within the card game. While first time players may be taken aback by this, the AI will guide players and familiarize them with the various mechanics.

A report on our actual gameplay!

Now that weve gone over the rules of ZENONZARD, well let you in on our gameplay review.

We used the Kanatana (Yellow) deck.

The deck were going with this time is Half Year Anniversary: Kanatana, a Yellow base deck to commemorate the six month anniversary of ZENONZARDs release in Japan.

Well use the cards given to us without altering the deck.

*The Half Year Anniversary Deck will be unavailable at the time of the English release.

Watch out for Eleksai Lord of Thunderstrikes.

The decks finisher is Eleksai Lord of Thunderstrikes.

This field minion has a powerful effect that prevents its attacks from being blocked unless the enemy is a Dragon or Dragonewt type card.

Well also use Selika Sorceress of Thunderstrikes to search for Eleksai (applies while using this deck) and combine them to create a balanced battle.

Use Mulligan to aim for a Mana Curve.

Mulligan allows us to exchange any amount of cards we choose. We try to aim for a Mana Curve to set us up for the next three to four turns.

Heres our Mulligan result. Cost 1, 2, 3 and 4 cards give us a decent hand to work with for the beginning of our battle.

We also have one of our trump cards: Selika Sorceress of Thunderstrikes, so hopefully well bump into Eleksai Lord of Thunderstrikes early on in the battle.

We havent drawn any base minions to use as Yellow Mana, but well attempt to draw them during our turn!

Pollin is a 1 cost, one draw card with a catch.

Pollin lets you draw one card if your base (Mana zone) only has Neutral Mana tokens, so well use this to get our deck rolling.

The battle advances with only Neutral Mana.

We want to get some Yellow Mana ASAP, but things dont go as planned

Before we know it, eight turns pass by with only Neutral Mana. With one of our Forces destroyed, we finally get our hands on Yellow Mana.

All Forces have the same effect when theyre destroyed. They can summon a minion from your deck to your base and draw one card.