What is the Effect Activation Order?

When players use action cards in response to each other, multiple pending effects need to get resolved at the end of the Active Response phase. This is where the Effect Activation Order takes place. As a general rule of thumb, the last card played takes effect first and the first card played activates last. Let’s use the example screenshot below to explain this.

A two-count chain is common; one player will use an Action Card and the opponent will react with his own, such as the example below, in this order:

1. Opponent Ryu used Engulfing Hado (Deal 4 damage to all enemy units).

2. During ARP, X used the card Healing Dance which adds 3 HP to all allied units.

Starting from the last card’s effect, the healing effect is applied first before damage from Engulfing Hado is applied. After the damage calculation, the final damage that got through to our units was reduced to 1.

The following example below is a three-count chain, in this order:

1. Dante used Beauty’s Betrayal (Enemy unit attack -2 for one battle)

2. Opponent X used Sibling Memories (Adds +6 Life to Hero)

3. Dante used Demonic Sneer (Negate an action card with 4 MP cost or less)

Starting from the last card’s effect, Dante’s Demonic Sneer cancels X’s Sibling Memories (preventing him from getting any Life), while Beauty’s Betrayal still applies its -2 Attack effect to the target.

Sometimes, played cards shouldn’t even be countering or contradicting each other. It’s a tactical choice to use the free AMP whenever you can instead of touching your accumulated MP. In the example below, opponent Chun-Li used a card to heal her units. We reacted by using a card that allows us to retrieve a card instead. This will not prevent her from healing her units but at least we’re able to use the free Active MP provided during Active Response mode, to our benefit.