Slang Terminology (Japanese)

A collection of general card game terms and terms specific to Weiss Schwarz.

Terms
Accident (事故)

Refers to a situation of a Deck not working the way it was conceptualized to. Due to the nature of Weiss Schwarz relying more on luck factors than other card games, the term is often used when the a player is forced to end a turn without being able to do anything else, or if all his Climax Cards are removed from his Deck in the early game.

There are also situations where too many high level characters and events are in a player's hand without him having the means to play them. This is known as a "Hand Accident". A situation where cards in the hand are of a color which cannot be played is known as a "Color Accident".

Advantage (アドバンテージ)

From Magic: The Gathering. Currently, it is a term used in just about every card game.

This is mainly used when you can put a number to the sort of advantage you have. An example would be if you exchanged a card in your hand (putting it in your Clock Area) to draw two cards from your deck. The first exchange would put you at -1 hand advantage, but the second would give you +2. The total hand advantage you gain is 1 in this case. If you've used 2 Stock to pull it off, though, your Stock advantage would decrease by 2 cards.

There are other types of advantages (like what's in your hand, or deck, rather than how many cards you have). In these cases, you might not lose your advantage if a card is taken away from you.

"Disadvantage" is the antonym for this word, but "Behind" is also used.

Angel (エンゼル)

From Chocoball's Angel Tickets. Certain boxes of chocolates would have an Angel emblem on them, which could be exchanged for some sort of toy.

For Weiss Schwarz, this refers to the Gold and Silver campaign's Gold Ticket and Silver Ticket.

However, due to the fact that Box with Gold or Silver Tickets do not include rare cards (e.g. a RRR rarity Signed Card), for players aiming purely for rare cards, getting a Gold or Silver Tick is tantamount to a "Miss", seen often in other lotteries game where one wins nothing.

Bounce (バウンス)

From Magic: The Gathering.

A term that originated from MTG, Bounce means to spring off a surface or to rebound. In Weiss Schwarz this refers to effects and abilities that send Character Cards or Climax Cards from the Stage to their owner's hand. While it is usually used to refer sending back opponent's card, in some cases it also applies to the player's own card.

Chump Attack (チャンプアタック)

From Magic: The Gathering.

Chump is an informal word for foolish, and refers to deceiving or manipulating your weaker character cards. A Chump Attack refers to an attack against an opponent you cannot defeat. However, since in Weiss Schwarz a player would gain from attacking in terms of Stock and dealing damage to his opponent regardless of the result of the battle step it is not considered a completely meaningless action. The term is also used in a modified manner to describe using characters suited for Back Stage support to attack for the sake of accumulating Stock. Even though the word chump implies stupidity, due to the nature of the game, Chump Attacks are actually seen all the time in end games.

Deck Compression (デッキ圧縮)

Refers to the act of reducing the number of cards in the Deck to make it easier to draw Key Cards. Since Deck must always contain 50 cards, Deck compression does not actually truly reduce the number of cards in the Deck. Instead, players would include cards that boost drawing power or searchers to achieve a similar effect. There are also strategies which involve placing cards in the Stock Area or the Memory Area to increase the likelihood of damage cancellation after a Refresh.

Deck Destruction (デッキ破壊)

Refers to the act of playing to reduce the number of cards in the Deck. In Weiss Schwarz, this is often done to allow Characters with Salvage or other special abilities such as Change to make sure of the cards in the Waiting Room. Compared to a Deck Compression Strategy, Deck Destruction do not consider the number of cards in the Deck after a Refresh, and the chances of drawing Key Cards do not change significantly. In most card games this is performed on the opponent to lead to Deck Death, however since Deck Death do not truly exist in Weiss Schwarz, and there are little cards which allow a player to remove cards from the opponent's Deck to begin with, it is never used in this manner.

Demon Running (鬼回り)

The term used when a Deck works exactly the way one intent it to, also used when a player repeated draw desirable cards in a top decking situation.

Drawing all the cards required for a winning strategy as a starting hand, would be an accurate example of a "Demon Running".

Door (扉)

Refers to the Trigger Icon that resembles a brown door found on many Red Climax Cards. The official name for the icon is Comeback Icon. When the effect is triggered the player can choose any Character Card from his Waiting Room and add it to his hand. However, if this card is triggered as the last card of the Deck, since Refresh takes priority over all other actions, the effect is effectively nullified as there will be no cards left in the Waiting Room.

Drop (ドロップ)

Short for Drop Out, the act of surrendering in the middle of a game.

Errata (エラッタ)

For whatever reason (usually to restore game balance, or because of a misprint), the text of cards that have already been printed and run will be changed by the company themselves.

When errata is issued to a card, immediately upon the effective date of the errata, the text and contents of every such card is effectively changed to the new one, even if the printed cards themselves don't change (because the old text is physically on the card and out on the streets and can't easily be changed by the company). Some tournaments may be run without some recent errata if it's felt that the errata was issued too soon for players to adapt.

Refer to the official errata page to check if errata for cards have been made.

God (「神～」)

Japanese words of praise only given to those things that are just ridiculously powerful. First used in 2channel.

If you're close to closing out the match and you cancel an opponent's attack, it is called a "God Cancel".

Pulling a RRR card from buying only a few pack is called a "God Pull".

A cynical term for this is "Paper" (紙～), which is pronounced the same, but serves as an antonym to "God"(神～).

Hand Encore (手札アンコール)

Originated from the ability ENCORE［Send one Character from your hand to the Waiting Room]. Refers to this ability that allows a player to pay the cost for an Encore from his hand instead, or Character Cards that possess this ability. Although the ability makes it appear as though it helps to reduce the usage of Character Cards, the cost itself will in fact take away a Character Card from the player's hand, as opposed to from the Stock, which cannot be accessed by the player to begin with. While it provides a huge advantage in terms of saving up Stock and playing cost, it does not increase the number of playable Character Cards.

Inferior Replacement (下位互換)

Used to describe a card with abilities of similar nature or usage to other existing cards, except that the card is inferior in some way, either in terms of sheer power or utility.

For example, if cards A and B have the exact same text, except B costs more stock to use its ability, then card B is the inferior replacement of card A.

Underpowered can also be used to describe these cards (as in, "Card A is an underpowered Card B"), but underpowered can also refer to cards that are just not useful in general.

Interchangeable Replacement (相互互換)

Used to describe a card with abilities that is almost the same, or exactly the same as other existing cards. For the most part, Interchangeable Replacement cards can be used in the same manner.

Luck Game (運ゲー)

What every card player doesn't like to hear. People actually described Weiss Schwarz as a luck game when it first came out.

No matter how much you compress your deck, there is always a bit of uncertainty in dealing damage to your opponent. Climax cards will completely negate the damage you take, and because they're drawn randomly when taking damage, this term came to describe Weiss Schwarz.

The fact that the ruling make it almost impossible to create technical deck such as a One Turn Kill deck only served to make the name stick.

The company's president, Kidani, has been quoted with saying, "You win by skill, you lose by luck." at tournaments.

This is Weiss Schwarz's selling point, and its downside.

Salvage ( サルベージ)

From the English definition of the word, which is to recover lost properties, or to save anything in peril.

The term is used to refer to effects that return specific card(s) from the Waiting Room to the player's hand. Due to its frequent usage in MTG, it is a common misconception that the term is derived from MTG, the term actually came about from Yu-gi-oh, for a card of named "Salvage", which allows one to recover cards from the graveyard (the equivalent of a Waiting Room in Yu-gi-oh).

Search (サーチ)

The generic term to denote the action of searching for a specific card from the Deck, Stock, Waiting Room, etc.

Other more specific terms are used in certain situations. For example, searching for a card in the Waiting Room and adding it to your hand is called "Salvage", and searching for a card in the Waiting Room to be placed on the Stage is known as "Reanimate".

Size (サイズ)

From Magic: The Gathering. Used in other card games such as MTG to refer to the defense value of a card, used in Weiss Schwarz to refer to the Power value of a card.

Smash (圧殺)

The act of sending a character to the Waiting Room as a result of playing a character from your hand to the same slot of a character already on Stage.

Soul Pump (ソウルパンプ)

Exactly as the term implies, it refers to pumping Soul Points. That is, increasing the Soul Points of your own Character Cards.

Stock Boost (ストックブースト)

The term used to describe effect or abilities that allow a player to increase his Stock by additional amount.

Since Stock can usually only be increased by attacking, and all Character Cards are granted the ability to Encore by paying a cost of 3 stock, Stock Boosting can easily become a huge advantage. However, since the player's Stock consists of cards originally in his Deck, increasing his Stock might also cause the player to lose access to important cards in the deck, and could accidentally prevent Climax Cards from being Refreshed.

Superior Replacement (上位互換)

Refer to cards of similar nature or abilities to other existing cards, except superior in some manner, which result in the card being the superior option on the whole.

Synergy (シナジー)

Refers to a cooperative relationship where all parties involved benefit each other, and is originally an economic term.

In card games, it is used to describe effects that takes place under specific conditions. In Weiss Schwarz, specific Character Cards that can activate their abilities when specific Climax Card is in play is referred to as "Climax(CX) Synergy", and abilities such as "Increase the Power of Character with the Name ~" or "Grant the following ability to character with <<～>> characteristic" are known as "Assist Synergy".

On the flip side, "Anti Synergy" denotes abilities that lose their effects, or invoke undesirable outcomes, under specific conditions.

Top Deck (トップデッキ)

The term used to describe drawing the card required immediately, also used to describe a situation where one is forced to rely on his immediately draw to survive. Although it is basically a factor of luck, whether an individual is able to pull it off consistently have a huge impact on the individual's strength as a player. A successful Top Deck is also referred to as "Instant Draw", "God Draw", "Yu-gi-oh Draw", "Destiny Draw" etc. As a side note, there is a brand of chocolate named "Top Deck" that is consumed by many before a TCG tournament out of superstition.

Treasure (宝)

Refers to the Treasure Icon, the new Trigger Icon introduced in Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu that resembles a pile of 3 gold bars.

When the card is triggered the Climax Card is added to the player's hand, then a card is taken from the top of the deck and placed in the Stock Area. The first effect is compulsory and must be done, while the second effect of Stocking a card from the top of the deck is optional.

Untouchable (アンタッチャブル)

From Magic: The Gathering.

Untouchable cards can't be targeted by your opponent's effects, or can't be affected by your opponent's effects.

In Magic, the actual keyword is called "Hexproof" and it makes the card immune to your opponent's effects. Likewise in Weiss Schwarz there exist cards which only make you immune to your opponent's effects. This is called a "One-Way" Untouchable effect.

Vanilla (バニラ)

From Magic: The Gathering.

Refers to card that do not possess any special abilities. The term was coined after vanilla ice cream, for its simplicity without other addition. In Weiss Schwarz all the vanilla cards of the same level and cost share the exact same Power value and Soul combination. The value of vanilla cards therefore becomes a measuring stick for the size of other cards.

Whiff (空撃ち)

Activating a card's ability or playing an Event even though its effects won't go off or don't do anything useful under the conditions it is used.

Burning a card to be able to salvage a card, then picking same card you discarded is one example. Another is pumping up a character that isn't being opposed.

Yu-gi-oh and other games strictly forbid wasteful actions like these. However, in Weiss Schwarz, there are ways to manipulate whiffing for a strategic advantage, and are thus legitimate actions. For example, one could pay the cost of an ability using Stock, then salvage the cards sent from paying for the cost back to his hand. Another strategy is to burn cards in the Stock to send Climax Cards back to the Waiting Room so they could be Refreshed and thus increase the likelihood of damage cancellation. Both are common and legitimate strategies seen often in the game.

Wind (風)

Common name for the Return Icon, the green whirlwind-like symbol seen on Yellow Climax Cards.

When this effect is triggered, the triggering player may choose one of his opponent's characters currently on Stage, and return it to his opponent's hand.

If the effect is triggered when a Side Attack is declared, and the defending character is bounced by the effect, the attack remains as a Side Attack and the Soul penalty for the attack is not removed.

In the case of a Front Attack, even if the defending character is removed, the attack does not instead become a Direct Attack. However, as there is no longer a defending character to oppose, the battle step does not occur.

Other
MTG

Magic: The Gathering, the card game that just won't die. Such a pain to type out, so MTG is used instead at times.

YGO

Yu-gi-oh. A card game responsible for too many internet memes to count.