Magic Chess Bang Bang: Beginner’s guide

Magic Chess is a game mode of Mobile Legends that can be found in the Arcade. Magic Chess was temporarily added in January 2020 but was eventually permanently released with Patch Note 1.4.60 on March 17, 2020. Magic Chess actually has its fair share of similarities with Chess-TD. While the generic game design is different, synergies, items, and playstyle will definitely remind you of the ladder. So let us get started with an in-depth Magic Chess Beginner’s guide.

Read – Complete guide to Chess-TD

What is Magic Chess? The Basics

Magic Chess is a turn-based strategy mode where 8 players face off, with the last one standing as the winner. In the game, you face 7 other players over the course of several rounds on a chess-like battlefield. Instead of fighting yourself, you buy, equip, and line up units (that constitute Mobile Legends Heroes). In each round, players can recruit heroes with Gold and deploy them during the Preparation Phase, where heroes will automatically battle during the Battle Phase.

Apart from different types of synergies, you have to delegate the random items you gain while also taking care of the specific position of each Hero on the battlefield. Additionally, you can increase your gold income by economizing or going on winning/ losing streaks.

In the end, you have to eliminate the other competing players by reducing the Health Points of the commander to 0. Depending on your placement you’ll gain a certain amount of Rank points after the game; starting at Warrior, you can rank up to Mythic similar to the Mobile Legends Ranking system.

---

The Heart of your Gameplay: Units

If you own 3 same 1-star or 2-star Heroes at the same time, these Heroes will be combined into a higher-star hero and gain doubled attributes. Also, the Heroes you already have will be highlighted in the Shop. Upgrading the star level is the most important way to build a stronger troop.

In order to place your units on the battlefield, you have to buy additional experience for your commander to level up. Even though you gain 1 point of experience after each round, at a certain point you want to invest in the experience to gain more synergies and combat power. For each level of your commander, you get one bonus spot on the chessfield, up to 9. However, you can get even more spots with the help of the Fate Box. We’ll take a closer look at this later on in our Magic Chess Beginner’s guide.

The main way of purchasing units is from the Shop. After every round, you’ll get a preparation phase where the Shop will automatically refresh. Unit costs go from 1 to 5 gold coins per unit; the probability of getting higher cost Heroes will always be displayed below the Shop; also, it rises with the Commander’s level.

---

The Commander

A Commander, also known as Little Commander is a being that is summoned outside the Magic Chessboard together with the heroes to compete on Magic Chessboard. They are the computer-controlled characters in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.

Each of them has three unique abilities and only one ability can be equipped for battle. These abilities can be unlocked through gaining experience or unlocking skins as you play. There are currently 26 commanders available to play.

You also have the option of buying new commanders with  Battle Points (BP) or  Diamonds. The minimal package for Battle Points starts at  15,000 with the maximizing at  24,000 while Diamond packages start at  399 and maxing at  499.

Their abilities, while not providing a significant power bonus, do give you a small edge in-game. Each Commander has a different way of manipulating the battlefield.

---

Economy: Be stingy

While it might look appealing to reroll the Shop for 2 gold coins only, it’s a high-risk – high-reward action. By economizing early on you can gain up to 4 additional gold per round from interest (2 coins for 10 gold, 4 for 20). Therefore it makes sense to stay above the specific thresholds as long as you aren’t in severe danger of losing the game.

Also, both winning and losing streaks will reward you with bonus gold. This means “strategic losing” actually is a decent strategy. While winning streaks do prevent you from losing HP, it often becomes the most effective strategy if you’re planning to economize early on anyway.

You can also always sell units you do not need to regain some additional coins. Furthermore, the Eruditio synergy will provide some extra gold per round as well.

---

Synergies: Same same but different

Synergy is the most crucial part of the entire Magic Chess mode as it can lead you to victory if done strategically – therefore we are going to take a close look at them in our Beginner’s guide right now:

Factions & Roles

While some of those might look familiar, the synergy bonuses in Magic Chess mostly differ from Chess-TD. Currently, there is a total of 9 different Role synergies available, complemented by 11 Factions. Most units have one designated Faction and Role, with some exceptions having a total of 3 synergies. Below you’ll find a table with all synergies.

Role/ Faction	Nature Spirit	Ablaze Bounties	Astro Power	S.A.B.E.R.	Prince	Cadia Riverlands	Wyrmslayer Warrior	Northern Vale	Forsaken Light	Necrokeep	Mystic Bureau
Weapon Master	Atlas	Franco	Martis	Freya		Zilong		Franco Freya	Julian	Leomord	Benedetta
Summoner			Zhask			Sun				Vexana	Popol
Archer	Miya		Irithel		Moskov	Wanwan			Melissa		Hanabi
Elementalist	Eudora			Rafaela		Luo Yi	Valir	Aurora	Xavier
Mage	Kadita	Esmeralda		Cyclops					Julian	Faramis	Kagura
Guardian	Belerick		Minotaur	Johnson		Akai	Estes
Gunner	Roger	Claude		Layla			Kimmy	Bane			Lesley
Wrestler		Aldous	Badang		Dyrroth	Chou	Masha		Yin
Swordsman			Karina	Saber			Lancelot Ling				Hayabusa

Strongest Synergies

Since this is meant to be a Beginner’s Guide to Magic Chess, we’re not going too in-depth here. Nonetheless, let’s take a quick look at some good synergies.

Weapon Master

Their unique synergy at the maximum level (9 units) provides insane amounts of sustain. Paired with some decent items, Weapon Master might be the most sustainable line-up to play. Also, due to the natural distribution amongst different factions, you can profit from additional synergies without much need for other units.

Astro Power

This synergy at the maximum level (6 units) significantly boosts the damage output and sustainability. You can combine Astro Power’s synergy with Master’s weapon synergy. So you all need to know, the fact is that Astro Power’s synergy can increase 75% damage and also restore 80% HP (Health Point). So in that way, apart from being able to heal, this combo can also optimize the hero’s attack.

Prince

The Prince synergy is a versatile and powerful addition to your team it only needs two units (Moskov, Dyrroth) to trigger. It not only provides a significant boost to the Physical Attack of Prince heroes but also offers additional benefits as you activate more synergies.

Everything can work

Synergies feel much more balanced and their effectiveness also somewhat relies on who you encounter, how you place your units and which items you get. While some of them arguably have an edge over others, you can explore a variety of different options without fearing to get stomped.

---

Talking about unit placement

Another highly strategic element of Magic Chess that deserves to be mentioned in a Beginner’s Guide. Unit placement can win or lose you the game.

Similar to MLBB, you usually want squishy damage dealers in the backline with Tanks front lining. However, you need to pay attention to some specific rules as well as the enemy’s lineup.

1. Assassins will jump into the backline of the enemy’s lineup. This means you want to place a tanky unit in the back to protect squishy heroes or pull the important units into the front, with a rather unimportant unit as a meatshield.
2. Pay attention to the enemy’s comp. Spread your units, most importantly the core pieces, so your 3-item 2-star Archers don’t get one shot.
3. Range! By putting a melee Hero into the corner, surrounded by other friendly units, the unit will have to walk around the whole Battlefield in order to participate in the fight, wasting precious seconds that might have made a difference.
4. Watch the fight and evaluate. Sometimes things might just not work out, even though your placement looked fine on paper. Just try out different stuff to identify what works and what doesn’t. Since the fights are somewhat RNG-based, we cannot anticipate everything.

Read – Magic Chess Release: New game mode for Mobile Legends

---

Don’t sleep on Items

Similar to Chess-TD, you can equip your Heroes with purchased items. However, the only way to obtain items is by defeating monsters (that you automatically encounter every couple of rounds) or via Fate Box.

Try to identify your game plan as early as possible in order to choose the right items. There is a broad variety available and Tank Items really don’t help you that much when you’re running a Marksmen lineup. Also, pay attention to the specific passives of items, that do differ from their MLBB pendants. For example, Blade of Despair will execute enemy units below a certain threshold.

While every unit can have a total maximum of 3 items equipped, it makes sense to strengthen the most valuable Heroes of your lineup. Check their costs, their overall damage output, and your synergies to identify the win condition of your setup and play around with it.

Aside from traditional items, you can also gain “synergy items”. These provide a decent stat boost but more importantly, will add the shown synergy to whomever you give the item. This makes it possible to get a multitude of oppressive synergies without the need to invest all your gold in leveling your commander for additional units.

---

The Fate Box – Losing pays off

Finally coming to the Fate Box, it really holds up to its name. The Fate Box will open every couple of rounds (it will display in-game) and provides a randomly generated pool of items and (high-cost) units.

The commander with the lowest HP left gets to choose first, the one with the highest remaining HP will be the last one. Therefore it does make sense to economize heavily during the first few rounds to secure the first pick in the 1st Fate Box. You’re guaranteed to get the best pick, probably getting a crucial late-game unit for your synergy or a powerful item to boost your carries. You can also gain a specific item for your commander that allows you to place an additional unit without leveling up.

---

So, that’s it for our Magic Chess Beginner’s guide. Stay tuned for more in-depth content and let us know what you want to read more about! In the meantime, make sure to visit us on us on Facebook and Twitter.