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Wizbits Elemenstor Battle (CCG)

To view the rules for the game, see Rules.

To view strategy and terminology for Wizbits Elemenstor Battle, see Strategy.

To view the card scanning/collection project, see CCG Reproductions.

For a little bit of history on the (infamous) Elemenstor newsgroups see recDOTgamesDOTcardDOTelemenstor.

List of Card Names

Wizbits: Elemenstor Battle is the name of the Collectible Card Game that spawned the entirety of Epic Legends of the Hierarchs: The Elemenstor Saga. Players take on the roles of their favorite Elemenstors in a duel to the finish!

Original Early Sets

Originally released in January 1989, the first boxed of set Elemenstor Battles (the original name) contained 226 cards and various character creation tools. Although 3 pre-release promo cards pre-date the first boxed set, they were not widely circulated and are (for various reasons unique to each card) usually banned from play.

This original release of the game was a moderate success for its creators M. Holhik and J. Krakins, who hadn’t even intended to create it until Holhik won the card printing plant in a contest. Several expansions were released over the next five years, beginning with Quest: The Chasm in late November 1989. The initial releases of the expansions were only a moderate success and brought a few minor rule revisions each time.

It should be noted that Elemenstor Battles was not originally a CCG. The original 1989 release included a complicated grimoire and character design system. That system was eliminated in the 1996 re-release. Because the original cards are roughly compatible with the new system, most original box sets have been broken up and traded as CCG cards for the new game. As a result, it is extremely difficult to put together a complete box set to play with the traditional rules.

With the arrest of Holhik and Krakins in January 1994, the CEO of Realmworlds Publishing, Mich Fehkoo, was left in charge of the continued production of the game. The original version of the expansion Seven Staves was released in May, extrapolated from the notes of Holhik and Krakins.

It is important to note that Wizbits Elemenstor Battle has hardly anything at all in common with the original Japanese TCG, and origin of the entire franchise, Elemental Monster Duel. Aside from some shared artwork, the two games are entirely different from eachother.

Original Expansion Releases:

After May 1994, little more was heard from Realmworlds about the game; the cards themselves were removed from sale without apology in August 1994, the official tournaments ended - Realmworlds themselves refused to acknowledge their existance. The Original Set cards are considered by most to be compatible with the later cards, though a tournament in 1998 disqualified two players for using "banned" cards from the pre-1996 era. This was later overturned with little explanation.

The Wizbit Anime Re-Release

Then, in 1996, the initial set was re-released under the new name Wizbits: Elemenstor Battles, to be distributed alongside The Wizbits anime.

The first set of the new incarnation of the game was released in January 1996. It contained many new, rarer cards, and changed the text of several others, giving it 315 in total. The stats of the original cards did not change, and most of the art remained true to the originals. However, many cards had various Flavor Text changed to be more suitable for a younger audience.

The re-released initial set had a variety of rarities ranging from Super-DoubleCommon to the Super-Mega-DoubleUltra Rare Gangster Octopus (Card). The re-release of the game received a very respectable following right out the gate, with the initial run sold out in a respectable three weeks. This initial burst of popularity caused the makers to quickly set up a robust tournament scene, which had the added side effect of increasing the rarer cards' value very quickly.

Due to this popularity, the first expansion, Quest: The Chasm was rushed out for Christmas of 1996. It contained 247 cards with a wider but similar rarity range to the original set, with the surprisingly useless but still very rare Moon Shimmer (Card) taking up the Super-Mega-DoubleUltra Rare slot. Due to riots over the Gangster Octopus card's abilities, the public was slow to accept the expansion. As support for the game dwindled, however, a resurgence appeared in October with the burning of the last known copy of Gangster Octopus in a Las Vegas suburb. Once the existence of the card was purged, the once-loyal fanbase of the game slowly returned, and realizing the opportunity that had arisen, a rush of new product was released in the States. Following this, a rough block system was put into place (one large expansion and two small expansions per year).

This remained stable until 1999, when it appeared the publisher of the game was about to lose the license; in response to this, three large sets (the largest in the game) were rushed to production. These sets contained a great number of overpowered cards and generally poor quality. During this time, Elemenstor CCG Plushies also began to be produced. The license then transferred to a new company, who continued publishing the game (after a long legal battle ending in late 2002). They returned to the block format and the game has remained stable since.

Currently, 22 expansions have been released for the re-released game; the first seven are re-releases of earlier sets with several cards added (with the single noteworthy exception of Reflections: The Palace) to increase the number of cards in the Rare and above slots:

Unreleased expansions

Planned expansions that were unreleased for one reason or another. Such occurrences are rare because of the inherent expense involved in the designing of cards for such a complicated game.

Card Rarity

The Wizbits Elemenstor Battle CCG is printed on print sheets of 36 cards tall by 43 cards wide, for a total of 1,548 cards on each print sheet. Listed below are the possible rarities in the game, and the number of copies of each rarity on a print sheet:

Super-DoubleCommon: 500

Double Common: 400

Common: 200

Alpha Uncommon: 150

Omega Uncommon: 100

Rare: 75

UnRare: 75

Super-Rare: 18

Super UnRare: 18

Triple-Hyper-Rare: 12

Super-Mega-DoubleUltra Rare: Printed Individually.

Giga-Blaster-Rare: Unknown. Well, really rare.

Nonexistent: Unknown.

This data has been collected from bootleg copies of print sheets. All copies of print sheets that have been stolen from factories, distributors, vaults, etc. have had this distribution. Super-Mega-DoubleUltra Rares are printed one at a time using features on the machinery that allow for single cards to be printed. Due to the fact that the Nonexistent rarity type has been proven to exist, it is uncertain how they are printed. The Giga-Blaster-Rares were thrown into a furnace after they were deemed- "too powerful (and rare) for mankind to collect."

Determining the rarity of a card is difficult, and requires expertise in Image Tone Interpretation. A beginner's introduction can be found in "Tone and Affiliation", and precise details are located in "Tone and Affiliation II".

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