Chaotic is an out-of-print Danish collectible card game brought to the United States by Chaotic USA and 4Kids Entertainment, and distributed by TC Digital Games. It was released along with the open beta version of the online game on October 24, 2007. The card game is also featured in the animated series of the same name. As of 2014, the website is currently closed and the cards are no longer in production.
History
The Chaotic Trading Card Game is based on an earlier game called Chaotic: Now or Never! which in turn is based on another game called Grolls & Gorks. Each of these have characters from Dracco Heads, an earlier collectible product. Chaotic USA worked with Martin Rauff and Dracco to create a completely new version, of the earlier trading card game.
Gameplay
Both players begin with an equal number of creatures on the board - the most common configurations are 1, 3, 6, or 10 creatures for each player. The objective of the game is to eliminate all the creatures of the opposing player. There are five types of cards in the game, each with unique abilities. These types are Creature, Attack, Location, Battlegear, and Mugic.
Building a Deck
Each player constructs the deck they want to use before starting the game. A deck may contain a number of Creatures (as above), with 1 Mugic and 1 Battlegear per Creature. Additionally, each player constructs a Location deck of 10 cards and an Attack deck of 20 cards. Each card is limited to 2 copies of it (by name) in a player's deck.
Some cards have other deckbuilding restrictions: If a card is "Unique," only one copy of it can be in a player's deck. If a card is "Loyal" or states "(This card) cannot enter mixed armies," then it may not be used unless all of the player's Creatures are from the same Tribe. Only one "Legendary" card may be in a player's entire deck. Each attack card has a build point value from 0-5, with more powerful attacks having higher build point values. The sum of all build point values of cards in a player's attack deck may not exceed 20.
Creature Cards
Creature Cards are cards that players choose to make up their armies. These cards have up to six possible background colors based on the "tribe" with which creature is associated. The tribes are listed as "OverWorld" (Blue), "UnderWorld" (Red), Danian (Brown), Mipedian (Yellow), M'arrillian (black), and creatures unaffiliated with any tribe, called "Tribeless" (White). Certain creatures have abilities that are either active at all times ("Innate"), activated at will, triggered by certain circumstances or events, or activate when specific creatures are on the field ("Brainwashed"). Unlike the actual game, the animated series depicted creatures having to manually carry all of their Battlegear and their Mugic with them.
Battlegear Cards
Each creature in an Army is permitted to be equipped with one Battlegear Card, as opposed to the animated series, where players may equip their creatures with spectral viewers and one additional Battlegear. Battlegear are often depicted as weapons, equipment, or vehicles that the equipped creature can utilize. Each creature can only use their own Battlegear in a battle. When a creature is defeated, both it and the Battlegear card are sent to the discard pile. At the beginning of the game, Battlegear is set underneath a player's Creature Card, face-down. When the creature engages in battle, the Battlegear Card is flipped face-up and revealed, where its effects will activate.
Location cards
Each player builds a 10-card location deck. At the beginning of the game, each player's location Deck is shuffled and placed face down on the table. At the beginning of a player's turn, that player flips over the top card of their location deck. Location cards are used to determine Initiative (who attacks first in battle), either by Tribe, Element, or Discipline. If both creatures in battle are from the same Tribe or have the same score for the Discipline in question, then the attacking player has the initiative. Location cards also have a second ability which will modify the game (usually during combat) in some other way.
Attack cards
Damage is dealt through the use of attack cards. Each player must have a 20-card attack deck, which is shuffled and placed face down. Players draw 2 attack cards at the beginning of the game, and always have at least 2 attack cards in their hand at all times. When it is a player's turn to "strike", they draw a third attack card and select one of the 3 attack cards to play. A player must play an attack card during each of their turns. Damage to creatures is calculated by the following equation.