Everything you need to know about Ascensions

The Blue Mold is arriving on November 12th. Here’s everything you need to know in order to stay alive!

If you haven’t already you should check out our dueling walkthrough and tournament guide. They will help provide context for the next section which will be about ascensions. The Cheeze Wizards tournament is in The Beat and Greet phase, where you are able to summon your Wizards, form parties, and begin dueling.

On November 14th, the next phase of the tournament will officially begin: no new Wizards will be able to be summoned and the Blue Mold will begin to rise.

You will notice a schedule that lives throughout the entire website. This schedule is really really important! To make matchmaking fun in the world of blockchain, we have created different windows that are open at different times throughout the day.

Tournament schedule

Here is an example of what the schedule looks like:

Right off the bat, you will notice Rest Window, Duel Window, Blue Mold, and the Ascension WIndow. What does that all mean? Here’s a simple breakdown:

Rest Window — No one can duel (later rest window converts to Blue Mold)

Duel Window — Everyone can duel

Blue Mold growth — You are at risk of losing your low powered Wizards to the Blue Mold. The Blue Mold doubles about once per day during The Championship phase of the game. The purpose of the Blue Mold is to encourage inactive players to duel or lose their Wizard’s power and the chance to win the Big Cheeze

Ascension Window: If your Wizard is in danger of dying to the next Blue Mold doubling, you have the option to try to get out of the danger zone. During this period you can ascend your endangered Wizard, which will usually result in you being locked into a special all-or-nothing Ascension duel. During Ascension duels, the winner is guaranteed to end up with enough power to survive the Blue Mold and the loser will be drained of all their power.

The threat of the Blue Mold

Now that you are aware of each of these windows, you need to pay close attention to them. If you miss out on any critical times you won’t be able to progress to the Big Cheeze. Most importantly you need to understand the real threat that is the Blue Mold.

Below is an image of how the Blue Mold grows in power as the game progresses

Any Wizards that fall below the power of the Blue Mold will immediately lose all their power and be out of the tournament. As noted above, the schedule will continue to run all the way until the Big Cheeze prize is claimed. The Blue Mold grows exponentially, doubling in power about once per day, continuously wiping Wizards that fail to keep up with it. This is a real threat and you are encouraged to be highly active during duel windows in order to win the Big Cheeze.

What is the Blue Mold?

If you have played other battle royale games like Fortnite or PUBG you are probably familiar with the blue circle of death. For those who are new to the concept of the blue circle of death here is a brief explainer. Battle royale games are centered around a multiplayer experience where players are dropped on a map and are encouraged to fight with one another to determine the one and only winner. That’s great right? But… players can decide to hide and let other players fight and win the tournament by doing nothing. To increase the chances of players fighting with each other after a certain amount of time, a ring of blue appears and forces people towards the center of the map. A smaller area means more chances of an encounter. If you don’t move to the center of the map you will die from the blue circle.

The Blue Mold is the clever implementation of the blue circle but on the blockchain. Meaning the entire logic of absorbing Wizard power and increasing exponentially is on the smart contract. Dapper Labs can only control when it starts but once it’s started, it can’t be stopped. You need to be aware of its danger and plan ahead so that you don’t get swallowed by it.

Introducing Ascension

Okay, now that you are fully aware of the danger of the Blue Mold here is a way you can combat it. You can ascend any or all of your Wizards that are in danger of not making past the next Blue Mold doubling. By ascending, you are automatically agreeing to a duel with another opponent’s Wizard during the Duel Window if you are challenged. If you choose ascension while another Wizard is already ascending, both Wizards will be automatically paired up to duel. Unlike any other matches, you CANNOT decline ascension duels. You will need to duel, and whichever Wizard emerges strongest will win all of the other Wizard’s power. If you lose, your Wizard will lose its power and exit the tournament.

Ascension in action

Here is a visual diagram of how ascensions will work. Right before the Duel Window, there will always be an Ascension Window. This is to give all of the players a chance to ascend to participate in an all or nothing duel. Another detail that you should know is that you can only ascend a Wizard that is below the upcoming Blue Mold. You CANNOT ascend a Wizard that is well above the Blue Mold power. Ascension is only for Wizards in the danger zone.

Rare case for ascensions

There are actually two different kinds of ascension duels. The most common cause is that both Wizards in an ascension duel are in or near the danger zone: in this case, the duel is an all-or-nothing duel to the death for both Wizards involved. At the end of five rounds, whichever Wizard has the most power remaining will win the duel, and take all of their opponent’s power for themselves. This ensures that the winner will always end up with enough power to survive the next Blue Mold doubling.

An uncommon case is that an odd number of Wizards attempted ascension, meaning one of them was not automatically paired up. The odd Wizard out is now exposed, and any other active Wizard in the game can now challenge them to an ascension duel. If the challenging Wizard is not more powerful than the other Wizard by more than double the current blue mold level, the duel proceeds like the aforementioned ascension duels, with one Wizard emerging with more power and then taking the balance of power from the loser. If, however, the challenging Wizard is more powerful than the other Wizard by more than double the current blue mold level, their at-risk power is capped to match the power of the Ascending Wizard: if they lose, they only lose however much power the ascending Wizard entered the duel with. If they win, they take all the power from the ascending Wizard. Note that although a very powerful Wizard becomes less likely to win under this scheme (because they aren’t using their entire power in this battle), they are putting much less power at risk (while the ascending Wizard is risking EVERYTHING).

The upside to taking on all this risk is twofold. If your Wizard wins an ascension duel, you know that you’ll survive the next doubling. Hooray! And what’s even better, if you somehow manage to squeak through the entire duel window without getting challenged by any other Wizard, your Wizard’s power will triple! For free! (Word to the wise: if you see another Wizard attempting to ascend, don’t let them get away with it! Challenge them!)

An even rarer case for ascension, using blockchain commits directly

Speaking of risking everything, ascension is a risky business. Due to the nature of the blockchain, it’s possible for a challenging ascending Wizard with more power than another Wizard in an ascension duel to attempt to force a “draw” by copying their opponent’s submitted encrypted moves. Should they do so, they will not know the revealed key to be able to reveal their own moves until their opponent reveals their moves, so our site will warn the lower power Wizard that this was attempted and will not reveal the moves automatically. As a result, the duel will time out and neither Wizard will gain or lose any power, though both will remain at risk to the upcoming doubling since both would still be in the danger zone. Note that any Wizard attempting this “copycat” attack stands to lose more power than their opponent.

Ascension tl;dr

• The Blue Mold is bad. When it’s the Championship phase it will double its power every day.
• If your Wizard is below the Blue Mold power it will automagically lose all of its power and be out of the tournament.
• If your Wizard’s power is above the current Blue Mold but below the next doubling, it can ascend. You can only ascend during the window before the Duels (aka Ascension Window)

Three things can happen when you ascend:

1. No one else ascends, therefore, you are unchallenged during the Ascension and Duel window resulting in 3x power for your Wizard

2. The Wizard goes into an Ascension Duel. All or nothing fight, the strongest Wizard at the end of the Duel will survive Blue Mold and will take all the power of the losing Wizard. (This means the winner of the duel may still lose if they don’t increase their power enough to be above the opponent!)

3. When the stronger Wizard has enough power to survive the next Blue Mold after subtracting weak Wizard’s power, the winner of this duel is the Wizard that gets a positive outcome from the duel itself. The winner of this duel is the Wizard that gets a positive outcome from the duel itself. When winning, the ascending Wizard will double its power and the stronger one will only have lost the staked amount (equal to weak Wizard’s power).

When losing, the ascending Wizard will lose all its power and the stronger Wizard will increase its power by that amount

In the event of a tie, since the power “in play” is exactly the same, the lowest ID Wizard would win. (this is also valid for Type A duels when Wizards have the exact same amount of power)