Considering the length of the previous step in the game’s tutorial, I’ve decided to add a post that gives a bit of a visual understanding to how the combat system works.
Frontal Attack – Say in this instance, the attacking card (left) is frontal attacking the defending card (center). During the trigger step, the attacking card reveals an extra soul icon through its triggered card (right) which makes its total soul damage equal to three (the soul damage is indicated by the icons to the right of the power number on the card plus the soul revealed during the trigger step). The defending player will then take three damage from the attack. Right after, power comparison will take place. Consider this a scenario where neither card has any power support. The left card possesses 10000 power while the center card possesses only 4000. The left card wins the fight, and the center card is reversed.
Side Attack – In this scenario, the attacking card (left) side attacks the defending card (center). The attacker triggers the card to the right which does not possess a soul icon. Thus, the total damage being dealt so far is equivalent to one (the soul is equal to the number of icons next to the power number). Because the attack is not a frontal attack, soul damage is reduced by the level of the defender subtracting the attacker’s soul damage. The defender is level two while the soul damage of the attacker is one even after considering the triggered card. Thus, the total soul damage dealt is equivalent to negative one which is rounded up to zero. No soul damage is dealt. Since the attack was a side attack and no combat occurred, neither card becomes reversed.
Direct Attack – The attacking card (left) attacks and triggers the card on the right. In this scenario, there is no defending card, so the attacker gains one extra soul. The resolved effect of the triggered card takes place, but afterwards, because there is no soul trigger, the attacker does not gain any soul damage from the trigger. The damage calculation takes place and the opponent takes two full damage (one from the attacker’s base soul plus one from the direct attack). The attack is resolved and no power comparison takes place because there is only the attacker. No card is reversed.