This is the part that catches people out, because Super Divers does not play like a normal card game. Everything resolves through a timed strike battle on the touchscreen, and the card game is the layer that decides what you are trying to do while the timing decides whether you succeed.
You scan your cards onto the machine and place them onto the touchscreen, which is divided into three areas per side. Each area holds up to three cards. The roles are:
A detail that helps new players a lot: if you have fewer than seven Battle Cards, the machine fills the empty slots with virtual cards. You are never punished for a small collection at the start — you can focus your seven real cards and let the machine handle the rest.
Each card has a combat power value, and the side with the higher combat power in an area takes the initiative and attacks first in that area. This is the fundamental ordering rule of the game, and it means the cards you place are not just what they do — they are also when you get to act. Note that initiative is resolved per area, so a well-built deck can win the initiative in some areas and not others, which is where tactical depth comes from.
For each area, an attack strike battle and a defense strike battle are fought in turn, and both are resolved by timed button presses. You are pressing in time with the on-screen rhythm, and the quality of your timing determines the result of the exchange. Winning the attack strike battle is also the gate on firing a special move in that area.
The victory condition is straightforward: reduce the opposing team's total HP to zero. Cards are removed from play as their HP is depleted, and an area with no surviving cards can be targeted by the others.
Ki is the resource that a special move spends, and it is a per-area pool rather than a global one. Attacking reduces the opposing side's ki in that area. When a unit's ki reaches zero it becomes broken (きぜつ) — and a broken unit cannot attack or use skills. That is the key tactical consequence: breaking an enemy is often better than damaging them, because a broken card contributes nothing while still occupying a slot.
There is a reward for pressing an advantage: attacking an area where every opposing unit is already broken deals 1.5× damage. The natural arc of a fight is therefore to strip ki first and then cash in on the broken area with a full-strength attack — and the special move energy system exists to let you do that deliberately rather than hoping.
A card's special move requires three things: the total special move energy available in the same area must meet the card's requirement, the attack strike battle must be won, and the ki condition must be met. Energy is pooled across the cards in an area, which is why deck construction is often about stacking energy in one area rather than spreading it evenly. A special move that fires is usually the single largest damage event in the game, and failing any of the three conditions means it simply does not happen.
If one area contains an Impact, a Boost and a Rush card, the Triple Type Bonus becomes available and applies a damage multiplier — press it at the right moment during the strike battle and it lands; mistime it and it does not. This is the deck constraint that shapes almost every competitive list, because a dedicated Triple Type area eats three of your eight slots.
From round 2 onward, the third area becomes the BUPPA area. BUPPA is a special unit that lives there, and its effect on the game is precise and strong: special moves can be fired regardless of energy, and damage is multiplied by 1.1.
The energy bypass is the significant part. Normally a special move needs the energy in its area; BUPPA removes that constraint for that area. In exchange, you are giving up one of your three areas to a fixed effect rather than your own cards, so the trade is a question of whether your deck wants BUPPA more than it wants a third attacker.
The thirteenth set adds the Buchigire (ブチヌキ) system, which alters round one rather than round two. In round one, the second area becomes the Buchigire chance area. If you win the strike battle there, you fully restore the ki of your attackers and add one ki ball — and the maximum number of ki balls rises from 4 to 5.
Read together, the two systems show the design direction clearly. BUPPA gives you an unconditional but modest multiplier and removes the energy gate in round two; Buchigire gives you a conditional but large ki swing early in round one, when ki is at its most valuable. Both push the same way — toward rewarding players who win the timing exchanges, rather than players who merely assemble better cards.