How to Win Battles: The 5 Clusters Explained
Every Suikamon plays one of five battle styles. Learn what each does, which move beats which, and how 4-turn bleeds and wounds change your turns.
Suikamon battles are not a damage race — they are a read. Both fighters pick a move at the same time, only the winning move resolves, and every species belongs to one of five battle styles with a two-step combo. Learn your style's combo and the move-beats-move wheel, and you will win fights you have no business winning.
The wheel: which move beats which
Each turn both sides choose Attack, Magic, Recover or Dodge. Only the winner's move happens — the loser's turn does nothing at all:
- Attack beats Magic — your hit interrupts the spell before it lands.
- Magic beats Dodge — it cannot be evaded, and its effect always applies.
- Dodge beats Attack — you evade and counter for your own attack damage.
- Recover beats all three. It has no counter — instead it is limited to a few uses per battle, so the real question is *when* to spend one.
- Same move vs same move: Attack/Attack both land, Magic/Magic is a clash that damages both and charges both, Recover/Recover both heal, Dodge/Dodge does nothing.
That is the whole mind-game. Predictable players get read: spam Attack and you eat a Dodge counter, spam Magic and you get interrupted. Attack twice in a row and the second hit is halved by Fatigue, and a third consecutive Attack or Magic is locked out entirely — the system pushes you to vary.
The five battle styles
Your species' Magic applies its signature effect, and its Attack exploits that effect for bonus damage. That two-move combo is your engine:
- 🩸 INFECT — Magic applies a bleed that ticks for 4 turns; Attack hits harder while it burns. *Bireon, Hotpaw, Kobu, Drago, Ray.*
- ❄️ FREEZE — Magic stuns so the opponent loses a whole turn; Attack hits a stunned target for a big bonus. *Aqua, Zaricat, Voltaryx, Trixon.*
- 🗡️ CRIPPLE — Magic wounds, halving every heal they make for 4 turns; Attack punishes a wounded target. *Pefareon, Suimon, Sumiya.*
- 🛡️ WALL — Magic and Dodge build a shield that absorbs damage and never decays; the plan is simply to outlast. *Yeti, Pinky, Fernail, Gorly.*
- ⚔️ EXECUTE — Magic and Attack both gain big bonus damage once the opponent is below half HP; chip, then finish. *Toro, Talion, Pikoto.*
Effects now last long enough to build on
This is the biggest change to how a turn feels. A bleed used to expire after two turns and a wound vanished the moment its victim threw a punch — so a debuff was gone before you could use it. Now:
- Bleed ticks for 4 turns (a smaller amount each tick, so the full bleed costs about what it always did). Your exploit window is twice as wide — apply it once, then attack freely.
- A wound lasts 4 turns on its own timer and halves *every* heal in that window. Attacking no longer breaks it, so it is something your opponent must survive, not cancel.
- Shields never decay — but a new shield *replaces* the old value instead of stacking. Refresh when your shield is low, never while it is still full.
Reading the matchup
Styles have natural prey. CRIPPLE shuts off the healing that WALL and Recover-heavy players lean on, which is the cleanest answer to a fighter that wants a long game. WALL blunts INFECT, because a standing shield soaks bleed ticks as well as hits. EXECUTE wants the fight over early, so it struggles against anything that stalls past half health. FREEZE steals tempo outright — every stun is a free turn, and free turns are how you out-damage someone with better stats.
Elements and the turn limit
The element wheel is Fire → Nature → Thunder → Water → Fire, and it adds bonus damage to Magic only — your Attack does not care about elements. Battles end after 15 turns, and if nobody is knocked out the fighter with more HP remaining wins, so a fight you cannot finish is still a fight you can win on damage dealt.
Want the full numbers for your own Suikamon? Every skill tooltip in battle shows its exact damage and effect, and the battle guide lists every status and mechanic in one place.