Magic Auction is the side mode that came back in Season 7.1 with new rules, and it plays nothing like Classic. There is no board and no fighting: you bid on a hidden pool of Treasures, read the clues the game and your commander give you, and try to take the pool for less than it is worth. This guide covers the rules first, then bidding, then what to do with what you win, and ends with the commanders, since 18 of them carry a skill that only works in this mode.
How a round works
Each auction puts a pool of Treasures on the table with their size, Quality and Type hidden. Every round the game reveals some public information to all players, and your commander's Auction skill may show you private information that nobody else sees. Then each player places one bid.
Auction items are the other source of information. You can use one per round, and only before you bid, so decide what you want to learn before you commit a number.
Everything you see is a partial picture, and the whole mode is about acting on it before the others do. A player who waits for certainty usually watches someone else take the pool.
How the pool is won
A round can end the auction early. If the highest bid is a set multiple of the second highest (the multiple depends on the room), the top bidder wins every Treasure in the pool. If nobody pulls that far ahead, the auction runs to its final round, where the highest bid simply wins. Ties go to whoever bid first.
That rule decides how to bid. In the early rounds you only need to be clearly ahead to end it, so a big bid on a pool you have good information about can close the auction before the others learn what you know. In the later rounds, staying top every round matters less than being top in the last one.
When the auction ends, every Treasure is shown along with the winner's profit or loss, so you learn quickly whether a pool was worth it.
Sizing a bid
Most players bid repeated digits, 444 or 555, or clean round numbers like 800. Bid a little above those: 888 instead of 800, a slightly higher figure instead of 555. It costs almost nothing and it wins the ties you would otherwise lose.
Start cautiously in rooms where bids run high, around 33k to 44k in the opening round rather than jumping straight to 65k or more, and let the clues tell you when to go further.
Two cases call for a bold bid. When your information shows a valuable red figurine, bid big at once (2M is a reasonable figure) rather than climbing in steps and starting a bidding war. When a large piece such as an Angela figurine appears, go past 1M if you must rather than lose it. Boards holding red items like Zilong's spear are worth taking even when the margin looks thin, because someone else will snipe them.
The opposite case is a pool where only a single red item is visible. Don't force a win there; one good piece rarely pays for an inflated bid on everything else.
The Secret Auction House
One room hides every bid from every player. From Round 2 on, the round's public information goes only to commanders whose bid ranking changed or who are still in first place.
That makes information something you earn by moving. Sitting in a steady second place leaves you blind; either climb, drop, or hold first to keep seeing the clues.
After the auction: keep, sell or show
Won Treasures can be kept or sold for Magic Auction Coins. Selling carries a tax, so reselling a figurine at the price you paid loses coins. Only sell above cost.
The better use of cheap figurines is the gallery. Buy affordable ones, claim the gallery collector rewards for owning them, and resell afterwards at a higher price so the profit survives the tax.
Figurines in your Showcase earn coins every minute, more for higher Quality, and figurines from the same series add a Series Bonus every hour. Likes from friends pay coins too. A showcase built around one series earns more than the same figurines mixed.
If you spend diamonds on the mode at all, the auction pass is the purchase to make, ahead of surprise gifts or magic shop deals.
The six ranks
Your rank is set by total assets: your coins plus the value of everything in your Warehouse. Selling a figurine doesn't raise your rank, since its coins only replace its Warehouse value, minus the tax. A separate Profit Rank counts only the profit from auctions you won.
| Rank | Total assets |
|---|---|
| Apprentice | 0 to 300k |
| Adept | 300k to 1.2M |
| Expert | 1.2M to 2.5M |
| Master | 2.5M to 5M |
| Tycoon | 5M to 10M |
| Mogul | 10M and up |
Brody and Gusion: hunting the big Treasures
Brody is the strongest figurine hunter in the mode. His Auction skill shows the size and Type of 2 Treasures every round, and 3 more after a round where you defended successfully. That bonus is why the right target with him is second place each round rather than first: you keep the extra reveals coming without paying top price.
Gusion is the specialist for the largest Treasures. He sees the Type of every Treasure covering 8 or more tiles from the start and one of their Qualities each round, so he knows early whether the pool's biggest pieces are worth chasing.
Layla and Alice: the easy starts
Layla is the most comfortable commander to learn the mode with. Her skill shows every detail of 3 random Treasures when the auction opens and one more each round, full information instead of one attribute at a time.
Alice is the other strong all-round pick. She sees the Quality of 4 random Treasures at the start and, in Round 3, the Quality of one Treasure from the highest Quality in the pool, which tells you whether the pool holds anything worth a big bid.
Getting more from Chou, Nana, Kalea, Yu Zhong and Alucard
Chou rewards leading early. In Rounds 1 and 2, bid a clearly winning figure (a 5-6-7 pattern works) so his skill shows full details of 3 Treasures. From Round 3 on you don't need to stay on top. Pair him with an eye item, since his reveals favour tiles you haven't seen; in a round where his skill doesn't fire, use Quality items instead.
Nana has 3 charges. Spend them on yellow or red Treasures, the ones whose size you most need to know, and pair her with items that reveal Quality. Kalea's Trove gains a point every round and opens once, so wait for at least 4 or 5 points before you open it.
Yu Zhong's reveal depends on where you finished the round before, and each placement's reveal works once. Finish 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th at least once each to use all four. Alucard's altar draws 2 items a round and you keep 1; the draws are inconsistent, which makes him a commander for adapting rather than planning.
All 18 Auction skills
Only these 18 commanders have a Magic Auction skill; every other commander plays the mode without one. Each skill is also listed on its commander's page.
| Commander | Auction skill | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Alucard | Demonic Altar | At the start of every round the Altar draws 2 items from the item pool and you keep 1. |
 Lancelot | Noble Family | Round 1 shows the sizes of the Treasures in the last row and Round 2 their Quality. Round 3 shows the sizes in 2 random columns, and Rounds 4 and 5 show the Type of the Treasures in one of those columns. |
 Alice | Supreme Bloodline | When the auction opens, the Quality of 4 random Treasures is shown. At the start of Round 3 you also see the Quality of one random Treasure from the highest Quality in the auction. |
 Harley | Precious Vision | When the auction opens you see how many Purple, Gold and Red Treasures there are in total. |
| Yu Zhong | Rank Declaration | Each round, your rank in the previous round decides what you see about 4 random Treasures: 1st shows everything, 2nd their Quality, 3rd their Type, 4th their size. Each rank's reveal can only be used once. |
| Johnson | Base Value | When the auction opens you see roughly where the Gray, Green and Blue Treasures are, and in Round 4 you see the size of every Treasure. |
 Lunox | Foresight | The auction opens with the Quality of 5 random Treasures shown, then 2 more each round, unknown ones first. |
| Lylia | Witch's Intuition | When the auction opens you see the Quality of one of the largest Treasures and one of the smallest (by tiles). After that, the sizes of 3 Treasures are shown each round, unknown ones first. |
| Kalea | Accumulating Value | The Treasure Trove gains 1 point at the start of every round. Open it yourself to take rewards based on the points, once per match. |
| Chou | Warrior's Honor | If you finished 1st in the previous round, you see all the details of 3 Treasures (up to 2 times per match); otherwise you see the Type of 3 Treasures. Unknown Treasures come first. |
 Wanwan | Tiger's Eye | Rounds 1 to 3 reveal the size, then the Quality, then the Type of 4 Treasures. At the start of every round, any Treasure with 2 of those 3 details known has the last one revealed. |
 Nana | Molina's Blessing | Pick a tile in the Treasure pool to see that Treasure's size, and the Quality of 2 random Treasures is shown too (unknown ones first). Usable 3 times per match. |
| Layla | Random Lock | The auction opens with every detail of 3 random Treasures shown, then every detail of 1 more each round, unknown ones first. |
 Vale | Updraft | Round by round, the Quality and size of every Gray, Green, Blue and Purple Treasure are shown in turn. |
 Angela | Comfort Meal | When the auction opens you see the sizes of 4 random kinds of Treasure (Collections and Auction Items excluded), and one of those kinds has its Type shown each round. |
| Aurora | Frozen Mirror | At the start of Round 5 the Quality of every Treasure is shown. |
 Gusion | Giant Sigil | When the auction opens you see the Type of every Treasure that covers 8 or more tiles, then the Quality of one of them each round, unknown ones first. |
| Brody | Ultimate Defense | Each round shows the size and Type of 2 Treasures. If you defended successfully the round before, 3 more are shown, unknown ones first. |