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Last updated: 22/May/2026
Best guide and build for Magna from Chaos Zero Nightmare (CZN). Magna is a 5✦ character from the Vanguard class and Justice attribute, who belongs to the Stella Familia [White Altair] faction.
Last review update
Season 2
Last build update
Season 2
Last profile update*
15/Mar/2026
*Profile update means updates done to reviews/builds/gear within a season - showing the last date we changed anything on this page.
To learn more about Magna check the sections below. Use the tabs to quickly switch to the kind of information you're looking for.
Profile
Frozen Fist
Attack
Frost Shield
Skill
Show Effects
Ice Fragment
Upgrade
Show Effects
Glacial Iron Fist
Attack
Show Effects
Ice Wall
Skill
Show Effects
Frost Charge
Skill
Show Effects
Storm of Bitter Cold
Upgrade
Show Effects
Absolute Zero
Ego Skill
Show Effects
Epiphany cards are special evolutions for the cards you can obtain while playing the roguelike mode. Only some cards in the character's deck can get Epiphany effects. Since there's quite a lot of them, we don't display them by default - press the button below to show them.
Epiphany Bonus
Potential 1
Basic Card Upgrade
Potential 2
Common Card Upgrade
Potential 3
Basic Card Proficiency
Potential 3-1
Unique Card Upgrade
Potential 4
Critical Chance Proficiency
Potential 5
Basic Card Proficiency
Potential 5-1
Divine Epiphany Adaptation
Potential 5-2
Health Proficiency
Potential 6
Unique Stat Upgrade
Potential 7
Sleeping Memory
Manifest Ego 1
Awakening Memory
Manifest Ego 2
Vivid Memory
Manifest Ego 3
Inner Memory
Manifest Ego 4
Complete Memory
Manifest Ego 5
Liberated Memory
Manifest Ego 6
Review
Magna is a Justice Vanguard who wants to protect her team via huge shields and clapping back at enemies via Counterattacking.
Magna has almost everything you want from your tank. She offers multiple different ways to passively generate shields, which in turn will also generate stacks of Counterattack. Counterattacks occur when you're struck by an enemy unit. When this happens, any unit that holds a stack of Counterattack will immediately retaliate with an attack of their own - dealing 100% Defense-Based damage. If the damage dealt by the enemy when this happens is completely blocked by your team's shield, the damage dealt increases to 200% Defense-Based damage instead.
Magna also has consistent ways to inflict multiple Vulnerable stacks on her enemies via "Frost Charge" to further increase her team's damage output. Magna also has the unique ability to allow her Counterattacks to hit all enemy units, opposed to just the enemy unit attacking.
Unfortunately, Magna does boast higher-than-usual card costs across the board; fortunately, some of these cards feature the [Lead] tag, which gives any card holding this tag a 50% chance to have their cost reduced by 1 at the start of the turn until another card is used. This can help alleviate some of the high costs that come with Magna.
Magna can act as an extremely passive character as well, as quite a few of her cards are Upgrade cards - once these have been played, Magna can simply sit back and passively help her team thanks to having access to Crystallization.
If you’re looking for a character that can apply debuffs whilst protecting your team and even providing some decent damage. Magna is one of the best options.
Good shielding with reasonable damage output after set-up and when being attacked frequently.
Strong access to the Vulnerable debuff.
Nice AoE Potential while Ice Wall is active.
Grants Crystallization for constant shielding without needing to draw or use AP for it.
Has many expensive cards and is incredibly AP hungry.
Counterattacks (and damage) are far less effective in fights where enemies are not often hit.
The ratings below are based on the Season Save Data, Chaos Manifestation, and Great Rift modes. Each of the modes values different mechanics, so some characters may shine in one of them, while being underwhelming in the other.
Defense Scaling: Like other Vanguards, all of Magna’s damage-dealing abilities scale off of her DEF stat primarily. This allows her to improve her damage and shielding capabilities all at once, on top of improving the team's general tankiness.
Crystallization: A stackable and persistent defensive buff that grants 20% Fixed Shield (not modifiable with bonuses) to the team at the end of the turn per stack.
Counter: After taking damage and while the stack of the Counterattack buff is active, the owner of the buff performs a Counterattack on the assailant equal to 100% Defense-Based damage and if the damage dealt by the enemy is completely blocked via your shield, the damage increases to 200% Defense-Based damage. After each Counterattack a stack of the buff is lost. A max of 10 stacks of Counterattack can be held at a time.
Note: Multi-hit enemy attacks trigger multiple instances of Counterattack as long as you have the stacks.
Magna’s Signature Potentials are must-haves for improving her performance in her role and for the additional functionality they provide.
3-1: Adds the Counterattack effect to her starter Attack and Shield cards, boosting their power and her access to Counterattack considerably.
5-1: Increases the Shield gain of her basic Shield Skill card by 5%. Increases by another 5% if her Defense is higher than 250.
7: Increases her Justice Attribute Damage by 5% if her Defense is higher than 350, increasing by 1% per 10 points of Defense up to a total of 15% at 450.
Base
Ego 1
Ego 2
Ego 3
Ego 4
Ego 5
Ego 6
Absolute Zero
Ego Skill
Show Effects
Magna’s Ego Skill is called Absolute Zero. Low base damage, expensive, eats up your Counterattack stacks for a measly 20% extra damage each, which is less than what you’d get for triggering those Counterattacks. Avoid using it unless you need the damage to kill an enemy and other options are worse.
Frozen Fist
Attack
Magna’s Basic Attack deals solid damage, but more importantly, after Potentials also grants 1 stack of Counterattack after each use.
Frost Shield
Skill
Show Effects
Magna’s basic Shield isn’t special outside of the fact that it also grants 1 Counterattack stack thanks to Potentials on use, but is still one of her most important cards due to her role as a shielder and vanguard.
Ice Fragment
Upgrade
Show Effects
An upgrade card that grants 2 [Crystallization] stacks on use one time. Magna also gets 1 Counterattack stack at the start of every turn thereafter. Great for deck thinning, which helps with deckbuilding and provides some passive shields and damage.
Glacial Iron Fist
Attack
Show Effects
A 2-cost Attack Card that deals 300% Defense-based damage and converts 50% of the damage dealt to Fixed Shields up to a cap of 20% of the team's max HP. A great mix of offense and defense that makes great use of damage buffs, but can be a little hard to use baseline due to its very high cost.
Ice Wall
Skill
Show Effects
A 2-cost Skill card that grants some shield, 2 Counterattack stacks, and more importantly, converts all Counterattacks into AoE attacks for the turn. Magna’s main source of AoE. Very expensive for a 1-turn buff, but well worth it if you’re using her as a Counterattack-based DPS.
Frost Charge
Skill
Show Effects
A 1-cost Skill card that shields and applies 2 stacks of Vulnerable to all enemies. A very powerful utility card that can boost the team’s damage considerably.
Storm of Bitter Cold
Upgrade
Show Effects
A strong upgrade costing just 1 AP to use, but which grants Magna 1 Counterattack stack every time shield is gained via an ability. Ensures Counterattack stacks are always high and thanks to the [Lead] tag, this card can even be free to use to help retain tempo.
Best Epiphanies
Note
We have given a star rating for each Epiphany, showing how strong and useful it is - with 1 being the lowest rating and 5 the highest.
Ice Fragment I
Upgrade
Show Effects
Ice Fragment II
Upgrade
Show Effects
Ice Fragment III
Upgrade
Show Effects
Ice Fragment IV
Upgrade
Show Effects
Ice Fragment V
Skill
Show Effects
Epiphanies:
Divine Epiphanies:
Which Divine Epiphany to go for will depend on what your team needs and which Epiphany you chose, but here are the main ones to look out for if you have spare Save Data: -1 Cost Reduction, Morale/Resolve, Draw 1 (Icy Fragment V).
Glacial Iron Fist I
Attack
Show Effects
Glacial Iron Fist II
Attack
Show Effects
Glacial Iron Fist III
Attack
Show Effects
Glacial Iron Fist IV
Attack
Show Effects
Glacial Iron Fist V
Attack
Show Effects
Epiphanies:
Divine Epiphanies:
Which Divine Epiphany to go for will depend on what your team needs and which Epiphany you chose, but here are the main ones to look out for if you have spare Save Data: Vulnerable 2, -1 Cost Reduction.
Ice Wall I
Skill
Show Effects
Ice Wall II
Skill
Show Effects
Ice Wall III
Upgrade
Show Effects
Ice Wall IV
Attack
Show Effects
Ice Wall V
Skill
Show Effects
Epiphanies:
Divine Epiphanies:
Which Divine Epiphany to go for will depend on what your team needs and which Epiphany you chose, but here are the main ones to look out for if you have spare Save Data: -1 Cost Reduction, Morale/Resolve (Ice Wall III).
Frost Charge I
Skill
Show Effects
Frost Charge II
Skill
Show Effects
Frost Charge III
Upgrade
Show Effects
Frost Charge IV
Attack
Show Effects
Frost Charge V
Skill
Show Effects
Epiphanies:
Divine Epiphanies:
Which Divine Epiphany to go for will depend on what your team needs and which Epiphany you chose, but here are the main ones to look out for if you have spare Save Data: Draw 1, -1 Cost Reduction.
Gear
The Memory Fragments & Equipment suggestions below are based on calculations we did. If you want to check the damage formula and how scaling the damage works in CZN, check this guide.
For more damage use 2P Cursed Corpse (if you can keep Agony on targets at all times) or 2P Black Wing (only a minor damage increase but more consistent). Alternatively for stronger Chaos starts try 2P Seth's Scarab, or if you want more survivability use 2P Healer's Journey. If none of that appeals, you can use any 2 strong sub/main stat pieces instead of a final 2P set bonus as well.
In a lot of cases, flat sub-stats are better than percentage ones when it comes to HP, ATK and DEF. The reason behind this is that in CZN the characters stats are pretty low and you get more value from flat bonus rather than percentage one based on calcs.
CRIT Rate% > CRIT DMG% > DEF > DEF%
When playing Magna with a focus on damage, it's important to max out the value from her Potential 7 to gain as much Justice DMG% as possible. To start with, aim at getting to 301 DEF in the character screen, but later, with proper gear, get as close to 350 as you can to fully cap out the potential.
DEF > DEF% > EGO Regen = HP > HP%
Our best Partner recommendation try to balance both the raw damage boost they provide based on our calculations with the additional utility provided by the skill - combined with how it interacts with the character's kit. We have rated each Partner based on how much additional damage and the utility they provide. Read the comments under each Partner to better understand our reasoning.
No calculations in Chaos Zero Nightmare are completely accurate for all scenarios, including the ones below. What team, decks, epiphanies, gear, equipment, and enemies you're facing all impact them. Because of this, take the results as guidelines and combine them with the explanations to make your decisions. Calculations use endgame save data set-ups, including 5 turns of combat using the whole deck with all Ego skills unless otherwise stated.
For builds aiming to maximize their damage from Counterattacks and ensure they're always at max stacks so that every enemy attack triggers a hit, Erica is the go-to option for Magna thanks to her Counterattack generation effect and the fact that her Passive actually boosts Counterattack damage, something which is rare across Partners. However, if all you care about is survivability or shielding, Wilhelmina may be preferable instead.
E4 Wilhelmina can't compete on damage when compared to E4 Erica in Counterattack Magna builds in most circumstances, but the one advantage she does have is that she offers higher Combat Defense, which does claw back a bit of lost damage but, more importantly, means she offers better shielding and survivability. In addition to that, Wilhelmina also boasts higher damage boosts for Magna's card damage, which, while won't help for Counterattacks build, but if you're playing a card damage focused build willl be another potential reason to choose her over Erica. Last but not least and most importantly, E4 Wilhelmina is F2P accessible while E4 Erica most certainly is not, so in most cases, unless you already have a high Ego level Erica E4 Wilhelmina should be the go-to option.
E0 Erica loses her guaranteed Counterattack generation and now instead only has a 50% chance, which isn't nearly as good but still workable. However, she still stands as one of the few available ways on Partners to scale Counterattack generation, so if that's what you're after, she's still a worthwhile pick unless you have E4 Wilhelmina, whose 24% Combat DEF will usually outdo the benefits of E0 Erica even for Counterattack builds.
Much weaker at E0 than at E4, but it is really the only accessible Vanguard Partner available that actually grants meaningful stats to Magna, so she's the default baseline option for that reason.
In the Zero System, it's incredibly easy to access all items acquirable via the shop thanks to the five free refreshes you get each shop node - that's why the recommendations below are limited to them only. ATTENTION! Area-specific items can sometimes be more powerful than shop items, but are far less consistent to get or require running a specific world or giving up certain event options. Use the shop list as a starting point for building up your deck saves.
The equipment recommendations are based on items obtainable in Season 2’s Chaos - Burning Life. If you’re running content outside of Season 2, it’s possible some options may not be available for acquisition, or that other options not obtainable in Burning Life may be better.
We're currently working on updating all builds for Season 3.
Deck & Teams
Check the best builds for Magna below.
Shield Retainer
Vulnerable Debuffer
Counter-Attacker
Ice Fragment IV
Upgrade
Show Effects
Glacial Iron Fist V
Attack
Show Effects
Storm of Bitter Cold
Upgrade
Show Effects
Base performance of the character.