General gameplay tips to make the game less harsh for newer players. (Work in Progress, card images and more sections later)
Image: F2JV
Section 1: Healing and Shield
If you are not playing the Heart deck, it can seem awful at first to play without any healing sources. One of your priorities when building your deck is to try to look for ways you can mitigate damage. Any Heart and Spade card can help with this. If you see a decently high heart card and your other options don’t fit your deck, maybe it’s a good pick to consider.
Some of my favorite healing cards are:
Monterey Jack: High heart card that allows you to remove it in case it busts you.
Queen of Drag: High heart card that sets up an easy blackjack.
Valentines Card: Massive heal for both players.
Loyalty Card: Massive heal when you peform the guarenteed Blackjack. Very exploitable if you have a way to get a bunch of Advantage to keep triggering it.
Pi of Hearts: Helps getting blackjacks and has a lower risk of causing busts.
Some of my favorite shield cards:
Jack and the Beanstalk: Adds 10 Spades, and massively increases your chance of doing a blackjack even if you bust with it.
Jack of All Trades: If you Blackjack with this card, it gives the effect of all suits at once including 10 health and 10 shield.
Report card: Decent low card that gives guaranteed 4 shield when played and gives you free aces if you specialize further into shields.
Section 2: Force your opponent to Bust
Getting the opponent to go over the Blackjack limit to force them to take all of your damage is key. Here are a few cards that allow you to force your opponent to bust easily:
Four Mana Seven Seven: When this card is played it adds a 7 to their pile and alot of times that is enough to make them bust. The 7 is also added to their deck so it disrupts alot of the strategies the NPCs use. Be mindful that if your deck runs alot of high cards there is a big probability to bust yourself. If you can play it from the hand be mindful that it adds 6 points to your board when played to avoid busting yourself.
Queen of Chess + Jumping Jack: These cards allow you to manipulate their position on the board and force your opponent to get 10 points which in many cases is more than enough to bust them.
Sweep the Leg: It manipulates the enemy’s Blackjack to only work with 20 points. On some NPC’s it makes their gameplan harder and on some NPC’s that like to play alot of 10’s it makes their gameplan easier. It isn’t a problem if your deck can go to 21 and 22 consistantly though.
Rules Card: Like Sweep the Leg, it allows your to manipulate the rules of the game. If used when the opponent is sitting on a 21 Blackjack it forces them to bust and gives you a free opportunity to deal damage.
+2 Card: It forces your opponent to play 2 cards. Beware that it goes into the opponent’s deck after you play it so it can become a bit of a curse after a while.
Section 3: Strategy Disruption Cards
There are many NPC’s that rely on a few key cards for their strategies to work and the game gives you alot of options to deal with them. The NPC keeps getting shield and chipping away at your health with their annoying tarot cards? Just steal them or get rid of them. These types of cards are always good to consider adding to your deck despite looking useless at first glance.
Some key disruption cards:
Gerald from Riviera: Burns a card in play but only once per game.
Yellow Card: Marks a card and then allows you to burn it with a Red card. It allows you to burn multiple cards per game unlike Gerald. It’s much more effective to get rid of cards that lock themselves when they are played.
Dis-card: Forces your opponent to instantly discard a card in play.
Business card: Straight up steals an enemy card that is in play and makes it yours for the rest of the game.
Lockpicking card and Key card: Alot of problematic enemy tarot cards lock themselves to stay on the board. These two cards allow you to unlock those problematic cards by forcing them to get discarded at the end of the round.