A quick tip for every character

:chibiargagarg: What do you buy a character that needs everything? Money is a good start. Not getting at least a :ps1gem: during the first two turns will compromise Argagarg’s long game despite Hex of Murkwood.

:chibibbb: BBB can afford to load up with more :pspuzzle: enders than any other three-ender character because drawing Upgrade with a handful of :pspuzzle: enders just means he has good Upgrade fodder.

:chibidegrey: Degrey needs to be careful not to trash so many :ps1gem:s that he can’t afford a :ps2gem:. He can usually skip trashing one :ps1gem: for this and catch up on cycling later by pile height bonus.

:chibigeiger: Geiger can use It’s Time for the Past to get both the main and the reaction from a :psblueshield: chip in the same round.

:chibigloria: Gloria’s basic combine rush is unusually consistent precisely because her built-in pigs mean she can almost always time her first big crash for exactly turn 6 when it becomes a potential game-ender.

:chibigrave: In the late game, when your :psgem:s have been trained up and strong enders are plentiful, Versatile Style becomes a reliable brown to black washer.

:chibigwen: Playing Shadow Plague is only about as important as a Really Annoying main. Gwen should try to have better things to do with her actions by the late game.

:chibijaina: While most rushdown characters don’t want to crash a :ps1gem: for money into a likely countercrash, thereby slowing down the game, Jaina can actually afford to do so on turn 3+ to snag a combine and compensate with her ante-related character chips.

:chibilum: Lum can abuse discard, particularly Color Panic, to set up a likely/guaranteed Jackpot.

:chibimenelker: Vs. intermediate players, Menelker can pig Deathstrike during the midgame to constantly maintain a lethal threat. Vs. advanced players, he can pig any chip after the first hand of the cycle and they’ll drop everything to defend the Deathstrike he might not have.

:chibimidori: Midori’s can drop Dragon Form after two :ps2gem:s to buy a combine and still threaten to win early with a :ps4gem:-crash.

:chibionimaru: Onimaru still has tactical access to the effects of puzzle chip stacks that have been heavily It’s a Trap’d. He can lay the Traps himself on a nearly-empty stack to keep the opponent from buying the last chip and denying him the Tactics option.

:chibipersephone: As with Menelker, pigging a random chip vs. an advanced player anteing to 6 pile can get them to go pretty far out of their way to avoid the Command she don’t necessarily have.

:chibiquince: When using Two Truths, first decide which two chips to pick, then pick them in the same order as the draw pile. This keeps Quince’s opponent from intuiting that his first choice is his preferred choice.

:chibirook: Rook has a notable vulnerability to Mix Master, turning Strength of Earth into a weakness. But with good fork support he can turn the tables by using it himself to prevent the opponent from punching :ps4gem:s through his Stone Wall.

:chibisetsuki: Her two innate + :pschip: + :brownarrow: character chips means even if she loses the race to buy three Axe Kicks she’s still even on drawpower. This lets her take a turn off to be the first to add a payload to her engine.

:chibitroq: Always look for an opportunity to just drop a :ps3gem: into Troq’s pile with Giant Growth and maybe win on the spot. He shouldn’t do it every time, but he should at least consider it every time.

:chibivalerie: The key to strong Valerie play is making full use of all four options on Creative Thoughts, particularly the :pspig:.

:chibivendetta: Vendetta’s main strength is his surplus of character chip arrows. His main weakness is lack of starting cash. The answer to both when available is a collection of cheap brown enders, i.e. the usual Setsuki enablers.

:chibizane: If Zane has a loaded pile and the spare arrows, Crash Potato can pull a crash gem from a discard pile, even his own, to crash something bigger than a :ps1gem:.

Similar tip sets from other players are welcome. The level of these tips varies by character, so it’d be beneficial to have complementary tips for different skill levels.

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Bucky returns!

Also I think the character haiku series was pretty good.

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Wow all the games i’ve played I don’t think I’ve consciously attempted to jackpot with color panic. I’ve just always yolo’d lol. New goal! Nice guide bucky!

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Can you elaborate on the Geiger tip? I’m not sure I follow what you’re saying there.

I maybe would like some discussion on the Gwen tip. In my experience, Gwen shines when she has all three character chips in a given turn. Otherwise you run into wrong color arrows that get wasted. If she eats a shadow plague early, it starts a positive feedback loop where it’s hard for her to get all her character chips together which makes her buy worse chips or take more wounds and she quickly spirals out of control. Late game it’s obviously not that important when she has enough engine anyway or pile heights are the more important priority, but IME that point doesn’t come until fairly late in the game.

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Sure, here’s a simple example.

Geiger has a hand of Self Improvement, It’s Time for the Past and gems with an empty discard. His opponent plays Just a Scratch. Geiger reacts with Self Improvement to draw 3. On Geiger’s turn, he uses Time for the Past to return Self Improvement and plays it to purge the wound. Geiger got the benefit of both the Main and the Reaction in the same cycle.

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It’s a late game build tip. Of course you play Shadow Plague until you have something better to do. Of course you don’t play Shadow Plague if you do have something better to do.

The tip points out that you’re better off deliberately making that transition by buying an alternative action, such as another crash gem, than by going into your late game intending to win while spamming Shadow Plague.

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