Let's Play Hand of Fate - Part 18: The Dealer
Channel: Anaxite LPs
Date: 2021-12-14

The adventurer has gone up against bandits, skeletons, ratmen, and lizardmen. He went up against a Kraken and lived to tell the tale. He found some mysterious Dragon relics and survived a dragon's fire. Now, at last, he faces the one who has been pulling the strings of the adventure all this time.

The Dealer's dungeon is nasty! You're almost guaranteed that you won't see a single blessing along the way, as the dealer tries to curse you into oblivion. Just remember that, as the dealer has repeatedly said, he may challenge us but will ultimately be fair. This dungeon is daunting, yet doable.

I had to change my deck multiple times before I settled on something that took me to victory. Here are some strategies you can use.
- Put cards in your deck that give you items easily, or that have low penalty. Food Wagon is an easy gain. Battle Practice is low gain but easy to fight.
- Put cards that you can back out from. Peasant Woman or Holy Forge may sound limited in use, but they become breather cards.
- Remove blessing-granting cards from your deck. You can live without them more than you can live with some of the curses.
- Remove all low-tier equipment from your deck, but have multiple well-rounded options of each type. The Dragon Relics are great if you have them. All non-default shields are decent, and Innocence will always be useful. Gauntlets are protection in case of one curse. Helms are so varied, you probably want ones that are useful in general scenarios rather than just a specific one (Oracle's Diadem is a favorite of mine).
- Favor equipment that has frequent useful effects, rather than in very limited scenarios.
- Only remove the worst curses. I wouldn't bother with Time Distortion, for instance, as it can be in our favor. Yes, I know I removed it in an earlier video. ;)


⮞ THE DEALER ⮜
❝There have been Dealers before but none so adept at the game as him.❞

The Dealer has four distinct phases. Each phase features all the Court monsters of one Suit, going from weakest to strongest. After you kill them all, the Dealer has a few attacks.

Phase one pits you against the Jack, Queen, and King of Dust. When they go down, the Dealer slams his fists and creates some explosions.
Phase two pits you against the Jack, Queen, and King of Skulls. The Dealer then creates some static lines that will damage you if you step in them.
Phase three pits you against the Jack, Queen, and King of Plague. The Dealer create explosions, then creates some lines that will rotate 45 degrees from his hand around the table, first counter-clockwise, then clockwise.
Phase three pits you against the Jack, Queen, and King of Scales. The Dealer create explosions, then creates some lines that will rotate 90 degrees from his hand around the table, first counter-clockwise, then clockwise. Make sure to be on the far edges of the board to avoid getting hurt... like I did a few times.
It's possible the Dealer will create more explosions depending on where you're standing, but I haven't figured out the mechanics for sure.

After his initial attacks, the Dealer forces you into a quick time event as he throws a ball of energy at you. Hit the reflect button at the right time to throw the energy back at him, at which point you can attack him until he gets back up. If you fail to reflect the ball, you have one chance to hit the dodge button to stay alive and try the event again.


Join the discussion on SomethingAwful: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3982094
or the LP Beach: https://lpbeach.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1034


Chapters:
0:00 Photosensitivity warning
0:22 Intro
3:11 The first floor
7:14 The second floor
11:41 The third floor
16:05 The fourth floor
21:28 The fifth floor
24:51 The sixth floor
28:01 Boss (flashing lights)
35:39 Credits
37:41 Death reel (flashing lights)


Additional music: 
"Marathon (Electric Talk)" arranged by Reuben Cornell for the album Seiken Densetsu 3: Songs of Light and Darkness. Published by OverClocked ReMix and available from http://sd3.ocremix.org.