Danny's strategy guide to Litemint.io

Hello everyone,

I'm Danny, the creator of this wiki. You may recognize me on Litemint as Danny Ke.

Since playing it for about a week now, I've devised a good strategy to approach this game that is currently netting a kill death ratio of 2.317. That's 2.317 wins for every loss. And this includes all the time I spent being so clueless when I just started. Here is where I reveal my strategy to approaching Litemint. It's simple, yet can greatly pay off.

## Introduction - Energize for the Win!

### Rely on Repairs

There two important requirements to how good a card type is.

1. **They have no growth limit.** The core mechanics of the game is that cards get better as you hold onto them, with no limit. Even if people play conservatively, the game is bound to end as cards get so strong. Thus, useful card types have no cap. They will keep getting stronger and be more useful.
	1. Hellfire, Armor, and Overload have no limits. You can overload overloads, and you can throw Hellfire with 50+ damage to one-shot your opponent! The most I've built up on a single Hellfire card was 77 damage!
	2. REPAIR? Its effectiveness capped by not healing over 30HP. You won't benefit from overhealing, so hold onto these long enough and you slow your own progress
		1. There are catalyst cards that get better with overheals. A step in the right direction! But you can't reliably get a catalyst card at any time, so this feature can't tip the scales. Late game is where overheals can be really good. But by then you would have built up strong cards already.
2. **They are always somewhat useful.** You never know which cards you're dealt. So whatever you have, you have to make do with. They should somewhat help you, even if they're worse than other cards.
	1. Hellfire will always damage your opponent.
	2. Armor will always raise your armor.
	3. Overload will always boost your existing cards.
	4. REPAIR? hey're also USELESS unless you're damaged and not one-shotted.

Holding onto a repair card right from the start is not therefore, is a horrible idea. It's useless until the opponent damages you, and while you wait, it takes up the energy that other cards could have benefited from, slowing you down. Then, it will reach 30+ and its growth will no longer help you, and meanwhile, you opponent will one-shot you with a 50+ Hellfire for which **you gave them time to build** **up**. I would remove my repair cards I, II, and III if I could.

But early game, I just discard them as soon as I get one. I do keep them to heal, if I am in fact damaged, or charge them if I am unprotected and my other cards can already carry me. But never from the first two turns. And DO NOT build a strategy around repairing.

### Rock, Paper, Scissors

As I've noticed, there are about three basic strategies out there, focusing on one type of card. Read the following, and think about which category you fall in. Maybe your strategy varies depending on your starting hand!

1. Attacking: This is where you do the most damage as soon as you can. Did you just draw a 15 damage Biohazard? Play it right away! Focusing on the present is how you can may kill them before they put up too much armor.
2. Repairing: Here, once you get a repair card, you keep it, letting it energize, so that later on, as soon as you get damaged by 20+HP, you can fully heal right back to 30HP. Satisfying, isn't it? If you've read the above, you'd see how much I love repair cards.
3. Energizing. Winning is the point of the game, after all. Why does doing any damage matter until it is certain you can win? These kind of people will hold one attacking card, and keep energizing it and collecting more attacking cards until they one-shot their opponents. In this strategy, discard repair cards right away so they don't waste any space in your hand. Energy and attack all the way!

Think about these strategies, and you may see that there is a rock-paper-scissors relationship between them. Repairing beats attacking, energizing beats repairing, and attacking beats energizing. Why? Well, a short-term attacker would expend their Hellfires, only for their opponent to heal; doing nothing until you one-shot your opponent with a 40+ Hellfire means that the opponent doesn't have a chance to repair their damage; and killing your opponent quickly with weak attacks at the start prevents them from energizing their cards to 50+ points.

### Build Yourself Up

I believe the best strategy is number 3: **Energizing**. When you energize, the points on the energize get distributed to BOTH your existing cards, effectively doubling the points that you have on hand. This goes up further with cards with two traits (which will be covered later). This is how you will get the highest damage the fastest.

Also, by waiting to play, you keep your opponent on their toes, not knowing that they can die right at the next turn when they have 30HP and 10 Armor. Nothing says "predictable" like a steady stream of uncharged hellfire cards that don't even make a dent. Read below to see how you can implement them.

Attack your opponent only once you have enough firepower in your hand (can be sum of multiple attack cards) to KO them. Do also account for the cards' +4 boost when you use it again. For example, if you have a 20 Damage, a 12 Damage, and a 10 Energy, and your opponent has 30HP and 5 Armor, then you are safe to attack. Play the 12, and then the 20 which becomes 24 to kill them. If they put up more armor, then default to the main strategy and 14 energy yourself, and you'll likely win the turn after.

(unless you have to discard attack cards)

### TL;DR

* Focus on energizing your hand until you can kill them with your attack cards in your hand (yes, do the math).
* In the first two turns, discard repair cards immediately, even if you are at full health. This also lets your other cards charge.
* As soon as you have the firepower to kill your opponent
	+ Play the weakest of two attack cards first
* It would be nice to one-shot your opponent so they can't heal. But it's okay to kill them in two cards. Make sure you HAVE the firepower to kill them on you, and it's okay if the heal, just default back to building yourself up again.

## Your Deck

To the list under "Don't Rely on Repairs," I'll add a third requirement for the best cards to use:

3. **They have high growth potential.**

At the end of each turn, all cards gain two energy. Hellfire 3DMG becomes 5DMG. This goes with repairs, armor, and energy too. Cards that can grow will help you late-game. There are three card types based on growth potential:

### Standard - One Attribute

Here are all your cards with one number. Most are mandatory, but Kinetic Armor, Armor Piercer, and the Catalyzers are also here, and more. I would use all of these (except for Health Catalyzer) since they have high starting values and growth potential.

### Double - Two Attributes

These cards have two numbers, and both of their effects take place when you play them. Battlemaster, for example, does both four damage and adds four armor. Nice! Two cards for the price of one?

These cards are a joy to get for one reason only: **Both their numbers are independently boosted by energy increases** such as overloads and the 2 energy at the end of each turn. Thus, you double your card slot effectivity. They do have lower starting values, so it is not advised to use them right away. Let them charge, and you'll throw out a 20 Damage 20 Armor Battlemaster that turns the tables! Energize these cards too! These cards are great to start with since they'll receive more boosts throughout.

### Effect Cards - Zero Attributes

These would be cards with no number, but an attribute like "Equality": Set your health to be equal to enemy health. These cards stay the same turn after turn, so these are by far the worst cards to include in your deck. Also, they aren't always useful: Equality is as much bad as good, and so you're forced to keep holding onto it until you get one-shotted. I did not include any card with zero attributes and zero growth potential.

### Mastery - Passive

These are better than nothing in every way. Thus, pick one. You can have one and it boosts all cards of one class by one energy point. Since these are activated at the start of the game, I would pick the Overload mastery so the energy is then "doubled" onto my two other cards.

### TL;DR

TLDR: I would include all one and two attribute optional cards that are not solely for healing (like healing catalyst, or armor catalyst for its low starting value of 1 armor), and discard ALL cards that have zero growth potential and are abilities instead. I would pick Overload Mastery, as energy boosts boost two cards, doubling its effectiveness.

## The First Turn

The very first card is very weak, as few are energized. The goal is to energize them, so it is best to play energy cards or to discard repair cards. DO NOT play any two-attribute cards since they have more growth potential but lower initial values. There's no need to attack them since you won't make a dent in their health.

This is a priority list to be my first card played. Cards are single attribute unless specified. Thus, attack cards also include Biohazard and Armor piercer.

Highest priority > Repair > Energy (3 or more points) > Attack (8 or fewer points) > Kinetic Barrier> Attack (9 or more points) >Energy (1 or 2 points) > Two-Attribute Cards.

Lower energy cards are better held to be played on the next turn, as energy cards are very valuable. But higher energy cards can be charged right away. Also, play your weakest card of a particular category of Attack if it comes to that.

## The Plan

There is no need to attack until you are sure you can kill the opponent with what you have. Give yourself a shield once you have one of 15 points or more. Heal yourself below 20HP, and build an attack card until you can kill the opponent in one or two turns. Don't be afraid of them killing you. You would have died no matter what, so it's better to wait. This catches them by surprise too. Here are some examples of my plan in action. One turn is both of you playing once.

This is copied from above: Attack your opponent only once you have enough firepower in your hand (can be sum of multiple attack cards) to KO them. Do also account for the cards' +4 boost when you use it again. For example, if you have a 20 Damage, a 12 Damage, and a 10 Energy, and your opponent has 30HP and 5 Armor, then you are safe to attack. Play the 12, and then the 20 which becomes 24 to kill them. If they put up more armor, then default to the main strategy and 14 energy yourself, and you'll likely win the turn after.

## Going Forward - One-shot Protection?

To address the game's imbalance, one thing the developers can do is to add one-shot protection, a very game-changing addition. In this hypothetical scenario, if you have 30 health (full), then the most damage any single card can do to you is to leave you with 1HP. Say you have 30HP and 20Armor, then a 60DMG Biohazard used against you would leave you with no armor and 1HP. This gives you a fighting chance to fully heal, and gives the repair cards some merit. While catalyzer cards seem to make repair cards worthwhile with overhealing, they are not reliably obtained in the game and only serve as a bonus: I still never discard repair cards ASAP.