Complete Tips & Tricks for Quick Progression

## Soldier I & below

Cards included: "Biohazard", "Kinetic Barrier", "Equality", "Battle Master", "Repair Droid", "Tactical Heal", "Armor Piercer", "Repair Mastery", "Tactical Blast".

*At soldier I,* players start with additional 5 shield atop their base 30 hp.

*Framework*: With a reasonable starting hand, allocate either a damage card (Biohazard/ Armor Piercer) to be your maximum damage dealer as the key card. If there are no high damage cards, allocate a shield card instead (Kinetic Barrier, Battlemaster). This key card should be kept as long as possible with the intention to 1. one shot the opponent or 2. Shield for a large amount.

*Passive skillls:*

1. Repair droid (Heal 2 hp/turn) Use it to help increase length of gameplay and better safeguard against *aggressive* players
2. Repair mastery (+2 heal to all heal cards): Not very useful at this stage

*Useless Cards:*

1. "Sabotage" (Swap your armor with enemy's armor): there are few defensive players at this stage.
2. "Half-life" (Better Heal card - 15 heal). As your deck as of now should have 19 playable cards (11 basic cards), of which 4 are heal cards (buffed by "repair mastery" & supported by "repair droid" Heal cards take up 21% of your deck. If half-life is added, it becomes 25%. This is too high a percentage considering your hand of 3 cards & that most players won't continuously attack you.

*Suggestions:*

1. If possessing basic cards, play it as soon as possible if they are not allocated the key card
2. If you have more than 1 attack card, play the weaker attack as soon as possible
3. Save "overload" for 1-2 turns for more effect and play it to increase the power of the key card.
4. If you know the opponent is a defensive player, do not abide by suggestion 2 but save 2 attacking cards instead.

*Bugs:*

If you leave the game tab, even after dealing the last damage to win but leave before your "credits awarded" screen appears, the game freezes. Rewards are still awarded.

## Soldier II

*New Cards*

* "Survival Kit" (5 health & 5 Armor): **Not very strong** considering "kinetic barrier" has 2\* base armor and "half-life" has 3\* more armor
* "Kinetic Bunker" (1 armor & doubles your armor): **Alright** If combined with other armor cards or overloaded, it is very useful. It is easier to go for the damage than for more shield. Recall "Armor piercer" counters this cards viability.

*Synergies*

* {Overcharge}: "Overload II/III" + "Battlemaster": buffs any other cards by at least 11 and 9 shield. Very powerful when used consecutively with another attack card. "Tactical Blast" can be used in place of "Battlemaster" for good effect.
* {Overarmor Demise} "Armor Piercer" + "Overload": Can reach 30 damage in 3 turns. Since, 6 (Base dmg) + 8 (EOT energy) is already 14 damage.

*Pro Tips*

* (Pretty obvious) At the start of enemy's turn, read the stats of your cards as (Observed +2) as the end of the turn overloads all cards in play by +2 energy.
* When given both armor piecer & another damage card with the same attack value, armor piercer is more powerful as it ignores armor.
* Armor piercer when powered to 30 damage is an insta-kill, unpreventable card unless the enemy kills you first.

*Starting Second*

Although starting second does significantly make you one step slower than your enemy, the chance that the enemy hurts you in the first turn is less than 25% (6/24) because the enemy would choose to save more powerful cards (Double ability, etc.) and use basic/ heal/ armor cards. (Usually we save overload cards for one turn as its effect will increase by 2 and we can change the cards in our hand.). This basic damage cards average 5 dmg.

Hence, starting second will bring you the advantage of extra stats, assuming no 2 ability cards, 2 EOT energy \* 3 cards = 6 energy.

## Veteran 1

*New Cards*

* "Armor Strike" (Deal damage equal to your armor): **Strong** this makes defense decks very viable.

*Enemy's playing Style*

Up to this stage, in the 39 battles I player (27 won, 12 lost,14 collected cards) the number of bots was approximately 35, (90%).

Above this stage, players who do not choose their usernames are probably bots. Try to emote whenever possible to signal to your enemy you aren't a bot.

Bots playing style: Priorities using overloads as soon as possible and only using attack cards if 1)all are attacking cards 2) can one-hit K.O. the player. However, the first card seems to be random and abides by the abundance of attack/defense/overload cards in the deck. Their decks always have cards that I have yet to unlock and continuously use these (probably to entice me to continue playing the game)

Player's playing style: they love to use 2 ability cards and are not patient enough to overload attack cards to be able to one-hit K.O. me.

*Card Synergies*

* {Kinetic Strike} "Kinetic Bunker" + "Armor Strike": A very effective way to centre your deck on defensive. However, Overloaded Armor Piercer completely counters this combo.

*Personal Playing Style: A bit more defensive*

Reasons for Change:

* More Defense Cards.
* Terrible Starting Hands with weak basic attacks
* Continuously hope enemy isn't overloading "armor piercer"

*Pre-match Waiting Time (to find opponent)*

At this stage, the games tries to pair you up with real players but will proceed to pair you with a bot if no players are present after 4-5 seconds. This is a great time to plan your early match strategy and choose your key card.*Card Backs*

* <Litemint> is pretty zen but the design is a bit too simple and does not attune to the aggression in the game.
* <Red Dragon> My favourite, elucidates the intensity I feel when progressing through the games.
* <Stellar> Reminiscent of a ringed planet but does not quite capture the gist of it.
* <Bitcoin> no.
* <Insignia> Probably pick this after I have ranked up enough. Looks really cool the higher the rank and the design changes with rank promotion so kudos to the developers.

*Comments:* Pretty easy 5 wins, my win streak is at 5. I should have been paired up with 5 bots with increasingly convincing nicknames (e.g. Yaketsuku). I should be on the daily leaderboard.

## Veteran II-III

*New Cards*

* "Hellfire Droid" (Deal 1 dmg/ turn): **Not very Strong** Compared to the Repair droid which heals 2, this droid is weaker and does not pierce through armor either.
* "Justice" (5 damage & 5 HP): **Not very Strong** the damage of this card is as low as basic cards and healing is not very necessary at this stage as there are few attacking players.

*Tips*

1. The most amount of heal (basic) enemy can do is 15 (Half-life) + 2 (Repair Droid) = 17
2. The most amount of damage (Basic) enemy can do is 15 (Biohazard) + 1 (Hellfire Droid) = 16
3. The most amount of damage (advanced) enemy can do is Enemy's Armor \* 2 (Armor Strike) = 2n
4. If you find the enemy stacking up armor, prepare your "sabotage" card or "armor pierce" for a quick win.

*Pacifist's Gamble*

If the enemy plays 2 to 3 attacking cards consecutively & my health is at a 15ish & I have no 1-hit K.O. cards. It is preferred to use an overload card instead of a defensive card. (Of 5 Gambles, survived 4 and won).

*Unforgiving Mistakes*

At lower leagues, it is preferable to keep a "heal" with more than 29 heal as compared to "equality" as you may not know what health your opponent is at. However, at leagues above Veteran III, the game-changing function, "drain" is a direct counter to build-up decks.

*Game-style Change*

It may have become preferred and in the meta to use defensive decks + drain + "armor strike".

*Advanced Strategy: Card Counting*

1. Take a piece of paper and label A, B, C. for each of the enemy'sHowever, at leagues above Veteran III, a game changing function, "drain" quickly makes your hand unplayable and counters build-up decks, so choose instead to save "equality". corresponding card. As you know which card the enemy plays, you may reset A, B or C respectively.
2. For each of enemy's EOT add +2 to A, B & C. Any overloads used should also be accounted for. This gives an indication of how buffed the enemy's cards are.
3. As a fail-safe, use the max damage stated above as a guess of the enemy's card so you know at any point how much damage the enemy can do. This allows you to better decide whether to use your shield now or an overload.

## Card draws

Your first five drawn cards will be: Special, special, hellfire, overload, repair

Your next four drawn cards will be: Special, hellfire, hellfire, overload

Your next four drawn cards will be: Hellfire, overload, heal, special

This process will then repeat.

'Special' refers to a card like biohazard which you can put in your deck. If you do not have four special cards, they will be replaced with Hellfire I (2 damage), so make sure to always have at least four cards in your deck.

Favoriting moves one special card to the first three with a 75% chance. Chosen One can change this to 100%. Make sure to favorite cards!