Questions about strategy to build optimized decks

[Mr. Meeseeks]

I still struggle to beat the VIP floor. I learn more about certain cards and how to apply them but in general:

1. Which card from the Standard deck are useful to remove? Someone suggested the "middle value" cards. but what would be ideal to have? Having mostly 1/2/3 and then 10 value cards while trying to remove anything that is on the middle ground: Is that a good idea and what should I prefer to remove in future runs to succeed?

2. Which cards are good against enemies like the Fan or DJ that copies your deck. Often they beat me with my own weapons, even if I obliterated other enemies. I try to get cards that disrupt some enemies that rely on singular cards but beating these types of enemies that copy your own playstyle are annoying to me.

3. General tips on how to succeed and beat the first run would be highly appreciated.

[HeraldOfOpera]

1. Generally speaking you want to remove all high value cards. Churning through your deck is more important than basically anything else. You may want to go for the 10 before the face cards because King of the World exists, or you may want to force the face cards because King of the Hill exists.

2. You're never forced to face those enemies. That said, anything involving Exploit is far weaker when the AI uses it; in particular Booster Pack is an all but guaranteed bust for them because they'll play all 5 cards immediately.

3. Always stand if there's the slightest chance of busting. You can maybe take your chances with Valentine's Card and Death (Upright), but taking an unmitigated hit is devastating.

[Mr. Meeseeks]

1. Yea just had a run with the Jack and the Beanstalk and found out it was more practical to have middle value cards too. I will try that out in future runs, although I failed at the Developer with my deck

2. Yea sure you learn when facing them. I had to go for Developer or that woman (Forgot the Name) and honestly I have no idea what the Developer did to me :D He had many many cards and was able to erase every advantage I had.

3. Yea thats something I try to do anyway, some enemies just seem to being able to bust you no matter what, even if you stand on a good value or 21, so I would need cards to navigate through such problems

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by Mr. Meeseeks:

3. Yea thats something I try to do anyway, some enemies just seem to being able to bust you no matter what, even if you stand on a good value or 21, so I would need cards to navigate through such problems

Disrupting the opponent is more powerful than forwarding your own gameplan. The Bouncer is the most blatant about it, while a lot of other enemies simply utilize it (from the Bard's single copy of Geralt burning away your blackjack right in the Tavern, up to the Deity of Despair being outright built to burn as many of your cards as possible).

[TerraSleet]

Cards that mess with your opponent's deck/board are very strong. Cards like Geralt, Yellow Card, Dis-Card, Queen of Chess, etc. Most enemies in the game have 10-20 size decks that revolve around a few strong cards. It also allows you to mess up an enemy's board after they stand, forcing a bust or preventing their blackjack. In some runs you can even build a deck that burns their entire deck, forcing them to stand at 0 every turn. Wizard's Deck + Yellow Card is extremely strong.

For example, the pit boss deck revolves entirely around intentionally busting and doing damage + shielding by busting. if you burn one or both of the locked tarot cards that he abuses then he's a pushover.

[Mr. Meeseeks]

I had Gerald and the Yellow Card in that run, but the developer just didnt die to it and was able to defeat me. So these three cards are some that I would need to defeat the enemies in the later levels? I watched a Retromation stream where he used the Dis-Card a lot and it seems very powerful but sadly I didnt encounter it the last 2 runs. But thanks for the help. Appreciate any insight in which cards to pick in which situations. Are you usually building a large deck or have it as small as possible? Like picking strong cards everytime you encounter them or just if it fits your deck perfectly?

Anyways I think its very interesting that only 13% beat the game so the game itself is hard but some of these people beating the game beat it consistently like that streamer I mentioned, so it cant be just RNG but its very hard to me to analyze the later bosses.

Watched this and at 34:50 he obliterated the developer like its nothing. Just marked the 1s of his deck and he was gone in seconds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftM08YswnCE So I basically need cards to erase the cards of my opponents or make them unusable

I also encountered the Moon Card and situations were cards were upside down, what exactly happens there?

[1.2M | Missingno.]

One thing to note about the Fan, take advantage of the AI's weaknesses. It has no hand and will simply autoplay cards that would go into hand. Any time it has to make a decision, it will decide randomly. And while it cannot Exploit cards, you actually can Exploit your opponent's cards freely. So even though it has your cards, you can pilot your deck better while it mashes buttons like an idiot.

In Tarot reading, cards have different meanings based on whether they're dealt upright or reversed. So all the Tarot cards in game this have two different versions with different effects. Usually those effects reference each other in some way, the reversed card is like an 'evil' variation, but just think of them as different unique cards.

[Mr. Meeseeks]

Yea ok I understood that the reversed Tarot cards have different meanings but what happens if the whole deck is "reversed" since thats the effect of one of the tarot cards? In these situations I couldnt read any value inside the enemies deck and wondered what the benefit is to do this

[Mr. Meeseeks]

Just won my first run :) Thanks for helping out guys, I doubled the value of some of the cards of the angels, locked the cards and got instant wins :D

[fheadx]

In card counting, the player is considered to have an advantage when the deck is tilted towards high cards. I've been using that idea when building my decks, but also still experimenting and getting familiar with game features. And my results are noob-ish, but my sole winning run used the counting idea very nicely, with the Rules card setting BJ to 20.

[Mr. Meeseeks]

Originally posted by fheadx:

In card counting, the player is considered to have an advantage when the deck is tilted towards high cards. I've been using that idea when building my decks, but also still experimenting and getting familiar with game features. And my results are noob-ish, but my sole winning run used the counting idea very nicely, with the Rules card setting BJ to 20.

Which values do you usually try to eliminate? So you for a deck with maximum amount of value 10s?

[Nacho]

You basically just want your normal cards to be predictable. You could go all small or all big, what matters is that you're not sitting on 12 - 15 and having to stand because what you could draw is too volatile.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

Keep your cards small so that you can play as many cards per turn as possible. Big cards slow you down and make it hard to cycle.

Repeatedly playing cards that can disrupt and destroy the opponent is way stronger than just hitting blackjack. In fact, I feel like blackjack matters surprisingly little in the endgame.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by Mr. Meeseeks:

Yea ok I understood that the reversed Tarot cards have different meanings but what happens if the whole deck is "reversed" since thats the effect of one of the tarot cards? In these situations I couldnt read any value inside the enemies deck and wondered what the benefit is to do this

Reading the card explains the card; its own text explains that it triples your outgoing damage at the cost of not being able to see either your own or your opponent's cards (depending on whether it's the upright or reversed version of The Moon).

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by fheadx:

In card counting, the player is considered to have an advantage when the deck is tilted towards high cards. I've been using that idea when building my decks, but also still experimenting and getting familiar with game features. And my results are noob-ish, but my sole winning run used the counting idea very nicely, with the Rules card setting BJ to 20.

The reason card counting works this way is because the dealer always hits on 16 or less. In this game, where the "dealer" isn't even drawing from the same deck you are, it doesn't make quite as much sense.

[Mr. Meeseeks]

Originally posted by HeraldOfOpera:

Originally posted by Mr. Meeseeks:

Yea ok I understood that the reversed Tarot cards have different meanings but what happens if the whole deck is "reversed" since thats the effect of one of the tarot cards? In these situations I couldnt read any value inside the enemies deck and wondered what the benefit is to do this

Reading the card explains the card; its own text explains that it triples your outgoing damage at the cost of not being able to see either your own or your opponent's cards (depending on whether it's the upright or reversed version of The Moon).

Oh then I overlooked that, good to know. Would that be something you would take in any situation? Seems very rng heavy