Trickster purist lean deck

How to play and build a lean deck, based on the trickster.
This is a very versatile deck that abuses all cheesy mechanics.
It is for chess players : you need to think all of your moves ahead.

Intro

We are building a small deck based on the trickster.
This guide helps you get the following achievements :
* The trickster (trickster completion)
* Purity (purist completion)
* Specialist (16 or fewer cards)

Pros&cons
+ quickly reliable, does not rely on luck after the first act
+ versatile, a solution for every enemy
+ fantastic board manipulation
+ surprisingly decent raw damage
+ requires little money throughout the run
+ great at doing optional objectives
- squishy
- requires careful planning each turn
- no massive flashy hit for 100+ damage

Map strategy and goals

At the start, the goal is mostly to get rid of bad cards. This has priority over upgrades. There are not so many cards to upgrade, ponder and wall kick should be the priority after removing cards.
Make sure you visit every gym, especially early on.

We have wall kick as our big damage card, so we want to pump up max combo points whenever possible.
Momentum starts at 4 which is plenty, but getting another point or two can't hurt, it will make our card draw (ponder) more powerful.
More attack points are always great, but not necessary on this build.

Room strategy

This is the tricky part. Do not play too fast, try and figure out the whole sequence before you play the cards.
Try to stay along walls without being cornered. You have great synergies right from the start with push + wall kick, or back slam + wall kick. Make sure you have no open door on the wall in the tile ahead of you so you can wall kick.
Use your arsenal of grapple, swap, push and back slam to position enemies so they kill each other or get expelled from the board.
This build is squishy and has no block or dodge, so avoid getting hit.

Deck building

Cards to remove in priority:
- hunker down (trades momentum for block)
- absorb attacks (provides block, adds momentum when you get hit)
- break the limit (free card, 12 damage, adds a slow bleed to your deck)

Cards to remove later:
- quick kick (4dmg + push)
- exhausting blow (9dmg + random discard)
- dash (move 2 tiles in one direction)
- improvisation (provides a random attack, costs 0 on first turn it is played)
- chain strike (provides momentum when used as a kill shot)

As you can see, we remove half the starting deck, leaving 8 of them in the final deck.
You obviously cannot remove all of them right away, it's alright if you keep some of those for the first 2 or 3 acts.

Cards to add:
+ 1 throw or shoulder throw. This is used for crowd control and whittling down annoying enemies HP pool. The other throw cards rely too much on free available tiles around your target, not recommended. I prefer throw since it costs 0 momentum and the deck is very mobile as it is.
+ 1 or 2 better movement cards. Option play (6dmg or move 2 tiles) is a great versatile card. Slip and shift also work.
+ 2 stuns. Ideally one of those is pocket sand (low damage, stun through block, gives an achievement if you kill with it). Throat punch and stun darts are both good options.
+ 1 or 2 damage cards. I like knee kick (damage + push, cannot be countered) and jumping back kick. First one is good for positioning/pushing out of the map but is rare, second one has good damage and uses combo points without removing them. There are plenty of other options.

One could also make a case for steel self and intimidation.

Big nono:
- any kind of combo finisher. We want combo as high as possible all the time for wall kick
- high momentum cost cards

This is a final screenshot of such a run. As you can see, I ended with 14 cards, only 5 of them upgraded. I lost some hp on the final fight from letting the boss push me into walls.

You can remove cards in a different order, it depends on what you find. If you get an early option play or jumping back kick, you can remove quick kick earlier for instance.

You can bloat the deck a bit mid-game, going over 16 if you find the perfect cards.
Beggars can't be chosers. If you find an early tackle card and other options are terrible, take it. You can replace it with throw or shoulder throw later.

Final notes

No enemy is immune to stun and grapple, abuse that.
An enemy who can adjust facing you will not actually face you if you grapple them as your last action.
Throws are great for the first 3 bosses, they help crowd control on the 4th, and only one stance of the final boss is immune to it.
Upgraded ponder helps cycle your cards fast. With stuns, throw, pushes and grapple, you should always have a solution for every enemy.
Broad shoulders adds decent damage in the long run, upgraded or not. It could be removed, but you have so many cards to get rid of already.

I hope this helps!

[some1599]

Excellent guide. This game is actually so much easier with a lean consistent deck.

One change I made was adding more movement. I had two runs that failed when I drew no movement (or ponder) and got executed. The last time was in the final battle, when it happened twice in a row - very unlucky, but it got me paranoid! My third attempt was successful with 6 movement cards.

Compared to the guide, I retained Dash, removed Broad Shoulders, did not add any Throw (never offered any) and added another Shift.

Grapple+
Push
Wall Kick+
Back Slam
Dash
Shift x3
Swap+
Slip+
Ponder+
Kick Punch Combo+
Hook Kick
Hammerfist+
Throat Punch+ x2

I didn't have the opportunity to increase Momentum cap without skipping Gyms, so I used Hook Kick and upgraded Slip, Swap and Grapple to compensate. It worked well.

[GMFlash]

Excellent guide. I managed to beat Purist on the first try using this guide. It actually made the game feel easy compared to my attempts to use either the Aggressive or Balanced deck.

[cliftonr]

This guide is frickin excellent & it's making me rethink my play style. I like that you present it as a process for deciding what cards to keep, what to add, and what to avoid, rather than one final list.

I was skeptical at first of some of your choices to keep - I never liked Ponder before - but after a successful run,I could see how your cards work together. It was the easiest final battle I've had yet.

My one tip to anybody else trying it out is don't add too many good cards as you go, and keep enough money saved up to remove at least one card for each one you add. This way if you are offered something you absolutely have to have, like Uncontrolled Power+, you've got enough money to remove a weaker card at the next gym. My first try I blew it by having 1 extra card I couldn't remove at the last gym.

By the ninja mission, you prob shouldn't add even a great card unless you're already down to 16, and then only if you know for sure you can get rid of a card to replace with it.

[alcadel]

Worked well. Did it first try even though I couldn't finish the game in classic prior to this guide

[Harry Dubois]

Tried this strategy...1st try i reached the final boss final phase on purist, but being the noob i failed...anyways, the final version of the deck is op as fuck. The only thing that i added was the healing card if i don't have a healing augment...again cause i'm a noob...

[Joemac]

The only unpushable enemies after Mafia boss are the heavy and (sometimes) the rogue agent. Rising Knee is definitely useful in the final mission, hardly worth removing.

[Asshat]

I love Rising Knee but it's a card I always try to remove before the mafia boss since there are unpushable enemies consistently after that.

Personally, I find Heavy Strike is a card that's welcome in almost any deck, it's super versatile, decent damage, and a movement option that isn't a movement card is super handy for maintaining combo and positioning without triggering aggressive enemie's reaction moves.

[Kobal2 [Déchus]]

Thanks for the cheevos, my good sir and/or madam ! Was able to work it out in two runs. The Throw was absolutely key to beating the act 4 boss and the final bosses - very lucky to have been able to pick it up on the very last act 4 fight. In fact my card options were absolutely awful throughout the run - in the end I had to upgrade and keep both quick kicks, and the only cards I did pick up were one Option Play+ and one Unleash. And still it worked !

[Fang]

Interesting, improvisation is usually one of the very last cards I remove. You have a point with RNG, especially when we want to make the deck reliable.
I do not mind this one card much, as it gives pleasant surprises sometimes, and first use costs 0 momentum. Maybe I just keep it longer for the thrill.

[fri_freeman]

My usual number one priority to remove in this deck is improvisation, because you don't need more rng in this game. At least with breaking the limit and hunker down you know what you get when you draw them. Then it's break the limit and hunker down and absorb attack.