Gain Foils Quickly

Guide for gaining foils quickly and easily in Act 2.

Introduction

Foils are the currency in act 2. They can be spent at merchants to purchase cards and card packs.

Foils are awarded after card matches based on overkill damage. In this guide, we will exploit the dummy figure on the second floor of the mage tower, which you can play as many times as needed, to quickly earn foils.

The rest of this guide also contains spoilers, but they have not been marked for the sake of easier reading. If you have read this introduction and have no idea what I'm talking about, you have likely not progressed to this point in this game and are discouraged from reading further.

Preparation

Since creating this guide, readers have shared alternative methods in the comments, which have been added in the later sections. Before you go all-in on Sporedigger creation, I recommend reading on and trying the alternative decks in this guide first.

Deck

Assemble the following deck first:

• Sporediggers -- Ideally 8-10. If you don't have any, substitute with Gravediggers.
  
• Gravediggers -- Prioritize Sporediggers.
  
• Bone Heap -- One is enough
  
• Skeletons -- 8-12

Sample deck


For readers who need more Sporediggers, I've written a separate guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2713323522

Gain access to second floor of the mage tower

Defeat the mage's understudy on the first floor of the mage tower to gain access to the second floor. The hint for the combination is in the note on the floor.

Card match with the Dummy

Overview of Strategy

The objective is to gain as much overkill damage as possible. To do that, we will lay down Sporediggers/Gravediggers to dig up bones, and on the final turn before starvation kicks in, pump the bones into the Boneheap to deal massive overkill damage.

In the above screenshot, Lanes 1-2 will be primarily used for bone-digging until the final turn. Lanes 3-4 will be where you place skeletons to chip away at the scale, but no more than 4 marks.

If you reach the firth mark, you will win the match without any overkill damage. Once you are at 4 marks, use Lanes 3-4 for bone-digging too.

Opening moves

1. Place skeleton(s) on Lanes 3-4 and let them perish to become bones after one turn
   
2. Use the bones gained to place Sporedigger/Gravediggers on Lanes 1-2.

• Never play a Skeleton in Lane 1.
  
• Save the Boneheap until the final turn.

Mid-game

1. When you are at 3-4 marks on the scale, lay down diggers on all lanes.
   
   
2. Prioritize Sporediggers over Gravediggers. If you draw a Sporedigger with no empty spaces on the board, use the hammer on a Gravedigger to replace it with the Sporedigger.
   
3. Keep ending the turn while keeping an eye on the remaining card count.

End game

1. Eventually the remaining card count will reach zero.
   
   
2. Use the hammer on all your diggers to turn them into bones, and also to free up the lanes.
   
3. Next, play any skeletons you have in your hand, and use the hammer on them to turn them into bones too.
   
4. All that is left in your hand should be extra Gravediggers and the Boneheap. We will not play the Gravediggers at this point because they cost bones. (You gain back a bone when you use the hammer, but all that does to your bone count is break even. So save yourself the trouble.)
   
5. Lay down the Boneheap on Lane 3 or 4. Spend all your bones to increase its damage:
   
   
6. End the turn
   
7. Profit:
   
   
   Note: You can actually play an extra turn after reaching card count zero. This allows your diggers to collect one turn's worth of more bones and is especially effective if you can field a full lane of Sporediggers. Just be careful to place your Boneheap so that it is not obstructed by the Starvation card that appears on the opponent's side.

Further Optimization

Bone Lord's Horn Deck

• Sporediggers -- 18
  
• Bone Heap -- 1
  
• Bone Lord's Horn -- 1

The Bone Lord's Horn costs three bones to play, but allows you to convert each battery into three bones. In late game with 6 batteries, this single card can produce 18 bones/turn. It also does 1 damage meaning you can only have it on the board for a maximum of 4 turns, lest you do too much damage and win the match accidentally, but this can be averted by playing it in front of the Force Mage.

1. Open the game by filling the lanes with Sporediggers. If you have obtained the Bone Lord's Horn, you should also have the perk to start with 3 extra bones. Therefore we can open by placing diggers directly. Prioritize Lane 1, 3, 4 for digging.
   
2. As soon as you draw the Bone Lord's Horn and have enough bones, place it in front of the Force Mage. Clear the lane with a hammer if necessary. Immediately convert your batteries to bones.
   
   
3. When you hit the bell your batteries will replenish. Convert the batteries to bones again.
   
4. Keep repeating until you go one turn past remaining card count zero, and Starvation sets in. Do one last battery-to-bone conversion, and hammer all cards in your lanes.
   
5. You should have around 200+ bones at this point. Play the Bone Heap in the open lane (where Starvation won't block it) and pump all the bones into it.
   
6. Profit.
   

Alternative: Ouroborus Decks

Several people have suggested Ouroborus decks in the comments. The credit goes to them.
Compared to the digger decks this method requires more mouse work, but has the upside of being able to keep the leveled up Ouroborus card. It may take more grinding initially, but you will end up with an ATM card (=high damage Ouroborus) that you can use for easy cash. Furthermore, the levels carry over to act 3.

Ouroborus + Tomb Robber Deck

This deck uses the Tomb Robber to recycle Skeletons so they can be sacrificed over and over again to level up the Ouroborus.

• Ouroborus -- 1
  
• Tomb Robber -- 1-10
  
• Skeletons -- 5-18

1. Keep passing until you have the Ouroborus, Skeletons and the Tomb Robber in your hand
   
2. Play the Tomb Robber and two Skeletons.
   
3. Play the Ouroborus by sacrificing the two Skeletons.
   
4. Hammer the Ouroborus. It will return to your hand with +1 damage / +1 health.
   
5. Repeat over and over to build up Ouroborus damage.
   
6. Use the Tomb Robber to convert your accumulated bones back into Skeletons, and keep leveling.
   
   
7. After you've had enough, let the Ouroborus attack to end the match.

• You may have noticed your bone count keeps increasing. This is because for each iteration of leveling, you spend two Skeletons (two bones) and get back three bones; two bones when you sac the Skeletons and one bone from hammering the Ouroborus. Thus theoretically you can keep leveling the Ouroborus forever.
  
• The hammer only does 100 damage, meaning after your Ouroborus health passes the 100 mark, you will need to start hammering it twice to destroy it.

Ouroborus + Cat Deck

This deck saves you the work of playing Skeletons and converting them to bones.

• Ouroborus -- 1
  
• Skeletons -- 8-12
  
• Cats -- 8-12

1. Keep passing until you have 2 Skeletons, 2 Cats and Ouroborus in your hand
   
2. Play the Skeletons, Sacrifice them to play the Cats
   
3. Sacrifice the two Cats to play the Ouroborus
   
4. Hammer the Ouroborus and play it again, sacrificing the same two Cats
   
   
5. Keep repeating to level the Ouroborus
   
6. Once you've had enough, let the Ouroborus attack to end the match.

Unfortunately, the Cats cannot be sacrificed infinitely. They eventually become shriveled (run out of blood?) and lose the infinite sacrifice sigil. When that happens, just start over with fresh Cats.

[neain2008]

Another way to beef up Ouroborus is to use Pharoes pets and just hammer the Ouroborus. one round infinite loop to however powerful you want it.

[Kage]

If you're farming bones, carry the obels as well (4 bones * number of diggers for only 3 bone investment), faster than spamming skeletons.

[Swiddow]

You have plenty of good methods already, but one I made was using Stim Mage and Energy Conduit.
The setup is:
1. Any Green Mox Card
2. Any Conduit Card
3. Energy Conduit
4. Stim Mage
Stim Mage gets +1/+1 for spending 3 energy, Energy Conduit gives you infinite Energy
Just click until you're bored, or satisfied, or auto-click, then bell and swing.

[Cultist of the Fluid]

Couldn't you use the Pharaoh Goat instead of Skeletons for an easier time?

[TechieTimes]

@Ki-Gon neat!

[Ki-Gon]

@TECHIE TIMES @Bwopper @Kryton7370
Thanks for your comments. I like how the Ouroboros method lets you keep the leveled card. I've added a new section.

[Kryton7370]

i got my ouroboros to 123 damage. lol

[Genghis Khan]

ive been having huge success using a setup with skeleton spam, a tomb robber, and an ouroboros. Once you have the four cards, you can sacrifice skeletons for the ouro, use the hammer and kill the ouro, and then use the tomb robber to get back the two skeletons. since this can be looped in a single turn, you wont need to draw past this point and can just keep doing this process.

[TechieTimes]

you can also make grinding much more efficient by getting your Ouroborus to extremely high power, what works for me is placing 2 sporediggers, press the bell until I have 0 cards, play a tomb robber, convert the bones into skeletons (use an auto clicker if you have a lot of bones) sacrifice the spore diggers for the Ouroborus, hammer the Ouroborus, place down 2 skeletons, sacrifice for the Ouroborus, do that until you are out of skeletons, place the Ouroborous on the board, place the Boneheap on the board, spend a year upgrading the Boneheap (use an auto clicker if you have a lot of bones), press the bell, profit