"Pure Style" And Bleed Questions

[BlackMagicAngel]

I have a few questions that I can't tell if these are bugs or not, but I'll also leave them in the bug tracker there, too. I wanted to leave these questions, though, to see if they are supposed to happen in the game or not, since I encountered them in the past, and don't know if they have been patched up already. Here they are:

1. First is on the Card called "Pure Style," one of Sal's negotiation cards. It's effect lets you draw 2 cards, and they get upgraded for the rest of the battle. I had a situation where both cards drew once from its effect were 2 Fast Talks (2 of the cards you start a run with),and when the game randomly upgraded them, it was the one that gave it the "destroy" keyword. I was able to play both copies of these upgraded cards, and they were "destroyed" during the negotiation, but when I checked my deck after it, both copies of "Fast Talk" that were supposed to be destroyed were still in my deck.

My question on that is: if "Pure Talk" upgrades a card in which its gives it its "destroyed" keyword upgrade, and then play it that same combat, etc., is it supposed to be gone from my deck forever after that, or will it stay in the deck since it was upgraded for only 1 combat from "Pure Talk"?

Also, if a card is upgraded short-term from "Pure Talk," could the basic card still get upgrade points when it is played before I become fragile, and it would keep the upgrade points after the encounter, since I'm confused myself how cards like this work when they upgrade them just for the encounter.

2. This one is about "Bleed" and other damage-trigger-at-start-of-turns effect (like burn on Rook). I had plenty of times where I got an enemy to its panic state during my turn (and got to the surrender state, ending the battle), but when I got the decision of whether or not to let them live, any breed leftover on them still triggers despite not being their turn (and before I make my decision in that case), and in some cases, it was enough to drop them to 0 HP, and I had to suffer status cards, etc. when I didn't want to.

I don't know why the game stills triggers bleed, burn, etc. after all enemies go to the panic state, and sometimes kills the enemy without me having made a decision yet. Can this be changed in which once all enemies are in "panic," bleed will no longer trigger on them, since the battle is already over at that point?

Those are my questions for now. I attached a picture of the card I was talking about to the post (Pure Talk), so that you know what card I was talking about eariler. As for the bleed thing, I don't have a picture of that right now. I'll post a comment if I get one.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing what everyone has to say on this topic. Thanks

[AuntHerbert]

I played Pure Style exactly once, and never touched it again. Way to random and meme-y for my taste.

About the bleed.... well, if you fiddle around with sharp weapons and want to avoid killing people, you have to be extra careful. This could probably be made easier to avoid program-wise, but my vote would be for keeping it as is, as it has some "gritty realism" taste.

[BlackMagicAngel]

1 hour ago, AuntHerbert said:

I played Pure Style exactly once, and never touched it again. Way to random and meme-y for my taste.

About the bleed.... well, if you fiddle around with sharp weapons and want to avoid killing people, you have to be extra careful. This could probably be made easier to avoid program-wise, but my vote would be for keeping it as is, as it has some "gritty realism" taste.

I get your point with Pure Style, since the games chooses the upgrade at random, and it could lead to too much messy stuff with your cards, since the upgrade points might not credit correctly when you use them. Plus, Brainstorm seems to be a lot better draw card for Sal anyway, since it's easier to get (it's a common card), and lets you draw 3 cards instead of 2 for 1 action (4 cards can be drawn if you upgrade it with the draw power route instead of upgrading it for shield.)

As for bleed, the amount of bleed left on those enemies once they go to panic mode was so low, that bleed didn't end up killing them anyway. I had a Sal run that I won back in November before the Matte update and the card pool changes, that was a hybrid Combo/Bleed deck. Basically, I got the 2 grafts that were in the game at the time: one's effect was "At the start of every one of your turns, apply 1 Bleed to each enemy," and the other's effect was "Your attack cards do 2 bonus damage to each enemy with bleed," so that sync with each other.

I also had that boss item card with the effect "while this card is in your hand, your attack cards apply 1 bleed in addition to your usual damage and effects to the selected target." At the time, I was just thinking about running combo, but the game decided to have me run bleed with it, mostly due to that 1 card and the 2 grafts mentioned.

For my run this week, I decided to try the bleed strategy only, since they added more cards that sync with bleed to Sal's card pool, as well as addition ways to heal health with her. I was able to defeat the day 3 boss with it before that encounter with the quest bug we were talking about in another of my posts. It's not perfect since I'm not good at deck builders roguelike games, but it got the job done to that point for introduction mode, anyway.

Getting back on topic, maybe the bleed could be change a little in which it doesn't trigger if all enemies are already panicked, so that you don't have accident deaths occurs with characters if you don't want that. I don't know what the developers will do, though, if they wanted to change it, but I get I'll be more careful using it in the future to avoid possible banes with it in the future.

 

[AuntHerbert]

Hmm, I probably read too much into the "upgrade them for this negotiation", and kept cards purposefully un-upgraded. Do not recommend. But yea, it probably still works as a pure draw card

I usually end up playing Sal with almost exclusively Diplomacy cards, with Magnetic Charm as my draw card of choice. Diplomatic Instincts, two Pleads (Simple), one Intrigue (Sparing), or if I can get my hands on it, Swift Rebuttal, (Boosted), one Keep Cool (Composed) as pretty much only defensive card after the Lucid and/or Wide Deflections have expended. Often one leftover Visionary Fast Talk, and if luck is with me, one Beguile.

Only Manipulate card left is usually Boosted Thinking, no Hostility cards.

All basic cards that upgrade to Clarity get destroyed asap, the rest is removed peu a peu by the Night Merchant.

It's a bit boring, but works like a charm. I usually play red cards only if I draft Menacing Air on day 1, I already know, that at least one of the Threatens will upgrade to Lucid (+1 Dominate) and I haven't already committed too heavily to my usual mix.

[BlackMagicAngel]

5 hours ago, AuntHerbert said:

Hmm, I probably read too much into the "upgrade them for this negotiation", and kept cards purposefully un-upgraded. Do not recommend. But yea, it probably still works as a pure draw card

I usually end up playing Sal with almost exclusively Diplomacy cards, with Magnetic Charm as my draw card of choice. Diplomatic Instincts, two Pleads (Simple), one Intrigue (Sparing), or if I can get my hands on it, Swift Rebuttal, (Boosted), one Keep Cool (Composed) as pretty much only defensive card after the Lucid and/or Wide Deflections have expended. Often one leftover Visionary Fast Talk, and if luck is with me, one Beguile.

Only Manipulate card left is usually Boosted Thinking, no Hostility cards.

All basic cards that upgrade to Clarity get destroyed asap, the rest is removed peu a peu by the Night Merchant.

It's a bit boring, but works like a charm. I usually play red cards only if I draft Menacing Air on day 1, I already know, that at least one of the Threatens will upgrade to Lucid (+1 Dominate) and I haven't already committed too heavily to my usual mix.

Same thing with me. I also try to run green with just Sal, since Intrigue and the other card that has the effect "gain 2 Influence and give it 3 defense" are easy cards to get, due to being commons, and there aren't that many great red cards for her when you first start the game with her.

Unfortunately, the only green deck that I'm able to build with her is around Intrigue being the main damage card, since it does up to 8 damage by paying 1 action and 1 Influence, and I end up with 4 copies of that card in my deck. I was able to complete 1 run with it before it's upgrade effects were changed months ago. For the current deck I had, it was almost the same thing: 4 Intrigue cards (and 2 on each upgrade path, if I got them there), a Keep Cool card, and the other card that gives 8 defense by paying an action and 1 Influence. I had to keep the 2 basic green and 2 basic defense cards since the game chose to only have 1 green, 1 basic defense, and 1 red get the destroy upgrade. I removed the last red card with the merchant.

By the way, what does Magnetic Charm do, since the only draw card I know of for Sal is Brainstorm, which lets you draw 3 cards for an action? Also, would you also take "Buying Time" with her, or does whatever deck you end up with end up working fine without anything that gives you extra actions?

And to ask too, would a green deck for Sal work fine with Intrigue being the main damage card (and at 4 copies), or should I also consider making Simple Pleids the main one (since that costs no actions) in additional to the rare green card that can be played for free if you have at least 4 Influence when you would play it? (I think it could work, since Sal's cards seem to have ways to let you play them for free, and you would just need to draw them to continue using them.)

[AuntHerbert]

4 copies of the main damage card would be excessive for my style, as I usually only have 10 to 12 cards in total, especially after expending my remaining Deflections. In a way, Diplomatic Instincts -> Flatter is my true main damage card, doing 5 damage for every enemy argument/bounty on board including core, for 1 action and 1 Influence. I dislike other cards, that cost Influence after upgrade, as that means I have to use Diplomatic Instincts more often for restoring Influence via Compliment, and usually Flatter bomb is just a better way to spend Influence than anything other cards offer. Luckily Sal doesn't have many arguments with Rise.

Intrigue is fine, doing 2 times 3 damage as Sparce Intrigue, just Swift Rebuttal is a tad better, if you can get it. Boosted Rebuttal does 5 damage and fetches a 0 cost card from discard. If you have none available, it produces a dud card, which also does 2 damage, so it does 5 + 2 damage, which is already more than Sparce Intrigue does. With a Simple Plead and Boosted Rebuttal in hand, you play the Plead for 3 damage, then Rebuttal, then the Plead again, that's 11 damage total for 1 action, even without Vulnerability active.

The idea of having Simple Pleads in the deck, well, originally Sal draws 5 cards each turn, but has only 3 actions to play them, a few 0-cost cards just mean fewer cards go unplayed into the discard pile each turn. Even more so, if there are actually draw cards in the deck, and in a pinch Boosted Thinking can almost always produce a draw card.

Magnetic Charm draws up to 3 cards and adds 1 Influence for every Diplomacy card drawn, thus allowing Diplomatic Instincts to produce Flatter whenever its drawn, until the Influence stack grows beyond 10 influence anyways and Compliment starts doing more damage than Flatter when there is only the core argument left to target. With a small deck Draw cards aren't soo essential, but the free Influence is nice. Magnetic Charm is the main reason for me to go pure green, with Boosted Thinking eventually the only Manipulate card left in deck.

There aren't many cards to gain Influence otherwise. Build Rapport, Setup and Solid Point as common cards, and I am not a huge fan of either of these, Build Rapport costs an action to play, Solid Point has that stupid damage to random. Pale Setup is OKish, but you have to keep wary not to deplete your influence early on mistakenly, and it's slow in building Influence and takes a card space I would rather use otherwise. Ipso Facto and Magnetic Charm as uncommon, both are cool, but Magnetic Charm produces more Influence way more reliably AND draws card. Then there is Calling In All Favors, a rare card, that is too gimmicky for my taste. 

Another bombshell attack card is Beguile. It costs 2 actions, and does little early on, but if you keep cycling it with Influence available it grows really huge really fast. I learned to love Magnetic Charm when I had drafted Beguile early and was looking for a more reliable way to keep Influence up while cycling the deck.

The only good rare card in pure green is Collected, especially if you already have Magnetic Charm, as it will keep your Influence stack from getting destroyed and having to be rebuilt over and over again

Buying Time, I feel that card doesn't hurt the deck, but it doesn't add much either. You need to cycle it until you built up enough Influence to spend, then you play it once, get one or two free action and it expends. If the deck runs smoothly, that extra action won't do anything, if the deck is clunky, and has too many too expensive cards, that one shot in the arm won't fix it. Usually, I would rather take the shill instead.

Aplomb (pay Influence for 8 composure) may be a card, that I will try more in future. Could be useful on day 4 negotiations, when those huge single hits start coming in. It somehow irks my Influence miserlyness, and on any earlier days Keep Composed with Boosted Thinking and the one-time Deflections do the job for me, but day 4 sometimes gets problematic and I start to pick fights just to avoid negotiation, or accumulate a lot of status cards from drinking heavily.

[BlackMagicAngel]

8 hours ago, AuntHerbert said:

4 copies of the main damage card would be excessive for my style, as I usually only have 10 to 12 cards in total, especially after expending my remaining Deflections. In a way, Diplomatic Instincts -> Flatter is my true main damage card, doing 5 damage for every enemy argument/bounty on board including core, for 1 action and 1 Influence. I dislike other cards, that cost Influence after upgrade, as that means I have to use Diplomatic Instincts more often for restoring Influence via Compliment, and usually Flatter bomb is just a better way to spend Influence than anything other cards offer. Luckily Sal doesn't have many arguments with Rise.

Intrigue is fine, doing 2 times 3 damage as Sparce Intrigue, just Swift Rebuttal is a tad better, if you can get it. Boosted Rebuttal does 5 damage and fetches a 0 cost card from discard. If you have none available, it produces a dud card, which also does 2 damage, so it does 5 + 2 damage, which is already more than Sparce Intrigue does. With a Simple Plead and Boosted Rebuttal in hand, you play the Plead for 3 damage, then Rebuttal, then the Plead again, that's 11 damage total for 1 action, even without Vulnerability active.

The idea of having Simple Pleads in the deck, well, originally Sal draws 5 cards each turn, but has only 3 actions to play them, a few 0-cost cards just mean fewer cards go unplayed into the discard pile each turn. Even more so, if there are actually draw cards in the deck, and in a pinch Boosted Thinking can almost always produce a draw card.

Magnetic Charm draws up to 3 cards and adds 1 Influence for every Diplomacy card drawn, thus allowing Diplomatic Instincts to produce Flatter whenever its drawn, until the Influence stack grows beyond 10 influence anyways and Compliment starts doing more damage than Flatter when there is only the core argument left to target. With a small deck Draw cards aren't soo essential, but the free Influence is nice. Magnetic Charm is the main reason for me to go pure green, with Boosted Thinking eventually the only Manipulate card left in deck.

There aren't many cards to gain Influence otherwise. Build Rapport, Setup and Solid Point as common cards, and I am not a huge fan of either of these, Build Rapport costs an action to play, Solid Point has that stupid damage to random. Pale Setup is OKish, but you have to keep wary not to deplete your influence early on mistakenly, and it's slow in building Influence and takes a card space I would rather use otherwise. Ipso Facto and Magnetic Charm as uncommon, both are cool, but Magnetic Charm produces more Influence way more reliably AND draws card. Then there is Calling In All Favors, a rare card, that is too gimmicky for my taste. 

Another bombshell attack card is Beguile. It costs 2 actions, and does little early on, but if you keep cycling it with Influence available it grows really huge really fast. I learned to love Magnetic Charm when I had drafted Beguile early and was looking for a more reliable way to keep Influence up while cycling the deck.

The only good rare card in pure green is Collected, especially if you already have Magnetic Charm, as it will keep your Influence stack from getting destroyed and having to be rebuilt over and over again

Buying Time, I feel that card doesn't hurt the deck, but it doesn't add much either. You need to cycle it until you built up enough Influence to spend, then you play it once, get one or two free action and it expends. If the deck runs smoothly, that extra action won't do anything, if the deck is clunky, and has too many too expensive cards, that one shot in the arm won't fix it. Usually, I would rather take the shill instead.

Aplomb (pay Influence for 8 composure) may be a card, that I will try more in future. Could be useful on day 4 negotiations, when those huge single hits start coming in. It somehow irks my Influence miserlyness, and on any earlier days Keep Composed with Boosted Thinking and the one-time Deflections do the job for me, but day 4 sometimes gets problematic and I start to pick fights just to avoid negotiation, or accumulate a lot of status cards from drinking heavily.

Thanks for the tips. I do check the glossary of cards regular during runs to see what other options for each character there are, based on whatever cards I unlocked from prestige levels so far, but since I just started the game, I don't think Charm is unlocked yet? With Sal, is it unlocked from the beginning of the game, and if not, what prestige/reward level do you unlock it at?

Also, do you also focus on gaining rare cards from drafts whenever you defeat a boss, since their loot always guaranteed a rare card in their draft drops, and whatever the game offers you in that case, or do you usually pass on them, and you usually get whatever you need from the common and uncommon cards pool?

Finally, for whatever basic cards the game choose not to give the destroy option upgrade on, should I focus on destroying them with the merchants every chance I get, knowing that the price with go up each time this is done, or should the money earned be used for things like grafts, better cards, etc. to improve the deck a bit? Like, if the game just gave only 1 card the destroy option, and/or none get the expend and/or destroy treatment (which would be the 2nd best option in that case), would should I do in that case?

I already know that trying to remove all 20 starting cards in each deck during a single run is almost impossible, considering you most likely won't get 20 chances to plunge cards in a single run, and you'll be stock with about 5-7 basic cards left in each deck if you don't get a lot of options to plunge cards, hence why I ask?

Also, are the items cards also good to have in the game, especially ones that have the effect "When you draw this card, draw another card" since those cards don't take deck space since they replace themselves when drawn, unless you're running a deck that focuses on 10 card hands, which at that point excess cards drawn are sent to the discard pile instead?

[AuntHerbert]

Magnetic Charm and Beguile are both in Sal's 7th card set, named "Influence & Discarded"

I think not all Rare cards are good, and especially not in every deck, and you can't really plan to get a matching rare card in the future. It depends a bit.

One special trick is helpful, if you get an option to upgrade a card early on, as a quest reward or a gift from Fssh or by randomly running into an altar on the road: You can click on every basic card that hasn't upgraded yet, and see which upgrade options will become available later on, then back out to inspect the next card. With Fssh's Gift or the Altar, you can then even back out of upgrading alltogether and chose a different option completely. If you upgrade as a quest reward you can check both decks and plan ahead, according to which basic cards will be left in the deck.

Feint of Hesh has synergies with everything that gives Temporary Power, as it can make it constant, so I will regard for example "Scatter" higher and spent more money on gifts to Heavy Laborers to get their boon, definitely kill Sparky for his boss item, be more willing to kill Luminaris for their Heshian Mask, etc.. and I usually try to go combo and focus on multiple attacks to get more bang for my buck.

Following Feint is usually a rather meek upgrade, as the variation in damage output on most cards is 4 or less, for an average damage buff of 2 per card, but some cards are hugely "swingy", like Wild Lunge, that does 2 attacks with 2-14 damage each, which makes Following Feint a 12 point damage buff on average, from an average 16 damage attack to a guaranteed 28 damage. Other "swingy" cards are (Tall) Bleed, (Boosted) Target Practice, Drunken Master and Slaughter.

If you have multiple "Strained" Stabs or Strikes with a discard effect, cards like Overextension, Windup, Ghost Strike or Spare Blades get better.get better, If you have no "Strained" left at all after upgrading it might be a good idea to pick one discard option up when offered, as it can be the crucial difference against opponents that flood your deck with status cards, so both Assassins, the Drusks, Kashio with the Bleed equipment or Spree Raiders and Thugs.

if you have Stab of the Deep (Apply 1 Wound) you rather go towards multiple damage, if you have Stab of the Mirror left, you rather look for effects that cause wounds or increase your power. Piercing attacks are a benefit for Bleed strategies, that usually have trouble against Metallic foes, etcetera.

Anything that Expends is half the way to a full removal, at least you only have to play it once per battle, and it will have more of an impact the one time you play it.

Sal's negotiation cards have fewer upgrade options than her battle cards, so each individual upgrade option appears more often, and I am sometimes amazed how few basic cards are left after upgrading, especially if you take the "Amnesiator" gift.

I may be overdoing the "slim deck" idea a bit, but I was hunting for the "Efficient" achievement (Win the campaign with 7 or less cards in your battle deck) since prestige 2 or 3, and it took me until prestige 6 to finally get it. I always chose Rake at day 1, to lower the price for removing cards, took quests with "remove" rewards with priority, and always sided with Oolo, to avoid the Spree card from Nadan. 

It really taught me to enjoy the way small decks work. For the achievement, you'll even rarely pick up boss loot, although they are often extremely good items. You'll try to pick up no more than 2 or 3 cards in total during the entire game, so you will develop really discerning taste and only get cards that perfectly match the deck, unless they will destroy themselves after 1 to 3 uses.

If you aren't hunting for the achievement, cards with Replenish and or Expend are often very good, especially the loot drops from bosses.

[BlackMagicAngel]

1 hour ago, AuntHerbert said:

Magnetic Charm and Beguile are both in Sal's 7th card set, named "Influence & Discarded"

I think not all Rare cards are good, and especially not in every deck, and you can't really plan to get a matching rare card in the future. It depends a bit.

One special trick is helpful, if you get an option to upgrade a card early on, as a quest reward or a gift from Fssh or by randomly running into an altar on the road: You can click on every basic card that hasn't upgraded yet, and see which upgrade options will become available later on, then back out to inspect the next card. With Fssh's Gift or the Altar, you can then even back out of upgrading alltogether and chose a different option completely. If you upgrade as a quest reward you can check both decks and plan ahead, according to which basic cards will be left in the deck.

Feint of Hesh has synergies with everything that gives Temporary Power, as it can make it constant, so I will regard for example "Scatter" higher and spent more money on gifts to Heavy Laborers to get their boon, definitely kill Sparky for his boss item, be more willing to kill Luminaris for their Heshian Mask, etc.. and I usually try to go combo and focus on multiple attacks to get more bang for my buck.

Following Feint is usually a rather meek upgrade, as the variation in damage output on most cards is 4 or less, for an average damage buff of 2 per card, but some cards are hugely "swingy", like Wild Lunge, that does 2 attacks with 2-14 damage each, which makes Following Feint a 12 point damage buff on average, from an average 16 damage attack to a guaranteed 28 damage. Other "swingy" cards are (Tall) Bleed, (Boosted) Target Practice, Drunken Master and Slaughter.

If you have multiple "Strained" Stabs or Strikes with a discard effect, cards like Overextension, Windup, Ghost Strike or Spare Blades get better.get better, If you have no "Strained" left at all after upgrading it might be a good idea to pick one discard option up when offered, as it can be the crucial difference against opponents that flood your deck with status cards, so both Assassins, the Drusks, Kashio with the Bleed equipment or Spree Raiders and Thugs.

if you have Stab of the Deep (Apply 1 Wound) you rather go towards multiple damage, if you have Stab of the Mirror left, you rather look for effects that cause wounds or increase your power. Piercing attacks are a benefit for Bleed strategies, that usually have trouble against Metallic foes, etcetera.

Anything that Expends is half the way to a full removal, at least you only have to play it once per battle, and it will have more of an impact the one time you play it.

Sal's negotiation cards have fewer upgrade options than her battle cards, so each individual upgrade option appears more often, and I am sometimes amazed how few basic cards are left after upgrading, especially if you take the "Amnesiator" gift.

I may be overdoing the "slim deck" idea a bit, but I was hunting for the "Efficient" achievement (Win the campaign with 7 or less cards in your battle deck) since prestige 2 or 3, and it took me until prestige 6 to finally get it. I always chose Rake at day 1, to lower the price for removing cards, took quests with "remove" rewards with priority, and always sided with Oolo, to avoid the Spree card from Nadan. 

It really taught me to enjoy the way small decks work. For the achievement, you'll even rarely pick up boss loot, although they are often extremely good items. You'll try to pick up no more than 2 or 3 cards in total during the entire game, so you will develop really discerning taste and only get cards that perfectly match the deck, unless they will destroy themselves after 1 to 3 uses.

If you aren't hunting for the achievement, cards with Replenish and or Expend are often very good, especially the loot drops from bosses.

Do you have any tips for Rook and Smith with both battle and negotiation decks with both of them? You seem to know a lot about the game, hence why I asked.

And, for Sal, if you get a situation where the battle and negotiation vendors are the ones giving you their quests on day 1, which one you would pick instead, or would you just re-roll the run at that point if that situation occurred?

[AuntHerbert]

I would definitely take Rake, the battle vendor. Indeed, I rarely take Delenna, the negotiation vendor, at all. As I said the number of basic negotiation cards that comes up with Destroy or Expend results for Sal is usually considerably higher anyways, and in the end it's the battle deck that let's you survive. If you fail at negotiations you lose your resolve and possibly a quest reward and probably have to drink a lot, but if you fail a battle, the run is over. If your negotiation deck is sub-par and your resolve is low, you can often skip the preboss negotiation to at least get your turn 1 advantage, or Sal night 3 can throw money at two of the three pre-boss negotiations or just find another way to bring enough allies, but you can't skip the fight.

So, I usually buy off at most one or two cards from the negotiation deck and the first card is affordable even if Delenna dislikes you and at higher prestige levels, as you can wait a day or two until buying it off and Sal earns far more money on later days. OTOH the pet vendor usually sells Vroc Whistle, which is an easy auto-win button for the first two boss fights. (Not sooo important if Sal has a pet and there is also a good chance she can pick it up for free from the Abandoned Battlefield event). And if you negotiate with the Graft vendor NOT to extract the random graft, you get one "Heavy Lifting" boon from his grateful victim for free, so the negotiation vendor is really low priority.

Rook is the one I am "studying" atm and theorizing and testing out what works really well and what does not. With Smith I have unlocked all the cards so far and have some general ideas, but I am yet to really invest time into playing him. My general impression is, that he has some quite easy combos, like Powder Keg and Turnabout, or Moxie abuse in battle with Biting Chest Bump, that lets him constantly heal AND gain power.

 

[AuntHerbert]

As you seem interested, here is a new chapter about Rook's negotiation. Please feel free to comment if something is hard to understand:

 

Discard and Prepared Cards

Rook has a number of ways to discard cards in negotiaton: 7 cards (8 including Sleight from Trickery) , 2 coins and 1 of his flourishes discard cards, and off course the Parietal Disintegrator graft discards cards at the start of every negotiation to replace them. But on first glance, there aren’t many pay-offs for him to do so. Literally the only enemy type he encounters, that add cards to his pool that do something bad if not removed by the end of the turn, are merchants, and he debates at most one or two of them during a run, if any at all. And there are only 3 (!) cards in his selection that do anything beneficial when discarded:  Bottom Snail, Kicker and Seethe.

There is a hidden pay-off though, and that is in the Prepare mechanic. The leftmost card in his hand ALWAYS counts as prepared, so he can prepare cards either by using cards or grafts that expressively do so, or by getting rid of all the cards to the left of the card that he wants to have prepared, either by playing or discarding them. “Preparing” a card this way does NOT trigger any pay-offs that read “whenever you prepare a card”, but it does count for cards with the “Prepared” keyword, namely Dogged, Grunt, Praise, Head Turner, Jargon, Prattle and the Bank Card from Trickery.

Preparing cards this way has a bit of dissonance with all cards with the Sticky Keywords, as all new cards come in from the right side, so Sticky cards, namely his Call It cards will always hug the prepared position.  (There is only one other card that has always Sticky, Snag, and Matter of Fact and Ante can be upgraded to Sticky Matter of Fact resp. Sticky Ante)

Taking a closer look at the effects that cause discard: The Sifting Coin has a Heads effect to draw a card and the Snail effect of discard, so it can provide decent hand control in a deck that focuses on Setting the Coin over Rigging it, but the only reason to pick it at day 1, when it is offered, is probably if Rook already got offered 1 or more Bottom Snail cards and decided to pick them up.  The Chaos Coin instead has a true sifting effect for her Snail side, “draw a card, then discard a card”, and of the cards that do discard, Foul Mouth, Rant, Snag, and Snail In The Pocket can be upgraded to a Visionary resp. Assertive version that also do the “draw a card, then discard a card” sifting thingy, while Disregard always trades your hand for 5 cards from the draw pile.

Most notably, almost all the ways Rook can gain Dominance to increase the effect of his Hostility attack cards are tied to this mechanic. Besides the Assertive upgrade for Grumble, Bottom Snail, Rant and Tantrum, there is only Trade, that can spend Influence for Dominance, the Tyrant Coin, that isn’t offered until day 4, and the death loot from killing Threekwa or Rise Pamphleteers that allow Rook access to Dominance.

[BlackMagicAngel]

5 hours ago, AuntHerbert said:

As you seem interested, here is a new chapter about Rook's negotiation. Please feel free to comment if something is hard to understand:

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Discard and Prepared Cards

Rook has a number of ways to discard cards in negotiaton: 7 cards (8 including Sleight from Trickery) , 2 coins and 1 of his flourishes discard cards, and off course the Parietal Disintegrator graft discards cards at the start of every negotiation to replace them. But on first glance, there aren’t many pay-offs for him to do so. Literally the only enemy type he encounters, that add cards to his pool that do something bad if not removed by the end of the turn, are merchants, and he debates at most one or two of them during a run, if any at all. And there are only 3 (!) cards in his selection that do anything beneficial when discarded:  Bottom Snail, Kicker and Seethe.

There is a hidden pay-off though, and that is in the Prepare mechanic. The leftmost card in his hand ALWAYS counts as prepared, so he can prepare cards either by using cards or grafts that expressively do so, or by getting rid of all the cards to the left of the card that he wants to have prepared, either by playing or discarding them. “Preparing” a card this way does NOT trigger any pay-offs that read “whenever you prepare a card”, but it does count for cards with the “Prepared” keyword, namely Dogged, Grunt, Praise, Head Turner, Jargon, Prattle and the Bank Card from Trickery.

Preparing cards this way has a bit of dissonance with all cards with the Sticky Keywords, as all new cards come in from the right side, so Sticky cards, namely his Call It cards will always hug the prepared position.  (There is only one other card that has always Sticky, Snag, and Matter of Fact and Ante can be upgraded to Sticky Matter of Fact resp. Sticky Ante)

Taking a closer look at the effects that cause discard: The Sifting Coin has a Heads effect to draw a card and the Snail effect of discard, so it can provide decent hand control in a deck that focuses on Setting the Coin over Rigging it, but the only reason to pick it at day 1, when it is offered, is probably if Rook already got offered 1 or more Bottom Snail cards and decided to pick them up.  The Chaos Coin instead has a true sifting effect for her Snail side, “draw a card, then discard a card”, and of the cards that do discard, Foul Mouth, Rant, Snag, and Snail In The Pocket can be upgraded to a Visionary resp. Assertive version that also do the “draw a card, then discard a card” sifting thingy, while Disregard always trades your hand for 5 cards from the draw pile.

Most notably, almost all the ways Rook can gain Dominance to increase the effect of his Hostility attack cards are tied to this mechanic. Besides the Assertive upgrade for Grumble, Bottom Snail, Rant and Tantrum, there is only Trade, that can spend Influence for Dominance, the Tyrant Coin, that isn’t offered until day 4, and the death loot from killing Threekwa or Rise Pamphleteers that allow Rook access to Dominance.

I read your tips. It is hard to understand the cards you're talking about without their images thought, but I can understand too that it would be hard to provide pictures of every card mentioned, since you can only attach so many images to a comment, and the website limits how much total space of pictures you can include with them.

Also, do you have tips for a battle deck with Rook, since so far, we talked about Rook's negotiation cards, but I haven't seen anything let about battles with him.

And yeah, Smith will be a bit hard to understand. He decks are all about "high risk, high reward," where for battle, you'll playing cards that do a lot of damage, but as an extra cost, he has to take damage to play the card, and unless you have ways to heal back the damage being paid for the cards (and from enemies), you can easily lose a run with him quickly.

And for his negotiation decks, I know that the green route is about "Renown," where you have to protect it at all costs as the stacks get higher, because if it's knock out, you lose a lot of resolve, and maybe the negotiation, too. Plus, a good part of the enemies in his story are from the faction that have arguments that heal overtime and attack everything, and that has to be taken into consideration, too. (I don't know what his red route gives you, so you might have to figure that out.)

Anyway, let me know about the Rook battle tips when you can, if you started writing that up already, and thanks about for the tips. You seem to know the game better than a lot of people right now, based on the notes you been sharing with me right now.