That said, while there is no perfect deck and some cards are better for specific classes, there are some cards that can benefit you more than others and deserve a space in your limited deck to increase your chance of overcoming the endless looping. If you are struggling, you can always take some more… alternative paths to achieve victory.
Landscape Cards
Landscape Cards are valuable because they occupy one of several spaces around the loop, so it is easy to place them and create combos. The three that start with you on your journey deserve to stay on it. Mountains, Rocks, and Meadows are by far some of the best cards in the game. Mountains and Rocks, if placed on a 3x3 grid, turns into Mountain Peak, boosting its bonuses, though in return spawning harpies. Meadows are one of the few cards that have no side effects but has to be placed next to cards other than another Meadow to take full advantage of their potential. If you put 10 Mountains/Rocks, a Goblin Camp will surge and it spawns fast-hard-hitting goblins. In case you are building a tank, common on Warrior, and want to increase your HP to the stars, opt for Mountains, as they give more HP than Rocks. Forest cards and Thickets are unlocked by building Forest at the campsite, one of the last unlocks depending on which path you choose. They are one of the wonderful landscapes that only bring benefits in its deployment, but after 10 Forest/Thickets, A Village tile appears on the road, spawning Wooden Warrior. Thickets provide +2% attack speed to your hero and Forests +1%. Combined with the River card, which is a card that doubles the effect of adjacent landscapes, your attacks will be at lightning speed. Sand Dunes and Deserts are unlocked after building Intel. They reduce the HP of everyone in the loop. I repeat. Everyone, yours included. I know these cards descriptions are odd because they say “every/all creatures” and until then I didn’t know our hero was considered a creature. But after testing in practice, I confirm our HP reduction as well. However, since it doesn’t reduce Magic HP, you can focus on increasing it in a loop where you draw many Sand Dunes. A Rogue with a lot of evasion also benefits greatly from these sand-cards. However, if in the middle of the loop your types of equipment don’t favor your lack of HP, you can play the River card adjacent to it, which turns Sand Dunes and Deserts into Oasis, shifting their HP reduction effect to Attack Speed reduction. Although everyone’s attack speed is reduced, enemies lose double their status, so it’s worth it. Although Landscape is great, you will hardly take all of them in one expedition. The ideal is to consider the build of a specific class you are aiming for and pick the cards that can aid you in the expedition.
Roadside and Road Cards
Focus on building a Gymnasium as soon as possible at the Camping Site. In addition to unlocking traits that empower you a lot, it also unlocks the Village card. When you are in the middle of a loop, almost dying, and have no hope for tomorrow, the Village can give you a breather. The card recovers your HP, more and more with the number of loops, and provides you with a quest. A random monster on the road will be fortified, but if you kill it and return to the Village you will gain some high-quality equipment and experience. But be careful, because for every two Villages placed, a Bandit Camp will appear and spawn bandits that want to steal your heart in a not-so-romantic-way. Road Lantern is one of the starter cards that can help you if the situation starts to get out of hand. It reduces the number of enemies spawned in its area of effect, and since the effect stacks, it can help you get through the loop more safely to a haven. Chrono Crystals is a card that doubles the effect of adjacent cards with a daily trigger. You unlock it by defeating the Lich in Act 1. You can place it to increase enemy spawns if you want to gain extra loot, but surely one of its best uses is alongside Meadows, which doubles the amount of HP healed daily. However, pay attention to its positioning. It is a Chrono Crystals is a Roadside card and Meadow is a Landscape. If you place it wrong, you waste tiles. Blood Grove, a card that can only be placed next to a Grove, kills all enemies with 15% HP or less. Great against bosses. Its downside is that if you have less than 15% HP, you will be rooted and can only attack after destroying the roots, and it also spawns Flesh Golems randomly. Beware if you destroy a Grove, the Blood Grove will turn into a Hungry Grove, killing enemies with less than 20% HP, but doing continuous damage to you during the battle.
Golden Cards
Not all that glitters is gold, but generally what is golden is valuable. Golden Cards are available after building the Intel Center on the camping site. But to unlock each Golden Card, other buildings are required. In this case, I will talk about Arsenal, a Golden Card with great benefit and a milder side effect. To have Arsenal during your expedition, you need a Smelter. Arsenal is a roadside card that gives your class an additional equipment slot but reduces the status of subsequent equipment by 15%. But the addition of this equipment is far superior to the reduced statuses, so do not doubt whether or not you should build an Arsenal on your expedition. You start with it immediately on your Expedition, so don’t worry about not drawing it.
Situational
While I have talked about the best cards for decks in general, some cards are good depending on your expedition and your class. One of the great starting cards is Vampire Mansion. If you face a creature within the area of effect, a vampire will assist the monster. However, it has chances to drop high-quality equipment. In the case of Rogue, it is a bad card, because Rogue gains a trophy by defeating any enemy, regardless of its strength. So facing a strong enemy is disadvantageous. Oh yeah: if you put a Vampire Mansion next to a Village, it turns into a Ransacked Village, won’t recover your HP, and will spawn up to 4 Ghouls per loop. But after 3 loops, it will turn into Count’s Land, which gives you a better quest with better rewards. Treasury is great for runs where you want to collect as many resources as possible. By surrounding this card with others, you turn it into Empty Treasure and get a handful of resources in one go. However, it will start spawning Gargoyle every 3 days, which are incredibly tough creatures, and if they fall into the same space as another enemy, can be lethal. In a run where your intent is not to capture resources, Treasury is disposable. Wheat Fields can only be placed next to Villages and it greatly enhances the card’s healing, however, Wheat Fields are high-drop cards and can mess up your deck and not make you draw the cards you want. Since they are dependent on Villages, they will often sit unused until automatically discarded.
