Cards To Look For, Part 1

On turn 1, start with 3 energy, cycle through your deck once, cast Outmaneuver once



On turn 2, start with 6 energy, cycle through your deck twice, cast Outmaneuver twice



On turn 3, start with 9 energy, cycle through your deck 3x, cast Outmaneuver 3x

Acrobatics is the best draw spell. I would always take one Acrobatics, and I would usually take two.If you are going to play an Acrobatics during a turn, play it first. You might change your mind about what to play once you see what you draw.Acrobatics works well with Tactician - I will take a Tactician if I have just a single Acrobatics and the starting Survivor to combo it with. Not so great with Reflexes because you often can't fit a draw-six into your hand.Upgrading Acrobatics is pretty good. Drawing four is better than drawing three.Adrenaline has almost no downside. It is especially good in a deck with a lot of powers, that could use a burst of energy and card draw its first time through the deck. But it's good in every deck. I take as many of these as I can get.Upgrading Adrenaline is okay but not great.After Image and Footwork are your defensive powers. They slow you down a bit the first time through your deck, but power your long game. I typically want 1-3 of the defensive powers. Try to play them out on the first pass through your deck.Upgrading After Image doesn't seem too good - it's not even clear it's good to upgrade it, if you have other similar powers.Backflip is solid, both block and card draw. I would always take at least two of these.If you are going to play a Backflip during a turn, play it first. You might change your mind about what to play once you see what you draw.Upgrading Backflip is not too useful, although I would rather do that than upgrade a vanilla Defend or the Survivor, because I am more likely to play a Backflip.Blur is very strong. Many people seem to underrate Blur, but I take as many of these as I can get.It is important to realize that Blur stacks. If your deck is capable of playing one Blur a turn, then you can get into a "blur lock", where you will never lose blur. The fact that Blur stacks makes this work even in the presence of randomness, because a few extra stacks of Blur will let you get past the janky turn where you draw all Dazed and are unable to cast a Blur.Blur lock makes all of your defensive cards more powerful. If your block is growing faster than your opponent's strength can grow, then you can prevent them from ever damaging you. This can let you kill even opponents like Donu and Deca with a single Noxious Fumes.You can get into blur lock with just a single Blur. You just need to be able to draw enough cards to loop through your whole deck in a single turn. Calculated Gamble+, Prepared+, and Acrobatics are especially good at this.Calculated Gamble is hard to play optimally, but very powerful. It helps to look at the cards remaining in your deck.A common question with Calculated Gamble is, which of the cards in your hand should you play before you play Calculated Gamble? The general principle is, estimate which cards in your hand are going to be an above-average play this turn, and play those. Then play Calculated Gamble.It is often a good idea to play Acrobatics and Backflip before playing Calculated Gamble. In some sense, their card draw will count double, because they will first draw a card, then increase the size of the gamble by one. For example, this is useful if you have a single Blur and you are trying to loop through your deck as much as possible to maintain a blur lock.Upgrading Calculated Gamble is one of my top priorities. If I am not going to be able to upgrade it, then I might prefer to take something else, especially if I already have a Calculated Gamble+.Deflect is more of an early-game card than a late-game card. A couple Deflects early on is pretty nice. But once my deck is very strong and crushing most opponents, I might not take a Deflect any more. Specifically, Deflect saves energy but does not help card draw. If most of my turns were ending because I'm running out of cards, rather than running out of energy, then I would tend to avoid Deflect.Deflect has strong synergy with After Image and Footwork. Energy relics make Deflect less necessary.Upgrading Deflect isn't too great. It's better than upgrading a Backflip or a vanilla Defend, though, because you'll be able to play it more often.Escape Plan, like Adrenaline, has very little downside, since it replaces itself for zero energy. The only downside is opponents like Time Eater that penalize you for playing an extra card. It's a reasonable strategy, though, to start optimizing your deck for Time Eater if you are confident nothing else can beat you. So you might not always want to take an Escape Plan, if you already have one or two. When in doubt, just take it.You will usually want to play Escape Plan before playing other cards in order to gain extra information.Escape Plan has strong synergy with After Image and Footwork.Footwork is my favorite card to see when I don't already have one. The odds that you can prevent all damage in a fight go up a lot when you land Footwork. I generally prefer Footwork to After Image, and try to get 1-3 of these powers.Footwork synergizes with everything that blocks, but it works especially well with Blur and a blur lock, because that makes all the extra bits of block add up over time.Upgrading Footwork is usually the top priority.Neutralize is the best card you start with. I include it here just to mention that upgrading Neutralize is pretty useful, primarily because it gives 2 weakness instead of 1 weakness. Quite often I spend the first campfire upgrading Neutralize.Once your deck is capable of drawing through your entire deck every 2 turns, this means weakness can start stacking up on any enemy to make them perma-weak, which can make Heel Hook a good card.Noxious Fumes is the best win condition for the Turtle Style. If your deck can turtle indefinitely, just a single Noxious Fumes will eventually destroy all enemies. Just like a control deck in MTG, having a small number of cards devoted to winning makes the rest of your deck more consistent.You don't absolutely need to have other poison cards in conjunction with Noxious Fumes, although it's nice to have a Bouncing Flask or a Catalyst to speed things up, especially fighting end bosses. Having two Noxious Fumes is good; three might be too much.Upgrading Noxious Fumes is a high priority - since enemies lose one poison per turn, giving them three poison per turn is approximately twice as powerful as giving them two poison per turn.Outmaneuver is powerful, but it can be tricky to play correctly. I would always take one, maybe take two.Outmaneuver is at its strongest when you are close to cycling through your whole deck. For example, if you can cycle through your whole deck for two energy, then you can:This combines really well with a blur lock.Upgrading Outmaneuver is pretty good, if you have enough card draw to consistently use the extra energy.