Puzzle Strike 2: Puzzle Pets deck

Puzzle Strike 2’s expansion, called Bold Adventures, has four new community bank decks as well as 10 more characters. The fourth of these bank decks is Puzzle Pets.

The creatures are the star of the show in Puzzle Pets. In Puzzle Strike 2, creatures give you access to ongoing effects, meaning they stay on the table indefinitely (giving you a bonus) until they are destroyed. Most decks have a few creatures, but Puzzle Pets puts the emphasis on creatures.

Puzzle Pets creatures have a special mechanic to level up (or “evolve”). Each of the four colors has a level 1 creature that’s common in the community deck. For example, here’s Crattle, purple’s level 1 creature:

Crattle costs 1 action to play. Just below that, his card shows that it costs 2 actions to upgrade him (to become level 2). You can’t upgrade a creature the same turn you play it, so you’ll have to wait until the following turn. When you do upgrade a creature, you fetch the level 2 creature of the same color from a side deck of cards and put it on top of your level 1 creature, replacing it.

Here’s the purple level 2 creature, Crashoban:

Crashoban’s ability is somewhat similar to Crattle’s, but Crashoban’s is much more powerful. Normally, when you crash only a single gem (rather than a run of multiple same-color gems) you don’t get the height bonus at all. For example, suppose you have 12 gems in your gem pile and you’re trying to dig yourself out to survive. Imagine that your top three gems are all different colors, so getting rid of the top two will (unfortunately) require two different crash gems. Normally, crashing the first will send 1 gem to opponents, and crashing the second gem will send another 1 gem, for a total 2. But if you had Crashoban, you’d get a +4 height bonus for each of those, meaning you’d send 10 in total. It’s so strong that you can realistically win the game with Crashoban.

You can upgrade Crashoban to level 3, and his card shows that it costs 2 actions to do so. You can’t upgrade him to level 3 on the same turn that you got him to level 2, so you’ll have to wait a turn at least. Once you do upgrade Crashoban, just flip the card over. On the back, you’ll find purple’s level 3 creature, Crashizard:

Crashizard has the same devastating ability as Crashoban PLUS you also get to pay 0 actions for your first crash gem each turn. That’s super scary for your opponents.

Let’s look at what the other colors’ creatures have to offer. Here are the blue creatures:

The blue creatures are very cheap to play. The level 1 creature costs 0 actions and each level up costs only 1 action. These creatures are great defense, helping you stay alive, and then the level 3 creature helps you actually win with his height bonus ability.

The pink creatures are much more expensive:

The level 1 creature costs 2, but it gives you an extra action (among other things) at the start of every subsequent turn. That’s huge. It then costs 3 actions to upgrade, which is a lot, but the extra action from the level 1 creature helps there. Upgrading to level 2 then gives you TWO extra actions per turn, plus some great card draw. If you can get to the level 3 Electromekimus, it’s just ridiculous. When you get 3 extra actions and 3 extra cards per turn, you can do practically anything.

The green creatures are the masters of swaps:

Your starting deck comes with a basic swap card that costs 1 action and gives you up to 2 swaps. The level 1 green creature also costs 1 action, but gives you 3 swaps…every single turn! Upgrading to level 2 turns those into deep swaps, which is incredibly powerful (that means you can swap any two gems in your gem pile, not just adjacent ones). The level 3 Swapogoyf has that same ability, plus he lets you trash up to 3 cards in your hand each turn. That lets you slim down to only your most powerful cards.

If you need help getting creatures into play, try these:

Don’t be afraid to put more than one creature in your deck. You can only have one in play at a time, but they can be destroyed when an opponent crashes the number of colored gems listed on the lower right of your creature card. They might also destroy your creature with this:

Anyway, if you have multiple creatures in your deck, this becomes a powerful tool:

Just 1 action for a double crash!

There’s more in Puzzle Pets, but that gives you a good tour of it. Creatures are a somewhat minor mechanic in other decks, so this one is a much different experience. Get a level 3 cutie into play and ride it to victory!

Puzzle Strike 2: Steam Crank deck

Puzzle Strike 2’s expansion, called Bold Adventures, has four new community bank decks as well as 10 more characters. The third of these bank decks is Steam Crank.

Steam Crank introduces a new mechanic: the chain combo.

Many cards have a strip at the bottom with a “chain” ability. The chain ability happens if the card you played immediately before it that turn is the same color. For example, if you play any pink card then immediately after that you play the pink card below, then you get ALL the abilities on the card:

The chain ability is always in addition to the main ability on the card, not instead of it. So in the above example, you get to swap up to three times and then, if the card you played immediately before this was pink, you get to use a crash gem.

Here are a bunch more cards that trigger chain combos, to give you a sense of it:

Because the chain mechanic triggers only on playing consecutive same-color cards, it has an effect on how you build your deck. Getting a lot of cards of a single color is even more powerful than usual because now they can give chain bonuses. That said, there’s still a balancing act. If you have a lot of blue cards, those are good at defense, but you probably need SOME non-blue cards to actually win. If you have a lot of pink cards, those are good for engine-building combos of their own, but you might need at least SOME blue defensive cards, or a green card with swaps, etc. It’s still very possible to trigger chain combos of multiple colors (meaning you play a blue, blue this turn then pink, pink next turn, etc), but you’ll want to think about a few more same-color cards than you usually draft.

That said, you could always branch out with Bejeweled Corset:

Now you can trigger any card’s chain combo without even needing to worry about colors!

The Steam Crank deck has another minor mechanic as well. It comes from these cards:

Steam Engine puts more cards in your hand, but only if they’re 0-cost cards. Note that Steam Engine itself costs 0, so if you have both copies of it in your deck, one copy could give the next (which you could then play again, since it costs 0).

Turn the Crank, on the other hand, costs 1. But it doesn’t look at just the top 4 cards of your deck—it immediately gives you ALL the 0-cost cards in your discard. This is incredibly powerful. It might return a lot of cards, which you can all instantly play (because they cost 0). Though you can’t use Turn the Crank to replay 0-cost cards you already played that same turn (because played cards don’t actually go to the discard until the end of your action phase), you can still replay all the 0-cost cards in your discard pile from previous turns.

Are there really many 0-cost cards though? There sure are, the deck has loads of them:

When you have a bunch of 0-cost cards, card draw becomes even better. It normally does not make sense to spend your last action of the turn on something that draw cards, but if you are likely to draw things that cost 0 to play, then go ahead! Research Notes comes to mind:

Do you see the connection between this 0-cost mechanic and the chain combo mechanic? The abundance of 0-cost cards in all colors makes it a lot easier to trigger those chain combos, and to trigger longer chains. For example, if you had Acid Flask and Bell Jar in your hand (shown at the start of this post), could you trigger BOTH chain combo bonuses? The answer is no unless you have a third green card to start off the sequence of greens. If you had a 0-cost green card such as Research Notes in your hand though, then you really could play Acid Flask for its main and chain ability, then Bell Jar for it’s main and chain ability.

Steam Crank is an engine builder’s dream, so see what you can do with it!

Puzzle Strike 2: Ten Expansion Characters

Puzzle Strike 2’s expansion, called Bold Adventures, has four new community bank decks as well as 10 more characters. Each character has three cards and you start with those in your deck. Each character has different strengths, so they push you in different directions when building the rest of your deck.

To give you a taste of these characters, here’s just one card from each of them.

Quince, Flagstone Chief Magistrate

Quince, as the rightful ruler of Flagstone, can claim the scepter at any time! The player with the scepter has the bonus that they fill their super meters up automatically as each player takes their turn, but the drawback is that everyone attacks the scepter holder and the scepter holder cannot block incoming gems. This card lets Quince steal the scepter at opportune times, which is not something any other character in the game can do.

General Onimaru, Wartime Strategist

Wartime Tactics is possibly the most versatile card in the game. Onimaru is able to play a card from the bank without having to add that card to his deck first, then wait to draw it. This gives him access to powerful effects before anyone else, and it also lets him rearrange the drop pattern colors in the bank a little as a side effect.

Bigby, Flagstone Judge

Bigby’s Sovereign Immunity is an incredible way to avoid losing. You have to have 10 or fewer gems when you end your action phase to avoid losing…unless you’re Bigby. This card will destroy all your blue gems, while probably puts you under the limit. Surviving just one more turn than usual in Puzzle Strike 2 is a big deal and can put you in a position to win soon after.

Bal-Bas-Beta, Clockwork Guardian

Cog Engine lets you play a powerful card two turns in a row. It costs 1 extra action to do that…unless it’s a pink card, then it’s free! Pink cards are often suited to engine-building (allowing you to draw a lot, play a lot, do big combos somehow), and that’s BBB’s strong suit. He even has another character card that can put two pink cards from the bank on top of his deck which helps Cog Engine be even stronger.

Menelker, Deathstrike Dragon

Who needs swaps? Even if your purple gems aren’t all in a row, you can crash ALL of them at once with this. That’s powerful itself, but consider that doing this probably results in the rest of your gems having more same-color runs, allowing your next crashes to be more potent.

M.Persephone, Nox Oracle

Nothing in the game can directly mess with an opponent’s gem pile except for this. Persephone’s ability to control others extends right into their gem piles.

Gloria, Hopeful Healer

Gloria can affect other players too, but not by screwing up their gem pile. Quite the opposite! She destroys all 0-cost cards from everyone’s discard piles. This has the effect “healing all wounds” because wound cards (useless, blank cards) are 0-cost. But there are lots of non-wound cards that are also 0-cost, so she counters strategies that rely on those cards. She also gets the perk of retrieving one of her own cards from her discard pile. That lets her play a powerful card sooner than usual, or pick just the right kind of card (a block for example) if she needs defense to survive.

Gwen, Doomed Wanderer

Shadow Plague is unique in that its the only card in the entire game (other than wounds) that is a color other than the four main colors. It’s red! It’s doubly unique in that it’s the only purely negative card to have. It fills your OWN deck up with wounds unless you waste an action on stopping it from giving you a wound. Why would you want this card, you ask? You don’t. It’s purely negative and represents Gwen’s descent into becoming undead. To make up for it, her other cards are very strong and offer more card draw and actions than a character would normally be allowed.

Vendetta, Undead Assassin

Deep crashes are in short supply in Puzzle Strike 2. (Those let you crash any gem in your gem pile, not just the top one.) This simple and powerful card is just the kind of thing Vendetta patiently waits for until he has an opportunity to strike.

Zane, Bloodguard Anarchist

Zane has some wacky things going on. This isn’t his strongest card, but it gives you an idea of his pranks. For 0 actions, he gets a random card from the bank (which are better than starting deck cards, so it probably helps him) but the opponent gets some bad card. It’s hard to say exactly what type of card, if any, will be in the trash pile, because there are a lot of different effects that put cards there. Chances are it will be a wound or a starting deck card. Something bad. While this effect is minor, it’s annoying that Zane can do this every few turns at basically no cost to him. That said…what you should really be worried about are his other cards, which you can look up on your own.

There’s more to all these characters, but that should give you a good idea of their variety and how they all push you to play in different ways.

Puzzle Strike 2: Dinosize deck

Puzzle Strike 2’s expansion, called Bold Adventures, has four new community bank decks as well as 10 more characters. The second of these bank decks is Dinosize.

Dinosize is home to big effects. Ridiculously big effects. Let’s start off with a BANG:

Holy moley! A quadruple crash is absurdly powerful. The cost looks prohibitive though. You only get 3 actions per turn by default, though some cards and characters can occasionally give extra actions. When you reach the first and then second “ante up” phase of the game, you get 4 then 5 actions per turn. But still, it’s very hard to afford cards that cost 4.

That’s why Dinosize gives you cards that give extra actions so you can afford huge effects like Meteor Smash.

Some cards explicitly let you play 4-cost cards for free:

What else can 4-action cards do? Check out this juggernaut:

How about a double deep crash and a double deep swap?!

Why bother lining up your gems of a given color? Just crash all gems of a color no matter how jumbled up they are:

Need some defense? How about these:

Maybe blocking 99 and destroying a bunch of gems is enough? Why not have two free actions while you’re at it. Or use Primordial Crash and do your offense, defense, engine, and gem pile manipulation all on the same card.

For a different spin, look at Stalk the Prey:

If you can afford it…it becomes free. Get your 4 actions back (to play some other insane card) and have some swaps and a crash gem while you’re at it.

You won’t find more powerful effects in any other deck. Dinosize truly pushes the limits of the game, and you will honestly wonder if broken things are going on. No other deck will leave you wondering “what just happened?!” than Dinosize. It’s quite a ride.

For some more craziness, check out these two cards:

Enrage adds three gems to your gem pile…which are all the same color…and which are probably the same as the gems you just anted at the start of the turn. It’s setting you up for a massively powerful crash, that will also, by the way, trigger one of your super moves because it’s just so many gems. If you happen to have T-Rex, pile on even more damage you’re heaping out every time you crash more than a single gem.

And speaking of your super meters, how about this jackpot?

The 3 action cost would normally be steep, but it’s very doable with the assistance of other cards in this deck. The crash is worth maybe two of those actions, but the super meter gain is enormous. You have four super meters and that’s adding a gem to each, which can trigger multiple of them to go off. Play that a few times (especially if you are holding The Scepter of Power, which ALSO adds a gem to all your super meters) and you’re poised for a chain reaction of insanity that you will remember for a long time.

Puzzle Strike 2 is generally a system that creates the opportunity of miracle turns and comebacks. Dinosize pushes that so far that you might, if anything, feel overwhelmed by the power of these huge effects and the insane situations they create. Dinosized indeed!

Puzzle Strike 2: Haunted House deck

Puzzle Strike 2’s expansion, called Bold Adventures, has four new community bank decks as well as 10 more characters. The first of these bank decks is Haunted House.

Discarding cards is generally bad to do, but Haunted House turns that on its head. It’s full of cards that do things when you discard them, like these:

All four of these cards are reasonably powerful on their own, without any special discarding going on. In that case Gravestone is like the block in your starting deck, except it costs 0 actions instead of 1. Power Cube having you ante two gems (which is likely to give you a run of 4 same-color gems or more!) or Strange Runes filling your super meter are each worth the cost of 1 action most of the time. Werewolf Claw letting you crash for 1 action rather than 2 like your basic crash gem is a huge bargain, and the drawback of adding a wound to your deck will only matter if the game goes long.

But now consider that with Strange Runes and Werewolf Claw, you can get those effects, plus more bonuses, if you can find a way to discard those cards during your turn! Gravestone and Power Cube are worded differently, so if you discard them you won’t get to block 3 or ante two gems, but you will get their discard effects for free (destroying your top gem with Gravestone and +1 action from Power Cube).

How do you discard cards during your turn? Note that none of these effects trigger when you discard your hand and redraw it during the draw phase. You need a way to discard cards during your action phase to trigger these things. The following are some easy ways:

The cards above are a reasonable power level. Not especially strong or weak on their own. Golem Smash is the weakest in that it’s the same as your basic starting crash gem, except it has a drawback of discarding two cards, yet crash gems are so important to add to your deck that you might add it anyway even regardless of any discard mechanics.

But now factor in those discard mechanics! If you can combo any of the above cards with discarding any of the previous set, you’re getting away with quite a lot. If you play Golem Smash, then discard Power Cube and Werewolf Claw to it, for example, you’ll get to:

Crash (from Golem Smash), Gain 1 action (from discarding Power Cube), Crash again and gain a wound (from Werewolf Claw). In other words, you’ll end up crashing twice yet only having 1 fewer action than when you started. Quite a bargain!

This next card has the same mechanic as the above cards, but it’s so powerful that it deserves to be shown by itself:

A double crash for free, if you can discard it somehow!

While the cards above are of the form “Discard ME to get special effects,” some other cards are of the form “Discard ANY cards to get special effects:

Getting a free crash or a free deep swap from simply discarding anything is really strong. Drawing a card for every discard you do is the powerful building block an engine (notice that Vampire is a pink card, the color that often has engine-building cards.)

There’s a few more cards that are notable for just how much they can discard:

Spellbook lets you discard three cards, and is generally useful even without taking advantage of the discard mechanic. But Dark Pact relies entirely on you having a deck full of discard effects. If you do, paying 0 to discard 5 cards, probably your whole hand, becomes exciting. Blue Potion is a much more expensive way to discard your hand (2 actions), but you also get to reduce your gem pile by quite a bit, so it lets you survive the turn while counter-punching with who-knows-what discard effects.

Not everything in the deck is about discard effects. An example of another exciting card is Orchid Ritual:

If you have 1, 2, or 3 purple gems in your super meter, that’s letting you crash, 1, 2, or 3 times, respectively, for the cost of a single action. (You can’t do it with 4 gems in your purple super meter because your super meter activates and empties automatically then.) Setting up a triple crash for 1 action is incredibly satisfying if you can pull it off!

While there’s more in the Haunted House deck, this gives you a taste of the main mechanic. Making discards a resource turns things on their head and feels much different (more “haunted”?) from the other decks.

Puzzle Strike 2: Ten Characters

Puzzle Strike 2’s base set comes with 10 characters to choose from. Each character has three cards and you start with those in your deck. Each character has different strengths, so they push you in different directions when building the rest of your deck.

To give you a taste of these characters, here’s just one card from each of them.

Grave, Wind Warrior

We’ll start with a “small” effect. This is a crash gem that only works if you haven’t lined up multiple colors on top of your deck. The power of this card is how often you end up using it. If your top gem doesn’t match the gems below it, you desperately want to get rid of that gem to get to the color-matches below. Sword Slice lets you get rid of your top gem for only 1 action in that case, while a normal crash gem would cost 2 actions. This cheap way of destroying “garbage” really adds up over time.

Jaina, Phoenix Archer

A double crash gem in your starting deck! Careful though, clogging up your deck with wounds will weaken your deck over time. That said, she has another card that feeds off her own wounds!

Geiger, Precise Watchmaker

This same effect appears in a few other card games and it’s usually weak. Not here though. The factors to keep in mind are that it’s free (0 actions!) and that you always have it in your deck if you’re Geiger. You don’t have to wait half the game to add it then later draw it. The effect means that Geiger can get back his “good stuff” (crashes if he needs that, or blocks if he needs those etc.) faster than usual because he can reshuffle his deck before having to draw the whole thing like other characters.

Argagarg, Water Shaman

This clogs up opponents’ decks with useless cards and it also actually kills them by adding gems to their gem pile if you keep playing this move over time. If the game goes long, this crushes them more and more so they better beat Argagarg soon.

Valerie, Manic Painter

This can be a risky move because it’s adding three gems to your own gem pile. But not that risky! Because you choose when to play this, or whether to play it at all. You can use it in situations where all it’s doing is boosting the size of crashes you were going to do anyway. Imagine if your top two gems are green and your next two gems are pink, and you also have a way of playing two crashes. Instead of crashing 2 + 2, this lets you crash 3 + 3. And doing so might make your gem pile tall enough that you get a bigger height bonus too. So in the right situation, this can really aid in rushdown strategies.

Setsuki, Ninja Student

A combo-maniac’s dream. There’s almost too many uses to name. Obvious ones are that if you need to crash twice or block twice or play twice as many swaps, this is your ticket. The tension here is that the things you most want to do twice are also the things you’re probably the most sad about trashing from your deck. This plays into her rushdown nature though. Try to double-take strong stuff right as you’re about to win so you can seal the deal. Hopefully there will not be a “later” to be sad about the cards you trashed.

Rook, Stone Golem

This is similar in nature to Valerie’s Three Colors, but it’s easier to use. Whatever run of gems you have on top of your gem pile can be 1 bigger, and it helps your next crash be that much stronger. Interestingly, another of Rook’s cards lets him destroy his top gem, which helps him do even bigger attacks if there’s a same-color run under that for him to play Big Rocks on.

Midori, Mentor Dragon

Having to ante an extra gem is a drawback of sorts, because it’s filling up your gem pile more. In practice though, it’s almost always a huge benefit. In general, you ante two gems of the same color on top of your gem pile (or 3 or 4 if there are any “ante ups” in effect). The point is, a single crash gem can crash all your ante gems. Dragon Form makes that even bigger because it’s adding yet another gem of the same color as all your other antes. And that they are unblockable is super strong. Your opponent will have to use expensive crash gems rather than cheap blocks to deal with all that. The only caveat here is that if you have the scepter, you will be forced to drop all your own incoming gems onto your ante before you get a chance to crash your ante gems. So holding the scepter is a bit dangerous in dragon form.

Lum, Gambling Panda

Drawing 3 cards for 0 action is bananas. Luckily for everyone, Lum can only do that if he’s already at the lose-the-game threshold. The punchline though is that in Puzzle Strike 2, you often live your life right at that edge and beyond. Remember that you can have more than 10 gems DURING your turn as long as you get down to 10 or fewer by the end. Lum might have a lot of chances to sneak in this cheaty card.

DeGrey, Ghostly Diplomat

This one is a game changer. Having any sort of deep crash (the kind that can crash any gem in your gem pile, not just the top one) is a huge deal. DeGrey can’t just deep crash willy nilly though, that would be much too good. He has to first build up a run of 4 or more same-color gems. This is realistic to do and something he can play toward, so it shapes his gameplay. And with the 50% bonus damage, Tyrant Crusher really packs a punch. (Note: the 50% bonus is computed before the height bonus is added.)

There are many more character cards, but hopefully you get a sense of the variety involved here and how each character introduces some interesting wrinkles.

Puzzle Strike 2: Birthday Bash deck

The second community bank deck in Puzzle Strike 2 is Birthday Bash (the first is Grand Melee).

Presents

The main mechanic of this deck is opening birthday presents. It gets pretty crazy, but let’s start with the basics. Here are some cards that give “presents”:

As you can see from the help text at the bottom of the cards, getting a present means you draw a card and play it for free.

The first layer of taking advantage of this is simply having strong cards that you get to play for free.

Decadent Cake as a present lets you crash twice for 0 actions (amazing!). Fireworks Accident lets you crash once, and gives you an action. Normally a crash costs 2 actions but in this case it’s costing -1 actions if you happen to open it. Do you like getting extra actions? Shakin’ Dance gives you a ridiculous 3 actions and 3 cards if for nothing if you happen to open it as a present.

Perhaps the ultimate is Happy Birthday though:

Deep crashes (which let you crash any gem in your gem pile, rather than just the top one) are incredibly powerful, and getting two of them is nuts. If you manage to open that present and play it for free, that’s “happy birthday” indeed.

“Open Me” and “Open Anything” Cards

The next thing to consider is that there are cards that give extra bonuses if you open them as presents:

Opening presents is inherently strong (playing a card for free), and getting a free crash in addition to that—every time you open a present—would be back-breaking for you opponents. That’s the madness that Crashing Rhino brings to the table. This guy is brutal:

Choosing Your Own Present

The next layer of playing this deck is understanding that you can manipulate your own deck to ensure which cards end up as your presents.

Two of the above cards let you put a card from your hand on top of your deck (so that the next present you open will be that card), and the other two have the “top” icon. That lets you put a card from the bank on top of your deck, again letting you control which present you’ll open next.

Recursion

The last level of wrapping your mind around this deck involves something you might have been wondering about while reading all this. What happens if you open a present (play the top card of your deck for free) and that card itself lets you open more presents? Welcome to the recursive madness of Birthday Bash.

As an example, suppose you play The Big Gift, which gives you a crash gem and two presents. First, you do the crash (left to right order). Next, you open the first of the two presents by playing the top card for free. Suppose that top card is The Small Gift (shown at the top of this article). It gives you up to 3 swaps (swaps are optional so you can skip any of them if you want) so perform any of those you want, then you get two more presents. So you then open the first of the two presents in The Small Gift (which might contain even more sub-presents…but let’s say it doesn’t). Then you open the second of the two presents for The Small Gift (which also might contain sub-presents, but we’ll move on and say it doesn’t). Phew! You aren’t done yet though. Remember that all this is “inside” the first of two presents from The Big Gift. Now that you have finally finished fully resolving everything about the first present from The Big Gift, you then open the second present from The Big Gift. Here’s that order, visually:

The point is, presents inside presents (inside presents…), can get pretty bonkers.

Now that you’ve wrapped your mind around all that (or maybe you haven’t!), you can see the point of Last Gifts.

You get two presents for just 1 action, which is crazy, but you don’t get to do anything recursive with them. If either of your two presents from Last Gifts would themselves give more presents, instead they don’t.

There’s More Than Just Presents

This deck is quite a ride to play. While the birthday present mechanic is the main theme, there are some other spices in the mix as well.

This may not look like much, but remember that you have four super meters, each of which activate a super move when they get 4 gems in them. So you’re filling all four meters 25% every time you play that. That’s in addition to filling those meters the usual ways of crashing gems and holding the scepter. It can get pretty wild with super moves.

Speaking of The Scepter of Power, check out this unique card:

A card that does nothing unless you’re bold enough to hold the scepter! And if you are, a free crash gem! That adds an interesting shift in incentives for holding the scepter as well as an interesting choice to buy this card just to deny other players from having it (there’s only one copy in the deck).

That’s the shape of Birthday Bash. It’s a combo explosion just waiting to happen and if does happen, you might experience quite a “happy birthday” moment.

Puzzle Strike 2: Grand Melee deck

Puzzle Strike 2’s base set includes 10 characters and two different community banks decks. Each bank deck changes the feel of the game. Those decks are Grand Melee and Birthday Bash:

In this article, I’ll explain the thinking behind the Grand Melee deck. Think of Birthday Bash as a steak with a distinctive steak sauce, while Grand Melee doesn’t need the sauce; it allows the natural flavor of the meat to come through. In other words, it emphasizes all the fundamentals.

There are several fundamental things you do in Puzzle Strike 2, such as blocking, crashing, swapping, drawing cards, and spending actions. Let’s look at how Grand Melee effects all that.

Blocks

When you have incoming gems waiting to fall into your gem pile, you can negate them with blocks. Your starting deck has two basic block cards that cost 1 action and negate 3 gems. The Grand Melee deck lets you add more powerful cards to your deck such as these:

These blocks cost 0 actions which makes them a heck of a lot easier to fit into your turn. Effortless Block has even more benefit over the basic block than a 0-cost though. It also has the “top” icon which lets you put a card from the bank on top of your deck. If you have a way to draw a card, that lets you potentially play that card on the same turn, but the real thing it teaches you is about drop patterns. When you choose which card to buy from the bank, the pattern of colors you leave behind is the pattern that will fall into your next opponent’s gem pile. You can’t let them get three purples in a row or something. The “top” mechanic lets you manipulate that drop pattern which frees you to buy the card you want without it backfiring by leaving an easy drop pattern behind.

Gem Shield is able to get rid of four gems in total, rather than just three, but it only does that if you actually have incoming gems and gems in your gem pile. What you learn from this card is that the ability to delete gems already in your gem pile (not just the ones that will fall) is really useful and lets you dig for runs of one color that are buried under some garbage gems at the top.

Defensive Flourish is unique in Grand Melee in that it’s the only card in the deck that self-trashes. This is both good and bad for you. If you could have an incredible block that you could play over and over, that would be good. You can only play it once, then it’s gone, but that helps you in a different way: deck-thinning. It does way more than a block normally would (blocks SIX and also draws two cards!), then it disappears from your deck and makes you more likely to draw your cards that actually win. This is great if your plan is to win soon, but you need to survive just a little bit longer to do it.

Blocks that cost 1 action rather than 0 have to be a lot better. If you’re willing to pay 1, here’s what you can get:

Deflect lets you affect the drop pattern with the “top” mechanic and also comes with a swap to slightly fix up your gem pile. Meanwhile, Barrier Block has an even better swap: a deep swap. That lets you swap any two gems in your gem pile, not just any two that are adjacent. The -2 buy cost icon basically means you have a wider choice of cards to buy from that won’t result in you having to take incoming gems. This is a great fit for a defensive card because it’s keeping you alive by negating gems, and ensuring your buys will have better quality cards for a stronger deck later.

Crashes

Crashes are how you actually win. Your starting deck has two crash gems that cost 2 actions. Here’s what Grand Melee can offer you:

These purple cards let you crash for just 1 action, which is a huge deal, but they each have drawbacks that wear you down over time. That’s purple’s thing in general.

These pink cards have no drawbacks though. Pink is the color of engine building and it has two really solid building blocks here. Kidney Shot costs the same 2 actions as a basic crash gem, but it can crash any gem in your gem pile, not just the top one. That’s super strong. And if you are willing to spend 3 actions, you can get two crashes with One-Two Punch.

Here’s some cards that let you crash for free in tricky ways:

Actions

You can always use more actions if you can get your hands on them. You have 3 actions per turn, then 4 and 5 actions once the first and second “ante up” cards are in effect. But cards can give you more.

Notice how pink is happy to give you extra actions with Footwork, while purple tempts you with more, but with drawbacks:

Utility

Everyone needs to swap to line up the colors in their gem pile. Green often has utility cards that let you do generally useful things. See Taunt’s approach vs purple’s Monkey Step which tempts you with more, but with a drawback.

Also notice that Taunt straightforwardly gives you more swaps, while Adrenaline Rush gives you more cards.

Rushdown

The concept of rushdown is that you need enough power right now to win, and it’s ok if there are drawbacks associated, especially if you have to suffer those penalties later. There won’t be a later because your plan is to win soon. Several purple cards above fall into that category. There is another concept of drawback that is a bit more invisible though, used by these cards:

These effects are pretty strong at helping you win, but the drawback is actually what they don’t do. They don’t help you survive by lowering your gem pile. Crashes and blocks help you survive, and anything that can swap, draw, or give actions can indirectly help you survive too. But the above cards don’t at all. It’s a luxury to spare the space in your deck for them in the first place, and further luxury to spend 1 action in Sneak Attack’s case on something that doesn’t help you survive your turn. But if you can mange it, the effects are strong. Bloodlust means opponents can’t use blocks to negate the gems you send them, and Sneak Attack’s clause about the purple super meter means that opponents have to add three gems in a difficult pattern of colors to their gem piles.

Creatures

Most cards in the game are one-shot effects, but creatures stick around and give you benefits every turn. Here’s the creatures you’ll meet in Grand Melee:

Thieves’ Gambit

Finally, Thieves’ Gambit doesn’t fit into any of the categories above about enhancing the fundamentals. It’s a bit of spice added to the recipe.

It can enable potentially crazy plays, but there’s only one in the whole deck (that’s what the single star at the bottom of the card means). If it’s in the 4th or 5th slot in the bank, is it worth it to buy when you’ll have to take 2 or 3 incoming gems? Maybe. This card highlights the difficulty of that decision. Also, note that all players have access to the green super move which allows you play a card from the bank for free. So if Thieves’ Gambit is visible in the bank at all, someone might play it for free, which leads to them playing two more cards to free, which leads to who-knows-what. This thing is a miracle-maker.

There are more cards in Grand Melee, but that’s a good tour of what it has going on. Next time I’ll cover the Birthday Bash deck so you can compare its unique mechanic to the solid fundamentals here.