Shroom and Gloom Builds

Pattern: give growth cards the finishing blow

If your Hungry Blade grows on a fatal hit, use smaller attacks to set up its kills. Do not sacrifice too much health just to gain another upgrade.

• Setup: use other attacks to put an enemy within the finisher’s current damage range.
• Payoff: land the finishing hit with the growth card when the incoming damage makes that safe.
• Failure case: delaying a kill for growth may cost more health than the upgrade is worth. A deck also needs a plan for turns when the finisher is not drawn.

Prioritize enough usable attacks to control the fight. Add draw or upgrades to support an existing plan, rather than depending on a future reward to make it function.

Pattern: connect food production to eating rewards

If Roast makes food and your other cards reward eating, use them together. Check the exact trigger: producing food, drawing it and eating it are different actions.

1. Establish a dependable way to produce food.
2. Check the eating payoff and whether it is active when you consume that food.
3. Count energy and draw as well as damage: extra cards do little if you cannot play them.
4. Keep enough recovery to survive a hand that does not assemble the loop.

Food can also have exploration uses. If your hand allows feeding a creature or trading with a merchant, compare that opportunity with immediate healing. Do not assume every merchant takes food.

Pattern: support Machines with Data and cleaning

A Machine deck needs useful Machines, enough Data to activate them, and a way to manage Gunk costs. Adding more Machines will not help if you cannot trigger the ones already in hand.

• Machine support: if Employee Handbook can trigger your turret, use it when another attack will help. Check that the Machine is an eligible target and that repeating its effect addresses the current enemies.
• Cleaning support: use Sweep on a Gunk-covered card when cleaning makes it affordable. Inspect whether cleaning first improves your actual hand or consumes a resource you need elsewhere.
• Fallback: avoid a hand full of activation cards with no Machine available, or expensive Gunk payoffs with no way to clean them.

Keep the deck playable even when you draw its pieces in the wrong order. Add another activation card only when you have enough Machines to use it.