Guardians Trifectas
One of the things that interested me in Guardians is the things that you can do when you start putting a few cards together. I believe I was the first to use the term trifecta in regard to three-card Guardians combos, though I wasn't the first to start putting them together. (Players were doing that long before I knew the game existed.)
What follows are some of the Killer Combos and Silly Setups that I've come up with. I'm sure you've seen some of these before. They've popped up in some of the quizzes from time to time. And I've posted many on rec.games.trading-cards.misc.
Can you pull them off? And watch out that you're not on the receiving end of one of them!
Low on Power Stones? Rubble a stronghold to bring your total stones 5. Put Castellan Keir on it and discard him to bring your stronghold back to life. Then play Cuthbert and bring Keir back! You're ready to try it again.
Avast! Take that and that!
(alright, so this one is kind of obvious.)
What? He tried to bribe your ranged attack? Well, send the Cabin Boy back instead and then serve up the Great Balderoon to make that five point attack and AOE attack.
Admittedly, a long way to go for a 3-pt. ranged attack. But it does expand Scurvy Dog's usefulness. If you use Captain Red Nose as your first attacker, then all of your primaries will get a +4 class bonus to boot! Usually, the Captain's great girth -- he takes up half a shield! -- limits the number of pirates that can great his bonus.
This one is more of a defense combo.
Entering the stronghold triggers a 7-pt AOE, so your foe can have at most three cards (worth 8 or more). You're single creature is a 20, +4 for Rivers and Lakes, +4 for the stronghold, for a Vitaly 28 primary attack (36 if up against an elemental), ready to pound just about anything.
To prevent the Watcher from becoming toast to secondaries, add a creature or two to draw some fire:
Your opponent will need channeling or off-color bonuses to get past you.
Wait Your Turn,
There's Plenty for Everyone
(from Bill Visco)
With Jamchops, any bribery card can be used to bribe and bribable creature. The Pig Dog allows you to bribe with Babes and then put the Babes back into storage to be used again. So those three working girls on the Babes card can take care of everyone.
Other useful cards:
Ooooooh, Let Me Pinch Your Cheeks
(from John, hammer@essc.PSU.EDU)
Giant Aunts immediately rubble stronghold if they win. The Djinn guarantees a push. The standard bearer or the Embryonic Embryonic Witch lets you win all pushes.
Other useful cards:
A Giant Sucking Sound and a Puff of Smoke
Play 40K Useless Warhammers to zero out everyone's Vitality. Then play the Gnats with their 1 pt AOE to blow away your opponent's entire hand, except for his first primary and maybe a command card.
What's the Dispel Magic for? HIS command card. If he plays an AOE on top of your Warhammers, you are thoroughly screwed without a Dispel Magic.
This combo will only go so far. You still need to kill off one or two creatures. The primary can be killed off with a ranged attack. The command card with require a creature with the correct off-color bonus or terrain bonus. Remember, if you're on the attack, you need to destroy your opponent's shield to claim the space. Otherwise, your zero vitality loses to his zero Vitality.
Soul Mirror is such a useful card, changing the creature class of all your primaries to that of the first primary attacker. The Paladin has two great special abilities. First, he gives a Vitality bonus to all your Knights; second, he gives immunity to fear to Mortals. On top of that, the Paladin *IS* a Knight. So play him first and all of your creatures become knights and gain the Vitality bonus.
Fear not, elemental and externals, you shall gain protection! The standard bearer has the ability to change a creature's border color; that is, for one power stone, you can change any of your creatures into a Mortal and give them immunity to fear.
Brom's Dragon (19) also offers a tremendous advantage to any *real* knights -- Most knights have killer OCB's. For one stone, your Captain goes from 10 to 15 against Externals and Mortals (both of which temporarily become Elementals). Your Prince of the Lost will kill just about anything.
Other useful cards:
Bruno's talking to you, and you're gonna listen up good. Unnerstan'? Bruno's sendin' back all 'em creatchas wit' the same class as one of his boys. Well, all his boys'r Undead, but that's jus' temporary, y'see. Dat's 'cause Bruno's boss, the Chief Lector Priest of Sethos, he's gonna change dem from Undead to the same ding youse got.
You pull a Knight, I pull a Knight. You pull a Fairy, I pull a stinkin' Fairy. Yours boys go on home and it's gonna cost you a lotta clamjacks.
Tinkerbell's Got an Attitude
(and the Tooth Fairy will knock out a few!)
You think you need a little extra power to kick some serious butt? Randy Creek Regulars allow all of your fairies to accept channeling up to the full amount that your Guardian can pump out.
Your Blackwaite Jumper is a piddling 1, have Rak Nam pump him up to a 10! Afraid you'll lose your Crook End Snooter? Finn can make him a 20 against Mortals!
And, naturally, if you need a couple of extra fairies to get your shield going . . . well, here's comes that really useful Soul Mirror again to make all your creatures into fairies. Your opponent will just love you to pieces.
Other useful cards:
Normally you can blow up Floyd to give +2 Vitality to all your creatures. But another way to use Floyd is as a primary attacker after Mayor McGreed has been used as your command card. Floyd is just a tiny little 2 point creature, but with a Gold Bribery card as a ranged-attack, he can take attack as a 9. Where else are you going to find a Seven-Point Ranged Attack?
Actually, you find it right here . . . (see below)
A Knight is a Horse, Nymphs, Too, of course
With Warwick's Conversion you can make any creature you play into a Barnyard Animal and get that 7-point ranged attack. Your Captain just got whacked by a Vampire? Turn your Captain into a 17-point Sheep Dog. You got a Sloarch in the Dry Heaps? It's now a 28-point Chicken.
Cards that help the above combos tremendously:
Zing! Went the Strings of my Bow
Play Limited Big Time Rebate at the beginning of your turn. At the end of your turn, you get back half the stones you spent ROUNDED UP! Ploog's Ox Standard Bearer increased all your ranged attacks by +3 when your shield is on the attack. Handles O'Rourke is a command card that can shoot a 3-point ranged attack into any matchup for one power stone.
For one Power Stone, you can shoot a six-point ranged attack. And if you only shoot once, you get the stone back at the end of the turn. But why stop at one? Shoot five and get three stones back!
Other useful cards:
Warning! When using this setup, watch out for the following defensive combo!
Okay, so the Embyonic Witch/Djinn combination is old, but it's necessary to keep your Bone Fright alive. You play the Bone Fright and Zowie! your opponent has lost all of his ranged-attacks as they are all forced to be attacked right now. The Djinn then keeps him alive and the Witch lets you kill your opponent's primary for good measure.
Against, a dedicated ranged-attack deck, you'll probably soak up most of his hand in the first battle! If you're opponent made the mistake of playing Handles O'Rourke, he loses ALL HIS POWER STONES! Not even Eye of Missile Mayhem will get those back, although Limited Big Time Rebate will get back half of them.
Also, the Djinn is perfect if your opponent plays the Manly Guy or some other card that steals your text box. Once you play the Djinn, no further modifications are allowed, so if you have more ranged attacks, they don't have to be played.
Okay, so this is really a two-card combo that works best with one particular Guardian.
Grazhue's ability gives you a Power Stone every time you get bribed. Iron Force of Sethos prevents both players from spending stones on Spells or Items for the turn. Spectre's Ward increases the cost of all double-bordered cards by one stone.
IMPORTANT: Play Iron Force FIRST; otherwise, you'll be paying a stone to play it.
End result: Your opponent can't cast any Spells or Items this turn. And if he tries to bribe you, he loses a stone and you get one.
Other useful cards:
This one takes a little more than three cards, but three cards set it up. Submitted by KevinCron@aol.com.
Champs the Wonder Dog, for one stone, will go and retrieve any Item from your discard pile and Champs goes back into your hand as well. The Sacrificial Altar also you to discard a card to gain a stone. Two sides of the same coin -- lose a stone to gain a card or lose a stone to gain a stone. All you need is one Magic Item to start an endless cycle that doesn't get you anything.
The kicker: Limited Big Time Rebate. For every stone you spend this turn, you get half back at the end of the turn. That is, for every stone you spend on Champs, you get half back (rounded up, no less!).
Half of infinity is still infinity.
Other useful cards:
With Sikura as Guardian, your opponent will never be able to cast
a Spell. Not Dispel Magic, not Summon Loghammer's Sapper, not
Warwick's Banishment.
Forget the terrain cards -- burn cards and stones for land.
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