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Cheat! How to be a Cheater

by vulpie

Cheat! is perhaps one of the simplest games at NeoPets when you get the hang of it. It's profitable and quite fun (especially if you catch someone cheating, heh). Once you complete a round, you get NP, a battlecard, and, if you've played it quite well, a trophy! These are some of the easiest trophies to get, too. Show 'em off! Nyah!

The first thing to do once you click "Start Playing NeoCheat!" is to get rid of your cards in a certain order. What helps an awful lot is to have each card 3 numbers away from each other. So if you have an Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, two 7's, 8, 10, Jack, Queen, King, you could keep your Ace, 4's, 7's, 10, and Queen (or King or Jack). See how they're three numbers apart? This makes it so no matter what number is played, you won't have to cheat: you'll have a working number! And you try and keep the numbers with two or more cards so you have some extra cards without having to use up the cards that are needed so you won't have to cheat when the right number comes up.

Accusing someone of cheating is one of the most essential parts in the whole game: this device could give you more NP than just beating the game itself! So this has to be one of your strongest abilities in this game if you're searching for a lot of NP. How do you know when to accuse someone of cheating? Well, there are a couple strategies to this...

1. If someone has the choice to play any card when it's their turn, you should accuse them if the card they claimed to play is one you already have. This way, if he isn't cheating, it will essentially be as if you haven't gained a card at all (you can play a whole group of cards with the same number at once). And if he WAS cheating, you get some NP to keep!

2. ALWAYS accuse someone when they've played their last card(s). This means if Kalora the Kau played her final 3 cards, accuse her. You can't lose anything (if she wasn't cheating, you don't gain cards because the game's over). And if she is cheating, then she gets the whole pile and has to start over with getting rid of her cards!

3. Accuse someone if you have cards that they claim to play. So if you have two 3's in your hand and someone claims to play three 3's, accuse them because you know for sure that they're cheating. Some players are even stupid enough to play 4 of something when they don't even have it! The person with the card that the player claimed to put down could easily accuse.

4. Wait for some other player to accuse. This event doesn't always happen, however. It's more like taking a chance on a card you just aren't sure of. My advice is to go ahead and accuse on the unsure ones if the deck is small (maybe 5 or less cards). But if the deck is at 6 cards or above and you aren't sure, do NOT accuse! Let some other player accuse if they like.

5. Keeping track of cards is something good. Let's say you played four 8's and someone instantly accused you of cheating. The cards go to them, right? No one else. So if another player plays at least one 8, accuse them because you know the person who accused you is the only one with an 8. Don't keep track of the same cards all the time. A player could use a fake card and pass it off as another card. After you play your cards, lose track of the cards when it gets to you again. This helps a lot. You probably get the gist of this trick, so experiment around with it and try to get what I'm saying. I can't explain this quite well. I need visual aids. ^_^

6. Don't listen to any faeries who tell you they think someone just cheated. This may cost you dearly.

The players of Cheat! do get harder as you go through all ten levels. Some (read: SOME) start to cheat more and they accuse more. So you try not to cheat as much. But if it gets to a point where you're forced to play one of three choices of mandatory cards, and you have none of them, you play only one card from your hand and pass it off as a random choice of the three.

Finishing the a round is easier said than done. The right cards must be played by the player before you or someone must accuse them of cheating so you can play whatever cards you want. If you feel like going on a little faith and accusing them yourself (they won't be accused all the time) the deck will be cleared and you'll be free to play the rest of your cards. If the person wasn't cheating, oh well, it'll be easy enough to get rid of your cards all over again.

Battlecards are a very good thing to own. Try and trade the small red ones for silver or gold ones. If you don't want any other battlecards, just sell them in your shop, donate it to your local guild, auction it, or just trade it for something other than battlecards! These are all real profitable. Attention Battledome goers, if you get a gold or silver card, equip one of your pets with it. These are quite powerful and do some serious damage!

The more you play Cheat!, the better you will get at it. You will develop your own strategies that may be a sure shot thing every time! Maybe if we all share strategies, everyone will have a nice trophy to show off in their cabinet.

I end this article by saying:

Toodles!

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