The Ultimate Tyranu Evavu Strategy

Tyranu Evavu costs 30 NP each round to play. When you start the round, two cards (like from a deck of cards) will be shown. One will be face up, the other face down. Your objective is to correctly guess if the face down card is higher (tyranu) or lower (evavu) than the face up card. Each guess you get right increased your prize (which is NP, of course). The amount of NP for correctly guessing all 52 cards is 12,000 NP. That’s a lot of cash!

One thing you have to look out for is pressing the correct button. The tyranu button starts out on top of evavu, but they switch around sporadically, so make sure you are paying attention to which button you’re pushing! There are three Neopets that “supervise” your playing: Uggsul, Jarbjarb and Oogaroo. As far as I can tell, the odds of getting easier cards are the same, but I do have a favourite :). They’ll wish you good luck before you start though, but a fat lot of good THAT does you when your first card is a 7! Aces are the highest card, and 2s are the lowest. The suit of the card does not matter. There will never be a tie; the face down card will never be the same as the face up one. Just so you know, you need to get fifteen correct guesses in a row to get the Tyranu Evavu avatar. Well, now that you know the rules, let’s learn the strategy! Here is my four-step strategy:

1. BE CONSISTENT! Choose which cards you will always choose tyranu for and the cards you choose evavu for. Personally, I ALWAYS pick tyranu for cards 2-7 (up to and including 7). From 8-A, I ALWAYS pick evavu (except in the case of Rule 3). Having this consistency may seem picky at first, but if you stay with it, you’ll find that it pays out very well for the most part. Also, you’ll find that you won't get as angry when you miss, which is a big plus for me especially.

2. KEEP TRACK OF THE CARDS ALREADY PLAYED! In case you haven't noticed, the highest possible score in this game is 52 - one point for each card in a deck. Duh! That means that there are four of each card. Think about it... in a normal deck of cards there are four Aces (Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts and Spades), and four of every other number. It will probably help to keep an actual written tally next to your computer while you’re playing. That may seem a little silly, but it does work. TRUST ME! The easiest way to do this is to make a list of numbers and then put a line next to the number when it comes up. Remember: there should only be four lines next to any number. If there isn’t, then you’ve been counting wrong!

3. DON'T BE UNWISE! If you've had lots of 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s come up, if you get an 8 then pick tyranu (because lots more lower cards have already been played, compared to higher cards… get it?). If you follow Rule 2, you should know how many of each card has been played. Go with what is more probable. This rule generally works better after the 20th card has been played, because the odds are easier to calculate the further you go. So don’t follow Rule 1 to a tee. I know that kind of contradicts Rule 1, but use your brain! I’d say use the first rule up to the 20th card. After that, switch to the third rule.

4. DON'T GET FRUSTRATED! I often have days where I'll lose 6 times in a row on the first card, and then Jarbjarb won't let me play anymore. Sure, you’ll get a little ticked off, but go and play Whack-A-Kass and take your frustrations out on a poor, defenceless creature, all right? There’s always tomorrow. Besides, you should be spending more time out in the fresh air anyway. Why don’t you go and visit your grandma instead? And if you don’t want to do that, why don’t you go watch your little sister play the game? And by “watch” I mean “kick her off because you’re so addicted to the game and SHE’S DOING IT WRONG! But even when you’re obsessed with Tyranu Evavu I’d still recommend against it – playing it too long can give you funny dreams about playing cards and Tyrannian pets, all in a language that you don’t understand…

The key to getting a high score in Tyranu Evavu is to KEEP GOING! Even though there is a quasi-strategy to the game, remember that it is about 95 percent luck. I mean, you never know what card will come up next, and you never know if the face down card is a 2 when your face up card is a 3 (grrr…). Like I said before: I don’t have the trophy. That’s mostly because of the way the cards were dealt to me (or so I claim). Just remember: every once in a while that perfect game comes up, and that perfect game could be yours! So don't worry – you'll get that avatar, or that 30th card, or that great big shiny trophy. Eventually.