Dueling On and On and On

In Dueling Decks, you pit your card against your opponent. Each card has three statistics on it: courage, charisma, and intelligence. One player gets to choose which stat the cards are going to compare. Whoever has the highest stat wins the cards. In case of a tie, a new match is held and the winner gets those cards and the previous ones. You can play the wildcard one time during a match. It has very strong stats, but they aren’t invincible.

The maximum each statistic can be is 16 for courage, 15 for charisma, and 162 for intelligence. If your current card has the max stat in its category, you’re guaranteed a tie or win. The individual cards always have the same statistics no matter what mode you’re in.

In easy mode, you always pick the stat to be compared. In normal mode, you pick the stat in the beginning or if you’ve won the previous hand and your opponent picks if you’ve lost. He picks randomly, but you can see what he’s hovering over and try to time his decision to what you want. It’s very difficult, so if you’re playing normal, just click and hope for the best. In hard, whoever won the last hand picks first. You need to win a hand in order to pick.

You can get a high score in any mode – there’s no limit to the number of points you can score. I suggest playing in hard if you’re really serious about getting a trophy. The reason you want to play on hard is because that is where you and your opponent are evenly matched. You also earn points more quickly. In order to get the most points, you want the game to go on for as long as possible. Whether you win or lose, your game is over and you don’t get any more points. I know it seems counterintuitive, but try to play until you lose, not until you win.

Each player starts off the game with ten different cards for a total of twenty during the game. There are forty possible cards plus the wildcard and each one in your game will be unique. In order to keep the game going, you want to try and have slightly more cards than your opponent. If he gets down to three cards, you need to start purposely losing match-ups until he has eight cards again. You want him to have enough cards so that you can take five in a row without winning. You don’t want to let him get down to one or two cards. At that point you may accidentally win the match-up and end your game.

Only play the wildcard when you’re down to one card. Never use it otherwise. Even though it’s not a guaranteed win, it just might prolong you game, giving you a chance to build your own card stack up again.

Each time you win a match-up, you earn points. If you win two in a row, you get more points. Three in a row, more, and so on up to five matches. The counter resets after five in a row. If you tie, you don’t get points for that match-up, but it doesn’t break your streak. The modes reward you with different points for each match.

Easy

1st match: 25 points

2nd match: 50 points

3rd match: 100 points

4th match: 200 points

5th match: 400 points

Normal

1st match: 50 points

2nd match: 100 points

3rd match: 200 points

4th match: 400 points

5th match: 800 points

Hard

1st match: 100 points

2nd match: 200 points

3rd match: 400 points

4th match: 800 points

5th match: 1600 points

The fastest way to score points is by getting five-in-a-row combos, but time doesn’t matter in this game. It’s more important to keep the game going than to get a high combo.

So how do you ensure that you’ll get high combos, have enough cards so you won’t lose, and throw a match-up if necessary? You need to know what cards are in play during your game and compare the stats on each card. I suggest writing down what cards are in the game as you find out what they are. You’ll know your cards immediately and learn your opponent’s in the first ten match-ups. You can constantly keep track of what cards your opponent has if you want, but the revealing stage of the match-up can move fast. I suggest figuring out what card to play by comparing all the cards in the current game, not just what you think your opponent has.

These are the lists each character has for courage, charisma, and intelligence arranged in descending order.

If the opponent is picking, there’s nothing you can do; so just sit back and enjoy the ride. He might win many in a row before it’s your turn again. The only thing you need to worry about is if you’re down to one card. That’s the time to play your wildcard, no matter what card you have showing. Be quick about it (under one second in hard mode!) or you’ll miss your opportunity.

When you get to pick, decide whether you want to win or lose the match. Let’s say you want to win the match and the card you’ve pulled is Judge Hog. Looking at his position on the three stat charts, you see he cannot lose in courage. You should pick that stat. Another example is that you’ve pulled Ylana Skyfire and you know Roothless, Sophie the Swamp Witch, and Judge Hog are also in the game. In this case, there are two cards that could beat Ylana in intelligence, but only one in courage. You should pick courage. If you’re trying to lose the match, do the same sort of comparison making sure that you have the best chance of losing. If you’re trying to lose and pull Lisha, but you know that Gorix is in the game, pick charisma.

There is a bit of luck involved in Dueling Decks, so even if you have the game play mastered, it may take awhile to get a high score. Just keep trying and you’ll eventually find yourself with that trophy.