Dueling Decks: Dueling Your Way To A Trophy

     Are you a fan of trading card games and using your wits to outplay a forest-dwelling Mynci? Dueling Decks is the game for you! It is a game that combines strategy with luck as you battle Zenco the Magnificent, a card game champion who happily defends his title against anyone who decides they want to challenge him. The game itself is simple, it is played in rounds and each of you plays one card per round. The player with the "stronger" card wins that round. I say stronger in quotations because you, or Zenco depending on your battle difficulty, get to decide which attribute is at play. Let's dive a little deeper into that!

     Basics Of The Game

     The game is played with a series of character cards, representing different prominent Neopian figures. Each character card comes with three attributes: Courage, Charisma, and Intelligence. The strength of each ability is representative of the character it comes from, for example, Dr. Sloth has low courage and charisma, but very high intelligence. When it is your turn, you get to select which of the three attributes you will compare against Zenco's card. So if you choose intelligence, your card's intelligence number must be higher than Zenco's card's intelligence number to win that round. The other unchosen attributes do not count at all.

     Whoever wins a hand will have BOTH cards returned to their hand for future use. The goal is to knock the other player out by taking all of their cards away.

     The order of operations varies throughout the matches based on the difficulty you select.

     Selecting A Difficulty

     If you choose to play on Easy mode, you will be able to choose which attribute to pit against Zenco in every round, regardless of who won the previous. This is a good way to practice and familiarize yourself with the cards, their strengths and weaknesses, and to gauge the general flow of the game.

     If you choose to play on Normal mode, there will be a new element added to the game completely. If you lose a round to Zenco, you will not be able to choose the next card's attribute to compare, but instead, it becomes Zenco's decision. However, not all is lost, as there will be a roulette-style mini-game for you to play. A wheel will scroll over the attributes and you can hit "Choose" to take the power away from Zenco and put it back in your pocket. It takes a bit of practice to get used to this, but it will help you build your score faster to play in this mode.

     If you choose to play on Hard mode, which is the best mode to play if you are chasing a high score, then you will only be able to choose the attribute when you have won the previous hand. If Zenco wins a round, he will have total control over the attribute that is played next. This makes the game much more difficult, but still not impossible. It is important to monitor which cards you have remaining, as well as which ones he has won over.

     Scoring

      Every time you win a round, you will earn some points. But you get extra points for winning consecutive rounds, up to five wins in a row (at which point the count will start over). Each difficulty comes with its own points, making Hard mode much easier to score points quickly. Regardless of the difficulty, you will need to spend a long time playing to get a trophy-winning score.

     Easy mode:

     1 win = 25 points

     2 wins = 50 points

     3 wins = 100 points

     4 wins = 200 points

     5 wins = 400 points

     Total for a five win combo: 775 points

     Normal mode:

     1 win = 50 points

     2 wins = 100 points

     3 wins = 200 points

     4 wins = 400 points

     5 wins = 800 points

     Total for a five win combo: 1550 points

     Hard mode:

     1 win = 100 points

     2 wins = 200 points

     3 wins = 400 points

     4 wins = 800 points

     5 wins = 1600 points

     Total for a five win combo: 3100 points

     Getting A Trophy Level Score

     To get a trophy it isn't enough to just beat Zenco. You need to take time to build up your score. You don't lose anything for losing a round, except the card you played. Your points won't go down. A key strategy to getting a trophy is to make the game last as long as possible. A constant back and forth of you winning some rounds, and letting Zenco win some rounds. It can get a little scary when playing in Hard mode, as Zenco can go on a winning streak if he has the power to control which attribute is chosen, but if you play smart then it will minimize the risk.

     Keep track of which cards he is winning over, and try to frequently let him win over the weaker cards like Isca, Eliv Thade, and the Zafara Princess. But guard your strongest cards as much as possible, like Judge Hog or Ylana Skyfire, I also like to keep Roothless on my side for his super-high intelligence. I always try to keep a strong advantage over him, but not too strong that I accidentally beat him. I don't let him get below five cards, it just feels too risky at that point.

     There is one more trick you have up your sleeve, and that is the Wildcard. I break this out if he has me down to two cards left in my hand, that way I still have some padding after I use him to regain some traction. The wildcard is an insanely powerful (but not unbeatable) card called Nightsteed. It has 14 strength, 14 charisma, and 140 intelligence. This can be played whether you pick the attribute or not, and he beats MOST cards. For the best chance of winning with this card, I recommend choosing Charisma because there are very few characters with higher charisma. Once you use him, you can never use him again, so time it wisely and only break it out in an emergency.

     With this guide, a bit of practice, and familiarizing yourself with the game and all the character cards, you will be soaring up those high score charts in no time. Just don't let Zenco's gaze intimidate you!