Part 18: The Dealer

Part 18 - The Dealer (YouTube)

The adventurer has gone up against bandits, skeletons, ratmen, and lizardmen. He went up against a Kraken and lived to tell the tale. He found some mysterious Dragon relics and survived a dragon's fire. Now, at last, he faces the one who has been pulling the strings of the adventure all this time.

Most of the commentary in the video was done in post because I wasn't about to try recording over every single attempt.

The Dealer's dungeon is nasty! You're almost guaranteed that you won't see a single blessing along the way, as the dealer tries to curse you into oblivion. Just remember that, as the dealer has repeatedly said, he may challenge us but will ultimately be fair. This dungeon is daunting, yet doable.

I had to change my deck multiple times before I settled on something that took me to victory. Here are some strategies you can use.

• Put cards in your deck that give you items easily, or that have low penalty. Food Wagon is an easy gain. Battle Practice is low gain but easy to fight.
  
• Put cards that you can back out from. Peasant Woman or Holy Forge may sound limited in use, but they become breather cards.
  
• Remove blessing-granting cards from your deck. You can live without them more than you can live with some of the curses.
  
• Remove all low-tier equipment from your deck, but have multiple well-rounded options of each type. The Dragon Relics are great if you have them. All non-default shields are decent, and Innocence will always be useful. Gauntlets are protection in case of one curse. Helms are so varied, you probably want ones that are useful in general scenarios rather than just a specific one (Oracle's Diadem is a favorite of mine).
  
• Favor equipment that has frequent useful effects, rather than in very limited scenarios.
  
• Only remove the worst curses. I wouldn't bother with Time Distortion, for instance, as it can be in our favor. Yes, I know I removed it in an earlier video.
  

The Dealer

There have been Dealers before but none so adept at the game as him.

The Dealer has four distinct phases. Each phase features all the Court monsters of one Suit, going from weakest to strongest. After you kill them all, the Dealer has a few attacks.

Phase one pits you against the Jack, Queen, and King of Dust. When they go down, the Dealer slams his fists and creates some explosions.
Phase two pits you against the Jack, Queen, and King of Skulls. The Dealer then creates some static lines that will damage you if you step in them.
Phase three pits you against the Jack, Queen, and King of Plague. The Dealer create explosions, then creates some lines that will rotate 45 degrees from his hand around the table, first counter-clockwise, then clockwise.
Phase three pits you against the Jack, Queen, and King of Scales. The Dealer create explosions, then creates some lines that will rotate 90 degrees from his hand around the table, first counter-clockwise, then clockwise. Make sure to be on the far edges of the board to avoid getting hurt… like I did a few times.
It's possible the Dealer will create more explosions depending on where you're standing, but I haven't figured out the mechanics for sure.

After his initial attacks, the Dealer forces you into a quick time event as he throws a ball of energy at you. Hit the reflect button at the right time to throw the energy back at him, at which point you can attack him until he gets back up. If you fail to reflect the ball, you have one chance to hit the dodge button to stay alive and try the event again.



Optimizing your deck for the dealer
So you want to attempt the dealer yourself? Here are some tips on stacking the deck you may find useful.

Card choices
There are specific cards I like to have. Some of them haven't been unlocked yet, and some of them I already mentioned above, but I want to go over my short list:

• The Maiden
  You'll get a freebie of whatever you need.
  
• Peasant Woman
  In the event you can spare the food, the equipment and information gain can be of use.
  
• Food Wagon
  Again, a food freebie.
  
• Goblins
  Goblins will give you more food and gold than you started with if your resources were low. They also don't fight back. Not necessarily the best card, but not the worst.
  
• Treasure Chest
  Aside from the chain at pain, it's a good chance at gain.
  
• Soul Gem
  Soul Gem can be obtained from a chain of cards that starts with the Lizard Dome, after the Jack of Scales. You can pay a small amount of food to get rid of a random curse, which may just remove one of the greater ones. This is at the top of my list.
  
• Battle Practice
  Low gain, but the combat is extremely easy.
  
• Metal Ore, Holy Forge
  In the best case, you get a good weapon. In the worst case, it does nothing.
  
• The Elder Lizard
  Like Holy Forge, you're unlikely to get the Lizard's treasure, but it costs nothing to add.
  
• Ghost of the Sea
  The worst case won't give you anything, but you stand to gain something almost every time.
  
• The Lizard Dome
  This choice may be a bit weird to some. In the Lizard Dome, I know exactly what fighting conditions I'll be in, and it will only be against one enemy card. The rewards are big enough that if I'm going to be fighting enemies, I want it to be under conditions I control.
  
• Shop
  I treat it as a breather card with potential extra benefits.
  

Your list may vary, but I at least stand by the non-combat cards above. Since you can't avoid combat, pick the options that work best for you.

Equipment choice
Let me first say that the Dragon Relics are an obvious choice. They are that good. But what about everything else?

I like faster weapons that have high damage. All the non-hammer weapons with 30+ damage can stay in the deck. I would also pick Frost Fang, for its effects, and the Kraken Claw (which we haven't seen) for its ability to ignore Lizardmen shields. Shieldbreaker may be good, but I haven't gotten a good feel for it.

Shields are limited, but the old standbys Innocence and Fortitude's Breath are always useful. The Skeleton King shield is useful as well.

Armor becomes tougher to pick. Mithril and Immovable Object are in by virtue of their advantage vs relative protection level. Depth of Night's ability to redraw monster cards could be useful in some combats. If you feel like you're good at dodging, Wilderness Armor is a good choice; I spoke up against it in an earlier video, but its speed and damage boost are great for dodging.

Helmets… ugh. So many helmets. I have difficulty choosing, but there are a few I would use:
- Oracle's Diadem, for telling me where to go.
- Explorer's Helmet, for direction and bonuses.
- Fate's Folly, for giving me gold on good success.
- Healing Cap, for walk-healing (though I don't always use it).
- Herne's Antlers, for the boss.
- Scavenger's Cap, for the food gain
There are other good choices depending on your play style.

There aren't many gauntlets, but I will always love Hag's Wraps. Assassin's Greed and Mage Gloves can be good to give you more gold or faster combats, respectively.

I also have a hard time selecting artefacts, but Lightning Crash, Inferno Potion, Feathered Ice, and Mage Strike are nice. I would not say no to Mercenary Contract if I'm planning on going shopping.

Rings will be the hardest equipment to arrange in your deck. My main advice is to avoid picking rings that activate less, or have a lower chance. For example, the Trader's Ring (sell equipment to get food) sounds nice, but there are curses that prevent you from selling items. The Ring of Poverty making you lose all your gold for Max Health is a tough sell when I want the gold. And any ring that requires a blessing is automatically out. There are three I can think of that I do like, though:
- We haven't yet seen the Occult Ring (unlocked from the Cursed Treasure), but that's a good choice. It gives extra damage for each curse you have.
- The Master Ring gives you gold per ring you have after every encounter. It can reduce the fear of food loss, or gold loss if you got affected by the curse that makes you eat gold.
- The Plunderer's Ring gives you gold and health on Gain. There isn't always Gain, but it will happen throughout the dungeon.

Optimizing shop choice
One thing I didn't really touch on much in the LP is how shops have different costs. A regular Shop will always be a bit more expensive, for example, and of the two curse-removing shops, the Priest is cheaper than the Healer. There is a bit of risk in holding on to resources in favor of finding a cheaper shop, but it's not a bad idea to do so.