Beginners Guide
By Statistics Enjoyer.
Currencies
There are 4 types of account currency here:
- Cards – Component required to level up phobies
- Experience – Component required to level up phobies; gained for in-game actions such as damaging enemies, you get it after each turn
- Tears – Allows you to buy packs; gained after finishing a game, depends on the damage you did to enemy heart, up to 300 per match
- Beans – Allows you to buy packs or be a substitute for experience; gained for quests and finishing the game
There are 4 daily caps:
- Jacks – 9 per day
- Beans – 100 per day
- Tears – 1250 per day
- Exp – Depends on your stress level
You can also gain those currencies from quests, jacks and packs. Those do not add to your daily caps.
Another important note – you are blocked from gaining a particular currency ONLY after reaching the daily cap. E.g. if you have collected 1249 tears and got 300 tears for a match, you will have 1549 tears in total.
Important note: you don’t get rewards if you surrender the game. If you need beans and tears, you have to finish the match.
Packs
In each category, there are 3 kinds of packs: cheap, average and expensive. When it comes to the tear packs, all of them will give you only 1 scratch card. It takes fewer tears to get one from a cheap pack. Depending on your luck, the scratch card might hide a new phobie or phobie you already have. If you already have that phobie, you will get 3x more copies and some extra experience to compensate for that.
Cheap packs are the fastest way of expanding your starting phobies collection because you will often get some common phobies from them. Expensive packs have a much greater chance for rare phobies. If you want to keep expanding your collection, you will have to switch to the more expensive packs over time.
Rarity chances of a new phobie in a scratch card:
Terrifying Pack (On average 1 new phobie per 1,5 packs) | Horrific Pack (On average 1 new phobie per pack) | Dreadful Pack (On average 2 new phobies per pack) | |
Common | 66,4% | 63% | 40,5% |
Uncommon | 26,5% | 22,3% | 40,2% |
Rare | 6,5% | 13,1% | 15,4% |
Ultrarare | 0,6% | 1,6% | 3,9% |
How many packs are needed on average to get a new phobie:
Terrifying Pack | Horrific Pack | Dreadful Pack | |
Any | 1,5 (450 beans) | 1 (800 beans) | 0,5 (1000 beans) |
Common | 2,26 (678 beans) | 1,59 (1270 beans) | 1,23 (2469 beans) |
Uncommon | 5,66 (1698 beans) | 4,48 (3587 beans) | 1,24 (2488 beans) |
Rare | 23,08 (6923 beans) | 7,63 (6107 beans) | 3,25 (6494 beans) |
Ultrarare | 250 (75000 beans) | 62,5 (50000 beans) | 12,82 (25641 beans) |
As you can see, the more expensive pack is, the higher a chance for a ultrarare phobie is. However, the chance is depressing even in the most expensive pack.
Important Note: You will always get a new phobie the first time you open a pack of each kind.
Tear packs:
Uneasy Pack | Frightening Pack | Scary Pack | |
Cost | 1000 tears | 2000 tears | 3000 tears |
Experience | 1000-2100 | 2600-4400 | 4800-7500 |
Commons from a scratch card | 10-30 | 15-45 | 20-60 |
Uncommons from a scratch card | 6-18 | 9-27 | 12-36 |
Rares from a scratch card | 4-12 | 6-18 | 8-24 |
Ultrarares from a scratch card | 2-6 | 3-9 | 4-12 |
Other duplicates | 4 | 15 | 28 |
If we assume tear packs work similarly to the coffee packs, then cheapest packs should offer a greater chance to find out a new common phobies per tear spent, while the most expensive packs offer the highest chance for rarer phobies.
Reasons to buy Uneasy Packs:
- Most common duplicates per tear.
Reasons to buy Scary Packs:
- Most exp per tear.
- Most non-common duplicates per tear.
Coffe bean packs:
Terrifying Pack | Horrific Pack | Dreadful Pack | |
Cost | 300 beans | 800 beans | 2000 beans |
Experience | 5.000-10.000 | 20.000-35.300 | 53.000-79.800 |
Commons from a scratch card | 15-45 | 25-75 | 45-135 |
Uncommons from a scratch card | 9-27 | 15-45 | 27-81 |
Rares from a scratch card | 6-18 | 10-30 | 18-54 |
Ultrarares from a scratch card | 3-9 | 5-15 | 9-27 |
Upgrade cards | 32 | 120 | 243 (25+ UR) |
Average stats per 100 coffee beans:
Terrifying Pack | Horrific Pack | Dreadful Pack | |
Experience | 2777,78 | 3775 | 3320 |
Experience after unlocking all commons | 3146,67 | 4176,63 | 3591,35 |
Experience after unlocking all commons & uncommons | 3293,89 | 4318,79 | 3860,69 |
Experience after unlocking all commons, uncommons & rares | 3300 | 4402,3 | 3963,87 |
Experience after unlocking all phobies | 3333,33 | 4412,5 | 3990 |
Upgrade cards (upgrades from scratch cards are not included) | 10,66 | 15 | 12,15 |
Phobies Levels
All non-percentage stats of phobie (such as health and damage are increased with level by approximately 3% of its base value. E.g. if a phobie has 900 base health on level 1, it will get approximately 27 health per level, sometimes it will get 26 or 28 health. I am not sure why this kind of irregularity exists. Percentage stats such as life leech or speed are not increased over time.
The stat formula of a phobie at level X is (1 + 0,03 * (X-1)) * Y, where Y are the stats of a phobie on level 1.
Phobie at level 11 will have 30% more attack and health than phobie at level 1. An important note: the more levels phobie has, the smaller the impact on the game than previous levels. E.g. phobie on level 21 will have 60% higher stats than level 1, but only 23% higher stats than level 11.
The maximum phobie level is 30.
Small level differences usually don’t have an impact on gameplay. Let’s say both players have the same phobie, who has 750 health and 300 damage. Normally it would kill the enemy with 3 hits, however increasing damage to 375 would reduce it to 2 hits. So you would need to have that phobie on level 10. On the other hand, it would need 901 health to survive 3 hits. You would need the 8th level to do that. In the end, the fight will be equal as long as phobie has less than 7th level.
But some phobies are greatly dependent on small level differences. For example, Razor Mouth starts with 300 damage and 600 health. In this case, any level advantage would make him superior in a 1v1 fight with another Razor Mouth.
Upgrade cost table:
Level | Experience | Common Cards | Uncommon Cards | Rare Cards | Ultrarare Cards |
1 | 1000 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
2 | 1800 | 10 | 6 | 4 | 2 |
3 | 3500 | 20 | 12 | 8 | 4 |
4 | 5600 | 35 | 21 | 14 | 7 |
5 | 6800 | 50 | 30 | 20 | 10 |
6 | 9800 | 70 | 42 | 28 | 14 |
7 | 12500 | 90 | 54 | 36 | 18 |
8 | 15500 | 115 | 69 | 46 | 23 |
9 | 17000 | 140 | 84 | 56 | 28 |
10 | 20000 | 170 | 102 | 68 | 34 |
11 | 23000 | 200 | 120 | 80 | 40 |
12 | 26000 | 235 | 141 | 94 | 47 |
13 | 29500 | 275 | 165 | 110 | 55 |
14 | 31500 | 320 | 192 | 128 | 64 |
15 | 33500 | 370 | 222 | 148 | 74 |
16 | 40000 | 430 | 258 | 172 | 86 |
17 | 44000 | 500 | 300 | 200 | 100 |
18 | 54000 | 575 | 345 | 230 | 115 |
19 | 68000 | 650 | 390 | 260 | 130 |
20 | 71000 | 735 | 441 | 294 | 147 |
21 | 78000 | 820 | 492 | 328 | 164 |
22 | 86000 | 910 | 546 | 364 | 182 |
23 | 95000 | 1005 | 603 | 402 | 201 |
24 | 104000 | 1105 | 663 | 442 | 221 |
25 | 113000 | 1210 | 726 | 484 | 242 |
26 | 123000 | 1320 | 795 | 530 | 265 |
Total cost of reaching level:
Level | Experience | Common Cards | Uncommon Cards | Rare Card | Ultrarare Cards |
2 | 1000 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
3 | 2800 | 15 | 9 | 6 | 3 |
4 | 6300 | 35 | 21 | 14 | 7 |
5 | 11900 | 70 | 42 | 28 | 14 |
6 | 18700 | 120 | 72 | 48 | 24 |
7 | 28500 | 190 | 114 | 76 | 38 |
8 | 41000 | 280 | 168 | 112 | 56 |
9 | 56500 | 395 | 237 | 158 | 79 |
10 | 73500 | 535 | 321 | 214 | 107 |
11 | 93500 | 705 | 423 | 282 | 141 |
12 | 116500 | 905 | 543 | 362 | 181 |
13 | 142500 | 1140 | 684 | 456 | 228 |
14 | 172000 | 1415 | 849 | 566 | 283 |
15 | 203500 | 1735 | 1041 | 694 | 347 |
16 | 237000 | 2105 | 1263 | 842 | 421 |
17 | 277000 | 2535 | 1521 | 1014 | 507 |
18 | 321000 | 3035 | 1821 | 1214 | 607 |
19 | 375000 | 3610 | 2166 | 1444 | 722 |
20 | 443000 | 4260 | 2556 | 1704 | 852 |
21 | 514000 | 4995 | 2997 | 1998 | 999 |
22 | 592000 | 5815 | 3489 | 2326 | 1163 |
23 | 678000 | 6725 | 4035 | 2690 | 1345 |
24 | 773000 | 7730 | 4638 | 3092 | 1546 |
25 | 877000 | 8835 | 5301 | 3534 | 1767 |
26 | 990000 | 10045 | 6027 | 4018 | 2009 |
27 | 1113000 | 11365 | 6822 | 4548 | 2274 |
Jacks
You unlock new jacks by gaining the exp. Each jack gives you one small reward, except for Diamond Jack, who gives you 2 rewards (e.g. experience and cards). The reward size depends on the jack type:
Jack rewards:
Card Duplicates | Experience | Tears | |
Normal Jack | 3 | 500 | 40 |
Dizzy Jack | 6 | 1000 | 80 |
Explosive Jack | 9 | 1500 | 120 |
Diamond Jack | 10 | 750 | 60 |
9th jack is always a Diamond Jack. To open him, you need to open all other jacks and get enough exp to unlock him too. If you’re lucky, you can get a Diamond Jack even from other jacks. The rewards can be increased further with the Stress Level.
Stress Levels
Leveling up your phobies increases your progression of stress level. After upgrading a phobie, your progress is increased by the new level of that phobie, e.g. if you upgrade a phobie from level 3 to level 4, then you will progress 4 points.
When you think about it, the fastest way to level up your stress level is to upgrade your lowest level phobies.
Stress progression table:
Level | Experience Required to Level Up | Stress Progress Gained | Exp Required for 1 Point of Progress |
1 | 1000 | 2 | 500 |
2 | 1800 | 3 | 600 |
3 | 3500 | 4 | 875 |
4 | 5600 | 5 | 1120 |
5 | 6800 | 6 | 1133,3 |
6 | 9800 | 7 | 1400 |
7 | 12500 | 8 | 1562,5 |
8 | 15500 | 9 | 1722,2 |
9 | 17000 | 10 | 1700 |
10 | 20000 | 11 | 1818,18 |
11 | 23000 | 12 | 1916,666667 |
12 | 26000 | 13 | 2000 |
13 | 29500 | 14 | 2107,142857 |
14 | 31500 | 15 | 2100 |
15 | 33500 | 16 | 2093,75 |
16 | 40000 | 17 | 2352,941176 |
17 | 44000 | 18 | 2444,444444 |
18 | 54000 | 19 | 2842,105263 |
Notable rewards for stress level:
- New phobies (level 1, 10, 20, 30 etc.)
- Card duplicates for phobies gained with stress level
- Bigger maps (level 15)
- Bonus currency from jacks and gameplay (level 15 – 30%, level 25 – 60%, 35 – 90%, 45 – 120%, 55 – 150%)
Pretty much the higher stress level you are, the higher currency bonus you will have and the faster you will be able to level up your phobies. Important note: currency bonuses do not stack.
Some players decided to not progress their account above 14 level to avoid playing on bigger maps. Bigger maps are not friendly for players with a limited pool of phobies. On the other hand, those players will be missing out on currency bonuses gained for levels.
Maps
There are 2 kinds of maps: small maps and big maps.
Small maps have 9×5 tiles. The first player starts with 3 keys, while the second play with 4 keys. The second player has this extra key to reduce the advantage of the first player. After each turn, both players get 3 keys from their pool for the first 7 turns (24 and 25 keys in total including starting keys). After getting all keys from the pool players will no longer receive any keys. Important note: unspent keys are not lost. It means you can spend a few turns gathering keys and then spend them at once. Sometimes it’s worth saving your keys and spending them on something bigger, instead of spending all the keys every turn. Also important note: you can have up to 5 phobies on this map.
Bigger maps have a few small differences:
- It has 9×9 tiles.
- The first player starts with 4 keys, the second one starts with 6.
- Each player gets 5 keys at the end of the turn.
- There can be 7 phobies per player.
Some expensive phobies might be useless on the smaller maps, because you would need to wait for several turns to play them, giving your opponent a lot of time to gain control over the board. On bigger maps, you can easily play any phobie, but you should avoid playing too many cheap phobies, because it’s easy to hit the phobie limit, which might block you from playing more phobies for a while and allows your opponent to easily crush your army with area attacks.
Not are maps are available at the same time – every week some maps are replaced with new ones. It makes the game fresh every week.
Gameplay
Tile Types
Lava
At the end of the turn lava deals damage to every phobie who stands on it. The damage is equal to 200 + X, where X increases approximately by 5 every time a player goes up by 2 ranks. At the highest rank, the damage will be equal to 235 damage. In the async mode, the damage seem to depend on the level of the first player.
Lava tiles should be avoided, but in some situations, it might be worth stepping into the lava to get closer to another phobie.
Panic Points
Player who controls more Panic Points will deal damage to an enemy after every turn. The damage dealt is similar to the damage dealt by lava, but it’s multiplied by the difference between controlled Panic Points. E.g. if one player has 4 Panic Points and the second player has 1 Panic Point, then the first player will deal 3x more damage than lava does.
Panic Points encourage players to secure as much board as possible.
Stim Pad
Stim Pad increases the damage of the phobie who stands on it by a value approximately 50% higher than the damage done by lava. The best way of utilizing it is to place a phobie with a huge range or a phobie with an area attack.
Healing Spa
Healing Spa heals a phobie for a small amount after every turn. The amount is the same as the one dealt by lava. People are often using those to remove poison from their phobies.
Important note: zombies can’t be healed, so spa won’t affect them.
Abyss
All non-flying phobies instantly die when moved into an Abyss. Some phobies can change the position of enemy phobies with their abilities (e.g. by pulling them or pushing them) – sometimes you can instantly kill an enemy phobie with such an ability.
Keywords
Normal Movement
Normal movement is the most restrictive one. It is being blocked by obstacles, abysses, enemy phobies and hearts. Your phobies don’t block the movement, but you can’t step on them.
Flying Movement
Flying phobies can fly over any tile expect of tiles occupied by another phobie or heart. It means it can move even over the abyss or tiles with obstacles, including obstacles created by phobies with Terraform ability (such as Gravedigger). Flying phobies usually have much weaker stats than their other equivalents, but they can reach some places much faster. Keep in mind flying phobies can’t attack obstacles – when you click on them, you will move on them instead. However, sometimes you will be able to damage obstacles with abilities (e.g. Murder Wing’s ability).
Bypassing Movement
Bypassing phobies can move onto any tile normal phobie would be also able to stand on, but they won’t be blocked by any obstacles during their travel. They are neat for capturing Panic Points hidden behind walls. They have lower mobility than flying phobies, but slightly greater mobility than other phobies. Their combat strength is somewhere in between – it’s worth using them if their movent gives you an advantage.
Line of Sight Attack
Some attacks and abilities require the target to not be hidden behind a wall or enemy phobie/Heart (it can bypass your phobies/heart tho). If there is any obstacle between any part of your tile and a target tile, then you won’t be able to target it. In the following illustration, I’ve marked your phobie as a green tile, obstacles as grey tiles, targetable tiles as blue ones and untargetable tiles as red tiles. All targetable tiles can be somehow connected with a straight line.
Lob Attack
Lob attacks/abilities can affect even enemies hidden behind obstacles and enemy phobies. It’s especially effective when there are plenty of obstacles on the board, which makes it easier to attack your opponents without putting yourself into enemy range. Lobbing phobies usually have weaker stats than other phobies, which makes them much worse when fighting in an open space.
Surrounding Area Attack
Surrounding attacks are quite rare. When attacking a phobie, those attacks damage also to all the phobies in given range. Just like all area attacks it doesn’t deal damage to your phobies.
Example phobies: Numbskull, Minotaur, Rockus.
Targeted Area Attack
Splash attacks deal damage to target and all targets adjacent to it. You can’t attack empty tiles. Some players create obstacles so they can attack them with splash damage and safely deal damage to enemy phobies on the other side.
Example phobies: Klepto, Erratic, Heavo 3.0.
Falloff Damage
Falloff damage is represented by a percentage value next to the damage value. It usually appears as an additional info next to area attacks, usually halving the damage. If no falloff damage is snown, then affected targets take full damage.
Splash Area Effect
Wide splash attack works pretty much like a normal splash attack, but it affects everything in the radius of 2 tiles away from target instead of 1 tile.
Example phobies: Mildred
Beam Effect
Beam effect triggers if the target’s tile and yours form a line. Beam effect affects everything in a straight line in the direction of targeted enemy. Technically it can hit even the enemies on the other side of map, as long they’re in fact aligned with the line.
Example phobies: Beauty, Puff.
Surrounding Area Effect
Similarly to surrounding area attacks, it affects all the phobies in given range. The difference is that it doesn’t require target selection.
Example phobies: Fleshcrawler, Motherload, Brony
Dash Area Effect
Dash area effects is always linked with a movement ability. Then character moves, it affects all the tiles on the way to destination. It tries to prioritize enemies.
Example phobie: Mr Tramples
Traps
Traps abilities let you secretly put a trap onto any walkable tile, even if a phobie stands on it. Only one your trap can be put on a tile at the same time. Traps are activated at the end of the turn if an obstacle or enemy phobie/trap is placed on them, but traps never activate on the turn they’re placed.
Example phobies: Venus, Uni Corn, Baba Yaga
Poison
Poisons are being triggered at the end of the phobie owner’s turn. Mechanical phobies can’t be affected by those effects, dimensional phobies have those effects increased by 50%. Healing effects (except leech) can remove poison. Poisons applied by phobies won’t stack – if you apply a new effect, the old one will be lost. It can stack with poison caused by tiles.
Example phobies: Sheeping Gas, Creep, Bad Sushi
Disease
It works pretty much like poison, but with one exception – it never wears off and can’t be cured.
Example phobies: Smiley, Fowl, Lila
Effects Order
After the end of the turn traps trigger first. If a trap applies a poison, then poison damages phobie in the same turn, leading to huge damage.
When a healing effect and damage effect are applied at the same time, the healing effect will be executed first. E.g. if your phobie has 40% leech and the enemy phobie deals to own enemy 30% damage of the damage taken, then you will heal first, which is handy if your health is low, but the heal is wasted if you were full health. The same goes for phobies who are diseased on a spa tile.
Strategy
Basic Strategies
Zoning
Zoning is a strategy that discourages an opponent from going closer because of the risk of being attacked. Imagine your opponent has 3 ranged phobies close to a Panic Point, and each of those phobies could deal 400 damage with a single attack. It means that any phobie who tries to capture this point could receive 3 * 2 * 400 damage next turn, which is 2400 damage – that’s enough to kill most phobies.
Zoning can have many forms. Imagine a scenario where the enemy has a Razor Mouth (300 damage, 600 health) next to a panic point and probably wants to capture it the next turn. If you place your Razor Mouth on that panic point, you will receive 2 * 300 damage the next turn, which means the death of your phobie. On the other hand, if you place your razor mouth next to the panic point, you will put your opponent in the same situation and you both will be zoning each other.
Zoning is usually used to prevent an enemy from securing key locations, such as panic points. In some cases, it can be used to force an enemy to retreat. Imagine your opponent has a Jar Cannon (220 damage, 420 health) placed on Stim Pad (+300 damage) and you have Murder Wing (250 damage, 695 health, with an ability to deal 450 damage). If you move your Murder Wing into the enemy range, it will surely be killed. However, if you place him 4 tiles away, Jar Cannon would have to move to attack your Murder Wing and still won’t be able to kill it. But if Jar Cannon stays in the same position, Murder Wing would have a chance to move into his range and kill Jar Cannon with a single ability. In this scenario opponent probably will just retreat Jar Cannon to the safe position, leaving the Stim Pad and losing his advantage.
Panic Points Rushing
Panic Points rushing means trying to capture them as fast as possible.
Sometimes after several fights, your opponent might remain with a creature you can’t kill (such as Alley Gator or Cerberus). In that scenario, it’s pointless to engage fight you can’t win. If you are left with more phobies, you might try to capture as many Panic Points as possible. By avoiding your enemy he won’t be able to kill your phobies and his heart will slowly lose its health, especially if your enemy is slow.
Rushing Panic Points has less sense at the start of the game. Of course, it’s good to capture those, but if you risk capturing points far away from your spawn, your opponent will most likely summon more phobies and kill yours, which would give him an advantage later.
Heart Rushing
Heart rushing means trying to destroy it fast as possible.
Sometimes you might want to just attack the opponent’s heart with all your creatures. In most cases it’s not worth it – capturing an enemy Panic Point will increase the advantage in your favour by 2 (e.g. it could improve your scenario from 3:2 to 4:1 panic points), which means you will deal 400+ extra damage every turn. If you used your phobie to attack enemy Heart instead, you would likely deal the same amount of health. But keep in mind it takes only 1 turn to capture panic point, which means you can use it in another turn to bump that damage from 400+ per turn to 800+ per turn. In other words, rushing an opponent’s heart is often a bad decision.
Sometimes it’s worth going all-in at the opponent’s heart. It’s a case when you can’t freely capture enemy panic points and enemy health is low.
Intermediate Strategies
Countering
Each phobie type has weaknesses.
- Mechanical phobies will receive bonus damage from phobies with an electric attack (such as Erratic). Such phobies usually deal 2x higher damage to them than other phobies, which makes them a huge threat.
- Undead phobies can’t be healed or cured. Because of that, they are very vulnerable to poisons/curses – once they are affected they will most likely die unless you let them leech health with their attacks. If you play undead phobies you are also less likely to have a good chance to use healing phobies such as Clinico.
- Dimensional phobies take extra damage from poisons/curses. Additionally, they won’t pull and damage any phobies if they die due to traps or mentioned ongoing effects. Sometimes you can kill them with the sole purpose of being dragged, which might let you attack another enemy who previously was out of range.
- Monsters pretty much don’t have any strengths and also are a pretty strong target for undead.
But don’t forget also about strengths:
- Mechanical phobies are immune to poisons/curses. It’s a good idea to send them in front when your opponent plans to apply statuses to your phobies. Additionally, they tend to have huge basic stats, making them excellent at low ranks where players often don’t have electrical phobies.
- Undeads are great in 1v1 fights due to their leech. Additionally, they tend to have good basic stats.
- Dimensional phobies are sometimes used as a front line, so the opponent will be dragged into the range of your ranged phobies after killing them.
- Monsters are the best option if you don’t want to be countered by the enemy.
Positive Key Trade
There are some cases where you can kill an enemy phobie with a less expensive phobie. An example of such a phobie is 2-key Creep. It has a 2-range ability that allows dealing 250 damage and applying 1000 dmg of poison over 4 turns. 1250 damage is enough to kill many of the 3-keys phobies. The opponent might still use them for a while, but in the end, he will lose a 3-key phobie due to a 2-key phobie. It brings you 1 key ahead of the enemy and gives you an advantage in future fights. Since Creep probably will die after attacking, it’s a good idea to use its ability on a Panic Point to capture it.
When engaging in a fight, try to always check out the key cost of both phobies. If you’re gonna lose an expensive phobie after killing a cheaper phobie, it will be a bad deal for you, unless you achieve another goal in this time (e.g. pushing enemies away from objectives).
Trading 1-Key Sacrifices
When both players are zoning each other, the player who has more Panic Points is likely to win the match. The other player could attack, but it would lead to huge fatalities and most likely defeat. On the other hand, he might send a phobie to capture that Panic Point, knowing his opponent will destroy it. The best scenario is to send a 1-key phobie – that way you won’t be much behind an opponent. The second player might do the same thing – send his 1-key to recapture that point. This scenario often repeats for several turns until some player is out of 1-key phobies or decides to summon something big and win the fight 5v4 (I mean 1-key phobie probably won’t make a huge impact anyway).
This is the reason why it’s worth buying as many cheap packs as possible – it increases your collection and gives you a chance for more 1-key phobie, increasing your chance to win 1-key trading.
Spawn Baiting
Sometimes you might be able to lure your phobies near your spawn. If he gets close enough, you will be able to spawn a phobie and attack immediately. Keep in mind that phobies played on the spawn will be ready to make 2 actions, so you will be able to make 2 attacks if an enemy gets close. The closer he gets, the more options of damaging his phobies. Some examples:
- 5 Range: Jar Cannon (3-key; 220 damage), Snowball (3-key; 320+100 damage)
- 4 Range: Cassowary (2-key; 425 damage), Stare Master (5-key; 500 damage)
- 3 Range: In-Oculus (4-key; 2*400 damage)
- 2 Range: Cassowary (2-key: 2*425 damage), Cerberus (6-key; 1000 damage)
- 1 Range: Cerberus (6-key; 2*1000 damage)
As you can see getting close to the enemy spawn point can be really dangerous.
Baiting an enemy here can give you an enormous advantage, but you will most likely lose control over Panic Points. If your opponent is smart enough, he will avoid getting closer and he will simply set up defences.
Trapping
Some phobies can place traps on the ground. Those phobies work pretty well in scenarios where both players are holding defensive positions because it usually makes the game longer and gives more time for placing traps. The more traps you’ve placed in front of you, the bigger advantage you have over your enemy.
Usually, you should avoid placing traps on contested Panic Point because your opponent will most likely place a 1-key phobie here, which will survive the trap and capture the panic point anyway. The exception is a situation where phobie doesn’t have much health (such as AWOL) – that way you will kill it before it captures the Panic Point.
Advanced Strategies
Leaving the Last Neutral Panic Point for Your Opponent
Imagine a scenario where both players are zoning each other but there is the last unclaimed Panic Point in the middle. If a player sends here a 1-key phobie, the opponent will destroy it and claim the tile for himself instead. In the end, both players will lose 1 key, but the second player will be the one who will be in control over the Panic Point. What’s also important: usually it takes 2 turns to reach that tile with a newly spawned phobie, which means you won’t be able to reclaim it instantly after respawning a 1-key. Turns out the player who is more patient will control that Panic Point 3 times longer and will deal 3 times more damage. After 5 trades you will deal 1000+ damage and your opponent will deal 3000+ damage. Also if both players have the same amount of 1-keys in the collection, the second player will be the last who makes the trade, which means the first player will be forced to engage the combat and put himself at a disadvantage. This is why people often tend to avoid capturing the last neutral Panic Point until their opponent captures it first.
Taking 3000 damage doesn’t mean you will lose that match, but it opens new opportunities for your enemy. For instance, in some maps, your opponent might decide to engage in combat simultaneously securing a few other Panic Points. In that case, he doesn’t even have to win the fight, he will just need to defend those Panic Points for a few turns and you will die.
A counter-strategy to delayed key trading is spawning 2 1-keys at once. That way you can instantly recapture the Panic Point after your opponent recaptures it. However, it puts you in a bad combat position, because your opponent might engage in a 4v3 fight, which you will most likely lose.
Indirect Damage
Sometimes phobies can deal indirect damage to enemy phobies. It happens usually when you use an area attack on another phobie. However such attacks can be also used against obstacles created by phobies such as Gravedigger. When your opponent is trying to zone you, you can try to create an obstacle with Gravedigger next to his phobies, and then use an area attack to injure phobies all around the statue. Enemies won’t be able to fully retaliate, because the statue will block some of their attacks.
Some phobies such as Noxious or Heavo 3.0 don’t have a damage penalty for area attacks, which means they will deal 100% of the damage to all the targets. If you boost them with other phobies (such as Gonzo Bonzo) or Stim Pad, then you can deal large damage to your enemies.
Push / Pull Manipulation
Pushing abilities push enemy phobies in the direction of enemy Heart. Pulling abilities pull enemy phobies in the direction of your Heart. Usually it’s pushed/pulled horizontally, but when it’s not possible it’s being pushed/pulled diagonally instead. Sometimes you can put your phobies or create an obstacle next to the enemy phobie to change the direction in which way it will be pushed/pulled. If your opponent is careless, you might even be able to push/pull it right into the abyss.
Baiting Counters
Usually you shouldn’t play phobies that are easy to counter. However hard counters usually have huge weaknesses. E.g. if you play a few poison phobies, then your opponent most likely will start playing mechanical phobies. Then you could switch to electrical phobies to decimate phobies played by your opponent.
To avoid mistakes you should always keep the track of enemy keys and phobie limit. Before playing the final answer you should always wait till your opponent won’t be able to summon his answer in time.
Baiting Heart Rushing
Sometimes you can lead to a situation where your opponent will decide to rush your heart. It’s more likely to happen on maps where you can pass enemy phobies without engaging in combat. Such maps are pretty rare. If you manage to successfully bait your opponent into rushing your heart, you can surprise him with spawning Brony, which is an ultrarare phobie able to disable attacks of all the phobies in a radius 3 for 2 turns. It will prevent your enemy from rushing your heart and force him to retreat, but it might be already too late – in this time your phobies can rush your opponent’s Heart and your opponent can’t do anything about it.
Trading 1-Key Sacrifices with Initiative
Trading 1-keys is more valuable for player who can capture the Panic Point instantly after losing it. You can achieva that by having a 1-key phobie somewhere nearby contested Panic Point. If you don’t have it prepared, then you can simply spawn a new phobie, but usually it will require an extra turn to reach the Panic Point. 1 turn delay means you will get extra 200-235 damage during your turn and next opponent’s turn, so 400-470. Don’t forget it will also prevent opponent from receiving the same amount of damage, so it’s 800-940 health point of advantage for him in total.
If both players are trading 1-keys, then one player will most likely doing it with 1-turn delay and taking 3x more damage. If your opponent has such advantage, try saving 2 slots for 1-key phobies instead of 1 – that way you can recapture that point instantly 2 times in a row, regaining the initiative.
Panic Point Disabling
Some phobies (Honey Bear and Charon) are able to disable tiles in certain areas and Honey Bear can do it from a safe distance. Disabled Panic Points can’t contribute to damage dealing. Disabling them might be a good idea if your opponent doesn’t bother to engage in combat, because now his Heart will start slowly losing its health. The strategy is especially good if you can easily defend your side of map.
Wall Blocking
Some phobies (Gravedigger and Mount Crushmore) are able to create a wall. You can create such wall in front of your phobies to delay attacks of non-lobbing enemy phobies or force them to change the route. Usually it’s done to separate enemy forces into 2 separate groups, but you can also use it to block the patch to your lobbers or take away an access to a Panic Point.
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