Fletcheese: Abyss Strategy Tips

2022-05-10T19:51:41Z

Abyss Strategy Tips

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Abyss is a resource management game and success comes down to properly managing these resources which include:
<ul>
<li>Cards in hand</li>
<ul>
<li>More higher numbered cards of different colors = more lords you can buy</li>
<li>Card color flexibility is especially important when the court refreshes - you want to maximize your chances of taking advantage of the new lord pool</li>
<li>Explored 4 and 5 cost cards should almost always be purchased while 2 and 1 almost never. 3s are a toss-up depending on how many pearls each player has and how useful it is building toward the current lords in court</li>
<li>When spending cards, try to use either all high or all low number cards. Using one high number card with low numbered cards means a missed opportunity to affiliate extra points</li>
<li>Saving high numbered cards to auto-affiliate at the end of the game is perfectly viable</li>
</ul>
<li>Cards in council</li>
<ul>
<li>The council is perhaps the most novel aspect of Abyss and by extension the hardest to build intuition on</li>
<li>When cards are already in council exploring becomes a worse option as you risk a council stack becoming a more appealing option for your opponent's next turn</li>
<li>Choosing to take council cards rather than explore has many important implications:
<ul>
<li>Your opponent does not have the opportunity to buy a card - you can lock down a lord purchase by getting the final cards from council</li>
<li>Barring lord powers, you can only gain pearls by exploring. This can lead to a give and take where players alternate who is exploring</li>
<li>Generally speaking it is better to not be the one exploring because it gives the opponent first dibs at every card</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<li>Pearls
<ul>
<li>Pearls are not worth any points so as the game goes on they should be used more and more liberally</li>
<li>When your opponent has no pearls, exploring becomes <i>much</i> more appealing</li>
<li>Do not underestimate the value in spending pearls for buying lords. Purchasing a mono-color lord with pearls and a 4 or 5 card is very appealing as you can then affiliate that card</li>
<li>Spending a pearl to add a lord to court is very rarely a good decision but can come up</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Lords</li>
<ul>
<li>Active (key) lord powers can drastically warp the progression of a game. An exhaustive list is outside the scope of this guide</li>
<li>Some lord powers with others in interesting ways. Learning all the interactions can only come from playing games</li>
<li>Do not forget that getting a third key disables all of your keyed lords</li>
</ul>
<li>Points</li>
<ul>
<li>Like many similar games, the only resource that matters at the end is points</li>
<li>Points come from:
<ul>
<li>Lords
<ul>
<li>Key lords are generally better early, point lords are better late. Though it's important to consider that not all lords are created equal</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Locations
<ul>
<li>Depending on early key lord hits, it may be beneficial to delay your first location as much as possible. This has the added benefit of making a location choice working with as much information as possible</li>
<li>Generally speaking if none of the already revealed locations are worth more than about 10 points, you should reveal 4 locations. The added options for you far outweigh those for your opponent as you're often looking for the same locations anyway</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Affiliated Allies
<ul>
<li>You should be looking to score around 20 points off affiliated allies. Plan your card and lord purchases well to affiliate high value allies</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Monster Tokens
<ul>
<li>Do not underestimate Monster Tokens. In general whenever the monster track is at 2, you should fight it and take 2 tokens. Expected point value 6 is <i>much</i> better than a card</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</ul>

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Fletcheese: Abyss Strategy Tips