There are plenty of ways to play collectible card games, from blasting full speed ahead with Problem-solving aggro decks to carefully controlling the pace of the game. Personally, and for many folks, a lot of the fun is combining card effects to gain something greater than the sum of its parts. Two or more cards used together this way are called card combos.
Equestrian Odysseys is out now and has over 200 cards, so there are plenty of awesome new card combos to find, both within EO itself and by combining cards from previous sets with EO cards. Take a look below the break and check out five fun new card combos!
When you have Rainbow Dash, On Even Ground in play, players can no longer stockpile action tokens to spend on their next turn, even you! One way to partially get around this is by playing Read the Manual. Let's say you're in the early game and you got exactly 3 action tokens this turn. Read the Manual lets you leap forward to five action tokens for the turn, right to the end game. Spend them wisely!
Apple Bloom, Bloomception lets you exhaust one of your characters to add its power to her, even if they're not at the same Problem. This gives your characters at home a way to provide power without moving. Applejack, A Hard Day's Work causes all your characters to gain 2 more power when they're exhausted, which adds even more power to your Bloomception!
Want to make this combo even better? If the character you exhausted is Stubborn, then they still get to use their power (+2 more!) for confronting Problems and winning faceoffs!
The Equestrian Odysseys Rarity Mane Character card has the new Showy keyword, which means when your opponent moves characters to her Problem they have to pay an extra action token. This helps to keep your opponent's characters at home, and with her added benefit of reducing their home limit by 1, this can really cramp their style.
One common way your opponents will get around Showy is by playing Friends from hand directly to Problems. A great way to punish this strategy is to use cards with the new Calming keyword like Harry, Bear Hugs. When your opponent plays a Friend to Harry's Problem, they'll come into play with 3 less power for the turn, slowing them way, way down. This combo forces your opponent to choose between playing Friends who are almost useless for the turn, or paying extra action tokens to move their characters. Either way, sucks to be them!
Acrobatics Act lets you draw a card at the end of each of your turns, possibly giving you new Immediate cards to play on your opponent's turn and helping you plan ahead. Since drawing one card usually costs an action token, Acrobatics Act can quickly add up to a good investment. However, as soon as your opponent confronts a Problem, your acrobats will get retired from play. What can you do?
Pink is full of ways to dismiss your opponent's Friends, which does help keep them from confronting. Now there's a new tool to add in: Vexing cards. If your opponent would confront the Problem where you've played Griffonstone, you can choose to retire it. If you do retire Griffonstone it literally means they don't confront the Problem, keeping Acrobatics Act in play. As an added bonus, if you have 1 action token to spend, you can also pay it to dismiss one of their Friends at the Problem. That threat alone can help to deter your opponents even more.
The new Princess Twilight Sparkle Mane Character card lets you peek at the top card of your deck each turn and decide to put it back on top or tuck it underneath. If you put it back on top, Twilight also gives you the option to exhaust her and gain an action token, slowly gaining a nice action token advantage over your opponent.
If you have a Cutie Mark Vault in play, putting the card back on top will also trigger the Vault to gain a Cutie Mark counter, banking for the future. Then on a turn when you really need it you can retire the Vault and gain 1 action token for each counter on it. That means this combo essentially equals two additional action tokens per turn in the long run... and you could play more than one Cutie Mark Vault if you wanted!
This is just a sample of the many fun, powerful card combos found in Equestrian Odysseys, ranging from simple one-two punches to strategic five card masterpieces. Check out the full list of Equestrian Odysseys cards on the excellent fan-made wiki and tell us in the comments below what your favorite cards and combos have been in this new set!
