Smash Palace has been on shelves for a while now, and we’ve all had a blast cracking and smacking. At this point you might be wondering what to do with all the leftovers. You can, of course, continue to play by ripping open packs of Mastery Pack Guardian for a fresh Crack, Shuffle, Play experience each time, or you can just keep playing at no extra cost with the existing cards you own. Today I’m going to break down a third option – turning Smash Palace into a fully-contained, flashy tabletop game you can play with friends and family.
I’ve designed six preconstructed decklists, one for each of the heroes featured in Smash Palace that I believe elevates gameplay and enhances the strengths of the product. Once sleeved and placed in slim deckboxes, you should be able to store them with the game boards, instructions, and bagged punch-out tokens all together in the original box!
Each of these decks can be made out of inexpensive chaff, mostly from Mastery Pack Guardian (and a few from other recent sets). They are not designed to be the most powerful, optimal, competitive way to play each hero, but rather built for a casual multiplayer environment that encourages interaction, negotiation, and doing really silly things with piles of Gold. You might occasionally brick, but I find that element often adds an interesting wrinkle.
Each 30-card deck follows the same pattern: a 20-card Guardian slop core that all decks share, and a 10-card package related to that hero’s specific playstyle. Equipment is tailored specifically for each individual hero. This is just a base recipe, you do not have to follow it exactly to get the best experience. Many of the Mastery Pack Guardian cards can be easily replaced with cards that share the same stats, so don’t worry if you can’t find 2 blue Flatten the Field for every deck, you can just pop in any ol’ blue 6-power and it will work just fine.
Pretty much everything you need can be found in Mastery Pack Guardian, with a few extra cards from High Seas and Heavy Hitters. There are a few other niche cards included, such as Cash In or Chivalry – if you can’t find these, don’t fret – a big Guardian attack like Buckling Blow or Chokeslam is a fine replacement.
This version of Smash Palace, which I’ve been advised by the LSS Marketing team to avoid calling “Kash Palace”, also runs a modified Event Deck, with the goal of making a big impact on the game more frequently, as well as driving proactivity and interaction between players. I personally like my Ultimate Pit Fight games to be fast, aggressive, and dangerous, but feel free to mix and match the Event Deck if this style doesn’t suit you and your local play group.
Enough talk – let’s smash!
Victor Goldmane, Match Fixer
You’ll notice the shared base core contains a lot more blue 6-powers than you’d expect from three random booster packs. I find this makes Victor’s match-fixing more important, allowing you to be the deciding factor more frequently. Victor uses what I call the “Gold package”, which is shared with Fightmaster Kox. You’re looking to stack up Gold to fire off his absurdly powerful hero ability, while convincing the table your riches shouldn’t make you a target.
Fightmaster Kox
Kox has a really interesting ability, which is why he runs the Gold package, so that you can fire it off as often as you can in order to manipulate the Event Deck. However, he is somewhat lacking in offensive capability and starts at lower life, which is why his particular equipment loadout is a fair bit stronger than the others. Kox really starts to shine if he can survive past another player going under, as he can then start picking the Event Deck card for his own turn.
Bravo, Flattering Showman
Bravo runs the “Crush package”, which comes with a range of big attacks. He has a similar goal to Victor in that they both want to pull off big dominate turns, but Bravo has a slower, yet more reliable way of setting it up. This comes at the expense of needing a lot of resources to play the big turn, which makes him slightly more susceptible to attacks if the players to his left and right decide they don’t really like the idea of being flattened.
Bolfar, Bear Hands
Bolfar also runs the Crush package, but uses it in an entirely different way to Bravo. Bolfar is just looking to dome two players at once, because that’s just the kind of guy he is. He doesn’t have a weapon, but I’ve given him access to a few finishers like Macho Grande and Crater Hoof. I’ve elected not to give him a shield in the true spirit of “bare hands”, instead going for Civic Peak to make up the defense, which I believe is a fun and fair trade-off.
Note: If you want to build Bolfar differently, I recommend avoiding giving him powerful low-cost equipment such as Heartened Cross Strap or Goliath Gauntlet, because he can essentially apply this value across two attacks. Instead, I think it’s only fair that Bolfar commits to paying extra resources if he wants to add damage or dominate to his split attack.
Groundbreaker Crix
Crix runs what I call the “Seismic Surge package”, which includes more attacks that synergize with Seismic Surge tokens, and a higher density of card costs that can take advantage of them. This is probably the most straightforward hero to play and is recommended for beginners. I’ve built Crix to win clashes more frequently than other heroes, but to also get payback when she loses them.
Reya, the Unyielding
Reya is a unique hero in that she can use her cards and resources to help others, but doesn’t have a strong built-in payoff for Gold that Victor and Kox do. This deck is built around converting your Gold and spare resources into value, using a unique package that borrows cards from the other packages, on top of some payoffs for her ability. Cash In is the main payoff, drawing you into attacks, resources, or a hammer swing and an arsenal. You should aim to use your Gold regularly, drawing into attacks, filtering blocks from hand, or increasing your hammer power. She also has a slightly higher density of heave cards, which alongside her equipment gives her more opportunities to spend those spare resources.
Note: This deck doesn’t include Chivalry which is present in the other 20-card cores, simply due to its redundancy with Reya’s ability.
Event Deck
This version of Smash Palace has a modified Event Deck reduced to 30 cards, allowing you to see almost every event in most games. I’ve focused the deck on flipping something impactful as frequently as possible. When paired with the decks above, you’ll find yourself leaning in with baited breath to watch the flip every turn.
Remove:
- 1x Air of a Comeback
- 1x Bloodied Helm
- 1x Bloodied Strapping
- 1x Bloodied Gauntlet
- 1x Bloodied Boots
- 1x Bloodied Shield
- 2x Arena Medic
- 2x Dominate the Competition
- 2x Let Me Buy You a Drink
Add:
- 2x Timesnap Potion
Timesnap Potion should be treated like the event equipment, in that if you flip it on your turn, you can put it into the arena under your control. It doesn’t cost you an action point to do this like it would if it was played from hand. If you destroy it to activate its effect, or you don’t take control of it when it’s flipped, it should be put on the bottom of the Event Deck just like the event equipment would.
I love this card in Smash Palace because it unlocks some really crazy turns, or can even just be used for good value with Helm of Isen’s Peak or Richter Scale. Plus, you can always take it even if your equipment slots are full. I highly encourage you to experiment with different potions and items in the Event Deck, as it can lead to some really interesting outcomes.
Expansion Heroes
If you want to take things even further, Flesh and Blood has a plethora of Guardian heroes to explore. I would recommend sticking to the 20-card core for each of these to ensure gameplay is relatively consistent, which also means you only need to hunt down 10 main-deck cards and a suite of equipment to introduce even more flavours to the mix.
In terms of equipment, balancing can be a little tricky. I usually aim for 4-5 points of equipment defense, and avoid high-impact low-cost equipment unless the hero has significant drawbacks (for example, Reya has more equipment defense than some of the other heroes even though she has higher life, because she is more likely to protect others with it). I would also recommend sticking to Common and Rare cards to ensure a relatively even power level, with… some exceptions.
Here are two heroes I think would make a big splash in Smash Palace.
Betsy
Betsy has a really fun ability that encourages you to go all in on a big swing… and continue swinging! She runs the Gold package like Victor and Kox, which already contains a few wager cards to get the ball rolling. Once you have a few Gold tokens, your main source of wagering is Good Time Chapeau, allowing you to activate Betsy’s ability turn after turn! This might seem pretty powerful, but remember that overpower is easier to stop than dominate, especially with every other deck running some number of block cards.
It’s worth mentioning that the Betsy deck introduces two different token types – Might and Vigor. To avoid making things too complicated for newer players, Good Time Chapeau is the only source of these tokens I’ve included in the deck, and it creates them together, which makes it a lot easier for beginners to understand and keep track of.
Note: If you run out of Gold and wager cards, the Event Deck can also let you wager!
Yoji, Royal Protector
I’ve broken the rules a little bit for this one, including three inexpensive Majestics. Yoji has a cool ability for Ultimate Pit Fight, but I’ve mostly built the deck around the theme of being a heavy armored palace guard, namely with Seasoned Saviour and a few cards to remove counters from it. The idea is to repair your Seasoned Saviour, then use it to survive big dominate turns or preserve cards in hand, in order to grind the other heroes out of cards in deck.
This is a powerful strategy when Yoji is left to his own devices, but is also kept in check when multiple players gang up on him. Yoji will need to use his ability to curry favor, and spend his Gold digging through his deck to find Reinforce Steel and Visit Anvilheim quicker.
Want us to cook up more decklists or itching to share your own? We’d love to hear from you in the comments on social media. Happy smashing!
