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Keep losing in the arena while trying to unlock new characters? We show you how to achieve victory with any type of deck!

Animation Throwdown Tips and Winning Strategies

Keep losing in the arena while trying to unlock new characters? We show you how to achieve victory with any type of deck!
This article is over 8 years old and may contain outdated information

You’ve always wanted to pit heckling Zoidberg against a cocaine-covered Bullock in a card game death match, right? Now you can! For those just getting started on the cartoon mayhem, below we cover what you need to know to develop a winning Animation Throwdown strategy. Still need more help? Be sure to also check out:

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The Basics

There are a few key differences here from the standard CCG. First up, all cards automatically deal overrun damage, with no skill required. If your card deal 5 damage and the opposing card has 1 health, 4 remaining damage will be dealt to the opponent directly. 

Card health also doesn’t restore at the start of each turn like in Magic, and instead must be healed through skills. “Summoning Sickness” is still on display however, as cards don’t attack the turn they are put down.

Combos And Card Order

Setting down skilled cards quickly is paramount. For instance, playing a card with Shield early keeps your lineup defended over subsequent turns, while it’s a good idea to play a card with Recover when you know you will be setting down a combo in the next turn.

Sometimes combos will actually make a card less useful, so know what you are getting into ahead of time. While combos typically raise stats, they can also replace the card’s skills.

The order you play cards doesn’t affect a combo. For instance you can play Crack on turn 1 and Steve Smith on turn 2 or vice versa, but either way you still end up with Withdrawal Steve. 

 Keep your lanes full and your cards combined! 

Deck Building 

Always recycle shards and old, redundant cards to earn more Power, which is used to upgrade cards. Unlike other CCGs, your cards aren’t static – upgrading not only increases stats, but also gives new skills.

After upgrading, the most important aspect of deck building is synergy. If a card can’t combo with most of the other cards in your deck, cull it out. 

Finally, pay attention to a card’s details when building a deck, as skills marked with a star only affect a specific type of card – either a cartoon set (Family Guy, Futurama, etc.) or a specific trait (Hyper, Armed, Educated, Artistic, Drunk).

 Always be upgrading!

Traits

Traits are especially important as they affect whether a card’s skill will affect all cards or just those of the same trait. This doesn’t apply to all skills, but it’s something you have to keep in mind when building your deck.

Note: Skills with the Special trait will only work on characters from the same series.

  • Artistic
  • Armed
  • Artistic
  • Athletic
  • Drunk
  • Educated
  • Hyper
  • Rich
  • Special

Those are all the basics you need to know – so go ahead and join a guild and have fun annihilating your enemies in every Arena match!


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Author
Image of Ty Arthur
Ty Arthur
Ty splits his time between writing horror fiction and writing about video games. After 25 years of gaming, Ty can firmly say that gaming peaked with Planescape Torment, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a soft spot for games like Baldur's Gate, Fallout: New Vegas, Bioshock Infinite, and Horizon: Zero Dawn. He has previously written for GamerU and MetalUnderground. He also writes for PortalMonkey covering gaming laptops and peripherals.