Advanced Key Questing: 1+1=3?!

Last week we discussed advanced strategies using the powerups individually. But now for the exciting part, which I hardly ever see anyone use – using powerups TOGETHER!! No, I do not mean to say that you can use two powerups at the same time. That would be nice, but then it would probably be a lot more obvious and I wouldn’t be writing this guide now, would I? But what you can do is use a powerup one turn, and then use a different powerup for your next turn to complement the one you just used. I began to touch on this in the powerup section explaining strategies for individual powerups, but now I can really get into it.

SPARE KEYRING POWERUP!!!

This is, more or less, the central powerup to many possibilities in combining your own powerups. This powerup is so very, very frequently overlooked by players, yet I absolutely love it. There are two methods by which you can use this powerup to your advantage. The first one is to use powerups so that your opponent ends up picking up two keys of the same color. The second way is to use a powerup to alter your opponent’s keys so that they end up with two keys of the same color.

First, how to force your opponent to pick up two keys of the same color. The powerups you will use to do this are the “direction” and “location” powerups: Transporter Helmet, Misdirected Compass, super and basic Catapults, and the super and basic Piles of Dung. For each of these powerups, let me explain the situation.

Transporter Helmet: You’re on your way to getting the yellow key and your opponent is close to getting the blue key. They already have the yellow key, but you still need both the yellow key and the blue key. It may seem counterproductive, but use your Transporter Helmet to switch to their location. At first, they will probably also be confused. But just wait. Now, roll for your turn and collect the blue key. Then they will roll, and get a second yellow key. Ahhhh.... Now, use your Spare Key Ring to take their extra yellow key. Not only have you gotten both the yellow and the blue keys now, but you’ve successfully prevented your opponent from getting the blue key, and you’ve thrown them off track!

Misdirected Compass: This is easier than pulling off the Transporter Helmet combination because it doesn’t require as many factors. Basically, you just need the person to be going for a key, and then you’re good! Let’s say they just got the white key and they continue up the Neopia Central board to get the yellow key next. If you see where I am going with this, you may want to just reverse them right now – but wait! If that happens, they could simply go along and grab the green key and find a different path. So let them continue along the path to the yellow key. Once they pass the yellow key, use the Misdirected Compass to turn them around. They will have a yellow key from the first time they walked by, and then they’ll get a second one when they’re turned around by your Misdirected Compass. Use your Spare Key Ring grabber, and voila! A key for you, and now they’re thrown off track.

Catapult: Using this powerup in combination has the downside that the person gets to pick what way they want to go when they leave their house. Additionally, it depends on where they’ve decided to start from. It’s most definitely worth a try, though, and, at the very least, its strategies as a solo powerup are still valid. After the game has gone around for a few rolls of the dice, most likely everyone has the key that is closest to their home. Now, use your Catapult to send them back to their home square. Hopefully, they will pass through the key closest to their home again, allowing you to grab it with your Spare Key Ring. “Hopefully” doesn’t cut it in strategy for me, though – and it shouldn’t for you either. To maximize the use of this combination, analyze what keys the person currently has and where on the board they were heading to before you send them home. This way, you can get a better idea of whether or not the person will travel along the path that will cause them to pick up two of the same color key.

Pile of Dung: The methods of using the Pile of Dung to control where a person goes have already been explained in depth in the strategies for the uses of powerups by themselves. Simply enough, use this method to not only force a player to go out of their way, but to also pick up a duplicate of a key they already have – a duplicate that is then all yours.

The other way you can use the Spare Key Ring powerup in a combination is to use a powerup so that your opponent gets two keys of the same colors. The powerups you use to do this are the key altering ones: Rainbow Fountain Water, Distraction Potion, and Swap Key Rings.

Rainbow Fountain Water: Most frequently, people use this powerup to change one “harder to get” keys – white, yellow, blue – into one of the “easier to get” keys – green or red. While yes, this has its advantages, why not cause them to lose a key and gain a key yourself? I have used this many times to grab the final key that I need. Let’s say your opponent has a white key, a yellow key, and a red key. You have a yellow key and a red key. Instead of changing their yellow or white key into a red key, change the yellow key into a white key. Now you can use your Spare Key Ring powerup to grab a white key for yourself, along with having taken away their yellow key!

Distraction Potion: This functions similarly to the method with the Rainbow Fountain Water, but is a little more restrictive than the Rainbow Fountain Water is. This is because you will need to have at least one key that is the same color of a key your opponent already has. The advantage, though, is that you can surprise many people because they won’t see this one coming! For example, let’s say your opponent has a white key, a green key, and a red key. You have a white key, a yellow key, and a blue key. You’re just about to get the red key, and if you didn’t have to also go around the board to grab the green key, you could just finish the game. So, this goes against the common sense of many people because they value the white key more than green or red keys, but use your Distraction Potion to give your white key to your opponent and take their green key. Probably, they will be surprised because they also will think of the different color keys as having different values. But now that they have two white keys, you can use your Spare Key Ring to get back your white key, grab that red key, and win the game.

Swap Key Rings: Doing this gets complicated so I will first say, as I said before about the Swap Key Rings powerup, do not rely on it. Basically, the combination move for this would be to purposely gather doubles of keys while your opponent regularly collects keys. Let’s say you’ve managed to grab two blue keys and two red keys. There is an opponent that has a white key and a yellow key. While it may not seem like the best idea to swap all your keys for theirs, do it anyways. Now that you’ve performed the swap, you can use your Spare Key Ring powerup to take the double blue key and red key you gathered, and you just need the green key now to win.

But don’t think that only the Spare Key Ring powerup is good for combinations! There are tons of possibilities, so keep your mind open and try different things! Here are a few of my other favorite combinations. Hopefully they will get you thinking and you can come up with some of your own combinations!

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Direction/Location Powerup (Misdirected Compass, Transporter Helmet, Catapult, etc) along with a Key Altering Powerup (Rainbow Fountain Water, Distraction Potion): Combining one of each of these types of powerups is a variation (and perhaps combination) of methods that have already been explained. Let me give an example to demonstrate, and I will let you figure out how to use the rest: Misdirected Compass and Distraction Potion. Your opponent has the white key and is on their way to the yellow key. You have a yellow key and just went past and picked up a red key. Now, use the Misdirected Compass on yourself so you can pick up a duplicate red key. Use the Distraction Potion to exchange your red key for your opponents white key! True, they still get a red key out of it, but think of it this way: you saved yourself the time of traveling all the way over to get the white key, and all you had to do was change your direction. Additionally, you most likely just messed up whatever strategy your opponent had, and they have to change what they were doing. Another variation could be using the Mortog powerup to jump in front of them, grab a key that you already have, and then use the Distraction Potion.

Multiple Direction/Location Powerups: This combination is simple enough. Use several direction or location altering powerups in a row to cause your opponent to spend several turns not getting keys and trying to recover. For example, your opponent got the white key and was on their way to getting the yellow key. You got a blue key and were heading around the lower left corner of the board to grab the white key. Instead, though, because you have a Transporter Helmet and a Misdirected Compass, you decide to use your Transporter Helmet right before your opponent gets the yellow key. Now, you grab the yellow key, and they are on the path to getting the white key. Depending on how close they are, you might want to wait a turn between using the Misdirected Compass, but either way, before they get to the fork where they choose to go for the green or yellow key, use the Misdirected Compass on them. Now, not only have they not gotten the yellow key they were after, but they have to spend several turns going around the board.

Then there are other powerups that you could use together, but the effect of the two of them together isn’t more than using each individual powerup, so I am not going to bother to explain all of the possibilities here. For example, if you have the Loaded Jelly Dice powerup and the Boots of Flight powerup. While it would be helpful to use the Boots of Flight to get yourself close to the treasure chest square, and then use the Loaded Jelly Dice to roll the exact number you want, this is just relying on the strategies found inside of each individual powerup and doesn’t really amount to more than the normal sum.

So, now we have spent two sections talking about all of the uses of powerups! For the next week, try using some of the combination strategies you learned today. And, of course, look forward to next week’s section in which we will discuss dealing with the powerups an opponent has and other general strategies! If you have any questions or comments about combining powerups, or perhaps you have a combination I didn’t mention that you think is particularly clever, feel free to neomail me!