Neopets TCG: Battle for Meridell

This article is written with the assumption that you know the basics of playing the Neopets TCG. I previously wrote an article over the Base set. Today, we will look at my favorite cards and combos from the first expansion of the Neopets TCG, Battle for Meridell. What's exciting about this expansion is that it introduces a new type of card: Locations. Locations add an interesting aspect to the game. You can put a location into an arena, and you may benefit from the location's special effect. But beware, usually the special effect can help your opponent as well. The trick is to find a location which will help you most of the time, and be of no help to your opponent. On the other hand, you could find a location which may hurt your opponent, but has no effect on you.

Let's take a look at a very powerful combo which involves a location card:

- Armoury of Kass: Play this in the strength arena. Players don't need to tap Neopets to play Equipment onto untapped Neopets or Heroes here.

Combine this with an interesting Petpet from this set

- Turmac: When you play this card, return all other Petpets in its arena to its owners hand.

And with the Kacheek Shepherd which allows the owner to draw a card anytime a Petpet is attached.

Consider this situation in which you have your Kacheek Shepherd in play as well as Armoury of Kass. You also happen to have two Turmacs in your hand. You can now attach a Turmac to whatever pet you have in the strength arena without the cost of tapping a Neopet. You get to draw a card since you have the Kacheek Shepherd in play. Now you can attach your second Turmac onto that same Neopet in the strength arena. The second Turmac's special effects sends the first Turmac back to your hand, but you get to draw a card because of the Kacheek. You can do this repeatedly until you have drawn all the cards you need in order to win the game. You have to make sure you don't run out of cards though or you will lose the game. To be safe, after you get all the cards you need, you should probably tap your Kacheek to bring a new Neopet in play. Therefore, you avoid the slight chance of your opponent using two Turmacs of his own to make you deck out to lose. Beware, this card combo is considered to be very "cheap" by many players. In my opinion it is way overpowered, but this has been discussed over the message boards, and it is fair to play this. There are no expectations to change the ruling on this. Personally, I think it would be better if they changed the effect on Armoury of Kass to being able to attach an equipment only once per turn.

Either way, let's move on to one of my favourite Petpets, the Drackonack.

-Drackonack: In the strength, agility, magic, and intelligence arena, it has stats of 2,3,2,3 respectively. That doesn't seem to great, but its special effect gives it +2 to all stats while there is a villain in play. That gives it stats of 4,5,4,5! I usually always have a villain in play, and I have found this card to be very useful in many different decks.

In my first article, I only mentioned that I disliked most Heroes because they usually get discarded after one turn. Here's a great combo which allows a Hero to stay in for much longer than one turn:

- King Skarl: When you play this card, you may choose a Food in your opponent's bank and discard it. Before each of your turns, if you have any Skarl's Personal Guards in play, choose one of them. It doesn't untap this turn.

- Skarl's Personal Guard: At the end of your turn, if you have any King Skarl's in play, choose one of them. It stays in play instead of being discarded.

Stats worth mentioning: The Guard has a strength stat of 14 and King Skarl has a strength stat of 16 and a magic stat of 16. First off, King Skarl's first effect is that you can get rid of a food in your opponent's bank. This usually means -4 points to your opponent which is awesome. Secondly, King Skarl stays in play as long as the Guard is there. Sure your guard can't untap, but that just means if you have both of them in the strength arena, when you start a contest, you only use King Skarl's stat of 16 which is very strong. But when your opponent starts a contest against you in the strength arena, he has to try to beat the Guard and King Skarl's stat of 14+16. Most likely he'll have to get a lucky roll of 6 to beat a stat of 30. You could also try to get King Skarl in the magic arena because he is just as competent over there while your Guard can defend in the strength arena.

If you want help in getting Skarl's Personal Guard and King Skarl into your hand, why not try the Darigan Paint Brush:

- Darigan Paint Brush: When you bank this card, you can search for a Dark Experienced Neopet, a Dark Hero, or a Dark Villain and put it on the top of your deck. This is great for any deck that plays Dark.

Now let's take a look a nice combo that involves Draiks.

- Draik Soldier: This little guy doesn't look to strong at first glance, but if you look closely, you'll notice he gets double the stats from any armour or weapon that is attached to him. Just imagine the possibilities. I have managed to easily boost his stat to 33. I could have easily made him stronger, but at that point, it's almost useless to keep attaching weapons to him.

- Silver Draik Egg: How else are you going to pull your Draiks? This card is much better than Paint Brushes just for the fact that you get to search for an Experienced Draik and put it directly in your hand. Usually, paint brushes allow you to search for an experienced Neopet and put it on top of your deck. This little difference pays off huge for the Draik as you are almost guaranteed to get him out in play immediately.

The last Experienced Neopet that I thought was worth mentioning is the Meerca Spy.

- Meerca Spy: Not only does the Meerca Spy have an impressive agility stat of 13, but his special effect allows you to look at the top card of your opponent's deck at the end of each of your turns. You can then either leave it on top of the deck or put it at the bottom. You can definitely mess up your opponent's strategy with this effect. He will have a hard time with his plan if you keep putting all the cards he needs at the bottom of his deck!

Lastly, here are two more interesting items:

- Kass's Charm: When you play this in a contest, you may choose a Villain in play and move it into another arena. This card is somewhat similar to Jerdana's Orb from the base set. If you are having trouble defeating a Villain, play this card in a contest and move that Villain into another arena in which you can beat him. Most Villains aren't too strong in multiple arenas. If you don't need to use this card's effect, it can still be helpful as a bank 3.

- Golden Negg: The one of few cards that is higher than a bank 4. The only drawback is that you must discard two cards in order to bank it. Just remember, +5 in the bank can be very helpful, but it will hurt just as much if your opponent somehow gets rid of it. Rumour has it that King Skarl loves to eat golden neggs as a snack!

And remember these tips when building your deck. The minimum number of cards you can have in you deck is 40. There is no maximum, however the closer you keep near 40, the more likely that you'll draw the cards that you need to complete your strategy to win. Having 3 copies of a card that is very helpful in your deck is also a must. You should also consider sticking to less than 2 or maybe even 3 faerie types. Each faerie type has certain cards you may like but you don't want to be fumbling around for a pet that has a certain faerie type just to play one card you have. Speaking of pets, it's usually a good idea to have 3 or less species so you know for sure what pet is going where. You could have 3x of one species, 3x of another species, and 4x of your last species. If you only use 2 species, obviously you can split it 5 and 5 for your 10 basic pets. Remember these are just suggestions, but you should build the deck in a way that you like it. The last tip I will give you is to have fun. You could have the best deck in the world, but if you're not having fun and playing the way you want to play, there's almost no point.

Tune in next time for the Return of Dr. Sloth...