Puzzle Strike 2’s expansion, called Bold Adventures, has four new community bank decks as well as 10 more characters. The first of these bank decks is Haunted House.
Discarding cards is generally bad to do, but Haunted House turns that on its head. It’s full of cards that do things when you discard them, like these:
All four of these cards are reasonably powerful on their own, without any special discarding going on. In that case Gravestone is like the block in your starting deck, except it costs 0 actions instead of 1. Power Cube having you ante two gems (which is likely to give you a run of 4 same-color gems or more!) or Strange Runes filling your super meter are each worth the cost of 1 action most of the time. Werewolf Claw letting you crash for 1 action rather than 2 like your basic crash gem is a huge bargain, and the drawback of adding a wound to your deck will only matter if the game goes long.
But now consider that with Strange Runes and Werewolf Claw, you can get those effects, plus more bonuses, if you can find a way to discard those cards during your turn! Gravestone and Power Cube are worded differently, so if you discard them you won’t get to block 3 or ante two gems, but you will get their discard effects for free (destroying your top gem with Gravestone and +1 action from Power Cube).
How do you discard cards during your turn? Note that none of these effects trigger when you discard your hand and redraw it during the draw phase. You need a way to discard cards during your action phase to trigger these things. The following are some easy ways:
The cards above are a reasonable power level. Not especially strong or weak on their own. Golem Smash is the weakest in that it’s the same as your basic starting crash gem, except it has a drawback of discarding two cards, yet crash gems are so important to add to your deck that you might add it anyway even regardless of any discard mechanics.
But now factor in those discard mechanics! If you can combo any of the above cards with discarding any of the previous set, you’re getting away with quite a lot. If you play Golem Smash, then discard Power Cube and Werewolf Claw to it, for example, you’ll get to:
Crash (from Golem Smash), Gain 1 action (from discarding Power Cube), Crash again and gain a wound (from Werewolf Claw). In other words, you’ll end up crashing twice yet only having 1 fewer action than when you started. Quite a bargain!
This next card has the same mechanic as the above cards, but it’s so powerful that it deserves to be shown by itself:
A double crash for free, if you can discard it somehow!
While the cards above are of the form “Discard ME to get special effects,” some other cards are of the form “Discard ANY cards to get special effects:
Getting a free crash or a free deep swap from simply discarding anything is really strong. Drawing a card for every discard you do is the powerful building block an engine (notice that Vampire is a pink card, the color that often has engine-building cards.)
There’s a few more cards that are notable for just how much they can discard:
Spellbook lets you discard three cards, and is generally useful even without taking advantage of the discard mechanic. But Dark Pact relies entirely on you having a deck full of discard effects. If you do, paying 0 to discard 5 cards, probably your whole hand, becomes exciting. Blue Potion is a much more expensive way to discard your hand (2 actions), but you also get to reduce your gem pile by quite a bit, so it lets you survive the turn while counter-punching with who-knows-what discard effects.
Not everything in the deck is about discard effects. An example of another exciting card is Orchid Ritual:
If you have 1, 2, or 3 purple gems in your super meter, that’s letting you crash, 1, 2, or 3 times, respectively, for the cost of a single action. (You can’t do it with 4 gems in your purple super meter because your super meter activates and empties automatically then.) Setting up a triple crash for 1 action is incredibly satisfying if you can pull it off!
While there’s more in the Haunted House deck, this gives you a taste of the main mechanic. Making discards a resource turns things on their head and feels much different (more “haunted”?) from the other decks.