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Full Card Guide for Smith - Prestige 7 Difficulty

By TrueMortal

I can't believe I actually managed to do this one.

Welcome to the third and FINAL guide for characters in Griftlands, the rogue-like card game, featuring Smith. You all know I couldn't let the froggy boy be left out without a guide of his own, so here it goes! And honestly, the trilogy didn't feel complete without this one, so I decided that I might as well go at it again.

I mostly run on the internet under the alias TrueMortal. I have played ~500 hours in Griftlands, I play all characters exclusively on Prestige 7 Brawl, Campaign and Daily modes, which is the game's maximum difficulty (without modificators of course), I like the game a ton and it's one of my favourites to kill time!

You can find my first guide for Sal here: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2908381036
You can find my second guide for Rook here: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2965000280

In this guide I will describe and rate every single one of Smith's cards in terms of usefullness and usability, aka how good or bad one or the other card is. That includes every single battle and negotiation card that a player can obtain during the playthrough but only through drafts alone, excluding some cards that are commonly obtained through other cards, e.g. "Big Brain" from "Smith's Flask" for example. Grafts, Items, Status and Campaign-specific cards are excluded from this guide.

This guide is meant to provide players with insight on any of Smith's cards general usability, synergies, how the card is supposed to be used and to give you my perspective as an experienced player how good any card is in actual practise. You can use this guide as a reference to which cards to pick in your campaigns/brawls or, get a new perspective on cards you generally use in your games.
This guide can help in your average Griftlands gameplay session and since this guide covers the highest Prestige difficulty, it can also be used as reference to complete every single Prestige level below Seven, especially considering all those Prestige levels utilise Mettle, which is disabled on P7, making their completion even more trivial.
And finally, of course this guide is somewhat subjective. With the hours I have in this game I pretty much ironed out my gameplay on all characters and have a good knowledge and understanding of whether any given card has a good use or is terrible. And while I do have quite an experience playing this game, I myself might be missing or lacking information related to niche synergies or synergies I haven't discovered. So if you like a certain card or believe (or know!) that it's better than it first appears, or I rate a card as bad/terrible but you know that it has other use I never mentioned in the first place, please point it out! I am open to critisism and different perspective and would unquestionably take into account your comment and try to re-evaluate cards if possible.

With that being said, let's get onto the guide!

A HUGE DISCLAIMER: this guide's sections will in several cases consist of the same copied text from my first guide, which is natural since there is a lot of same intersecting information for all characters. Moreover, I would like to stick to a consistent format for all of my character's guides, as if each guide was written first.

Award

Created by

TrueMortal
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Category: Characters, Classes, Game Modes, Gameplay Basics, Secrets, Walkthroughs, Weapons

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

18 Feb, 2024 @ 11:48am

14 Jul, 2024 @ 1:41pm

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Guide Index

Overview

Guide Introduction

Main remarks on Smith

Negotiation

Combat

Perks

Basic guidelines for Smith

----- NEGOTIATION CARDS -----

--- MANIPULATE CARDS ---

Amplify

Fall Guy

Go Between

Pursue

Scapegoat

Associates

Revision

Rehearsal

Turnabout

Ad Hominem

Standing

Cachet

Circle Back

Dissect

Ditch

Even Footing

Fixate

Forgo

Ransack

Indecision

Networked

Plastered

Stool Pigeon

Subtle Setup

Carbon Copy

Chaos Theory

Double Down

Insistence

Long Winded

Overdrive

--- DIPLOMACY CARDS ---

Influencer

Networker

Save Face

Consolidate

Incredulous

Amnesty

Braggart

Center of Attention

Contacts

Know a Guy

Parvenu

High Places

Fame

Executive

--- HOSTILITY CARDS ---

Crass

Classic Smith

Degrade

Goon

Quip

All Out

Barrage

Chase

Dominion

Double Entendre

Escalate

Hot Air

Instigate

Powder Keg

Refusal

Renounce

Rescind

Topple

Unyielding

Who?

Domain

Immunity

Simmer

Tempt

Thoughtless

Wild Rant

----- COMBAT CARDS -----

--- MANEUVER CARDS ---

Down the Hatch

Fire Breather

Hole Up

Mouthwash

Nap

Push it

Rubble

Shelve

Snellick's Finest

Swig

Bottomless Vial

Callus

Cavalcade

Duck!

Dumpster Dive

Endless Supply

Gulper

High Stakes

Intensify

Back Stretch

Meditation

Packrat

Pivot

Power Through

Power Trip

Recycle

Reduce

Reuse

Scream

Shrewd

Stoke

Pinto Tour

The Rust Bucket

Tracer

Blood Flow

Certainty

Fortitude

Gumption

Juicer

Masochist

Protective Procedure

Raw Power

Chest Pound

Clean House

Soothing Concoctions

Thickness

Tough and Angry

--- ATTACK CARDS ---

Bottle Hurl

Cheers

Deal

Freebie

Headbutt

Long Night

Rib Cracker

Ruthless

Smash

Splinter

Bonkers

Conquer

Desperation

Batter Up

Kra'deshi Cup

Rampart

The Sledge

Right in the Face

Frenzy

The Pain Train

Obliterate

The Gamble

Mean Streak

Jackpot

Kiss the Fists

Body Blow

Inspirational Blow

Nerve Strike

Entire Supply

Fold 'em

Hammer Down

Hammer Swing

Hurricane

Hold 'em

Knuckle Down

Raise

Shatter

Slug Smash

Bio-strike

----- FLOURISH CARDS -----

--- NEGOTIATION ---

--- COMBAT ---

Example Runs

Closing words

[BONUS VIDEO] THREE-IN-A-ROW SUCCESSFUL BRAWLS ON PRESTIGE 7

Comments

Guide Introduction

Use CTRL + F to search for particular cards, and use Home/End & PageUp/PageDown keyboard buttons to scroll all the way up/down throughout the guide correspondingly.

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Every card has 2 criterias:
- "Rating" - how good the card by itself in a vacuum with some regard to its usage
- "Usage" - applicability of the card in question, e.g. "Generic" means the card can be used in any deck, because it's effect could be generally utilised in any deck (but that alone doesn't necessarily mean that the card is good, refer to "Rating" for it), "Niche" means for the card to work for its full potential it needs help of other cards and/or specific conditions which are tough to achieve
Recommended upgrades which I believe are the best for each individual card are mentioned in the card's Upgrade section
Every card is rated on a scale of 0 to 5
Each card has a description which provides commentary on the card
Seldom, if I have already described a card close to another card mentioned earlier, I won't describe it in detail and simply leave a few remarks or reference the respective card instead.

Main remarks on Smith

Personally, I find Smith to be unfair.

Unfair to the game, because he has several incredibly strong cards/strategies that just trivialize playing him tremendously in both combat and negotiation, making some bosses absolutely irrelevant to face, and after a while it stops being accomplishing. Moreover, once you build a decent enough negotiation or combat deck with him, it becomes very easy to draft cards that essentially overkill your enemies on top of the already busted deck setup you may have.

But at the same time, he is unfair to the player, because in case you decide to not go for those aforementioned cards and/or strategies to make the odds somewhat fair and equal, he becomes quite a slow fighter and drags out combat and negotiations unnecessarily, unlike Sal and Rook in comparison. Also from experience, the game sort of forces you to grab the strong cards regardless of what you want to play with him anyway, because you cannot draft something else entirely and not lose almost instantly outside of those great cards to make the game somewhat fair.

Negotiation

I distinguish two primary Smith negotiation archetypes:

RENOWN
HOSTILITY

RENOWN

The strategy here is pretty obvious: stack as much of the Renown argument as you can and defend it from being destroyed. The primary cards for doing so aren't even the default Name Drops but rather "Networked" / "Ditch". Both of mentioned cards will help you achieve high Renown amounts, and I do not have a preference to any one that you may decide to primarily use. So what should you do? Just run them both in conjunction with each other!

This strategy has a few downsides:

You have to constantly defend your fragile Renown stacks from being destroyed, and if you cannot do that at any given point the consequences may vary from simply damaging your core slightly to losing the negotiation on the spot outright. The redeeming quality of Renown builds is that there are solid cards for them that can help you defend quite consistently. Additionally, draftable argument-generating cards and supporting cards which destroy/copy arguments can be drafted to obtain flexibility in defensive measures.
Renown functions somewhat similiar to Sal's "Doubt" inception, but it deals damage at the end of your turn making it better offensive-wise. However, due to the same reason, Renown may not target what you necessarily want at any given time. While there is a card that specifically deals with this problem, it's unneeded.
To fix this issue, you need to simply keep some basic attack cards and/or get your hands on better non-basic variants later. Sometimes however your basic cards won't be enough, and what's more you eventually will want to remove them as they don't provide much value. What I found out works better early game for Renown decks is to focus on quickly upgrading "Nepotism" to its Diplomacy variant, which will let you attack all enemy arguments at the same time for fantastic damage.
Renown decks suffer from Bartenders. Unless your deck can stack a lot of Renown quickly, going into negotiations against those NPCs is a "go-next" scenario, as they'll simply outlast you.

HOSTILITY

The strategy here is pretty much akin to Sal's one: stack a lot of Dominance and overwhelm your opponents with sheer power of your attack cards. The primary card for Hostility Smith is "Crass", which is his main Dominance source. Many cards benefit from Dominance, but more so the "Double Entendre" card, which lets you attack and defend at the same time, trivialising negotiations tremendously.

There is a lot of benefit in running this archetype in comparison to Renown: you don't need to focus on defending fragile Renown stacks. Basic "Bully" cards become severely damaging and focusing on them tremendously facilitates early game for Smith (though, eventually remove them). Stacking Dominance is easy, doesn't require any synergy and you'll be quickly winning all your negotiations with ridiculous damage of your Hostility cards.

Hostility Smith has one primary downside, and that is not being able to defend and draw very well early on, which means that most of the time early game Smith is kind of forced to tank enemy intents with his face. The defense issue can be fixed by drafting either of the following: "Turnabout" / "Powder Keg", "Double Entendre" or "Domain". Alternatively, you can draft other arguments to act as sort of "protectors" of your core one, which will draw enemy intents on themselves periodically. Specifically good card for this is "Goon". Card draw is a bit of a problem here since unlike in Renown builds there are few cards that provide draw for Hostility decks, but it can be achieved through generic "Ransack" / "Indecision" cards that also fit in Renown decks as well.

Just like with Renown, draftable argument-generating cards and supporting cards which destroy/copy them can be drafted in Hostility decks to obtain flexibility in defensive measures.

HUH? THERE'S ANOTHER ONE?

Now, after describing both of the primary archetypes, I have to say that Smith can just settle for a custom argument-focused deck instead, and surprisingly it sort of works as long as you can get through the early game, you later draft arguments which deal damage so you can progress the negotiation, and you're able to protect yourself consistently.

For example you can focus on stacking some Renown while not being a primarily Renown-centered deck in mind, draft cards that utilise Renown for defense such as "Standing" or "Ad Hominem", and add argument-creating or other supplementing synergistic cards which duplicate them on top. As can be seen from the screenshots below, you can get away with this rudely cooked salad of various arguments or "Argument Mash" even on Prestige 7. But you know, whatever. Let Smith do his thing!

Combat

In combat Smith can be weird to figure out initially. He has several mechanics implemented in his basekit combat and maneuver cards, with the most prominent one being Moxie. Others have non-obvious benefits and applications that are left for the player to discover. Let's discuss all of them first:

The good ones:

Moxie - Smith's most prominent and distinguishing combat mechanic. Once stacked, keeps you quite healthy throughout the whole combat, but relies on non-basic cards to get there since Smith has nothing to help him out in stacking Moxie basekit-wise. On average, stacking Moxie is always at the very least good. I have to say though, if you consistently stack it very high, the game becomes boring, since you simply heal back up to full health from whatever damage your enemies managed to deal to you.
However, at the same time, Moxie by itself only can be detrimental should you decide to rely only on it and skip Defense entirely: against several enemies and some bosses, it may as well happen that they will deal damage equivalent to your whole HP bar on the same turn, which Moxie can do nothing about. What's more, there are very few cards that actually allow for Moxie to obtain significant numbers.
Trauma - benefits some cards by simply being present on an enemy but by itself does nothing until stacked up to 10 times. There is only one card in Smith's card pool that by itself can deal very high damage to an enemy once they are Traumatized. Trauma is useful in speeding up the combat process and plowing through opponents, but only if your deck is focused on the mechanic. Other than that, with other combat cards and outside of it being your primary way of playing, this mechanic only helps out in finishing the combat slightly faster than normal most of the time, as there's nothing really overpowered about it. Building around this mechanic generally speaking works alright.
Adrenaline - Smith's variant of temporary power, except it's slightly worse since does not have an associated debuff to be removed to potentially make said power permanent, but rather gets instantly removed at the end of turn regardless of what you do, but also unlike said temporary power, can be obtained easier since cards that provide this buff are met quite on the regular and Smith can get it through his basekit Flask as well. Functions exactly like one, except can be transferred to Power using one of Smith's card specifically designed for it, and helps out triggering cards' thresholds in case you're lacking Power a little earlier than usual. Though, stacking adrenaline generally speaking requires actions to spend, which means you're not doing anything else on any given turn. You should view this mechanic as a primarily supportive one, but not something you can build your deck around.

The trash ones:

Drink - supplementary card mechanic that puts some amount of bottles in your deck. Bottles do nothing but provide "free" card draw (which you wouldn't even need had this mechanic not existed at all, because you'd draw actual cards instead of Empty Bottles). There are quite a bunch of cards which Expend Empty Bottles to provide some effect depending on amount expended. Thing is, almost all of those cards are totally insignificant in what they accomplish by doing this, as such making them weak, not required to have in your deck at all (and in fact they will clutter your deck due to being just bad), but more ironically turning the entire Empty Bottle mechanic completely irrelevant in terms of combat benefits. Moreover, cards which let you draw in combat can draw empty bottles too which is stupidly annoying, and this affects all combat draw cards for Smith, and as such, if you decide to cast bottles to continue drawing, you'll lose out on effects of cards that can benefit from having bottles in your deck. Considering how weak the majority of cards that benefit from them, in the end Empty Bottles should the majority of the time be used as means to cast them straightforwardly for card "draw" and help out with some bosses, e.g. Flefkis and Brut, and that's about it
Alleviate - do not even bother. Absolutely irrelevant mechanic that is somehow even worse than Empty Bottles. The majority of the cards that deal damage to you do so in manageable amounts, especially after upgrades, and spending your actions to redeem the negative damage effect and heal back up from them while doing absolutely nothing else in turn is just atrocious. But the real reason this mechanic is not needed is because Moxie exists, which is a tremendously better mechanic in and of itself! And it basically does the same thing which is healing you back up but times better than Alleviate ever will. As such, always skip cards that focus on Alleviate and never bother with this ultra-niche mechanic.

Next up, let's discuss what you actually should be doing and focusing on in combat with Smith.

It's quite simple really: just stack Power

Smith has a lot of cards that feature the "Threshold" keyword, and the effects those provide by reaching their respective Thresholds are great. While Adrenaline could be used instead of Power to trigger those Thresholds, it's inconsistent in acquisition from turn to turn, while Power on the other hand persists. One of Smith's best defense cards only works greatly with high damage numbers. Stacking Power as such is of high priority, and a couple of Power points will make you trigger Threshold cards' effects consistently from turn to turn, which is the primary way for Smith to win. Smith has a bunch of cards that help him out in acquiring Power, and what's more upgraded basic Flask can provide it for free too, which is why I recommend to use the Boosted Upgrade on it always.

Alternatively, Smith can focus on stacking Wound on his enemies to substitute for lack of Power but keep in mind that some enemies are Metallic, meaning you'll be stuck chipping them down bit by bit should you only rely on Wound. As such, I rate Wound-applying cards as less useful, since Smith quite often has to face Metallic enemies

Once you stack enough Power on Smith and have enough of Threshold cards and some support of the aforementioned good combat mechanics, everything just falls correctly into place for him. Some Moxie, some Trauma and Adrenaline, a little of this, a little of that. But primarily - stack Power and draft Threshold cards

Perks

Before getting into a Griftlands match, we need to cover the Perks that you should take with you on Prestige 7.

The following three in my opinion provide the best value out of all Perks in Griftlands, and are what I virtually use on the regular, permanently, 99.999% of the time, for the following reasons:

Basic Training - Smith's basic cards are weak. You want to upgrade them ASAP and preferrably destroy/expend, but default experience is too long for the highest Prestige difficulty. Heck, even with this you won't be able to upgrade all of your cards until the very first boss which may already give you a lot of trouble. As such, this Perk is an invaluable asset: lowers both Combat/Negotiation cards' EXP, allows you to upgrade them way, way faster than you'd normally would and personally, in my opinion, this is how Prestige 7 Griftlands should always be played.
Fast Learner - for same reasons as Basic Training, this Perk helps out upgrading your non-basic cards so you can start getting your deck to late-game ASAP. It covers every single card in the game, and has huge value for a single Perk.
Ancient Warrior - (Note, this perk is not that necessary to have on Smith, specifically since most of his cards don't really need instant upgrading, and are fine by themselves even before the upgrade. You can take any perk instead of this one here, however personally I prefer +1 Power, as Smith benefits from that buff dramatically.)
This Perk helps you get through the early game by upgrading non-basic cards instantly once you draft them, so overall you get 4 upgraded cards, two for Combat and Negotiation. The value of this Perk is that you can start using upgraded versions of cards immediately without the need to upgrade them in combat or negotiation first, which becomes invaluable early. Some cards desperately need upgrading ASAP, others not so much, but still could utilise this Perk nonetheless. Some early-drafted cards you don't even want to start using immediately in negotiation/combat because your main early game priority is upgrading and getting rid of basic cards. Moreover, you can skip first few drafts to potentially get better cards and immediately upgrade them with this. It facilitates early game by a large margin, as the cards you upgrade instantly can serve as a hefty support for you to focus on upgrading other cards and getting through that first day boss. Truly, a Perk you cannot miss taking.

Basic guidelines for Smith

Here is a description of what you generally should do with Smith's basic cards you get at the start of every game as well as general deck-building tips:

NEGOTIATION

Once you're set on an archetype, remove all cards of the opposite one. Destroy up to two offensive cards depending on your initial draft and/or what upgrades you got for them, but keep at least one until you get better non-basic cards. If you're playing Hostility, you can initially keep "Name Drop" cards for some card draw, but eventually get rid of them.
Upgrade "Nepotism" as quickly as possible for your chosen archetype. This is especially important for Renown decks to help deal with enemy arguments easier.
I would advise against destroying Composure cards, unless you drafted a good composure card. At worst expend.

COMBAT

Destroy, if possible, all basic attack cards. Expend is the second best option, though eventually try to remove them.
I would advise against destroying Defense cards, unless you drafted a good defense card. Destroy a couple but keep the rest with at worst expend until you get better non-basic options
Do not remove "Smith's Arsenal". It is advised to upgrade into "Smith's Hammer" on a generic run, or "Smith's Bottle" instead if you want to stack Wound. However, both in brawl and campaign mode you absolutely have to upgrade to "Smith's Hammer" in case you see that you're going to battle against a specific boss: Mark Nine Nine. Smith kind of gets hard-rolled by that boss, especially considering Smith wants to stack Power and there are few decent defensive capabilities for him. Smith's Hammer features a Restrained attack card that dramatically lowers Mark Nine Nine's damage, making said boss manageable for Smith instead of an automatic loss.
Do NOT remove "Smith's Flask". For this Grifter specifically, I would not recommend doing it ever, since the utility it provides is really valuable to Smith. For upgrades, I prefer the Boosted one here, since Smith is reliant on Power and this upgrade allows him to sometimes get it for free, not to mention the Flask has an option to re-cast itself so you will have the Power option presented to you more often that not.

TIPS

It's usually a good idea to remove most (ideally all) of your basic attack cards because they provide little damage/utility. Most of your offensive in a deck should come from non-basic cards.
Thinning your deck is your top-priority. This will allow you to draw good cards more often. Bad cards clutter your deck and are a waste of a draw. You only have so many actions per turn, and must utilise them as much as you can. "Thinning a deck" comes from destroying cards as well as having some of them expend upon use (and getting item cards with the Replenish keyword). So assuming your deck has 14 cards, if half of them have the "Expend" keyword (abilities for instance), that means that this deck essentially has 7 cards in it for permanent use during encounters, which will allow you to draw these 7 good cards over and over again.
Since you (most of the time) have 3 actions at your disposal, you must value each action point. That means you have to be ruthless when it comes to choosing which cards to pick. A lot of the time it's better to skip the cards you are given in a draft. Remember, the less bad cards clutter your deck, the better.
For the same reason as above, you should strive for making your deck cheap and low-cost while prioritising cards which provide best efficiency for your actions. This will ensure you get as much output from each of your turns as possible, rather than just being able to cast two-three cards and ending your turn
Choosing playstyle for either combat and negotiation you want to go with should come from first 1-3 card drafts the game gives you. If you get a good card early on, it should be an indicator of which archetype you should be building and steering towards on that session.

----- NEGOTIATION CARDS -----

--- MANIPULATE CARDS ---

Amplify

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This card just clutters your hand the majority of the time and its effect is unimportant. Increasing a card's damage by a measly two points is incredibly negligible, there are very few cards that benefit from it (e.g. "Contacts") but for which the effect is unnecessary anyway, and if said card you want isn't in your hand alongside "Amplify" in the first place, this card is even more useless to you.

Upgrades: Boosted

Fall Guy

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Non-Renown Arguments

Commentary: For defensive purposes, this card provides low composure numbers. While could be used anywhere, primarily finds use alongside "Subtle Setup" or "Powder Keg" to force enemy intents on them. Outside of said applications, it is highly detrimental to make all enemy intents target your useful arguments, especially if you're playing Renown, not to mention if you're against an Admiralty opponent, if this card is applied on an incepted bomb, it can end up being very bad

Upgrades: Primarily Focused to make enemy intents target what you want

Go Between

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: In a good deck, Smith will not allow for arguments to be destroyed in the first place, and this pseudo-tank argument which defends your core is not needed anywhere.

Upgrades: Whatever

Pursue

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: See "Amplify". This version may be slightly better as the card you'd want to buff does not have to be in your hand but at the same time if it is, then this card is just as useless as "Amplify". Another problem with this card is that it improvises any card, not just attack ones that actually feature damage numbers, sometimes making half of its effect useless

Upgrades: Whatever

Scapegoat

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Arguments that damage

Commentary: The effect overall is almost useless: you're just better off targeting enemy arguments by your actual attack cards instead rather than relying on this card. No other arguments for your opponent in play? Then this card clutters your hand 24/7

Upgrades: Whatever

Associates

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Renown Niche

Commentary: In campaign, this can have some value to act as a small "Call to Fame" Flourish and immediately give you some Renown boost, but only later in Campaign progression, and which is unneeded due to how quickly Smith can stack Renown anyway, especially by the time you reach relevant numbers on this card. In brawl, this card is entirely useless, as you're never getting enough people to love you even with shills to make this card's numbers any relevant, so you shouldn't even bother.

Upgrades: Whatever

Revision

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Non-Renown Arguments

Commentary: Strong card and effect but only on the condition you obtained "Powder Keg" and/or "Hot Air" prior, as with other arguments the effect provides virtually no value. Essentially this will give you another copy of those arguments to work with which is kind of overkill if you already run them both alongside "Turnabout". Never use this card with Renown.

Upgrades: Both are decent, but I prefer to draw cards

Rehearsal

Rating: 1-/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Costly and just an unnecessary effect everywhere. Best used probably with "Double Entendre" or "Executive" to achieve high damage numbers, which in my opinion is totally unneeded to win

Upgrades: Whatever

Turnabout

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Synergy enabler card, which needs ASAP upgrading. This is your primary one that destroys your own arguments, and its main usage is with "Powder Keg" / "Hot Air", as using it on other beneficial ones isn't justified. The first argument specifically alongside this card provides insane defense values for every single argument you may have, not to mention you can cast this several times in one turn too. But apart from those arguments, it can also destroy detrimential ones that your own cards can create, as such enabling crazy value situations and strategies with "Who?" and/or "All Out", when without it those cards would be far worse in generic circumstances. Renown decks don't benefit from this card as much, although considering the majority of arguments fit into any deck, noone stops you from running those with "Turnabout" too. Can sometimes clutter your hand during early turns when there are no arguments in play in case you drew it before generating them.

Upgrades: Always Pale

Ad Hominem

Rating: 4+/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: This is a very useful and comfortable card to run for Renown decks. The Renown cost is quite cheap for a fantastic effect, as It helps protect not only your Renown stacks but also other arguments (or detrimential inceptions!) you may have including your core one, and it essentially adds some composure to your basic composure cards improving them as such. It just feels so good to have this when there are a lot of small damage intents targeting various arguments as you do not worry about defending them at all and can focus on stacking Renown instead or use a single composure card where you need it the most

Upgrades: Both are fine. I prefer a stronger effect.

Standing

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: Very easy condition to meet. A considerable amount of Composure points this card provides is fantastic, especially early and it gets even better after the upgrade, always being relevant at any point in the game

Upgrades: Always Stone, the condition for this card is very very easy to meet

Cachet

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: There are better cards for Renown stacking, and even if used for pseudo-card recycling, there are still better options for card draw instead

Upgrades: Whatever

Circle Back

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Non-Renown Arguments

Commentary: Best usage comes from using this on "Powder Keg" / "Hot Air" to gain another copy of those. You won't benefit from using this on other arguments as much as with those two, and overall this card is unneeded to run anyway

Upgrades: No preference

Dissect

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Arguments

Commentary: Sal's "Elucidate" for Smith, but this version lets you choose which argument you want to copy by default. Very useful with many arguments, but primarily with Renown, Dominance or "Powder Keg". Use on many Renown / Dominance stacks to speed up the negotiation process or on any beneficial argument to double its potential value

Upgrades: Enduring provides more value over time

Ditch

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Renown Primary

Commentary: This is one of the primary Renown stacking cards. In comparison to "Networked", it's a little unreliable but the effect is way more powerful, especially after the upgrade. Should be used as the last card you cast in turn to discard every single card left in hand for maximum effect. Use this and "Networked" together for consistent Renown gains.

Upgrades: Boosted upgrade provides the most powerful Renown-obtaining effect in the game, and is my preferred choice here, as this card is mainly taken for the effect, and you cast it at the end of turn. What's more it breaks even in Renown numbers at just three-four cards in hand (excluding "Ditch" itself) in comparison with the other upgrade

Even Footing

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is nice to have early on, although the random targeting of this card sometimes is annoying but for a single card the Composure it provides is great. The value of this card lessens the more arguments you have on your side, as Composure becomes too spread out, meaning you may not get it where you want it to be. If you drafted better Composure cards prior, this card is irrelevant.

Upgrades: I prefer Boosted

Fixate

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: It makes "Even Footing" a bit better, or could take away the Composure from "Goon" to apply it somewhere else, but the thing is this card is unneded in 100% of cases as Smith has cards that apply Composure where you specifically need it anyway, or can defend every single argument at once

Upgrades: Whatever

Forgo

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Another version of "Amplify" / "Pursue" that is unnecessary and unneded anywhere. Actually it's worse since the effect is temporary and it forces you to expend cards, eventually making it so you can't cast this without getting rid of something good

Upgrades: Whatever

Ransack

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is a fantastic draw card and it is highly encouraged to run several of these in your deck. Ransack's value varies from just good to incredibly busted. It's simply invaluable to run in any deck, especially considering Smith's draw options are somewhat limited and the ease at which it is upgraded.

At the very least you're always up one card with this, and that's for free. It doesn't even matter that it discards at random, you might have as well not had the cards it discarded in your hand in the first place so whatever.

But at the very best, you're enabling infinite strategies. For example: "Known Thug". If you have several upgraded Ransacks and a thin deck, you don't need anything else to win as you'll infinitely draw them and deal damage to your opponent. Several Ransacks can draw each other alongside other cards (which may also cost zero depending on how you upgraded them), making it tremendously easy to cycle throughout your whole deck. Just the fact that you're casting Ransacks repeatedly increases your Flourish meter. Needless to say, draft this card at once.

Upgrades: Always Visionary. It is essentially Rook's "Bluff" for Smith but which is always free, as you're going to be up two cards no matter what

Indecision

Rating: 4+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: "Ransack"s little brother. Just as with that card, there's really no downside to running this, as it increases your deck's consistency

Upgrades: I prefer Visionary, since you're always up one card

Networked

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Renown Primary

Commentary: One of the main Renown stacking cards, and its quite consistent in Renown providing effect. This card should be used while having many cards in hand, which is either at the start of turn or after drawing a lot of cards. "Ditch" in comparison has a more powerful effect, but a bit less reliable. Use them both together for consistent Renown gains.

Upgrades: Always Visionary. Reason being is that when cast, this card does not count itself as being in hand, and the difference with the other upgrade is a single point of Renown which is negligible, as such it is better to draw something else instead

Plastered

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Non-Renown Arguments

Commentary: Best use is with "Powder Keg" / "Hot Air". With other arguments, the value varies depending on how useful your own argument is (or if you have many arguments to spare) in comparison to enemy ones, and using it on Renown is just horrible. What's more, you can just target the enemy arguments with your attack cards instead of relying on this card. In my opinion, best role of this card is to be an "Escalation" argument remover, as Smith doesn't have good means of removing said argument while running Hostility

Upgrades: No preference

Stool Pigeon

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: The Bait of this argument helps protect your valuable Renown stacks, and that alone makes it worth taking this card. Alongside other Composure cards which you should spam on the Bait, you can be certain that the risk of Renown getting destroyed is avoided completely. With arguments that want to be targeted however, isn't as useful to run alongside

Upgrades: The Enduring upgrade allows to beef the Bait argument up, and even get it back should it get destroyed anyhow. Moreover, having that upgrade makes "Stool Pigeon" as another card in your hand for either "Ditch" or "Networked" to benefit from, although it will clutter your hand a little

Subtle Setup

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Even if not damaged at all and succesfully defended, this argument will mirror every single damage intent back onto your opponent, which is quite nice. Unfortunately not always targeted, as such being mostly useless, making itself even worse the more arguments you have. Can work by itself alongside some Composure cards and/or serve as a primary target for "Focused Fall Guy" or "Topple". Copying this argument a lot can be a decent damage addition although it may be tough to successfully defend the copies all at once. And of course it acts as another argument which can benefit from those cards which can copy it

Upgrades: No preference

Carbon Copy

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: There are few cards that Smith wants to have of several copies in his deck, but they do exist (the list is not limited to these): "Ransack", "Double Entendre", "Crass". You can pick this card to not rely on card draft RNG in getting a second copy of any of the aforementioned cards, but they need to be in your hand together which may take a couple of turns.

One of the better applications of this card is in synergy with grafts/items that cheapen cards. If you manage to have a card discounted by any means and then cast "Carbon Copy" on it, the created copy will literally have 0-cost for the entire negotiation which is fantastic, depending on card of course. Outside of said applications, the value of copying any one card is of variable value between "meh" and "decent"

Upgrades: No preference

Chaos Theory

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: See "Long Winded". This is an initially weaker but persistent variant of that card's effect. And of course it simply acts as another argument, benefitting from those cards which can copy it

Upgrades: No preference. Know that if you choose Enduring, the more stacks of "Chaos Theory" you have, the more cards it will cast for free from your hand

Double Down

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: It's best to view this card as "Cast something twice". It is preferrable to use on a card that expends anyway so you don't lose out much on value, which are mainly argument-creating ones, so for example as you can see on the provided screenshot I have an upgraded "Ad Hominem" argument which was cast twice with this card and now it gives me six Composure for a single Renown which is insane value (I also copied it with "Dissect"). Not much use in casting it with anything else and to be fair card's overall value is low alongside being very costly for it, I don't find it that useful to pick into any deck

Upgrades: No preference

Insistence

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Arguments

Commentary: This is a less reliable "Dissect", and it's better used not for Renown / Dominance stacking, but to gain more single-use powerful arguments instead faster, like "Powder Keg"

Upgrades: No preference

Long Winded

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: For a single-time use, generally speaking, this card's alright to have as it can provide value of two cards (or more, depending on the cost of what was drawn) for one action, although cards that require targets will be cast on random ones.

Before drafting this card however, think about your deck's contents. If you're running anything that destroys or targets your own arguments, essentially anything that requires your precise input to use on specific targets or at specific times, this card becomes very risky to use blindly, especially while running Renown. And be extremely careful when you're trying to provoke someone as this card can become absolutely devastating to you, because it can draw and cast "Insult" for free which will essentially obliterate your whole drawn hand, potentially removing good and valuable cards. In case your deck doesn't care about destroying your own arguments or targeting them, have a go at it

Upgrades: No preference

Overdrive

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Very bizzare card. It acts as a pseudo-finisher, but expending every single card you cast is tremendously risky for obvious reasons, and at the same time the Burnout keyword forces you to use early on, wasting essentially your whole turn too. In a bad deck this is meh, and if your deck is good and eventually going to win you the negotiation anyway, why risk it at all for a good but an unnecessary effect?

Upgrades: I guess Stable so that you're not forced to use it early. Upgrading this card manually is incredibly tough, however

--- DIPLOMACY CARDS ---

Influencer

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: While Renown Smith wants a card or two that can destroy enemy arguments at a whim, there are simply better Diplomacy attack cards for Smith than this featuring more damage, and what's more basic "Compel" from "Courtly Nepotism" is more useful anyway. Could serve as a last effort alternative.

Upgrades: Boosted always, meeting the Renown requirement is easy

Networker

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Renown / Infinite Combo

Commentary: Very useful and handy draw source in Renown decks since the condition is very easy to meet. For the Infinite Combo, see "All Out".

Upgrades: Always Visionary

Save Face

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: Decent composure numbers, although spending Renown for this just feels bad, especially considering Smith has better ways to consistently get Composure without the same drawback. Frankly speaking, just use "Standing" instead of this

Upgrades: Whatever

Consolidate

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Don't

Commentary: Utterly worthless card that sucks out your valuable Renown for a meaningless effect. Even if it is any good with one argument or another, you're just wasting huge Renown numbers, not to mention if you don't have any then this card clutters your deck and hand insanely

Upgrades: Whatever

Incredulous

Rating: [It's cost]/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: Never use this card. The effect is absolutely irrelevant considering other cards provide way better Renown numbers than this ever will even post upgrade. I played with it once and never picked it again as it cluttered my hand 24/7 after the first turns and outside of immediate upgrade bonuses I could just barely finish upgrading it manually by the very end of a brawl run when this card became irrelevant

Upgrades: Pure, but don't run this card, the upgraded effect isn't worth the slot in your deck.

Amnesty

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Get-out-of-jail card. Will buy you a turn so you don't have to worry defending arguments but considering you always want to build your deck in a manner that it can defend arguments well in the first place, why would you need this then? Unless you're unnecessarily dragging negotiation out in which case your deck isn't good in the first place, there's little reason to pick this card, as it will clutter your hand and deck

Upgrades: The Fixed one makes this card not clutter your hand as much

Braggart

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Renown Niche

Commentary: For-fun card that acts primarily as a finisher. If you cast this early however, you will clutter your deck heavily, as Brags only cost 0 until played, not that useful by themselves and you want to cast them instantly. While could be used in any deck, Brags primarily work with Renown so its suited for those types of decks.

Upgrades: Boosted

Center of Attention

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: A slighly better "Consolidate" is still not worth it to run in your deck

Upgrades: Whatever

Contacts

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: Okay-ish card for Renown gain, although "Name Drop" is more consistent in numbers before this card's upgrade. Can also be the target of "Amplify" / "Pursue" but there are better ways to gain Renown quickly

Upgrades: Tall, since "Nepotism" can give you Influence and increase Renown gained

Know a Guy

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: This card tries to be your "saving grace" if by any chance you fail to defend your Renown stacks from enemy intents. In a decent deck with solid defense options that situation almost never arises so overall this card is just unneeded most of the time. Using it to stack Renown is bad, as by itself its worse than "Name Drop"

Note that the secondary effect of this card can be avoided: you gain an argument that triggers the primary effect if it remains at the end of your turn, meaning you can use cards that destroy and/or target arguments on it

Upgrades: Depends on what you are doing. If you plan on destroying the detrimental argument this card creates, then go for Boosted to stack Renown. The Twisted one makes it feel somewhat better about losing all of your Renown since you at least transfer it all into some damage, or in case you have lots of Renown acts as a finisher option, which in my opinion is also not needed in a deck that can stack a lot of Renown, because if you managed to stack it to high numbers in the first place it means you can defend Renown well enough as is, making this card irrelevant to you.

Parvenu

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: Strong damage but unfortunately this card only considers individual times you've gained Renown, which are usually few per turn, and not the amount. As such by the time this card becomes zero-cost, it becomes irrelevant as you will have won the negotiation anyway.

Upgrades: Pale at least speeds up the cheapening process

High Places

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: Best Diplomacy damage card for Smith, covers a lot of resolve range of enemy arguments, and you need this card to not rely on Renown to target enemy arguments for you and get rid of them with this instantly. Unfortunately you can only consistently lower its cost to zero with "Ditch" / "Networked" alongside in your deck, otherwise this is quite slow. Still, with the speed at which Smith can stack Renown, in a decent deck like that this card is essentially free the majority of the time, making it a highly valuable asset, especially if drawn several times in a single turn

Upgrades: No preference

Fame

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Renown Niche

Commentary: Remember "Pressure" for Rook? This is it for Smith, albeit slower. The condition however is even easier, requiring any Renown amount and only to be drawn, not cast from hand. While it does require you to have a thin deck to make the most use out of its effect, a couple of "Indecision"s, a couple of "Ransack"s or both at the same time make it ridiculously easy to infinitely draw and repeatedly amplify this card's damage. And even outside of said infinite combo, it's a great damage addition for renown decks

Upgrades: Always Boosted, just like for Rook's Pressure

Executive

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: Pretty good card to be able to target and destroy enemy arguments at a whim. The Renown criteria can be reached with relative ease. While the card finds synergy with "Amplify" / "Rehearsal" and their alikes, that synergy is not needed at all, as this card's amplified base damage is enough by itself to help remove enemy arguments anyway

Upgrades: Always Boosted

--- HOSTILITY CARDS ---

Crass

Rating: 5+/5
Usage: Hostility Dominance Source

Commentary: I put this card at the start of this section for a reason: it enables everything for Hostility Smith. Straight-up gaining Dominance at essentially no downside is fantastic and exactly what you need for damage purposes. Want to win easily? Have this alongside "Double Entendre". In a thin deck you should be casting this card repeatedly and you'll very quickly overwhelm enemy opponents with your cards' damage numbers

Upgrades: Boosted for tremendous Dominance gain

Classic Smith

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Hostility Niche

Commentary: This looks like "Braggart" but to be fair it's worse. "Bully" cards are useful early but not so much late, only some of their upgrades, and you'd rather spend actions for other better Hostility cards. Also forces you to keep not-so-useful Brags in a Hostility-focused deck, and you want to have your deck as thin as possible

Upgrades: Whatever

Degrade

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Hostility Generic

Commentary: This card is taken to benefit from large Dominance numbers, but needs quick upgrading and support from "Crass", after which it becomes a monstrous nuke

Upgrades: Considering the card's usage, Mirrored upgrade significantly outperforms the other option

Goon

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This card's primary function is to be sort of a "protective" argument. The damage it deals cannot be increased, so it is only used as to purely exist and just draw fire on itself sometimes either through natural means or through the "Fall Guy" card. Hostility Smith can utilise this early game as his early defense options are few and he sort of has to tank intents with his face

Upgrades: No preference

Quip

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Just provides some additional damage sometimes, that's about it. Also acts simply as another argument in Smith's card pool to run alongside others

Upgrades: No preference

All Out

Rating: ???/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: I do not know how to evaluate this card. It has either a tremendously bad downside making it not worth it to run or none at all which makes it insane. "Pale Turnabout" turns this card into a free no-drawback repeated cheapening effect, which is busted: cards are discounted until the end of turn, not until played. But some cards when they're made 0-cost make it so that your turn can just never end! Simply running this card with one-two copies of "Networked" and some other card draw even without destroying the created detrimential argument enables infinite damage combo, as once discounted and enabled with Renown you can draw cards with it for free for the rest of turn, and apart from that, there are probably way too many other crazy synergistic builds with "All Out" that I won't be able to list them all here. This card essentially suffers from the same problem as "Jackpot": it's too good to play in a correct deck that can support it.

Note that the secondary effect of this card can be avoided: you gain an argument that enables the primary detrimential effect if it remains, meaning you can use cards that destroy and/or target arguments on it

Upgrades: For the reasons above and with some card support, Boosted upgrade makes this card ridiculous

The provided screenshot is basically what happens when you run "All Out" in a proper deck. I think this guy might be annoyed just a little:

Barrage

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Hostility Generic

Commentary: "Degrade" is better and +1 damage on this card means nothing in comparison

Upgrades: Whatever

Chase

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Hostility Generic

Commentary: "Unyielding" is this card's direct upgrade

Upgrades: Whatever

Dominion

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Hostility Niche

Commentary: Because Hostility Smith has few draw options, you can use "Name Drop" for card draw instead, but then you're left with detrimental Renown. This card acts as that Renown utiliser to exchange it for Dominance. Thing is you're wasting deck slots for Name Drops / "Dominion" when you could have just gotten a single copy of "Crass" and upgrade it to provide the same effect.

Upgrades: Pale

Double Entendre

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Hostility Generic

Commentary: Very stupid card. There's no downside to picking it in Hostility decks: you're attacking your enemies and at the same time defending yourself simultaneously which is giga-busted, as every single Dominance point makes this card much stronger in every single way. "Double Entendre" and "Crass" go hand-in-hand together. Your deck can literally consist of two of those cards in several copies and you'll win every single negotiation. This card means you don't have to worry about anything and just stack offense constantly on top of ridiculous impenetrable defense it provides for every single argument.

Upgrades: Tall

Escalate

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is a "win more" finisher card which primarily finds use in Hostility decks to speed up the negotiation process of already as is destructive Hostility cards, and it makes other cards especially damaging alongside accumulated Dominance stacks

Upgrades: Pale, as the Vulnerability downside isn't significant in the first place

Hot Air

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Weak as a standalone, great in several numbers. Primarily needs "Turnabout" for its damage to be amplified repeatedly. Cards which copy, duplicate or destroy arguments can help create several "Hot Air" arguments at once which serve as fantastic damage additions

Upgrades: I prefer Boosted

Instigate

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: This argument takes too long to trigger its damage, as by the time it does the negotiation is probably already won. Without supporting cards, it does nothing. You're better off viewing this argument that adds "Draw a card" to any effect or a card that destroys your own arguments like "Turnabout". Naturally can be copied for cumulative effect

Upgrades: Whatever

Powder Keg

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: One of Smith's best arguments. Essentially, once placed it cannot be ever removed no matter what. It fits everywhere and even if used just by itself it's good, as it acts as a tanky pseudo-protector argument that can draw enemy intents and damage your opponent, you don't even have to defend it and just apply Composure to your core for the leftover damage. But alongside "Focused Fall Guy", cards that destroy/copy arguments and especially "Turnabout", this becomes a repeated nuke/defense option. Naturally, that is fantastic.

Upgrades: No preference

Refusal

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Renown Niche

Commentary: This card's argument only works with cards that spend Renown and does not work with arguments that do so. Cards that spend Renown are few, and what's more they're almost all bad and unneeded, meaning this card is too, not to mention the effect is quite poor anyway.

Upgrades: Whatever

Renounce

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Essentially this is an unneeded finisher card, which is only useful with high Dominance stacks, but why would you run it if you can end the negotiation eventually regardless with other cards?

Upgrades: Whatever

Rescind

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Weird attack card that wants you to be running Renown in Hostility. It tries to be a finished card of sorts or a get-out-of-jail card but for it to deal hefty damage it also needs some Dominance. Even if you stack a lot of Renown, why spend it then for this card's attack when those stacks themselves deal a lot of damage from turn to turn?

Upgrades: Whatever

Topple

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Best usage of this card is with "Powder Keg" / "Hot Air" / "Subtle Setup". By itself it's sort of worthless as there may be many enemy intents in play and the value of dismissing just one is low. Targeting beneficial arguments other than aforementioned ones is of questionable value or is detrimential. You also cannot be running this card while stacking Dominance, as it's going to destroy your arguments completely while potentially spilling leftover damage on your core argument in the process. It's better but quite niche application is found in conjunction with several other cards / arguments and only after upgrading it: for example with "Powder Keg" / "Hot Air", "Pale Turnabout" and a couple of "Ransack" cards or other card draw, you can repeatedly cast and draw "Topple", removing all enemy intents

Upgrades: Pale

Unyielding

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Hostility Generic

Commentary: After stacking enough Dominance, this card can single-handedly clear all enemy arguments essentially for free, which is its primary function

Upgrades: Tall

Who?

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Renown Niche

Commentary: Yes, you! The primary function of this card is to accelerate your Renown stacking capabilities. But how can you do that if it removes all Renown at the end of turn? Why with the help of your friend "Turnabout" of course! Once upgraded and drawn several times a turn in conjunction with the aforementioned card, you can repeatedly double your Renown stacks which will get you the highest number of Renown in the game which is 99. Outside of said application, this card only functions as a different "Know a guy" variant, and most of the time clutters your hand.

Note that the secondary effect of this card can be avoided: you gain an argument that triggers the primary effect if it remains at the end of your turn, meaning you can use cards that destroy and/or target arguments on it

Upgrades: With Pale and some support from card draw, you can double Renown stacks several times in a turn essentially for free

Domain

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Hostility Generic

Commentary: Very nice defensive option for Hostility decks, and is even better in doing its job after the upgrade. Can be used instead of "Double Entendre" for defensive purposes

Upgrades: Stone

Immunity

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Renown

Commentary: Unnecessary effect pretty much everywhere, as there are better defense options utilising Renown or not, which are also not a single-time use too

Upgrades: Whatever

Simmer

Rating: 4+/5
Usage: Hostility Generic

Commentary: Pretty good cheapening effect for any Hostility deck, although needs quick upgrading to not clutter your hand, which is easy to do as you just have to play out negotiations normally. With several "Ranskack" / "Indecision" cards when you draw them repeatedly this card can essentially be infinitely discarded and redrawn and as such discount your entire hand over and over again

Upgrades: Visionary is preferrable, especially when you can discard and draw this card several times a turn

Tempt

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Just a high damage Hostility card that requires support from "Turnabout" and/or other argument-destorying cards, not necessary to have although becomes cheap relatively quickly and can go alongside your build once you have supporting cards for it in your deck

Upgrades: No preference

Thoughtless

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Hostility Generic

Commentary: Dominance can be earned easier, cheaper and at a less detrimential condition

Upgrades: Whatever

Wild Rant

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Hostility Generic

Commentary: Hostility variant of "Long Winded", albeit less reliable as sometimes there can be less than two or no Hostility cards in your draw pile.

Upgrades: No preference

----- COMBAT CARDS -----

--- MANEUVER CARDS ---

Down the Hatch

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Okay-ish draw card fitting for any deck with slight bonus of providing Bottles

Upgrades: I take Visionary always

Fire Breather

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Acts as a substitute Adrenaline source instead of "Deal". I'd rather attack and deal damage than just get a Bottle in my deck

Upgrades: More Adrenaline of course

Hole Up

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: You cannot really predict when you're going to be attacked on any given turn, and when you do you want to have defense now. This card also sort of forces you to cast it every time you draw it because of the very same reason, wasting your actions, so in the end comes out quite lackluster, even though the defense it gives is alright.

Upgrades: No preference

Mouthwash

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: I would rate this card less but it's the only one in Smith's card pool that rids you of a debuff, as such becoming invaluable. At the same time, can act as a single-use card draw in case there are no debuffs to remove.

Upgrades: Visionary

Nap

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Alright instant defense. As you may have learned from Rook, postponing card draw for later is a good effect, allowing you to cycle throughout your deck faster than normal

Upgrades: I take more defense

Push it

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Card draw can be achieved through other means, and it's tough to cast this card repeatedly just to be able to draw cards. Although I have to say that this card's draw effect is essentially free, so it's nice to have to seldom replenish your hand and not spend actions for it. Can be spammed when you have good means of defense / Moxie drafted prior

Upgrades: Visionary

Rubble

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: "Nap" provides comparable defense numbers post-upgrade without the discard requirement. There are no draftable cards that Smith benefits from being discarded either, so the effect is only useful to discard Lumin Bio-Accelerator or to avoid some negative effects from Status Cards in combat which in 99% of times can be straight-up ignored

Upgrades: Whatever

Shelve

Rating: 1-/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: It's best usage is with "Bottomless Vial". Otherwise the effect is unimportant 99% of the time

Upgrades: Due to reason above, the Sticky one

Snellick's Finest

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Provides a small instant Moxie boost. That's pretty much it for this card though, and considering other Moxie sources are better, this card is unimportant

Upgrades: Enduring's numbers are too low to stack Moxie with this, Boosted is better

Swig

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is always at the very least good, and after the upgrade the card is even better. Every single effect it can provide is relevant, so no matter what you get the value is justified pretty much always, except probably for Moxie since the numbers are low pre-upgrade

Upgrades: Boosted is better not just because a single stronger effect is better than two small ones, but also specifically since Smith wants Power ASAP and this can provide two immediately, albeit at an unreliable rate

Bottomless Vial

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: The only good way of using this card is spending all of your actions on it in the same turn, so at times when you're not targeted can be used to heal back up solid health numbers. Can also be utilised with "Shelve" to keep it from Burnout.

Upgrades: Healing

Callus

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: This is unneeded anywhere. Damage from your own cards can be managed or ignored when provided with enough defense, and there are better defensive options than this

Upgrades: Whatever

Cavalcade

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: One of the best defense cards for Smith, and it's also a 99-defense one. It aligns exactly with his Power-stacking strategy, and essentially adds defense numbers to any attack card you decide to cast which vary from good to huge depending on Power. What's more, the effect persists and doesn't end at the end of turn, meaning it's fantastic to just cast it preemptively for future turns repeatedly, although sometimes it is possible to waste it if you're attacking but your enemy doesn't target you on the same turn, but for the majority of the time this is irrelevant

Upgrades: Always Lasting. Casting this variant repeatedly will provide you with all the defense you need which is times better than the other option

Duck!

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: It's okay to have for some pseudo-defense early in the combat but unnecessary and the Burnout doesn't make it easy to cast when you actually want it

Upgrades: No preference

Dumpster Dive

Rating: 3-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Generally, this is a good card draw. This card is primarily used to help save some bottles for those which need a lot of them e.g. "Batter Up". But to be fair I'd rather use "Inspirational Blow" for draw purposes, and the majority of bottle-utilising cards are weak, making this card's effect irrelevant.

Upgrades: Visionary

Endless Supply

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Don't

Commentary: Empty Bottles are worthless the majority of the time. Cards should also be primarily removed outside of combat, not during. Don't spend an action to do virtually nothing.

Upgrades: Whatever

Gulper

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Primary use of this is to gain more bottles for cards that utilise them. Unfortunately, the bottle-providing effect is unreliable due to draw RNG, not to mention the card is a single-use always. If for whatever reason you want more bottles consistently, "Boosted Down the Hatch" is the card to go for

Upgrades: Whatever

High Stakes

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: More like "Low stakes", as considering how easy it is to stack Power and trigger those Thresholds, you're quickly guaranteeing this card's effect in combat, making each Threshold card give you an additional defense on top which is fantastic. Only pick it when you have a few of Threshold cards in your deck already, as otherwise this has no use.

Upgrades: No preference

Intensify

Rating: 5+/5. 6/5 even.
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is basically cheating but only after the upgrade. Generally, the effect is ok but not that significant if used once. However, once upgraded and cast several times repeatedly on the same card, preferrably an AoE one, and as long as you can defend yourself from turn to turn or draw cards repeatedly by any means, you can just win any combat by one-shotting everyone with the highest damage in the game. Any card, I repeat, any attack card can be made busted and brought to nine thousand damage with "Enduring Intensify". See the attached screenshots for a deck example (ignore the Prestige on two of them, the same thing works on every Prestige level)

Upgrades: Enduring, lol.

You know, "for luck":

Back Stretch

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Don't

Commentary: Don't play for Alleviate

Upgrades: Nope

Meditation

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Too weak to consistute using and it requires you to cast this every single time you draw it which sucks out valuable actions

Upgrades: There are none available

Packrat

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: It does help to save some bottles for cards that benefit from them. In a good deck, this is fine to pick for a little more consistensy of those

Upgrades: Boosted

Pivot

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Adrenaline is usually not obtained in high numbers, making this card's defense irrelevant

Upgrades: Whatever

Power Through

Rating: 1-/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: The best value you'll get out of this card is alongside "Raw Power". There is pretty much no other card that justifies running "Power Through" together with it, as the damage of other cards that do so for some effect can be ignored or prevented anyway

Upgrades: Whatever

Power Trip

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: I'm not wasting an action to achieve this card's best effect with a times better card for the same action at no condition

Upgrades: Don't use this

Recycle

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Moxie says "hi" and makes this card irrelevant by the virtue of simply existing

Upgrades: Whatever

Reduce

Rating: 1-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: ...Just draft and upgrade "Nap" for a better effect instead of saving wortheless bottles for this card

Upgrades: Whatever

Reuse

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Uhhh...

Commentary: Saving bottles is a bad strategy. Just cast Empty Bottles directly to achieve the same effect for free

Upgrades: Lmao

Scream

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: The effect isn't really worth it, espeically considering its a one-time use, as you can damage yourself quite significantly with this card and you can achieve the same effect with upgraded "Smith's Flask" quite often anyway.

Upgrades: Whatever

Shrewd

Rating: 3-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: You read it correctly, this card will block the entire opponent's damage intent essentially giving you all the defense you need against a single enemy (or more if an enemy attack is an AoE one, targeting several allies), which is quite good when you consider other common defense cards and a regular opponent's attack numbers. Unfortunately for you, only against a single one, as if you're getting attacked by someone else this card does little to assist. What's more it is costly, which slows down your aggression quite a bit. And at times it is not even worth to cast this card, making it clutter your hand, because the damage intent can be small enough to either ignore or defend yourself with something basic at a lesser cost.

Upgrades: Always Boosted

Stoke

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: There is no attack card that even remotely justifies picking this one. Suffice to say the card just slows you down tremendously for little reason

Upgrades: Whatever

Pinto Tour

Rating: 5+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: What can I say? This is exactly what you want! Grab this card immediately! In several copies too!

Upgrades: No preference

The Rust Bucket

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Upgrade ASAP and this card becomes your "Tight Spot" for Smith, before the upgrade is somewhat weak

Upgrades: Always Stone

Tracer

Rating: 5+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Ridiculous 99-defense card, one of Smith's best. You should be casting this on a single opponent repeatedly every chance you get, as for every single stack of this on your opponent, you will receive that much defense for attacking them. This is stupidly strong: at the very base you are defending yourself while attacking simultaneously, and some cards feature several attack instances, meaning you'll quickly stack a lot of defense when attacking the same opponent with many Tracer stacks.

But this card gets even better:

First, it doesn't consider the damage of the cards that you attack your opponents with, meaning that for example just with "One One One" you can get high defense values
regardless of damage dealt unlike with "Cavalcade" in comparison.
Second, it also doesn't consider the source
of attack, meaning if your allies are attacking tracered opponent alongside or instead of you, you'll get defense from their attacks on said target too!
And third, the debuff of this card is quite persistent and sticky, as it does not downgrade with each attack but rather with every turn, meaning it helps you out even when the card is not in your hand.

Upgrades: Always Boosted

Blood Flow

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Best use of this card is in conjunction with "Bio-strike". Other cards will not provide you with Moxie numbers relevant enough to double, especially considering it removes and action next turn. Mind that this card applies a debuff which makes you lose the action on the next turn. This debuff as such can be removed with the help of cards such as "Mouthwash", but also be wary that this very same debuff stacks with itself should you draw and cast "Blood Flow" again several times a turn, so in theory you can lose all your actions on the next one

Upgrades: Pure

Certainty

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: The best use of this card is alongside "Tracer" debuff (also works when your allies attack your opponents with it applied) and with cards which let you attack an opponent several times. Outside of that, Smith casts few defense cards in a turn, as such it's alright to provide some damage boost, and overall it's unnecessary to have, since Adrenaline doesn't last and you'd have to regain it again

Upgrades: Pale

Fortitude

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: You may think that this card is niche in its application but surprisingly it fits into any deck as long as you have "Smith's Flask". Smith also has quite a bunch of cards providing him with Adrenaline, and because of this Fortitude's effect it becomes an invaluable and quite consistent Adrenaline-to-Power converter which is exactly what you want for Smith. This can let you stack Power to those awesome high numbers and quite quickly too while not even cluttering your hand as much from turn to turn.

Upgrades: Always Boosted

Gumption

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: See "Back Stretch"

Upgrades: Whatever

Juicer

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: See "Back Stretch"

Upgrades: Yeah no

Masochist

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Only works decently well alongside a handful of cards or with cards that heal you up quick, but the effect is mostly irrelevant due to Adrenaline not lasting, and if you can defend yourself well enough during your own turn this card won't trigger at all

Upgrades: Boosted

Protective Procedure

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Pretty straightforward card, not much about it. Nice to have but not required, although two of these in a deck can be quite solid alongside other defense cards.

Upgrades: Pale

Raw Power

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: In a generic deck, this may be too hurtful to cast combat after combat. In combination with "Power Through" or good defense/Moxie cards that can help you prevent or recover from a lot of damage however, this is very strong, as you essentially cheapen everything and save lots of actions. To get the best benefit from this card in a good deck, it needs some supporting draw from others to replenish your cheap hand

Upgrades: In a correct deck for this card, Enduring provides crazy value

Chest Pound

Rating: 4-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is one of the primary Power-ramping cards for Smith. You want to cast this repeatedly from turn to turn to gain Power, but it's tough to do so without some support from defense and/or Moxie cards, as such this card is held back a bit. More often than not you'll have to lose actual health for this card's effect because you'd rather have your defense for an opponent's attack. If you have solid defense/Moxie cards in your deck already, this card can be spammed and you'll quickly achieve all of your Power needs. "Chest Pound" works best alongside "Bio-strike".

Upgrades: Boosted to speed up the Power gaining process

Clean House

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: The only reason I can think of taking this card, apart from its basic function, is for the Wide upgrade to potentially discard all unneeded cards or your entire hand and draw relevant ones. Thing is, if your deck is already good, then you don't need to do that at all as all of your cards are good already.

Upgrades: Whatever

Soothing Concoctions

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Moxie. Use it.

Upgrades: Whatever

Thickness

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: This is the 99-defense card for Smith, but only under both of the following conditions:

You use it in conjunction with other defense cards because by itself it doesn't provide defense
You cast it repeatedly from turn to turn

Unfortunately due to the conditions above, this card can slow you down quite drastically, as you're likely not going to be able to do anything for the follow-up. Despite this, "Thickness" is the best card in the game for Smith to reach consistent 99-defense numbers, making him as close to invulnerable as it gets, since for example Moxie even at high numbers cannot do anything about full-health damage intents, but this card absolutely can. While casting this before taking damage is viable, you may want to think of this card in the same way as with "Hole Up" and cast it pre-emptively to maximise the defense numbers you can get out of it. Any leftover defense from previous turns you may have also accelerate getting to those high defense numbers.

Upgrades: I go Stone, since this card is focused on providing defense and this upgrade helps up to ramp it faster too

Tough and Angry

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Solid defense card which aligns directly with Smith's general strategy, but needs quick upgrading to become relevant and a hefty amount of support from other cards. It starts off weak in combat providing mediocre defense early on but after a couple of turns, provided that you start to ramp up in Power, this gives fantastic defense all at one action, with the cherry on top being that it also considers any leftover Adrenaline you may have. Also synergises with "Innate Instinct" Flourish

Upgrades: Always Boosted

--- ATTACK CARDS ---

Bottle Hurl

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Weak attack card, does nothing despite being sometimes free. No bottles in deck - this can't even be cast

Upgrades: Whatever

Cheers

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Another weak card with a weak effect

Upgrades: Whatever

Deal

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: It is incredibly easy to gain Adrenaline with this. Just having +1 Power guarantees that you get the effect. As was mentioned earlier, Adrenaline helps out triggering other Threshold cards a little earlier than usual, and later can work really well with "Fortitude" to provide permanent Power.

Upgrades: Always Enhanced for the same reason

Freebie

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: See "Bottle Hurl", except this can be cast without the Bottle requirement

Upgrades: Whatever

Headbutt

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: While Impair this card provides is guaranteed and is a great debuff, it can be obtained eventually and painlessly through "Nerve Strike", while not even losing much on damage either

Upgrades: Who cares

Long Night

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: See "Cheers". This is a slightly more damaging version that provides more bottles in your deck at a slight condition

Upgrades: Whatever

Rib Cracker

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Smith's Hammer

Commentary: This card's effect is easily triggered and maintained on a consistent basis with "Smith's Hammer", although several non-basic cards can apply Trauma too. Wound is the best debuff in the game, but only a single point is weak, since you won't be able to stack Wound quickly. Upgrade it ASAP, and you'll get a way better Wound source. Although, frankly speaking, "Fold 'em" is a significantly better generic Wound source than this card after a couple of Power points

Upgrades: Boosted one makes this card tremendously better

Ruthless

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Smith's Hammer

Commentary: Ruthlessly avoid picking this weak effect card

Upgrades: Whatever

Smash

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: In a strong deck Smith destroys enemies individually, and you won't need this costly AoE card that provides nothing else but damage at all

Upgrades: Whatever

Splinter

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Damage and the effect are both solid, however attacking at random can be detrimental against some opponents and it's really annoying when you don't hit the guy you wanted with its Impair effect. Even though the condition for this card's effect is easy, "Nerve Strike" is still better at providing Impair and more importantly exactly where you need it

Upgrades: Whatever

Bonkers

Rating: 1-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Too costly even for the damage and effect it provides, not to mention if you can't meet the condition it's damage is overcosted when compared to similar-damage cards for a single action. "Kiss the Fists" exists and that card is times better, not to mention after the upgrade. Early on Bonkers may help out provide some damage but it quickly becomes a complete deck clutter because it gives nothing else.

Upgrades: Whatever

Conquer

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Weaker than "Smash" at the same cost but with more damage potential. Max Defense number in the game is 99, so at it's very best you're getting ~50 damage which is a lot but could be obtained through "Body Blow" + Traumatized effect, cheaper and at an easier condition in the first place. Not to mention, you're not getting 99 defense with Smith easily in the overwhelming majority of cases, not every turn, and not with many cards to begin with, which also makes it tough to cast this card after casting defense cards first too due to high cost. So essentially, don't bother picking this card ever.

Upgrades: Whatever. The potential to deal 100+ damage sounds cool but could be obtained with other cards faster and easier

Desperation

Rating: 1-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Why would you pick this? In a good deck, Smith can defend himself easily, either through insane defense or healing himself with Moxie to full health, so the effect the card gives is utterly worthless making it irrelevant. In a bad deck or during the early game this card can cheapen itself but it does nothing but provide damage. Also a slight Captain-Obvious reminder: at half health or less you are interested in defending yourself more than attacking, as you are more prone to literally dying

Upgrades: Whatever

Batter Up

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: The only attack card that provides Bleed for Smith and one of the very few I can justify saving bottles for. The damage is tiny but both effects more than make up for it. "Batter Up" can easily Impair everyone at once, or if the enemy is alone make them suffer tremendously from continuous Bleed damage and essentially permanent Impair.

Upgrades: Boosted. More Impair doesn't make much sense considering how easily and continuously this card applies it anyway, and one more trigger on "Batter Up" is times more valuable as such.

Kra'deshi Cup

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Not worth running since the effect is irrelevant, and the last iteration's effect is achievable by "Inspirational Blow" always without the recast demand.

Upgrades: There are none available

Rampart

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Probably Smith's best AoE card, mainly because it provides a decent chunk of defense regardless of the number of enemies (say hello to Rook's "Suppressing Fire").

Upgrades: Stone

The Sledge

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Smith's Hammer / Generic

Commentary: If you can't get your hands on "Nerve Strike", this could serve as a decent alternative alongside "Smith's Hammer". Otherwise, there's zero reason to pick this card, because the previously mentioned one is better at its job

Upgrades: Whatever

Right in the Face

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is a "Batter Up" which trades both of its effects for damage. Not worth taking considering it provides nothing but flat damage that could be obtained through other means anyway.

Upgrades: Whatever

Frenzy

Rating: 1-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: While the effect is easily obtainable in theory, in reality it ramps up slow as hell, and lasts only until played. Just the fact that Smith can stack Power and Traumatized effect times faster than this card gets its numbers up, and for way more damage speaks miles about its usefulness.

Upgrades: Boosted.

The Pain Train

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is a little better than "Frenzy" in damage regard but is still unneeded due to the very same reasons - provides nothing but damage that could be obtained cheaper, easier and faster anyway, not to mention the cheapening effect also lasts only until played. If you deck defends you properly as is, this card is a hand-clutter 24/7.

Upgrades: Whatever

Obliterate

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Sal's "Crushing Blow" makes a comeback. Surprisingly, this is a little better in upgrade department, and is alright to have as a one-of in your deck, especially when compared to the other stun option in Smith's card pool.

Upgrades: Pale. You can obtain the same damage through some Power / Adrenaline anyway.

The Gamble

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: By itself it can either do nothing or sometimes give you a great chunk of actions that if supplemented with some card draw can net you more value out of any given turn.

Upgrades: No preference

This card has a very unique niche application in enabling probably the only infinite deck for Smith possible. So one day I was looking through card compendium and thought that there are infinite combos for Sal and Rook... but surprisingly Smith doesn't have any? Initially I thought I could perhaps somehow utilise "Raw Power" + card draw, but eventually I managed to get an infinite amount of actions by... lowering Gamble's Threshold requirement to nothing by utilising "Mean Streak"! What's funny about it is that Thresholds keep going down into negative values, probably because developers didn't account for someone to actually lower Threshold amounts so low. This requires to have a specific deck setup however, which I described in a grfitlands reddit post a while back here. Alternatively, you can check out the attached screenshots and explanation below (ignore the current Prestige, this works on any Prestige level)

"The deck gameplan is self-explanatory, but nonetheless here's the explanation: first and foremost, this deck requires you to have at least 4 usable actions on your first turn, because Mean Streak only lowers the cards' thresholds on the same turn you cast it and otherwise you won't have enough actions to consistently make it work (unless you got lucky with the Gamble that is!). Ideally, on your first turn you should have power enough to trigger Mean Streak threshold and have the card itself in hand, a draw card and The Gamble. Use Mean Streak, draw it, use it again - at this point you have a 75% chance to get bonus actions from The Gamble, since its threshold is at 2, and if you have Push It/Inspirational Blow instead of 2 Inspirationals(or if one of them costs 0 with the help of a graft), you draw Mean Streak again and get a 100% chance of getting bonus actions. Repeat until your enemies surrender.

Instead of two Inspirational Blows, you can get one Push It for card draw, although you can't get two of them because you need to redraw The Gamble and you will die from constant damage to yourself unless you have the moxie chain card to replenish your health (or something else to help with that matter). "

Mean Streak

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Ultra-Niche

Commentary: See "Gamble". Outside of that you don't need it at all because Power / Wound / Adrenaline all help trigger Thresholds anyway and as Smith you need to have consistent sources of those in your deck.

Upgrades: Whatever

Jackpot

Rating: 0/5 or 5+/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: In a vacuum, an overcosted attack card. But if you're picking this, you're obviously going for that Stun Threshold. Generally speaking, obtaining the stun takes a bit of effort in stacking Power if you want it consistently, but can also be obtained through Wound and some support from Adrenaline. But once you get there, and especially with Power, making the stun guaranteed, the card becomes busted: in a thin deck with some card draw, you can just perma-stun the strongest opponent every single turn, no matter who you're going against, and yes that includes bosses too, trivializing combat against them ridiculously

Cool to achieve? Yes, it's cool. Just once. Fun to play afterwards? Ehhhh... not so much. I avoid picking this card exactly for that reason. Once I get there, the game stops being fun or accomplishing, and with this card there is no in-between: either it's useless to pick, or too busted to play.

Upgrades: Always Pale, no reason for the other one considering how quickly Smith can meet the condition regardless

Kiss the Fists

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is probably why "One One One" has "Restrained". Because if it didn't, it would become this busted attack card. Essentially, "Kiss the Fists" is Smith's best single-target attack card in the game purely because it benefits from Power/Adrenaline incredibly well but specifically post upgrade, and it quickly achieves fantastic damage numbers while speeding up the combat process tremendously, being able to eventually destroy a single enemy by itself given enough Power

Upgrades: Always Mirrored

Body Blow

Rating: 4+/5
Usage: Smith's Hammer

Commentary: In a trauma-focused deck this is an irreplaceable card simply due to its potential damage numbers. Smoothly alings with Smith's primary strategy of stacking lots of Power. The kicker of "Body Blow" is that when enemies become Traumatized, this card's damage numbers are essentially quadrupled on them. Once you obtain some Power it's not uncommon to see this card to single-handedly deal anywhere between 40-80 damage on Traumatized enemies, which is crazy high for a single card. What's also nice about it is that it's not reliant on being upgraded as the improved versions don't change much about this card

Upgrades: Always Tall

Inspirational Blow

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Simple effect card with an easily achievable Threshold requirement which is exactly what you need to replenish your hand and cycle through your deck repeatedly while staying on the offensive

Upgrades: Visionary

Nerve Strike

Rating: 4-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is Smith's best Impair-applying card. While unlike most Threshold-featuring cards "Nerve Strike" needs a bit of work to reach it's Threshold number to trigger constantly with Power, once it does, any opponent you target with this will be Impaired repeatedly

Upgrades: No preference

Entire Supply

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: While it's funny to think that you can deal lots of damage with this card, in reality it will never happen. Saving enough bottles for this card is impossible as the more bottles you have in your deck the more likely you're just going to draw them in hand, meaning to continue drawing you'll have to expend them. Outside of being amplified through Power, it's highly useless due to very low attack numbers and permanent hand clutter. While could be amplified with "Intensify", the same can be said for any attack card really.

Upgrades: Whatever

Fold 'em

Rating: 4-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: The best Smith's card for applying many, many Wound points at a condition that doesn't take much effort to reach.

Upgrades: Always Enhanced, for crazy Wound stacking potential

Hammer Down

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Here's some funny math: "Mirrorred Kiss the Fists" outdamages this card at measly three Power points even after this card's upgrade, which are ultra-easy to get. Needless to say, this card is costly and unneeded

Upgrades: Whatever

Hammer Swing

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is probably the best card out of the "Chain"-featuring ones, but it's not that required to have as Trauma can be achieved by basic cards, it's costly to play and requires to be cast repeatedly from turn to turn.

Upgrades: There are none available

Hurricane

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Trauma is never required to be applied through an AoE effect, you can simply stack it manually where you want it to be anyway. The bottle-saving requirement as well as this card's random factor make it irrelevant to run

Upgrades: Whatever

Hold 'em

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Apart from "Bio-strike", this is the second card for consistent high Moxie gains albeit in more or less fair numbers, which can keep you healthy throughout whole combat, as the "Threshold" requirement is easy to guarantee with some Power

Upgrades: Always Enhanced

Knuckle Down

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Smith's Hammer

Commentary: While it helps achieving Traumatized faster which is this card's primary selling point, it does nothing else due to its low damage numbers, and you don't need its effect anyway as other cards are more useful to you in the long run

Upgrades: Whatever

Raise

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: After stacking some Power and guaranteeing the effect, this card becomes a highly valuable asset for Smith that will constantly save you actions and provide fantastic cheapening value.

Upgrades: Always Wide for the same reason.

Shatter

Rating: 4-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: The other card I can justify saving and spending bottles on. Two Wound points this card gives are great, but the condition is a bit greedy for bottles, so needs quick upgrading, and after doing so, can quickly increase your damage output when cast repeatedly

Upgrades: I prefer Broken here to soothen the requirement

Slug Smash

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: The only time you're getting a lot of damage with this card is in combination with "Bio-strike" / "Hold 'Em" + "Blood Flow", then its damage can vary from 50 to 150 on any given turn. For the overwhelming majority of the time outside of said deck build its damage is insignificant

Upgrades: No preference

Bio-strike

Rating: 5-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is Smith's best Moxie card, as it quickly scales from Power and does not feature flat Moxie numbers. With this card and some Power, you can become unkillable as you'll just heal back up repeatedly from whatever damage you receive, which also means you can spam cards that deal damage to you for their beneficial effects too. Side note, this card makes the game a bit boring due to the very same reason, and it doesn't do anything else once you get enough Moxie but just exist as another attack card. But considering its role is to only keep you healthy constantly, should it really do anything else? Try not to rely on just Moxie however, as seldom if your enemies' attacks will deal damage equal to your whole health bar at once, Moxie won't help you then

Upgrades: Always Tall

----- FLOURISH CARDS -----

--- NEGOTIATION ---

Smith's default Negotiation Flourish used in Renown decks to enabe cards that benefit from Renown numbers such as "High Places" or "Executive". Although, considering stacking Renown becomes very easy as is with some cards, this Flourish isn't that useful after you acquire them, but could be utilised during the early game stages quite well

This Flourish is trash. It exists to trigger "Subtle Setup" primarily when you have lots and lots of their copies to potentially deal very heavy damage to your opponents. As you may have guessed, this is an incredibly ultra-niche situation that is very tough to achieve and even then it's not worth it since more damage could be achieved with other cards anyway, your opponents won't wait for you and will most likely just destroy the arguments as you're trying to setup, not to mention get Impatience stacks as the negotiation progresses. At the very base, relying on a Flourish to win a negotiation for you is a terrible idea. I never use this Flourish ever

I'm going to label this as Smith's best Negotiation Flourish simply due to its universality. Even though the composure numbers it gives are small, the effect is immediate and helps out quite much when you want to damage enemy arguments heavily

Smith's second best Flourish. Situationally, this is a tremendously better one than "Flatten", and should be used at the start of your turn. Since Smith's hardest-hitting Negotiation decks are mostly Hostile, this finds great use in them as it gives tremendous value and even more so if you are able to draw more cards. This Flourish can just end the negotiation on the very first turn before your opponent even gets a chance to do anything

This can be used everywhere, in Hostility decks can copy Dominance stacks or "Powder Keg" / "Hot Air", in Renown decks - well, Renown stacks. Remember that Removing =/= Destroying, which means you can copy Renown stacks with this safely, which helps out in speeding up the negotiation process for those decks. Be careful however, as you still need to defend the new Renown stacks

--- COMBAT ---

Smith's default Flourish. Doesn't accomplish much, even though does everything in small amounts. Better than nothing at start, and at the very least could be used as an additional last resort attack

I find this to be Smith's best and most universal Flourish. Primarily it helps to survive longer in combat when things go south, and is used mainly to regenerate some of that lost health should you come close to losing to an opponent's next attack

Probably Smith's second best Flourish. Used when you've drawn a lot of attack cards and when you feel you can end the fight on your current turn but you require some additional buff for your drawn attack cards to be able to finish the combat

I'll be honest, I only remembered about this Flourish's existence when I was filling in this guide's section, which totally speaks volumes about its usefullness. As the overwhelming majority of cards using Bottles are weak and/or bad, this Flourish only can find its best use alongside "Entire Supply", otherwise is completely useless

In my opinion, the best use of this is with "Body Blow" and lots of additional Power on top. Outside of said application, it just slighly helps to speed up current combat you're in, as such, is seldom used

Example Runs

https://youtu.be/n_RPYjfY-kI

Some Brawl and Campaign examples of decks you can find in the video above

The example run below is probably the fairest of Smith builds as it gets, without featuring overwhelming or busted cards. It's not even strong, just fairly balanced deck build overall in my opinion

Closing words

Thank you for reading this guide! It's been a great pleasure writing it and hopefully you've found it quite detailed and useful to apply for your own gameplay sessions. If you liked the guide and/or found it helpful, feel free and take a short time to leave a rating and/or a comment if you'd like.

Writing this and the other two guides took me quite a while, but they currently look just as how I imagined them to be. I also discovered some new strategies with all Grifters and reevaluated other strategies and cards that I was previously ignoring or underestimating. I will still update those guides a little from time to time too, including this one. Needless to say, this has been a very interesting experience, albeit sometimes daunting

Speaking of my other guides, check them out as well!
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2908381036 https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2965000280

[BONUS VIDEO] THREE-IN-A-ROW SUCCESSFUL BRAWLS ON PRESTIGE 7

Since this is my very last guide for Griftlands, I wanted to do something special to commemorate writing a whopping three lengthy text guides for each grifter describing literally every single draftable card.

And I couldn't think of anything better than making a raw unedited recording of myself performing three consecutive successfull brawl runs in a row as Sal, Rook and Smith while doing my very best to pick the strongest cards and build for the strongest strategies described for corresponding Grifters in my guides.

What's more, I'm so confident in the builds I use that I decided to introduce a twist to these runs:

I will also solo each Grifter's respective final boss

That's right, no assistance at all, just like in their campaigns. And no resets this time around, no modificators either. Only the most optimal stuff I can pick and build towards (excluding "Intensify" and "Jackpot" for Smith). If things go the way I don't like, I stick to it till the end regardless (Also excuse my periodic misplays, I was a bit tired and sleepy at the time of recording these runs)

Enjoy watching and for the final words of goodbye: remember to have fun with the game!

https://youtu.be/hzAr_AJAbFQ

1 Comments

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Vd65_63RUS 19 Mar, 2024 @ 12:11pm

Fantastic guide, just beat smith campaign on prestige 7 today. I certainly didn't expect you to go this far and review EVERY collectible card. I used your thoughts to draft first cards, didn't know nerve wrecker and rib cracker were this good tbh. (I ended up taking bonkers though, it's very strong since I had two swigs and I for a fact knew that if a card attacks several times and targets traumatized enemy, all its attacks are doubled). Anyway, amazing stuff, I'll be definitely checking out your other guides some other time. Thanks a bunch

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