The attack of the first Rhinoceroach you play on a given turn is the number of cards you played before Roach, +1. This much is obvious.

Although it follows naturally from that obvious starting point, what is less immediately obvious is this: with 10 PP, if we have four 1-cost cards, we need three 0-cost cards and a super evolution to do 20 damage. 8 + 9 + 3 = 20. This means our hand needs to consist of mostly 1-cost and 0-cost cards. In fact, it could, for example, consist of only two Rhinoceroach, while the other seven cards are 0-cost and 1-cost cards! In most cases, then, it should be easy to tell just by looking at your hand if you can do anywhere near 20 damage. Although, sometimes it is trickier, because there are cards in our deck that are often really a 0-cost, or multiple 1-cost cards in disguise, like Fairy Convocation, Bayle, Lambent Cairn, and Carbuncle.

In any case, knowing the typical resources needed to do 20 damage helps a great deal with understanding the pace of the game as a Roach player, and when we need to spend our turn assembling combo pieces to even have a chance to kill the opponent.

Sometimes, we have to forego clearing the opponent's board in order to set up lethal for next turn by getting more 0-cost and 1-cost cards into our hand. An extra advantage of leaving the opponent's followers on board, though, is that we can prevent them from playing additional wards, while leaving their followers for our fairies to trade into so we don't boardlock ourselves out of our own combo, or so we can reduce the cost of an in-hand Bayle to 0.

So one way to think about our damage capacity is like this: If with 10 pp we need at least three 0-cost cards and a super evolution, if we have any fewer pp, we need more 0 cost, or we cannot deal 20 in one combo. Fewer pp available = more 0 cost needed. Less HP = fewer pp and/or 0-cost needed. Our ability to meet the requirements of play points and 0-cost cards is thus something we can essentially ascertain immediately.

From there, many considerations crop up. Every card missing from our combo, whether it's a 1-cost or 0-cost, is -2 total damage, and the same goes for having even a single pp less than 10. However, what if we can get 2 damage from two Lambent Cairns? What if we already have a follower on board that can deal damage?

What if we already dealt chip damage to our opponent? Knowing how ambitious it is to aspire to deal 20 damage before turn 10 (or more precisely, access to at least 10 max pp) also helps us to keep in mind the importance of chip damage, and when to look for it, if possible. Since having one more PP could mean doing 2 more damage, if we just hold off a turn, can we kill them next turn, or can they possibly heal outside of lethal range?

The aim of our line of thinking, then, is to be able to tell by looking at our hand and pp approximately how much damage we can do, so that we have spare time and mental capacity to think about these latter considerations, or so that we don't end up having a weak turn after we realize too late that we aren't able to beat the opponent yet.

If we have a Carbuncle in hand, in a great number of cases, as long as we have a super evolution, we can consider it an equivalent to having +1 max play points. With 9 pp, Carbuncle and a super evolution, we effectively have 10 pp.

In the last section, I mentioned that with 10 pp, we need three 0-costs and four 1-costs alongside a super evolution to deal 20 damage with a double Roach combo. The exact same goes if we have a Carbuncle in hand, but we can do it one turn sooner. In other words, if we have access to a super evolution, three 0-cost, four 1-cost, Carbuncle and two Roaches (maybe we have a Godwood Staff in play, instead of 2nd Roach), Carbuncle can allow us to do the same 20 damage on turn 9, instead of waiting until turn 10.

This is because Carbuncle itself adds 1 to our combo count, while also giving us an extra PP for free. It costs two play points, but gives us three play points back. However, it's important to remember that we need to be able to attack into something with our super evolved Carbunce, or we can only deal 19 damage. So we can take everything from in the last section, and add to that, "If there's a Carbuncle, I can do it one turn sooner."

If we add the PP+ button to the mix, Roach can consistently OTK on our turn 8 if we are going second. Pretty scary!

Remember, though, our aim is to imagine what sort of hand we should have to deal 20 damage. We want to look at our hand and be able to quickly conclude, "this is not nearly enough 0-cost" or "I need to somehow get one more 1-cost by next turn," and so on.

But don't forget about reducing the need for resources by other means, i.e. by damaging the opponent. If we can deal 6 damage on turn 6 by playing a Roach early (if we have an extra, or we can return Roach to our hand with a Bug Alert, or what have you), then the number of 0 and 1-cost cards needed to kill on turn 7 or 8 is obviously much smaller!

Rhinoceroach costs 3 play points. Hence, naturally, we have only the number of play points left over after counting the number of Roaches we intend to play in our combo to work with. If we have 8 play points, we can only play a single 2-cost or two 1-cost cards.

On a given turn, max pp - Roach pp cost + number of 0-cost cards + 1 = the attack points of our first Roach.

This means with 8 play points, if we have no 0-cost cards in your hand, we can tell right away that our damage output is not very high. Our first Roach will have 3 attack at most. With a super evolution available, 3 + 4 + 3 is 10.

It also helps if we think of Lambent Cairn as two 1-cost cards during a combo turn in most cases, because if we activate its combo effect, we can play two cards for 2 play points.

This is why it's nice to keep Cairn on board if possible. If we have an extra bounce for a Lambent Cairn that's on board, on the turn we intend to go for lethal, it can provide extra 1-cost cards that are missing from our hand for our combo. Since we need to bounce something with Carbuncle anyway, Cairn can also save us from bouncing our Godwood Staff. Alternatively, if we have an extra Godwood Staff on board, we can use it to bounce Cairn to our hand for more resources during our combo, if we have a lot of PP, but not many cards in hand!

There are times when we even want to play three Roaches in one turn, which means we only have one play point left over; unless we count Carbuncle, which adds a play point, and the pp+ button, which adds another play point. Potentially, we can play with twelve play points on a given turn. Maybe we can even play Roach four times!? That wouldn't usually be the most practical, but it's possible.

In the majority of cases, if you can output lethal damage with a triple Roach combo, we can do more damage with a double Roach combo. The reasons one would opt for a triple Roach combo would usually be lack of board space, or having several 0-cost cards in hand, but few or no 1-cost cards. In that case, we might as well use up our play points playing an extra Roach, and it might be the only way to actually do enough damage.

While the first method of working backward from OTK, helps us envision what kind of hand we are looking to assemble, and how much it helps to secure chip damage, I find that method two, counting max pp - Roach pp, helps to think about what exactly needs to be played before we play our first Roach during our combo. Even if we know we have enough damage, it is still possible to play too many cards, or not enough, or board lock ourselves, or what have you. It's difficult, so let's not feel too bad for now.

Therefore, it's helpful to think "this is what I need to do this turn before I play a Roach: how can I do it with only 4 pp?"

Often, to eliminate the opportunities for these kinds of mistakes, it can help to play and evolve Carbuncle as soon as possible if we intend to do so. However, since Carbuncle costs 2 pp itself, we obviously shouldn't evolve Carbuncle before spending at least 1 more play point. Perhaps it will be a Fairy, or a Lambent Cairn.

Then, if we are going to use the PP+ button, it might be helpful to save it until just before we are going to play your last Roach, so we don't misunderstand the amount of play points we really still have left over.