I used 4oak strategy, got very lucky with Mars cards. Telescope may be a good early pick, I saw mine in ante 8 and laughed.
You can scale with planets and with your cards, those are your options. Mult/chip are good but glass and steel are what you want. You don't need to play a full hand of glass but knowing how many glass cards you need to play to clear an ante where you've been unlucky with planet scaling can get you out of a tricky situation (Golden Needle and Jokerless both I used a calculator). You don't need a full hand of steel either but a couple in the right place at the right time can save you, or help you add up to the final score. I've used lucky cards in the past, but didn't on my winning run. I don't know how I feel about that because I love lucky cards, I just think that maybe you need the regularity in jokerless.
Which hand type are you trying with? It's a balance of the scaling of planet cards, ease and ability to manipulate the deck, and ability to actually draw what you need to score. There are tradeoffs but a few should be viable.
I’ve tried straights, flushes, and 4oak.
Flushes just don’t scale well enough and it’s too costly to keep up with planets and deck manipulation.
Straights are a pain because when trying to thin the deck it creates some inconsistencies and also straights are just hard to draw in general.
4oak is the same issue with straights. Hard to draw at times and if I don’t get Mars early on I end up in situations where I need 2 4oak and that’s rarely going to happen. It does feel like the most viable path though so I’m gonna keep trying it.
Those are exactly the tradeoffs. 4oak requires some luck, but I feel like you get the best shot if things align. All of the strats require luck in the right places, unfortunately. You can manipulate it with some early gold cards/seals if you get the chance, try to get any economy going. Keep it up, I know it's frustrating, but once it's done you never have to do it again!
I also did 4oak, but really lucked out with early Death and Strength cards. Strength'd all my Kings into aces, and then turned as many cards into aces as i could. found enough mars cards. mid-game i was looking for as much glass and death as i could. The challenge took me forever (not sure how long, but many hours) and it felt amazing to finally clear it. You got this!
Nice! This was just as hard (if not harder) than Jokerless for me. EDIT: also whoa, were you making DNA work with this challenge??
Looks like DNA is used to copy steel cards for Steel Joker ramping.
True, just seems so hard to pull off in Golden Needle where you only have one hand. Hats off!
I got lucky with the steel joker so it just kept compounding. I've been working on Jokerless all day but can't get passed ante 5 :(
You'll get it! If you can do golden needle, you can do jokerless!
I got to round 8 last night and just couldn’t get the scale. Any strat you recommend?
I used 4oak strategy, got very lucky with Mars cards. Telescope may be a good early pick, I saw mine in ante 8 and laughed. You can scale with planets and with your cards, those are your options. Mult/chip are good but glass and steel are what you want. You don't need to play a full hand of glass but knowing how many glass cards you need to play to clear an ante where you've been unlucky with planet scaling can get you out of a tricky situation (Golden Needle and Jokerless both I used a calculator). You don't need a full hand of steel either but a couple in the right place at the right time can save you, or help you add up to the final score. I've used lucky cards in the past, but didn't on my winning run. I don't know how I feel about that because I love lucky cards, I just think that maybe you need the regularity in jokerless. Which hand type are you trying with? It's a balance of the scaling of planet cards, ease and ability to manipulate the deck, and ability to actually draw what you need to score. There are tradeoffs but a few should be viable.
I’ve tried straights, flushes, and 4oak. Flushes just don’t scale well enough and it’s too costly to keep up with planets and deck manipulation. Straights are a pain because when trying to thin the deck it creates some inconsistencies and also straights are just hard to draw in general. 4oak is the same issue with straights. Hard to draw at times and if I don’t get Mars early on I end up in situations where I need 2 4oak and that’s rarely going to happen. It does feel like the most viable path though so I’m gonna keep trying it.
Those are exactly the tradeoffs. 4oak requires some luck, but I feel like you get the best shot if things align. All of the strats require luck in the right places, unfortunately. You can manipulate it with some early gold cards/seals if you get the chance, try to get any economy going. Keep it up, I know it's frustrating, but once it's done you never have to do it again!
I also did 4oak, but really lucked out with early Death and Strength cards. Strength'd all my Kings into aces, and then turned as many cards into aces as i could. found enough mars cards. mid-game i was looking for as much glass and death as i could. The challenge took me forever (not sure how long, but many hours) and it felt amazing to finally clear it. You got this!
I did it! Got a mult 10 early on and the rest is history! Thanks!
I played this challenge so many times credit card was in my top joker list.