Articles
Guides to read rather than play: how the modes differ, how to build a deck, and how to think when the rules keep changing under you.
- Traps, and how to play around them
Bear Traps, Spike Pit, Landmine, Claymore and walls: what each one does, how to lay them, and how to walk through a board full of them.
- A card or a move?
Every turn needs a move and allows one card. How to decide which does more this turn, and why the best card is often the one you don't play yet.
- Extra moves
Move Again, Double Time, Blood Oath, All In and Prisoner Exchange: what a second move in one turn is worth, and how to turn it into checkmate.
- Reading the board after a card has changed it
Reverts, peeks, discard retrieval and the marks pieces carry: the vision cards, and the habit of reading the board again before every move.
- Ten mistakes new players make
The habits that lose most early games against the robots and against people, and what to do instead.
- Keeping your king safe when the rules keep moving
Checkmate still ends the game. How teleports, rotations, designated kings and extra moves get at a king, and what keeps it alive.
- Three copies, or one?
What the three-copy limit means for a deck, which cards earn all three slots, and which are better as a single surprise.
- A field guide to the robots
Fifty-six robots, seven difficulties, eight personalities: what each personality actually does, which to play first, and how to beat the free eight.
- Built Deck, explained
Your hand, your pile, your discard and your Braincells: how the cards side of a game runs from the opening hand to the last turn.
- Getting pieces back
Resurrection, Revival, Defector, Ransom and the discard diggers: the regain cards, what each brings back, and when it's worth the slot.
- The six card roles
Attack, defense, trap, modification, vision and regain: what each role is for, which cards carry two, and how to read a deck's radar.
- Stacks in practice
Pile On and Consolidate at the board: what a buried piece is worth, when a stack is a shield and when it's a trap.
- Your first game against a robot
Which robot to pick, what the robot does and doesn't do, and how to read what happened when you lose.
- Building your first deck
Start from a starter deck, swap cards one idea at a time, and use the deck editor's charts to see what you've built before a game shows you.
- Playing the margins
Flank March parks a piece off the board, Rally brings it back, Close the Border punishes both. How to use the margin as a shelter, and when not to.
- Freeze, fire, shields and armor
Every lasting mark a card leaves on a piece, what it does, how long it lasts, and the card that answers it.
- Chess basics, for people who came for the cards
The pieces, check and checkmate, castling, en passant and promotion, and the three habits that win most beginner games, in the order you'll need them.
- Three deck plans: rush, control and traps
Three ways to build a Built Deck that wins differently, with the cards that carry each and the Braincell count each needs.
- Ratings and seasons
How Glicko-2 moves your number, what counts as a rated game, how the leaderboard picks its fifty, and what a season badge means.
- The Braincell curve
How many Braincells a 52-card deck needs, why twenty is the usual answer, and what happens to a deck with too few or too many.
- Endgames when your hand runs dry
What changes when the pile is empty and the Braincells are spent, how to plan for it from the deck editor, and the cards that still matter in a bare endgame.
- What is StupidChess?
Chess, with a deck of cards that change the rules mid-game. What that means at the board, how a game runs, and where to start.
- Paying with pieces
Sacrifice costs, give-backs and discards: the cards that charge more than Braincells, and when the price is right.
- Spending Braincells
When to bank, when to spend, when to buy time, and the cards that bend the economy: Overclock, Efficiency, Coupon, Big Brain and the Braincell thieves.
- Fighting beyond the edge
Break Ground and Breakout open ground past the border. What the new squares change for pawns, kings and sliding pieces, and when opening an edge helps the wrong side.