Getting pieces back

In chess, a captured piece is gone. In Stupidchess it's gone until somebody plays a card. The regain cards are the ones that bring something back: a piece, a card from your discard pile, a Braincell you already spent. They're the reason a lost exchange isn't always lost, and the reason a careless capture can hand your opponent exactly the piece they wanted off the board. Here's what each one brings back, what it costs, and when it earns a slot in a 52-card deck.

Two kinds of gone

Before any of this makes sense you need one distinction the game draws and chess doesn't: a piece can be captured or it can be killed.

A capture is the ordinary thing. A piece takes a piece, or a card like Tectonic Shift Up pushes one off the edge. The captured piece sits in a pile beside the board and the resurrection cards can reach it.

A kill is different. Assassinate, Execution, Death's Reach, Lightning Strike, Fire Sale, a Spike Pit, a piece that burns down after Ignite: these destroy the piece, and the card text tells you so. A killed piece can't be resurrected by the ordinary cards, and Defector can't turn it either. Only two cards reach a killed piece, and they're covered below.

So when you're deciding what to bring back, the first question is how it left. Your opponent's deck answers it for you: a deck built around kill cards has quietly switched off most of your regain cards before the game starts.

Bringing your own pieces back

Instant Resurrection costs 3 and puts your most recently captured piece back on the square it last stood on. That's the plain version, and "most recently" is the whole card. You don't choose the piece. If your opponent took a pawn after they took your queen, the pawn is what comes back. Play it the turn after the capture you care about, or not at all.

Initial Resurrection also costs 3 and takes the other approach: a captured piece of your choice returns to the square it started the game on. You pick the piece, but you don't pick the square, and a home square with something on it is no use. In the middle of a game your back rank is often empty, which makes this the more flexible card; in the opening it's often blocked.

Revival costs 4 and is the one card that brings back your own most recently killed piece, where it fell. It's expensive because it's the only answer to a kill deck, and if nobody is killing your pieces it's a dead card in your hand. Look at what you're playing against before you keep it.

Two cheaper resurrections ask for something other than Braincells. Trade Up costs 2 and one of your own pieces: sacrifice it, and your most recently captured piece comes back where it fell. That's a pawn for a rook, if you time it right. Blood Pact costs 2 and two cards discarded at random from your hand, for the same resurrection. Random is the word to notice. With seven cards in hand you're gambling two of them; with three, you're gambling most of what you hold.

Bringing their pieces back, for a price

This sounds backwards until you see the price tag. Ransom costs 1 Braincell, returns your opponent's most recently captured piece to the board, and pays you 3 Braincells. The card's own rail shows the give-back as a cost, which is right: you're handing them a piece. But if the last piece you took was a pawn, you've just bought two Braincells and a tempo for a pawn, and that's usually a bargain. If it was their queen, don't.

Prisoner Exchange is the same deal paid in tempo: 2 Braincells, their most recent capture goes back, and you take an extra move this turn. Necromancy costs 2 and raises their most recently killed piece on their side, for 3 Braincells. It's the second of the two cards that touch killed pieces, and the one that makes a kill deck pay you.

Hostage Swap costs 1 and is the odd one out: your opponent brings back a captured piece of their choice, and you get your most recently captured piece back. They choose theirs, you don't choose yours. It's good when your last loss was big and theirs were small, and bad the rest of the time.

Turning a piece

Defector costs 3 and takes the piece your opponent captured most recently, recolors it as yours and sets it aside. It isn't on the board yet. Reanimate costs 2 and places one of your turned pieces on any empty square, fighting for you. Two cards and 5 Braincells for a piece of your opponent's that lands wherever you like is slow, but "wherever you like" is a strong phrase for a knight next to their king. The starter deck Second Life runs both, and that's the pairing to copy if you want to try it.

Digging in the discard

The rest of the regain cards bring back cards, not pieces, and they're the ones people underrate.

Dumpster Dive (2) takes the most recently discarded card from your own discard pile into your hand. Second Chance (2) lets you search your discard for a specific card. Rival's Trash (3) and Grave Robber (3) do the same to your opponent's discard pile, which is public, so you know exactly what's in it. Salvage (2) sacrifices one of your pieces for the top card of your discard. Barter (2) discards two random cards for any one card of your choice from your discard.

Why dig? Because every costed card you play goes to the discard, and so does every Braincell you spend. Brainstorm (1) returns every Braincell in your discard pile to your Braincells pile. Recollection (1) takes them back into your hand instead, to bank again later. In a long game those two cards are the difference between a deck that runs out of money and one that doesn't.

Is it worth the slot?

A regain card is only as good as the thing it brings back, so its value depends on how the game is going, and that makes it the hardest kind of card to count in the deck editor. A few rules of thumb:

• One or two resurrections cover most decks. Three of each is a plan, and the plan needs the rest of the deck to be trading pieces on purpose, the way Second Life does.
• Ransom is close to a free card in any deck with Braincells to spend. Prisoner Exchange is the same card for a deck that wants tempo.
• Revival and Necromancy are answers to a specific opponent. Against the robots, who play a random deck, they're a coin flip. Against a person whose deck you've seen, they're either excellent or dead.
• Brainstorm earns its place in any deck that spends Braincells faster than it banks them, which is most of them.

And keep the first lesson in mind on the other side of the board too. If you can kill a piece rather than capture it, you've taken it out of your opponent's regain cards as well as off the board. Sometimes Assassinate at 2 is worth more than a free capture.