Equipment
- Damage core
- Palace with Mercenary
- Support cards
- Beacon, Vault; optional Blacksmith
- Enchantments / tome actions
- Steel Coat or current defensive effects on Mercenary
- Board state
- Developed plan; adjust to actual draws
Skills
- Card access
- The principal components are Greed cards. Cross-king damage or health support is conditional on enemy rewards or shops.
- Effect condition
- Beacon at A2 touches Palace at A1 and Vault at B2; its base connection is intentional. Vault is not a troop and cannot substitute for the Mercenary screen.
Best for
An alternative Greed route when the base and troop upgrades arrive more readily than Dispenser.
Avoid if
Saving gold preserves population but delays necessary damage; Palace cannot cover every enemy army by itself.
How it works
Palace contributes base attacks while a held-gold Mercenary army creates contact time. Beacon serves the base through a direct cardinal connection; a complementary attacker addresses fights the base does not clear efficiently.
Equipment priority
| Priority | Equipment | Instruction |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Stabilize | Palace with Mercenary | Use the Palace and a viable Mercenary as the first commitment when that hand is stronger than the available Dispenser route. Do not spend the opening trying to recreate another setup while the base and troop cards in hand can already contribute. |
| 2 · Connect | Beacon, Vault; optional Blacksmith | Reserve A2 for a Beacon connection to Palace at A1. Add the illustrated Vault only once the troop can tolerate the economic investment. Check whether the base attacks the threats that matter; a useful troop upgrade may do more than another Palace level when the base is not the current bottleneck. |
| 3 · Develop | Steel Coat or current defensive effects on Mercenary | The Palace, Beacon and Mercenary must operate as an army, not as three isolated Greed cards. Mercenary holds enemies while the base contributes. A late Dispenser can occupy C2 as complementary damage, but it begins its receipt-sensitive development then; it does not retroactively inherit the run economy. |
Build order
- Use the Palace and a viable Mercenary as the first commitment when that hand is stronger than the available Dispenser route. Do not spend the opening trying to recreate another setup while the base and troop cards in hand can already contribute.
- Reserve A2 for a Beacon connection to Palace at A1. Add the illustrated Vault only once the troop can tolerate the economic investment. Check whether the base attacks the threats that matter; a useful troop upgrade may do more than another Palace level when the base is not the current bottleneck.
- The Palace, Beacon and Mercenary must operate as an army, not as three isolated Greed cards. Mercenary holds enemies while the base contributes. A late Dispenser can occupy C2 as complementary damage, but it begins its receipt-sensitive development then; it does not retroactively inherit the run economy.
How to play
A growing reserve is not a win condition by itself. When the screen survives but cannot finish the opposition, accept a necessary purchase even if Mercenary numbers fall slightly. When the screen collapses, an unrelated late tower investment may be too slow to justify the same spending.
What can break the build
A Beacon placed diagonally from Palace leaves the intended base-speed relationship missing. Moving it into A2 is a geometry repair, whereas buying another economy card is a different decision. Check that later placements do not displace the only direct base support.
Evidence limit
Mechanics checked against the official card reference and developer Patch #29, #30 and #31 notes on 2026-10-13. Layouts and priorities are editorial recommendations for 0.9.8; no fresh-run clears, win rates, damage benchmarks or universal difficulty guarantees are claimed.