Yeah rank 15 is pretty challenging. Congrats on your win. I've gotten pretty consistent at it that I can win with Victoria, Soloman, and Alexander in about 5 tries, Ramses and Yvon in 10 tries and Richard and Makeda in 30 tries. That being said you definitely need a somewhat decent start to really have a chance.

While I do agree with a lot of the cards you listed, some that you stated are a little more situation or IMO out right bad. For example, adding more Queens is only really viable if you have 6 damage and easy way to deal with them (like as you said the Sacred Crown) and even then this is iffy since it adds the Iron Maiden card into the pool. Ruins is a very situation card since you are usually giving white at least 10 hp worth of pieces on top of an extra Rook that you are unlikely able to 1 shot. Usually an extremely dangerous card to add unless you are very well prepared.

The one card that I see a lot of people praise which in my opinion is actually the biggest trap in the game is Black Mist. Black Mist seems like a really good card because hey 1 guaranteed get out of jail free but issue with it is twofold. First, it comes with a -1 range which means it's harder to win and your chance of being checkmated has increased. Saving you from a checkmate means a lot less when you are going to get checkmated more easily especially if you pass on another black card which could have helped prevent checkmate in the first place. However the much bigger issue is Black Mist is the sole prerequisite for the Knightmare white card (Knights -1 hp, Knights can only be damaged when they are ready to move). There are some cards that are more or less an auto lose and Knightmare can easily be one of them so keeping it out of the pool of possible choices is pretty significant. For these reasons I see Black Mist as a card that can only be taken if you are already far ahead and basically going to win anyway which basically makes it a "Win More" card and not very good.

I never knew Black Mist allows Knightmare to spawn. Would definitely never take Knightmare, but in the end Rank 15 is mostly about choosing the lesser worse option, so probably forced to the take other white card that's offered. Funny enough, Had it not been for Black Mist in my successful run I wouldn't have won (it triggered on the final boss).

Rooks have single handily been the bane of all of my Rank 15 attempts, and it's almost always because of their extremely high hp, which is why I enjoy Ruins. They love to cut off huge sections of the board as well as trap you on the last rank as you fend off pawns.

Queens are really scary but also become helpful if you have have a soul build. Ironically they feel easier to deal with (sometimes) compared to Rooks, despite being the sole piece who can checkmate you on its own. After playing on the lower ranks I can tell how much smarter the Ai gets in the later ranks. Pieces either love to check you, cut you off from a side of the board, or purposely get behind a piece in an attempt to cause a discovered check death. Queens tend to get close for this reason which makes them easier to kill.

When I was struggling with Rank 15 I thought of using Makeda, but it's pretty useless if you don't immediately get Nightbane or Bushido in the first draw. Kudos to you for winning with it.

The danger is getting 2 untakable cards together so considering how little Black Mist does for you in the grand scheme of things, I'd rather not add another untakable white card into the pool. When you really get down to it Black Mist isn't that different from some of the Wands or Kings Shoulders. All of them are one time use options that can bail you out of a checkmate except Black Mist makes you weaker and overall does less to forward your game than the others.

You're absolutely correct about Rooks being the bane of R15. The recent AI buff made them a lot scarier. Previously they would always check you if they could and would always choose to check you from closer rather than further away. This could be used to trick them into blocking their own pawns and keep them off the back rank. Now, not only are they no longer guaranteed to come closer but they can even choose to not check you to try and cut off your escape. In fact, both my last two R15 wins got King Shoulders on floor 1 which is one of the best ways to counter White's initial starting rook.

That being said, this is all more of a reason not to take Ruins usually. For most guns there really isn't much difference between a 6 hp rook and an 8 hp rook since you still can't one shot them. I'd say the average card gives white about 4~6 hp of material so Ruins giving white 12 hp worth of material early on one of which is a second Rook is pretty scary. Of course if you have 6 damage then Ruins becomes a lot better and Victoria is obviously the best gun at meeting this threshold.

You're also correct about Queens being easier to deal with than Rooks (sometimes). In fact one of my favorite new cards is Lady in the Tower (Rooks turn into Queens instead of checkmating you) which, once you get 6 damage, is often a better version of Ruins. Not only can you "upgrade" Rooks into a less hp piece, you can control when they come forward and white doesn't get the two extra pawns. Still though I would be careful about taking it before having 6 damage.

The real challenge with Queens is, their recent AI buff makes them more likely to attack you on diagonals and a bunch of the guns aren't perfectly accurate when firing diagonally. Additionally Iron Maiden is another untakable card and was recently nerfed to remove a Queen upon pickup. As such it cannot appear unless white has two Queens. This was a wonderful change since before this nerf I lost several runs by Iron Maiden appearing in the mid game with another dreadful white card. Unfortunately this also means that adding a second queen now weakens you future pool of cards though fun fact, Kings shoulder's is also a hard counter to Iron Maiden. .

Thanks for the compliment about winning with all the guns. Sadly you are right that most of my Makeda wins found Nightbane and Bushido within the first few draws.

Largely agree on Black mist, I'd only take that if I already have something to offset it's penalty. Especially with power 3 guns, you can't afford to miss due to range.

I'm currently trying to get a rank 15 win with all the guns in order. Currently stuck on Makeda. I think I only even get past floor 1 only 20% of the time. It really seems like as if promotions are more likely to be queens on R15. If one would ask me to rebalance R15, I'd say less queen promotion until the white queen card.

That said: Any Makeda R15 tips? Anything I could be doing wrong with my abysmal floor 1 win rate? I often find myself unable to kill the pawns fast enough, having to resign because like 80% of the promotions are Queens for some reason. Or getting stuck and mated in an ever confining space trying to do so.

Pawns aren't more likely to promote to a Queen though it sure does blow when it happens in the first level especially with the three damage guns. I too have often felt that it would be nice if Homecoming unlocked Queen promotions.

For general advice, my R15 strategy for all guns on the first level is to at the start look at both knights and see which one is moving first towards me first. Keep in mind that there's a chance the faster one will be blocked by a pawn though knights move before pawns when they move at the same time. I then move towards the faster one and stop on the 3rd row (3 spaces away from where the Knight will move). From this point I'll start taking shots at the Knight. This accomplishes several things. First it minimizes the number of moves I make while at max ammo since these are more or less wasted turns. Second, this distance is close enough that pellets will hit the knight and any that miss will deal collateral damage to the pawns behind it. It's also a position where the bishops usually cannot check you right away unless you're unlucky with pawn movement. Lastly, if you fail to kill the knight, on it's next move it cannot check you and will likely move next to you where you can either stab or shoot it.

After that I will finish off as many Knights and Bishops as I can while preparing for the Rook. Once I see that the Rook is ready to move towards my back line I might move towards it while falling back a bit to the third or second row if I'm too close to the pawns. You didn't used to have to do this but the new Rook AI will try to trap you if you are too close to the pawns. Whatever you do try and keep it off your back line. Try to set it up that after the rook attacks you, you have a few free turns on the Rook's direct diagonal so you can shoot twice and slash to kill it. Makeda is fortunate enough to have a spread that's pretty fully accurate on diagonals giving it an easy 3 hit combo on the rook as long as you aren't harassed. Once you reach this point try to kill as many pawns as you can mixing in shots and slashes. It's pretty likely that 1 or two pawns will promote so just prepare for that by regaining ammo and not allowing the enemy king to get too close.

This is what I've found to have the best chance of success on floor 1 though it's entirely possible to just lose if bullet RNG or white piece movement coordination is bad so don't feel bad if you need to reset a bunch of times.

Once you beat the the first level the following is a tier list of how good your white drafts are. Note that this is specifically aimed at your early floors and the placement of certain cards can easily move up or down depending on how your build is going and what white cards you have to take as the run goes on. It is also specific for Mekeda though this mostly just means that the Blade cards are higher than they otherwise would be. Like Ritual Dagger would be an F tier card for any other gun. Sadly I cannot do this for the white cards because how dangerous white cards are as the game goes on changes much much more radically.

Anything in Tier 0 and Tier 1 will put you strongly on the path to win as they will all significantly help you for the rest of the game. Anything in Tier 2 will also be very useful though usually not strong enough on their own to win the run but will be of huge assistance if you find a Tier 0/1 card. Tier 3 are generally useful cards though not run defining and if paired with a manageable white card can be ok to take. Tier F just means reset the run if you need to take one of these. All these cards either are actively harmful to the player or do too little. If you want to ask about any of these cards specifically please do.

Tier 0
Knightsbane
Bushido

Tier 1
Blunderbuss
Holy Gun Powder
Taunting Hop
Egotistic Malstorm
Sawed off Justice
Patience
Force Feeding

Tier 2
Royal Loafers
Sacred Crown
Moat
King Shoulders
Cornered Despot
Rats
Wand of Execution
Seers Orb
Tearing Bullets
Elusive
Small Fry Harvest
Low Cost Disguise

Tier 3
Kingdom Wealth
Elite Gem
High Focus
Unholy Call
Crow's Blessing
Courteous Jousting
High Focus
Engraved Scope
Rightful Curtsy

Tier F
Bold Plan
Extra Barrel
Unjust Decree
August Presence
Black Mist
Cannon Fodder
Bloodless Coup
Selective Listening

Originally posted by lolstar64:

Tier 0
Knightsbane
Bushido

Tier 1
Blunderbuss
Holy Gun Powder
Taunting Hop
Egotistic Malstorm
Sawed off Justice
Patience
Force Feeding

Tier 2
Royal Loafers
Sacred Crown
Moat
King Shoulders
Cornered Despot
Rats
Wand of Execution
Seers Orb
Tearing Bullets
Elusive
Small Fry Harvest
Low Cost Disguise

Tier 3
Kingdom Wealth
Elite Gem
High Focus
Unholy Call
Crow's Blessing
Courteous Jousting
High Focus
Engraved Scope
Rightful Curtsy

Tier F
Bold Plan
Extra Barrel
Unjust Decree
August Presence
Black Mist
Cannon Fodder
Bloodless Coup
Selective Listening

I would like to ask why "Sawed off Justice" is rated so highly?
I often get confused because I get checkmate by backing off while shooting.
(Hope the translation is accurate)

Originally posted by 池月:

I would like to ask why "Sawed off Justice" is rated so highly?
I often get confused because I get checkmate by backing off while shooting.
(Hope the translation is accurate)

No problem. In fact a lot of people ask that when I tell them that Sawed off is a very good card. The thing about Sawed off Justice is when you get it you must adjust your play style around it and as such it has a learning curve. If you play the same way with it as you normally do it will feel like it's back firing all the time. However once you learn to use it well you can usually avoid putting yourself in zugzwang and then, not only is it a very strong card but it is IMO at least tied for the best floor 1 black card for every gun except maybe Mekeda for whom it is one of the best non-blade card.

First it is one of only 2 card that gives you +2 damage without needing to meet any conditions. This is already amazing since every gun in the game gains OHKOs on at least 2 significant pieces (3 power guns get Pawns, Knights, Bishops, 4 power guns get Bishops and Queens).

As for the knock back, instead of thinking of the knock back as a penalty you should think of the knock back as Royal Loafers light. If your king is in check you usually have to choose between running away to killing the checking piece. However if the checking piece is far away, it's usually impossible to kill it so you are forced to run and here's where the knock back from Sawed Off becomes amazing. You now have the option to ignore the far away piece and shoot a piece that is close to you using the knock back to dodge the check. In fact, even if you are checked from nearby piece you can't OHKO, it's not hard to shoot at an angle where you are knocked to a safe space while hitting most of your pellets on the piece. For this reason, under ideal circumstances SoJ is like getting 2 copies of Holy Gun Powder and Royal Loafers all in a single card. All 3 of which are very strong on their own so getting all 3 at once is amazing.

However it is not all positives. First is the -1 range. While it is certainly a detriment, most of the time you are shooting close range anyway so it is manageable. Every gun except maybe Yvon can absorb -1 range and still function but it makes future cards that also have -1 range like Black Mist and Ritual Dagger basically run enders since your range will be too low.

Another thing is that it has a steep learning curve. You have to constantly be on the lookout for any pieces that might be able to trap your back line moving into a dangerous position and react to them accordingly most notably Rooks and Queens. These pieces usually only forgo checking you in favor of traping you if other pieces are near so falling back away from the front line is usually enough to trick rooks into checking you instead of trapping you. You cannot simply just shoot with disregard and think that you'll be able to solve things when they happen. The most recent patch indirectly nerfed SoJ since previously white pieces wouldn't explicitly move to try and trap you but now Rooks and Queens do in fact try to cut off your escape routes. So now you have to be extra vigilant to spot these pieces as they move and react accordingly.

So basically, yes, it can create zugzwangs in some situations where you were previously fine but this downside is vastly overshadowed by being able to safely attack while in check even if you can't kill the checking piece which is an excellent trade off for the player. However the steep learning curve can put off some people.

Originally posted by lolstar64:

Originally posted by 池月:

I would like to ask why "Sawed off Justice" is rated so highly?
I often get confused because I get checkmate by backing off while shooting.
(Hope the translation is accurate)

No problem. In fact a lot of people ask that when I tell them that Sawed off is a very good card. The thing about Sawed off Justice is when you get it you must adjust your play style around it and as such it has a learning curve. If you play the same way with it as you normally do it will feel like it's back firing all the time. However once you learn to use it well you can usually avoid putting yourself in zugzwang and then, not only is it a very strong card but it is IMO at least tied for the best floor 1 black card for every gun except maybe Mekeda for whom it is one of the best non-blade card.

First it is one of only 2 card that gives you +2 damage without needing to meet any conditions. This is already amazing since every gun in the game gains OHKOs on at least 2 significant pieces (3 power guns get Pawns, Knights, Bishops, 4 power guns get Bishops and Queens).

As for the knock back, instead of thinking of the knock back as a penalty you should think of the knock back as Royal Loafers light. If your king is in check you usually have to choose between running away to killing the checking piece. However if the checking piece is far away, it's usually impossible to kill it so you are forced to run and here's where the knock back from Sawed Off becomes amazing. You now have the option to ignore the far away piece and shoot a piece that is close to you using the knock back to dodge the check. In fact, even if you are checked from nearby piece you can't OHKO, it's not hard to shoot at an angle where you are knocked to a safe space while hitting most of your pellets on the piece. For this reason, under ideal circumstances SoJ is like getting 2 copies of Holy Gun Powder and Royal Loafers all in a single card. All 3 of which are very strong on their own so getting all 3 at once is amazing.

However it is not all positives. First is the -1 range. While it is certainly a detriment, most of the time you are shooting close range anyway so it is manageable. Every gun except maybe Yvon can absorb -1 range and still function but it makes future cards that also have -1 range like Black Mist and Ritual Dagger basically run enders since your range will be too low.

Another thing is that it has a steep learning curve. You have to constantly be on the lookout for any pieces that might be able to trap your back line moving into a dangerous position and react to them accordingly most notably Rooks and Queens. These pieces usually only forgo checking you in favor of traping you if other pieces are near so falling back away from the front line is usually enough to trick rooks into checking you instead of trapping you. You cannot simply just shoot with disregard and think that you'll be able to solve things when they happen. The most recent patch indirectly nerfed SoJ since previously white pieces wouldn't explicitly move to try and trap you but now Rooks and Queens do in fact try to cut off your escape routes. So now you have to be extra vigilant to spot these pieces as they move and react accordingly.

So basically, yes, it can create zugzwangs in some situations where you were previously fine but this downside is vastly overshadowed by being able to safely attack while in check even if you can't kill the checking piece which is an excellent trade off for the player. However the steep learning curve can put off some people.

Thanks, I'll practice again.
Which gun will help me to challenge the level?
I failed many times at Level 10 tonight, sometimes because I ran out of bullets, but more often because I was surrounded by chess pieces... I think the computer is too smart and it's frustrating.

Originally posted by 池月:

Thanks, I'll practice again.
Which gun will help me to challenge the level?
I failed many times at Level 10 tonight, sometimes because I ran out of bullets, but more often because I was surrounded by chess pieces... I think the computer is too smart and it's frustrating.

In general Victoria is the easiest gun to use. Starting with 5 firepower and a fire arc small enough to reliably shoot on diagonals greatly outweighs the downside of low ammo.

Alexander is the next and it might be better than Victoria though it's conditional on really understanding what cards are good to draft and how to make your build. At the higher difficulties finding good cards is so essential to a good run that seeing 50% more is huge though once you hit R12 Alexander's arc is so big it can no longer reliably hit diagonal shots but that's a small price to pay.

Solomon is also really good. 4 damage and a nice arc makes it just well balanced. Up till this point all the guns are generally easy to use and I would suggest any one of the 3 you are most comfortable with.

Ramses has decent stats but there is a learning curve. Because it can knock pieces off the board for free autokills regardless of hp, you need to learn how to move and manipulate pieces to the edge of the board. Killing an 8 hp rook with a single bullet feels great.

Richard has a very hard time beating the first level since it has 3 damage and a bad arc but if it can find any of the +2 damage cards early on it begins to shred since it's range, ammo and piercing are all above average. Still winning those early levels is tough and not finding damage by your third reward is basically a death sentence.

Mekeda goes one of two ways. Either you find Bushido and Knightsbane very early and it is the freest win you'll ever have or you go game after game after game finding nothing and never get past the early game. In a recent attempt of mine I was trying to get a Mekeda win. It took me over 20 tries. Afterwards I tried with Alexander and it took me 1 try.

Yvon might not be the worst gun but it has a massive learning curve due to it's non-existent range so I would not suggest using it.