Board Game Arena

Buying more cards early seems to be a good idea because you'll have hands with better cards in more rounds. But, what if:

- You drew two fear cards in the first round, meaning there are no fear cards in your deck.
- You were able to explore in the first round, but can't defeat the guardian, so you're getting a third fear card.

You've bought two cards, and you have enough gold to buy a third. If you do, there's a pretty good chance that you'll draw no fear cards at all for round 2, because you already have a deck of four that aren't fear. If that happens, you are likely to get all three fears in round 3. What would you do, buy the third card now, or hold off, to increase the odds that one fear card will come up in round 2?

What if, because you explored in round 1, you actually still have an un-used fear card at the end. You could choose to keep it for round 2, which will allow you to buy a third card and still avoid drawing 3 fears in round 3 (by buying again in round 2). Is that a good tactic?

It is good to buy as many cards as you can in the first round. If you do so, you will have 2 or 3 fear cards (from a site) and you will get them all in the third round. What you can do is, in the second round, try to draw more cards. this way you will get them in the second round again. You might even need them (for discards) but if you dont, you will have a better hand of cards in round 3. Then avoid at all costs to get any more if you are unable to destroy them. If you get more eventually you will be overcome by fear cards, most likely in the last round, and this will be bad. Very bad. I have been in this situation a few times.
But if you do get many fear cards, a good strategy is to play/discard them one or two at a time. This way you will not have a bulk lot of fears one after another. Also, buy other cards from time to time, so you have many cards in your deck, so they will come up really hard or not at all.
This is what I try to do.

Note that game does not follow the rules and if you're ending hand has fear(s) in it the game will not let you keep any of them. I've posted it on the bug forum, it's acknowledged that it doesn't follow the rules but nobody cares enough to fix it.

And yes, i tend to agree it's a bad strategy but it depends on what you are buying. Lroa is a game where there's a use for every card in a particular situation.

Typically the second round you will want to be able to go to at least one basic camp.

Magrim42 wrote: ↑29 June 2026, 08:11 Note that game does not follow the rules and if you're ending hand has fear(s) in it the game will not let you keep any of them. I've posted it on the bug forum, it's acknowledged that it doesn't follow the rules but nobody cares enough to fix it.

And yes, i tend to agree it's a bad strategy but it depends on what you are buying. Lroa is a game where there's a use for every card in a particular situation.

Typically the second round you will want to be able to go to at least one basic camp.

But why would you ever want to keep fear cards in your hand in the end of a round?

Manuel_xxx_xxx wrote: ↑29 June 2026, 12:11

Magrim42 wrote: ↑29 June 2026, 08:11 Note that game does not follow the rules and if you're ending hand has fear(s) in it the game will not let you keep any of them. I've posted it on the bug forum, it's acknowledged that it doesn't follow the rules but nobody cares enough to fix it.

And yes, i tend to agree it's a bad strategy but it depends on what you are buying. Lroa is a game where there's a use for every card in a particular situation.

Typically the second round you will want to be able to go to at least one basic camp.

But why would you ever want to keep fear cards in your hand in the end of a round?

I've gone over this in another thread and i would say that generally you wouldn't keep any cards in your hand. But when i would want to, about 90% of the time it's a fear and the other 10% is airplane. (It's a narrow window)

When you know you're going to need to go to a basic camp(usually tablets or compasses), when you know you can discard it, for rope, grappling hook, arrow apprentice, when you know you can also destroy it in the next turn from the tableu. And also, so you don't draw it in the round after the next round along with possibly other fears and totally sink your round after the next round. Kinda poed they never fixed this, as it seems it would be easy too do.