Fundamentals

The rules, plainly.

How SPAM works: the mechanics that actually decide a game, and what the data says about every card.

4 rules

The basics

Every elemental bonus point is +10% for the rest of the game

Damage and healing = base × (1 + bonus × 0.1). The bonus belongs to the player and never decays, except through a Cost: generating early pays on every later hit. A deck focused on one or two elements turns each "+1" into a gain for three or four cards instead of one.

Activation order: generate, then buff, then attack

Within a turn, cast the abilities that grant bonuses first (Blaze, Multiboost, Heart…), then attack: your hits immediately use the new multiplier. The same applies to critical, precision and base-damage buffs.

Understanding cooldowns

A cooldown of n means "usable every n turns". The first player starts with every cooldown reduced by 1, the second by 2: going second, your cooldown-2 abilities are ready on turn 1. Shorten your own cooldowns with Temporality, lengthen the opponent’s with Eternity; Purge cancels a lengthening.

The terrain grants +5 to both players

The terrain element, on the left of the board, grants +5 in that element to both sides from the start. If your deck attacks in that element you open with +50% damage; otherwise your opponent may benefit more than you, so adjust your targets and your tempo.

4 rules

In combat

Team critical stacks without a cap

Effects that grant "Critical (+x%) to all allied cards" are permanent: after a few casts the whole team crits almost every time, for at least double damage. Abilities with a ×3 to ×6 multiplier then become real cannons.

Resistances: aim at the weak spot

Resistances reduce damage by a percentage, element by element, and can be negative. Hit a card in the element where it sits at −20 or −50: that is 20 to 50% of free damage. Raw ignores both resistance and taunt.

Kills trigger cascades

Reset keeps the attack available after a kill, Avenger refreshes all its attacks whenever a card dies, Graveyard raises every bonus you hold, Soul Vitality grants health and One man army base damage. Finish a low enemy card before your other attacks: the chain resolves within the same turn.

Cost abilities spend your bonuses

A "[Cost 10 FIRE]" removes ten Fire bonus points, and terrain points do not count. Bring generators to prime the pump, and check that the ability returns more than it spends.

3 rules

Defense and control

Taunt forces the opponent’s targeting, not yours

A high-health taunter shields your fragile generators. Punching Bag grants an element point per attack taken, Reflect returns part of the damage, Heart of Steel raises resistances on every hit: each blow absorbed becomes an advantage.

Stun and Eternity win whole turns

A stunned card casts nothing for the duration; Eternity adds a turn to every cooldown on the target. Apply them to the most dangerous enemy card right before its big ability comes up: count its cooldowns.

Vanish removes the last passive

Passives are ordered and Vanish removes the last one, usually the most recently bought Tox. Buy your most valuable Tox first, or keep a cheaper passive in the last slot. Inscribed makes a card immune to Vanish.

3 rules

Economy and shop

Spamtons and the Tox shop

Every card generates its Spamtons each turn, shown in the top right corner. A deck producing thirty Spamtons per turn buys Tox far faster: between two equivalent cards, prefer the one at eight or fifteen Spamtons. Lucky Tox evens the rarities to 25% each, and Small Price refunds your first purchase.

Buy for a card that has a free slot

A card has at most three ability slots, abilities and Tox combined. A card with three abilities can take nothing; a card with a single ability accepts two Tox. Check the free slots before buying, and aim for the Tox that changes the card rather than a survival passive on a card that never gets hit.

The shop: knowing when to stop

Every deck page gives the expected value of a random purchase, before and after the recommended plan. Once it drops below one percent of score, or once no slot is free, keep your Spamtons: a useless Tox occupies a slot and gives Vanish a target.

2 rules

Talents

Turn-gated talents

Breath-8, Life-8, Bomb-8 and Immunity-8 do nothing before turn 8. On an aggressive deck they are wasted; on a control or tank deck they are strong fallbacks: doubled health, immunity, or a free cooldown-1 attack.

Avoid random shapeshifting on a key card

Random shapeshifting swaps the card for another of the same rarity: the five hundred health from Reckless is worthless if your generator becomes a card outside your elements. Transition, which transforms the card on death, remains a decent second life.

Rankings