Character Overview

Metal Mosaic is a high-hp, 9 hand-size melee bruiser that takes advantage of a unique pressure
mechanic to get extra effects out of its actions. Based on your card selection and level up decisions, the
Metal Mosaic can either lean further into either a tank or damage-dealing role depending on the needs
of your party. This overview will be primarily focused on the damage-dealing Metal Mosaic as I have the
most experience playing that role, but I will cover all cards and what their contributions are to either
role.

Within the damage-dealing role, Metal Mosaic also has some flexibility in deciding how it wants to
achieve that role. You can focus on trying to hit maximum pressure as much as possible to get off a series
of powerful attacks at the cost of your health (The “Overclocker”). You can also take a more alternating
build that seeks to get bonuses from both high pressure and lower pressure effects (The “Alternator”),
swapping between the two as the situation sees fit.

Not sure if this character is right for you? Here’s a brief summary of the Metal Mosaic’s advantages and
disadvantages.
 Pros:
●​ Consistently high melee damage with good access to pierce for dealing with annoying shielded
enemies.
●​ High base HP with the ability to ignore item penalties. This tankiness is further increased by
strong self-healing and the ability to negate poison, ensuring that your heals have their full
effect.
●​ Fairly good initiative control with many fast actions and a few late initiatives for when you want
the monsters to come to you.
Cons:
●​ Almost all of your abilities are melee, limiting your targeting options or ability to deal with
retaliating enemies.
●​ Fairly mediocre mobility.
●​ Low hand size limits your total number of turns and your ability to lose cards to damage or play
loss cards.

Pressure Mechanics
Pressure is a key mechanic required to make the most out of the Metal Mosaic, so it’s important to
understand how it works. You start each scenario at Regular Pressure, the second level of pressure, and
it can increase and decrease over the course of a scenario based on your actions. Pressure does not have
any inherent effect on your character, but will affect the behavior and values of many of their abilities. In
general, Over Pressure and High Pressure are ideal for increasing offensive abilities, while Low Pressure
gives utility and survivability bonuses. As a result, you don’t necessarily always want to be at Over
Pressure, as there are plenty of useful bonuses you can get while low on pressure.

There are a few key behaviors of the pressure mechanic that are important to learn:

Pressure effects and changes are mandatory: You can’t choose to ignore a pressure increase or decrease
effect, nor can you choose to not apply a matching pressure bonus for your actions. If an enemy has 2
health and you attack it with Ancient Drill while at Over Pressure, you will still suffer the self-damage and
you pressure will still decrease afterward, so you may want to consider instead using a different attack.
This includes pressure abilities in their own ability box, as long as there is a valid target. In Beam Axe’s
bottom, for example, the Over Pressure effect will always trigger if you are at Over Pressure (adjacent
enemies suffering damage is not a targeted effect). The Low Pressure effect will always trigger if there is
an adjacent ally at the end of your movement, but will not trigger if there is no valid target after the
move.

Multiple pressure changes are combined: If you have multiple effects that would change pressure after
an action, all pressure changes happen at the conclusion of that ability. As an example, Steel Piston
allows you to discard it from your active ability to add +2 attack and Pressure Down to an attack. If you
use that with Ancient Drill while at High Pressure, you will get the High Pressure bonus effect, then lower
your pressure by 2, leaving you at Low Pressure after the attack.
If a pressure change is tied to an ability, that ability must be performed: If a pressure change is part of
an ability, then using that ability is required for the pressure change. As an example, you can’t gain any
pressure from the bottom of Steam Armor if you don’t move at least 1 (Move 0’s are not a thing in
Frosthaven).
 Cards

Level 1 Cards

Steam Armor

Top: This is a clear-cut tanking action, but it doesn’t have much value if you aren’t going for a tank build.
Shielding by itself doesn’t really push you toward you scenario objectives any faster, and as a top action,
it’s competing with several other powerful actions you could use, especially while at High or Over
Pressure. This is more useful in large parties, allowing you to soak up hits while your allies gets to attack
with relative safety, but if you only have 2 players, this results in a huge drop in potential damage for the
turn.

The initiative is pretty good at 17, but there are quite a few enemies that can edge you out if they draw
well, like guards, archers, or hounds. Be mindful of the enemies you’re facing if you plan on defending
with this card. Generating Ice means this can combo into Pressure Build-Up to make up for the lost
pressure, or Memory Drive if you went from Over Pressure to Regular Pressure.

Bottom: The bottom, on the other hand, is excellent for everyone. Movement AND a pressure increase if
you’re at Low/Regular is pretty solid, especially considering its solid initiative. The fire generation isn’t
particularly useful at this level, but it can enable an unconditional pressure up on your following turn if
you use Pressure Build-Up’s bottom - it’s also good to keep in mind if you take Heated Drill later. Just
remember: You must move to get the pressure increase and element. This is a solid enhancement
candidate, as that tiny bit of extra movement can make a huge difference for a relatively cheap cost.

Ancient Drill

Top: This is an excellent all-around action, dealing 3-5 damage depending on your pressure level, with
anywhere from 1 to 4 pierce. 4 pierce is often overkill, but it’s nice insurance against enemies that can
give themselves a lot of shield depending on what they draw (looking at you, imps!). Even against
unshielded enemies, 5 damage is above-average for a level 1, making this a good card to keep around
even when the pierce isn’t needed. At level 1, this is one of your core pressure-utilizing attacking cards
(the other being Beam Axe) - try not to use it unless you’re at least at High Pressure.

The attack has a diamond enhancement, allowing a condition to be applied. Since I tend to use this as a
kill card, I’d generally prefer a good old fashion +1 enhancement instead, upping the damage range even
further for relatively cheap.

Bottom: The bottom is more situational, but still useful. 3 move is solid as far as Metal Mosaic is
concerned. Destroying obstacles is occasionally useful, and you even get a pressure increase out of it if it
happens. At level 1, your lack of high impact top actions means you probably won’t use this much, but at
higher levels as you have more options to spend your pressure, you may want to keep the bottom in
mind more, especially when there’s an obstacle available to destroy.

Ancient Drill’s initiative is also very late, giving you the option to let enemies come to you if needed. It’s
fairly rare to see an enemy go after 90, so the extra initiative flexibility is appreciated.

Rocket Boots

Top: Attack 3 Push 2 is pretty par for level 1 push effects. You get fire out of this as well, which can be a
nice bonus if you want to follow up with something like Pressure Build-Up’s bottom to get extra pressure
next turn. Since you lack ranged attacks, this is a solid card to utilize when you’re facing retaliating
enemies, and naturally it will be good in any situations where you have lots of traps or hazardous terrain
to knock enemies into. The card is also completely independent of pressure, which can be good if you’re
holding on to Over Pressure but don’t have any good targets to spend it on yet. The initiative is solid, but
not quite fast enough to reliably outspeed enemies.
Bottom: Hey a jump! Jump 3 isn’t spectacular on its own, but this card gets some boosts at High and
Over Pressure. High Pressure increases the movement to 4, but crucially does not lower your pressure.
Over Pressure increases the movement to a whopping 6, but unfortunately also pressures you down and
dings you for 1 damage. This can still be worth it if you’re falling behind or if you’re in a scenario that
requires a lot of movement. As you may notice, Metal Mosaic tends not to have very high-value move
abilities, so both the High Pressure and Over Pressure effects of this card are huge for you in any scenario
where you need to move around a lot. You get a circle enhancement dot here, but since elements aren’t
especially essential for you, I recommend a +1 if you’re looking to get this upgraded, although an
element enhancement can be reasonable at level 7 or higher due to future cards.

Overall this card is fairly decent and one that I find myself swapping in and out at higher levels
depending on the needs of the scenario. Make sure to check if there’s a lot of hazardous terrain or traps
to take advantage of the top action, or a lot of movement required with negative hexes to take
advantage of the bottom.

Power Core

Top: This is our first loss action, and it’s important to keep in mind that loss actions need to be fairly
impactful to justify using on a character with only a 9 card hand size. Thankfully, Power Core’s top is
quite powerful at High or Over Pressure. Attack 4 Stun on its own is pretty mediocre for a loss, but High
Pressure adds 1 damage and wound. Wound combined with stun is always nice, since the enemy is
guaranteed to take the wound damage at least twice unless an ally heals it, making this effectively an
Attack 7. The real power is in the Over Pressure version, however, which gives wound and a second
target, knocking two enemies out of a turn and dealing some respectable damage to boot. Even then, I
don’t recommend using this early as the hit to your stamina will be pretty severe.

Bottom: What do we like to see with situational top losses? A useful, reusable bottom. Power Core does
this, giving us a decent self-heal, combined with a pressure increase that works regardless of your
current pressure. The self healing is even higher at Regular or Low Pressure, letting you survive longer. As
a bottom action, it’s also not preventing you from attacking the same turn (as long as you don’t have to
move). If you’re playing this with an attack, you get some flexibility in choosing whether you want to use
this before or after the attack: for example, if you’re at High Pressure and also have Beam Axe queued
up, you can use Beam Axe first, then use Power Core to heal 4 and put yourself back at High Pressure. If
you used Power Core first instead, you’d get 3 healing, get the Over Pressure bonus for Beam Axe (which
may or may not be worthwhile based on your number of targets), then end up at Regular Pressure. So
always be mindful of your action order when you have the flexibility.

Steel Piston
Top: This is an interesting action. It only deals 3 damage, but gives you a discardable effect that can
boost the damage of another attack you make. It also adds pressure down which can cause you to swing
from Over Pressure all the way to Low Pressure in conjunction with actions like Beam Axe top. This is
pretty solid if you like to make use of both high pressure and low pressure effects, letting you jump from
one type of effect to the next. Keep in mind the persistent ability is separate from the attack, so you can
also set this up when there are no enemies nearby to hit.

Rules note: ALL pressure effects happen at the end of an action, and you can decide which order they
happen in. For example, if you discard Steel Piston while at Low Pressure to add 2 damage to Super Heat
Transfer, you can decide to take the pressure loss from Steel Piston first (keep you at the same pressure
because you can’t go lower than Low Pressure), THEN take the pressure up from Super Heat Transfer,
leaving you at High Pressure. You’d also get 2 XP, one from Steel Piston and one from Super Heat
Transfer’s Low Pressure Bonus.

Bottom: This is the rare offensive pressure effect on the bottom of a card. The attacks are decent,
especially if there are low hp enemies you want to pick off before hitting someone else with your top
action. Just keep in mind you will be at Regular Pressure after making the attacks, limiting how effective
your top action can be for the round. This means you generally want to combine it with a top action that
doesn’t need High/Over Pressure to be effective, like Rocket Boots or Pressure Build-Up. At level 6, you
also have a potential combo of Steel Piston Bottom into Scalding Blast, which is 9 damage across 2
attacks if you started at Over Pressure. The bonus attack is a separate ability from the move, so also keep
in mind you don’t need to perform the move 2 to get the attack. Against shielded enemies, however,
these attacks are going to be less useful than just attacking with something like Ancient Drill.

Pressure Build-Up

Top: Here’s a look at our first element-consuming card. Pressure Build-Up is an attack 2 at base, which is
pretty lousy, but becomes a respectable attack 4 if you’re able to consume Ice. It also provides an
unconditional Pressure Increase which can be great if you want to go from High Pressure to Over
Pressure. At level 1, your sources of Ice are Steam Armor top and Super Heat Transfer Bottom. The latter
can set up a powerful sequence of 3 turns where you start by using Super Heat Transfer at High Pressure
to go to Overpressure, then follow it up with a top attack like Ancient Drill, putting you back at High
Pressure. On turn 2 use Pressure Buildup to get an Attack 4 and go back to Over Pressure, letting you
make an Over Pressure Attack on the following turn as well (or combine it with the bottom of Steel
Piston to make an Attack 4, followed up by an Attack 3. Pretty good for level 1!). This is a very solid
action, but somewhat reliant on getting Ice. Playing without the element isn’t the worst thing in the
world since you still get the Increase Pressure, but you typically will want the element if you’re going to
play this.
Bottom: Move 3 is an okay base for this class. Unconditional Pressure Up if you have fire is appreciated,
although Steam Armor’s bottom or Rocket Boots’ top are your only options for Fire at level 1. At Low
Pressure you get 1 shield for the round, which is decent if you’re going to take a hit. The low pressure
effect does not increase your pressure, so you combine it with other Low Pressure effects from any top
action you play this turn, although that’s more relevant at higher levels. I tend not to use this action very
much unless I have fire up, but even without any extra effects, move 3 with 20 initiative is quite
reasonable.

Beam Axe

Top: Beam Axe is an all-star level 1 card that almost never leaves my deck, regardless of level. The top
action by itself is an attack 4, which is around par for a level 1 attack already. High Pressure and Over
Pressure turn this into an AoE, pushing this action well above the curve. Keep in mind, however, that
both Pressure Effects deal self-damage, and at Over Pressure you’re lowering your pressure twice, going
down to Regular. This can be a good or a bad thing depending on your other cards and how often you
want to be at lower pressure levels - note that Steel Piston’s top or Recursion’s bottom can allow you to
jump allow the way from Over Pressure to Low Pressure which can be excellent if you have any low
pressure effects you want to take advantage of. You’re probably not going to get the full 3 enemies at
Over Pressure, but hitting just 2 is still very worthwhile, and it’s pretty easy to get at least 2 enemies in
the AoE pattern of the Over Pressure effect.

Bottom: A move 4, wow! Metal Mosaic doesn’t get many moves over 3, so hold this tightly and never let
go. After the movement you get an additional pressure ability, both of which are pretty minor. Since you
can’t ignore the Over Pressure effect, the 1 damage effect can actually be a downside. For example, if
you want to move to an enemy 4 hexes away and use an Over Pressure attack like Ancient Drill against
them, you’re forced to spend the pressure on Beam Axe first. Having a Move 4 is excellent for Metal
Mosaic and can be enhanced further with +1 or Jump if you want to expand your options even further.
Like I said with Rocket Boots, I don’t recommend element enhancements for this class except maybe if
you’re level 7 or higher.

Memory Drive

Top: This is a weird one. You can recover a single card, or two if you play the card at Low Pressure (or at
Regular Pressure if you consume Ice). I’m not especially fond of this action - while recovering cards may
seem especially useful on a 9 card character, it essentially requires you not to play a top action for the
turn. This is a pretty big tempo hit, and feels bad to play unless you’re moving between rooms and have
nothing better to do with a top action. There are two levels of awkwardness with this to keep in mind: at
lower levels, it’s harder to reliably get to Low Pressure and get the most effect out of this card, but at
higher levels, you have fewer eligible cards to recover since only level 1 or X cards are allowed. Tank
builds may get more out of this card, especially since Steam Armor flows reasonably into this Action
from Over Pressure, putting you at Regular while giving you the Ice to consume for the full effect, but
even as a tank, I think I’d generally prefer to spend ice on Pressure Build-Up.

Bottom: Another weird one! This has potentially high movement, going up to a Move 5 if you have 6+
cards in your discard (8 cards in discard is also possible, but will only happen turn 1 and requires
recovering a single card before you rest and playing your top action first). Yet, despite all the praise I’ve
given for high movement cards on this character, this is an unreliable solution to your mobility issues.
You don’t have much flexibility on when you play it - if you need high movement right after a rest, for
example, this isn’t going to help you. It also gets worse as you lose cards, having lower and lower
maximum potential, which, combined with the awful initiative, makes it hard to find a good spot to play
this

Super Heat Transfer

Top: You don’t need me to tell you that an attack 1 is pretty underwhelming. It also has an
extraordinarily weak element consumption, just adding wound to the effect (and not even giving XP!)
The real reason to play this is for the double pressure increase if you’re at Low or Regular Pressure. You
can even increase your pressure all the way from Low to Over if you have Recursion’s top set up,
although it means you’ve spent 2 turns making relatively low-impact top actions. While the pressure
increases are always appreciated, the low damage on this never quite makes it feel satisfying to play.
However, at early levels you don’t have a lot of ways to increase pressure from Regular to Over, so this
isn’t the worst thing you can do, especially if there’s a low hp enemy you can plink where anything higher
would be overkill. Still, that should be more of a last resort than your preferred method for reaching your
desired pressure level, especially when we have an incredibly useful pressure manipulation action on the
bottom of this card.

Bottom: Now this is a fun effect. This pushes you from High to Over Pressure or from Regular Pressure to
Low Pressure, which is the opposite direction most pressure effects tend to move you. Since the best
effects tend to be on Over Pressure or Lower Pressure, this is great for pushing you where you want to
be. For example, you can use this after an action that lowers you from Over Pressure to High Pressure
(like Ancient Drill) to end your turn right back at Over Pressure for another powerful attack on your next
turn. You can also use it after playing a double pressure down effect like Beam Axe to go all the way from
Over Pressure to Low Pressure in a single turn. It also generates Ice to boot, making Pressure Build-Up
(or later, Cryogenic Hibernation) a natural followup. Just remember, the movement is mandatory if you
want the pressure effect, and it’s only a move 1. If you’re already standing where you want to be, this
can be somewhat awkward and there is no enhancement pip to save you from this poor movement.

Processing

Top: This effect basically allows you to defer your top action this turn for an extra action the next, while
also giving you some pressure if you’re at Low or Regular. This can be useful if you’re waiting for enemies
to come to you (which is helped by the super-late initiative) or you’re moving onto the next room and
want to set up an explosive entrance. Ideally you want to use this card when you have an odd number of
cards so that you aren’t reducing your already-low stamina. This can also be situationally useful in
scenarios where you need to move a lot, substituting a top action now for an extra bottom action next
turn. Additionally, this lets you combine no-movement bottom actions like Power Core with moves like
Steam Armor or Rocket Boots, giving you a lot of pressure change flexibility on your following turn while
still being able to move where you need to go. The super-late initiative is also quite handy, even edging
out Ancient Drill in terms of reliability. Despite the use cases, I find this somewhat situational and would
typically rather just have another good top action.

Bottom: Not much to say about a Move 1 Loot 1. Looting is important if you want better gear, although
the low movement and lack of interesting effects attached to it makes this pretty underwhelming as a
loot action. Still, it’s all you got for level 1 loot cards, so take it if you need it, especially in any scenarios
where looting has additional effects. If you hate taking this along, but love loot effects, keep an eye out
for Magnetic Field at level 4, which makes this card very easy to leave behind.

Recursion

Top: Attack 3 is pretty average, but the extra effect on this can be quite nice. The next time you pressure
up, you pressure up an additional time, which means you’ll either go from Low to High Pressure, or
Regular to Over Pressure. Quite a few pressure up effects only trigger if you’re at Low or Regular (like
Power Core), so this is a good way to sort of “cheat” your way to Over Pressure. This does require a turn
of set-up, but attaching an Attack 3 makes it reasonable. Keep in mind the pressure up effect is a
separate ability from the attack, so you can play this even if there’s nothing to hit nearby, which makes it
a reasonable action to play between rooms. The 50 initiative is unfortunately quite bad.

Bottom: Basically the inverse of the top action, with a Move instead of Attack, and Pressure Down
instead of Up. At level 1 there aren’t a whole lot of crazy Low Pressure bonuses, but if you take them as
you level up, this action can be quite useful if you want to go all the way from Over to Low Pressure in a
turn. An example combo would be using the bottom of Recursion followed by the top of Beam Axe to go
all the way from Over Pressure to Low Pressure in a single turn.

Curious Gear

Top: Generally, I’d prefer to spring traps by pushing enemies into it with Rocket Boots, but this one has
some different use cases. For example, you could spring a trap ranged enemies standing behind a trap or
even on a flying enemy who can’t be pushed/pulled into a trap. The initiative is your fastest yet at level 1,
and it also gives you a pressure boost. There aren’t that many scenarios where I’d use this effect, but it
can be worth swapping in if you find yourself in that situation. Keep in mind, you cannot use this to just
destroy a trap, you must have an enemy adjacent to trap in order to use a spring effect.

Bottom: This gives you… another way to move enemies into traps (or other negative hexes). Instead of
increasing pressure like the top however, this lowers it if you’re at Over Pressure, while boosting the
movement amount. Making an enemy hit a trap as a bottom action is pretty solid, especially if you have
a good followup as a top action, although that’s a pretty niche situation, especially since you don’t get to
move with this action. You can, of course, also use this to move enemies out of attack range, but that can
be hard to reliably accomplish when not knowing what ability card they’ll draw. At least the 4 range gives
you a decent number of targets you can affect most of the time.

Level 1 Overview
I would consider the following cards core at level 1, but might eventually get replaced based on what
level up cards you take:
●​ Ancient Drill: Strongest single damage and your only pierce card so far. Good late initiative.
●​ Beam Axe: Great AoE damage with a high movement bottom.
●​ Steam Armor: Pressure-increasing bottom move with a great early initiative. Shield top is decent
in larger parties for a tank build.
●​ Super Heat Transfer: Flexible bottom for pressure manipulation.
●​ Power Core: Your only self-heal, combined with unconditional pressure increase. Keep in mind
this can be quite dangerous to remove if you have no other sources of healing in your party.

These cards I consider situational or less immediately useful than the above, and are generally the first
ones I swap out for higher level cards. They can be swapped in as necessary based on the needs of the
scenario:
●​ Rocket Boots: Good if you need push or jump/high movement.
●​ Pressure Build-Up: Unconditional Pressure Up attack, but fairly low value without Ice. Good
initiative.
●​ Steel Piston: Two reasonable actions. Excellent on Alternator builds for rapid pressure change
burst turns.
●​ Processing: Sometimes you gotta loot. Top can be useful for setting up explosive turns.
●​ Curious Gear: Good on maps with traps, also your best initiative.
●​ Recursion: Solid option for pressure management.

This card I don’t recommend at all:

●​ Memory Drive: This can be reasonable on tanks as a follow up to Steam Armor’s top, but I think
you have better and more impactful options. The class is designed around high-impact turns to
 make up for its low stamina - sacrificing your tempo for more longevity is a bad tradeoff in my
mind.

Level 1 actually doesn’t have that many notable attack actions, with Ancient Drill and Beam Axe being
your non-loss attacks of choice at High or Over Pressure. This will change as the Metal Mosaic levels up,
getting access to more attacks that compete over which ones want to be used at higher pressure levels.

Level 2 Cards

Release Valve, Top: Causing enemies to suffer direct damage is a bit of a mixed bag compared to just
attacking them. On one hand, the damage ignores shield/retaliate, and won’t be screwed over by
drawing a null. On the other hand, your AMD ends up quite decent as you accrue perks, meaning you’re
often dealing more damage than the printed number of the attack. This action ends up being better in
scenarios with large amounts of enemies, or ones with large amounts of shielded enemies like Forest
Imps. It always lowers your pressure, however, and double lowers it if you were at Over or High Pressure.
Of course, whether or not that’s good depends on your synergy with Low Pressure effects. As a small
bonus, there’s no self-damage regardless of how high your pressure was.
This is somewhat comparable to Beam Axe, giving you an area of effect damage ability with less damage
potential overall, but reliably getting you to Low Pressure if you started at Regular or High. It’s also fairly
reasonable to use while at Regular Pressure, dropping you down to Low while still getting 2 damage to all
adjacent enemies.

Release Valve, Bottom: Move 3 with a self-heal and pressure decrease attached if you’re at high
pressure. This isn’t amazing, especially if you want to follow up with a high pressure top action. Still,
being able to heal AND move can be useful if you’re hurt but can’t afford to stay still and tanks are always
looking for more ways to keep their hp topped off.

Bronze Plating, Top: Here we have a persistent non-loss Shield 1, at the significant downside of not being
able to move. Remember, you’re able to discard persistent effects whenever you want, so this isn’t
crippling or anything, but it’s best used against melee enemies that you can hit back without having to
move to them first. It adds Regenerate and a pressure increase if you’re at Low or Regular pressure, but
that’s a bit awkward since Shield 1 probably isn’t sufficient for you to avoid taking any damage at all. You
could play the card for the full purpose of gaining regenerate and some pressure, especially if you’re
between groups of monsters, but the regenerate still probably won’t last long due to your self-damage
effects. It’s nice if you can get any benefit out of it, but I wouldn’t rely on it.

Bronze Plating, Bottom: +1 to all melee attacks this round and unconditional pressure up on a low
initiative! This is pretty decent for damage builds, even if you’re only getting a single extra point of
damage out of it. Applying to all attacks does mean that it can work well with area of effect attacks, like
Beam Axe, or actions that make multiple attacks. At level 8, this becomes a quite nasty combo with
Piston Barrage, adding 1 damage to each of its 3 attacks. If you have any items or other effects that can
grant you attacks on your turn, this bonus will also apply to them.

Level 2 Thoughts

Neither level 2 card is particularly game-changing, but they’re both quite reasonable picks

Tanks will likely want Bronze Plating for the persistent shield, although the healing from Release Valve
wouldn’t be unwelcome. On Alternator I recommend Release Valve for the additional pressure-lowering
effect, while Overclocker will generally want Bronze Plating for its bottom to add a little more damage
and an unconditional pressure increase.
 Level 3 Cards

Stress Vents, Top: Here we have another tanking card, this one revolving around damaging enemies that
hit you. 3 direct damage isn’t anything to scoff at, and range 2 means if you can even hurt ranged
enemies with this if you’re nearby. The effect is persistent, and can be set up before you’re even in
position to deal the damage. Unfortunately, there are two notable drawbacks to this card. First, it
doesn’t actually protect you from the damage, so make sure your armor is ready to go or you put the top
of Bronze Plating up. Second, the effect expires when your pressure hits Low, which is 3 hits at maximum
in a single turn. You have the option not to trigger the damage on any given hit, so you can be judicious
about when you trigger this if you want it to last longer. Even though this is persistent, it is not a loss, so
if you still have this up while resting, you can make a decision whether you want to discard it or not.
Generally it’s recommend to discard if it will give you at least 1 extra turn before your next rest. For
example, if it’s your first rest and you have this up, you’ll have 8 cards (4 turns) if you discard Stress
Vents, but only 7 cards (3 turns) if you don’t. On your second rest, however, it’s going to be 3 turns either
way (7 cards or 6 cards), so you may just want to keep it active.

Stress Vents, Bottom: Retaliate on a bottom action is my favorite kind of retaliate. 3 retaliate on Over
Pressure is a fairly generous amount. You can combine this with the top of Steam Armor for a Shield 2
Retaliate 3 turn, which is pretty respectable at level 3. Just keep in mind, this isn’t doing much against
ranged enemies or enemies that aren’t attacking, so consider your enemies carefully before playing this.
If enemies don’t end up attacking, you always have the option to set up the top instead of committing to
the bottom.

Electrical Discharge, Top: It’s nice to see another powerful Over Pressure effect on an attack! Hard crowd
control is at a premium in Frosthaven, so a repeatable stun attack is fantastic. This one also deals some
pretty great damage on top of the stun if you’re at Over Pressure, although it has the downside of 2
self-damage which can add up if you’re not careful. This is excellent to pull out against elites, both for the
damage and the crowd control. Like Beam Axe, this is another attack that lowers pressure twice if you’re
at High or Over pressure, so if you’re an Overclocker, think about how you’re going to get it back up
afterward. Alternators on the other hand will want to take advantage of this to set themselves at low
pressure, combining it with effects like Steel Piston or Recursion.

While a bit pricy, you may want to consider a Wound enhancement on this attack. Stun basically
guarantees 2 points of damage with Wound, making the attack especially nasty on Over Pressure.

Electrical Discharge, Bottom: More stun, but this time as a bottom action with 4 move! There’s a catch,
though, you will also get stunned if you aren’t at Low Pressure when you use this action. The self-stun is
a separate ability, so even if you choose not to move or apply stun, you’re still suffering the stun if you’re
at the wrong pressure. Alternators love this action, and its the strongest benefit we’ve seen so far for
being at Low Pressure. If you’re going to long rest next turn, it can be reasonable to play outside of Low
Pressure since stun doesn’t impact your long rests at all. Just keep in mind if you stun yourself on your
turn, you can’t use any more abilities, so play your top card first if you’re going to do this.

Level 3 Thoughts

I’m a big fan of both the level 3 cards, although which one to take should be pretty evident based on the
build you’re going for.

Tanks want Stress Vents for the retaliate bottom and retaliate-esque top. These can be combined with
your other protective cards to both take hits for your squishier party members and deal some direct
damage back. Alternators and Overclockers both love Electrical Discharge: the Overclocker will mostly
stick to the top action, but the Alternator likes both effects: the top while at Over Pressure and the
bottom while at Low Pressure.
 Level 4 Cards

Energy Conversion, Top: Attack 9 is definitely a lot, but I’m not quite sure it’s worth spending a loss card
on. As an additional effect, you can lower the damage by one to shift your pressure in either direction.
So if you’re at Regular Pressure and want to go to Over Pressure, you can make this an Attack 7, Pressure
Up twice. Burning a card to make a reasonably strong attack and put your pressure where you want it
isn’t really worth the cost most of the time, in my experience. Your attacks are strong already, so this is
taking a huge stamina hit for an effect that isn’t much stronger than what you can already do. In terms of
raw power, I generally find Power Core to be the stronger loss, despite it being level 1. The only time I
would really prefer Energy Conversion’s top to Power Core’s top would be if the enemy is Brittle (which
you can inflict yourself at level 7 with Cryogenic Hibernation).

Energy Conversion, Bottom: We get a very small move that becomes more reasonable if we’re able to
consume Fire (again, our options are still only Rocket Boots and Steam Armor). The second effect is
potentially quite useful, however. Being able to pressure up every time you’re attacked can max out your
pressure if enough enemies attack you. The usual caveats apply however: the enemies need to be
attacking the turn you play it, they need to go after you, and you need to be able to survive their attacks.
This action is also notable with Steam Vents top, basically letting you stay at the same pressure every
time it’s triggered. Against a lot of weaker enemies, this can be a brutal combo. If you’re already set up
Steam Vents on a previous turn, you can combine this with a defense top like Steam Armor to also come
out of the attacks relatively unscathed.

Magnetic Field, Top: This card does quite a few smaller things that add up to a versatile top action with a
reasonably early initiative. Attack 3 is fairly weak by this level, but it’s not insignificant or dependent on
your pressure state. After attacking, you get to Loot 1, which will include any loot tokens dropped by an
enemy you kill with the previous attack. Top action loots are great (especially when they include pre-loot
attacks!), and this can add up to a large amount of extra resources for your character. Then finally, we
have 2 chances to self-heal: 3 healing and a pressure up if we’re at Low Pressure, and 2 healing if we’re
able to consume Ice. All the abilities are optional, except the Low Pressure self-heal, so you can play this
just to loot or heal if you want. The Ice is nice if you have it, but it’s not essential to get the most out of
this card. You can often easily get to low pressure from the ice-generating bottom of Super Heat Transfer,
so this makes it an excellent followup that will heal a whopping 5 hit points on top of the attack, loot,
and pressure up.

Magnetic Field, Bottom: You get two Pull 1s, one at Range 5, and one at Range 2. This is great for
scenarios with ranged units hiding behind traps or ones with plenty of negative hexes like hazardous
terrain and traps. If any enemies are 2 or 3 spaces away, you can also pull them toward you to whack
them with a top action. You also get Shield 1 if you’re at Over Pressure, and there’s no pressure decrease
attached! It’s worth mentioning that if you have any allies that can generate hazardous terrain, the value
of this action surges and can add up to quite a bit of additional damage on a bottom action.

Level 4 Thoughts

Level 4 is pretty interesting because you can make a reasonable case for any build taking either card.
Tanks want the bottom of Energy Conversion for the combo with Stress Vents, but would also appreciate
self-healing and bottom shield from Magnetic Field. Alternators like the pressure control from the
bottom actions of Energy Conversion (and can use the top loss if they’re desperate to change their
pressure value to whatever they like), but also appreciate having another Low Pressure bonus from
Magnetic Field. Overclockers aren’t particularly drawn to either card, but can benefit from the pressure
increases in Energy Conversion and the Over Pressure Shield from Magnetic Field that doesn’t lower your
pressure. And everyone loves a loot top action regardless of build.

In the end, I suggest Energy Conversion for tanks (the bottom combo with Stress Vents is too fun to pass
up), and Magnetic Field for Alternator. Overclocker also leans toward Magnetic Field for loot and
occasional heal with the versatile bottom that gets a bonus at Over Pressure. While Energy Conversions’
bottom could be nice for more pressure, it’s difficult to rely on and you don’t want to take more hits than
are necessary.
 Level 5 Cards

Radiation, Top: 5 damage poison is a solid attack on its own. This attack is interesting in that the
pressure effects actually lower your damage, but push your pressure to Over if you’re at High Pressure,
or to Low Pressure if you’re at Regular, similar to the bottom of Super Heat Transfer, enabling combos in
the same way. That can easily be worth the loss in damage, especially if it sets you up for a stronger
following turn. The flexibility makes it pretty easy to get to overpressure on the first turn of a scenario,
for example, by starting with Steam Armor’s bottom and attacking with Radiation.

Radiation, Bottom: Yet another Move 3, this one with a decent bonus: the next time you take
self-damage, you can cause an enemy to suffer the damage instead of you. This is a persistent effect, too,
so you don’t need to use it the same turn as your self damage. It also specifies there has to be an enemy
adjacent to you, so it won’t be wasted if you kill your target with your attack and nothing else is around
(although that also means it can’t prevent the self-damage either). Most of your self-damage effects are
only 1 damage, so this frequently isn’t a huge benefit, but it combos nicely with Electrical Discharge’s
top, which is 2 self-damage. Preventing 2 damage and dealing 2 direct damage after you make an Attack
5 Stun is a very high-value turn. The real power of this action comes online at level 9, however, which I
discuss in more detail in that section.

Heat Conduction, Top: This is a card you really want to play at Over or Low Pressure for maximum effect.
At Over Pressure you’re looking at a very powerful Retaliate 3 Shield 1, which can then be combined with
Stress Vent’s bottom for a total of Retaliate 5 which can be quite powerful against melee enemies. At
Low Pressure, this is a Shield 3 with a pressure increase that can provide a huge amount of survivability -
I like it a lot more than Steam Armor since it increases your pressure rather than using up your Over
Pressure state. Regardless of which mode you prefer, the initiative is very fast at 11, beating out most
melee enemies. It also generates Ice, which makes Pressure-Build up a fairly useful follow-up to keep
your pressure up. Just remember, while Retaliate 5 can be amazing, it’s no use against ranged enemies or
enemies that aren’t attacking.

Heat Conduction, Bottom: Here’s a weird mode, kind of the inverse of Stress Vents’ top: the effect is
more minor, but you get pressure up instead of pressure down whenever it activates. You can raise your
pressure (generally good) and get a self-heal every time an ally (including summons and NPC allies) ends
their turn next to you. In a large party, especially one with a summoner like the Boneshaper, this can be a
decent way to get your pressure and health topped off. Since it triggers on move abilities, characters
with multiple moves can trigger this effect more than once on their turn if they end adjacent to you each
time. It does require some coordination, so it’s also a bit more useful if you have good communication
and/or are playing with open information.

Level 5 Thoughts

We have two excellent options here, but it’s pretty clear who wants what.

Tanks naturally will want Heat Conduction to become the bane of melee enemies everywhere. The
bottom might also be handy every now and then, especially if you have a larger group. Alternators and
Overclockers both love Radiation for the pressure control, pushing you to either end of the pressure
gauge. The bottom of Radiation is also very solid for the Overclocker who now has a way to leverage
their self-damage offensively.
 Level 6 Cards

Scalding Blast, Top: This is our second potential multi-target attack after Beam Axe, and it does its job
quite well. +Targets is an excellent effect since the enemies can be arranged in any configuration as long
as they are adjacent to you, and a base damage of 5 is very respectable. The Over Pressure effect also
has a self-damage of 2, making it another good pairing with the bottom of Radiation and a double
pressure loss, which is always useful for Alternators with Low Pressure payoffs. Notably, this card has an
extra effect at Regular Pressure instead of just High and Over, giving it +1 Attack, for a single-target
Attack 6 while keeping your pressure the same. This can make it an excellent follow-up to the bottom of
Steel Piston and an especially nice follow-up to the bottom of Cryogenic Hibernation at level 7.

Scalding Blast, Bottom: The bottom action in this is great, too! Attack 3 Pierce 2 is reasonable for a
bottom attack, but the best part is it also gives you an unconditional pressure increase. It generates Fire
as well, which will be especially useful next level if you pick up Heated Drill. Similar to Power Core or
Bronze Plating’s bottoms, there is no attached move with this pressure increase, so you’ll need to have
maneuvered yourself where you need to go on the previous turn, or pair with a late initiative like Ancient
Drill to wait for enemies to approach you. The initiative is very awkward, though, so you might want to
pair this with a faster or much slower initiative card to make sure you can actually get this attack off.
Steam Core, Top: I’m not wowed by this action, really. 5 Self-Healing is solid, but the pressure bonuses
aren’t particularly game-changing. Wounding everyone adjacent to you is a little bit of incentive to use
this near enemies, but it’s probably not going to contribute as much damage as the Over Pressure effect
of Heat Conduction would. Regenerate meanwhile is easily canceled by even a single point of damage,
making it hard to get a lot of utility out of giving it to your allies. Could be useful in between rooms to
keep yourself healthy.

Steam Core, Bottom: 3 Move with a delayed pressure increase and +2 Move attached? This is a dream
for the mobility-impaired Metal Mosaic. The biggest downside is that you don’t get the bonus
immediately, so you need to plan ahead. If you start the turn with Over Pressure, for example, you can
play this to Move 3, and follow up with double pressure down attack like Electrical Discharge.
Afterwards, play the bottom of Steam Armor, giving you a Move 4 with a double pressure increase
putting you back to Over Pressure which can be combined with yet another over pressure top action.

Level 6 Thoughts

We have Scalding Blast with two excellent halves competing with Steam Core which has an adequate top
with a great bottom.

While even a tank would appreciate the extra damage Scalding Blast puts on the table, we’ll go with
Steam Core for the sustain and mobility. Alternators and Overclockers are once again in agreement and
will grab Scalding Blast. An Overclocker could get some decent use out of the bottom of Steam Core, but
the damage of Scalding Blast is hard to pass up, and its bottom’s fire generation will be very useful when
it comes to our next level up choice.
 Level 7 Cards

Heated Drill, Top: This attack is fairly mediocre without the elemental consumption. Attack 4 Pierce 2 at
High Pressure is already doable with our Ancient Drill, and Attack 4 Pierce 4 Wound at Over Pressure is
better, but not by a huge amount. Bumping a 4 up to 6 with Fire makes a huge difference in this card’s
usability, so it’s really something you want to play after the bottom of Steam Armor or the bottom of
Scalding Blast. One point in this action’s favor is that if you are consuming fire, you’re getting an Attack 6
regardless of your current pressure. The High Pressure bonus notably doesn’t cause a pressure down,
which can help save your Over Pressure turns for other cards like Scalding Blast or Electrical Discharge.

Heated Drill, Bottom: The attack on its own is decent, although generally inferior to Scalding Blast’s
bottom due to the lack of pressure increase. If you’re already at Over Pressure, however, this is a
fantastic option to both get in position and get a free hit on an enemy. Something simple like Heated Drill
bottom into Ancient Drill top is 8 damage, from two attacks that both get piece. This is also a good
followup to Radiation’s Top, either directly after Radiation on the same turn (which gets you an extra
point of damage from the poison), or paired with a strong Over Pressure top action on the following
turn. The +1 pierce per pair of discarded cards effect is a bit weird, but occasionally useful to keep in
mind in scenarios with heavily armored enemies. If you’re taking this card, you probably have a lot of
pierce already, so it’s not essential, just a nice bonus.
Cryogenic Hibernation, Top: Wow, Shield 2 on a non-loss persistent effect has the potential to be
incredibly powerful in regards to your longevity. This is especially true in scenarios with loads of weaker
enemies. There are some significant downsides, so lets go over those separately.

First: You can’t attack while this effect is active. Based on your level up choices, this may actually be no
issue at all. You can still deal direct damage with Retaliate, Stress Vents, and Release Valve, for example.
You can also discard this at any time if you need to get an attack in, which is no big deal since it’s a
non-loss persistent.

Second: You gain Brittle at the end of each turn. This is a pretty hefty downside, and may seem
counterintuitive given the defensive bonus of the card. However, the Brittle effect expires once you do
take damage, and with judicious use of items that block damage, you can do your best to make sure this
only pops on a low damaging effect so the rest of your turn is without Brittle. For example, if you would
take 3 damage from an attack and can choose to either block 2 or 3 using your items, you may want to
intentionally only block 2 so that Brittle activates on the 1 damage, causing you to only take 2. This is
especially crucial if you’re going to be on the receiving end of an even larger attack later in the round.

Finally, this card heals you for 4 and increases Pressure if you’re on Low Pressure. This is a one-time
effect and not persistent. However, since this is a non-lsos persistent, you can benefit from this heal
multiple times per scenario. Nice, but not going to make or break the card. All in all, this persistent effect
is great for dealing with large amounts of enemies, but can be more pain that its worth against big,
heavy hitting single enemies like Chaos Demons or Steel Automata. Be careful when you choose to
employ it.

Cryogenic Hibernation, Bottom: Is self-inflicting Brittle too much of a hard sell for you? Okay, how about
we give Brittle to enemies instead? The requirements for inflicting Brittle are pretty strict: you need to
both consume Ice and be at Low Pressure. The easiest way to accomplish this is playing Super Heat
Transfer’s bottom action on the previous turn, although a tank Mosaic can also play any of their various
cold generating cards (Steam Armor, Steam Core, Heat Conduction) on a turn where Stress Vents are
active and they’re expecting to be hit. Brittle on a bottom action is very strong, especially if you have a
powerful top action to pair it with that turn. Energy Conversion is one option if you’re willing to spend a
loss for a doubled Attack 9, but the most reliable choice here is Scalding Blast, which will deal 6 damage
on Regular Pressure. This means the Cryogenic Hibernation + Scalding Blast Turn will make an Attack 12
(well actually slightly higher on average due to your modifier deck! And lower if the enemy has shield).

12 damage not enough? How about we add in Steel Piston on the turn we play Super Heat Transfer. Now
when we attack with Scalding Blast, we can discard Steel Piston to make it an Attack 8 instead, which will
get doubled to 16 even if we draw a +0 modifier. Furthermore, it ends us on Low Pressure again, letting
us follow up with something like the bottom of Electric Discharge for a stun the next turn.
I haven’t even mentioned the Regular Pressure effect which lets you Move 4 and increase pressure. It’s
decent, good even, but when I was just talking about Attack 12s and 16s, it’s hard to get especially
excited for a good move with a pressure increase. Still, keep in mind that it’s an options, especially if
you’re in a scenario that requires a lot of mobility or has a lot of lower hp enemies instead of big
enemies that require big hits.

Level 7 Thoughts

The Alternator gets its best payoff yet for Low Pressure and grabs Cryogenic Hibernation, exclusively for
the bottom action. This is a huge potential spike in damage, but requires a turn to set up optimally. Tanks
also want Cryogenic Hibernation. The top is useful in scenarios with large amounts of enemies, while the
bottom can be used instead in scenarios with fewer, but more deadly enemies. The tank likely won’t be
popping the Brittle themselves and will instead let its allies get the damage bonus.

The Overclocker doesn’t have a build-defining upgrade here, but will take Heated Drill. Both halves on
the Drill are quite solid,even if you’re not really seeing new levels of damage from this card.
 Level 8 Cards

Piston Barrage, Top: Yes, you’re reading this right. This is an Attack 4, followed by Attack 3, Attack 3 if
you’re at Over Pressure. This isn’t amazing against shields, naturally, but you already have plenty of
options for shielded enemies, like Ancient Drill and Heated Drill. Against unshielded enemies, however,
you’re probably getting at least 10 damage. Your AMD should be averaging around +1 at this point,
meaning your actual damage will be closer to 13. But the damage doesn’t have to stop there. The
bottom of Bronze Plating can add 1 damage to each of these attacks, or better yet, you can just use the
bottom of Scalding Blast/Heated Drill to add a fourth attack in the mix. Poison (like from Radiation’s top)
can add another 1 to every single attack, and if you have any items that boost the damage of all attacks
made in a round, you might as well use them here. Despite the heavy damage, it also only pressures you
down once and does 1 self-damage. This is an insanely damaging card, and you pretty much only ever
want to use it at Over Pressure for maximum effect.

Piston Barrage, Bottom: The bottom is pretty great too! Move 3 and 2 no-nonsense damage that goes
through shields, retaliates, and doesn’t need a modifier to be drawn. Breaking obstacles is situational,
although unlike Ancient Drill’s bottom, the obstacle destruction is mandatory, but the pressure increase
does not require an obstacle to be destroyed. Overall, there’s a lot of value in this card… but it also
means not using the card’s incredibly powerful top action. There are still situations where you’ll want to
play this bottom, such as when you’re against heavily shielded enemies that make the top ineffective, or
when you really need to remove an obstacle, but this action is usually going to be outshined by the top.

Curious Machinery, Top: Appropriately enough, this card is somewhat of a curiosity. Controlling an
enemy and making them attack and stun an adjacent enemy has the potential to be quite powerful,
especially if you are at Over Pressure and finish the action by stunning the stunning the controlled
enemy. This card naturally works great against enemies that have inherent effects like Multi-target or
inflict conditions on attacks. It also is a handy way to deal with retaliating enemies since the controlled
attacker will suffer the retaliate damage. Finally, you’re not the one performing the attack, so it works
with Cryogenic Hibernation’s restriction on making attacks. This card falls apart a bit if you can’t reliably
get enemies to next to each other, but this can be mitigated with the bottom of Magnetic Field if you
have it, which can scoot the enemies together. The initiative is also phenomenal for this kind of action,
often letting you stun an enemy before it can take its turn. If you’re going against very fast initiative
monsters however (with 10 or lower initiative abilities like hounds or harrowers), just keep in mind
there’s always a chance they’ll change their formation making it impossible to get one to attack the
other. You also might want to keep in mind that you’ll be drawing a modifier from the monster’s deck,
lowering the value on this somewhat if you have party that inflicts a lot of curses. This card has a bit
more value in 4P both due to the increased number of monsters you’ll encounter (increasing the odds at
least 2 will be adjacent) and increasing how many elites you fight, giving you stronger-hitting targets to
control.

Curious Machinery, Bottom: Move 4s are always appreciated, but the secondary effect is very
situational. Even in scenarios with traps, you often want to trigger them by knocking an enemy into the
trap rather than springing it yourself. Furthermore, any negative effects on the trap like Stun still apply
even if you converted the damage to healing. The secondary effect allows you to change your pressure
from Regular to Over or High to Low by consuming the proper element. This is potentially powerful, but
a bit difficult to set up, and this is right after level 7 which gave us two options to offensively consume
our elements. As a result, I don’t rate this effect very highly even though it’s great for pressure
management. Despite these two situational effects, we’re still looking at a Move 4 with great initiative,
so this is a perfectly fine effect overall.

Level 8 Thoughts

We’ve got 2 incredibly strong effects and its hard to go wrong with either decision. Curious Machinery
gets a little bit better in high player counts, while Piston Barrage has a top that massively increases
damage potential.

Overclocker is absolutely salivating (if a robot could salivate) over Piston Barrage and easily picks it up.
This is a huge boost to your overall damage against unshielded enemies and this level represents a pretty
big power spike for you. Tanks are pretty happy with Curious Machinery as Stun is an excellent way to
avoid taking damage. Alternator can go either way, but I’ll lean toward Curious Machinery here. If your
elements line up the bottom can get you to either extreme pressure, and the top is nice whether or not
you’re at Over Pressure. Piston Barrage is absolutely a reasonable choice as well due to its sheer power
level.

Level 9 Cards

Polarity Shift, Top: After the incredibly powerful top actions of our level 8 cards, I admit I’m a little
disappointed by this one. This isn’t a top action you always want to use: the value of pulling and pushing
is heavily dependent on the room. The element consumptions effects are cute and thematic, but one
direct damage for consuming elements is fairly negligible. Since it also generates the opposite element,
Polarity Shift can sort of keep an element “active” longer for your use later. Now in rooms with a lot of
traps or hazardous terrain? This can end up being a surprising amount of direct damage that doesn’t
even count as an attack for the purposes of Cryogenic Hibernation. But you aren’t always going to see
rooms like that.

The value of this increases immensely if you have party members that can create traps or hazardous
terrain, which will make it feel far more worthy of a level 9 action. If you pair this with Magnetic Field
you could moves enemies through the same hazardous terrain tile 3 times which can clear out a room
quite handily.

Polarity Shift, Bottom: This action is pretty fun, with the effect you gain being entirely dependent on
your current pressure level, then you’ll be put all the way in the opposite pressure level. Attack 5 is fairly
strong, but a bit awkward to use since you’ll want to pair it with a top that’s strong at Low Pressure, like
Heated Drill, Curious Machinery or one that has a bonus at Low Pressure like Magnetic Field or Heat
Conduction. Move 5 is great mobility for this character, and you’ll want to combine it with an effect like
above. Moving on to the effects that end you at Over Pressure, Shield 2 is what you get if you start at
Regular Pressure, but is quite awkward at this initiative, so you’ll want to pair it with something fast like
Heat Conduction. Finally, Self-Heal 6 at Lower Pressure is phenomenal for longevity, and going straight to
Over Pressure gives you plenty of offensive actions to follow up with. If you’re at critically low HP, you
could even follow this up with Steam Core to get a total of 11 self-healing, which, if you have the poison
protection perk (and you should by this level!), can’t be reduced.

Unstable Core, Top: Remember when I said losses need to be powerful on a 9 card class to be worth
playing? Well this is one of the craziest non-persistent losses ever printed in Gloomhaven. You get to take
a whopping 4 actions, top or bottom, in a row and pick your favorite pressure effect to apply to each
one. Either the top or the bottom can be used, so in addition to being able to demolish enemies with this
loss, you can also sprint to the opposite side of the map in escape scenarios. And then you exhaust.
Naturally, this means you’re going to want to play this near the end of the scenario or when you’re near
exhaustion already. There is a little bit of awkwardness here: the cards you use need to already be lost,
and typically you don’t want to lose your best cards early on. If you know you’re near the end and want
to play this card to finish things off, you could lose a card to damage just to ensure it’s available when
you play this action. If you have any effects that increase the damage of every attack you make, this is
the perfect place to use them. The bottom of Bronze Plating will affect every attack you make as part of
this action, but I wouldn’t carry that card around just for this synergy if you weren’t taking it already.

If you have the 3 point perk, it applies to the exhaustion from this action, giving you 2 more active turns
to keep fighting. Since this is a non-recoverable loss, it does mean you aren’t able to play this twice, as
amazing as that would be.

Unstable Core, Bottom: This is a persistent that can massively increase your damage, simplify your
pressure management, and/or boost your mobility to an insane degree. Just be careful if you end at Over
Pressure or Low Pressure and you’ll suffer a significant pentlay (but see my note at the end on discarding
this early). There are two main ways to use this:

The first way is keep this up as long as possible and get as much value out of the bonuses as you can.
Using the effect is optional, so you can always be careful not to end up at either pressure extreme.
Alternating between using the Attack version while at Over Pressure for +3 damage to your already
powerful attacks, and using the Move boost to move wherever you need to and get your pressure back
up to where it wants to be. If you do end the effect, make sure it’s for something powerful like a
Cryogenic Hibernation + Scalding Blast Combo for an attack 9 against a Brittle enemy.

The second way is to intentionally trigger the self damage effect while you have the bottom of Radiation
active in order to cause an enemy to suffer 5 damage instead of suffering the 5 damage yourself. Ending
a turn at Over Pressure can be most easily accomplished by playing a top action that only lowers
pressure by 1 (like Piston Barrage or Heated Drill), then following up with a bottom move (including
Radiation itself if you want) and using the +3 move/pressure increase effect to bump yourself back to
Over. Triggering it at Low Pressure is fairly simple, requiring you to use the +3 attack/pressure decrease
on an attack that already lower pressure by 2 (like Scalding Blast or Electrical Discharge), giving you a
very strong attack followed with 5 direct damage. Just remember Unstable Core only adds +3 to a single
attack, so it won’t affect all targets of something like Beam Axe or Scalding Blast. If you end at High/Low
Pressure but have no enemies adjacent (such as if you killed them all, for example), you will be forced to
take the 5 damage, so plan carefully!

A note on early discarding: Rules as Written, you can discard Unstable Core before your turn ends to
avoid the self damage if you would end your turn at Over or Low Pressure. This likely was not intended,
and the card should probably instead read something like “Whenever this card is discarded, Suffer 5
damage” as a separate line after the end of turn discard requirements. However, you’re free to play as
the official faq allows, which lets you completely negate the downside of this powerful card. I’m a bit too
cheese-averse for that, but it’s perfectly legal!

Level 9 Thoughts

Polarity Shift has a very interesting bottom that sets you pressure to either extreme with a top that’s
somewhat situational. Unstable Core meanwhile has 2 crazy actions that are incredibly powerful, but
dangerous.

The Tank will take Polarity Shift. It’s another top action that can be used with Cryogenic Hibernation and
the top action is good to have in your pocket even if you won’t use it all the time. The bottom really
wants to be used with Low or Regular pressure then paired with a top effect like Stress Vents or Heat
Conduction. Alternator will also take Polarity Shift. If you’ve been leaning heavily on the Cryogenic
Hibernation + Scalding Blast + Steel Piston combo, you may be finding it hard to get back up to Over
Pressure, and the bottom of this card pretty handily solves it while getting you some healing to boot.

Overclocker is happy to take Unstable Core. The Overclocker has been taking worse and worse initiative
options compared to their early level hands, and this not only gives you back a great initiative to use, but
can deal extreme damage combined with Radiation. Even if you don’t use it with Radiation, the ability to
add more bang to all your attacks and fix your mobility and pressure issues simultaneously is a pretty big
improvement to your already impressive capabilities.
 Perks

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: the 3 point perk.
Frankly, I’m not a fan. It essentially gets you 2 extra turns of
actions when you would exhaust (whether from damage, card
loss, or Unstable Core). Since you discard the 4 recovered cards,
you’ll only have 3 when you next get to act, then you’ll be
forced to rest again for 1 last turn. This is just too situational for
the asking price. The 3 perks you could spend elsewhere could
even help stop you from getting exhausted in the first place! So
I would take this absolutely last.

Ignoring -1 effects from items is a good starting point. Even if

you don’t plan on taking many hits, the extra survivability and
flexibility in your item choice is very appreciated.

Increasing or Decreasing your pressure on a long rest is very

useful, especially for Alternators and Overclockers. I find myself
resting a lot on Regular or High pressure, and this helps put your
pressure right where it needs to be when you’re ready to go
again.

The poison resistance is good on everyone, but especially useful

for tanks. You have a lot of big self-heals, and having them
wasted on removing poison absolutely sucks. You have to suffer
one damage to activate this effect, but that’s almost always
worth it, since poison will negate at least 1 healing (and do a
hell of a lot worse if you’re suffering more attacks before you
can remove it)

Overclocker: I’d start with Ignore Item Effects and Change Pressure on Long Rest. After that, removing 3
-1’s for +0 Pressure Change is very good value as it can let you make multiple Over/High pressure attacks
in a row. From there, you’re somewhat vulnerable to damage due to your self-damage mechanics, so
Poison Resistance and +1 Self-Heal 2 are great additions. After that, any order should be good, although I
have a slight preference for removing the rest of your negative modifiers.
Alternator: Pretty similar to Overclocker, although you don’t want the heals as badly as Overclocker. As
long as you have all the pressure changing perks, you’re pretty flexible in your order.

Tank: I’d grab the 3 1-cost non-attack perks first. You have earlier initiatives on average than the other
builds, so you can get more consistent value out of the Retaliate and Shield rolling modifiers.

Masteries

Never attack: This mastery is naturally most suited to a tank role, as they have several non-attacking
actions they can employ. Hope isn’t lost for non-tanks, however. Keep an eye out for scenarios that don’t
require you to defeat any enemies or objectives. You may be able to get through them without any
attacks being necessary

(Example scenarios: 14, 92)

Alternate between minimum and maximum pressure for 4 consecutive rounds: This one is a lot trickier,
and may be difficult to complete naturally. Abilities with double pressure increases or decreases are
essential, and Processing can get you extra turns of pressure manipulation. It can be a fun puzzle to work
out yourself, but if you want a specific solution, General_CGO came up with this master plan that can be
completed even at level 1:

Prep: Start a scenario that has an obstacle in the first room and at least 1 enemy (preferably melee).

Turn 1: Use the top of Processing, then use the bottom of Ancient Drill to destroy an obstacle. You will
end at Over Pressure

Turn 2: Hit an enemy with Beam Axe Top, use the bottom of Super Heat Transfer to go to Low Pressure,
then the top of Recursion (you just need to activate the persistent effect, the attack is not necessary)

Turn 3: Use the top of Memory Drive to recover Super Heat Transfer and Beam Axe and use bottom of
Power Core (pressure up twice due to Recursion) to end at Over Pressure.
Turn 4: Use the top of Steam armor and bottom of Super Heat Transfer to end at Low Pressure. Try to
move as close to an enemy as possible for next turn. Short Rest, take 1 damage and redraw if you would
lose Super Heat Transfer.

Turn 5: Use Beam Axe bottom (Steam Armor bottom if you lost Beam Axe) then Super Heat Transfer to
attack an enemy and end at High Pressure. You got it!

Items
In general: everyone wants items that increase survivability, but Tanks more-so than others. Alternators
and Overclockers want items to increase their damage potential. Everyone wants mobility or extra
looting capacity.

Spoiler-Free (Starting Items)

Head slot

Spyglass (001 - Craftable): You can make some pretty big attacks when at Over-Pressure, and it sucks for
them to miss or get a -2 (which you can’t remove from your deck!). This helps makes sure your biggest
hits land.

Crude Helmet (002 - Craftable): Crits can punch through a lot of your shields, so having resistance to
them is very helpful. This is best on tanks, naturally.

Body slot

Crude Armor (004 - Craftable): Not the best armor in the game, but OK for starting off. Disadvantage
tends to protect you from about 1 damage on average, so two instances of this each long rest cycle is
decent. It’s especially nice when it protects you from a crit.

Arm slots

Crude Spear (008 - Craftable): Your mobility isn’t great, so 1 potential extra range can make a big
difference. It takes up both arm slots, so this isn’t my favorite option, but it’s not bad.

Crude Shield (010 - Craftable): Prevent a condition once isn’t fantastic, but you’ll be thankful to have it
when a Priest draws their disarm ability.

Heather Shield (128 - Purchasable): Prevent 1 damage every long rest cycle. Decent survivability.

Feet slot

Crude Boots (005 - Craftable): You have mobility problems, so an extra 1 move on a spent item isn’t bad.
Flexible Slippers (006 - Craftable): This is another great option, letting you loot from a distance. I don’t
often take Processing along, and this can easily add up to 3 loot tokens, per scenario.

Winged Boots (124 - Purchasable): You don’t have a lot of jump, so these can give you some extra
flexibility, but in general, I’d rather just make Crude Boots.

Boots of Speed (125 - Purchasable): You have good initiative overall, but there are quite a few pesky
enemies with initiatives in the 5-15 range.

Items (SPOILERS)
Please note: this has spoilers for both the items themselves, and the means of acquisition. This is list is
non-comprehensive, and there are several other items that will be viable for your build besides what I
have listed here. I’m not including items that can be ported from Gloomhaven or Forgotten Circles.

Head slot

Eagle-Eyed Goggles (129 - Trader level 2): Like Spyglass, but this also applies to your AoE/multi-target
abilities.

Iron Helmet (130 - Trader level 2): Crude Helmet, but better.

Chain Hood (021 - Craftsman level 4): This is hard to keep active, but it might be useful with 4 players
against a lot of enemies. If you’re retaliating or using stress vents, you might kill off enemies after they
attack to the point where it stops giving value, though.

Mask of Terror (147 - Trader level 4): Push on every attack is pretty flexible. This also means you don’t
have to worry about retaliate nearly as much.

Body slot

Various shield granting body armors: There are a few of these, and they come in different amounts of
shield, but they’ll all great for survivability. Chainmail (1 shield, 3 hits) is from Trader level 2, Plate Armor
(1 shield, 5 hits) is from Trader level 4, Crude Chain Armor (2 shield, 1 hit) is from Craftsman level 2,
Heavy Chain Armor (3 shield, 1 hit) is from Craftsman level 4, and Ornate Armor (2 shield, 2 hits) is from
Craftsman level 8.

Spiked Shell (061 - Random Blueprint): This is pretty great for a tank build, making an enemy suffer
damage equal to your shield value, especially if combined with other shield items.

Mirrored Armor (175 - Random Item): This is okay for dealing direct damage to a tough enemy after it
hits you. Tanks will generally prefer to prevent as much damage as possible (and if they’re lucky enough
to get the blueprint for Spiked Shell, will almost certainly prefer that), so this would mostly be for
damage builds.

Blinking Cape (176 - Random Item): Damage dealers have quite a few bottom action attacks, but that
becomes a problem when you can’t actually get into position first. This can help you with your slow
mobility in addition to setting up a strong damage turn.

Arm slots

Reinforced Shield (015 - Craftsman level 2): It’s the Crude Shield, but repeatable. Very nice in scenarios
where enemies can inflict all kinds of annoying conditions.

Tower Shield (137 - Trader level 2): A repeatable Shield 2 is good for anyone. Even with your high hp
value, this can add up to around 6hp per scenario, which is nothing to scoff at.

Kite Shield (035 - Craftsman level 6): An upgrade to the Reinforced Shield, adding Shield 1 on top of the
condition prevention. If you’re a tank, go ahead and bring this AND the Tower Shield for maximum
options.

Wall Shield (155 - Trader level 4): This whopper takes up both hand slots but gives Shield 4. Frankly, it’s a
bit overkill, but a tank who also has Spiked Shell may be tempted by this.

Heavy Sword (014 - Craftsman level 1): A fairly basic attack boosting item. It’s not great, but it’s easy to
make and provides consistent value.

Cleaving Axe (029 - Craftsman level 5): Adds some direct damage to an adjacent enemy. Slightly better at
high players counts since there are more likely to be enemies adjacent to each other. This is a bit more
reliable than the Heavy Sword since you know exactly if it’s needed (You might play Heavy Sword but
draw a good enough modifier that the damage boost wasn’t necessary). However, using both hands is a
bit of a drawback.

Parrying Gauntlet (030 - Craftsman level 5): An extra Attack 3 once per scenario is decent. As a melee
character, the condition to trigger the attack is pretty easy to make happen.

Biting Gauntlet (055 - Random Blueprint): Retaliate 2 vs one attack is very reasonable for a spent item.
Great on tanks, but even non-tanks will likely be getting hit enough to get value out of this.

Battle Axe (136 - Trader level 2): It uses both hands, and you only get one use per scenario, but the
effects can be devastating with attacks like Ancient Drill (Over Pressure), Heated Drill (Over Pressure), or
Scalding Blast (Regular Pressure).
Staff of Eminence (144 - Trader level 3): You can make a lot of attacks per round, especially once you get
Piston Barrage. +1 to ALL of them is great on a spent effect, and the only cost is 1 element. It’s very
common for at least 1 element to be floating around on any given turn, and you can always make Fire
and Ice yourself if needed.

Longspear (153 - Trader level 4): Like the Battle Axe, but a different pattern, but crucially it’s a spent item
instead of consumed. You can get a lot of value out of doubling your powerful top actions.

Key of Seasons (213 - Scenario 106): Despite this using both elements you can produce, I’m not sure I like
this item very much. Immobilize with ice is typically more useful on ranged attacks (although you can
combine it with Push or Attack then move if possible), and wound with fire is okay, but not amazing. At
level 7, you also pick up abilities that really want either element, so it may be hard to consume the
element you need to flip this.

Feet slot

Sturdy Greaves (023 - Craftsman Level 4): The hit to mobility can suck, but not if you weren’t going to
move much anyway. Shield 1 for a round can be pretty useful.

Sturdy Boots (028 - Craftsman Level 5): You don’t have a lot of jumps, so ignoring difficult terrain makes
this a decent upgrade to the Crude Boots.

Duelist’s Shoes (036 - Craftsman Level 7): You generally want to move toward enemies, and this lets you
more easily use bottom actions without any attached move like Power Core or Bronze Plating.

Everlasting Boots (062 - Random Blueprint): A more fun upgrade to Crude Boots. Regenerate isn’t
amazing for you due to self-damage, but you can usually get a little bit of healing out of this.

Nimble Legguards (133 - Trader Level 2): Take a hit for a squishy ally. This is ideal for tanks, especially if
they have their Shield or Retaliate up. Nice if you have low hp melee allies like a melee Deathwalker and
can also come in handy in various scenarios that have you protecting NPC allies.

Comfortable Shoes (134 - Trader Level 2): I find myself using generic Move 2’s a bit on this character.
Bumping that up to 3 is quite useful.

Boots of Quickness (142 - Trader Level 3): It’s an upgrade to Boots of Speed, but you don’t typically need
more than 10 initiative of difference to be where you want. I’d only take this is you have a lot of extra
money to shell out.

Serene Sandals (151 - Trader Level 4): Comfortable Shoes, but a move 4. Wow, this makes your mobility
issues a problem of the past. The price tag is really high for the effect, though.
Steel Sabatons (152 - Trader Level 4): Shield 1 whenever you move 1 or fewer hexes? That’s pretty great,
especially if you plan on parking yourself in the middle of a room then not moving from that spot until
everything’s dead.

Potions

There are lots of great potions in the game, plenty of them are perfectly fine for Metal Mosaic, but I’m
just going to cover my favorites

Healing Potion (083 - Arrowvine/Blackroot): Self healing is pretty good, especially if you have the poison
prevention perk.

Major Healing Potion (099 - Arrowvine/Blackroot/Snowthistle): Twice as good as the above! At higher
levels, 3hp starts to fall off, so I’d replace a healing potion with this instead of using both.

Power Potion (085 - Arrowvine/Axenut): You can make a lot of attacks in a round, so adding 1 damage to
each is fairly strong.

Major Power Potion (101 - Arrowvine/Axenut/Corpsecap): Twice as much of a bonus as its lesser version.
Can lead to some very explosive turns with Piston Barrage, or even Unstable Core if you’re feeling
cheeky.

Muscle Potion (090 - Axenut/Flamefruit): This is great on any attacker. Two turns of advantage on all
attacks can really help ensure your hits land.

Fireshield Potion (088 - Blackroot/Flamefruit): Tanks will want this one on a turn they’re surrounded by
enemies. Range 3 also means you can hurt some ranged attackers.

Major Fireshield Potion (105 - Arrowvine/Blackroot/Flamefruit): Twice as fiery as the above.

Stamina Potion (084 - Arrowvine/Snowthistle): Despite being double nerfed from its original interaction
in Gloomhaven, this remains a strong option. Ideally you want to use it on your turns with an odd
number of cards to get off an extra turn before you have to rest. It’s great for taking specific pressure
manipulation cards like Super Heat Transfer that you need for other cards in your hand.

Major Stamina Potion (100 - Arrowvine/Snowthistle/Axenut): This removes the level restriction, letting
you take back any card you want. Good either as a replacement or an addition to the base Stamina
Potion.
Major Frenzy Potion (111 - Blackroot/Axenut/Corpsecap): A bonus attack 4 is great, especially since you’ll
be in melee range most of the time anyway. If you’re also using the Power Potions you can use them
both on the same turn to really deal a lot of damage.

Other Small Items

Steel Ring (157 - Jeweler Level 1): An extra Shield 4 can add a good amount of survivability against a
particularly nasty hit.

Glorious Bracelet (159 - Jeweler Level 1): You certainly have enough damage to trigger this, but are 2
blesses worth a small item slot? Up to you, but this is lower on the priority list for me.

Ring of Haste (165 - Jeweler Level 3): I probably sound like a broken record, but anything that helps your
mobility is great. You also have some great bottom actions that don’t move (Scalding Blast and Power
Core for example), so this helps you get them out while still moving.

Blazing Sun Brooch (166 - Jeweler Level 3): Wow, what a great use for your fire generation. Attack 3
Disarm is some nice extra damage and survivability.

Lucky Dice (242 - Event): Feeling lucky? This can get you a really big hit, especially with the Cryogenic
Hibernation + Scalding Blast combo. But it also gives you a much higher chance of drawing a null. Use
with caution or in conjunction with items that can replace nulls with hits, like the Glancing Potion.

Pain Simulacrum (081 - Treasure Blueprint): Up to 5 damage to your attacker is pretty nice.

Enhancements (SPOILERS)
Drill has some solid enhancement options, and I will outline some of my favorites based on their cost.
Generally, you should wait to get enhancements until they are at their cheapest. The cost to get an
enhancement is based on the level of your Enhancer building:

●​ At level 1, you pay the standard cost

●​ At level 2, you get a 10 gold discount (after all other modifiers are applied)
●​ At level 3, the cost to enhance higher level cards goes down from 25 gold per level to 15 gold per
level
●​ Level 4 reduces the cost of multiple enhancements on the same action. Fun fact: this is actually
completely irrelevant for Metal Mosaic, as none of its actions actually have more than one
enhancement slot anyway.
When listing out the costs, the first number listed will be the maximum cost (Enhancer level 1), and the
second number will be the minimum cost (Enhancer level 3). I will not be including the discount if you
are playing with the Temporary Enhancements rule. If you are, just reduce the final cost by 20%.

In general, I don’t recommend elemental enhancements. They’re very expensive at 100g base and you’re
better off making due with the bottom of Steam Armor (fire) or Super Heat Transfer (ice) to generate
what you need. At level 7, you get access to two different element-consuming effects - if you’re using
them regularly and are finding it awkward to get the right elements active, it may be worth considering.

Cheap Enhancements (50g or less)

Steam Armor, bottom - Move +1 (30g/20g): Steam Armor is a flexible bottom action giving you both
movement and a pressure increase with a solid initiative and fire generation. Expanding the movement
to 3 is a fantastic increase in the flexibility.

Rocket Boots, bottom - Move +1 (30g/20g): Rocket Boots are a phenomenal mobility card and making it
a minimum move 4 jump is quite appealing. An Overclocker may occasionally drop this card for more
bottoms that increase pressure instead of decrease it, but it’s always worth considering for scenarios
that require a lot of movement or benefit from jump.

Ancient Drill, top - Attack +1 (50g/40g): While the Ancient Drill has a diamond enhancement slot, I think
slapping on a +1 is one of the best additions you can make to your offense. Getting up to Attack 6 Pierce
4 will delete fire demons, living spirits, and even shielded imps. Adding a condition isn’t really necessary
if the enemy won’t survive the attack in the first place.

Power Core, bottom - Heal +1 (30g/20g): This is a lower priority than movement upgrades, but when
you’re a melee-only character with self-damaging attacks, you’re going to suffer some damage. Power
Core is a reliable bottom heal, and upping the amount can add up over the course of a scenario. With
your poison resistance perk, you also never need to worry about the extra heal being wasted by poison.

Various attack 3s - Attack +1 (50g/40g): Specifically, this is the top actions of Recursion, Rocket Boots,
and Steel Piston. These are all attacks that are just as strong at low pressure, making them reasonable
backup actions before your big hitters. An extra damage can make it much more consistent in that
situation. Steel Piston’s enhancement in particular is a diamond, and I think Poison (same cost - 40/50) is
also reasonable here, since you’re usually playing Steel Piston before following up with a big hit. I only
recommend enhancing one of these cards - whichever one you think you’ll keep around the longest as
you level up.

Beam Axe, bottom - Jump (60g/50g): I recommend keeping Beam Axe around as often as possible so
enhancing it is generally a good deal. Jump gives you more mobility options, and lets you ditch Rocket
Boots in favor of stronger hitting attacks or pressure increasing bottoms. If you still like bringing Rocket
Boots along, enhancing Beam Axe with a +1 move (30g/20g) is also solid.
Moderate Enhancements (50g - 100g)

Beam Axe, top - Attack +1 (100g/90g): The top action is also decent to enhance, as it’s your best
multi-target attack until Scalding Blast comes along. 5 makes it quite a bit easier to kill smaller enemies
like Eels or Imps as you reach higher scenario levels.

Electrical Discharge, top - Wound (125g/95g): Wound and Stun are like peanut butter and jelly. It
guarantees at least 2 damage from wound since the enemy will take wound damage while stunned, and
damage again on their next turn. This makes the attack solid even without pressure bonuses, getting you
at least 4 damage not counting your attack modifier.

Magnetic Field, top - Attack +1 (125g/85g): Magnetic Field’s top does a lot of nice things, but damage
isn’t really where it shines. This makes up for the lack of damage a bit, and helps guarantee the kill for
your subsequent loot. This is another diamond enhance, but nothing else is especially exciting to me for
the cost, especially since you ideally want to target low hp enemies with this anyway.

I’m Rich! (Over 100g)

Heat Conduction, top - Shield +1 (180g/130g): Shield is great when stacked, and even better when you
have retaliate to also get some damage in. This helps quite a bit with the Over Pressure mode when
playing a tank build. It’s quite a lot of money, though, so I wouldn’t worry about it unless you have
nowhere else to put your money.

Heated Drill, bottom - Poison (200g/130g): Swimming in money and want as much damage as possible?
This lets you poison an enemy with a bottom attack then immediately follow up with a top attack that
can take advantage of the poison.

Piston Barrage, top - Attack +1 (225g/145g): 10 attack total isn’t enough for you? Okay, add 1 more.