One time I was playing a game of Free Realms Trading Card Game and when I attacked my opponent played Berserker Shout on me! “Oh now, he’s going to draw two cards on me and not one, I’m gonna lose the fight,” I thought to myself. My opponent ended up flipping a total of two gems, one on each card. Wow, what bad luck! A few turns later, he played Berserker Shout again on me! And in that battle, again, he flipped over a pair of one gem cards. I couldn’t help but laugh at my opponent, whose response was, “Maybe I should put some more gems in my deck.”

Everyone thinks gems on cards are so great. If a card has four gems on it, people tend to flock to it like it’s the latest and greatest thing. There are other cards out there, you know, and those are the 1- and 2-gem cards.

What’s so good about the low gem cards? The biggest advantage is that they’re fast and easy to play! Especially those 1- and 2-cost creatures. Imagine a game where you go first and play a 1-cost creature and hunt. On your opponent’s first turn, they just play a resource and nothing else. On your second turn, you play a second resource and play two more 1-cost creatures and hunt for three! Now, you’re up 4-0 with control of all three columns! If you can keep control of these columns for just a couple more turns, you’ll be able to grab an easy victory.

Why don’t people do this more often? The biggest problem with this type of setup is that once bigger creatures start coming out, you’ll be in trouble because not only are your creatures low on attack and defense, but your flips in battle aren’t great either. What can we do to stop this? Let’s take a look at some options from different spheres:

Creepy Laughter. This card can give your small creatures a lot of defense and keep them out on the table. It only has two gems, but who cares?!

Going Nuts. Here is another card that can get you a ton of defense just for having resources in play. Again, it only has two gems but we don’t care about those things.

Chugawug Bodyguard. This is a two gem creature who gives all of his allies extra defense. Extra defense will cause your opponent to think twice about fighting you, which equals extra points for you when they have to wait another turn before they choose to attack you.

Can you find other cards that can help keep your creatures alive? There are lots more! So get out those cheap creatures, and don’t be afraid to use them.