Michael Mindes

pay close attention to the level 2 tech cards that you could be getting… Some of them allow for a completely different style of game play and opening up winning strategies of their own.

For example, check out the Weapon Emporium… The ability to trade fighters for influence is a very powerful effect which opens up the arms dealer strategy.

Most games that I play, I concentrate on getting the most out of every choice I make. In the case of Eminent Domain, that means getting the most out of every action, role, and follow. One of the obvious places to benefit is with survey.

For example, if my opponent surveys for 5, then they will only keep 1 planet. If I can follow with 2 cards, then I am making the most of my other roles and matching their getting of planets. This is good, but be careful… Holding onto those 2 survey cards will severely limit your ability to do ore things in the game.

On top of that, if you are taking the survey role, then in the future you will be looking at more planets and be able to get the planets that best match the strategy you are using for any given game.

Both ways have their merits, but as I spent more roles surveying and getting the right planets, I was surprised at the difference in e end result. Try both, and see what is best for you.

As you and your group get better and better at Jab, you will come across some people that can play very quickly while going for a knockout via Haymakers and Counterpunches. Being known as somebody that can go quickly and get a knockout outs you at an advantage, but not necessarily because it works.

Often, you can go into that “spammer” mode to put your opponent off guard. I have had plenty of games with Seth Jaffee (head of development at Tasty Minstrel Games) where I go briefly into a spamming mode to lock him up and gain that slight tempo advantage. After he is scrambling to figure out what to do,I slow down a bit, land a combo or two, finish up my punches, and say “ding”.

Give it a try. It is a lot of fun!

The counterpunch is active once there is the same color on the top of the counterpunch deck and showing on the displays of each fighter.

Remember that when blocking, you can block Haymakers with any punch and you can always block wi the same punch type. Pay attention when you do this, as you might make a counterpunch opportunity go live.

I have enjoyed many games where I have blocked with the purpose of then following it up with a counterpunch, which is aching of beauty.

In Jab, when it comes to the round scoring, you will choose one pile of punches out of 3 for your opponent not to score, and they will choose one of the other 2. Given that blocks remove one of the highest scoring punches from the pile, you can do the following…

1. Play a large number of blocking cards into one pile.
2. Play a block or 2 into a second pile.
3. Ignore the 3rd pile and only block the dangerous Haymakers.
4. Remove the 3rd pile that you ignored.

The result is that your opponent will only have 2 piles to choose to score points from, neither of which should be providing much points at all. This will help a careful boxer score significantly more round wins.

Since scoring is based on control of districts and worker majority, the Gatehouse is powerful. Just build it and add a gnome and you will have influence in 2 districts.

Rough the marketplace, trade tokens allow you to get any resource that you need to build a building. This flexibility will allow you to make more effective use of the land that you auction for.

Just be careful of getting too many trade tokens, otherwise you will not have the silver (cash) to make good use of them.

Often, people will get stuck for a way to provide a clue and get to the destination word. Help them out and just say something. Even a seemingly unrelated word will often light the way to building a successful “Train of Thought”.

When learning how to play Jab, concentrate on one aspect of the game until you get good at it. If you do this while another player does not, then you are likely to win. For example, you could concentrate on:

Landing haymakers
Getting counterpunches
Blocking
Impressing the judges with combos
And so forth.

At the beginning of the game, your deck will consist of 10 cards, and since your starting hand size is 5, you will be able to cycle through your deck quickly.

So, don’t be afraid to discard any cards that you do not want to use on your next turn. Many newer players hold onto too many cards rather than cycling through to the cards that they need.