Star Realms - Tips & Strategies

Counter your opponent’s buys with some savvy purchasing of your own. Is your opponent buying all of the cheap red cards and going for the ultimate thin-deck? Buy some yellow discard ships to make them regret losing anything at all from their hand. Are they buying towards a heavy economy (Freighter, for instance)? Buy cheap green for extra damage, and an inexpensive Base or two to fend off the damage they attempt to do to you. If they buy some powerhouse bases, counter with cards that can “Destroy a base”. If they’re all-in with the green damage cards, prioritize bases wherever possible, and maybe supplement with some blue Authority gain.

Paying close attention to what your opponent buys can help you play around whatever strategy they may be attempting to inflict upon you.

The Red faction is all about culling. Getting your deck down to be trim and maximize the faction abilities. But what happens when you eliminate the starting cards?

In some games you will be able to cull down your deck quickly off of cheap Red cards. Often, this leaves you with not a lot of Outposts or Bases. If you see this is happening there are two things you need to do:

1 – Only Buy Cards of Another Colour
2 – Cull the cheaper Red cards from your deck

Some folks may not be OK with trashing cards they paid for, but a deck of only Red cards will make it very hard to acquire new cards. To make sure you stay in the game long enough to end as the victor, discard as many Reds as you can.

As the game progresses, you may be tempted to stick with your main colors to try to achieve total deck synergy. But the high-end Outposts and Ships can be worth the investment regardless — would you pass up a yellow Dreadnaught or a blue Command Ship if your primary focus was green and red? As long as the deck is relatively efficient in its function, buying an off-color high-end ship is only going to make the punch of your turns more fearsome.

My wife and I usually start with 60 or more authority for longer games. It changes strategy since it gives you more time to gain a fleet that will work. It doesn’t make it too much longer though because at least one person usually is doing a ton of damage at the end of the game.

You started off great, picking up 3-4 cards of the same faction. But now the Trade Row is full of over priced cards and cards of a Faction you don’t need.

So what do you do when there is no obvious pick?

Consider buying an Explorer card. You may think this will set you back a hand, but the 2 Trade is useful. Odds are the extra Trade will come in handy to get a bigger card faster…or will allow you to get two cards from the same faction.

That being said, do not hold on to these cards. Unless your Combat is too low to eliminate an Outpost with the 2 extra Combat points, trash Explorer cards.

This will help take away your opponents Authority, and keep your deck slim and on track at the same time.

Here’s a list of my “goto” cards that I almost never pass up if I can get them. These are not listed in any particular order.

Recycling Station
Nothing is nicer than being able to discard some weak cards to potentially draw the juicy ones. Also, cycling your deck faster is always better. Provides a decent 4 protection as an outpost. Super Combo: Pair it with Brain World (discard weak cards to draw two, then scrap the weak to draw two more – a veritable one-two punch!

Brain World
Probably one of the most awesome outposts in the game. Six protection as an outpost, and the scrapping ability to draw for what you scrap twice is a great way to streamline your deck.

Trade Bot
Come on? Replaces the scout for money and helps you thin your deck..and cheap.

Cutter
All around good card. Heals you and gives you decent money.

Command Ship
The most awesome ship in the base game IMHO. Draw 2 cards. Do 5 damage and heal 4… awesome!! Bonus is that you can destroy a base with another blue.

Freighter
Basically allows you to streamline your economy by turning 4 scouts into one card (4 gold) particularly if you can later scrap the scouts. You don’t lose your investment, and it helps you get those expensive cards you want to buy no matter the faction.

Trade Blob
Again, like the freighter, helps you streamline your economy with 3 gold.

Stealth Needle
Allows you copy a card and all it’s abilities! Really can open your strategic options when you get this. It really is factionless in some ways, because it can become any faction. Helps you trigger ally abilities.

Recycling Center is a simple 4-drop yellow base that lets you choose to either gain 1 Trade or discard up to 2 cards to redraw that many. This is a very powerful ability by itself, letting you ditch your Vipers and Scouts for (hopefully) better cards, but it can also be combined with red cards for the annoying situation in which you have just reshuffled your deck, and aren’t sold on the idea of scrapping cards in your hand. Instead, discard those starting cards to draw new stuff, then scrap from the discard pile.

The ability to burn through the lesser cards in your deck to get at your better stuff by itself is strong, but this base has more potential. Pick it up when you can!

Obviously the key to gaining power quickly in this game is have a handful of the same faction cards coming up in each hand. Unfortunately, your chosen faction may not be available and may have cards buried deep down on the trade deck. Overcome this by buying up cards in 1 other faction. This small diversity can still lead to the use of faction powers and opens the doors to you when making purchases out of the trade row.

Star Realms is great because of it’s compact size, but if you’re not a fan of tracking authority using the cards then BGG has a couple of different playing mats for tracking Authority.
This one is my favorite: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/101510/85-x-11-playmat-stat-and-hp-tracker

Just download and print! I cropped off the deck/discard pile portion and printed them a little smaller in size. I then got a couple of little LEGO pieces for markers. I love these because not only is it great for tracking your Authority but it is also good for keeping track of your Trade and Combat for the turn, in case the numbers get difficult to keep track of.