Hi, and welcome to another installment of The Gemlandian! With an emphasis on multi-gem decks and an abundance of hero and blend effects, there are countless card interactions you can use to strengthen your strategy in Gem Blenders. In this post, I’ll be sharing some of my favorite combinations of cards that I’ve used to varying levels of success. Let’s get started!
COMBO #1: SCAVENGING FOR GEMS
In Gem Blenders, each player can only equip one gem to a hero for free every turn, and you can’t play your key blends until your heroes are equipped with the required gems. This means a strategy that lets you equip multiple gems in the same turn is always useful, and can sometimes be the difference between winning and losing. While the most common way to get extra gems on the field is to rely on Ushers, you can also use the more unconventional combination of Kula and Condensation Collector!
Kula is a LV. 2 hero whose effect lets you search your deck for a 0-star action by discarding a gem from your hand (as long as she is equipped with one or more gems). With Kula, you can grab whatever 0-star action you need at that moment (e.g. Draw, Collect, Gem Search, Blend Search), and she even packs a punch with her 1 attack. But hang on—using Kula’s effect costs a gem! Every gem you use to power her effect is a gem you could have equipped to a hero. Wouldn’t this slow you down dramatically?
Yes, it would. Obviously, discarding all your gems to use Kula’s effect repeatedly is a bad idea (you still need gems on the field to blend your heroes, after all). When using Kula, it’s important to keep track of all your gems—the ones in your discard pile, the ones on your field, and especially the ones still in your deck. But just because some of your gems are in your discard pile doesn’t mean they’re still not useful! This is where Condensation Collector shines.
Condensation Collector is a LV. 4 blend that lets you equip one of your heroes with a gem from your discard pile. In other words, you’ll be able to equip two gems every turn (one from your hand and one with this blend). Also, unlike Usher, whose effect only activates when you blend it, Condensation Collector can activate its effect every turn, meaning you can keep equipping additional gems as long as you have gems in your discard! When you use this combo, no gems are wasted.
Protip: For even more search power and additional gem equips, you can also use Bluster Mage, a LV. 3 blend that allows you to search your deck for any blend by discarding a gem from your hand!
TL;DR: Use Kula to discard gems from your hand for useful 0-star actions, and later use Condensation Collector to equip gems from your discard pile to your heroes.
COMBO #2: UNSHATTERED AXE
Interested in a more aggressive strategy? One of my personal favorite aggressive blends is Glass Raider. This LV. 4 blend from the upcoming set has the highest written attack stat of any blend (7 attack), which means you’re almost always guaranteed to deal damage to your opponent (unless they play an action to stop you, of course)! But hold on—a LV. 4 blend has the best attack stat in the game? What’s the catch? Well, unlike most blends, Glass Raider has a harmful effect—it can’t attack on consecutive turns, even if the hero is deblended and blended again on the same turn. It sure would be useful if there were some way you could negate this effect…
As it turns out, you can! Introducing: Chain Smoker!
Chain Smoker is another upcoming LV. 4 blend whose effect lets you negate the effects of your other three heroes for as long as it is blended and active on your field. Since most blends have beneficial effects, using Chain Smoker would be counterproductive, but fortunately Glass Raider is the opposite! With Chain Smoker in play, you can take full advantage of Glass Raider’s high attack stat with zero drawbacks.
TL;DR: Use Chain Smoker to negate Glass Raider’s harmful effect so that you can attack with Glass Raider every turn.
COMBO #3: DOUBLE BLITZKRIEG ASSAULT
Time for a slightly more complex combo! This next interaction involves another personal favorite blend of mine, Verve Conflicter, which is a LV. 5 blend. When Verve Conflicter attacks your opponent, its attack stat increases by 1 for every blend in your opponent’s discard pile. With no limit on its attack bonus, Verve Conflicter can deal devastating damage to your opponent every turn, so how could you possibly make Verve Conflicter even stronger? Well, with the right combo, you can double your damage output every turn!
Introducing…Fleet Reacher!
Fleet Reacher is a LV. 5 blend whose effect allows all heroes on your frontline to attack up to two times every turn, as long as it’s in back position. With this blend in play, you can deal massive damage with Verve Conflicter every turn!
But why stop there? Introducing…Devin!
Devin is an upcoming LV. 1 hero whose effect lets you remove the back-position positional requirement from any of your other heroes’ effects. In other words, Fleet Reacher no longer needs to be in back position to apply its effect, making it harder for your opponent to disrupt your strategy by changing its position on your field. Also, if Fleet Reacher is on your frontline, its effect will apply to itself, meaning you can attack twice with both Fleet Reacher and a powered-up Verve Conflicter for even more damage (and that’s without using a Weaponize, which doubles all attack damage dealt in a turn)!
Protip: Even though Fleet Reacher and Verve Conflicter share four of the same gems, it’s generally unwise to rely on a strategy that requires two LV. 5 blends since it’ll take awhile to get them both on your field. To speed things up a little, you can use two Polish Dusters instead. Polish Duster is an upcoming LV. 4 blend that copies the effect of a blend in your hand, with the downside being that the same copy of Polish Duster can’t copy the same blend effect on consecutive turns. Fortunately, you can get around this restriction using two copies of Polish Duster—just have each Polish Duster alternate between copying Fleet Reacher or Verve Conflicter. In other words, on one turn, you can have Polish Duster A copy Fleet Reacher while Polish Duster B copies Verve Conflicter, and then on the next turn you can have Polish Duster A copy Verve Conflicter while Polish Duster B copies Fleet Reacher. Although you won’t deal as much damage, this version of the combo is much easier to execute.
TL;DR: Use Fleet Reacher so that you can attack with a powered-up Verve Conflicter twice every turn. You can also use Devin to free up Fleet Reacher’s positioning (so it’s not always stuck in the back) and Polish Dusters to streamline the combo.
COMBO #4: YUMI’S HORIZON
Last but not least, it’s time to discuss my all-time personal favorite combo, which forms the foundational strategy of Yumi’s Horizon, the deck that carried me to the finals of my very first Gem Blenders Tourney! The deck focuses on dismantling the opponent’s field by constantly deblending the opponent’s heroes until they run out of resources, followed by inflicting heavy damage (with Verve Conflicter) to win the game. My deblending combo consists of two key cards: Bond Breaker and Horizon Gazer.
Bond Breaker is a LV. 4 blend whose effect lets you deblend one of your opponent’s heroes by discarding gems from your hand and/or field equal to that blend’s level. At first glance, this is a hefty cost to pay (remember from Combo #1 that discarding too many gems will increase your chances of losing). Fortunately, this cost is eliminated entirely with Horizon Gazer, an upcoming LV. 5 blend whose effect allows you to take any gems discarded from your hand and immediately return them to your hand, as long as the blend is in back position. In other words, you can reuse the same gems to pay Bond Breaker’s cost, removing one of your opponent’s blends from their field every turn!
Note: When I originally played this deck in the March 2021 Tournament Finals, Horizon Gazer’s effect applied to any gems you discarded, regardless of where they came from. As a result, Horizon Gazer was more closely aligned with Bond Breaker, and it was much easier to execute the combo. However, Horizon Gazer was recently nerfed, its new effect being the one you see pictured above. The deblending combo still works, but it’s slightly more difficult now because you can only discard gems from your hand to pay Bond Breaker’s cost (and take advantage of Horizon Gazer).
Bonus: You’re probably wondering why the deck is called Yumi’s Horizon, and not Bond Breaker’s Horizon. That’s because of a hero who’s key in setting up the deblending combo and increasing the deck’s consistency—and yes, her name is Yumi! Yumi is a LV. 3 hero with a quirky effect: every turn, you can search your deck for any one card if you discard three identical gems, two identical actions, or two identical blends. Normally, this would be a significant cost to pay, but once again Horizon Gazer comes to the rescue! If you can gather three identical gems in your hand and blend Horizon Gazer on your back position hero, every turn you can add to your hand (for free!) whatever card you need at that moment (e.g. a copy of Bond Breaker, any missing gems, that one copy of your 3-star action, etc.). That’s the true power of a Sugar Rush!
TL;DR: Discard gems from your hand using Bond Breaker to dismantle your opponent’s field, and use Horizon Gazer to immediately return those gems to your hand. You can also discard identical gems from your hand with Yumi to search your deck for any cards you need, and once again use Horizon Gazer to get those gems back.
That’s all for now—stay tuned for more juicy combos soon!