South Park: Phone Destroyer is a new iOS and Android card battler that, of course, features none other than the foul-mouthed, yet iconic kids from the long-running Comedy Central adult cartoon. You can join Cartman, Kyle, Stan, Kenny, and the rest of the gang in this official game from Ubisoft and South Park Digital Studios as you take part in real-time strategy PvP battles, collect more cards, and enjoy the irreverent humour that made South Park such an enduring series even up to present day. As the game description adds, your goal is to assemble the “ultimate team of cowboys, wizards, cyborgs, and more” and, of course, defeat more opponents!
Collectible card games, or trading card games/card battlers if you may, are hardly ever the simplest games out there. There are various mechanics to learn before you get it all right, and you may need patience before you get it right and come up with the ultimate deck. We can’t promise we’ll get you there right away, but this South Park: Phone Destroyer strategy guide can help you have a better deck sooner rather than later, and teach you how to play the right cards at the right time.
1. Make Sure You’re Upgrading The Right Cards
It’s a common mistake for beginner players to upgrade the first card they see as being remotely good. There are also others that think t’s better strategy to be patient, ride the storm out, and wait until you’ve really got some good cards before you start upgrading to your benefit; such a strategy is only going to hold you back. You do want to have a strong deck early on in the game, so you might as well upgrade early and strengthen your team. But there’s a method to the madness, and it’s still not a good idea to upgrade the very first card that you feel will really help you.
What you should do when upgrading cards in South Park: Phone Destroyer is to take those cards that you enjoy playing the most, and focus your upgrades on them. It does help if you’re upgrading different kinds of cards, as this is a real-time strategy card battler with some RPG elements. For example, you can start out by upgrading a high-damage card, a ranged card, and a tank (damage is optional but HP is mandatory) and max them out. It doesn’t matter which specific cards, just as long as you’re thinking of the long-term consequences, with a premium on the rarity of the cards when choosing the ones you want to max out. This is the best way to get an early edge in the all-important PvP card battles, as well as the much-overlooked single-player games.
With the variety of cards you get early on, it’s impossible that you don’t use one of each at that part of the game.
2. Complete That Upgrade Recipe ASAP
In order to upgrade a card, you’ll need to have specific materials in place, and you will win these materials when taking part in card battles. Basically, what you need to proceed with the upgrade is a recipe, and if you aren’t winning enough against the human competition, you can also use PvP tickets and spend them to get more materials. It’s advisable to do this at an early point in the game, so you could bolster your team and get that early edge. We only recommend stocking up on tickets so you can buy more expensive cards and materials once you’ve developed your deck to the point where it could be considered solid.
3. Redeem Your Free Stuff
Especially since this is a new game, you can expect a ton of free stuff in the game, including, but not limited to new cards. These freebies become available every four hours or so, which means you should have your notifications turned on at all times so you don’t miss a chance to collect your free items. There are also special events in the game, which you can take part in for a chance to win even more, and oftentimes better free stuff. Take part in these events and try to do as well as possible!
4. Get New Lockers By Watching Ad Videos
Like any other mobile game worth its salt, South Park: Phone Destroyer allows you to watch ad videos in exchange for some good, free stuff. In this game, watching ads allows you to unlock extra lockers, and you will want to watch ads whenever possible if you still haven’t unlocked even one of the three premium rewards that are available. We strongly suggest watching whenever possible, because this option won’t always be available; if you take advantage of it, though, you’ll be rewarded by having a better chance of winning some rare and useful items.
5. Deck Costs Should Be Kept As Low As Possible
Let’s now move on to the fun stuff and talk about some tips and tricks for building the best possible deck in South Park: Phone Destroyer. When it comes to creating your deck, it always pays to keep the costs as low as possible, but not too low that you’re finding yourself at a disadvantage against your opponents. Just as usual, you need the right balance between more affordable cards and the more premium ones, and you also need to have balance in the sense that you’ve got a card to play for any situation that comes up. If you bring 4 and above cards and nothing else, your opponent will invariably take advantage of their strength in numbers and overwhelm you, despite your best efforts.
6. One Deck For PvP, One Deck For Multiplayer
Any CCG player should know that there is a big difference between playing a PvP battle and playing in a game’s single-player mode, where the stakes aren’t too high and the AI is oftentimes easy to figure out. With that in mind, there are certain cards in this game that are best used when playing PvP battles, and other cards you should have in your deck when you’re up against the AI in single-player missions. One card that proves this is that of Mimsy, whom you might not have much use for in single-player. But since he costs a lot, you might as well make the most out of him by fielding him in PvP battles.
Conversely, there are cards that are useless in PvP but very useful in single-player campaign mode; in the interest of saving space, we won’t tell you which they are, though we’re confident you’ll find them if you play around long enough!
7. Save Your Premium Currency For Card Pack Purchases
We should warn you ahead of time that it can be difficult to grind for premium currency in South Park: Phone Destroyer. It could be a long, arduous process of playing and replaying until you’ve got enough premium currency to buy card packs, but those are, if you come to think of it, the only items you should be spending your premium currency on. Do not spend it on unlocking extra lockers, as you’ve got videos for that; you wouldn’t want to be lacking currency at a point when you should already be buying a card pack!
8. It Doesn’t Hurt To Throw PvP Games
In any game that has a tiered system for PvP battles, or an arena with different leagues, your opponents will become progressively tougher as you move from strength to strength. And while we’re not telling you to rage-quit by closing the window and exiting the game, you might want to try deliberately losing your games against human players. This is a way of gaming the system, as you can avoid having to face opponents that are out of your league, and take on weaker players fed to you by the matchmaking system. Of course, this is not a 100 percent honest thing to do, and it might not even be safe, but it’s a common way to work around things and drastically improve your chances of victory.
9. The Game Doesn’t Allow You To Rank Down
Generally speaking, you can avoid the above workaround of deliberately losing your PvP games by not ranking up too fast. Take it slow and steady, and take each game as a way of learning on the job. As it turns out, you cannot rank down in the game; there’s no way to go for you but up, so you can only work the matchmaking system so far, and only within your rank. We’re doubting that Ubisoft will patch this up in the future, so take stock of what this tip means to you — moving up too fast will have you in the same rank as pay-to-win players or more experienced ones, players whose decks are are to decimate yours due to their advantage of using real money and being more experienced than you are.
Pretty much, the thing here is to take your time and don’t pressure yourself too much in the early goings. Only play for the win once there are PvP packs for grabs, as the cards included here are the ones that could benefit your deck the most. You’ve also got the aforementioned free card packs, which are available every four hours. But be warned that as you start ranking up in the game, you will receive a far more diverse complement of cards — that might sound like a good thing, and it is in many ways, but this could also mean less cards and upgrade materials for you, which, as you may have surmised, can set you back big-time, especially if you’re in a group where most everyone’s stronger.
10. It’s Better If Your Opponent Makes The First Move
We don’t think this tip is as effective as it used to be when South Park: Phone Destroyer was hot off the presses, so to say, and newly added to the Play Store and App Store. Many gamers, especially CCG veterans, know how this tip works, but you might as well try it as it’s better that you do than you don’t; let your opponent go first so that you can buy yourself some time to play some cards that can actually counter them and defeat them, while increasing the chances of their cards taking damage by getting too far within your half.
11. Know Your Cards And Know What They Do
Of course, it’s a very important thing to know what each of your cards do, and know where your cards are strong and weak. But you should be doing this not only with the cards in your deck, but also the cards that your opponent may be bringing with them. You want to scout your opponent so you have an idea of which cards you should be playing to counter them.
While you will learn more advanced card features and scouting tactics as you go on, one of the more enduring card setups would be to ensue that you’ve got a tank, or a high-health melee card up front to soak up the damage, and your ranged units at the back, safe from damage as long as the tanks are soaking it up and in. You’ll also need an assassin who could go behind the lines, as well as other high-damage characters that can get up close to the enemy, while getting varying levels of attack support, yet a lot of protection from the tank(s) up front. Or you could simply ensure that you’ve got a tank in front to deal out some damage and take in a lot of it, with a high-powered ranged unit behind them to take care of the enemy. This a simple, yet hard to counter strategy that should work against many, if not exactly most opponents.
Pro-tip: When playing cards, there are some which you’ll notice are more effective if they’re played as close to the left side as you could. That allows them to fill up heir special move and become much stronger.
12. Hover Around Maximum Level Before Ranking Up
The PvP matchmaking system in South Park; Phone Destroyer is such that your selection of opponents would be based on two things — rank and level. (In case you’re still wondering, those are two completely different things.) That means you should stay close to the maximum level for your rank before you rank up, as that’s going to put you in the same pool of players as weaker ones who don’t have cards as good as yours, and/or aren’t leveled up as far as you are.
While still at the highest level for your rank, you should make the most of your time there by gathering enough upgrade materials; by the time you’re already at the highest level for your rank, you’ll be the strongest in your pool, and not among the weakest in you new one. Keep upgrading your cards and, once you get the chance, come as close as you could to ranking up. Keep repeating the process and you’ll have much more success while fighting PvP duels against human opponents.
Pro-tip: In relation to one of the earlier tips we gave you earlier, you might want to go on a deliberate losing streak, as the matchmaking system will pair you up against weaker opponents so you can get your momentum back. This could be a useful tactic if you’re trying to shoot for a PvP pack.
13. Don’t Forget To Upgrade Your Cards
This is probably a common sense tip at this point; it’s so obvious that we might not even have to mention it. But since we want to cover as much ground as possible, here it is — take note that your upgraded cards will always perform better than those that aren’t. Sure, you won’t notice much difference after you’ve upgraded your cards, but those little boosts in points can add up, and can do you a world of good. Regular coins should mainly be spent on upgrades, and the cards you choose should be the ones you prefer the most or use the most while batting other human players.
14. Take Things One Deck At A Time
As you can see here, there are indeed a lot of things you should keep in mind if you’re a newcomer to the world of South Park: Phone Destroyer. And while it’s a good idea to have two solid decks, as we said above, beginners shouldn’t try to boil the virtual ocean by trying to work on two decks right off the bat. Everybody has got to start somewhere, and that means starting with the basic cards and learning how they work. Don’t overreach with any sophisticated card-playing strategies, and if you need to hone your skills where the stakes are much lower, that’s essentially what single-player campaign is for! Use single-player as a way for you to learn how to come up with new counters and how to string together combos, while also learning the game’s fundamentals.