Shroom and Gloom Deck Planner

This is a checklist, not a JavaScript deckbuilder. Shroom and Gloom’s public card pool is still a moving demo, and Early Access will dump unique pools onto two pathways. A fake app that pretends to own every card would lie to you. Use this page beside a run: pencil, pause menu, frog statue.

You manage two decks. Combat wins fights. Explore moves, modifies, and loots. Both shuffle. Both punish clutter. Read combat deck and explore deck for mechanics; this page is the diet plan.

The one-sentence plan

Name your engine in six words or fewer: grow this attacker, eat every corpse, or draw into moods. If you cannot say it, you are drafting C-tier soup. Rank those engines on the build tier list.

Combat deck: keep it lean

Target feel: you want to see your grown card and a food tool every fight, not once per shuffle.

Keep

• One or two attackers you will actually grow.
• A food line: roast/fatal-to-Toasty, Seasoned applicators, or eat-on-hit riders.
• One lodge if you drafted Distant Shadow (spell weakness that stays).
• At most one panic spike that does not generate food.

Cut (frog these)

• Extra starting basics after the grown copy exists.
• Moods you cannot trigger on Paperboy.
• High-damage self-hits with no eat rider.
• Third copies of a job you already do.

Ask after every combat reward: does this grow, feed, or lodge? If no, skip. Skipping is a legal draft pick.

Explore deck: keep it leaner

Explore clutter is how dummy rooms disappear. After the June 2026 overhaul you can reveal, search, break, unlock, ignite, feed, and fix — you do not need a dedicated card for every verb in every run.

Keep

• One unlock/reveal tool so Foresight chests and the mushroom key route stay available.
• Practice dummy access if you are growing.
• One food dig or feed tool if you are eating.
• A way to camp/torch if you must linger — but lingering raises danger.

Cut

• Extra shovels.
• Duplicate bash-throughs once you can open doors cleanly.
• Camp toys you never have warmth to support (Burning Sensation is a combat-hand warmth card, not a reason to carry four rest cards).

If an explore card is “maybe useful in tunnel 20,” it is already costing you dummy visits in tunnel 5.

What to grow

Grow the card you will draw anyway. Infinite growth is wasted on a 2-of you never see. Practice dummy rooms are for that choice, not for polishing junk.

Good grow targets:

• Low-cost hits that stay in the deck.
• Distant Shadow once lodged, because later plays keep paying.
• Attackers with eat riders, so growth and food share a card.

Bad grow targets:

• Consume-on-play spikes.
• Temporary moods (Hysterical Strength is a mood, not a dummy project).
• Explore tools. Dummy is for combat.

Write the grown card’s name at the top of your notepad. If a new reward is better, frog the old one instead of growing both.

Frog statue: forget on purpose

The frog statue is an explore-side trash can. PC Gamer called it out next to the dummy: upgrade versus forget. Use it.

Forget list:

1. Combat basics you replaced.
2. Explore duplicates.
3. Unplayable moods.
4. Self-damage cards that never minted food.
5. Anything you took “for the collection.”

Do not frog your only roast because you are at full HP. Full HP is temporary. The next biome boss is not.

Energy curve

Energy is shared attention, not a third deck. Typical failure: spend every pip in explore (bash + dig + dummy + feed) then enter combat with a greedy curve and no leftover plan.

Rules of thumb:

• Leave a pip if you picked leftover-energy Foresight such as Spring into Action (Fly Kicks per unspent energy after exploring). Otherwise that relic is dead.
• Spend the dummy even if it is expensive; growth is the run.
• Do not bash if an unlock card is in hand and HP is already low. Bash is a paid HP tax, and you have no block pile to pay it with.
• Combat: play food generation before vanity damage if you are wounded. Eating is the defend.

If every card in both decks costs 1 and you still flood, the problem is count, not cost. Frog.

Mid-run audit (use this twice)

At roughly tunnel 8 and again before a biome boss, pause and answer:

• Combat size: can I name every card? If not, too big.
• Explore size: do I have dummy and a key/unlock tool? If I have four tools and no dummy, I drafted scared.
• Engine: eat / grow / mood. Still true?
• HP: if I am always wounded, I need Seasoned/Toasty, not another club.
• Foresight: does my relic match the engine? If I overeat for max HP, am I actually overeating?

Write yes/no. Two “no”s means the next reward is a skip or a frog, not a new idea.

Paperboy-specific notes

Paperboy is a survivable roast/grow hybrid. Do not force Concerned Parent’s draw-rage loop with random moods. Parental Instinct and Hysterical Strength are that class’s sourced kit in Early Access, not a demo homework assignment. Lunchlady will own feed/cook later. Your job in the 26 tunnels is to finish a lean hybrid and hunt eight Foresights, not to future-proof a Facility deck that does not exist yet.

After Early Access

When two pathways and five characters ship on 10 September 2026, copy this checklist and swap the grow target. Facility cards will add verbs this page does not know. The rules stay: two decks, both lean, frog statue is not optional, energy leftover is a choice. Until then, this planner is for the demo you can install today from demo and wishlist.

Print the keep/cut lists or screenshot them. The wiki will not click cards for you, and that is the point — the discipline is the build.