Overview
A trick to greatly increase your chances of getting through the 21 blackjack game mode.Achievements: Eye in the Sky (beat 21) Card Shark (beat Survivor) You Gotta Know When To Hold ‘Em (beat Survivor+)21 unlocks: Ultimate Draw (beat Survivor w/o being tortured once) – Use: Draw the best card in the deck for your hand, and draw 2 Trump Cards. Grand Reward (beat Survivor+ w/o being tortured once) – Cosmetic reward
Concept: You only have 11 cards in the deck
It’s really easy to tally up the possible cards in your opponent’s hand. Since there are only 11 cards in play, not a regular deck of 52 cards.
What you gotta do: Get a pencil and paper
- Draw 2 columns.
- Start counting from 1 to 11, skipping the cards that you can see. Consider this number as the hidden card in your opponent’s hand.
- For each number, if your opponent’s hand is less than yours -or- if your opponent busts (goes over the limit), put a Tally Mark on the left column. This is your win ratio.
- If your opponent’s hand is equal to yours, mark a lil circle on the border of your column. This means you might draw.
- If you opponent’s hand is bigger than yours, put a Tally mark on the right column. This is your lose ratio
Do this for each hand, it gives you a guide on what is the best next move.
If you need to draw a card
Always draw a card if your hand is equal or less than 10. That’s basic blackjack since the highest possible draw is 11.
But if you need to draw a hand while your total is higher than that, consider the number of cards left, that’s 11 – (cards on table). Start counting up like before, ignoring the cards on the table, put a tally for each number that doesn’t make you bust. This gives you the chance that you’ll bust after drawing.
If there’s no chance for your opponent to win, STAY and let him take 1 damage
Repeat until there’s no chance the opponent can win, if you can’t ONLY THEN USE TRUMP CARDS
Don’t use any Trump Cards up to this point, only use Trump Cards when you can’t possibly win by playing blackjack normally. This saves up Trump Cards for later on boss fights when you can really use them.
By not using Trump Cards the game will take longer but that’s fine. The worst case scenario is that you draw the opponent, meaning no fingers lost for you! By the time you’re forced to use trump cards, you’ll likely use ones that increase the opponent’s bet anyways.
By not using Trump Cards you’ll have the most flexibility for if you bust or if you cant win.
One caveat. This trick nets you a lot of Trump Cards so watch up for the Hand-print Hoffman opponent. There’s an ‘early’ variant that you’ll likely come up against before round 5 on Survivor+ and a ‘late’ variant afterwards which packs harder hitting cards. Watch out for Mindshift which makes you discard half / all of your Trump Cards at the end of the round (this hand, whether you Win/Lose/Draw) if you don’t use 2 / 3 Trump Cards in that round.