Luck be a Landlord

  • Let go of your need to win every game. Because of the short per-game playtime, LBAL is much more luck-dependent than most deckbuilders. You can play perfectly and make all the right choices and still occasionally get screwed by unlucky drops and spins.
  • The best early picks are ones that fit into a variety of builds, or just give you the best raw income on their own or with Common food. Getting or not getting the right items can easily make or break builds you try to force too early.
  • Close behind in viability is Shiny Pebbles and Rabbit Fluff, their drop rate bonuses add up fast, and help enable builds you might not otherwise be able to pull off.
  • Symbols that eat other symbols for a flat reward (Dwarves, Toddlers, etc.) are great early-game cash injectors but don't scale well without the right items and support. The rarer ones that do so for a permanent +1 bonus (Diver, Ms. Fruit, etc.) are better long-term, but only really pay off if you have a consistent way to generate food for them.
  • At time of this writing,
    ores/mining/gems
    has been the hands-down best and most consistent strategy for several releases.
  • If you beat Floor 1 six times, or Floor 6 once, you unlock Essences, which immediately makes the game significantly easier. Using them well is critical to succeeding at the higher Floors.