One of my goals for Mandala Mind: The Card Game is for it to be welcoming and accessible. I thought creating a strategy guide would be one way to do this. If you prefer to discover strategies on your own, please do not read any further.
Throughout this guide, I’m going to assume you already know the rules for the Mandala Mind. The rules can be found here. You can also watch this video to learn how to play. If you’d like to try out the game, it is available on Tabletopia and Tabletop Simulator.
Use frame of mind special actions
Each frame of mind has a special action that is unique to it. These special actions are most effective in certain situations. For example, Joy can move to any mandala. This is helpful when you need to move to a difficult to reach mandala. Understanding can focus twice at its mandala. This is particularly useful on the green mandalas, since there is often no reason to stay at them, and they can sometimes be more difficult to clear of distraction. Peace can focus at an adjacent mandala, which can be helpful if you need to stay at a certain mandala but you still want to put your action to use. I’ll talk about Compassion in a later section.
Combo mandala abilities together
A good rule of thumb is to use two or more mandala abilities on at least half of your turns. There are also many situations where it makes sense to stay put on your current mandala and only use one ability. This is a concept that is difficult for me to give specific examples. I expect it is something you’ll get a feel for as you play more.
Stock up on focus actions with inspiration
Compassion and the two red mandalas have the inspire ability. Inspiring frames of mind is a great way to stock up on focus actions. There are situations in the game where it isn’t effective to remove distraction during the current round because the source of distraction is just going to add it back. Gaining inspiration at those times is a way to still be productive.
Switch your frame of mind
The purple mandala enables you to switch your active frame of mind with another frame of mind. This can be helpful when a particular frame of mind is needed at a certain time. For example, in some of the scenarios, you need to move to a particular mandala at the end of the round to avoid losing. Joy is effective at moving, so if you switch Joy to the last frame of mind, you can easily move before the end of each round.
Note which event cards are left in the deck
The number of cards in the event deck is always going to be three or less. This means you can calculate the probability of a certain card being drawn. For example, if you know that two out of three cards in the event deck move the source of distraction to the frame of mind’s mandala, you probably want to move the frame of mind pawn to a mandala where the source of distraction is going to add the least amount of distraction.
Leave other strategies in the comments below
That’s all of the strategies I can think of for now! Feel free to add any others you come up with in the comments. Please let me know if you need any clarifications regarding the strategies I discussed. I hope you find this guide helpful.