Welcome to my guide, Trash! Today we will be going over one of my favorite deck builds, The Frag-A-Jam Captain Bee Discard Combo deck. In other TCG and deckbuilding style games, this deck archetype is known as the Graveyard deck or Mono Black in MTG. It's a really strong deck build, especially with the most recent patch. I've used this deck to get through the Nix story line, so it can definitely be used throughout the game pretty easily.

This deck is a bit more advanced and more technically complicated than other archetypes, so it's important to understand how the different card actions affect the deck engine and how to manipulate those numbers to stack damage.

• Deals with bricks better than any other archetype
  
• Big damage potential
  
• Can deal damage without playing damage cards
  
• Great early game defense generation
  
• OTKs throughout the entire game
  
• Most of the damage isn't affected by debuffs like Sap

• Not fusion friendly
  
• Can struggle to deal damage against late game bosses
  
• Biggest portion of damage into the mid-game is random
  
• Can be difficult to draft the appropriate cards
  
• Doesn't utilize a great deal of enemy debuffs, so battles can turn into a stone throwing contest

This deck does a few things. As is obvious by the title, you will be discarding Junk to stack up damage. The starting perks for this deck facilitate the full deck engine with the starting deck, so you will be purchasing cards and traits that will enhance this engine mostly. This deck also likes to stun enemies. Again, the starting perkset will facilitate a stun at the beginning of every game, but you will be purchasing cards to stack population in order to ramp damage with Frag-A-Jam and your other population based damage cards. The tempo on this deck can be pretty slow sometimes, so it's important to balance defense, damage, and population stacking.

To summarize, your order of actions will be:

1. Discard cards to stack up damage
   
2. Stack up population to stun and ramp damage
   
3. Deal damage with population based damage cards

This is a Frag-A-Jam Captain Bee deck, so you'll have 3 options in your arsenal. For this deck, we'll be using Counter Throw Card x2, Fortune Fling, and Paralyze.


The Counter Throw cards are essential to the engine of this deck. Many of the cards that we'll purchase throughout the play through will synergize with this card. This card does two things:

1. Force a discard
   
2. Add 7 defense

This may seem like a bad card at first. On its own, Counter Throw is probably a lower tier card. Junk Pile gives 8 defense and a card draw. Junkamari gives 8 defense for free after one fusion, but we're not including this for the defense. We're including it because of the crazy synergy that it has with the next trait.


When combined with Counter Throw, Fortune Fling is one of the most dangerous skills in the game. With Fortune Fling equipped, every card that is discarded will result in 1-20 damage against your enemy. When coupled with the defense that Counter Throw gives upon activation, this gives the Frag-A-Jam discard engine an element of versatility that a lot of other Zet Zillions decks don't have. While this deck can stack some crazy damage, this trait can also fizzle out in important situations. Anybody that's ever rolled a D20 knows about the struggle of 1-20 randomization. It's important to have some backup in your deck in the event a Fortune Fling attack doesn't hit as high as you had planned. With that said, Fortune Fling is a great trait that can result in some big hits.

While I look at this trait as being optional, it really does stack up well with the rest of the deck. Paralyze will stun a random enemy at the beginning of every battle, so I mostly use this skill to get my ducks in a row during turn 1 of a battle against a big hitter like Black Mars or White Dwarf. Paralyze can be replaced with Stinger or Bee Swarm, but I don't suggest that as this deck doesn't really synergize well enough with DoT effects like poison to justify it. Towards the end of the game, paralyze gets a lot more useful, as a lot of the enemies will have turn 1 attacks that deal over 10 damage. Paralyze will give you a chance to stack up some defense or population to find a way to stack up enough damage to zero the enemy.

The large selection of traits can make selecting traits for a cohesive deck build frustrating at times. With this in mind, I'll be sorting various traits into classes based on this deck. While you generally won't see all of the best traits in a single playthrough, you will generally have the chance to obtain a few of the following traits each playthrough. Traits are generally the most important facet of any playthrough, so always have these traits in mind whenever you're upgrading your deck.




Fair Trade

Fair Trade is the trait that synergizes the best with this deck. In terms of this deck, it stands in a tier all its own, and there is literally no other trait better than this one. This trait effectively turns your Counter Throw cards into free random damage and 7 defense. A great example of this is with the Counter Throw + Nuclear Elf combo. When you play this combo with the Fair Trade trait, not only will you get the 7 defense and the randomized damage along with the action point from Nuclear Elf, but you'll also get a card draw out of it as well, so this card and trait combo can really bolster your hand while ignoring action point drain that usually comes with playing defense cards.





Spiked Plates

Spiked plates synergizes well with your counter throw cards. Every time you play a card which gives you defense, you'll get spikes which return damage onto the enemy. While spikes aren't really a mechanic that we're focusing on with this deck, they can get really useful later on in the game once you start playing the various defense combos. While Spiked Plates is one of those traits that can be slipped into most decks pretty easily, it works really well with this deck, as we'll be playing defense cards pretty consistently.



Trash Cannon

On paper, Trash Cannon doesn't seem as if it would be good enough to make A-Tier on this list, but when you play with it, you'll realize how versatile this trait is. For one, it will damage enemy defense making it easier for your damage to get through to their HP, but it also helps to pile on population stun onto the enemy. This has been a lifesaver for me on more than one occasion. The only real downside to this is that the effect is randomized, but a free Trash card played at the beginning of every turn can be really helpful in boss battles and colonization missions.







Invaders/ Trash Frog


Invaders is probably a little better than Trash Frog, in my opinion, but both of these traits synergize very well with what we're doing with this deck. While Invaders will make your attack cards deal more damage, Trash Frog can really save your life in the later game when enemies start to hit quite a bit harder than they do in the early game.



Regen Aura

Regen Aura is one of those traits that's good in almost every deck build in the game. It will heal 6 before every battle, and, while this isn't going to save you in a rough battle, it will make a difference in the long run. It will heal 30 HP every 5 battles, so it can start to stack up if you can avoid damage for a few battles. Regen Aura isn't necessarily a must have trait, but it is consistently good.








Body Kicker/ Opportunist

Body Kicker and Opportunist can be a pain to proc, so if you end up with one of these traits, don't pressure yourself to proc it. Instead, wait for these to proc naturally. Once again, you will play quite a few population cards during a playthrough with this deck, so you don't need to go out of your way to proc these traits.



Piercing Trash

Piercing trash is probably the least useful skill on this list, but it does a great job of kick starting this deck on turn 1. Anybody who's ever played any type of deckbuilding style game will know the struggle of "getting over the hump" of an enemy's HP or energy points. This trait will kick start your population snowball so that you can start stacking up stuns and help you get over that population hump so you don't end up with 24/25 population on a big hitter.





Cryo Plates

Cryo Plates doesn't necessarily meld or synergize with the deck as well as the other traits, but it's just an all-around good skill to have. If you don't have defense, it will give you 7 at the end of your turn. This trait combos well with a few different cards and can work in this deck on turns that you don't get a chance to play Counter Throw or some other defense generating junk.





I'm not going to leave an explanation for the following list of traits. In my opinion, these traits are more of a last option whenever you have a bad draw on traits. These traits are traits that perform well in any deck but don't really synergize well with this deck in particular, so don't pass up one of the previously listed traits to grab one of the following.

These next cards will be in your deck by default from the start of the game. It's important that you know how and when to use these cards in order to maximize the effectiveness of this deck. Always keep in mind what we're trying to do:

1. Discard cards for random damage
   
2. Stack population as quickly as possible
   
3. Slam those big combo cards once population is full

Counter Throw

Counter Throw is the bread and butter of this deck. When paired with the Fortune Fling trait, the starting deck with this build starts the game with a max efficient damage of 74 without playing Frag-A-Jam and 80 with playing Frag-A-Jam before having to shuffle the deck together. This gives the deck great versatility but also requires some thought into the next turns to play cards out the best way. Having two of these is a huge boon, and it can lead to some 1,2, and 3 turn kills that wouldn't be possible with other decks.






Frag-A-Jam!

If you've played Zet Zillions more than a few times, then you'll know exactly what this card does. This is a very versatile card, and it can really make or break a run, depending on how efficiently you're using it. Remember, this card removes all population after calculating damage, so play any population-based damage cards that don't remove that population before playing Frag-A-Jam.

It's inevitable that during some point of your run with the Frag-A-Jam Discard Combo deck you will encounter a hand where you need to discard something Counter Throw, but every card in your hand is an important card. For this reason, I strongly suggest putting some cards which can serve the dual purpose of usefulness as well as being something that you can discard without serious repercussions. The best of these cards will affect you positively when you discard them, while others will simply be useful junk.


Nuclear Elf

Nuclear Elf is the "Dark Horse" of this deck. Not only is it good discard fodder, but it gives you an action point whenever it's discarded. This effectively turns Counter Throw into a free 7 defense and random damage. This card is unplayable, and this can create some problems.














Gato

Gato is a lot like Nuclear Elf in that it's a great card for this deck in particular but can't be played on the board directly. This card deals 15 total damage split evenly among 3 random enemies upon being discarded, so this is a great way to stack damage on Fortune Fling with a max of 35 damage on playing the combo.





The previous cards are unplayable, meaning if you have them in your hand with no way to discard them, they turn into bricks. With this type of deck, you really can't afford bricks, so ensure you're not flooding your deck with discard effect or discard affected cards (it's possible to draw multiple Nuclear Elf cards in a single playthrough). As with anything, deck building in this game is all about balance, so make sure you're balancing out your discard effect and discard affected cards.

Other Discard Fodder

There are a few other cards which work well with this deck that can also be considered as discard fodder, but I'm not going to waste a lot of space listing them, as this can really vary based on your playstyle and what types of draws you're getting. This is pretty self-explanatory, but I'll leave a bulleted list of the cards that I've had the most success with:

• Junk Pile (Defense)
  
• Junkamari (Defense)
  
• Decoy Baby (Defense & Spikes)
  
• Wolfie/ Big Bad Wolfie (Expose on draw/ Damage on play)
  
• Mushroom (Vigor)

The next class of cards are all of the cards that will increase or manipulate an enemy's population count. This combos well with a few of the damage cards that we'll be looking for, but this also allows you to stun enemies so that you have more time to deal with stacking enough damage to eliminate them.

The main problem with the upcoming list of cards is that a few of them are random laboratory transformations. This means that there's no way to easily select them, as of the writing of this guide. While you may be at the mercy of the trash gods with these cards, you should still be mindful and what transformations you've made and remove those that aren't helping your deck as well as you'd like.



Trash Ganger

Trash Ganger is a snowball card that can be really useful in longer battles. It starts out dealing 5 population, but that number increases by 5 each time it is played. I've personally gotten this as high as 25 population damage, but this card does tend to plateau in usefulness at 10-15 as battles don't usually last longer than a few shuffles. This card also becomes a lot less useful the more cards you have in your deck as this increases the time between deck shuffles, so this card generally becomes discard fodder for me later on in the game.









Trash Settler

Trash Settler is another one of those cards that can become discard fodder in the right situations, but it's important to remember that this card needs to be played as early as possible for maximum efficiency. Trash Settler is a debuff card that adds 5 population to the enemy at the beginning of their turn. After activation, this card is exiled for the rest of the battle, so this card can work to thin your deck in later rounds once your deck gets over 20 cards in it.
One big thing to remember about this card is that it doesn't do anything the instant you play it as the activation doesn't occur until the beginning of the debuffed enemy's turn. For example, if Trash Settler is played on turn 1, you will not be able to use that population for an attack until your turn 2. The big positive for this card lies in the fact that this card's effect turns into a free trash card from turn 3 onwards.



The Cometeers

The Cometeers is a unique card in that if it doesn't get the chance to utilize its AoE on multiple enemies, it's not nearly as good of a card. Against 1 enemy, this card is essentially a 1 cost Volunteers card, but it gets much better the more enemies are on the board. This card can regularly stun the entire board on activation on my playthroughs, so I always recommend picking up this card if it's available. Just keep in mind that it can be a cinderblock against single enemies.










Overflow

Overflow is a stalwart card for any population/ stun focused deck. This card deals 30 population damage to the selected enemy. After this population damage is calculated, if the selected enemy's population is full, an additional 10 population will be added to all enemies. The biggest drawback to this card is that it's pretty expensive to get off. There are definitely cheaper and more effective ways to stack population on an enemy, but if you can get the full effect of Overflow, you will really ramp the amount of population that you're able to stack in a single turn.

For the sake of this deck, you can categorize this next class of cards into 2 different categories:

1. Cards that do damage based on population counts
   
2. Other damage cards

Looking at it this way will make building this deck much less of a struggle. Before drafting cards, ask yourself: How many of this class of damage do I have? Do I have enough population cards to support this much damage? What turn do I play this card? Having a general idea of what your deck composition looks like from battle to battle will help you to better balance out those damage cards so that you're able to get maximum efficiency out of this deck.

Boom Jetpacks

Boom Jetpacks is one of the best population-based damage cards in the game. It performs a lot like Frag-A-Jam in that it damages enemies based on the amount of population that is currently on the enemy, but it also does an extra 10 damage to enemies with a full population bar (the enemy does NOT have to be stunned for this effect to take place). There are 2 reasons why this is an S-Tier card in this deck:

1. It has a 0 action point cost
   
2. It doesn't remove population after damage

Boom Jetpacks is a great card to use right before Frag-A-Jam especially against enemies with larger HP bars. For example, when facing an enemy with 25 population, playing Boom Jetpacks immediately before Frag-A-Jam will result in 85 damage.






Rocket Punch

The main usefulness of Rocket Punch comes from the fact that it plays into the discard engine. Rocket Punch forces a discard, applies 6 damage, and then applies 6 expose to the enemy. PLAY THIS CARD FIRST! The 6 expose will allow you to do more damage with the rest of your cards, and this makes Rocket Punch one of the most versatile cards in this deck. Rocket Punch would still be useful if it didn't give any damage, so be sure you're thinking about how you're playing out your Rocket Punch cards.













Blast Jets

Blast Jets is one of the better AoE cards in the game, but it's relatively expensive for what it does at a cost of 2 action points. This card will deal 10 damage to all enemy cards. Additionally, it will deal another 10 damage to all enemy cards with a population count. There is quite a bit more efficient damage out there, but this card scales really well when there are more enemies on the board. Only draft this card if you find yourself having trouble beating multiple enemies or bosses that spawn ads.














Kero Kero

I debated on leaving Kero Kero out of this guide. Depending on how I'm building this deck, I'll generally avoid Kero Kero, but if I do decide to draft it, I won't get more than one or 2. The kicker here is that Kero Kero destroys all population on the target after dealing 15 damage, so not only do you lose population after activation, but Kero Kero also has a hard cap on damage before buff modifiers. When you compare it to Frag-A-Jam or Boom Jetpacks, it really lags behind. Frag-A-Jam becomes a better card than Kero Kero after an enemy has reached 8 population, and Boom Jetpacks is a better play whenever the enemy has reached 6 population. Kero Kero is really good in the early stages of the game, but it falls off very hard toward the middle of the game. At worst, it's discard fodder. At best, it's a fail-safe for 15 damage if you don't have one of the other big damage cards.







Fireworks Protocol

Fireworks Protocol is another one of the cards that I contemplated leaving out of this guide. It's very specific on its proc conditions, and they're not the easiest conditions in the game to meet. The following combo will give an example on why this card is so hard to get off successfully in this deck:

1. Rocket punch to discard.
   
2. Discard Nuclear Elf for 1 extra action point. You now have 4.
   
3. Overflow for massive population stack. Hopefully, everybody is full with the 10 extra pop.
   
4. Fireworks Protocol. Under optimal conditions, everybody will be full up on population to maximize the damage from this attack.

Don't go out of your way to get this card, and don't go out of your way to play this card if you happen to draft it. Frag-A-Jam against a 15 pop. enemy is every bit as good as Fireworks Protocol, and against larger enemies, a big disparity appears between Fireworks Protocol and cards like Frag-A-Jam and Boom Jetpacks as maximum population gets larger and larger. The bright side is that Fireworks Protocol leaves all population intact, so it can be used in combos with other cards if you have the action points for that.

Kill Squad

Kill Squad is the creme de la creme of this deck. I'm including this card in the pure damage section simply due to the way that the card plays out. First, 15 population damage is applied. After that, 15 pure damage is applied to the enemy. So, for an enemy that has 30 HP and 15 Defense, you will knock them down to 15 HP with this one card. Its only drawback is the fact that it's a 2 cost card, but it literally turns into an S-Tier card if you can apply the "Reduce cost by 1" promotion.









Valkyrie

Valkyrie conflicts me. On one hand, the Paralyze trait makes Valkyrie an awesome Gnomin candidate (see "Support Cards"), but at its worst, Valkyrie is a 2 cost card with 21 damage, and this just isn't good compared to the rest of the damage cards in the deck. The 2 action points cost also makes this a tough card to get off on the same turn as a stun without some type of action point ramp. This card usually ends up as discard fodder for me, but I will grab it over a lot of the other late game card drafting options.











Trash Hero

Trash Hero is one of my favorite damage cards in the game. Not only is it the best 1 cost static damage in the game, but it spawns a corpse as well. This can really help when you're later in the game and you're having more and more trouble choosing between optimal card plays. The corpses can get out of hand if you let them, so we'll discuss ways to ramp their damage later on in this guide.












Trash Punch

Trash Punch is great for the 20 guaranteed damage. It gets even better when you've got a stunned enemy on the board. 30 damage to a stunned opponent is great, but its potential maxes out at 30 due to not having any type of combo with this deck (in terms of deck mechanics). Rocket Punch + Trash Hero will do more damage 84.21% of the time with a max efficient damage of 38. I'll almost always draft this card, but there are better combo options for this deck.











Bite Bullet

Bite Bullet is an excellent card, but it's only problem comes from its action point cost. 15 defense and 15 damage isn't horrible at all, but in terms of 2 cost cards, Kill Squad performs much better in this deck. This is because all 30 points of activation are focused on the enemy on Kill Squad. With Bite Bullet, half of the activation points are dedicated to your defense. That's not to say that Bite Bullet is a bad card, but in this deck, Kill Squad is just going to perform better, so I say you're betting off having 2 of those compared to one of each. This is another "good but not necessary" card.








Bash

Bash is a great card with a 0 action point cost, but its other costs are pretty expensive for what it does. Bash deals 12 damage then immediately removes 6 defenses from you upon activation. This is a great card to play when your defense is zeroed out, but building defenses with a deck like this is so cumbersome that any cost against those defenses can be hugely detrimental. This is a great card to play, but be sure that you're playing it in the right spots.

This next class of cards are cards that will support you in your Zet Zillions playthrough with this deck. Looking back, we know that we have plenty of cards to build population and deal mediocre damage, but you'll need something more in the later stages of the game. These cards will help you in those stages. While there are no real right answers, when it comes to support cards, there are plenty of wrong answers, so always be sure you have the right mix of support, damage, and population cards when playing this deck.

Gnomin

This is literally my favorite card in the entire game. It has Innate, so it's going to start in your hand, and it lets you draw any card you want from your draw pile. This makes the card so versatile, as you're not locked into a playstyle from turn 1. There are a lot of things you can do with this card, and the only drawback of it is that it exiles after activation. I suggest drafting this card as many times as the game gives you the option to do so.











Dok's Elixir

Dok's Elixir is a banger of a card, in my opinion. I would easily put is as an S-Tier card not just for this deck but throughout the entire game. On activiation Dok's Elixir will give you 6 vigor, and that number increases by 3 each time you play this. This is an awesome card later on in the game, especially against the bigger bosses, when your attacks start taking out a smaller percentage of the enemy's HP bar. Another caveat to this card is that it gets better the longer the battle goes, so this card can really snowball into a big ramp on attacks.









Weak Spot

Weak Spot is one of the big engine cards for this deck. It's probably the least important of the discard cards, but this card is still pretty good for what it does. Upon activation, a discard is forced from your hand and 5 Vulnerable is applied to every enemy on the board. The only real downfall of this card is that the Vulnerable debuff is applied after the randomized damage from Fortune Fling, so you'll have one less action point of Vulnerable to work with after playing this card. This card is in Dok's Shop, so be sure you're not drafting too many of them.









Fury Puffs

Fury Puffs is another one of those cards that feels like a necessity to me. It can really give you some good ramp later on in the game. The only problem that I've encountered with this game is that they can start to fill up your deck once you've played a few of them. I've had situations where I end up with a draw of cards where 4 of them are Fury Puffs. This can be a pretty bad situation against a boss or a big hitter. I love this card, but I can definitely understand arguments against it. Be wary when drafting this card.












Power Drain

The last card in this list is Power Drain. This card can be good in certain situations, but I hate that it depletes the population count. This card can give a larger amount of Vigor than any other card, but that comes at the expense of nullifying the biggest damage cards in the deck. This is a good one to have to ensure that some of your other attacks can get over the hump, but you won't use this card too often even if you do end up drafting it.

These promotions are given as rewards for completing missions. The following is a list of promotions you should be watching out for throughout your playthrough.






Mercenary

Mercenary is probably the best promotion you can use on this deck. Not only does it reduce the action point cost of any card by 1, but it also forces you to discard, allowing you to proc Fortune Fling. This can turn an expensive card into a cheap bomb or it can give you a free 1 cost. I'll generally put this on Kill Squad to turn it into a 1 cost 15/15 nuke.













Drawer

Drawer is one of the better promotions you can get in this deck. Not only will the discard do random damage with the Fortune Fling trait equipped, but the card replenishes itself as well. Any card with this promotion equipped will be more efficient if used at the beginning of a turn to maximize the card draw. I'll generally try to use this promotion on Trash Hero. This will give him 18 damage plus 1-20 random damage before modifiers.










Rioter

Rioter is a good promotion as it creates combos with Frag-A-Jam and your other population-based damage cards. I'll generally stick this promotion to a population card like Trash Ganger so that it deals damage after giving population.













Sapo

Sapo doesn't necessarily meld into this build as well as some other promotion such as Early Bird or even Altruist, but Sapo is just an excellent promotion to put on any card. It's super defensive, dealing the Sap debuff causing enemies to lose damage power, so I'll generally drop this on one of the non-exile support cards.

Thank you for sticking around to check out my guide. If you have any suggestions, questions, or comments, feel free to leave them in the comments, and I'll respond as soon as possible. I hope this guide helped you improve your Zet Zillions game in some way, and I look forward to creating more of these guides for you!


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7/19/24- * Posted guide *
7/20/24- * Updated description for Trash Punch *
7/21/24- * Included a "Pros & Cons" section in the introduction * Removed "Gnomin" note as patch has seemingly fixed the card *