...the Wildcards expansion to get the humble-looking yet extremely overpowered Explorer's Gift fate to use. This fella can't wear heavy armor but cards you have already encountered will cost him no food when he moves across them again. We'll also get a small gold bonus for revealing all cards on each level as long as we keep our starting helmet on. So you're saying "But that's still weak! All the food in the world will not help you when the game decides to starve you of resources and thrust a boss at you when you're still ill-equipped, and that gold is paltry!" Bear with me!

...quick Endless mode runs for card unlocks. This guide assumes that once you hit a wall, you went and played endless mode for a bunch to unlock more tokens, more cards, more gear and encounters for yourself. There are some cards you really need in your deck for this strategy to work.

...patience. 'tis a slow and grindy path.

Ah, the thrill of deckbuilding. So, we have picked Explorer's Gift as our fate and are now pondering what gear to take with us and what encounters we want. Thanks to the effectively infinite food we'll have, there are must-have cards, there are nice-to-have cards, and there are definitely-don't-need-this cards. Feel free to run the cogs in your ace of skulls (that's yours!) and guess which ones are which, or read on!

Again, if you're missing something important or just feel you hit a wall, go play endless mode to unlock more stuff. Also note the cards that are not mentioned anywhere are basically "feel free to do with them what you will".

• Assassin's Greed, for +5 gold after each combat
  
• Ring of Reward, for a draw-three-pick-one-item after every 3rd combat
  
• Healer's Ring, for +1 gold every time we gain health
  
• Ring of Punishment, for +1 gold on every 5th hit we sustain in combat
  
• Plunderer's Ring, for +1 gold and +2 health on each gain card
  
• Bashing Ring, for +10 gold on your 10th shield bash in every combat
  
• The Lovers, for extorting the couple for two rings - you want to get rings fast!

• Master Ring, for +1 gold per ring after every encounter (I'd put this under must have but you need to beat the penultimate boss to unlock it)
  
• Skeleton King Shield, for making bashes insta-kill normal skeletons and stun most other mobs
  
• Kraken Claw, for cutting through lizards like through butter
  
• Ghost of the Sea, for random goodies (I'd put it under must have but you need to beat the Kraken before it becomes a good card)
  
• Shop, for an extra merchant stop chance
  
• Mithril, because it's light armor with the equivalent of heavy armor protection! (But it comes late in the game, so can't really be in must have)
  
• Emergency Ring, for an effective extra life in case things get hairy

• Ring of Survival, because we can heal to full for free after every combat
  
• Occult Ring, because we'll be destroying those curses
  
• All heavy armor, because we can't wear any

So, we're all set up and ready to go! Our goal is to survive until we encounter a floor with a store, preferably one that can remove curses, but any stores will do - after all, we can pull this strategy on every subsequent store floor anyway. We also want to have at least a few of those "must have" things by now.

Because moving over already encountered cards costs no food, simply hop back and forward to heal to full after every combat. With Healer's Ring, you'll also get cash for it! But now that we got to the store, here is where it gets cheesy:

AMBUSHES.

Yes, we're going to keep spam-entering the store until we get ambushed. We'll get attacked by either bandits or mages (hopefully not Jack of Dust because the bloody scoundrel steals gold from us). Now you'll want to dispatch all enemies except one, and then, assuming you have Healer's Ring, do the insane - forget that last enemy and run around, trigger traps, get yourself beaten up within an inch of your life before finally putting the poor confused sod out of its misery and ending the combat.

If you do not yet have Healer's Ring (or if you ran into Jack of Dust), just finish the battle fast and grab that when you can - remember that a store's inventory shifts if you leave and re-enter!

If you got yourself all busted up, just move back to already done encounters and hop around to heal up and make money as you do. It starts out slow, but as you gain more gear and blessings that award you with gold, you'll eventually be swimming in money, will be able to remove even the "purple" curses, buy all the gear and blessings that you want, and face down the wannabe-trickster Dealer with the fight suddenly stacked completely in your favor.

All that's left to do is give him a taste of his own medicine, and ask him how it feels to be outcheesed.

Hopefully it was at least a little helpful. And remember, this guide is not about how to "git gud". It's about how to give the game a taste of its own medicine.