After winning several times, you might notice that your character health pool is exactly 3 every time, especially if you have not been using abilities in order to unlock the Archer (great choice). This is because of the set amount of monster values versus your swords, shields, potions and starting character health values. The most effective way to conceive of these pools is as negative/-ve and positive/+ve health. IN ANY GAME MODE of Card Crawl, you will be dealing with a deck made up of 5 ABILITY CARDS and the following:

MONSTER CARDS: 2 each from 2-9, and 3 Souleaters at a value of 10.
TOTAL: 118 -ve health points



SWORD & SHIELD CARDS: 1 each from 2-7. TOTALS: 54 +ve health points (27/27)

POTION CARDS: 1 each from 2-10.
TOTAL: 54 +ve health points


COIN CARDS: 1 each from 2-10.
TOTAL: 54 coin score


You may have noticed that the total -ve hp values outweigh the +ve, with 118 vs. 108. But, with 13 starting health factored in, it's a difference of 3 points, between 118 & 121 (since you need at least 1 to survive and win, you only have 2 extra). What this means is if you don't get too many -ve or +ve cards at a time, destroying your run in a landslide (it happens all too often, no?), AND you don't waste more than 2 points of equipment or potions (every... last... drap!) - you will always end with 1-3 health without ability cards.

So, since the best deck requires the best cards, you will need to know which ones those are. THE FIRST CARD WHICH YOU SHOULD BUY FROM THE CARD SHOP is... TAME! It will be proven that this has the most value of any ability card. Take your starting ability leech, for instance: on it's own, it may heal up to a chosen value displayed on the incoming card/top half or side of the game area. Basically, you're only getting up to 10 hp healed from this, unless you use other cards to boost max health AND increase card values in the upper area. So, 10 +ve hp is your max benefit for this card alone (good). Compare MIDAS SCARF: it turns a monster into a coin card at half value, rounded down, which removes up to 10 -ve hp and provides up to 5 coins/score bonus on top of the effectiveness of leech (great). It is objectively better, without considering card synergy. Now, look at TAME: it turns a monster card into a universal piece of equipment, which may be used as a sword and shield several times in the same turn until (eventually) used up, removing up to 10 -ve hp and adding 10 +ve, with the flexibility of both sword & shield role - bloody brilliant!

Getting your TAME card early means taking that 2 point wiggle room and extending it to 22, which allows you to play comfortably and even sell equipment without ever having to run into dire trouble. TAME alone is enough to consistently carry a deck to the finish line and reap the reward of whatever score you have. If you win consistently, you will feel better and not give in to the rage demons. Thou wisheth to be burdened with coin for a fortnight? I give it thee, mine own strategy...

Now, the 251+ gold coin win achievement is not (typically) easy, but with this deck and strategy, you should not only be able to do it within 10 minutes, as I did, but you'll rarely, if at all, lose. Hence, this is the best coin collecting strategy in the game. Prepare for a great many unlocks!

As stated above, TAME is an essential card with optimum value, allowing you to safely and flexibly play the game areas while manifesting your plans through your ability card draws. The thing is, ability card draws are (practically) always fixed, and so predictable: you draw an ability card as every 10th card, unless cards have been shuffled back into the deck (when you may draw a duplicated card sooner, for instance). The order is always random, but in the CONSTRUCTED mode, you can at least choose which 5 ability cards are to be picked from. This strat requires a decent enough order of appearance to win with, and a (nearly) optimal order to get 251+ gold. Since you have 4 card slots remaining and you need to value gold above all now, you will have to consider multipliers.

If you're starting fresh, after TAME the best ones to unlock at the COLLECTION area are FEAST/MIRROR/BOUNTY (for completing Quests or other Steam achievements), then FAITH last. Faith should be bought last and rarely relied on, because of the dark tendency and lack of heart to that card (it reveals and doubles the next 3 cards, before shuffling them back into the deck): statistically, with about 1/3 chances to draw a monster card/-ve hp, 1/2 to draw +ve hp, and 1/4 for coins or abilities, you might think that it would more often be a boon. BUT, since you won't normally have monsters above 10 hp or character hp above 13, Swords valued 6-7 and Potions 7+ are a waste. Still, it's a multiplier, and is necessary for the 251+ gold. The most viable card order is:

EDIT: The order pictured is ideal for winning easily, but you may actually be able to pull it off getting a Bounty last as well, though that requires holding on to many ability cards for several turns (more on this exciting and lucrative strat in the other/final edit, below). The most important position is getting FAITH as the 4th or 5th draw, so if you get it earlier you may prefer using that as a Restart trigger. Try to get TAME early and use it on a high-value monster as soon as possible, in order to give yourself breathing room with hp and the opportunity to sell equipment without dooming yourself, as you may need the space for proper positioning/holding onto ability cards. The trick is getting Bounty to fall into one of the middle spaces and, with Feast ready to go, playing it on Bounty with 2 high-value cards adjacent to it in the top field. Say you get very lucky with 10/8 on either side. You use Feast, adding those to the starting value of 3, bringing it to 21. Only after this may you move it into your backpack, so if you draw it early, it's essential that you KEEP BOUNTY UP TOP and wait for the opportune time, with Feast ready. This is where card counting comes in.

Time to make your friends rejoice in your gambling hacks! The first deal is 4 cards, but every next one will fill the field, with the rule that more are dealt when 1 card remains on top (unless you take a dagger to board wipe or use some ability). So, every other deal will be 3 cards, with the last deal being up to 3. It's best to count to 10 fresh with each ability appearance, so the first one is the last card of turn 3 (counting 1-4, 5-7, 8-10). You should try to prepare for an early Bounty by leaving the last card in the far right spot on your second turn, so that Bounty would land with space for high cards on either side. If not, keep counting in preparation: 1-3... 4-6... 7-9... 10 means it will be the first card of your 4th turn after drawing your first ability/starting the count fresh. This means that you should leave a buffer on the extreme left on your third turn at least, so that Bounty would be forced into a middle spot. If you still don't have it, starting with the +2 dealt after your second ability card, you count 3-5... 6-8... 9, 10, 11. As the third drop, it will always land in one of the middle spaces without abilities tampering the count.

After you've successfully used TAME to secure your win and you've buffed Bounty, you want to hold onto it beyond your 4th ability drop, hopefully MIRROR. I knew that I had a strong lead at this point, so at the expense of selling equipment in order to hold onto 2 abilities, I managed to stall until the second-to-last turn, with 2 cards left to be dealt and the final ability drop, FAITH. It's simple if you do this, as Mirror pushes a duplicate Bounty around 20 value into the deck, then Faith doubles the next (last) 3 cards, including, of course, Bounty. So, you have a Bounty providing 20 gold for each Souleater you've removed (3, by the end of the game) and another giving 40. Together, they will grant 180. If you managed to draw in all of the coin cards without having to discard one for space (this isn't recommended unless you haven't used TAME yet), you'll have the max 54 from that, granting 233. Here's where game science comes in handy: knowing that you have about 20 hp in your favour after TAME, you can pretty safely sell equipment for up to 22 total value throughout the game. This is what will put you above 250 gold, as well as the luck of being able to sell whatever you doubled with Faith.

A few things to mention: positioning is really important and every gold piece matters for the achievement, yet don't be afraid to discard gold cards in exchange for desireable positioning. 10-15 gold in coin cards will not do much in the end, but getting Bounty about 20+ value is essential and every extra point goes a long way (if you get 22 rather than 20, those extra 2 points will be duplicated/doubled/tripled, so that they'll become 18 in the end!). Happy travels and farewell, my dear friend

EDIT: I have noticed, in replaying this, that using TAME on a Souleater may make it not count toward your total count of 10+ enemies destroyed for the Bounty multiplier. To play it safe, just use it on a Troll, or even a Spider for decent benefits. Also, another thing about the use of Mirror: you can get decent value out of it on a Feast, especially if you manage to save up both predicting that Bounty will be last. If so, you may use FAITH before your second-to-last hand (with your final ability, a guaranteed Bounty if you haven't received it yet) to get a 6 bounty surrounded by up to 20/20 OR 5-8 value monster(s), which would double/become Souleater(s) and count toward your Bounty effect multiplier, with a max Bounty of 86x3 OR 70x5 (a 350 Bounty)! This alternative strat (with Bounty as the final abiilty drawn), while more difficult to pull off since you will at times need to keep 3 abilities in the play area for several consecutive turns (and even moreso if you double enemies/create new Souleaters to claim your engorged Bounty on), has the highest possible end score of 446.