The King of Tokyo Midgame: Holding Tokyo, Yielding, and the Card Row

The dice odds lesson gave you numbers for a single turn. This one stretches them across a round. The midgame starts when the first Monster leaves Tokyo bruised and somebody has a Power card worth worrying about. Life totals have spread out, points are climbing, and every turn now asks a real question. This lesson is about the three that matter most: who holds Tokyo, when to leave, and what to buy.

How long can you hold Tokyo?

Holding Tokyo pays 2 points each time you start your turn there. The cost is one full round of every Monster outside rolling at you, with no healing in between.

A rough way to size that cost: a Monster that chases Smash results with all six dice averages about 2.5 of them. Most Monsters will not go all in every turn, because they want Energy and points too. In the midgame, plan on 1 or 2 damage from each Monster outside, and more when the table decides you are the problem.

So the number of Monsters outside matters as much as your own Life.

• Two Monsters outside: 5 Life can often survive a round.
• Four or five outside: 5 Life is a gamble. The round may cost you everything.

When the expected damage before your next turn is close to your Life total, it is time to go.

The Yield decision

You can only Yield right after another Monster wounds you with Smash results, and the Monster that hit you then moves in. That makes the choice richer than “am I hurt?”

Leave when:

• Your Life is near what the table can deal in a round.
• The Monster who hit you is low on Life. If you Yield, it must enter Tokyo, and now everyone outside can hit it. Sometimes leaving is an attack.
• You have Energy to spend and want to heal and build for a turn.

Stay when:

• Your Life is high and only one or two Monsters are outside.
• The Monster who hit you is close to 20. Letting it in gives it 1 point now and 2 more next turn.
• You are one Tokyo turn from winning, and the table cannot deal your Life in one round.

With 5 or 6 players and both City and Bay full, the two of you in Tokyo never wound each other. But every Monster outside hits both of you with every Smash result, so the Bay is no safer than the City.

Read everyone’s Life, every turn

Life totals are open information, and the best players track all of them.

• A low Monster outside will spend its next turn healing. It is no threat to Tokyo this round, and it may be a target for the Monster in Tokyo.
• A low Monster in Tokyo is everyone’s opportunity. If it stays, the table may knock it out. If it Yields, someone has to take its place.
• A high Monster outside with Smash-boosting cards is the real danger to whoever is in Tokyo.

Before you roll, glance around the table and ask: who can I knock out this turn, and who can knock me out before my next one?

Buying Power cards in the midgame

After resolving your dice, you may buy any face-up card. Each bought card is replaced right away, and the new one is for sale immediately, so a big Energy turn can mean two or three purchases.

Good midgame buys usually do one of three things:

• Make your dice better. Extra dice and extra rerolls make every remaining turn stronger.
• Keep you alive. Cards that reduce damage or give Life where Heal results cannot.
• Turn Energy into points when you are close enough to 20 that points now matter most.

Keep cards that pay every turn lose value as the game goes on. A card that fires once per turn is worth a lot with ten turns left and much less with two.

The sweep

For 2 Energy, you can discard all three face-up cards and reveal three new ones, which are for sale at once. You can keep buying and sweeping as long as your Energy lasts.

Sweep when:

• The row is bad for you and you have Energy to spare.
• The row is great for the next player. If the Monster after you has the Energy for a card that would swing the game, buying it or sweeping it away is defense.

Do not sweep with your last few cubes hoping for a miracle. Energy carries over between turns, and a full purse next turn is often worth more than a gamble now.

Watch the other purses

Energy cubes sit in front of each player, in plain view. A Monster with eight or more Energy can buy almost anything in the row. Before you end your turn with a strong card left face up, check who sits next and what they can afford.

The midgame is where King of Tokyo stops being pure dice. If your group is learning to enjoy that bite, our piece on take-that games explains why attacks here land softer: they hit whoever holds a position, not a person.