How would you teach a chain-reaction build without introducing every rule at once?
I'm working through a tutorial design problem for a card-based roguelite: the player picks an action card, then equipped effects can trigger from it. For a concrete example, suppose one choice creates a shield, another effect spends that shield for damage, and that damage triggers a follow-up card. I'd like a new player to be able to predict the result without reading three tooltips before every action.
One option is to introduce those effects one at a time in a short encounter. Another is to give the player a small working combo immediately and highlight each trigger as it fires. The first seems easier to follow, but delays the part that makes the build interesting. The second shows the payoff early, but the player might just see a big damage number without understanding why it happened.
Which approach would you start with, and why? What would you ask a new player after that first encounter to check whether they understood the chain well enough to make their next card choice?