Premium Cards

Premium Cards (プレミアムカード, Puremia Kādo) appear in Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories as an upgrade to normal playing cards, which lowers their CP cost while making it impossible to reload them normally. A Premium Card has the same appearance as its original form, except that its number has been embossed in gold, and its surface has been made glossy. However for a Premium Card to be unreloadable it has to be used in a combo attack. If it is used as the second or third card in a Sleight they can still be reloaded.

A Premium Card can be created by picking up a Premium Bonus (プレミアプライズ, Puremia Puraizu, lit. "Premium Prize"), which are sometimes dropped by Heartless during battle. If a Premium Bonus is picked up, a spinning roulette containing the player's deck will appear once the battle ends. The player can either accept the Premium Bonus by pressing , which will stop the roulette wheel and convert the card it lands on into a Premium Card, or reject it by pressing , which will remove the roulette wheel and return the player to the map. Premium Bonuses drop most frequently in Premium Rooms, White Rooms, and Black Rooms. Premium Cards can also be randomly purchased at the Moogle Shop, and net increased Moogle Points when sold.

Strategy

It is not always a good idea to upgrade cards to premium, due to their inability to be reloaded. However, it is often efficient to use them as the first card in a sleight since the card can only be used once. Also, if a Premium Card is used in a sleight, but not as the first card, it will be reloaded despite being a Premium Card. This means Sora can use Premium Attack Cards in Sleights that use a magic card first, such as Lethal Frame and still be able to reload it normally for a Sleight that uses all Attack Cards. One exception to the general rule for premium cards is if a premium attack card is the last available Attack Card in Sora's deck, which makes it impossible to remove.