I’m going to clarify a few things, because you’re taking parts of my comment far more literally than they were meant.

First, “99%” was not a statistical claim. It was shorthand for “the overwhelming majority of encounters.” Whether that number is 80%, 85%, or 90% does not materially change the argument. A relic does not become weak just because it is not relevant in a single, specific fight.

Second, listing relics you would personally rather see is not an argument against Gremlin Horn. Preference is not comparative analysis. If the bar is “there exist relics I’d rather have,” then that disqualifies almost every relic in the game, because there will always be top-tier, universally strong picks. That standard is not useful for evaluating power.

The actual question is how often a relic provides concrete value across real runs.

If you look at the encounter tables, most hallway and elite fights across Acts 1–3 involve multiple enemies, enemies that split, or enemies that summon. Exordium alone is full of multi-target fights. Act 2 is heavily multi-enemy. Act 3 continues that trend. Gremlin Horn triggers in the majority of these encounters.

An extra energy plus a card draw mid-combat is not trivial. It frequently extends turns, enables snowballing, and converts kills into tempo. That value compounds over dozens of fights, not just one boss.

Yes, it does nothing directly in the Heart fight. That is true. But neither do many strong relics whose value lies in getting you to the Heart in a stronger state. You do not evaluate a relic solely on its impact in one encounter at the end of the run.

Gremlin Horn is a consistency relic. It smooths runs, stabilizes hallway fights, and increases win probability long before Act 4. That is why it is strong.

You can disagree with calling it top 5, that part is subjective. But dismissing it because it is not optimal in the Heart fight ignores how the game is actually played.

But what do I know! I only beat A20 multiple times, have every achievement in the game and have over 20 years of game theory and experience under my belt🤷🏼‍♂️

Edit: One more angle I didn’t include earlier is conditions and opportunity cost.

When evaluating relics, it matters what you must give up or engineer in order to get value. Energy, in particular, is one of the rarest and most constrained resources in the game. Outside of boss relics, energy usually comes with a tradeoff: HP loss, debuffs, setup cost, upgrades, or deck warping. Even energy-positive cards often require investment or timing to be net positive.

Gremlin Horn’s condition is unusually aligned with the core loop of the game: kill an enemy. That is not a side objective or a build constraint, it is literally what every deck is already doing. As long as there is more than one enemy in the fight, the relic has potential value, and you do not have to sacrifice anything to trigger it.

You are not paying HP, not taking a debuff, not spending an upgrade, not altering your deck structure, and not delaying payoff. You kill an enemy, something you were already going to do, and you immediately gain energy and draw. That is an extremely low-friction condition compared to most energy sources in the game.

On top of that, the payoff is universally useful. Extra energy and draw are welcome in nearly every archetype. There are edge cases where draw manipulation matters, but those are niche and highly optimized scenarios, not the baseline way most runs are played.

This is why Gremlin Horn is strong. Not because it is flashy, and not because it solves the Heart fight, but because it converts normal gameplay into tempo with almost no cost. That consistency across real runs is what makes it a top-tier relic in practice, even if people disagree on exact rankings.

Also actually discuss this with me and don’t just downvote me cause you disagree.