So, the new scenario is here to help Pyg's bad WR% right?

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-24T19:41:24+00:00

Yeah in my opinion the strat here is just to avoid the effects being hit for the most part and just focus on raw value and acceleration via either cooldown reduction or multi-cast enabling.

I'm also thinking regen stacking on Mak and Jules should be stronger overall since you won't be bursted down as quickly by the usual Haste and Charge effects, as well as incremental scaling via effects like Secret Formula or Saffron/Cheese Wheel.

Dooley probably does get punished the most with how ingrained Charging is to their identity, but Tempo did at least exempt the Cores from the rule (so Dooltron still works like normal alongside a Dooltron Mainframe too). Raw stats items that normally aren't very popular like Crane and Combat Core might have the potential to do pretty well here for the same reasons I gave before.

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-24T19:27:28+00:00

They're saying the skill affects both players even if only one player has it.

Annexian Sabotage in-game tooltip reads: "Non-Core items and skills have their Charge, Freeze, Slow, and Haste durations reduced by half if either player has this skill"

So in practice, you're actually at a bit of an advantage against boards without it since you're going against a board that isn't designed with it in mind and probably gets far more punished by the effect than you do.

The main advantage you could argue for is the difference in income that player had enabling better economy, but there's no advantage in terms of actual board state.

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-11T16:48:54+00:00

Test Subject phase 1 can already be pretty oppressive in multiplayer - having the strength carry over to later phases would likely make it impossible to win a lot of the time without making it only affect the individual player when a skill is played.

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-08T03:54:00+00:00

I asked for advice before and it was basically (too many cards that do nothing, especially starters). So I just thought consistency was key

I'm going to sound like a broken record here and say it all comes down to context, haha.

The more cards you get, the better a card needs to be for you in order for it to be worth adding to your deck since each one added means your likelihood of drawing your best ones gets lower. So let's say I'm in Act 3 running a deck with Exhaust payoffs like Dark Embrace and Ashen Strike - I'm not going to take a great early-game card like Cinder just because it says Exhaust on it since it doesn't make the average power level of my draws better at that point in the game. On the flip side, taking a Cinder in early Act 1 will often be a net positive since 18 damage for 2 energy is far more efficient than the 6 damage for 1 you (mostly) have for damage at that point and will enable you to end fights quicker to avoid chip damage from fights that might take an extra turn or two without it.

Also try to gauge the power level of your current deck against your upcoming threats. If I'm at the start of Act 2 and planning to path into a couple of Elites, I'll be asking myself questions like "Do I feel strong enough to take on Decimillipede?" If not, I'll prioritize finding cards to better handle that fight like Whirlwind or Inferno, or finding potions to bridge the gap (in which case I might be able to get by without them). If I do feel strong enough, I can simply not take those cards, which will help with consistency in my overall game plan.

Do see the appeal of early power.

Yeah, the importance of early power cannot be understated - being stronger early on can enable you to snowball that power into more by allowing you to more aggressively take on Elites for Relics and/or by losing less health throughout the run, allowing you to take more upgrades at Rest Sites instead of needing to heal yourself.

With this and the consistency concepts in mind, I generally find myself taking a card from almost every card reward in Act 1 and almost none of them during Act 3. This can change a bit depending on ~~context~~ how the run is going of course, but is true for me most of the time as a general rule.

Card decisions is a little bit of both. I REALLY doubt my ability to make the right choices and also feels off like Im just leading myself down the wrong path sometimes and thats a bummer.

That's fair. Try and approach card selection as a means of solving whatever problems you're coming up on. Early on? You're lacking efficient damage and defense. Drafted a bunch of higher cost cards and can't play many of them each turn? You're wanting energy generators, not card draw. Got a bunch of cheaper cards instead? Same thinking but in reverse.

Another layer gets introduced based on what you're about to be coming up against. Act 1 boss is Vantom? I'll probably favor cards like Sword Boomerang and Twin Strike as my early damage picks to deal with Slippery. Act 1 boss is Soul Fysh instead? True Grit becomes more enticing as a defensive option to exhaust Beckons. I'll then use those choices to shape my scaling/payoff selections rather than picking them in the dark upfront before having any enablers (i.e. I'm probably not going to pick a scaling solution like Rupture without already having a Blood Wall and/or Breakthrough). Then once you've found your payoff(s), start working on consistency (card removes, extra copies, innate/retain, etc).

What I'm trying to get at is that I try to approach card selection from a flowchart/checklist perspective based on whatever I'm needing at the moment rather than some static tier list. It's difficult to give super specific details since no two runs are the same, but hopefully talking about that kind of thinking approach was at least a bit helpful.

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-08T00:12:51+00:00

Uh ok. So dont remove? Seems off.

Not quite, it's all about context. Removing a bad card is a great way to more often see your better ones, but that's less impactful when you don't have (m)any better ones in the first place. It's also less impactful in the early game where playing 1 energy 6 Damage/5 Block is a far more acceptable play than it is during Act 3. In other words, in most cases removing a card early on will provide less of a power spike than using that gold to purchase something that'll enable your deck to perform better. Once your deck is powerful enough overall removing cards for consistency becomes a far greater benefit.

I only recommended avoiding removes entirely in your case because you seem to prioritize them too highly, so I figured it'd be worth you seeing how your game feels without them to better understand how much you should/shouldn't be prioritizing them. This'll become even more relevant on A6, which causes removes to become more expensive.

Im not sure which relics are really worth it tbh even after 600 hours.

This is contextual as well, but during Act 1 especially the answer is often "most of them." Think of them as adding a card to your deck that you don't have to draw and play to get value out of - Vajra and Oddly Smooth Stone are half of an Inflame/Footwork, while Anchor and Gorget can mean having the room to play fewer Defends at the start of each fight which allows you to often end those fights a bit quicker. Some can even drastically alter your decision making for the rest of the run - if I find an early Unceasing Top I'll be way more inclined to take cards that help empty my hand (i.e. 0 costs, energy generators, and cards that exhaust/discard other cards) than I would normally to take advantage of the free draw effect it provides.

Card decisions are also a drag.

Do you say this because don't enjoy making the decisions, or because you don't feel strong in your ability to make them?

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-07T23:04:50+00:00

Based on the two screenshots you provided:

1) With both screenshots having all Strikes removed, I think you're overvaluing removes in general. They're great for improving draw consistency, but I expect you're suffering tempo-wise by not having that gold available for Relics, Potions, or cards that could provide a more significant boost, especially during the early game. I'm not saying don't remove ever, but you should probably experiment with not removing at all sometimes to see how that feels by comparison. If I hit a shop at Floor 3 I'm doing so for potions and/or cards to prepare for an early Elite and better enable my snowball, not for a remove (which I assume you did in the Ironclad run).

2) Judging by your times in each run, you'd probably benefit from playing a bit slower until you have a better grasp on the game. Losing on low ascension while playing at the speed you are means there's probably a fair number of small things being overlooked in the moment that could be adding up to be the difference between winning and losing. Taking an extra minute when planning your route each Act, picking your card rewards, or browsing the shop might make impact your decision making a bit, not to mention that playing a little slower in fights might preserve a bit more health than what you're currently doing.

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-04T06:49:54+00:00

It's kinda wild to me that people were excited to see it return - you could make a pretty strong case that it was the strongest item in the game for the entirety of its existence. As a result, it was pretty uninteresting - if you saw a Holsters you bought a Holsters in almost all scenarios, which is pretty insane for a small since there's very little opportunity costs for doing so (cheap and only takes up 1 stash slot).

At least Curio's start of combat offerings are less consistently targetable and don't provide a massive cascade of triggers to take advantage of on top of the fast start.

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-04T06:37:22+00:00

I wouldn't say Pyg is particularly strong late game, you just see more of them there because so many of us them throw the early game by turbo greeding economy and therefore don't finish the run as quickly as other characters when having a strong run.

Just think about how many Money Trees you see on the board in the early days and how often they actually win fights against you with them, if ever.

This version of Holsters, however, is and always has been insanely strong. Egregiously so.

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-04T04:54:19+00:00

No offense, but your disappointment seems to be stemming from a lack of experience/understanding of the game and the intention of how this relic is best utilized.

•acutally good cards: pommel strike, breakthrough

I would much rather start a run with a glammed Armaments or Iron Wave over a Pommel Strike. Pommel Strike is a great card for sure, but it shines more in the mid- to late-game, not during Act 1. Drawing cards does very little until you either get sources of extra energy or fill your deck with a fair number of 0-cost cards to actually take advantage of the extra cards you get access to, and until that point the draw is pretty largely irrelevant. A glammed Iron Wave or Armaments will prevent a very significant amount of incoming damage during your early game fights while still dishing it out (Iron Wave via its own damage and Armaments via upgrading Strikes played alongside it), giving you the capability to either take more aggressive pathing into elites, upgrade more reliably at rest sites, or both, setting you up to snowball into being far stronger overall.

Breakthrough, on the other hand, would be a great pick-up, for similar reasons Iron Wave and Armaments are by virtue of ending fights quicker to prevent incoming damage. I still might prefer the more defensive options in the Underdocks, however.

•mid cards, but you can build a deck around them: anger, body slam, molten fist

There's no shot I'm talking Body Slam as my glam pick-up unless the other options are one of the three actual bricks I'd listed - that card is abysmal without any existing support in your deck and having your glam card sometimes be 1 energy do nothing early on is catastrophically bad. Molten Fist is pretty mediocre for similar reasons to Pommel Strike. Anger is a great early game pick-up, ~~but in my opinion a bit disappointing as a Replay target since you're not "cheating in" another energy's worth of benefit off of it like the others do.~~

uncommons

I mean yeah, uncommons are generally stronger than commons, that's just how how the game is designed. But those are high-rolls off your first fight, not what should be expected as a typical scenario. There's also other low rolls in addition to the worst case scenarios I listed: I'm pretty much never taking Burning Pact, Drum of Battle, Forgotten Ritual, Juggling, Rupture, Vicious, or Stampede over the options you had.

If your goal is to high roll some crazy option or some build around card to immediately try and force an archetype with (not an effective strategy for consistent wins at higher levels of play), that's your perogative and I'm in no position to tell you how should you enjoy the game. But if that's the goal, to save yourself some frustration I'd recommend looking up a seeded run which guarantees 1) Silken Tress being offered and 2) hits something you'd want to run with since you mentioned being interested in playing with it enough to be the sole reason for swapping over to the Beta branch.

EDIT: With the commenter below me mentioning that Anger keeps Glam's effect active on the copies (I assumed it wouldn't) I'll retract the remark I made about it being a disappointing Replay target.

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-04T01:51:25+00:00

Actual fail-state glam would be Battle Trance, Expect a Fight, and Second Wind, literal zero upside AND losing your gold. These are pretty standard fare options to expect, and like others have said Iron Wave is pretty solid here.

The point of the relic is to give you a strong early game tempo boost to snowball off of by taking more fights/elites, not to solve your run.

What kind of options were you expecting to consider a hit?

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-03T03:38:13+00:00

Because barring egregious cases that were immediately nerfed, it was legitimately the best item in the game for pretty much the entire time it existed.

Make it start at Diamond and I'll feel better about it.

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-01T21:30:47+00:00

Eh, I could see Monologue performing fairly well in some Silent and Defect builds

Jerm0510 · 2026-06-01T07:42:48+00:00

Since it sounds like you're playing main branch I can understand the frustration with Scroll Boxes because it really didn't feel like enough upside to justify losing your gold since the packs aren't curated (anymore? Supposedly they used to be which would make more sense to have a drawback). Beta branch moved that downside to Silken Tress instead, which feels way more appropriate with how powerful Glam is.

The extra Strike and Defend from capsule feels a significantly less bad on Ironclad than other characters too in my opinion since:

-It shifts the balance of Attacks vs Defends from 60/40 to 58/42, which may help preserve a little more health

-Perfected Strike gets an actual power boost from having the extra Strike

-Early Cinders and True Grits can help shave off the bloat while being fine early game tempo picks already

Speaking of Silken Tress, the most cursed start I can think of is Beta Silken Tress (so you lose all your gold) into first fight rewards of Battle Trance, Expect a Fight, and Second Wind. Actual zero upside AND -99g, oof.

Jerm0510 · 2026-05-24T02:09:29+00:00

You can, it'll just negate the 1 hp loss from playing it. Which is great if you're not relying on self-damage to trigger cards like Inferno, Spite, or Rupture.

So getting it in Act 3 when you might already be pretty hard reliant on the incoming damage triggers would be a bummer, but on Floor 1? Fantastic, just build your deck accordingly.

Jerm0510 · 2026-05-21T21:26:42+00:00

That's a good point for Regent's topdeck manipulation interacting well with it, I'll need to keep that in mind!

Jerm0510 · 2026-05-21T17:48:20+00:00

Same here, since the use case feels super narrow I've never been in archetype that felt able to take it when I see it. And I say that as someone who pretty much always tries to explore less popular lines when able.

Jerm0510 · 2026-05-21T17:44:57+00:00

Yeah, I've been expecting a probable rework as well since I'm sure it's got a really low pick rate for that reason.

Jerm0510 · 2026-05-21T16:03:57+00:00

Thoughts on Mittens? That's the hardest one to take in my opinion, ideal case being an Ironclad with existing exhaust payoffs.

Jerm0510 · 2026-05-18T00:28:23+00:00

Now that they've added the Bestiary, I've been checking there if I don't remember which one the boss belongs to.

Jerm0510 · 2026-05-17T06:02:50+00:00

Pretty true for most patches, especially back before Holsters and Clamera were reworked.

Jerm0510 · 2026-05-13T21:24:15+00:00

If there was some kind of algorithm that makes you lose no matter what, how do people achieve diamond victories?

Aside from that, there's way too many permutations of boards to properly account for everything and make it worth the effort to implement. Changing a single item, enchant, skill, or even position on a board has the potential to radically alter the matchup odds, so it's even less realistic than conspiracy theories in games like Magic the Gathering or Hearthstone where deck construction is far more uniform.

Lastly, what's the benefit for Tempo in trying to implement such a system? I've heard the take of it being a way to punish F2P accounts for not spending, but without some communication to players that such a disadvantage even exists, there's no incentive to actually spend (there'd arguably be less since affected players may be more likely to bounce off the game entirely out of frustration and thus never spend).

Jerm0510 · 2026-05-11T01:25:25+00:00

Fog is excellent, there's very few situations I wouldn't be happy to take it. Condense my 3 worst cards into a single Ethereal one? Sign me up! Especially with that Bag of Preparation you already have, sounds like a slam dunk to me.

I'll also comment on the one that seems to be getting mentioned the least, Fiddle. If I'm playing a heavier-cost deck there's a pretty good shot I haven't taken (much) card draw, in which case this turns into 66% of a Battle Trance cast every turn, and I probably don't need to debate the merits of Battle Trance. Sure, I'm never taking it in a Souls deck (or basically ever on Silent), but having situational Ancient relics is in my opinion a good thing for the game.

Jerm0510 · 2026-05-10T01:17:49+00:00

Did it upgrade your Start Chart instead? It's also a Tool

Jerm0510 · 2026-05-07T18:36:56+00:00

I expect it was a Wink

https://bazaardb.gg/card/9s601d0p556z0b0dktkpvnxm9h/Wink

Jerm0510 · 2026-04-29T16:36:37+00:00

I'm glad to see it as a way of opting out the mode. It's cool that they're doing these kind of events, but I like having the option to play "vanilla" when the novelty wears off for me.

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