Decks

Decks are accumulated over the course of the game and include countless spells that you can use in order to defeat your foes. Spells are constantly rotated into your active slots out of your deck. At any time you can shuffle your deck, rather than expending your precious mana reserves.

Mechanics
For every 5 spells you have in your deck, you gain 0.1. This bonus is capped at 0.3 Mana regen, or 15 spells.

Kunai Deck
The deck is a straightforward, but powerful build that can get you through every type of run, without relying on luck at all, as it's very consistent, and doesn't need a lot of cards to work fine. As soon as you have, you're virtually good to go. The other spells and artifacts are just bonuses.

Strategy and Synergy
All the strategy revolves around adding as many as you can into your deck, and releasing lots of them on your foes when you feel the time is right. For that, you will need 3 to 4 of the spells that generate, the most important one being. As you'll run through your deck, at some point you'll come across. Do not cast it, keep it in your hand until every other spell has been used. And while you play your cards, your deck will be filled with. When your deck only contains and, that's the moment you'll tear your enemies to bits. It's really not uncommon to finish bosses that are around 1kHP just by spamming your into their face.

As you're basically spamming "low" damage spells (not that low in fact, but still, you're spamming), one thing that synergizes well with this deck is. It's really worth considering going into, mainly to get. The other thing that works great with is, obviously. So looking for it might be a good idea, too.

Aside from that, if you're going for a Genocide run, you might have trouble dealing with your HP, not being able to regenerate by sparing bosses. In these kind of runs, adding some healing spells helps a lot. And if you got the awesome artifact, adding some  cards could be nice.

So the general strategy I recommend is :
 * 1) Double focus on  until you get at least, and most of the time you'll get  and  before, you should take them both.
 * 2) Focus on  and  to get  and, which are both  spells.
 * 3) If you're on Genocide, go for some  healing spells like  or.
 * 4) You can either go back to  to look for  which is a fine addition, or go get your favorite staple spells, but don't add too much of them. You don't want to have to your  lost in at the end of a 30 cards deck.

For the Artifacts, almost every centered artifact is good, except for. Just avoid this one. The ones to aim for are those that trigger on as you're consuming every  you throw. The ones that trigger on shuffling might sound like a good idea, but it's not that efficient, as you'll be shuffling less and less as long as the run go on. And of course, and  are just awesome. Take these.

Artifacts
First of all, there isn't any mandatory Artifact needed for this deck to work. BUT, some of them might break the game.

Jam Deck
A deck focused mostly into adding as much in your main deck for the purpose of powering up  and. Not that easy to pick up at first, this setup becomes doable late game after attaining either Jam Slam or Jam Cannon. While not beginner-friendly, it is pretty powerful at the late-game, once you manage to pick up the right spells and artifact combos.

When there are only Jam left in the deck, to take back your main trigger cards (Jam Slam/Jam Cannon).

Strategy and Synergy
The main focus of this deck is to obtain as much Jam as possible while having a Jam Cannon or Jam Slam in your main spell slot. The Jams may be used as an ammo source for those spells. If lucky enough, you can finish off your targets before reaching the "bottom" of the deck, i.e. when only Jam remains. For this to work, it is mandatory to get and/or. Without either of those two spells, this deck will not work out. and can complement the deck to some extent, acting as second copies of Jam Slam and Jam Cannon respectively.

Manafire Gunner is a good Jam Deck user for several reasons - he starts with, and his low means he appreciates 0-cost spells like , but his  also means that he can build a lot of Mana at once, allowing you to efficiently clear your Deck of  spells every once in a while. Both Violette starting kits also have the situational Mana Regen to easily handle a Jam Deck.

Set both focuses to as soon as possible.

Poison Deck
A deck with emphasis on dodging and letting the stacks do the work. Since the Poison ignores, enemies with several artifacts or at later tier will become easy to manage, provided you get the right spells and artifacts combos. can be used as a "Trigger", to detonate the poison stacks, which commonly reaches 200+ stacks in a pinch. This is a strong deck to use with Violette, in either of her kits.

Take note that this deck is a kind of a pain & gain one - while you will be dishing out damage over a long period of time, sometimes you also have to tank a few shots, especially if there is no room to move around. For this reason, later on, consider picking up some defensive cards from.

Strategy and Synergy
Try to always apply at least a few poison stacks on your targets, it will be the poison that will do the damage for you, while the poison does their works focus on dodging enemies projectiles and avoid getting hit. If possible keep some up (Violette's starting kit, Doubletime, allow you to recover 60 Shield easily) and don't stop moving, unless if necessary. Once you're satisfied with the poison stacks, quickly cast to detonate their poison and deal ridiculously large amounts of damage. Takes a little bit of practice to play it well and requires keen reflexes and fast thinking, using Doubletime Violette is recommended for a safe playthrough, while Aria Violette can take a more risky approach thanks to her, allowing a high-risk, high-reward playstyle for experienced players.

When starting up, do the following as soon as possible:
 * Set both focuses to first to attain the few poison spells.
 * When you have enough poison spells, shift both focuses to to get some defensive spells instead.
 * Do not fill your deck with too many unnecessary cards, a source of healing and shield cards such as, and  may suffice.
 * Later on, you can re-shift your focus towards to get a Kunai-engine to use against a boss for some damage before the poison kick in. Again, do not fill up with too many cards, a  and  suffice.

Artifacts
There are some artifacts that complements this deck nicely.

Flame Deck
A kind of strange and awkward deck at first, but becomes priceless in the late game. One of the main emphases of this deck is to fill the enemy field with. Since Flame damage no longer ignores, it can be weaker at higher Hell Passes without.

Pyro Terra starts with, , and , which provide an excellent foundation for a Flame deck.

Strategy and Synergy
This deck has a hybrid between direct damage from the spells themselves and the Flames created by them, which will passively deal damage over time. Due to the aforementioned effect on Defense, in Hell Pass or in late levels some enemies have high defense and the Flames can have difficulty with them. Bosses also possess some defense, and as such, the Flames will be weaker against them. (aside from Selicy or Shiso, since they are highly mobile and invade the player's field quite often).

The main problems are the relatively low damage and the risk of friendly fire that this deck poses, but if you can work around these flaws, you can pull out incredible payoffs.

When starting up, do the set-up:
 * Set both focuses to, since Flame spells belong almost exclusively to this brand.
 * Taking Chest Zones can be useful, especially if several of those zones are present on the path.
 * The upgrade can make some non-flame spells synergize with most artifacts of this deck and improve the Flame chance of the main spells.

Artifacts
There are some artifacts that complements this deck nicely.

Flow Deck
decks focus on casting spells to gain Flow, and spells to gain powerful effects.

Strategy and Synergy
decks have access to some incredibly powerful effects if you keep your deck streamlined. They have cheap damage spells like and  that lead into stronger attacks like, in-archetype Mana and Shield generation, and eventually an infinite supply of , if you happen to find the spell for it.

Not only does a Flow deck need spells that can be, but it wants to avoid too many spells that don't use or generate Flow, because they'll waste your Flow stacks. This means that you want to keep your deck relatively small, and your ability to mix Flow with other archetypes depends on having certain artifacts. (Except under special circumstances, you should probably avoid Kunai and Jam effects altogether, for example, as these will quickly waste your Flow stacks.) You have some room for a handful of strong spells you happen to find, but don't bloat your deck, either.

In general, focus, dabble in , and then transition into if you want to gun for.

Building Spam Deck
The Building spam Deck works best with Build Hazel, since you can get, which makes building spam at least double as strong. It focuses on, what a suprise, on spamming out as many Structures and camping out behind the Structures until eventually the shots from, or other Structures kill the Enemies.

Strategy and Synergy
The whole strategy is to camp behind your Turrets or other Structures until the Enemies eventually die. There are no Keycards when playing as Build Hazel, just pick up every Spell that says Summon, even ones that may not seem fitting, like, since they all trigger , giving you extra protection. Not playing as Build Hazel isn't recommended, since the player gains a lot of through. This makes Deckbuilding also a lot worse, since you need to watch out that your Deck isn't too expensive.

The general strategy is basically: - Start with focusing since there are most of the structure related spells and  fo extra protection. - Pick up every Summon related spell and close Range spells.

There isn't any Synergy with artifacts besides. The artifacts that are always good help, but aren't necessary.

Especially as Hazel, you should see this deck rather as a Engine than a whole deck. Adding spells or other strategies into this deck works sometimes, but not always.

Trinity Deck
Trinity decks use the mechanic to give their spells.

Strategy and Synergy
Unlike a deck,  decks don't need to be almost exclusively Trinity spells to function. You keep your Trinity stacks until you use them, so even one Trinity card will eventually get its. This means Trinity mixes well with other strategies.

Doubletime Violette is one of the best Trinity users, since she starts with, and her can fill her Trinity stacks at will. Chrono Saffron is also excellent, since she starts with a and her  can help you line up Trinity casts. Build Hazel also starts with a and appreciates, so mixing Trinity into her deck is a good option.

Double focus, and once you have some of your starter spells, switch your secondary focus to.

Frost Deck
is less a strategy on its own and more of a mechanic that can be mixed into other decks. It's consistent, its spells are easy to land, and it can make enemies much easier to deal with, but it lacks damage output, and needs something else to supplement it.

Strategy and Synergy
On its own, provides consistent, low-effort, lackluster damage. Spells like, , and so on are easy to land, but they really shine in combination with , and to a lesser extent,. These turn Frost into an effective support strategy that can be mixed into almost any deck - even decks, to an extent.

Snow Selicy is the exception to this - her can be used to efficiently turn Frost stacks into damage. Anyone else probably shouldn't be running a pure Frost deck.

Focus and keep an eye on the stores.

Viruspell Deck
is unusual, in that the entire deck hinges on you getting an Epic-rarity spell. It's less something you start a run planning on using, and more something you might pick up and reshape your deck around if you come across it.

Strategy and Synergy
The smaller your deck is, the more worthwhile Viruspell will be. It's not like, where you can play your deck normally and have it as a contingency - you need to cycle through your deck and cast Viruspell as many times as possible, or else it's only going to contribute a couple of underwhelming 20-damage shots.

With that in mind, your priority should be removing expensive spells from your deck to speed it up as much as possible. Head for shops as often as you can, to keep picking up Upgrades and Removals. ,, and are all decent options for your focus.

If you want to actively search for Viruspell, try increasing your Luck.

Spell Power Deck
A deck uses effects that build up large amounts of Spell Power, and multi-hit spells that can abuse it.

Strategy and Synergy
The central part of most Spell Power decks is, an epic rarity artifact that gives you permanent Spell Power every time you rescue a hostage. It isn't mandatory for the deck to work, but finding a Merit Badge early on essentially decides whether you're building a Spell Power deck.

Switch your focus between, , , and as needed to round out your deck.

Switchbait Deck
A hyper-efficient deck that revolves around a single damage-dealing combo. Typically, your entire deck is just two cards.

Strategy and Synergy
Fast, aggressive, and linear. Anyone can use this, but the best options are probably Solo Saffron, Shopkeeper, both Selicy variants, and Bullet Hell Gunner. Solo Saffron in particular is basically made for this deck.

Focus.

Beat Reva Synergy Deck
Beat Reva is a Reva kit that focuses on self-damage and on-hit effects.

Strategy and Synergy
In many ways, Beat Reva is an inferior version of Shield Reva, in the sense that both start with, but Beat Reva relies extensively on it and lacks Shield Reva's other tools. While this is largely true, it gives Beat Reva its own appeal as a more complicated and unorthodox variant of Reva.

The main idea of a Beat Reva Synergy Deck is using on-hit artifacts and effects that will hit yourself/your shield, alongside another source of damage. For example, if you have, , and , along with your starting artifact , you will spend 1 Mana to gain 2 Mana, deal 20 damage to all enemies on screen, and fire two 20-damage shots. This will continue to scale up as you add other artifacts and self-damaging effects.

While any build can do this, Beat Reva starts with, , and , and can take unique advantage of them.

Because is both a potent defensive tool and your only weapon, you're going to be making constant use of it. Wading into enemy attacks to attempt to reflect them means you'll also want to build, to give yourself some insurance and allow you to use self-damaging effects with impunity.

Focus and.

Big Shield Deck
Big Shield is a broad archetype of big decks with lots of Shield spells. Shield spells are more effective in big decks, so a large deck with many shield spells can be unpretentious but effective.

Strategy and Synergy
Big decks have two major advantages over small decks: First, you gain bonus Mana Regen for having a big deck (up to +0.3 for a 15-spell deck). Second, you need to Shuffle less often. Since you lose 40% of your current shield when shuffling ends, Shield spells are better in a big deck than they are in a small one.

The player's goal in any encounter is to survive it while taking as little damage as possible. If you have no Shield spells, this means you can make no mistakes without suffering for them. But if you have a lot of Shield spells, you can make mistakes all over the place! As long as your shield spells can keep up with incoming damage, you're safe.

This means that Big Shield is effective both in easy encounters, where you're unlikely to take enough damage to overwhelm your shields, and long ones, including bosses. It is less effective in regular encounters with highly dangerous enemies like MonolithGun that need to be taken out quickly. It is also less effective against difficult bosses which constantly barrage the player with challenging patterns to dodge. Which bosses these are, exactly, will depend on your personal strengths and weaknesses as a player. Rest assured, though, that with enough shield spells, any attack (even Shopkeeper's infamous shard cage) can be blocked.

As with any big deck, you'll want to buy primarily Artifacts and Pacts from Shopkeeper. Upgrades are less effective, since you won't be casting the same spell over and over.

Characters
Big Shield is a fairly generic archetype, so it fits well with most of the cast. Simply take spells that mesh well with your character's other strengths as well as shield spells. It is most effective with weapons that can serve as your primary way to deal damage. Gunner (Bullethell) and Shiso (Execute) can just shoot enemies with their guns and fill up their deck with support and shield spells.

Big Shield is least effective on Selicy (Invade), who begins with the disturbingly strong and wants to cast it as often as possible.

Other Archetypes
A Big Shield deck won't be very focused. That's the nature of the deck. This means that "payoff" spells, like, , and , tend to be bad. However, it is still fine to develop another synergy if it arises; it can make sense to focus and take lots of fire spells if you luck into  early, for example.

Despite what your intuition may suggest, it is viable to mix Flow with a Big Shield deck. The big scaling Flow spells like won't wind up being very good, but you should still be able to Flow Cast spells like  most of the time. If you pick up a spell like or  early, feel free to lean in and focus.

You should prioritize shield spells, but any decent spell can go into your deck. You should not skip taking a spell if something at least as good as or  is available.

For most of the game, you'll want to be focusing in at least one of your focus slots. In theory, if you have most of the good Phalanx spells you might as well focus something else, but in practice there are so many of them that this won't happen. Double-focusing Phalanx can be even more effective, but it's unwise at the beginning of the game if your character doesn't start with good damage spells as well. And, to be blunt, it can be boring to play (even if it's very strong).

In general, spells with Consume or Backfire and spells which become weaker after every cast are better than average in a Big Shield deck. For example, is an almost instant pick, and the  upgrade, which doubles damage but gives a spell Consume, makes almost any spell fantastic. In contrast, spells like or  are less effective than they are in other types of decks, since you won't have the chance to cast them enough times for them to really shine.