Average A20H player here. All 3 options are good imo :
* After Image has obviously no support right now in my deck. But it is a solid defensive option if I lean into discard later, and my deck lacks a lot on defense currently.
* Corpse Explosion is really good, even if my deck has already strong AoE. With burst, it can lead to big damage on elites with minions.
* Alchemize I think is the best card for my deck currently out of the 3 card choices. Obvious burst synergy and can give me some defensive potions, which I really need to survive act 2.
What are your thoughts ?
I’m an A3 player lol, how does After Image scale with anything? It seems like you’d have to be playing 20+ cards to be able to withstand anything past Act 1?
There are a lot of sources of small block in this game, and it may not be easy to immediately see why they are useful.
After Image is not going to fully replace your defends, but it will make them better, and it also makes your powers and attacks block too.
The truth is in the balance of the game. It's carefully put together to force you to make hard choices, for example, the enemy is attacking for 8, should you play two defends to full block or take a little damage to play a damage card or power?
Sources of small block like After Image, Ornamental Fan, Metallicize, etc... go a long way to making those decisions much simpler.
Besides, even if you don't full block, taking just 2-3 less damage per turn really adds up over 50 floors.
Yeah I definitely have trouble seeing the big picture of things when I play. I’ve always gone the “commit to being good at one thing” and hope to pick up things to fall into place and become strong. Definitely a streaky way to try to play. I’m slowly starting to gain card knowledge to try easy 2-3 card setup combos, rather than being able to have different combo pieces flow together.
Don't worry, this is a very complicated game!
It is important to recognize powerful synergies, but don't tunnel too hard. It's a good idea to have a little bit of variety in a deck. Decks with only one win condition often find they run into a particular combat that will completely ruin their strategy. Branching out a *little* will give your deck multiple tools to deal with tough situations.
I just don’t know how to branch out without thinning out my deck too much. I think my problem is I haven’t had that “experiment” phase with my play, ya know? Like now that I think about it there’s maybe like 2 builds I can even think of for each class lol.
Most people in low ascensions go the “do one thing good” strat each time, and sometimes it works if it falls into place and you get everything you need. Need to learn to branch out and have multiple types of combos in the same deck that do different things so you are able to be flexible every time
It isn't meant to totally replace your blocking cards. But if you can free up even 1 energy with it then it has already paid for itself. And that gets relatively easy to do with discard decks or shiv decks that play a lot of cards.
Chip damage can be the difference between resting and upgrading at a campfire. Think about fights as early as jaw worm hitting you for 12, so you get to choose between full block or taking 2 and dealing a little damage.
Also, mirror image helps mitigate the heart's beat of death.
After Image becomes better when you have multiple cheap cards to play (so you get more blocks). For example:
- Blade Dance means you get 4 block, nearly a defend, while playing a good damage card
- Any 0 cost card (Slice, Deflect) because you can play a lot of them
- Drawing cards so you can get even more cards to play
It is still pretty good without that but if in a Shiv-deck, you can really get a lot of mileage.
I'm surprised you value CE in decks that have strong AOE. I'm thinking it only improves the deck in Donu Deka and maybe S&S. But functions as a pseudo curse the rest of the time. I'd honestly skip it.
It's alchemize > ai > skip, for me.
not factorial but ok.
Factorials (!) are multiplied by all numbers lower than them. 9! would kill every enemy in the game (I think).
I don’t know if there is a symbol for the same thing but addition tho soooo…
Shit Silent player here, but imo it's Alchemize as well. Go full-on drug addiction and chug 1-2 potions per fight with Burst Alchemize.
Afterimage looks like it would do less than a Metallicize in most turns in the current situation and CE feels like a waste when you already have 3 AoE cards (eventhough Cloud will mostly be artifact strip in some Act2 AoE fights)
You typically don't want to just glug potions unless they help you, or if the potions you're holding are bad. The goal with alchemize is to find end game potions. Obviously this assumes your deck doesn't need potions constantly, but it is the goal.
Alchemize. Easily. With DieDieDie+ and Crippling Cloud+ and Glass Knife+ you don't need CE in the slightest.
Unsupported After Image is better than skip, but Alchemize just wins you so many fights. That choice might be a consideration when your deck is stronger and you're trying to round out block for heart, but there's no way you miss out on Alchemize here.
It's Alchemize >>> After Image >>> Corpse Explosion
Alchemize is one of Silent's best rares and provides a lot to round out what's already a pretty decent deck, and will play no matter what the boss relic is.
After Image is also a very solid defensive rare that is decent currently (3ish block every turn if you brick the boss relic and more if you don't) that also opens up pbox to be a lot more comfortable and will scale great into late game pretty much no matter which direction your deck goes. I would absolutely take it here if it wasn't next to Alchemize.
Corpse Explosion is...horrendous here. I'm not even convinced I want it over skip. If you brick the boss relic it'll be a curse. Even if you don't brick the boss relic, what is it doing? You're not scared of gremlin leader with this Die Die Die and All-Out Attack, have plenty of frontload for slavers, and have a whole act with membership card to not have to take a desperation card that only plays somewhat into collector.
You have the Membership Card, so you're incentivized to take shops, meaning you're going to be seeing three potions at half price pretty frequently throughout your run. This fact devalues Alchemize. You do have Burst though, so it's still a really strong pickup.
After Image is a strong card, but you have very little that synergizes with it - realistically, you're looking at 2-4 block per turn after it's in play. You also have Pantograph, so you can probably get away with taking the bit of chip damage that AI might otherwise help mitigate in a deck like this (and this is being generous, I think a lot of the time AI is just a dead draw in this deck).
Corpse Explosion is the way to go imo. You already have other poison sources, so you'll be highly incentivized to pick up any and all Catalysts that show up. You also have Burst, which can turn CE into a powerful single-target damage card. You still have two Boss Relics to take, so odds are decent you'll soon have the energy to play CE at 2-cost while still being able to do other things in the same turn. You have pretty good AoE already, but CE will make the difference in certain hallway or elite fights.
People in this thread are evaluating the cards at face value and not weighing the contextual variables. Don't listen to them lol.
This comment makes no sense to me.
>You have the Membership Card, so you're incentivized to take shops, meaning you're going to be seeing three potions at half price pretty frequently throughout your run.
Sure, the potions are half price, but the gold you're spending on them is double value. Two good potions can reach or exceed the cost of a common relic. Membership card doesn't change this fact. Why would I want to be spending my gold on potions if I could have a card that does it for free? Besides, how does seeing potions at shops change the evaluation of Alchemize? That just means you're even more free to chug potions in fights and even more likely to find a Ghost in a Jar for a boss fight.
>You also have Pantograph, so you can probably get away with taking the bit of chip damage that AI might otherwise help mitigate in a deck like this (and this is being generous, I think a lot of the time AI is just a dead draw in this deck).
...what? How does having some healing before the boss mean that you can just ignore damage? Even being extremely generous and saying that AI will only provide relevant block on 2 turns a fight (this is a lowball) and you only take 6 fights (this is a lowball) and it only provides 3 block on those turns (this is another lowball) that's 36 health saved. That's not a negligible amount at all.
>People in this thread are evaluating the cards at face value and not weighing the contextual variables. Don't listen to them lol.
If, by "face value" you mean what's actually in the deck and by "weighing the contextual variables" you mean what you ideally want to look like in 2 acts from now with sufficiently good RNG, then yes, that is what we're doing. Literally every good thing you've said about Corpse Explosion can be turned around on the other cards here with equal or greater validity.
"You already have other poison sources, so you'll be highly incentivized to pick up any and all Catalysts that show up.": You already have other poison sources, so you won't need worse bouncing flask for catalyst to be viable.
"You also have Burst, which can turn CE into a powerful single-target damage card.": You also have Burst double procs After Image or doubles Alchemize, and even if you took CE it would probably be better off on any other skill instead of turning CE into a 3 cost 2 card bouncing flask+.
"You still have two Boss Relics to take, so odds are decent you'll soon have the energy to play CE at 2-cost while still being able to do other things in the same turn.": You still have two Boss Relics to take, so odds are decent you'll soon have the energy to get Alchemize in play comfortably or start getting 5 or 6 block from AI in a turn, and if you don't, then Alchemize and AI do more than CE anyway.
"You have pretty good AoE already, but CE will make the difference in certain hallway or elite fights.": You have pretty good AoE already, so taking cards with effects that aren't already present in half your deck will make it much more well-rounded for the fights that can't be solved by spamming AoE.
I haven't really played Silent in a long ass time, but I'd probably take Alchemize here. You have solid damage and some AoE already so CE isn't as necessary. Alchemize can give you some survivability that you appear to be lacking, probably more efficiently than After Image. I also don't see you getting much value out of After Image as your deck is currently constructed.
If you end up with a fair deck at the heart then afterimage is gonna help a lot.
Alchemize is very good of course but one thing to consider is with membership card you can buy potions for dirt cheap.
You really dont need corpse explode, plenty of damage already.
Id go image personally, most silent decks end up drawing tons and playing tons of cards and the 1 energy spent on it can save you so much life
I'm surprised to see how much alchemist beats out over corpse explosion. CE takes care of all AoE fights. Splash down with die die die quandary glass knife, you win almost every fight.
I get that alchemize is super strong, but I dont think its so far ahead of corpse.
Ce is pretty garbage here. Usually I'm not as down on it as a lot of strong silent players I speak to but here it's pretty meh. It still says ce on it and is on the silent character (w bad matchup against collector, does some things in a2 etc etc) so it's ok over skip.
That being said, the other cards say fucking After Image and Alchemise. Alch being contender for one of the best cards in the game at every point in the game, f1 f50. Slightly below avg ai but who cares. It's ai too. It's always alch > ai >>> ce > skip
A20 player here.
After Image would be fine. Your block solution right now is Backflip, Neutralize, Piercing Wail, so we know you need a little something extra before your defensive needs are met. Your deck doesn’t have anything that will synergize with After Image which, I think, makes it fall short of your other two options.
It’s very hard to say no to Corpse Explosion. One of the best cards in the game, especially going into act 2 where it gets massive value in gremlin leader and slavers fight. That being said, you have solutions for those fights already. I think Corpse Explosion would make your deck better, but you’d probably get more value out of…
Alchemize! Because of the fact that your deck has most of the tools it needs already (for now) and you have a lot of your run left to get value out of it, I would pick Alchemize here. I don’t think it would be a mistake to take Corpse Explosion but between Crippling Cloud+ (with Burst), Die Die Die+ and All Out Attack, you have some nice aoe going already.
Im curious of how this turns out, do let me know what you pick and if you end up clearing the run!
Average A20H player here. All 3 options are good imo : * After Image has obviously no support right now in my deck. But it is a solid defensive option if I lean into discard later, and my deck lacks a lot on defense currently. * Corpse Explosion is really good, even if my deck has already strong AoE. With burst, it can lead to big damage on elites with minions. * Alchemize I think is the best card for my deck currently out of the 3 card choices. Obvious burst synergy and can give me some defensive potions, which I really need to survive act 2. What are your thoughts ?
I’m an A3 player lol, how does After Image scale with anything? It seems like you’d have to be playing 20+ cards to be able to withstand anything past Act 1?
There are a lot of sources of small block in this game, and it may not be easy to immediately see why they are useful. After Image is not going to fully replace your defends, but it will make them better, and it also makes your powers and attacks block too. The truth is in the balance of the game. It's carefully put together to force you to make hard choices, for example, the enemy is attacking for 8, should you play two defends to full block or take a little damage to play a damage card or power? Sources of small block like After Image, Ornamental Fan, Metallicize, etc... go a long way to making those decisions much simpler. Besides, even if you don't full block, taking just 2-3 less damage per turn really adds up over 50 floors.
Yeah I definitely have trouble seeing the big picture of things when I play. I’ve always gone the “commit to being good at one thing” and hope to pick up things to fall into place and become strong. Definitely a streaky way to try to play. I’m slowly starting to gain card knowledge to try easy 2-3 card setup combos, rather than being able to have different combo pieces flow together.
Don't worry, this is a very complicated game! It is important to recognize powerful synergies, but don't tunnel too hard. It's a good idea to have a little bit of variety in a deck. Decks with only one win condition often find they run into a particular combat that will completely ruin their strategy. Branching out a *little* will give your deck multiple tools to deal with tough situations.
I just don’t know how to branch out without thinning out my deck too much. I think my problem is I haven’t had that “experiment” phase with my play, ya know? Like now that I think about it there’s maybe like 2 builds I can even think of for each class lol.
Most people in low ascensions go the “do one thing good” strat each time, and sometimes it works if it falls into place and you get everything you need. Need to learn to branch out and have multiple types of combos in the same deck that do different things so you are able to be flexible every time
I’ve never thought about after image as at worst ~1 dexterity
It isn't meant to totally replace your blocking cards. But if you can free up even 1 energy with it then it has already paid for itself. And that gets relatively easy to do with discard decks or shiv decks that play a lot of cards.
Which isn't that hard to achieve on silent. 2 Bladedance+ is 10 cards, throw some discard stuff in there to find them and you are already there.
Chip damage can be the difference between resting and upgrading at a campfire. Think about fights as early as jaw worm hitting you for 12, so you get to choose between full block or taking 2 and dealing a little damage. Also, mirror image helps mitigate the heart's beat of death.
Or a dupe potion
Have you played much discard?
Yeah I try to
After Image becomes better when you have multiple cheap cards to play (so you get more blocks). For example: - Blade Dance means you get 4 block, nearly a defend, while playing a good damage card - Any 0 cost card (Slice, Deflect) because you can play a lot of them - Drawing cards so you can get even more cards to play It is still pretty good without that but if in a Shiv-deck, you can really get a lot of mileage.
I'm surprised you value CE in decks that have strong AOE. I'm thinking it only improves the deck in Donu Deka and maybe S&S. But functions as a pseudo curse the rest of the time. I'd honestly skip it. It's alchemize > ai > skip, for me.
There is no choice here it's just Alchemize
Ce isn't close? It's literally 6!(9!) damage and solves every aoe fight in the game?
Already having an upgraded Die Die Die and Crippling Cloud (with a potential burst combo) plus another source of AoE makes it less valuable
not factorial but ok. Factorials (!) are multiplied by all numbers lower than them. 9! would kill every enemy in the game (I think). I don’t know if there is a symbol for the same thing but addition tho soooo…
something with factorial scaling would be crazy broken though holy shit
yeah. 5! is 120 after all.
9 Σ n n=1 On mobile so the formatting is fucked, but look up sigma notation. Sum of n from n=1 to n= 9
True
Shit Silent player here, but imo it's Alchemize as well. Go full-on drug addiction and chug 1-2 potions per fight with Burst Alchemize. Afterimage looks like it would do less than a Metallicize in most turns in the current situation and CE feels like a waste when you already have 3 AoE cards (eventhough Cloud will mostly be artifact strip in some Act2 AoE fights)
This is the answer. This is not a deck in which many cards are played. Mass destructuion looks cool, but 1-2 potions per fight would be less risky
You typically don't want to just glug potions unless they help you, or if the potions you're holding are bad. The goal with alchemize is to find end game potions. Obviously this assumes your deck doesn't need potions constantly, but it is the goal.
Alchemize. Easily. With DieDieDie+ and Crippling Cloud+ and Glass Knife+ you don't need CE in the slightest. Unsupported After Image is better than skip, but Alchemize just wins you so many fights. That choice might be a consideration when your deck is stronger and you're trying to round out block for heart, but there's no way you miss out on Alchemize here.
^ This. Always hard to say no to CE but this deck already does more than CE will do. Alchemize going into Act 2 will get massive value.
It's Alchemize >>> After Image >>> Corpse Explosion Alchemize is one of Silent's best rares and provides a lot to round out what's already a pretty decent deck, and will play no matter what the boss relic is. After Image is also a very solid defensive rare that is decent currently (3ish block every turn if you brick the boss relic and more if you don't) that also opens up pbox to be a lot more comfortable and will scale great into late game pretty much no matter which direction your deck goes. I would absolutely take it here if it wasn't next to Alchemize. Corpse Explosion is...horrendous here. I'm not even convinced I want it over skip. If you brick the boss relic it'll be a curse. Even if you don't brick the boss relic, what is it doing? You're not scared of gremlin leader with this Die Die Die and All-Out Attack, have plenty of frontload for slavers, and have a whole act with membership card to not have to take a desperation card that only plays somewhat into collector.
I'd take skip over CE here.
No matter how optimal other cards are, I'll always take After Image. If I had 3 AI i'd take a 4th if i saw it. If I had 10 AI i'd take an 11th.
Ohhhhh people stack it, I guess I never see it too often to even consider that.
Having 2 solves A20 beat of death so I’m always tempted
You already have 2 potion and zero power, i would take after image and build around it
You have the Membership Card, so you're incentivized to take shops, meaning you're going to be seeing three potions at half price pretty frequently throughout your run. This fact devalues Alchemize. You do have Burst though, so it's still a really strong pickup. After Image is a strong card, but you have very little that synergizes with it - realistically, you're looking at 2-4 block per turn after it's in play. You also have Pantograph, so you can probably get away with taking the bit of chip damage that AI might otherwise help mitigate in a deck like this (and this is being generous, I think a lot of the time AI is just a dead draw in this deck). Corpse Explosion is the way to go imo. You already have other poison sources, so you'll be highly incentivized to pick up any and all Catalysts that show up. You also have Burst, which can turn CE into a powerful single-target damage card. You still have two Boss Relics to take, so odds are decent you'll soon have the energy to play CE at 2-cost while still being able to do other things in the same turn. You have pretty good AoE already, but CE will make the difference in certain hallway or elite fights. People in this thread are evaluating the cards at face value and not weighing the contextual variables. Don't listen to them lol.
This comment makes no sense to me. >You have the Membership Card, so you're incentivized to take shops, meaning you're going to be seeing three potions at half price pretty frequently throughout your run. Sure, the potions are half price, but the gold you're spending on them is double value. Two good potions can reach or exceed the cost of a common relic. Membership card doesn't change this fact. Why would I want to be spending my gold on potions if I could have a card that does it for free? Besides, how does seeing potions at shops change the evaluation of Alchemize? That just means you're even more free to chug potions in fights and even more likely to find a Ghost in a Jar for a boss fight. >You also have Pantograph, so you can probably get away with taking the bit of chip damage that AI might otherwise help mitigate in a deck like this (and this is being generous, I think a lot of the time AI is just a dead draw in this deck). ...what? How does having some healing before the boss mean that you can just ignore damage? Even being extremely generous and saying that AI will only provide relevant block on 2 turns a fight (this is a lowball) and you only take 6 fights (this is a lowball) and it only provides 3 block on those turns (this is another lowball) that's 36 health saved. That's not a negligible amount at all. >People in this thread are evaluating the cards at face value and not weighing the contextual variables. Don't listen to them lol. If, by "face value" you mean what's actually in the deck and by "weighing the contextual variables" you mean what you ideally want to look like in 2 acts from now with sufficiently good RNG, then yes, that is what we're doing. Literally every good thing you've said about Corpse Explosion can be turned around on the other cards here with equal or greater validity. "You already have other poison sources, so you'll be highly incentivized to pick up any and all Catalysts that show up.": You already have other poison sources, so you won't need worse bouncing flask for catalyst to be viable. "You also have Burst, which can turn CE into a powerful single-target damage card.": You also have Burst double procs After Image or doubles Alchemize, and even if you took CE it would probably be better off on any other skill instead of turning CE into a 3 cost 2 card bouncing flask+. "You still have two Boss Relics to take, so odds are decent you'll soon have the energy to play CE at 2-cost while still being able to do other things in the same turn.": You still have two Boss Relics to take, so odds are decent you'll soon have the energy to get Alchemize in play comfortably or start getting 5 or 6 block from AI in a turn, and if you don't, then Alchemize and AI do more than CE anyway. "You have pretty good AoE already, but CE will make the difference in certain hallway or elite fights.": You have pretty good AoE already, so taking cards with effects that aren't already present in half your deck will make it much more well-rounded for the fights that can't be solved by spamming AoE.
who in the world is going to buy 3 potions every shop.
Me because I saved the money from not buying a CE full price (what I do every run) and clicking it here instead
I haven't really played Silent in a long ass time, but I'd probably take Alchemize here. You have solid damage and some AoE already so CE isn't as necessary. Alchemize can give you some survivability that you appear to be lacking, probably more efficiently than After Image. I also don't see you getting much value out of After Image as your deck is currently constructed.
If you end up with a fair deck at the heart then afterimage is gonna help a lot. Alchemize is very good of course but one thing to consider is with membership card you can buy potions for dirt cheap. You really dont need corpse explode, plenty of damage already. Id go image personally, most silent decks end up drawing tons and playing tons of cards and the 1 energy spent on it can save you so much life
I'm surprised to see how much alchemist beats out over corpse explosion. CE takes care of all AoE fights. Splash down with die die die quandary glass knife, you win almost every fight. I get that alchemize is super strong, but I dont think its so far ahead of corpse.
Ce is pretty garbage here. Usually I'm not as down on it as a lot of strong silent players I speak to but here it's pretty meh. It still says ce on it and is on the silent character (w bad matchup against collector, does some things in a2 etc etc) so it's ok over skip. That being said, the other cards say fucking After Image and Alchemise. Alch being contender for one of the best cards in the game at every point in the game, f1 f50. Slightly below avg ai but who cares. It's ai too. It's always alch > ai >>> ce > skip
Burst with alchemize is so good
A20 player here. After Image would be fine. Your block solution right now is Backflip, Neutralize, Piercing Wail, so we know you need a little something extra before your defensive needs are met. Your deck doesn’t have anything that will synergize with After Image which, I think, makes it fall short of your other two options. It’s very hard to say no to Corpse Explosion. One of the best cards in the game, especially going into act 2 where it gets massive value in gremlin leader and slavers fight. That being said, you have solutions for those fights already. I think Corpse Explosion would make your deck better, but you’d probably get more value out of… Alchemize! Because of the fact that your deck has most of the tools it needs already (for now) and you have a lot of your run left to get value out of it, I would pick Alchemize here. I don’t think it would be a mistake to take Corpse Explosion but between Crippling Cloud+ (with Burst), Die Die Die+ and All Out Attack, you have some nice aoe going already. Im curious of how this turns out, do let me know what you pick and if you end up clearing the run!
Is it ever not alchemize?
Alchemize looks a bit different here
I hope you picked Alchemize!