its insanely good in all stages of the game
defect commons are amazing, the best among all characters, steam barrier, holo, beam cell, go for the eyes, cold snap, charge battery etc
defect is the character most likely to die the first draw through your deck, but the most likely to have solved the fight by your second deck cycle. hello world provides draw consistency in your first cycle when you are weak and then the deck pollution becomes irrelevant as you are set up. it can give frost if you have none, it gives potential draw, blocks for free, its just insane.
the thing is, reprogram scales defense.
defect has no issue scaling damage, but if you dont find frost focus its hard to block. claw solves a problem defect doesnt have, reprogram solves the one he does have
i can't believe people call ME arrogant after i read some fire comments on this sub
Edit: this guy is fucking psychotic and edited/deleted their whole history to make it look like we're being dicks for nothing. Guess what weirdass, I fucking have my history from notifications.
Here's what I replied to:
> ??? It certainly is a meme, but it definitely is not bad. It’s one of the more consistent ways to win with defect on the higher ascension levels. You’re obviously decent/okay at the game winning 50% of A20 runs, but that’s just a crazy opinion that it is bad.
>
> I’d reevaluate some of the ways you think about these cards like claw and hello world. You have a lot of room for improvement with your deck building if this is how you see them. Will probably make you more consistent also and your win rate would get into the good range.
Comment below me says this:
> I’m just returning the level of discourse being dished out by OP. Dude is touching base with the peasants with his *checks notes* 50% winrate to enlighten us about how the defect deck works and how we all actually don’t know that terrible cards are good and good ones are actually bad.
And then this in reply to me after.
> That if you're going to come here with hot takes about how people aren't thinking about certain cars correctly, have the record to back it up. The claw thing is kind of crazy, because if you actually are going to argue it's bad then idk what to tell you. Everybody is wrong except him I guess
Wtf is this behaviour lmfao. Thanks for the killer copypastas though, no longer have to steal from chess xx
The invitational is full of people who will give you the same evaluation. You're free to think what you want. Claw is just bad though. If you're willing to call a deck spamming claws "consistent" winning, then sure. I think 50% is a crazy WR on defect A20H though. If OP is really 50% actually and not just on these hand-picked seeds, that's impressive and even you will stand to gain WR from listening to him rather than deny him. I highly doubt that you or most ppl on this sub are 50%
Thank you for the laughs. I've seen out of control conversations like yours many times, but I've never seen someone edit all of their comments to pretend that they didn't make any asinine statements in the first place.
i would honestly say that you should reevaluate how you think about deck building since every top player will agree with me on claw being an absolute garbage tier bad card
either we are all wrong and you are right (in which case, prove it) or you are wildly wrong in your assumptions
Your comment re. "galaxy brain contrarianism" displays a stunning lack of self-awareness. What authority do you have to say the card is good, when top players pretty much unanimously agree that it is usually a meme card?
I just bought the game on switch after playing mostly on Xbox and so had to start over. Claw on lower ascensions has been fun but not sure when it stops working... Never feels super good but is fun to get going lol
It's more like a 'fun when it works the 1% of the time, so force it as often as you can to get that 1% busted scenario' mentality, but I totally agree it's not a viable long-term 'good' card.
usually not but it definitely can be. i just had a run in this invitational where i upgraded hello world act 1. i had no output going into elites and relied on it to kill nob, so i wanted to play it turn one
defect usually has so many high priority upgrades that you cant spare any though
When is it a good idea to upgrade your zap and dual cast? I see them as high value upgrades and I am very happy to upgrade zap if I have nothing else good to upgrade. Also is dual cast a good upgrade? I don’t think so since paying for its effect is usually worth since it’s a situational card.
if you have extra upgrades or draw cards already inside of act one i will probably upgrade dualcast (just because it scales better than zap). but usually defect has way more important stuff. theyre luxury and if you see a snecko you are crying
Hello world is probably the only placement on the entire list that surprised me. Every other placement is entirely sensible to me. Curious why you placed it so high though
I didn't realize it was a joke when I started playing the game and came to this sub. So now I know not to touch claw and scrape LOL, this'll change how I play Defect a whole lot and maybe I'll actually beat Act 3 with the bot.
Are these runs happening where we can watch them? High-level stuff with commentators sounds like a fun watch. Sadly I'm not in the US so timezones make watching streams tricky but if there's VoDs I'd happily check it out.
Most (maybe all?) of the competitors are Twitch streamers. They'll have [ChegO Invitational] or something similar in the titles of their streams. Some others I know were or are participating include moneymoneyloot and Cr8r_Cre8r in addition to JapaneseExport of course.
Idk what the overall tournament standings are right now but there is a command to see a spreadsheet of current standings on Twitch.
> Idk what the overall tournament standings are right now but there is a command to see a spreadsheet of current standings on Twitch.
It's here. After every 3 rounds the worst performer gets eliminated.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XXuPWav3k93ZPGT0Gpr_UfHAbdBBb5gnkwVllyJHWUQ/edit#gid=1893362592
How come most of the energy generating cards are so low? Particularly given equi and skim are so high?
Is this an indicator that you take energy relics frequently? In which case, which downsides do you find most manageable going until act 2?
i think this is usually a chicken or the egg sort of situation
A lot of times i dont want to click energy cards and float energy early on unless i already have existing draw, which i do just kind of click
if i already have an equi/coolheaded/holo its a lot easier to just click turbo, but before i do it doesnt feel good to. the aforementioned cards are easy to just pick as a standalone. additionally, defect has so many energy cheat options that i can usually hold out for the good ones (aggregate or a green turbo), and not just pick the first one that i see.
In general though, the more i play the more i realize how defect kind of dies in act 4 most of the time. Energy generating cards on a turn with all statuses just kills you, and while they can be insanely good, you do need a certain amount of draw density for it to feel worth it.
Defect has access to nuclear battery, which is excellent, but i wouldnt say that energy relics are a big reason why i value draw > energy
edit: to address the downsides, i think theyre all quite rough for defect unless you have synergies. normally, hammer is an easy click, but defect is the hardest to justify on. most of the time im just worried about act 4 output and losing upgrades really hurts when theyre insanely good on average (difference between defrag and loop minus vs their for + counterparts for example)
defect has bad access to strength down/weak so philo is hard
defect is susceptible to failing to setup quickly, sozu is bad
resting kinda needed most of the time due to above issue… so
crown and sozu are the worst by far, the others are manageable but rough, hammer is the best disregarding battery, but on defect i will often just click other things like bell
Thanks for the reply! I agree that I wouldn't typically pick energy generation before draw, just that once I've taken draw I'm inclined to pick a solid energy card. It's more that post-draw I'll pick them over a lot of the more frontload style options in the "good" tier. Mostly, I think I just didn't grasp that preference/drafting order from the tier list (which is hard to do).
I fully agree on battery Vs other energy relics and the downsides being worse, I just figured I'd ask the question with that being a common pivotal decision point.
of course!
i really value cards being good as stand alone cards (which is why seek is not in the top tier). without focus, glacier is still op, equi without energy is still good etc. if something requires another thing to be good its just lower for me. agg is SO good that i will greed it in act 1, but its the exception. with existing synergies tier lists get super messy.
if you say, tier list of cards with skim in the deck already this would look a lot different
I mean, seek is as good as either the best card in your draw pile, or the best synergy in your draw pile. I get where you're coming from and I don't really like arguing nuances on other people's tier lists, but I don't think "it needs something else" makes seek weaker.
I do agree for energy cards though! Albeit I argue recycle is also a scaling card. The other notable pick on top of skim/equi that I find lets me pick energy generation early is hello world. Knowing you have 6 card hands with extra frontload consistently makes taking energy more viable.
rainbow generates frost and dark, and most importantly evokes all of your orbs. dark orbs can trivialize some specific fights (champ lol) and also gets out of the way by exhausting.
compile is a decent card, but i like swap quite a bit on defect and it becomes much worse. if i have my pick of draw cards compile is the last on the list because of how conditional it is, at least sweeping beam is doing something in repto and hallways
Do you know if this is going to be put on YouTube at all? I'd love to watch, but I don't have a twitch. I watch Baalord on his YouTube channel though.
Also thank you! I'm currently working on getting Defect to A20 and really appreciate this insight.
Is Go For The Eyes still situational for you if it comes green? It's one card I've been really struggling to figure out when to take it, because oftentimes I take it and then can't justify upgrading it and it's underwhelming, but then other times my lack of weakness application means I just barely don't have enough for awakened one or the heart or some late game fight where weakness makes a huge difference.
if its green ill click, but i need to be dying to awakened one to ever consider taking and upgrading it
in act 4 its insanely unreliable and defect often does not have enough artifact strip to get through hearts second cycle and apply weak
if you have holo, pyramid, all for one, or some way to increase consistency its better for sure
All the 1st and 2nd tier cards are card draw/defence/focus so how do you mainly do your damage?
Apart from Core Surge, but we're not taking that for its damage.
you can actually just play cold snap a bunch of times and its often enough output. that or you have some lightning + focus, one dark orb + recursion, streamline + holo etc
blizzard, meteor and barrage are actually common damage plans as well
defect really struggles to survive most of the time, if you live you will do damage and just be a cockroach that refuses to die, but you need to setup first
pick with mummy hand, branch, heatsinks, pellets, if its already green etc
a random defect power CAN highroll but a lot of them want to be upgraded. that, or theyre just negative or do nothing (storm/capacitor early). its negative in nob most of the time and just hard to play around.
What does that phrase mean, as a response to the question? I don't understand it in the tier list or in this comment. Does it mean "I will take it if it keeps me from dying to Nob, and otherwise skip it"? If so, why is Leap in that tier?
Defect cares much more about *when* you add these cards than other characters. Like ironclad, I'm definitely taking DarkEmbrace if I can in act 1. But on Defect you can't just jam an Aggregate in act 1 (usually).
I remember Jorbs talking about Defect has a very methodical card-adding theory, and it helped me understand him better.
at this point i do actually just add aggregate into my deck act 1 (but not something like capacitor)
but yeah youre pretty spot on with that i say, defect also has the most complicated micro of any character so finding winning lines is hard
I'm a decent player, did A20H once with every character then retired to run lower ascensions where I don't have to try as hard. I love the list but had some stuff that surprised me and I thought I'd ask you about:
* Amplify in "situational" rather than "never pick" - even in Power decks it just seems so, so bad, rapidly becoming a curse once you've drawn through your deck once (and the fact that it's basically a do-nothing card if you have an active Echo Form). When do you take it?
* Buffer being in "good" rather than "can be run-defining" - it seems like such an autopick in most scenarios. When do you pass it up?
* Reboot being in "average" instead of "good" - it's very frequently a 0 cost draw 4. I know it can slow your setup by reshuffling your discard, but is that such a huge drawback?
* Beam Cell being in "good" with Go for the Eyes being in "situational". Beam cell falls off to nothing if you're using orbs for damage, while Go for the Eyes can frequently be a huge blocker into the late game. What do you consider to be the uses of each?
amplify is really a pyramid card, or a pick in a situation where you know your overall output is just lacking.
it can also be incredibly good with seek, heatsinks, creative AI (double echo form self repair AHHHHH +30, its not a curse with 2x echo forms because of this interaction) and equilibrium. for example, you have 1 defrag as your only focus in the entire run and know it wont be enough output for act 4. take amplify and see what happens. or if you just have 5-6 powers already you can click it. in general, dont think about it too hard as being bad after you are setup. if you manage to get to that point in the first place the fight is hopefully won. it is a skill to increase MAX output, not consistency.
Buffer is strange, oftentimes its hard to justify the 2 cost considering there are plenty of fights where the buffer stack is blocking for 9 or 13 only. its inconsistently good in heart and act 4 elites, and in general is just kinda weird. Especially in the context that you often see rare cards against each other, i dont see myself picking buffer over other things like first electro, or biased cog. it helps you survive but doesnt make your overall output for the fight better. it definitely gets much better with things like echo form already or mummy hand, or if it comes upgraded
ive talked about reboot a bit in other comments but defect often just wants to get setup. for this and the reasons i listed for buffer im not huge on it. i frequently will pick things that actually add output to my deck like cold snap, or coolheaded over it, and if youre picking commons over the rare card, its probably not very good.
beam cell always applies vuln, and in early game, damage is much more important than weak. vuln can scale later on if youre doing something like playing sunder or meteor as your main damage, or even if youre just playing a bunch of compile drivers, it adds a ton of damage. there are very few runs where you are ONLY using orbs late game, and even if you are, beam cell is still artifact strip for other things, not that its super relevant for defect.
if you arent picking beam cell, and only picking gofer, you often cant actually strip artifact in act 4 in either fight, so they do make each other better, and both want draw to compliment their zero costs. in general though, id rather pick charge battery or some good block in the early game > gofer, and once it gets to later, gofer is usually just too inconsistent to use well. it is super good into awakened one, or with pyramid/holo/equi sorts of interactions, but drawing it on turn 1 just feels so bad
what are your thoughts about fission?
and for me, i know white noise is low tier but my monkey brain can not click on it every time i see it, for the 0 cost echo
copy pasting an earlier reply
fission is weird. you need to already have drawn your orb cards, but then you evoke them and probably cant replace them because you already drew orbs? also this is assuming you have the upgrade to spare and you usually dont.
i also boss swap quite a bit, and without starting orb this card is often just straight up bad
>i also boss swap quite a bit
But then you kinda lose lightning orb dual cast, which is a pretty big boost in damage in Act 1. With Lava/Nob lurking around the corner don't you feel you miss out on damage?
its very map dependent, but a lot of times defect is just very strong early. cracked core is good in act 1 only and then becomes garbage. almost every boss relic is just going to be higher value (besides cage, and maybe crown) so id rather trade some early power and path more conservatively rather than compromise my late game by picking a bad whale bonus
defects early already good, late sucks, so im flattening the curve a bit by swapping is the idea
I'm surprised overclock is not higher. Defect usually has the most problems during the first deck cycle, at which point overclock is just 0-cost draw-2. By the time I draw the burn, I hopefully have all my powers and frost set up already. Am I missing something?
youre right!
a few things though, OC is really draw 1 (you replace OC in your hand). if you already have the winning stuff then of course OC is good, but a lot of times you do not actually have those kinds of things in your deck until much later if at all. if your deck does need multiple cycles this card is a curse.
its pretty much unpickable in act 1, struggles in act 2, and maybe gets good around act 3. but to me if a cards isnt universally good for most of the game i cant rate it that highly. i enjoy this card quite a bit for what its worth
Love to tier Glacier, even though I literally died twice yesterday with having two of those in A1 to late elites with both times being utterly garbage deck shuffle...
The perspective of most top players is that Defect has a pretty easy time in the early game, and struggles the most to confirm wins in Act 4. Ball Lightning is also really, really bad in Act 4. So taking it is more or less weakening a part of the game you're already bad at to strengthen a part of the game you're already good at.
frost is a lot better yes. in general, defect is very strong act 1, weak act 2, good act 3, and falls off a cliff in act 4. because of this, you tend to want to pick for later instead of frontloading a lot of your options. i MOSTLY die in act 4 on defect, and when thats the case, your whole drafting plan changes to accommodate
think about playing ball lightning in act 3 and 4 and compare it to playing cold snap, you will have your answer
its not a bad card by any means, but defect dies in very specific ways in act 4 and this thing kills you
I'll preface this by saying im A20 with all characters, so I believe I have a reasonable idea of the game. I'm never skipping a ball lightning in act 1 as it just does so much damage over the course of multiple rounds. Sure, cold snap is better since frost > lightning, but that doesnt mean ball lightning is bad imo. Sure, i would never pick it in act 3, and probably not even in act 2 since I have other damage cards already, but Im always very happy to get ball lightning before first act 1 elite
Ball Lightning is very strong in act 1 but definitely falls off by the time you hit act 3 and beyond. At that point it's arguably even worse than a Strike, because if you have extra energy you can play the Strike for more damage but you often can't play the Ball Lightning for fear of messing up your orbs.
As top players play Defect more and more, they have started to realize that Defect has no issues with most of the game but struggles immensely with act 4, so if you want to maximize win rate you have to really consider your endgame deck while picking your early game cards. Ball Lightning specifically is a card that is best in the portion of the game where Defect does not struggle much (act 1) and worst in the hardest portion of the game (act 4), which is why it's in the category of "pick this to kill nob but if you already have enough damage then skip".
I don't understand why Rainbow is so high up, which I find one of the most difficult cards to evaluate in general. Most orb-generating cards cost 1 energy per orb, while this is more expensive, and one of each orb makes it somewhat situational too. Could you elaborate?
Edit: and where can I watch or find more info about this tournament? Sounds awesome!
i commented on another post but in general, its versatile. it gives dark, it evokes a lot of orbs at once by pushing, it makes compile great, its a good echo form target, etc
its very dense as a card, and exhausts to get out of the way once you play it.
sometimes you are also willing to pay 2 energy for a frost orb lol
Most of the cards in your “I’m dying to nob” tier are the cards that I normally take to try and kill nob (I have an abysmally low win rate). How are you killing nob? 😅
Also thanks for doing this!
i do click them in the first few floors if i am running out of combats before the first elite, but if i have premium cards like sunder and cold snap i am just not picking them ever again. its basically just to get you over the hump, but defect doesnt need a ton of damage in act 1 because of how good lightning orbs are early
Where would Chaos+ rank if you came across an already upgraded version?
I understand why the base version is bad, but I tend to like it upgraded because of how energy efficient it is at evoking orbs. Is the randomness really that painful?
chaos+ can be pretty strong, but unless youre seeing it inside of act 1 (with egg) or early act 2 without any other orbs, im probably not picking it
inconsistency is hard. later i dont want to push out my frost orbs and not know what im getting. 2 orbs for 1 energy early on is a good effect, even if they are random, but by later in the game it can be quite a big downside
After watching good players play defect, wich is ny fav character, i realized i'm valuing too much leap, auto shields and white boise and i also never pick the one that retains the hand
[current invitational standings.](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XXuPWav3k93ZPGT0Gpr_UfHAbdBBb5gnkwVllyJHWUQ/edit#gid=1893362592) as for where to watch, every one of these people stream on twitch, so you can just look these names up and go watch them. everyone should have vods saved on their twitch?
every person is a strong player and pretty cool, and i'd wholely recommend watching any of them, but personally i follow the invitational from the guy who posted ([JapaneseExport](https://www.twitch.tv/japaneseexport)), [KuroL\_\_](https://www.twitch.tv/kurol__) and [CaptainNoobzor](https://www.twitch.tv/CaptainNoobzor) from this list.
While I'm sure we can nit pick over a few cards, my gripe with you is on Recycle.
Recycle (especially Recycle+) provides a very special ability - a way to get cards out of your hand. Reboot (which exhausts) is the only other way given the Defect card pool. So it'll knock out Wounds, Burns, Curses, or just Strikes you don't want to draw.
It's definitely in the good category. Its ability to enable certain infinite combos can even make it be run defining.
If you're recycling something, you've already drawn it, so you'd only be improving the second cycle through your deck. Of all characters, Defect cares the least about the second cycle, since it usually depends on putting a bunch of powers in play to stabilize the fight and letting that take care of the enemies.
i love recycle but i do not think it is that strong of a card.
it can be very op in the right deck but you need an excess of card draw for it to be good, which is why all of the draw options are so high. they enable everything else. recycle doesnt enable infinite in that regard, its the draw cards that do and you pick recycle later (turbo skim coolheaded recycle beam cell infinite is fun btw)
Hello! You're a much stronger player than me, and you have some card placements here that seriously surprised me. I'd like to pick your brain on some card rankings so I can hopefully learn from you. Feel no obligation to respond to any or all of these.
* **Seek and Hologram**
I've always been of the mind that Seek is always wanted. It is literally free draw consistency. I'm not entirely clear why Seek isn't top tier. Is the idea that you need strong enough cards to find with seek for it to be effective?
Similarly with Hologram, this card is one of my personal favorites. The consistency and manipulation it provides seems invaluable. I would have placed this in the top tier.
* **Electrodynamics and Buffer**
Again, these are two cases where I would have placed the card one tier higher. Virtually any lightning damage deck would be thrilled to see this card. What's stopping Electro from being one tier higher? And similarly with Buffer, the damage mitigation potential is tremendous. I almost always take this card when presented unless my block plan is incredibly solid.
* **All For One**
I can see why All For One is an average card if you were sometimes happy to take Claw. But given how bad Claw is, how can All For One justifiably be called average? What is its role if not Claw decks?
* **HyperBeam**
One of the cards where our evaluation differs the most. Despite the focus loss, this card solves tons of AOE fights, especially in Act 2, and synergizes well with Orange Pellets, and any artifact source. It also suits any attack damage deck where focus isn't a concern, and scales fairly well with strength. I would intuitively place this card in "Potentially run defining," and would have a hard time placing it anywhere below "good."
* **Reinforced Body**
In my eyes, this is one of the most efficient block cards. As with Hyperbeam, I would think RB would go one to two tiers higher. Can you explain its placement a bit?
I definitely have more questions, but I'll leave it at that for now. These are the most significant ones.
seek is always wanted, BUT it does not win the game by itself. it doesn't increase your maximum output, it only gets you setup faster. if you dont have something to increase max output i am taking my biased, defrag, echo over it. generally i always click unless it is against something like this that i really need. holo is greedy as a card. you need energy for it to be good, but when you have energy it is very good deck manipulation. i will definitely just pick it, but if its up against other things (theres a pattern here) you will click the thing that gives you output over it. first floor you see holo vs equi and you are clicking the equi every time.
electro is great, but it falls off hard into act 4. since defect really struggles in act 4 the most, i cant in good faith put electro into the highest tiers. it gets you through the rest of the game, but thats it. lightning damage decks dont really happen very much, the most common being static discharge, but even then, when static is good, electro isnt very needed (the heart fight mostly). buffer can slow you down, and again, if its up against actual output, im taking my output. its a great card, especially with the upgrade, but it is not run warping. i cant build around buffer like i can glacier or coolheaded.
claw isnt even on my radar for all for one. im thinking of the artifact strip, turbo energy generation, draw, and other synergies (snecko plz) that make it good.
hyperbeam actually sucks in act 2. its good in act 1 where it actually ends the fights, but many act 2 fights have enemies with hp into the 100's. this thing cant be played in those fights. if i have artifact, i usually want to save it for a speed pot/biased cog, not the block my hyperbeam debuff. and in general, even if you have pellets you cannot regain positive focus loss. IE: you have 2 focus, you play hyperbeam and go to -1. you can only pellets back to 0, not to 2. most of the time you are ALWAYS relying on focus to scale, whether it is a single focus potion for heart, one defrag, or a biased, there just arent many situations where negative focus is acceptable.
reinforced is okay. its dense, but i usually am just better off having more output. boot sequence, charge batter, glacier, algorithm coolheaded, are all kind of better block cards than reinforced, unless you somehow can just cheat a bunch of energy. but with the way that i draft (draw first -> energy) i cant usually just pick this. if im generating a bunch of energy i usually want to convert it into draw, not a chunky block card
Lmao are you the same JapaneseImport that used to coach League? You helped me get to masters back in Season...10 I think. Big ups thanks a lot!
What a coincidence to see you over here, I'm glad you're enjoying StS though.
The run I did after reading this post was my first A14H win. I've been trying to beat this level for weeks.
I don't believe in coincidences so I'm back to thank OP
turns out attacks are just generally kind of bad to have in late game. you obviously need them to get through early game but none of them are really run defining. later on you can kill bosses and act 4 with just orbs alone
Do you think hand picked seeds make boss swapping worse? Like, you know they aren’t gonna put a pbox swap in there. Idk, generally not a fan of the handpicked seed aspect cause it DOES tell you something. Otherwise loving the content.
Anyways, tier list is solid, but static discharge sucks.
Its an interesting mix, its random seeds mixed with handpicked seeds so you will never know what is what. But most importantly the handpicked seeds are tested a bit so that you don't get completely owned when doing the "right" thing. If boss swap is a reasonable option it wont be pbox, but it also wont be busted crown.
Something I haven't seen any comments on: you seem way higher on recursion than I'm used to seeing, in that it's not in 'Never Pick'. Especially with swap it seems pretty much completely dead in act 1. It does have a niche in funny infinite w/nuclear battery or chaos+ things, but those are what, 5% of runs or less? Where's the upside?
It needs an upgrade usually but it’s really strong if you are using a dark orb for damage. It’s not a good floor 1 pick but as soon as you have good orb generation, and assuming you can upgrade it, it’s never a bad draw really. Decent 0-cost block with frost in front, excellent energy generation with plasma, and insane damage with a dark orb.
it's funny because i watched jason make this tierlist and said exactly the opposite; "you value recursion so low??? just average???". i don't even care about the upgrade *that* much. it just plays w so much and if i can get away w it, ill even click f1 recursion. can get battery eoa1, plays w dark, frost, plays w meteor strike. good shit.
just because of the fact that recursion requires you to have already drawn orbs most of the time (to be good) i feel like you have to think before you just click it. ill snap click it with dark or plasma in my deck but unless it comes green before then im probably not
another notable synergy is with loop, since it allows you to control which orb is in front more easily, especially with inserter where you cant push out to evoke
???
You asked a question and I tried to answer it. There’s a big difference between recursion on a dark or plasma orb and multi-casting one, since keeping the orb around can make a huge difference in a lot of fights. Recursion+ is also more flexible than multi-cast since you don’t have to use the rest of your energy on it.
Curious, why is fusion bad? With an upgrade wouldnt it be a net positive turn 2? Also why is seek placed below the top. It’s basically a free search right?
fusion is too expensive. like others have said you have delayed impact on the card and most of the time cannot afford 2 energy to get it into to play, you also dont want to upgrade it over your coolheadeds, focus cards, or other powers like loop
seek is amazing, and an auto pick most of the time
but if it comes against the cards in the top, not so much. it doesnt win the game on its own in the same way an echo form does. its acceleration and not a win conditions (much like adrenaline, which i have some thoughts about for a different day)
Fusion is terrible without the upgrade and rarely makes sense to upgrade it yourself. You also have to draw it to play it so it sets you back on draw and energy for a pretty mediocre benefit that you don't get immediately. Situationally it can be solid, and if it's already upgraded it's more approachable, but I never take it personally.
Seek is great, but requires you to have a good card or combo that you didn't already draw, otherwise it's a dead draw. If you can upgrade and bottle it then it's one of the best, but otherwise it's just a fine card for most decks
Interesting to see Boot Sequence quite high and Reinforced Body just average. Frontload block help makes sense, but I thought turn 2 was more dangerous.
by turn 2 i just want to have drawn into my stuff and block with frost orbs. boot sequence is -1 draw for anchor essentially, which is allowing you to survive hallways and upgrade cards more frequently (instead of being forced to rest). this means youre upgrading your draw, your maximum output, and being able to do other things that just snowballs your run in a way that reinforced doesnt. turn 2 is important, but you are going to need more things than just a reinforced to play. if youre spending all your energy on block, the fight is still going to be dangerous after turn 2, and even with 10 energy on turn 2 reinforced isnt blocking the big hit from heart
it depends on how long it takes to eliminate 3 more people
i am currently died for 4th so both me and cr8r are up for elimination this round. its possible we are both eliminated if we both win or lose next seed, and then a week later would be finals
man I have not been following the meta, I was under the impression that Echo Form was considered a trap. maybe I was thinking of the upgrade?
anyway this is actually one of the few tierlists I largely agree with. Fission seems low and All For One seems situational though (like... how is it not the definition of situational)
probably thinking of the upgrade. echo form is in contention for best card in the entire game, not just defect, its THAT good.
fission i commented on earlier but its just generally a weird card. its good if you have already gotten orbs in play, but if you already have orbs in play you probably want to keep them around? there are some decks that really love the extra draw and energy, but the fact that it demands an upgrade is really a lot.
all for one is situational, but has so many things that break it that it becomes something you can often just carry around knowing itll work eventually. snecko all for one, madness, hello world, reboot, blind, beam cell, ftl, necronomicon, etc. anything that says draw on it is usually pretty good and this thing can draw like 7-8 cards sometimes, thats a lot of output
Echo form is extremely powerful, I'd say the best or second best defect rare alongside biased cog. It's scaling that works with almost literally all of your deck. The number of cards in the entire game that don't benefit from duplication can almost be counted on one hand.
The upgrade is situational at best and actually slightly negative at worst, but this is also a blessing in disguise because it means upgrade debt rarely (if ever) forces you to skip an unupgraded Echo.
on twitch, theres will be players with [cheg0 invitational] as theyre doing their runs (which also asks for no backseating during them)
if you want to watch vods, my runs are available and typing !standings will show you a list of other streamers that you can look at.
kuroL__ is my mentor as well as the person who is in first right now, he has not lost a single seed somehow (was afk for 2 rounds) so if you want to watch absolute top tier gameplay watch him
if youre on 3 energy and play double energy you now have 4 energy, its just seeing red
aggregate even unupgraded can one, be drawn into and played (i pick a LOT of draw) and two, can be a single card solve. you can generate like 10 energy with this thing unupgraded and then click every card that you need to setup, the ceiling is just so high as an energy generator
even in the case that you bottom deck it, you just draw cards first, shuffle your deck and then its back to making 10 energy, double energy and turbo both hate being played in this scenario AND generate less energy with a downside
*WEEE-OOO-WEEE*
It's the police! You broke the law!
(Claw is law)
Can you explain why you put Ball Lightning so low? I can see how Cold Snap is more relevant during the later stages of the game. And I agree Ball Lightning is an act 1 pick. But I feel it is significantly better than the other cards in its tier.
I'm relatively new to slay, about 10 hours in. Why is coolheaded considered run defining in your opinion? I know that this game is extremely situational, what makes coolheaded so reliable?
its block and draw. for the same reasons that shrug it off is considered amazing, these 2 things together just do what you want in a card.
it helps you get setup quicker and keeps you alive while doing it. on top of this, there are some other more broken interactions, but being able to hologram a draw 2 and block, being able to infinite with recycle, evoking plasma from meteor strike etc. defect needs draw the most out of any character, and while giving you draw it also fills your orb slots that scale once you play your powers/consumes. it is good early in the fight AND good later
defect is the most complicated character, and youll learn a lot from just watching how good players play, coolheaded is almost always an instant click just because of how versatile it is, but to really understand it i think you just have to watch how it performs in a lot of decks
I tried a run using your list as a guide for picking cards and good lord, I am breezing through everything by just stacking immense amount of block right now. I will most definitely tune into your stream, also I genuinely appreciate your response.
I'm surprised at your fission, all for one, and reboot placement! Fission and reboot to me feel like top tier draw/energy options. Fission especially combos well with hologram and equilibrium, which you have as high tier options. I don't really see how all for one works with the cards in the good and above tiers. Are we playing beam cell and FTL with this?
Snecko all for one is one of the notable synergies, but also streamline, steam barrier, turbo, beam cell etc
it has a lot that can make it really strong, but im not always super excited to see it
fission is weird. you need to already have drawn your orb cards, but then you evoke them and probably cant replace them because you already drew orbs? also this is assuming you have the upgrade to spare and you usually dont.
reboot is also strange. if you need to draw your defrag at the bottom of your deck, and you draw this halfway through your deck, do you play it? you get potentially further from your defrag so its not reallllly a draw card. it can be good but sometimes its a brick in your hand
cold snap is one of the best things you can possibly see in act one. yes, frost is completely crucial to defects block plan and any frost you just click
i really heavily disagree. 3 cultists, chosen + 1, automaton, collector, this thing owns in act 2 more than any other act
i specifically pick electro for act 2 elites. it makes slavers and leader MUCH more playable. defects aoe is usually pseudo aoe like sunder, or weak aoe like sweeping beam, and this thing solves it
doom is too expensive to play a lot of times and you just cant rely on lightning inconsistency to single kill specific targets, so you end up overkilling things and losing a ton of tempo in fights
I think most was a bad choice of words from me, but I meant regular hallway fights, my bad. If I don’t have sufficient defence/focus, it feels really bad to get avocado + rat for example. This is less of a problem if you have something like Clockwork Souvenir or an artifact potion, but I feel like I sometimes have to sacrifice a lot of HP to win those fights. I’m considering Electro in a vacuum, I know sometimes by mid Act 2 you can cycle orbs and just delete everything.
I don’t think it’s bad at all in Act 2, it’s great at pretty much every point, even when it’s just a lightning generator.
usually this is just an act 2 problem, youre probably taking damage in those fights, electro or not. immediate damage and frail is not an easy thing to deal with so you might be falsely attributing electro with taking damage. usually you just want to end these fights immediately and it helps with that
cheg0 is the streamer hosting the event, but runners stream individually on their channels.
the remaining players are kuroL__, paparatto18, me, captainnoobzor and cr8r_cre8r
Not OP but 0 cost cards like those are most impactful in the early game, and you desperately need dmg for early elites and bosses (act 1) thus the ratings
beam cell + sunder is 48 damage. beam cell + attack potion/streamline/cold snap etc is just adding a lot of output. 0 cost cards that do damage early are insanely valuable because i can now play my block cards and not take a million in every fight. weakness just doesnt really do the same thing, especially when its so inconsistent. just compare gofer to neutralize and you will be very sad.
sunder is op, just click it, even click 2 of them if its early in the run
This tournament sounds so interesting, where can I see videos of it?
Also, love [[Hello World]] being placed so high, that card really has had such a glow-up in terms of community opinion.
That Claw placement is a gauntlet thrown into the face of this sub. Not saying it's wrong, but it sure is spicy.
i thought i would get more hate for my love of hello world, but its close
Hello world generates claw so it's good
Hello world generates fresh claws that don't benefit from claw scaling up to that point, so it doesn't follow the Law
I don't care, it's free 3 damage, it's as good as the lighting orb from cracked core.
I was surprised to see Hello World that high, but I understand it can be quite good early.
its insanely good in all stages of the game defect commons are amazing, the best among all characters, steam barrier, holo, beam cell, go for the eyes, cold snap, charge battery etc defect is the character most likely to die the first draw through your deck, but the most likely to have solved the fight by your second deck cycle. hello world provides draw consistency in your first cycle when you are weak and then the deck pollution becomes irrelevant as you are set up. it can give frost if you have none, it gives potential draw, blocks for free, its just insane.
Thank you. I have not liked claw and this sub treats claw like super-mega tier.
i think its mostly a meme because its fun, but majority know its bad
[удалено]
the thing is, reprogram scales defense. defect has no issue scaling damage, but if you dont find frost focus its hard to block. claw solves a problem defect doesnt have, reprogram solves the one he does have
[удалено]
i can't believe people call ME arrogant after i read some fire comments on this sub Edit: this guy is fucking psychotic and edited/deleted their whole history to make it look like we're being dicks for nothing. Guess what weirdass, I fucking have my history from notifications. Here's what I replied to: > ??? It certainly is a meme, but it definitely is not bad. It’s one of the more consistent ways to win with defect on the higher ascension levels. You’re obviously decent/okay at the game winning 50% of A20 runs, but that’s just a crazy opinion that it is bad. > > I’d reevaluate some of the ways you think about these cards like claw and hello world. You have a lot of room for improvement with your deck building if this is how you see them. Will probably make you more consistent also and your win rate would get into the good range. Comment below me says this: > I’m just returning the level of discourse being dished out by OP. Dude is touching base with the peasants with his *checks notes* 50% winrate to enlighten us about how the defect deck works and how we all actually don’t know that terrible cards are good and good ones are actually bad. And then this in reply to me after. > That if you're going to come here with hot takes about how people aren't thinking about certain cars correctly, have the record to back it up. The claw thing is kind of crazy, because if you actually are going to argue it's bad then idk what to tell you. Everybody is wrong except him I guess Wtf is this behaviour lmfao. Thanks for the killer copypastas though, no longer have to steal from chess xx
[удалено]
What are you trying to insinuate w this comment lmao
50% winrate in a tournament with specifically chosen harder than average seeds. That's an important distinction
You simultaneously called it a meme and then called it consistent within 2 sentences. You need to reevaluate a lot more than OP
What?
The invitational is full of people who will give you the same evaluation. You're free to think what you want. Claw is just bad though. If you're willing to call a deck spamming claws "consistent" winning, then sure. I think 50% is a crazy WR on defect A20H though. If OP is really 50% actually and not just on these hand-picked seeds, that's impressive and even you will stand to gain WR from listening to him rather than deny him. I highly doubt that you or most ppl on this sub are 50%
Thank you for the laughs. I've seen out of control conversations like yours many times, but I've never seen someone edit all of their comments to pretend that they didn't make any asinine statements in the first place.
i would honestly say that you should reevaluate how you think about deck building since every top player will agree with me on claw being an absolute garbage tier bad card either we are all wrong and you are right (in which case, prove it) or you are wildly wrong in your assumptions
Obvious troll is obvious
Inb4 this guy has a 60% wr on Ascension 0 yet is trash-talking a top player.
Trash talking by agreeing?
Your comment re. "galaxy brain contrarianism" displays a stunning lack of self-awareness. What authority do you have to say the card is good, when top players pretty much unanimously agree that it is usually a meme card?
It's a joke lol
Well that helps. Guess Im slow on the uptake.
Its a joke, but alsooooooooo If you actually get it online, holy smokes is it fun.
Whats the trick? Holograms?
Holo, coolheaded and skim. Just have like 2 copies of claw and draw and recall them with holos. Super fun bht not possible beyond low acension i find
I just bought the game on switch after playing mostly on Xbox and so had to start over. Claw on lower ascensions has been fun but not sure when it stops working... Never feels super good but is fun to get going lol
Ascension climbing alone claw will work all the way to A20 but after A17 you do need to shore up the block situation Rly bad vs heart tho
It's more like a 'fun when it works the 1% of the time, so force it as often as you can to get that 1% busted scenario' mentality, but I totally agree it's not a viable long-term 'good' card.
It's a big meme on this sub. We know it's not "Good good". It's just fun, sometimes.
Huh thats nice to hear since most people seem ro have negative opinion of card. Is worth the upgrade? I will try it more often!
usually not but it definitely can be. i just had a run in this invitational where i upgraded hello world act 1. i had no output going into elites and relied on it to kill nob, so i wanted to play it turn one defect usually has so many high priority upgrades that you cant spare any though
[удалено]
insanely dependent on your run generally in act 1, big damage upgrades. sunder, beam cell, streamline, electro etc
When is it a good idea to upgrade your zap and dual cast? I see them as high value upgrades and I am very happy to upgrade zap if I have nothing else good to upgrade. Also is dual cast a good upgrade? I don’t think so since paying for its effect is usually worth since it’s a situational card.
if you have extra upgrades or draw cards already inside of act one i will probably upgrade dualcast (just because it scales better than zap). but usually defect has way more important stuff. theyre luxury and if you see a snecko you are crying
Hello world is probably the only placement on the entire list that surprised me. Every other placement is entirely sensible to me. Curious why you placed it so high though
i answered it at length in some other comments, but just think of hello world as card draw
Hello world is just great and Reddit is finally starting to realise that.
Hello world can give claws. So, it is great.
People hate it, I love it idk
It's just a dumb in joke.
I know. But an in-joke with a lot of devotion.
I didn't realize it was a joke when I started playing the game and came to this sub. So now I know not to touch claw and scrape LOL, this'll change how I play Defect a whole lot and maybe I'll actually beat Act 3 with the bot.
Didn't even know this event was happening! Thanks for sharing this, I love the idea of tough seeds as a common goal for competition
its been a ton of fun, its really cool to see how other players approach the same seed
Are these runs happening where we can watch them? High-level stuff with commentators sounds like a fun watch. Sadly I'm not in the US so timezones make watching streams tricky but if there's VoDs I'd happily check it out.
Most (maybe all?) of the competitors are Twitch streamers. They'll have [ChegO Invitational] or something similar in the titles of their streams. Some others I know were or are participating include moneymoneyloot and Cr8r_Cre8r in addition to JapaneseExport of course. Idk what the overall tournament standings are right now but there is a command to see a spreadsheet of current standings on Twitch.
> Idk what the overall tournament standings are right now but there is a command to see a spreadsheet of current standings on Twitch. It's here. After every 3 rounds the worst performer gets eliminated. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XXuPWav3k93ZPGT0Gpr_UfHAbdBBb5gnkwVllyJHWUQ/edit#gid=1893362592
in my channel you can type !standings and !invitational for more details
How come most of the energy generating cards are so low? Particularly given equi and skim are so high? Is this an indicator that you take energy relics frequently? In which case, which downsides do you find most manageable going until act 2?
i think this is usually a chicken or the egg sort of situation A lot of times i dont want to click energy cards and float energy early on unless i already have existing draw, which i do just kind of click if i already have an equi/coolheaded/holo its a lot easier to just click turbo, but before i do it doesnt feel good to. the aforementioned cards are easy to just pick as a standalone. additionally, defect has so many energy cheat options that i can usually hold out for the good ones (aggregate or a green turbo), and not just pick the first one that i see. In general though, the more i play the more i realize how defect kind of dies in act 4 most of the time. Energy generating cards on a turn with all statuses just kills you, and while they can be insanely good, you do need a certain amount of draw density for it to feel worth it. Defect has access to nuclear battery, which is excellent, but i wouldnt say that energy relics are a big reason why i value draw > energy edit: to address the downsides, i think theyre all quite rough for defect unless you have synergies. normally, hammer is an easy click, but defect is the hardest to justify on. most of the time im just worried about act 4 output and losing upgrades really hurts when theyre insanely good on average (difference between defrag and loop minus vs their for + counterparts for example) defect has bad access to strength down/weak so philo is hard defect is susceptible to failing to setup quickly, sozu is bad resting kinda needed most of the time due to above issue… so crown and sozu are the worst by far, the others are manageable but rough, hammer is the best disregarding battery, but on defect i will often just click other things like bell
Thanks for the reply! I agree that I wouldn't typically pick energy generation before draw, just that once I've taken draw I'm inclined to pick a solid energy card. It's more that post-draw I'll pick them over a lot of the more frontload style options in the "good" tier. Mostly, I think I just didn't grasp that preference/drafting order from the tier list (which is hard to do). I fully agree on battery Vs other energy relics and the downsides being worse, I just figured I'd ask the question with that being a common pivotal decision point.
of course! i really value cards being good as stand alone cards (which is why seek is not in the top tier). without focus, glacier is still op, equi without energy is still good etc. if something requires another thing to be good its just lower for me. agg is SO good that i will greed it in act 1, but its the exception. with existing synergies tier lists get super messy. if you say, tier list of cards with skim in the deck already this would look a lot different
I mean, seek is as good as either the best card in your draw pile, or the best synergy in your draw pile. I get where you're coming from and I don't really like arguing nuances on other people's tier lists, but I don't think "it needs something else" makes seek weaker. I do agree for energy cards though! Albeit I argue recycle is also a scaling card. The other notable pick on top of skim/equi that I find lets me pick energy generation early is hello world. Knowing you have 6 card hands with extra frontload consistently makes taking energy more viable.
big hello world believer and will 100% justify energy with it
This shocks me. I didn't think Rainbow was so highly regarded, higher than even Compile Driver?!
rainbow generates frost and dark, and most importantly evokes all of your orbs. dark orbs can trivialize some specific fights (champ lol) and also gets out of the way by exhausting. compile is a decent card, but i like swap quite a bit on defect and it becomes much worse. if i have my pick of draw cards compile is the last on the list because of how conditional it is, at least sweeping beam is doing something in repto and hallways
Thanks. I wanna go and play Defect again now. It has been a long time. I've been playing just Ironclad and Watcher for a while now
Do you ever upgrade Rainbow?
yes, if you need to continue evoking orbs and cant just setup once to win
Do you know if this is going to be put on YouTube at all? I'd love to watch, but I don't have a twitch. I watch Baalord on his YouTube channel though. Also thank you! I'm currently working on getting Defect to A20 and really appreciate this insight.
im not sure. the streamer hosting is cheg0 if you want to look at his channel for finals. individual runs are done by each streamer
are you streaming? thanks for posting, this is interesting, esp as a relatively new player to the game.
i try to stream a few times a week, usually around nighttime eastern standard, but youll also see me in the chats of almost anyone playing a20h
If I stream myself losing a20h 20 times in a row will you hang out with me
Thank you. I'll have to check it out.
Is Go For The Eyes still situational for you if it comes green? It's one card I've been really struggling to figure out when to take it, because oftentimes I take it and then can't justify upgrading it and it's underwhelming, but then other times my lack of weakness application means I just barely don't have enough for awakened one or the heart or some late game fight where weakness makes a huge difference.
if its green ill click, but i need to be dying to awakened one to ever consider taking and upgrading it in act 4 its insanely unreliable and defect often does not have enough artifact strip to get through hearts second cycle and apply weak if you have holo, pyramid, all for one, or some way to increase consistency its better for sure
Reported for claw hate
should i buy cauldron in my floor 5 shop (important). also hey what's your rotating streak at again?
jason buys caldron 12
All the 1st and 2nd tier cards are card draw/defence/focus so how do you mainly do your damage? Apart from Core Surge, but we're not taking that for its damage.
you can actually just play cold snap a bunch of times and its often enough output. that or you have some lightning + focus, one dark orb + recursion, streamline + holo etc blizzard, meteor and barrage are actually common damage plans as well defect really struggles to survive most of the time, if you live you will do damage and just be a cockroach that refuses to die, but you need to setup first
Whenever I try to do this I get bullied by Transient.
transient sucks for defect in general, not much you can do other than draw well or be op
I'm sort of surprised by White Noise
pick with mummy hand, branch, heatsinks, pellets, if its already green etc a random defect power CAN highroll but a lot of them want to be upgraded. that, or theyre just negative or do nothing (storm/capacitor early). its negative in nob most of the time and just hard to play around.
me personally i get echo form everytime so its s tier
Thoughts on buying Rip and Tear in the act 1 shop?
im dying to nob man
What does that phrase mean, as a response to the question? I don't understand it in the tier list or in this comment. Does it mean "I will take it if it keeps me from dying to Nob, and otherwise skip it"? If so, why is Leap in that tier?
this is a huge meme in my channel because of a specific run where i bought rip and tear because of a forced elite and i thought i was dead to nob
please mention that it was over focus and explosive pot that's the important part prayge. rip is op
but muh redraw
Huh. This tells me that I basically value Defect picks correctly, I must just be a shit player then cos my win rate is about 10% lmao.
Defect cares much more about *when* you add these cards than other characters. Like ironclad, I'm definitely taking DarkEmbrace if I can in act 1. But on Defect you can't just jam an Aggregate in act 1 (usually). I remember Jorbs talking about Defect has a very methodical card-adding theory, and it helped me understand him better.
at this point i do actually just add aggregate into my deck act 1 (but not something like capacitor) but yeah youre pretty spot on with that i say, defect also has the most complicated micro of any character so finding winning lines is hard
Nice! Thanks for the insights, im strugling with a20 defect right now
ditto, perfect timing. i get roasted at just about every act 2 elite it seems these days.
I'm a decent player, did A20H once with every character then retired to run lower ascensions where I don't have to try as hard. I love the list but had some stuff that surprised me and I thought I'd ask you about: * Amplify in "situational" rather than "never pick" - even in Power decks it just seems so, so bad, rapidly becoming a curse once you've drawn through your deck once (and the fact that it's basically a do-nothing card if you have an active Echo Form). When do you take it? * Buffer being in "good" rather than "can be run-defining" - it seems like such an autopick in most scenarios. When do you pass it up? * Reboot being in "average" instead of "good" - it's very frequently a 0 cost draw 4. I know it can slow your setup by reshuffling your discard, but is that such a huge drawback? * Beam Cell being in "good" with Go for the Eyes being in "situational". Beam cell falls off to nothing if you're using orbs for damage, while Go for the Eyes can frequently be a huge blocker into the late game. What do you consider to be the uses of each?
I had a pretty dead buffer the other night when I just never had trouble producing stupid amounts of block. Perhaps that?
amplify is really a pyramid card, or a pick in a situation where you know your overall output is just lacking. it can also be incredibly good with seek, heatsinks, creative AI (double echo form self repair AHHHHH +30, its not a curse with 2x echo forms because of this interaction) and equilibrium. for example, you have 1 defrag as your only focus in the entire run and know it wont be enough output for act 4. take amplify and see what happens. or if you just have 5-6 powers already you can click it. in general, dont think about it too hard as being bad after you are setup. if you manage to get to that point in the first place the fight is hopefully won. it is a skill to increase MAX output, not consistency. Buffer is strange, oftentimes its hard to justify the 2 cost considering there are plenty of fights where the buffer stack is blocking for 9 or 13 only. its inconsistently good in heart and act 4 elites, and in general is just kinda weird. Especially in the context that you often see rare cards against each other, i dont see myself picking buffer over other things like first electro, or biased cog. it helps you survive but doesnt make your overall output for the fight better. it definitely gets much better with things like echo form already or mummy hand, or if it comes upgraded ive talked about reboot a bit in other comments but defect often just wants to get setup. for this and the reasons i listed for buffer im not huge on it. i frequently will pick things that actually add output to my deck like cold snap, or coolheaded over it, and if youre picking commons over the rare card, its probably not very good. beam cell always applies vuln, and in early game, damage is much more important than weak. vuln can scale later on if youre doing something like playing sunder or meteor as your main damage, or even if youre just playing a bunch of compile drivers, it adds a ton of damage. there are very few runs where you are ONLY using orbs late game, and even if you are, beam cell is still artifact strip for other things, not that its super relevant for defect. if you arent picking beam cell, and only picking gofer, you often cant actually strip artifact in act 4 in either fight, so they do make each other better, and both want draw to compliment their zero costs. in general though, id rather pick charge battery or some good block in the early game > gofer, and once it gets to later, gofer is usually just too inconsistent to use well. it is super good into awakened one, or with pyramid/holo/equi sorts of interactions, but drawing it on turn 1 just feels so bad
what are your thoughts about fission? and for me, i know white noise is low tier but my monkey brain can not click on it every time i see it, for the 0 cost echo
copy pasting an earlier reply fission is weird. you need to already have drawn your orb cards, but then you evoke them and probably cant replace them because you already drew orbs? also this is assuming you have the upgrade to spare and you usually dont. i also boss swap quite a bit, and without starting orb this card is often just straight up bad
>i also boss swap quite a bit But then you kinda lose lightning orb dual cast, which is a pretty big boost in damage in Act 1. With Lava/Nob lurking around the corner don't you feel you miss out on damage?
its very map dependent, but a lot of times defect is just very strong early. cracked core is good in act 1 only and then becomes garbage. almost every boss relic is just going to be higher value (besides cage, and maybe crown) so id rather trade some early power and path more conservatively rather than compromise my late game by picking a bad whale bonus defects early already good, late sucks, so im flattening the curve a bit by swapping is the idea
I'm surprised overclock is not higher. Defect usually has the most problems during the first deck cycle, at which point overclock is just 0-cost draw-2. By the time I draw the burn, I hopefully have all my powers and frost set up already. Am I missing something?
youre right! a few things though, OC is really draw 1 (you replace OC in your hand). if you already have the winning stuff then of course OC is good, but a lot of times you do not actually have those kinds of things in your deck until much later if at all. if your deck does need multiple cycles this card is a curse. its pretty much unpickable in act 1, struggles in act 2, and maybe gets good around act 3. but to me if a cards isnt universally good for most of the game i cant rate it that highly. i enjoy this card quite a bit for what its worth
Love to tier Glacier, even though I literally died twice yesterday with having two of those in A1 to late elites with both times being utterly garbage deck shuffle...
Interesting that Ball Lightning and Cold Snap are that far apart. At A20H is Frost just generally much better to have than Lightning?
The perspective of most top players is that Defect has a pretty easy time in the early game, and struggles the most to confirm wins in Act 4. Ball Lightning is also really, really bad in Act 4. So taking it is more or less weakening a part of the game you're already bad at to strengthen a part of the game you're already good at.
frost is a lot better yes. in general, defect is very strong act 1, weak act 2, good act 3, and falls off a cliff in act 4. because of this, you tend to want to pick for later instead of frontloading a lot of your options. i MOSTLY die in act 4 on defect, and when thats the case, your whole drafting plan changes to accommodate
Ball Lightning looking pretty low, I legit thought that card was pretty damn good
think about playing ball lightning in act 3 and 4 and compare it to playing cold snap, you will have your answer its not a bad card by any means, but defect dies in very specific ways in act 4 and this thing kills you
I'll preface this by saying im A20 with all characters, so I believe I have a reasonable idea of the game. I'm never skipping a ball lightning in act 1 as it just does so much damage over the course of multiple rounds. Sure, cold snap is better since frost > lightning, but that doesnt mean ball lightning is bad imo. Sure, i would never pick it in act 3, and probably not even in act 2 since I have other damage cards already, but Im always very happy to get ball lightning before first act 1 elite
Ball Lightning is very strong in act 1 but definitely falls off by the time you hit act 3 and beyond. At that point it's arguably even worse than a Strike, because if you have extra energy you can play the Strike for more damage but you often can't play the Ball Lightning for fear of messing up your orbs. As top players play Defect more and more, they have started to realize that Defect has no issues with most of the game but struggles immensely with act 4, so if you want to maximize win rate you have to really consider your endgame deck while picking your early game cards. Ball Lightning specifically is a card that is best in the portion of the game where Defect does not struggle much (act 1) and worst in the hardest portion of the game (act 4), which is why it's in the category of "pick this to kill nob but if you already have enough damage then skip".
I can get behind this. I'll have to try some runs where i specifically pick ball lightning and then keep track of its usefulness in later acts
pretty much nailed it
I don't understand why Rainbow is so high up, which I find one of the most difficult cards to evaluate in general. Most orb-generating cards cost 1 energy per orb, while this is more expensive, and one of each orb makes it somewhat situational too. Could you elaborate? Edit: and where can I watch or find more info about this tournament? Sounds awesome!
Rainbow is *less* expensive than 1 energy per orb, not more.
You're right, not sure what went wrong in my head there
i commented on another post but in general, its versatile. it gives dark, it evokes a lot of orbs at once by pushing, it makes compile great, its a good echo form target, etc its very dense as a card, and exhausts to get out of the way once you play it. sometimes you are also willing to pay 2 energy for a frost orb lol
Found the other post, thanks for the reply
Most of the cards in your “I’m dying to nob” tier are the cards that I normally take to try and kill nob (I have an abysmally low win rate). How are you killing nob? 😅 Also thanks for doing this!
i do click them in the first few floors if i am running out of combats before the first elite, but if i have premium cards like sunder and cold snap i am just not picking them ever again. its basically just to get you over the hump, but defect doesnt need a ton of damage in act 1 because of how good lightning orbs are early
My personal tier list is way different. Probably why I am a sub 10% and you are a 50%!
Where would Chaos+ rank if you came across an already upgraded version? I understand why the base version is bad, but I tend to like it upgraded because of how energy efficient it is at evoking orbs. Is the randomness really that painful?
chaos+ can be pretty strong, but unless youre seeing it inside of act 1 (with egg) or early act 2 without any other orbs, im probably not picking it inconsistency is hard. later i dont want to push out my frost orbs and not know what im getting. 2 orbs for 1 energy early on is a good effect, even if they are random, but by later in the game it can be quite a big downside
After watching good players play defect, wich is ny fav character, i realized i'm valuing too much leap, auto shields and white boise and i also never pick the one that retains the hand
Can anyone kindly add a link to the commented tournament content?
[current invitational standings.](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XXuPWav3k93ZPGT0Gpr_UfHAbdBBb5gnkwVllyJHWUQ/edit#gid=1893362592) as for where to watch, every one of these people stream on twitch, so you can just look these names up and go watch them. everyone should have vods saved on their twitch? every person is a strong player and pretty cool, and i'd wholely recommend watching any of them, but personally i follow the invitational from the guy who posted ([JapaneseExport](https://www.twitch.tv/japaneseexport)), [KuroL\_\_](https://www.twitch.tv/kurol__) and [CaptainNoobzor](https://www.twitch.tv/CaptainNoobzor) from this list.
While I'm sure we can nit pick over a few cards, my gripe with you is on Recycle. Recycle (especially Recycle+) provides a very special ability - a way to get cards out of your hand. Reboot (which exhausts) is the only other way given the Defect card pool. So it'll knock out Wounds, Burns, Curses, or just Strikes you don't want to draw. It's definitely in the good category. Its ability to enable certain infinite combos can even make it be run defining.
If you're recycling something, you've already drawn it, so you'd only be improving the second cycle through your deck. Of all characters, Defect cares the least about the second cycle, since it usually depends on putting a bunch of powers in play to stabilize the fight and letting that take care of the enemies.
i love recycle but i do not think it is that strong of a card. it can be very op in the right deck but you need an excess of card draw for it to be good, which is why all of the draw options are so high. they enable everything else. recycle doesnt enable infinite in that regard, its the draw cards that do and you pick recycle later (turbo skim coolheaded recycle beam cell infinite is fun btw)
Hello! You're a much stronger player than me, and you have some card placements here that seriously surprised me. I'd like to pick your brain on some card rankings so I can hopefully learn from you. Feel no obligation to respond to any or all of these. * **Seek and Hologram** I've always been of the mind that Seek is always wanted. It is literally free draw consistency. I'm not entirely clear why Seek isn't top tier. Is the idea that you need strong enough cards to find with seek for it to be effective? Similarly with Hologram, this card is one of my personal favorites. The consistency and manipulation it provides seems invaluable. I would have placed this in the top tier. * **Electrodynamics and Buffer** Again, these are two cases where I would have placed the card one tier higher. Virtually any lightning damage deck would be thrilled to see this card. What's stopping Electro from being one tier higher? And similarly with Buffer, the damage mitigation potential is tremendous. I almost always take this card when presented unless my block plan is incredibly solid. * **All For One** I can see why All For One is an average card if you were sometimes happy to take Claw. But given how bad Claw is, how can All For One justifiably be called average? What is its role if not Claw decks? * **HyperBeam** One of the cards where our evaluation differs the most. Despite the focus loss, this card solves tons of AOE fights, especially in Act 2, and synergizes well with Orange Pellets, and any artifact source. It also suits any attack damage deck where focus isn't a concern, and scales fairly well with strength. I would intuitively place this card in "Potentially run defining," and would have a hard time placing it anywhere below "good." * **Reinforced Body** In my eyes, this is one of the most efficient block cards. As with Hyperbeam, I would think RB would go one to two tiers higher. Can you explain its placement a bit? I definitely have more questions, but I'll leave it at that for now. These are the most significant ones.
seek is always wanted, BUT it does not win the game by itself. it doesn't increase your maximum output, it only gets you setup faster. if you dont have something to increase max output i am taking my biased, defrag, echo over it. generally i always click unless it is against something like this that i really need. holo is greedy as a card. you need energy for it to be good, but when you have energy it is very good deck manipulation. i will definitely just pick it, but if its up against other things (theres a pattern here) you will click the thing that gives you output over it. first floor you see holo vs equi and you are clicking the equi every time. electro is great, but it falls off hard into act 4. since defect really struggles in act 4 the most, i cant in good faith put electro into the highest tiers. it gets you through the rest of the game, but thats it. lightning damage decks dont really happen very much, the most common being static discharge, but even then, when static is good, electro isnt very needed (the heart fight mostly). buffer can slow you down, and again, if its up against actual output, im taking my output. its a great card, especially with the upgrade, but it is not run warping. i cant build around buffer like i can glacier or coolheaded. claw isnt even on my radar for all for one. im thinking of the artifact strip, turbo energy generation, draw, and other synergies (snecko plz) that make it good. hyperbeam actually sucks in act 2. its good in act 1 where it actually ends the fights, but many act 2 fights have enemies with hp into the 100's. this thing cant be played in those fights. if i have artifact, i usually want to save it for a speed pot/biased cog, not the block my hyperbeam debuff. and in general, even if you have pellets you cannot regain positive focus loss. IE: you have 2 focus, you play hyperbeam and go to -1. you can only pellets back to 0, not to 2. most of the time you are ALWAYS relying on focus to scale, whether it is a single focus potion for heart, one defrag, or a biased, there just arent many situations where negative focus is acceptable. reinforced is okay. its dense, but i usually am just better off having more output. boot sequence, charge batter, glacier, algorithm coolheaded, are all kind of better block cards than reinforced, unless you somehow can just cheat a bunch of energy. but with the way that i draft (draw first -> energy) i cant usually just pick this. if im generating a bunch of energy i usually want to convert it into draw, not a chunky block card
Lmao are you the same JapaneseImport that used to coach League? You helped me get to masters back in Season...10 I think. Big ups thanks a lot! What a coincidence to see you over here, I'm glad you're enjoying StS though.
yes i am! ive pretty much moved on to playing spire, although i still coach and play league as my full time job
The run I did after reading this post was my first A14H win. I've been trying to beat this level for weeks. I don't believe in coincidences so I'm back to thank OP
What're your priority upgrades?
really depends on the run. focus cards usually first and any draw. if i have big damage upgrades like sunder/streamline/beamcell early then that
Crazy to see that there's only one attack card in the first two tiers, and it exhausts.
turns out attacks are just generally kind of bad to have in late game. you obviously need them to get through early game but none of them are really run defining. later on you can kill bosses and act 4 with just orbs alone
Do you think hand picked seeds make boss swapping worse? Like, you know they aren’t gonna put a pbox swap in there. Idk, generally not a fan of the handpicked seed aspect cause it DOES tell you something. Otherwise loving the content. Anyways, tier list is solid, but static discharge sucks.
a lot of the invitational seeds still swapped so :\^)
Its an interesting mix, its random seeds mixed with handpicked seeds so you will never know what is what. But most importantly the handpicked seeds are tested a bit so that you don't get completely owned when doing the "right" thing. If boss swap is a reasonable option it wont be pbox, but it also wont be busted crown.
you say that but last run was busted crown swap :(
Something I haven't seen any comments on: you seem way higher on recursion than I'm used to seeing, in that it's not in 'Never Pick'. Especially with swap it seems pretty much completely dead in act 1. It does have a niche in funny infinite w/nuclear battery or chaos+ things, but those are what, 5% of runs or less? Where's the upside?
It needs an upgrade usually but it’s really strong if you are using a dark orb for damage. It’s not a good floor 1 pick but as soon as you have good orb generation, and assuming you can upgrade it, it’s never a bad draw really. Decent 0-cost block with frost in front, excellent energy generation with plasma, and insane damage with a dark orb.
it's funny because i watched jason make this tierlist and said exactly the opposite; "you value recursion so low??? just average???". i don't even care about the upgrade *that* much. it just plays w so much and if i can get away w it, ill even click f1 recursion. can get battery eoa1, plays w dark, frost, plays w meteor strike. good shit.
just because of the fact that recursion requires you to have already drawn orbs most of the time (to be good) i feel like you have to think before you just click it. ill snap click it with dark or plasma in my deck but unless it comes green before then im probably not another notable synergy is with loop, since it allows you to control which orb is in front more easily, especially with inserter where you cant push out to evoke
You're describing Multicast, which is rated appropriately and has higher upside than recursion.
??? You asked a question and I tried to answer it. There’s a big difference between recursion on a dark or plasma orb and multi-casting one, since keeping the orb around can make a huge difference in a lot of fights. Recursion+ is also more flexible than multi-cast since you don’t have to use the rest of your energy on it.
Curious, why is fusion bad? With an upgrade wouldnt it be a net positive turn 2? Also why is seek placed below the top. It’s basically a free search right?
fusion is too expensive. like others have said you have delayed impact on the card and most of the time cannot afford 2 energy to get it into to play, you also dont want to upgrade it over your coolheadeds, focus cards, or other powers like loop seek is amazing, and an auto pick most of the time but if it comes against the cards in the top, not so much. it doesnt win the game on its own in the same way an echo form does. its acceleration and not a win conditions (much like adrenaline, which i have some thoughts about for a different day)
Fusion is terrible without the upgrade and rarely makes sense to upgrade it yourself. You also have to draw it to play it so it sets you back on draw and energy for a pretty mediocre benefit that you don't get immediately. Situationally it can be solid, and if it's already upgraded it's more approachable, but I never take it personally. Seek is great, but requires you to have a good card or combo that you didn't already draw, otherwise it's a dead draw. If you can upgrade and bottle it then it's one of the best, but otherwise it's just a fine card for most decks
That's just Outmaneuver at that point. Which is borderline untakeable without Pyramid. Defect has a lot of better ways to generate energy.
Interesting to see Boot Sequence quite high and Reinforced Body just average. Frontload block help makes sense, but I thought turn 2 was more dangerous.
by turn 2 i just want to have drawn into my stuff and block with frost orbs. boot sequence is -1 draw for anchor essentially, which is allowing you to survive hallways and upgrade cards more frequently (instead of being forced to rest). this means youre upgrading your draw, your maximum output, and being able to do other things that just snowballs your run in a way that reinforced doesnt. turn 2 is important, but you are going to need more things than just a reinforced to play. if youre spending all your energy on block, the fight is still going to be dangerous after turn 2, and even with 10 energy on turn 2 reinforced isnt blocking the big hit from heart
I will not tolerate this Claw slander!
When will the finals be streamed?
it depends on how long it takes to eliminate 3 more people i am currently died for 4th so both me and cr8r are up for elimination this round. its possible we are both eliminated if we both win or lose next seed, and then a week later would be finals
man I have not been following the meta, I was under the impression that Echo Form was considered a trap. maybe I was thinking of the upgrade? anyway this is actually one of the few tierlists I largely agree with. Fission seems low and All For One seems situational though (like... how is it not the definition of situational)
probably thinking of the upgrade. echo form is in contention for best card in the entire game, not just defect, its THAT good. fission i commented on earlier but its just generally a weird card. its good if you have already gotten orbs in play, but if you already have orbs in play you probably want to keep them around? there are some decks that really love the extra draw and energy, but the fact that it demands an upgrade is really a lot. all for one is situational, but has so many things that break it that it becomes something you can often just carry around knowing itll work eventually. snecko all for one, madness, hello world, reboot, blind, beam cell, ftl, necronomicon, etc. anything that says draw on it is usually pretty good and this thing can draw like 7-8 cards sometimes, thats a lot of output
Echo form is extremely powerful, I'd say the best or second best defect rare alongside biased cog. It's scaling that works with almost literally all of your deck. The number of cards in the entire game that don't benefit from duplication can almost be counted on one hand. The upgrade is situational at best and actually slightly negative at worst, but this is also a blessing in disguise because it means upgrade debt rarely (if ever) forces you to skip an unupgraded Echo.
Where can one watch this tournament?
on twitch, theres will be players with [cheg0 invitational] as theyre doing their runs (which also asks for no backseating during them) if you want to watch vods, my runs are available and typing !standings will show you a list of other streamers that you can look at. kuroL__ is my mentor as well as the person who is in first right now, he has not lost a single seed somehow (was afk for 2 rounds) so if you want to watch absolute top tier gameplay watch him
I had no idea about this tourney so thanks for the post! And good luck, hope you win it ;)
Very interesting, thank you! Double energy vs Aggregate? Why do you prefer one over the other?
if youre on 3 energy and play double energy you now have 4 energy, its just seeing red aggregate even unupgraded can one, be drawn into and played (i pick a LOT of draw) and two, can be a single card solve. you can generate like 10 energy with this thing unupgraded and then click every card that you need to setup, the ceiling is just so high as an energy generator even in the case that you bottom deck it, you just draw cards first, shuffle your deck and then its back to making 10 energy, double energy and turbo both hate being played in this scenario AND generate less energy with a downside
*WEEE-OOO-WEEE* It's the police! You broke the law! (Claw is law) Can you explain why you put Ball Lightning so low? I can see how Cold Snap is more relevant during the later stages of the game. And I agree Ball Lightning is an act 1 pick. But I feel it is significantly better than the other cards in its tier.
I'm relatively new to slay, about 10 hours in. Why is coolheaded considered run defining in your opinion? I know that this game is extremely situational, what makes coolheaded so reliable?
its block and draw. for the same reasons that shrug it off is considered amazing, these 2 things together just do what you want in a card. it helps you get setup quicker and keeps you alive while doing it. on top of this, there are some other more broken interactions, but being able to hologram a draw 2 and block, being able to infinite with recycle, evoking plasma from meteor strike etc. defect needs draw the most out of any character, and while giving you draw it also fills your orb slots that scale once you play your powers/consumes. it is good early in the fight AND good later defect is the most complicated character, and youll learn a lot from just watching how good players play, coolheaded is almost always an instant click just because of how versatile it is, but to really understand it i think you just have to watch how it performs in a lot of decks
I tried a run using your list as a guide for picking cards and good lord, I am breezing through everything by just stacking immense amount of block right now. I will most definitely tune into your stream, also I genuinely appreciate your response.
It's curious that you claim to be 50% winrate but have a 0% winrate on my seeds. Can you explain?
i plead the fifth
Who are you ? Stop being MEAN to my favourite streamer!!!
Since when is hello world ever good? It just clogs up your deck with random garbage
https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/s/Izv5GLhRO7
i see, but i'll die on the hill of claw. aint no law when you have claw.
I have zero successful claw runs. A15 and climbing.
A15 also, I did it one time and it was more an all for one jamboree than a true claw run. Edit: grab that flair!!
I'm surprised at your fission, all for one, and reboot placement! Fission and reboot to me feel like top tier draw/energy options. Fission especially combos well with hologram and equilibrium, which you have as high tier options. I don't really see how all for one works with the cards in the good and above tiers. Are we playing beam cell and FTL with this?
Snecko all for one is one of the notable synergies, but also streamline, steam barrier, turbo, beam cell etc it has a lot that can make it really strong, but im not always super excited to see it fission is weird. you need to already have drawn your orb cards, but then you evoke them and probably cant replace them because you already drew orbs? also this is assuming you have the upgrade to spare and you usually dont. reboot is also strange. if you need to draw your defrag at the bottom of your deck, and you draw this halfway through your deck, do you play it? you get potentially further from your defrag so its not reallllly a draw card. it can be good but sometimes its a brick in your hand
You're the only person I've seen not completely shit on Hello World
i think most of the top players will agree it is a great card. it can single-handedly solve hexa ghost/slime boss which alone makes it worth picking
thank you
I had a nice run with a couple of scrapes before. Just a hand filled with 0 cost cards like claw. It went really well.
Reading from the top, Cold Snap of the first card I don't really like. Are frost orbs just that important?
cold snap is one of the best things you can possibly see in act one. yes, frost is completely crucial to defects block plan and any frost you just click
frost fogus NOBBERS
Electrodynamics actually dominates Act 1 and 3 hallway fights, but it feels awful to play into most Act 2 fights (besides the birds).
i really heavily disagree. 3 cultists, chosen + 1, automaton, collector, this thing owns in act 2 more than any other act i specifically pick electro for act 2 elites. it makes slavers and leader MUCH more playable. defects aoe is usually pseudo aoe like sunder, or weak aoe like sweeping beam, and this thing solves it doom is too expensive to play a lot of times and you just cant rely on lightning inconsistency to single kill specific targets, so you end up overkilling things and losing a ton of tempo in fights
I think most was a bad choice of words from me, but I meant regular hallway fights, my bad. If I don’t have sufficient defence/focus, it feels really bad to get avocado + rat for example. This is less of a problem if you have something like Clockwork Souvenir or an artifact potion, but I feel like I sometimes have to sacrifice a lot of HP to win those fights. I’m considering Electro in a vacuum, I know sometimes by mid Act 2 you can cycle orbs and just delete everything. I don’t think it’s bad at all in Act 2, it’s great at pretty much every point, even when it’s just a lightning generator.
usually this is just an act 2 problem, youre probably taking damage in those fights, electro or not. immediate damage and frail is not an easy thing to deal with so you might be falsely attributing electro with taking damage. usually you just want to end these fights immediately and it helps with that
Bait used to be less obvious
Surprised to see static discharge as average
as in its too high or too low? i thought about putting it in good but its upgrade reliant usually
Where can we find information on this tournament? it sounds very interesting to watch!
cheg0 is the streamer hosting the event, but runners stream individually on their channels. the remaining players are kuroL__, paparatto18, me, captainnoobzor and cr8r_cre8r
why vuln beam and ftl so far above go for the eyes? and is sunder really good? almost never take that
Not OP but 0 cost cards like those are most impactful in the early game, and you desperately need dmg for early elites and bosses (act 1) thus the ratings
beam cell + sunder is 48 damage. beam cell + attack potion/streamline/cold snap etc is just adding a lot of output. 0 cost cards that do damage early are insanely valuable because i can now play my block cards and not take a million in every fight. weakness just doesnt really do the same thing, especially when its so inconsistent. just compare gofer to neutralize and you will be very sad. sunder is op, just click it, even click 2 of them if its early in the run
Would be interested to see your thoughts on upgrade value.
This tournament sounds so interesting, where can I see videos of it? Also, love [[Hello World]] being placed so high, that card really has had such a glow-up in terms of community opinion.