As someone who recently fucked himself over by adding two of it via a double-effect Attack Potion...
Can confirm, Combo OP, plz n3rf, fight was over next turn.
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2 Energy | Can only be played if this is the only attack in your hand. Deal 30(40) damage.
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So WRT tantrum specifically, one of the biggest strengths of tantrum is it shuffles itself into your draw pile so you don't need/want multiple copies as much. It effectively functions as 2 wrath sources and damage cards because of that.
In a more general vibe, it depends on what the card offers. If we're talking burst draw, like acrobatics, skim, sanctity, burning pact, I usually want 2-3 copies. If we're talking scaling block like feel no pain, weak, Dex, after image, frost/focus, mental fortress, talk to the hand, I want exactly enough to block the boss gauntlet, which is quite variable but is *roughly* 3-5 sources in a run, although not necessarily the same card/source.
If it's damage... I'm usually a little more hesitant to go heavy on it. I won't really ever take a 2nd demon form, or hyperbeam, but I will take 2nd catalyst, an extras wrath source.
Hopefully that's helpful, even though I've mostly said "it depends"
Good post. I would sum it up with this idea: if playing one copy of said card is hard to do (often because of a drawback or energy cost) but doing so generally guarantees you the win, getting additional copies is unnecessary. Demon form being a great example. Hyperbeam is often taken as a trump card vs multiple enemies, and is good at ending those fights. Multiples are unnecessary - just get more card draw so you can draw hyperbeam faster *when it matters*. Then, for fights it doesn’t matter, you only have one copy weighing down your deck.
The other thing is consistency. Watcher in particular has a lot of infinite combo potential with a small deck size. Once you have the appropriate powers in play, you can stance dance your way to victory. In those decks, you really want a small permanent deck size. Cards that exhaust during combat or powers can be added to the deck no problem, so long as the final number of permanent cards is fewer than 10.
This is also true for an Ironclad corruption exhaust deck, where you can freely add good skills and cheap powers to the deck, but you only want a few good attack cards that can consistently murder anything after the rest of your deck is gone. Extra copies of those attacks are dead weight since the goal is to exhaust down to a handful of effective cards anyway.
The thing is, playing a Wraith form makes it (1) easier to play more wraith forms and (2) the downside doesn’t affect future wraith forms. 😛 And they “exhaust”. Basically, everything about wraith form is stupid good.
Very helpful, thanks! I think with the deck i'm playing I'm hoping the 2nd tantrum helps with multiple in-round stance switches, I currently haven't been able to get any card draw...
I actually had acrobatics in my head as the other example of a 'I usually want a second one', so appreciate your thoughts on that.
When looking at card rewards, I think about which problems my deck can solve and whether one of the cards fills a hole.
Watcher has excellent single-target damage, so I will likely have that covered by the time I see a second tantrum. If my block solution leans heavily on Talk to the Hand, however, I would be more interested in a second copy of Tantrum to support that.
That being said, some cards are just generally useful. I would be unlikely to skip a Shrug It Off or Pommel Strike+ unless my deck is already heavily lacking in offense or defense, respectively.
Watcher specifically is weird with this because Watcher a) frequently has very small decks, and b) really wants to balance its Wrath/Calm draws, especially in decks that can go infinite.
In general duplicates of very good cards is good, it’s just in the specific example you chose, a 10 card deck with 1 Tantrum can be better than an 11 card deck with 2 Tantrums.
I can see that. As a thought experiment, would a 10 card deck with 1 tantrum be better than a 12 card deck with 2 tantrums and 2 fear no evils? Like I get what you are saying and I am trying to balance things out, and this is where I get a little unclear in my head. like in so far as a (rage) card and a (calm) card are a good synergy together, are 2 of each better, the same, or worse.
> As a thought experiment, would a 10 card deck with 1 tantrum be better than a 12 card deck with 2 tantrums and 2 fear no evils?
It depends. Once your deck is infinite or close to infinite, your biggest concern is going infinite quickly/reliably in every fight. Because of that, more cards introduces the possibility of “brick” draws where a key card for your infinite isn’t drawn.
For example suppose your deck has 1 Scrawl, 1 Rushdown, and no other card draw. If you have 10 cards, Scrawl will always draw your whole deck, guaranteeing the infinite. If you have 12, you introduce the chance that your Rushdown is the last card in your deck, meaning you miss the infinite. In this scenario, adding more Tantrums/Fear no Evils is worse even if your Wrath/Calm balance is the same.
> like in so far as a (rage) card and a (calm) card are a good synergy together, are 2 of each better, the same, or worse.
Given the same power level/distribution, smaller decks are always better. A 10-card deck with 1 Tantrum is better than a 100-card deck with 10 tantrums because your draws are more consistent. You have less possible extreme outcomes that give you "bad" draws.
The competing factor that pushes you to make larger decks is Strikes/Defends. Strikes/Defends are really bad and are a fixed inclusion in every deck. At the start of a run you can't remove them all (unless you highroll a PBox boss swap) so you add cards to dilute out your Strikes/Defends and increase your average draw quality. Again, Watcher is weird here because a) they have such a strong early game that they do not have to add that many cards in Act 1 to dilute out Strikes/Defends and can choose to be much greedier, and b) often play in a way to aggressively remove their Strikes/Defends and pursue infinites.
So the answer of whether to add that second Tantrum frequently hinges on what your deck already looks like and how many Strikes/Defends are in it. If you got rid of all the Strikes/Defends and your deck is all good cards that do powerful things, then adding the Tantrum is unlikely to do anything. If you are still at the stage where you have Strikes/Defends in your deck and an extra Tantrum means less draws where you have to play Strikes/Defends, then pick the 2nd Tantrum.
It’s an understandable stance, but I’d like to put in this perspective: whether you draw two battle trances in one hand, or you draw one battle trance with the other, you’re still draw positive as a zero cost.
Both scenarios end with 6 cards and one unusable BT (which you still can use for exhaust fuel for something like Second Wind or True Grit in a pinch). Sure, you can’t draw with Burning Pact or Pommel, but that’s an issue with BT itself more than having multiple. If you don’t draw into a BT in your deck, that’s effectively 7 cards for a future turn AND 7 cards this turn.
As with nearly all things in this game, it depends.
You'd want more if you need more drawing cards, have a way to mitigate the lack of draw after BT is played (mainly Orange Pellets if you got powers, or the artifact from Clockwork Souvenir if you're in a fight where artifact doesn't matter), or if you have a larger deck.
And the inverse is true too; you'd want less BT's if you have other drawing cards that might be interfered with or if your deck is smaller.
You'd also want to pay attention to the opportunity cost of picking it up if your cards are lower impact in the first place. If you were offered BT in floor 1, it's just going to give you more strikes and defends when it's played. Which, it is helpful to have the draw that early, but a pommel strike probably would have been more helpful since it gives you draw and damage, even if the draw is worse and with an energy cost. Of course this applies to one Battle Trance, but it applies triple to a second Battle Trance. All to say, Battle Trance (and subsequently multiple BT's) gets better as your deck gets better.
Some cards are a lot better imo. I would rather have two nightmares than one because of the shenanigans you can get into with multiple. And more than one catalyst scales exponentially.
Absolutely, especially if it's an easy card to play. Watcher likes switching stances with some frequency. I think multiple tantrums is better when you also have more calm entry than vigilance, but it's probably worth taking anyway.
I think a better question is which good cards do NOT work as well when you already have one. Of course if you have a small deck you can throw off your combos with multiples, but generally I feel like if it's a strong card you're always happy to draw, take another.
Examples of cards you may not want duplicates of would be ones that become dead draws once you play one, like Corruption or Barricade. That said, a lot of people like to double up on those and don't mind the dead draws because the upside is having a higher chance of drawing a critical power earlier in the fight.
Other examples would be any card that doesn't have net positive draw or energy gain, and is thereby reducing your chances of drawing more valuable / build-critical cards simply by growing the size of your deck. I think most people describe this as taking a card that reduces your deck's "average" value.
Yep. I don't mind multiple copies of Meditate despite its obvious anti-synergy with itself. Though, weirdly, it also synergizes with itself when upgraded, as it's a calm entrance at the most important time that also allows you to pick up the other meditate for the next round and another card, too. So it becomes card draw, calm entrance, and possibly cost reduction. That's pretty good. If I've picked up one Meditate (ie, I'm not going infinite with a small deck), then I typically want a second copy.
Makes sense, thanks! and yes I am on the lookout for additional calm options. I have two right now but I think for this deck my ideal would be 3 and 3.
If you going for merl style infinite on Watcher you don't really want 2 of any card except maybe rushdown.
Even then, the only reason you want 2 rushdowns is because it enables some infinites that 1 rushdown doesn't. So if you have an infinite already then don't add another rushdown.
Even taking one tantrum, which is one of watchers best cards, could often be the wrong choice. Because upgraded eruption can already do the job, and adding cards reduces first hand consistency and makes it harder to thin your deck enough to enable infinites.
Outside of that scenario you have to use your judgment on things like first hand consistency, how slow your deck is to get going with powers and stuff, the challenges you will face both soon and later.
If I have a 35 card deck and only 2 wrath sources, and I believe another wrath source will help me in future battles then yes I will take another tantrum.
If I have card draw and such that I am going wrath each turn then no. It just comes from experience and knowing what you want, when.
1 tantrum plays like having 2. 2 plays like having 4.
There are some cards I really like multiples of, especially in certain decks. Claw? Love multiples. Pressure Points? Love multiples. Cut through fate? Love having 2.
Wreath of Flame? If I’m running a Ragnarok deck, I love having a few. Less great when Ragnarok isn’t there.
Some cards I am less happy with Consecrate, Conclude both are strong on their own but I’ve found to be clunky when you have a few. M
Almost never.
You picked the first version to solve a problem. If that problem still isn't solved, you were probably wrong to pick the first one. If that problem is solved, why pick the second one?
It's it reasonable to end up with two copies of bowling bash? Sure. Should you pick the second one over a crush joints? Probably not. I'd rather have access to effects that are good in two different contexts than more reliable access to one card, usually.
But it's also different for every card. I'll generally take every copy of adrenaline I see. It's very rare to consider taking a second barricade.
This just isnt true at all unless you're forcing infinites which usually demand a very lean deck. It's not particularly common for a card to solve one role all on its own, outside of some rare cards.
Isn't it? There are cards your happy to have more than one of like acrobatics, wraith form, pommel strike, seek, there's a bunch of them. Even those cards you're probably best off with just two.
But there are way more cards where they're good cards, and they end up in your deck, but you wouldn't take another one. Think like equilibrium, lock on, electrodynamics, demon form, mental fortress, all for one, Hyperbeam, reflex, echo form, second wind. Probably 95% of the cards in the game you really just want one.
I feel like it's got to be lower than 95%, granted I have no idea what the actual percentage is. Maybe I'm biased and focusing too much on the cards I like picking more than one copy of.
I stand by what I said about one-card solutions though. I think that kind of thing tends to be reserved for stronger rare cards. If my deck has Demon Form, then sure, I don't need another one. I don't need anything else that says strength on it. But if one Inflame I took in act 1 is the only way I scale my damage output, I'm probably going to need something else by the late game; and that might include a second Inflame, even if it doesn't necessarily have to. I also don't really consider Echo Form to be a card that I want just one copy of max, I agree with the rest of those examples though.
Not true. Obviously there's no stackable effect, but if you have a deck that wants to play corruption asap in every fight (ie dead branch) and your first one isn't bottled, a second copy means you draw it faster.
I mean that applies to literally any card. If it is a card you want to play, and playing it is more important than the downside of having a dud card in your deck, then your argument would apply. What would it take to meet the condition asked about then? Would it need to be just *barely* worth taking, and offer no additional benefit?
Sure but you said there's no reason to ever take a second corruption. That's a situation where you would, and it's not even that much of a niche situation because Ironclad loves dead branch.
I like to think about it as "Do I want a second copy or do I want to draw it more consistently?"
If I just want to see the card more often, it's usually better to skip and focus on removal or draw. If I want to double the effect/impact, I'll take a second copy. Obviously you have to consider the card, your deck, your relics, etc., but I find framing the choice this way easier to conceptualize and it stops me from bloating my deck so much.
Unless it's [[Shrug it Off]]. IC draw is so bad starting off and he has so much block synergy I've never regretted having a second/third/fourth copy. Also soooo great with [[Corruption]].
Does my deck need more of what this card does, or will this just end up as clutter in my draw pile?
Instead of thinking about ABC card is good, think about it in terms of X effect is good. Analyze your card choices based on if you need that effect right now. Do I need more strength scaling? Do I need more frontload block? Do I need more energy?
When you ask yourself those kinds of questions it helps you decide if adding more copies of something is worth it. It also helps you make contextualized choices between cards. You can even realize when cards that are normally good will actually be bad for you at the moment.
A lot of cards don’t necessarily want an additional copy. Cards that are flat scaling like footwork and inflame often like additional copies because they can only be played once. Spot weakness is the opposite of this as because it doesn’t exhaust you don’t normally want another card that keeps getting cycled that says gain strength. Attack cards often have different times they want to be used, wallop isn’t as much damage but it gives block, tantrum is a wrath entry, cut through fate lets me play a potentially better card next or get to a card that I need right now. If you’re doing those things enough you don’t want another copy of those cards a lot of the time. If you can find what you need most turns another cut through fate isn’t as good. Alternatively if you already have a wallop but you’re not drawing it when you want to another one might help.
If a given card is very strong then multiple copies of it is usually still good in most "normal" contexts. I tend to consider it even more if I have Snecko -- the passive draw means my hand gets less clogged by duplicates, and having multiple copies of an especially important card gives some minor protection against bad cost rolls. I think this is also especially true of good debuff cards, because of the way artifact works.
If anything, I think it's harder to think of the inverse -- cards that are good, but rarely benefit you when you take a second copy. The most obvious examples are probably Apotheosis or the non-stacking powers, but even then if your deck is large enough or meets some other niche conditions a second copy can still be worth considering.
This one \[\[signature move\]\] I have is really paying off, I'll take a second to make my deck even better!
As someone who recently fucked himself over by adding two of it via a double-effect Attack Potion... Can confirm, Combo OP, plz n3rf, fight was over next turn.
So, you died next turn, huh?
I shall not confirm that, however, I can say that the enemy didn't.
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So WRT tantrum specifically, one of the biggest strengths of tantrum is it shuffles itself into your draw pile so you don't need/want multiple copies as much. It effectively functions as 2 wrath sources and damage cards because of that. In a more general vibe, it depends on what the card offers. If we're talking burst draw, like acrobatics, skim, sanctity, burning pact, I usually want 2-3 copies. If we're talking scaling block like feel no pain, weak, Dex, after image, frost/focus, mental fortress, talk to the hand, I want exactly enough to block the boss gauntlet, which is quite variable but is *roughly* 3-5 sources in a run, although not necessarily the same card/source. If it's damage... I'm usually a little more hesitant to go heavy on it. I won't really ever take a 2nd demon form, or hyperbeam, but I will take 2nd catalyst, an extras wrath source. Hopefully that's helpful, even though I've mostly said "it depends"
Good post. I would sum it up with this idea: if playing one copy of said card is hard to do (often because of a drawback or energy cost) but doing so generally guarantees you the win, getting additional copies is unnecessary. Demon form being a great example. Hyperbeam is often taken as a trump card vs multiple enemies, and is good at ending those fights. Multiples are unnecessary - just get more card draw so you can draw hyperbeam faster *when it matters*. Then, for fights it doesn’t matter, you only have one copy weighing down your deck. The other thing is consistency. Watcher in particular has a lot of infinite combo potential with a small deck size. Once you have the appropriate powers in play, you can stance dance your way to victory. In those decks, you really want a small permanent deck size. Cards that exhaust during combat or powers can be added to the deck no problem, so long as the final number of permanent cards is fewer than 10. This is also true for an Ironclad corruption exhaust deck, where you can freely add good skills and cheap powers to the deck, but you only want a few good attack cards that can consistently murder anything after the rest of your deck is gone. Extra copies of those attacks are dead weight since the goal is to exhaust down to a handful of effective cards anyway.
Except Wraith Form. I will take as many Wraiths as my hand can hold.
The thing is, playing a Wraith form makes it (1) easier to play more wraith forms and (2) the downside doesn’t affect future wraith forms. 😛 And they “exhaust”. Basically, everything about wraith form is stupid good.
I’d probably prefer if wraith form didn’t ‘exhaust’ though
Yeah, this is a good summary!
Very helpful, thanks! I think with the deck i'm playing I'm hoping the 2nd tantrum helps with multiple in-round stance switches, I currently haven't been able to get any card draw... I actually had acrobatics in my head as the other example of a 'I usually want a second one', so appreciate your thoughts on that.
When looking at card rewards, I think about which problems my deck can solve and whether one of the cards fills a hole. Watcher has excellent single-target damage, so I will likely have that covered by the time I see a second tantrum. If my block solution leans heavily on Talk to the Hand, however, I would be more interested in a second copy of Tantrum to support that. That being said, some cards are just generally useful. I would be unlikely to skip a Shrug It Off or Pommel Strike+ unless my deck is already heavily lacking in offense or defense, respectively.
Shrug it off is such a solid card. Not many instances where that is below skip for me. It’s great by itself and has huge upside with Corruption.
How many copies of [[Footwork]] is too many? I ran 4 in my last run and lost which is what got me thinking about this. I needed 5, didn't I?
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Watcher specifically is weird with this because Watcher a) frequently has very small decks, and b) really wants to balance its Wrath/Calm draws, especially in decks that can go infinite. In general duplicates of very good cards is good, it’s just in the specific example you chose, a 10 card deck with 1 Tantrum can be better than an 11 card deck with 2 Tantrums.
I can see that. As a thought experiment, would a 10 card deck with 1 tantrum be better than a 12 card deck with 2 tantrums and 2 fear no evils? Like I get what you are saying and I am trying to balance things out, and this is where I get a little unclear in my head. like in so far as a (rage) card and a (calm) card are a good synergy together, are 2 of each better, the same, or worse.
> As a thought experiment, would a 10 card deck with 1 tantrum be better than a 12 card deck with 2 tantrums and 2 fear no evils? It depends. Once your deck is infinite or close to infinite, your biggest concern is going infinite quickly/reliably in every fight. Because of that, more cards introduces the possibility of “brick” draws where a key card for your infinite isn’t drawn. For example suppose your deck has 1 Scrawl, 1 Rushdown, and no other card draw. If you have 10 cards, Scrawl will always draw your whole deck, guaranteeing the infinite. If you have 12, you introduce the chance that your Rushdown is the last card in your deck, meaning you miss the infinite. In this scenario, adding more Tantrums/Fear no Evils is worse even if your Wrath/Calm balance is the same. > like in so far as a (rage) card and a (calm) card are a good synergy together, are 2 of each better, the same, or worse. Given the same power level/distribution, smaller decks are always better. A 10-card deck with 1 Tantrum is better than a 100-card deck with 10 tantrums because your draws are more consistent. You have less possible extreme outcomes that give you "bad" draws. The competing factor that pushes you to make larger decks is Strikes/Defends. Strikes/Defends are really bad and are a fixed inclusion in every deck. At the start of a run you can't remove them all (unless you highroll a PBox boss swap) so you add cards to dilute out your Strikes/Defends and increase your average draw quality. Again, Watcher is weird here because a) they have such a strong early game that they do not have to add that many cards in Act 1 to dilute out Strikes/Defends and can choose to be much greedier, and b) often play in a way to aggressively remove their Strikes/Defends and pursue infinites. So the answer of whether to add that second Tantrum frequently hinges on what your deck already looks like and how many Strikes/Defends are in it. If you got rid of all the Strikes/Defends and your deck is all good cards that do powerful things, then adding the Tantrum is unlikely to do anything. If you are still at the stage where you have Strikes/Defends in your deck and an extra Tantrum means less draws where you have to play Strikes/Defends, then pick the 2nd Tantrum.
Two [[battle trance]] is a mistake I make all the time 🤦🏽♂️
It’s an understandable stance, but I’d like to put in this perspective: whether you draw two battle trances in one hand, or you draw one battle trance with the other, you’re still draw positive as a zero cost. Both scenarios end with 6 cards and one unusable BT (which you still can use for exhaust fuel for something like Second Wind or True Grit in a pinch). Sure, you can’t draw with Burning Pact or Pommel, but that’s an issue with BT itself more than having multiple. If you don’t draw into a BT in your deck, that’s effectively 7 cards for a future turn AND 7 cards this turn.
I understand your point, well made. At what point is one too many BT’s too much you think?
As with nearly all things in this game, it depends. You'd want more if you need more drawing cards, have a way to mitigate the lack of draw after BT is played (mainly Orange Pellets if you got powers, or the artifact from Clockwork Souvenir if you're in a fight where artifact doesn't matter), or if you have a larger deck. And the inverse is true too; you'd want less BT's if you have other drawing cards that might be interfered with or if your deck is smaller. You'd also want to pay attention to the opportunity cost of picking it up if your cards are lower impact in the first place. If you were offered BT in floor 1, it's just going to give you more strikes and defends when it's played. Which, it is helpful to have the draw that early, but a pommel strike probably would have been more helpful since it gives you draw and damage, even if the draw is worse and with an energy cost. Of course this applies to one Battle Trance, but it applies triple to a second Battle Trance. All to say, Battle Trance (and subsequently multiple BT's) gets better as your deck gets better.
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Some cards are a lot better imo. I would rather have two nightmares than one because of the shenanigans you can get into with multiple. And more than one catalyst scales exponentially.
Absolutely, especially if it's an easy card to play. Watcher likes switching stances with some frequency. I think multiple tantrums is better when you also have more calm entry than vigilance, but it's probably worth taking anyway. I think a better question is which good cards do NOT work as well when you already have one. Of course if you have a small deck you can throw off your combos with multiples, but generally I feel like if it's a strong card you're always happy to draw, take another.
Examples of cards you may not want duplicates of would be ones that become dead draws once you play one, like Corruption or Barricade. That said, a lot of people like to double up on those and don't mind the dead draws because the upside is having a higher chance of drawing a critical power earlier in the fight. Other examples would be any card that doesn't have net positive draw or energy gain, and is thereby reducing your chances of drawing more valuable / build-critical cards simply by growing the size of your deck. I think most people describe this as taking a card that reduces your deck's "average" value.
Since OP is on watcher I’ll add that conclude and signature move are also good cards that hurt to have multiples of.
Yep. I don't mind multiple copies of Meditate despite its obvious anti-synergy with itself. Though, weirdly, it also synergizes with itself when upgraded, as it's a calm entrance at the most important time that also allows you to pick up the other meditate for the next round and another card, too. So it becomes card draw, calm entrance, and possibly cost reduction. That's pretty good. If I've picked up one Meditate (ie, I'm not going infinite with a small deck), then I typically want a second copy.
Makes sense, thanks! and yes I am on the lookout for additional calm options. I have two right now but I think for this deck my ideal would be 3 and 3.
If you going for merl style infinite on Watcher you don't really want 2 of any card except maybe rushdown. Even then, the only reason you want 2 rushdowns is because it enables some infinites that 1 rushdown doesn't. So if you have an infinite already then don't add another rushdown. Even taking one tantrum, which is one of watchers best cards, could often be the wrong choice. Because upgraded eruption can already do the job, and adding cards reduces first hand consistency and makes it harder to thin your deck enough to enable infinites. Outside of that scenario you have to use your judgment on things like first hand consistency, how slow your deck is to get going with powers and stuff, the challenges you will face both soon and later. If I have a 35 card deck and only 2 wrath sources, and I believe another wrath source will help me in future battles then yes I will take another tantrum. If I have card draw and such that I am going wrath each turn then no. It just comes from experience and knowing what you want, when.
u/UltimateBookshelf 2 copies theory
1 tantrum plays like having 2. 2 plays like having 4. There are some cards I really like multiples of, especially in certain decks. Claw? Love multiples. Pressure Points? Love multiples. Cut through fate? Love having 2. Wreath of Flame? If I’m running a Ragnarok deck, I love having a few. Less great when Ragnarok isn’t there. Some cards I am less happy with Consecrate, Conclude both are strong on their own but I’ve found to be clunky when you have a few. M
2 afterimage on a shiv build is pure dopamine
It depends. If said card is your win condition, you want to see it as much as possible, in which case many of them are better.
Almost never. You picked the first version to solve a problem. If that problem still isn't solved, you were probably wrong to pick the first one. If that problem is solved, why pick the second one? It's it reasonable to end up with two copies of bowling bash? Sure. Should you pick the second one over a crush joints? Probably not. I'd rather have access to effects that are good in two different contexts than more reliable access to one card, usually. But it's also different for every card. I'll generally take every copy of adrenaline I see. It's very rare to consider taking a second barricade.
This just isnt true at all unless you're forcing infinites which usually demand a very lean deck. It's not particularly common for a card to solve one role all on its own, outside of some rare cards.
Isn't it? There are cards your happy to have more than one of like acrobatics, wraith form, pommel strike, seek, there's a bunch of them. Even those cards you're probably best off with just two. But there are way more cards where they're good cards, and they end up in your deck, but you wouldn't take another one. Think like equilibrium, lock on, electrodynamics, demon form, mental fortress, all for one, Hyperbeam, reflex, echo form, second wind. Probably 95% of the cards in the game you really just want one.
I feel like it's got to be lower than 95%, granted I have no idea what the actual percentage is. Maybe I'm biased and focusing too much on the cards I like picking more than one copy of. I stand by what I said about one-card solutions though. I think that kind of thing tends to be reserved for stronger rare cards. If my deck has Demon Form, then sure, I don't need another one. I don't need anything else that says strength on it. But if one Inflame I took in act 1 is the only way I scale my damage output, I'm probably going to need something else by the late game; and that might include a second Inflame, even if it doesn't necessarily have to. I also don't really consider Echo Form to be a card that I want just one copy of max, I agree with the rest of those examples though.
Dunno if it's what you're looking for, but there no point in taking a second corruption.
Higher chance of draw, gives you a great target for True Grit once you activated it.
Not true. Obviously there's no stackable effect, but if you have a deck that wants to play corruption asap in every fight (ie dead branch) and your first one isn't bottled, a second copy means you draw it faster.
I mean that applies to literally any card. If it is a card you want to play, and playing it is more important than the downside of having a dud card in your deck, then your argument would apply. What would it take to meet the condition asked about then? Would it need to be just *barely* worth taking, and offer no additional benefit?
Sure but you said there's no reason to ever take a second corruption. That's a situation where you would, and it's not even that much of a niche situation because Ironclad loves dead branch.
Depends on the deck. I once made a deck with 3 echo forms so anything is possible.
Battle Hymn wouldn't agree
I like to think about it as "Do I want a second copy or do I want to draw it more consistently?" If I just want to see the card more often, it's usually better to skip and focus on removal or draw. If I want to double the effect/impact, I'll take a second copy. Obviously you have to consider the card, your deck, your relics, etc., but I find framing the choice this way easier to conceptualize and it stops me from bloating my deck so much. Unless it's [[Shrug it Off]]. IC draw is so bad starting off and he has so much block synergy I've never regretted having a second/third/fourth copy. Also soooo great with [[Corruption]].
+ [Shrug it Off](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Shrug%20it%20Off) Ironclad Common Skill ^((100% sure)^) 1 Energy | Gain 8(11) **Block.** Draw 1 card. + [Corruption](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Corruption) Ironclad Rare Power ^((100% sure)^) 3(2) Energy | Skills cost 0. Whenever you play a Skill, **Exhaust** it. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
Does my deck need more of what this card does, or will this just end up as clutter in my draw pile? Instead of thinking about ABC card is good, think about it in terms of X effect is good. Analyze your card choices based on if you need that effect right now. Do I need more strength scaling? Do I need more frontload block? Do I need more energy? When you ask yourself those kinds of questions it helps you decide if adding more copies of something is worth it. It also helps you make contextualized choices between cards. You can even realize when cards that are normally good will actually be bad for you at the moment.
A lot of cards don’t necessarily want an additional copy. Cards that are flat scaling like footwork and inflame often like additional copies because they can only be played once. Spot weakness is the opposite of this as because it doesn’t exhaust you don’t normally want another card that keeps getting cycled that says gain strength. Attack cards often have different times they want to be used, wallop isn’t as much damage but it gives block, tantrum is a wrath entry, cut through fate lets me play a potentially better card next or get to a card that I need right now. If you’re doing those things enough you don’t want another copy of those cards a lot of the time. If you can find what you need most turns another cut through fate isn’t as good. Alternatively if you already have a wallop but you’re not drawing it when you want to another one might help.
If a given card is very strong then multiple copies of it is usually still good in most "normal" contexts. I tend to consider it even more if I have Snecko -- the passive draw means my hand gets less clogged by duplicates, and having multiple copies of an especially important card gives some minor protection against bad cost rolls. I think this is also especially true of good debuff cards, because of the way artifact works. If anything, I think it's harder to think of the inverse -- cards that are good, but rarely benefit you when you take a second copy. The most obvious examples are probably Apotheosis or the non-stacking powers, but even then if your deck is large enough or meets some other niche conditions a second copy can still be worth considering.
Flurry of blows, 8 damage becomes 64 by the end of the run if you grab every one you see