End Game Meta Is All About Rapid Gashes / Ominous Power / Brace Up?

[Seeking Solace]

I think these 3 cards are way too OP.

Brace Up, when combined with the Bottom Deal passive, discards 1 card to draw 3. That's a massive amount of draw power at 0 cost. Can be used in pretty much any deck.

Rapid Gashes when paired with Clone is busted. Add Brace Up for drawing power and Rapid Gashes becomes free throughout the battle. The number of offensive dice per page make it ideal for inflicting status effects and healing with hauler passives. The strong block dice is great for defending against one-sided attacks too.

And then there's Ominous Power. Consume to instantly gain 3 light. Makes all other light recovery cards in the game obsolete. With the drawing power from Brace Up, you can just keep consuming Ominous Power every turn and freely spam 3-cost cards. There are some incredibly powerful 3-cost cards out there, like Duel which wins clashes against almost all cards in the game. Overcharge + Maximum Crash on Purple Tear is busted as well.

I still haven't touched the Blue Reverberation invitation. I'm curious, is it possible to make more competent decks without relying on at least 2 of these cards?

[aidanfilson25]

singleton is an easy to make build for any keypage because the core is like 4-5 cards and you just fill the rest with whatever pages you want or have synergy with the keypage and it's viable from when you beat the proxies to the end of the game

[Seeking Solace]

Singleton decks are definitely decently strong, but I don't see how can a singleton deck compete with Brace Up + Ominous Power and Brace Up + Rapid Gashes decks though.

Also, what's the core 4-5 cards of a singleton deck? From my perspective, the only singleton cards worth running are Will of the Prescript and Multislash but I might be missing something.

[SmallGespenst]

doesn't ominous power eat as much light as it gave you on the next turn? it's nice but it'll give you problems the next turn. brace up is pretty good with bottom deal (and even better on the one key page you can give stacking the deck) but without that it's kinda a wash. nice for digging but that's about it.
singleton deck are powerful because there's a bunch of pages that get some pretty scary rolls as long as you've got singleton, especially if you're running the random damage type +2 power.
Rapid gashes is super gimmicky and you're basically running trash for the early turns. rapid Gashes Yujin is considered to be pretty potent, but outside of that it's pretty ignored.

[Seeking Solace]

Originally posted by SmallGespenst:

doesn't ominous power eat as much light as it gave you on the next turn?

That becomes irrelevant when you use it every turn anyways. You can use up to 3 Ominous Power every turn to spam three 3-cost cards per turn. The "downside" is pretty much nonexistent at this point.

Originally posted by SmallGespenst:

singleton deck are powerful because there's a bunch of pages that get some pretty scary rolls as long as you've got singleton

More scary than 3 Duels every turn?

Duel has:
8-17 Blunt
5-9 Block
4-8 Block
3-7 Blunt Counter
And each roll reduces the power of opponent's next roll by 2 on clash win, so effectively it can win almost any clash. It destroys something like Somber Procuration multiple times over.

Originally posted by SmallGespenst:

Rapid gashes is super gimmicky and you're basically running trash for the early turns. rapid Gashes Yujin is considered to be pretty potent, but outside of that it's pretty ignored.

That's just 3 rolls wasted on clones. Serious battles tend to be long, so wasting 3 dice in the grand scheme of things is fine considering the payoff.

I find no use of Yujin because she doesn't have the extra speed die at emotion level 3, and her light regen by using Rapid Gashes is completely pointless when Rapid Gashes cost at most 1 light with that much draw power.

[yarrrr]

We're talking about late-game progress here? I'd hardly call Rapid Gashes a meta build at that stage. It lacks the flexibility to deal with different kinds of rolls and gimmicks. Sure it has good rolls and sustain, but constant damage dealing is all it's good for.

Worse, you would already have top-tier keypages to gear up 1 or 2 floors that use more viable decks (A few less if you exclude RM, Binah and BS), so I wouldn't say the meta is all about Rapid Gashes but more-so featuring those keypages and the more creative decks you would pair it with.

At least it's kinda good enough to fill in during Ensemble since you initially need 20 keypages where 5 per floor get locked out if you complete a floor battle

[Hack_n_Slash]

To be fair, I like using Ominous Power because it can make for some funny decks like being able to Spam Discipline with Boris (after being able to clone Discipline for multiple copies); or giving PT 3 copies of Ominous Power in each of her decks for some fun 3 cost spamming.

But to answer your question, yeah, there are decks you can do without using Brace Up or Ominous Power. On a side note, Rapid Gashes is a special case since it stacks with itself, so you're turning into a one-trick (provided, it's a hard hitting one-trick).

One example is to take advantage of the Jeong's Bottom Deal passive w/ Mika's Best Choice and using them alongside the Thumb ranged pages. Discarding ammo can proc the effect of the passives, giving pretty good consistency and health upkeep. The ranged pages can be useful in sniping counter dice you don't want to deal with to allow your other teammates to land one-sided attacks much more easily.

The Singleton Economy Engine of Unlock, Multislash, Will of the City, and Will of the Prescripts pretty much guarantees your deck will always be able draw and keep itself healthy for light. You can easily sprinkle in another flavor for whatever purpose you need. It's an all-purpose economy engine if you're not sure what else to run or an answer to any light hungry decks you'd want.

The Night Awls can also be a good foundation keypage since there are a lot of pierce based cards that can you can use that give you both and light draw -w/o relying on Brace Up though it is very good to run with it- while being clash capable.

Even my most recent deck of using Bayard (w/ Yae's Madness, Rudolph's Survivor and Reindeer Treatment) was capable and it didn't need Brace Up or Ominous Power. It could easily stack up to 10 strength with just a little pinch of luck. Part of its funny charm though was that RNG could just bend you over and give you 8 Fragile.

There are even rogue builds like Turbo Burn (using the Violent Flame card alongside Chun's Furious Fire Rending the Skies passive) that can drop anywhere between 20-30 burn on a single card.

But I guess at the end of the day, it all boils down to personal preferences. You can opt to use em or not. They can be overpowered with the right setup but then again the game likes to throw overpowered stuff at you regardless. Ruina is a single player game, you're not exactly beholden to playstyle or choice.

[SmallGespenst]

so to start with, 3 ominous power for a triple 3-cost is six pages. Outright impossible to sustain. no amount of Brace Up will stop you getting trampled on the next turn. you're heading to Brawl-Gun levels of meme build. (duel isn't even that good a page for that kind of build, only one offensive dice means you're getting screwed if your opponent isn't slamming into those blocks, and a clash based set-up like that doesn't care about the counter dice.)
also busted Builds are everywhere by endgame. Purple Tear anything, Strongest/Prowess, Pierce stacking Allen. Mirinae with strength stacking...

[Seeking Solace]

Originally posted by Hack_n_Slash:

To be fair, I like using Ominous Power because it can make for some funny decks like being able to Spam Discipline with Boris (after being able to clone Discipline for multiple copies)

Interesting. Discipline is a pretty crazy card but doesn't it cost 4 light? Do you use Field Mods or rely on some abnormality page?

Originally posted by Hack_n_Slash:

The Singleton Economy Engine of Unlock, Multislash, Will of the City, and Will of the Prescripts

Oh, so that's what Aidan meant by core 4.

Originally posted by Hack_n_Slash:

One example is to take advantage of the Jeong's Bottom Deal passive w/ Mika's Best Choice and using them alongside the Thumb ranged pages. Discarding ammo can proc the effect of the passives, giving pretty good consistency and health upkeep. The ranged pages can be useful in sniping counter dice you don't want to deal with to allow your other teammates to land one-sided attacks much more easily.

Would the following be a nice Kalo build?

Added Passives:
Bottom Deal
Stacking the Deck
Four Trigrams
Best Choice
Mind Hauler

Deck:
x1 Reload
x1 Suppressing Shot
x1 Class and Respect
x1 Multislash
x1 Bayonet Combat
x1 Shock Round
x1 The Will of the City
x1 Will of the Prescript
x1 Focus Fire

Tips and advice are welcome!

Originally posted by SmallGespenst:

so to start with, 3 ominous power for a triple 3-cost is six pages outright impossible to sustain. no amount of Brace Up will stop you getting trampled on the next turn. you're heading to Brawl-Gun levels of meme build.

You're right, I stand corrected. Should've replaced the words "every turn" with "up to." I was bullshitting there because I forgot that I have extra occasional draw power from Four Trigrams, The Messenger, alongside other possible variables to recover from those heavy turns which I forgot to bring into the equation. I dunno about it being a meme build though because I've been cheesing content just fine with it but to be fair I don't really know the criteria of a build being considered "meme."

Originally posted by SmallGespenst:

duel isn't even that good a page for that kind of build, only one offensive dice means you're getting screwed if your opponent isn't slamming into those blocks, and a clash based set-up like that doesn't care about the counter dice.

You don't have to use Duel though. You can use any 3-cost cards to your liking with Ominous Power. I personally love Duel, so I'm using x3 Duel and x1 Emotional Turbulence.

And in defense of Duel, the one offensive dice of Duel competes with cards like Vapour, Violet Blade, and Celestial Spear so it isn't a massive deal for the block dice to be wasted. Speaking of which, it's a very rare occasion for that to happen. If there are no enemies at all using 2+ dice cards, the block dice can be retained to defend against extra one-sided attacks. I clash against enemies targeting other characters, and ignore those targeting the Duel character. If even that isn't applicable, I use Emotional Turbulence.

Originally posted by SmallGespenst:

also busted Builds are everywhere by endgame. Purple Tear anything, Strongest/Prowess, Pierce stacking Allen. Mirinae with strength stacking...

I use Ominous Power + Augury Kick for Mirinae. Ominous Power + Laceration for Pierce Purple Tear. Ominous Power + Overcharge for Maximum Crash Guard Purple Tear. Rapid Gashes for Slash Purple Tear. Ominous Power + Duel for Blunt Purple Tear. You get the idea. xD

[SmallGespenst]

Originally posted by -Solace-:

Originally posted by Hack_n_Slash:

One example is to take advantage of the Jeong's Bottom Deal passive w/ Mika's Best Choice and using them alongside the Thumb ranged pages. Discarding ammo can proc the effect of the passives, giving pretty good consistency and health upkeep. The ranged pages can be useful in sniping counter dice you don't want to deal with to allow your other teammates to land one-sided attacks much more easily.

Would the following be a nice Kalo build?

Added Passives:
Bottom Deal
Stacking the Deck
Four Trigrams
Best Choice
Mind Hauler

Deck:
x1 Reload
x1 Suppressing Shot
x1 Class and Respect
x1 Multislash
x1 Bayonet Combat
x1 Shock Round
x1 The Will of the City
x1 Will of the Prescript
x1 Focus Fire

Tips and advice are welcome!

I'm not sure how the ammunition pages interact with Singleton functionality, but that deck might need some careful management to avoid shutting down because you made two AP ammo cards

Originally posted by -Solace-:

Originally posted by SmallGespenst:

also busted Builds are everywhere by endgame. Purple Tear anything, Strongest/Prowess, Pierce stacking Allen. Mirinae with strength stacking...

I use Ominous Power + Augury Kick for Mirinae. Ominous Power + Laceration for Pierce Purple Tear. Ominous Power + Overcharge for Maximum Crash Guard Purple Tear. Rapid Gashes for Slash Purple Tear. Ominous Power + Duel for Blunt Purple Tear. You get the idea. xD

I'm not going to say that's a lot of Yan grinding but... you're going to get really familiar with those hands huh~

[Hack_n_Slash]

Originally posted by -Solace-:

Interesting. Discipline is a pretty crazy card but doesn't it cost 4 light? Do you use Field Mods or rely on some abnormality page?

It's more basic, tbh. I just rely on 3xOminous Power, 3xBrace up, 2xClone/1xClone & 1xField Mods, 1xDiscipline. It's along the lines of "I'm either drawing all the Ominous Power I need to spam two Discipline or it's one Discipline and two Brace ups for the turn."

The build is also surprisingly tanky. Running Twelve Fixers -as that's the only way to boost Discipline- and the haulers allow the build to deal damage while regaining between 6 to 16 hp & stagger a turn. You can even add Concussion to make it deal more stagger damage.

Originally posted by -Solace-:

Would the following be a nice Kalo build?

Added Passives:
Bottom Deal
Stacking the Deck
Four Trigrams
Best Choice
Mind Hauler

Deck:
x1 Reload
x1 Suppressing Shot
x1 Class and Respect
x1 Multislash
x1 Bayonet Combat
x1 Shock Round
x1 The Will of the City
x1 Will of the Prescript
x1 Focus Fire

Tips and advice are welcome!

When I normally run Kalo Discard, I don't use the Singleton Cards outside of Unlock/Will of the City -as they're not exactly Singleton-. Small Gespenst already pointed out the reason. By generating more than one copy of a specific type of ammo card, you shutdown singleton right away.

For the Deck, I tend to run:
1x Overcome Crisis
1x Unlock
1x Graze the Grass/Forward March
2x Reload
1x Suppressing Fire
1x Bayonet Combat
1x Shock Round
1x Focus Fire

The 0 costs are there to help support the economy though you want to run Reload/Bayonet Combat when you can to generate ammo. Your main clash cards are the ranged cards, occasionally Bayonet Combat as well.

For Passives I run almost the same as what you listed; though what's different is that instead of the Trigrams, I run Katriel's Empowered First Shot and Denis' Additional Supplies. My version tends to flood with Ammo cards so I use that to help snipe the counter dice.

Originally posted by -Solace-:

I dunno about it being a meme build though because I've been cheesing content just fine with it but to be fair I don't really know the criteria of a build being considered "meme."

"Meme" builds are those kind of builds that seems so stupid/crazy they have no right to work but they end up being stupidly good/consistent despite the first impressions.

[Hack_n_Slash]

Originally posted by -Solace-:

I use Ominous Power + Augury Kick for Mirinae. Ominous Power + Laceration for Pierce Purple Tear. Ominous Power + Overcharge for Maximum Crash Guard Purple Tear. Rapid Gashes for Slash Purple Tear. Ominous Power + Duel for Blunt Purple Tear. You get the idea. xD

As a side note; try not to use combat pages like Clone, Unlock, or any combat page/abno that gives special pages with Purple Tear. Every time you switch stances, it resets your deck so Unlock -for example- gets reset back to its first level. It also means that single-use cards like Field Mods and 333 can be returned as well.

[AritheReaper]

Originally posted by Hack_n_Slash:

Originally posted by -Solace-:

I use Ominous Power + Augury Kick for Mirinae. Ominous Power + Laceration for Pierce Purple Tear. Ominous Power + Overcharge for Maximum Crash Guard Purple Tear. Rapid Gashes for Slash Purple Tear. Ominous Power + Duel for Blunt Purple Tear. You get the idea. xD

As a side note; try not to use combat pages like Clone, Unlock, or any combat page/abno that gives special pages with Purple Tear. Every time you switch stances, it resets your deck so Unlock -for example- gets reset back to its first level. If also means that single-use cards like Field Mods and 333 can be returned as well.

Though, if you wanted to just stick to a single Purple Tear deck, you could run x3 Unlock, x3 Serpent Strike (or whatever that PT 2 cost with +2 slash is called), and x3 Blind Faith in the Purple Tear's slash deck. You're essentially spamming, and with enough time and uses of lower levels of Unlock, you're basically set. Gets better with any slash-power+ passives.

But yeah, avoiding Unlock, Clone, and other such pages is generally a good idea.

[none]

Originally posted by Hack_n_Slash:

Even my most recent deck of using Bayard (w/ Yae's Madness, Rudolph's Survivor and Reindeer Treatment) was capable and it didn't need Brace Up or Ominous Power. It could easily stack up to 10 strength with just a little pinch of luck. Part of its funny charm though was that RNG could just bend you over and give you 8 Fragile.

if you feel brave enough, you can give might contract on Bayard to speed up the Rudolph's power stacking since you can stagger yourself easily using that instead of waiting for 2 scene.

[【Silver】]

Originally posted by Hack_n_Slash:

As a side note; try not to use combat pages like Clone, Unlock, or any combat page/abno that gives special pages with Purple Tear. Every time you switch stances, it resets your deck so Unlock -for example- gets reset back to its first level. It also means that single-use cards like Field Mods and 333 can be returned as well.

I've never even considered that with Field Mod or the Sweeper Res card. That's good to know.

Regarding Cloned Gashes, honestly the build works with even a tiny bit of light gain and some decent draw power. Without a considerable amount of other resources piled towards it, the deck's start up can always just give you a very rough start, but proper management makes it a very consistent deck to use at diverting strong attacks towards that character if they have the speed to redirect or taunt. I build mine with just Unlock, Brace Up & Overcome Crisis and that alone's enough to handle it. It's probably also popular due to the ease of build it has to deck building for a lot of players not able to handle some of the game's end game content.

[1632189633]

no i use smoke + full stop office passive. always win a crash in the first act and nuke them all down good.