Soulbound - WTF?

[Tubers]

So I wanted to give Soulbound Skulls a try, seeing as it seems pretty fun. I figured I could cast it on summons to take out big creatures. Requires a bit of setup, but could be worthwhile against tough opponents.

Imagine my surprise then when I used it, and found out that while you can select which enemy gets soulbound, THE ALLY IS CHOSEN AT RANDOM. Yes, that includes your commander. So even with a full board, the card has a 1/6 chance of just ending your run there and then. How would it ever be usable? Please tell me I'm missing something because I can't believe this card is just so glaringly bad.

[Simply]

I swear its a meme card because every time I use it it just does to my commander.

[mabel]

It's a pretty unfortunate design in terms of actually playing it, but in some fights you can Crown it + a sacrifice target or summon and immediately solve a wave 1 issue like instantly killing Marrow or even instantly phasing the first final boss, quickly handling the biggest problem of the true final boss, etc.

[sono]

Originally posted by mabel:

It's a pretty unfortunate design in terms of actually playing it, but in some fights you can Crown it + a sacrifice target or summon and immediately solve a wave 1 issue like instantly killing Marrow or even instantly phasing the first final boss, quickly handling the biggest problem of the true final boss, etc.

Huh, hadn't considered that. Seems like a bad investment, 2 crowns for a boss phase is reasonable, but during regular fights you're either wasting 2 crowns on a regular enemy or you have a dead card. I can see picking this up in the final shop, but otherwise it feels like a meme card.

The fact that you can do this means they probably can't buff the card without it becoming OP. Maybe the reason it's so odd is that it's a remnant from an older version that was too strong, but the only way to make it not be an autowin card is to nerf it into the ground.

[mabel]

You can remove crowns between fights, so it might be a cute switcheroo to make for the final 2 fights. One-shotting a certain 90 HP unit on the true final boss takes so much pressure out of the fight. But yeah, with that said, it's a very wacky edge case for the card and would be nice if it was playable from hand without the risk of just, killing you.

[Jeshrack]

At best a 1 in 6 chance to lose the game on a card is absolutely horrid design.

I feel similarly about the Ice Dice card. Full RNG cards with massive impact have no place in strategy games.

That said, I understand some folks like to roll dice, so I'm not demanding these cards get removed entirely.

I'd like to see a way to ban cards from appearing in runs though. Same with charms.

[Tubers]

Regarding ice dice, the problem isn’t so much RNG in my opinion, it’s RNG that favours the side that has the most units, which most of the time is your opponent. It’s also just a bad card in general, even an optimal effect is kinda meh.

To get back to the subject, I’m still pretty baffled that a card like Soulbound made it into the game. Has anyone tried if maybe it only picks units on the same row? That would at least give you some control over it.

[simon_tingle]

Complaining about both cards is funny because it seems like they might work well together, though I have not tried it so it might be awful, and you would presumably have to get one and then the other, meaning you're likely to die in the middle part before seeing the second one. (Although other forms of Block might also make the card playable with a crown)

[LordMondayIX]

You can throw it down on the board without much risk to your leader in some circumstances, such as the aforementioned use with crowns, or if you get a block charm for your leader, but the card is definitely too niche for me to consider on most runs.

That said, sometimes I'll pick it up in the later stage of a run when I see it if I just don't think I stand a good shot against my corrupted hero lineup, and I might as well gamble on some cheese.

[Dlanor]

Originally posted by simon_tingle:

Complaining about both cards is funny because it seems like they might work well together, though I have not tried it so it might be awful, and you would presumably have to get one and then the other, meaning you're likely to die in the middle part before seeing the second one. (Although other forms of Block might also make the card playable with a crown)

The issue is that they only work together if you have fantastic RNG, and they end your run if you don't. If the Ice Dice gives the block to an enemy, not only did you use a card to buff an enemy but now you're holding Soulbound in a situation where it is especially useless. In order for them to work out you need Ice Dice to land on your Leader, because if it lands on something else but Soulbound targets your leader then you just lose. Even if it lands on your leader, if Soulbound doesn't then you still need to sacrifice whichever companion it landed on.

Soulbound is usable if you have enough extra crowns to crown it and something to sacrifice, past that it's almost never worth it.

[Postman Pat]

Had the same thing happen to me. Because it requires so much setup, there is no reason for the target to be random. I'd argue it's also absurd Ice Block can hit random enemies.

[Jeshrack]

Originally posted by Postman Pat:

Had the same thing happen to me. Because it requires so much setup, there is no reason for the target to be random. I'd argue it's also absurd Ice Block can hit random enemies.

Completely absurd.

At best it should be 1 random ally and 1 random enemy, but even that feels bad.

[🐇 DriadiTa 🐇]

Originally posted by Tubers:

So I wanted to give Soulbound Skulls a try, seeing as it seems pretty fun. I figured I could cast it on summons to take out big creatures. Requires a bit of setup, but could be worthwhile against tough opponents.

Imagine my surprise then when I used it, and found out that while you can select which enemy gets soulbound, THE ALLY IS CHOSEN AT RANDOM. Yes, that includes your commander. So even with a full board, the card has a 1/6 chance of just ending your run there and then. How would it ever be usable? Please tell me I'm missing something because I can't believe this card is just so glaringly bad.

That card is good for the Last Boss, when your leader and the last boss are still alive. You will get defeated, but at least you will kill that bastard!!! hahaha

(maybe if your leader still had 1 block...)

Add: That card does 100 damage, it's good for doing a few achievements too!!!

[Caveretien]

how about put aimless + Frenzy on that card insta KO 2 units in the vanquished boss fight / true boss. Please go do that and tell me if itsn't good enough. Card will be too good if it doesn't go on Champion/Commander/Leader, can trivialize most fights in game.

[Altivu]

Originally posted by Caveretien:

how about put aimless + Frenzy on that card insta KO 2 units in the vanquished boss fight / true boss. Please go do that and tell me if itsn't good enough. Card will be too good if it doesn't go on Champion/Commander/Leader, can trivialize most fights in game.

Seems like you have a chance of wasting the card in that situation since soulbound could hit the same unit twice... You can achieve the same effect having two separate cards (probably with a Shade Sculptor or good treasure/shop RNG). You would also need two crowns to do that which might reduce your strength to the point where you can't kill anything fast enough to get the soulbound off in the first place.

[AlternateEnding]

I think it'd be much more viable card if it just excluded commanders. The edge cases for using it requires so much setup for something that's only really good on the final boss.