Astrolabe on Defect

[Ashcarr]

I don't generally favor this relic, but I've been picking it a lot more lately with Defect and there is far more times where the Astrolabe is phenomenal than there are times where it's bad which usually works the other way on Ironclad and Silent.

I attribute this to strikes being near worthless on the Defect and him having such a huge pool of cards that can almost, almost, fit into the strategy of the deck even as an edge case. Barring something like TURBO in a 0 cost deck or getting Meteor Strike.

What are your thoughts of Astrolabe on Defect?

[Drecon]

I like Astrolabe on pretty much every character unless I have a specific archetype that I'm working with (which is becoming more and more rare as I'm getting better at the game). Removing Strikes is great and Astrolabe usually gives you a great card, a nice card and a bad card. Removing 1 bad card is better than removing 3 bad cards (strikes), so I usually like it.

Silent has some more fringe cards, but usually they end up being okay. Ironclad has a lot of attack cards, but as long as you're replacing strikes, it doesn't matter.

For Defect it's usually pretty nice, as the strategies for him tend to overlap a bit. If you're not on anything very specific, adding three upgraded cards will usually work out fine.

[burningmime]

It's worse on Defect.

Astrolabe is one of my favorite non-energy boss relics on Ironclad and Silent. While it's *possible* to get cards worse than the strike/defends you're removed (Catalyst in a deck without poison, Accuracy in a deck without shivs, Dark Embrace in a deck without exhaust, etc), that's quite rare.

Defect has a lot more cards that require specific synergies. From the list of Defect cards, here are the ones I would consider worse than a strike or defend in some circumstances...

Aggregate - A dead card if you have more energy than cards, also kind of unreliable
Amplify - IMO, an almost unplayable card in any deck except maybe with Seek
Blizzard - In a deck without much Frost
Claw - WIthout a way to recur it or 0-cost synergy, it can end up as a worse verison of Slice
Double Energy - Can be a dead card if you frequerntly have more energy than cards
Force Field - Bad without powers, can be unreliable even with them
Genetic Algorithm - I don't want to pick this up after Act 1
Heatsinks - Bad card in most decks
Hello World - In a tight/combo deck, an innate Hello World is bad
Hyperbeam - In an orb deck
Meteor Strike - If it's going to be hard/impossible to play (most of the time)
Nova - Unreliable without powers
Recycle - Bad in many decks
Skim - If I don't have much energy and not many 0-costers
Storm - Like other power-focused ones
Thunder Strike - If I don't have much lightning

In a deck that's not running any orbs stuff already, you can add Loop, Barrage, Biased Cognition, Capacitor, Consume, Darkness, Defragment, Fission, Multi-Cast, Rainbow, Impulse, Electrodynamics, and Recursion to the list of cards I don't want (some of those are playable if you just have the starting relic and Zap, others are just dead cards).

Astrolabe is a much bigger gamble on Defect than IC/Silent. It's still deece, but I'd prefer any energy relic over it, and if I'm not heavy on orbal stuff, I might take something like White Beast Statue or Eternal Feather. If I didn't have great cards yet, I'd grab an Orrey for more reliability than gambling on an Astrolabe, and in the right decks, Runic Pyramid, Snecko Eye, and Inserter would all be better choices.

[Zu]

Originally posted by Ashcarr:

barring something like TURBO in a 0 cost deck.

U W O T M 9

Cheating out turbo with scrape or all for one is insane.

Meanwhile,

Originally posted by Drecon:

I like Astrolabe on pretty much every character

[eidolon232]

I like it a lot for the robot, since some of the Defect cards get a significant boost through upgrades and it increases the chance of chaining card draw, 0cost spells + energy generators together. Even if it doesn't fit into the "Plan A" of your deck, simply having access to a situational high power card like Hyperbeam with Hologram / Rebound to reuse them can get you out of tight spots. You wouldn't normaly pick it up, but since the only thing you lost in the exchange was a Strike, it doesn't really hurt your main strategy.

[Error404]

Astrolabe imo is middle of the road for boss relics. Trading in 3 strikes or defends for 3 random upgraded cards is always a good thing. Just remember that these cards may also end up being worthless to your deck as well.