Dead Branch

[General Jelly Jiggler]

Dead branch: Whenever a card is exhausted, add a random card to your deck.

What a useless, horribly, negative relic. Please remove this relic from the game.

* The whole purpose of exhaust is to trim out the cards in your deck throughout the round so you can get down to a few key cards like rampage and clash or what have you. Dead branch more or less ruins this.
* Adding random cards to your deck is a DISASTER. The only reason people take Pandora's Box is because it removes all strikes and defends which are weak cards. Creative AI is good because you're pulling from a pool of the defects power cards which are all very powerful but for the most part just adding any number of random cards is just going to destroy your engine.

This is not just a useless relic, this is a relic which can pretty much at best not help you at all and at worse destroy your working deck concept. I see no reason why it should be in the game.

[GreenTea]

What, you've never had an ironclad corruption run?

[Benkyo]

Oh no, a relic is situational! Kill it with fire!

[NotEnoughGolds]

I didn't know someone could be this wrong about something

[Henners]

I mean its such a terrible relic that is appears in the top 10 relics of all 3 classes when you sort by win rate on http://spirelogs.com/stats/ironclad/relics.php

Perhaps you need to consider there may be more tactics to this game than run an extremely thin deck?

[burningmime]

It wasn't until I played it in a Shiv deck that I realized how busted it really is. Suddenly Cloak & Dagger+ read "1 energy: Gain 6 block. Deal 8 damage. Trigger any relics/powers based off card use. Draw 2 cards." Almost all the cards in this game are pretty good. Occasionally, some are situational, but most of the cards you get will be better than strike/defend at least, and possibly awesome. There aren't many straight-up bad cards in this game except Strike and Defend (which Dead Branch doesn't give you!).

The only time I wouldn't want it is if I was trying a small, synergisitic deck. The thing is, that doesn't work with any consistency on Ascension. A big, balanced deck is just so much more reliable and easier to win with.

Seriously, OP, get to Axension 10+ and I bet your whole perspective on every single "point" you made will change.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Not every winning deck is built around rapid cycling. Some of the most ridiculously OP setups have combined Dead Branch with Corruption, Feel No Pain, Second Wind, Havoc, Exhume...

It's one of relatively few non-boss relics that you might deliberately skip even if offered for free, since it doesn't work well with everything (skip Juzu Bracelet if you want more fights e.g. its a Vintage daily run, skip Omamori on a Cursed daily run, consider skipping Ninja Scroll if you don't have a good use for the shivs esp. if you're running into hand size limit on round 1)... but it enables some the most "go ahead and turn off your brain, you'll win anyway" gameplay.

[Khor]

Dead Brach is the only relic both noobs and veterans agree: it should be purged by fire.
Sure, sure.. for completely opposite reasons... still....

[..]

Pretty fun in a shiv deck with storm of steel(or w/e that card is that replaces your cards with shivs). If you're lucky you can start with some cards, use storm of steel, pray that you get adrenaline, and if you get storm of steel again w/ the energy, you can use it again to re-roll your random cards.

[RuneGrey]

Gotta completely disagree with Dead Branch being bad - its enabled far more winning runs than it has proved to be a problem. Then again, I've never been a thin deck player - having more options is always good because random cards are almost always going to be worthwhile improvements vs. Strikes and Defends.

[ejg_dnd]

You do not want dead branch if you have a really strong infinite cycle/ 5-8 card deck combo that can consistently win in 1-3 turns. But most decks will appreciate dead branch because its essentially free card draw that can fetch some pretty powerful stuff. It basically turns exhaust into a cycle. Sure, you will sometimes get something unplayable, but other times you will get something good or something else that exhausts with dead branch. Looking forward to being able to snag it now that I have it unlocked, and a disclaimer that I have not played with this relic.

Also keep in mind it will alter your pick strategy, as many cards with exhaust are now higher priority to pick. Also card cycling gets better because you will want to dig for your best cards on reshuffles.

Synergies I can see with neutrals (most unupgraded neutral cards have exhaust which is good):
1. Magnetism - Vastly improves what you get, since most of the colorless cards you can get have exhaust and may cycle into a good card.
2. Apparation/Jax/Dagger - These events are now better, as the card(s) you get now cycle.

Ironclad likes this relic a lot, they have a lot of picks or cards they can snag from the branch/pics that give exhaust cards or benefit from exhaustion. Cards like Corruption, Burning Pact, Seeing Red, Second Wind, Exhume, Dark Embrace, etc. Also cards like True Grit or Burning pact can transform a low quality card into something thats hopefully better.

This relic heavily benefits a silent going for shivs (and you will want to pick shiv cards), as your shivs now cycle, and some cards give them out like candy. Outside of shivs, also makes Backstab and Endless Agony more viable.

For defect, this makes a deck with some boot sequences or upgraded chills bonkers, and makes exhaust picks like core surge really good. But I think defect benefits the least from the dead branch simply due to a lack of exhaust support.

At best, this card provides incredible card advantage that can allow you to quickly dig for helpful cards. At worst, this card interferes with some specific combos, but then you just don't pick or buy it.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Originally posted by NotEnoughGolds:

I didn't know someone could be this wrong about something

[Sykomyke]

Originally posted by NotEnoughGolds:

I didn't know someone could be this wrong about something

+1. Literally never seen someone make such a blatently ignorant/false statement before in my life (on steam).

[Khor]

Originally posted by Sykomyke:

Originally posted by NotEnoughGolds:

I didn't know someone could be this wrong about something

+1. Literally never seen someone make such a blatently ignorant/false statement before in my life (on steam).

You`re pretty new around here, aren`t you?

[Horrow]

Originally posted by GreenTea:

What, you've never had an ironclad corruption run?

[TheUnderDog135]

my fav thing about dead branch is sentry fights............................... and sometimes chosen fights, but, eh