Energy Gain Relic Rating

[Dr. Bright]

Since the +1 energy per turn relics are the best in the game. I think those should get balanced a bit. As of now I rank it:

1) Mark of Pain (+2 Wounds) - Very small downside w/ a huge upside. Easily one of the best relics in the game unless you are running <10 card combo decks (Rampage or the like).

2) Sozu (No Potions) - Easily worked around and no potion can compete with the gains an extra energy per turn gives. Goes down a place if you have cards like alchemize or White Beast Statue.

3) Ectoplasm (No Gold) - Not so great Act I but neither are the ones below it so it's a solid 3.

4) Cursed Key (Curses on Chest) - Unless you get it during act 2 or have curse blockers/curse synergy then it goes up a few places.

5) Philosophers stone (+2 strength) - This buff is too powerful on certain mobs and makes it very risky (See 3x bird example = 45 dmg in one turn on a basic Act II mob).

6) Runic Dome (Unable to see Intentions) - Unless you have memorized attack and defend patterns which will raise it a place or two, still very risky unless you are a single goal deck (E.G. Glass cannon or Defense Stack and your turns will be the same regardless of intent)

Any other opinions out there about this?

[Eagle_of_Fire]

I have several relics which I actually consider better than those +1 energy. Torii and Orichalum come to mind.

[Visual Basic]

Forgot velvet choker but I would say

1) mark of pain can be a huge downside as the silent, there’s very little way to clean your deck as the silent. Also mark of pain ruins clash, it’s in the middle for me.

2) sozu is easily one of the best, there is some disadvantage as overall it will cost you health more than likely at some points, there’s many points where I find a fire potion would save me quite a bit of pain.

3) I consider this the best one. Card removal isn’t a problem if you prioritize encounters early on or target elites to try and get things like peace pipe. Also I can just avoid shops if I have this, not much of a loss.

4) cursed key is absolutely insane with curse synergy but otherwise it’s mediocre. Most of the time if I find my deck benefits heavily enough from the energy I’ll just take it and not open chests.

5) this is the worst one but it’s way over exaggerated how bad it is. Past Act 2 it’s not so bad. I actually won my first run with it once getting it after the second boss. Also the strength doesn’t matter if you go for a defense strategy as long as you can still pull of your high numbers. With the tori relic it’s an easy pick too, things like birds do nothing then.

6) this is just somewhere a little below the middle. Not seeing enemy attack’s can be an issue but it works similarly to philosophers stone, if you can get a combo going due to the extra energy or if you can go for a barricade blur strat none of the disadvantages ever matter.

7) velvet choker, it’s absolute garbage on silent like by far the worst relic in the game. On ironclad it’s alright, it stops you from making a combo deck but it’s good in a demon form / defense strategy.

Also it’s good to mention after you’ve taken one energy gain relic any other energy gain past that can absolutely break the game. I’ve had runs where I made a 5 card combo deck getting 6 energy a turn thinks to random boss relic choice. Not to mention I used sundial as well so I could pull of a 7 mana combo constantly by abusing draw.

[★Hanzolo★]

Originally posted by LoganMcvey:

1) mark of pain can be a huge downside as the silent, there’s very little way to clean your deck as the silent. Also mark of pain ruins clash, it’s in the middle for me.

mark of pain cant be acquired on the silent, it has a red outline in the relic collection.

[Zadown]

Originally posted by LoganMcvey:

7) velvet choker, it’s absolute garbage on silent like by far the worst relic in the game. On ironclad it’s alright, it stops you from making a combo deck but it’s good in a demon form / defense strategy.

If you are running poison/defense deck with limited card draw and some cost 2 cards like Flask it's pretty good actually and I got 1-2 Silent wins where I took it. Not every Silent deck is an infinity loop or shiv deck. That said it does work better with Ice Cream and some X cards in your deck (Malaise, Skewer) so if you hit the card cap you aren't wasting energy.

[Dr. Bright]

Oh, thanks for reminding me of Velvet Choker. I have been playing Silent recently and I mustve mentally blocked it out since I like cycle variants. It is very good on Ironclad though.

[robofish126]

*Velvet is best in any archetype that more or less just plays their 5 card hand and calls it a day, or is otherwise concerned mostly with finding and playing their win-con not faffing about.

*Sozu, Ecto, and Cursed are obviously preferable as Area 2 picks. Its a tough choice though. Potions can easily save a lot of HP if used at the right time, no gold means missing out on buying a Relic with your Area 2 Boss winnings, and Cursed clogs your deck or worse. These are the 'workhorse' Relics I go for if Velvet isn't appropriate. Sozu and Ecto in Area 1, Cursed in Area 2.

*Mark is best in certain Ironclad archetypes (Immolate/Evolve), ok in large Ironclad decks, but weak otherwise. It is clearly superior to Cursed in Area 1 but the clogging just isn't something I find acceptable and would probably take Sozu and Ecto over it anyways.

*Runic and Philosopher are obviously bottom tier. They both more or less mandate that you take large piles of damage, whereas the others mostly mean having the occasional bad draw and missing out on some useful products.

Also I disagree heavily with the assertion that the +1 Energy Relics are best. Of the 15 other Boss Relics, 10 of them have only upsides (whereas +1 Energy Relics usually have stiff downsides) and 2 of them only have the downside of Transformation which isn't that big a deal when you are probably just mulching useless starter cards for which basically anything else is better.

[doombybbr]

"mark of pain" just plain upside if you are running evolve

[Visual Basic]

Originally posted by doombybbr:

"mark of pain" just plain upside if you are running evolve

Not necessarily, too many wounds with evolve leads to hand size issues.

[lompeluiten]

More energy means you can play more cards. That means you don't have to do your best to get a good card quality.

I think a rework is in place. For example: "+1 enegry, -2 dex". Your average cardvalue is lower, so you need to play more cards do that same job. But you also play more cards for potential synergy.

[The Avatar]

I'm with the crowd who says energy relics are good, but not great. I'll take an appropriate one if it shows, or any of them if I'm desperate for the energy (like in a deck relying on a 2 cost card like bouncing flask that also needs energy to cycle). But the more I play the more I find that winning with 3 energy is totally doable with the right relics. Also, I think runic dome is pretty great. Sure, you'll waste a few turns building unnecessary def or perhaps get smacked hard unexpectedly, but enough monsters work on set rotations that its drawback is minimal once you know them.

The only boss relic I skip 99% of the time is the cursed bell. Unless you have curse synergy or are absurdly desperate (and think some particular relic could bail you out, I guess?) I see basically no reason to gamble on it. I also never take Pandora's Box, but that's more just cause I've never worked up the nerve to gamble my run like that.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Personally, the only relic I always skip is the black star. Every single time I pick it I only have one or max two elites to fight on every single path and die to the first on some stupid bad luck I never have with any other tries. It's like the devs intentionally upped the difficulty on you when you pick the black star which is ridiculous because you're already wasting a huge power up in the hope to get more later on... (this is based on 5 tries by now)

[robofish126]

Originally posted by The Avatar:

I'm with the crowd who says energy relics are good, but not great. I'll take an appropriate one if it shows, or any of them if I'm desperate for the energy (like in a deck relying on a 2 cost card like bouncing flask that also needs energy to cycle). But the more I play the more I find that winning with 3 energy is totally doable with the right relics.

Overall I find Silent is more suited for 3 energy only builds. There are 10 Silent cards that cost 0, another 3 that upgrade to cost 0, another 3 that aren't directly played at all, 6 cards that give energy. Also only 3 cards that cost 3, of which 2 can be made cheaper.

Ironclad on the other hand I feel like picking up the +1 Energy is more essential, unless you are playing an Anger build or another niche option.

[rudew]

Im suprised how many people dislike the cursed key, The cursed key is almost always if I see it im getting it for me, The curse downside... sure you get 2 curses atleast if you only go for the main chests, but generally you can either remove em from your deck or build your deck around them, Regret for example you can build a ironclad strength ramp deck around, Decay is meh, the ones that are literally just clutter are annoying, but aslong as your deck is either A. Small enough that it doesnt matter or B. Big enough that it doesnt matter, I never see a issue

[Dr. Bright]

+1 Energy allows you to play at least one extra card per turn. This is huge! It also opens the door to many combos that are not possible at 3. Example: Upgraded Double Tap isn't that great at 3 energy. At 4 it becomes really good. At 5 energy it becomes insane. Also, the extra energy means you are able to better divide your resources between defense and damage. Discarded cards are wasted health/damage. The ability to be able to utilize cards that would otherwise go to waste is hard to beat.

As a rule I will always take a top 1-3 energy booster relic at act 1 and no other boss relic makes such an impact in later encounters. If the downside is negligible, it's always worth it.