Does the "Reflex" card even do anything?

[TripSin]

IF you discard it you get another card in your deck. But if you never pick it in the first place you already are getting another card in your deck. But if you don't have discard then it's just a dead card.

Am I missing something or is this card completely trash?

[Papi 2Caca]

If you don't have discard it is just a dead card. If you do have discard, it lets you "discard" a card, triggering any active discard effects, and still get to replace that card in your hand so it's like you never discarded.

[Scary]

1. if you upgrade it, it draws you 2 cards for a netdraw of 1.
2. if you are playing a card that requires you to discard something, and you discard a card that is not reflex, you end up with 1 less card in your hand than you would have if you had discarded an unupgraded reflex. So while it does not advance your draw speed, it makes it so you don't "loose" cards in your hand through the discard.

[Capernaum]

I mean, the whole point of the card is it's supposed to be used synergistically with cards that force you to discard, like Calculated Gamble, Acrobatics and Prepared. Some of my favorite Silent cards and to me arguably some of the better ones.

Next you are going to call Body Slam trash because it does nothing if you don't have armor.

[Sol]

I felt like it would be more useful for ironclad cards that destroy your hand. But there is a strike for The Silent that discards all skill cards, meaning if you manage to discard this one, you get 1-2 cards back. It's not... viable for most effective spire climbing decks though. The meta wouldn't find this valuable thanks to the abundance of trash cards you can just discard without a sweat. The energy mechanic makes card-drawing decks useless, even the Construct gets to cycle plasma and simultaneously do massive damage.

[MechaTails]

If if if just just just

It's a card game where you're trying to use combinations of cards to achive certain effects. A card not fitting in your current run doesn't make it garbage, it means you're going for a different strategy. In a future run, assuming you aren't stubbornly going with one kind of deck always and forever, it will be useful.

[DizzyLizard]

Originally posted by TripSin:

IF you discard it you get another card in your deck. But if you never pick it in the first place you already are getting another card in your deck. But if you don't have discard then it's just a dead card.

Am I missing something or is this card completely trash?

its great in discard builds, or in hybrid decks (storm of steel shiv decks with an upgraded calculated gamble or two for example), obvouly if it shows up and your only method of discard is surivor then dont take it, otherwise it its quite nice for maintaing or even increasing your card advantige for free.

if you have a well laid plans however it (and the rare counterpart that grants 1 or 2 energy if upgraded) are amzing as you can quite relably proc them for free at the start of your turn for an advantige (drawing a card)

[corbet]

it's still a bad card because you WILL have lots of status cards you should be discarding vs MOST enemies, like burns, slimes, voids, ect. if not that curses that you accumulated should be discards, especially the ones that damage you or limit your cards played per turn. ect. therefor that card in particular is too situational, and that's one key of my success i minimize the situational stuff and identify what actually is going to work and be useful decisions.

[Timbermaw]

It synergizes with acrobatics, tools of the trade and the new relic in beta where you have to discard 2 cards every turn for 1 energy. Tho this card is probably best upgraded.
I think tactician is better overall.

[Suzu]

Originally posted by Samuel Dizzo:

I felt like it would be more useful for ironclad cards that destroy your hand. But there is a strike for The Silent that discards all skill cards, meaning if you manage to discard this one, you get 1-2 cards back. It's not... viable for most effective spire climbing decks though. The meta wouldn't find this valuable thanks to the abundance of trash cards you can just discard without a sweat. The energy mechanic makes card-drawing decks useless, even the Construct gets to cycle plasma and simultaneously do massive damage.

Actually, the Silent can make pretty degenerate discard decks that allow you to play 30+ cards each round, cycling your deck many times meanwhile, and do absurd amounts of damage, and both Reflex and Tactician are core cards in this kind of deck. Granted you'll never win any speedrun records with this deck, and Time Eater can wreck your run, but barring that, it's a pretty effective climb deck.

[Sol]

I like that pov. I haven't been playing for long so I'm always learning-- it seems like it's generally UNOPTIMAL to keep playing as I hhave been...
Almost every match I just take every single best card I can get my hands on and my deck gets pretty bloated. Even though it has a few strengths, a bloated deck is generally really weak without good relic compositions, so I've tried to have a lot of success in mystery rooms. I am not skilled enough to tackle early elites or more than 3 elites per game, so...

Anyway, it looks like cards like that might make my bloated deck tendency a bit more healthy. Obviously I care about winning though so I'm trying to find out my happy medium of attack cards and defense cards. Should I worry too much about removing strikes and such simpler cards from my deck in the early game?

[Suzu]

I like to make lean decks, but some bloated decks work too. Removing basic cards from the deck is a question of both strategy and opportunity (like, if I get a better defensive card, I like to take away a basic Defense, but if there's something better to do with my money on the merchant, I'll do it).
Picking up new cards is where you'll take care of the bloat. Every character has a few deck themes going on (Ironclad has block, exhaust, Silent has discard, poison, Defect has powers, 0-cost, for example). It's better if, based on the first card choices you have, and maybe the first few relics you have available to you, you pick a theme and stick with it. So you don't pick cards that don't directly sinergize with your deck theme, reducing bloat. In that sense, Reflex is absolutely useless if your deck is not discard-heavy, and you don't use discard mechanics to fuel your deck interactions.

I'm in no ways an expert in the game (I'm not even doing Ascension runs yet), but I had more success by sticking to a theme, even if it means I let slip a rare card, than to just pick up everything that seems powerful. The problem, of course, is that the game is RNG-heavy, so sometimes you try to stick with a deck and most of the cards needed for it aren't shown to you, or you get a relic that enables another deck archetype. With more experience you'll recognize the moments where you'll have to try to shift your deck direction.