Little help with understanding the Defect

[Raizemberg]

So. I've just finished Ascension 20 on both Ironclad and Silent, so it's time to grind our favorite Invoker Bot to the top. But i've been having some trouble figuring the character out. While the other two are really easy to understand their best builds, the Defect has too much variation and it gets kinda' overwhelming in a way.

It's there any tips i could use to get a better hold on the dude? Thanks in advance.

[Zu]

Sort of a meme, but sorta true . Secret link to the post itself included.

How it pans out most of the time:

1) Get the good powers in play
2) Hologram go for the eyes
3) Play your staple commons
4) Orbs do most of the work

I said this very recently: Don't get distracted by orb types and the whole 0-cost package. Look at what cards do for you in a vacuum before looking at synergies. Break it down and compare.

Ball lightning is really just a poisoned stab on steroids.
Cold snap is really just a different iron wave.
Darkness is like noxious fumes that doesn't hurt until it's gone.

Once you're done wrapping your head around that, you can start looking at what's ahead and see what makes sense, like "Ok, electrodynamics is always nice to have, and I see the collector's the act 2 boss, so I should find ways to make lightning more often, like another ball lightning, another hologram for my zap, drawing more cards by upgrading coolheaded, or maybe I just take this preupgraded sweeping beam." etc.

[Raizemberg]

Originally posted by Zu:

Sort of a meme, but sorta true . Secret link to the post itself included.

How it pans out most of the time:

1) Get the good powers in play
2) Hologram go for the eyes
3) Play your staple commons
4) Orbs do most of the work

I said this very recently: Don't get distracted by orb types and the whole 0-cost package. Look at what cards do for you in a vacuum before looking at synergies. Break it down and compare.

Ball lightning is really just a poisoned stab on steroids.
Cold snap is really just a different iron wave.
Darkness is like noxious fumes that doesn't hurt until it's gone.

Once you're done wrapping your head around that, you can start looking at what's ahead and see what makes sense, like "Ok, electrodynamics is always nice to have, and I see the collector's the act 2 boss, so I should find ways to make lightning more often, like another ball lightning, another hologram for my zap, drawing more cards by upgrading coolheaded, or maybe I just take this preupgraded sweeping beam." etc.

So basically i should pick up a basic theme and focus on Value instead of Sinergy, right?

I was able to beat low ascension of the Ironclad in that way but in higher levels i was forced to go for big win conditions all the time. That happens with the Defect too or he's stable all the way up?

[Zu]

Well yeah, every character starts thinking about doing broken things the higher you climb.

In Defect's case, it can be as simple as echo forming a biased cognition with orange pellets.

Sometimes you draw the nuts and an all for one deck comes together with kunai shuriken.

Other times you pick snecko eye and spice things up with meteor strike.

And sometimes you try to approach infinity with recycle, plasma, and compile driver.
(May or may not work against the heart, but you don't need to beat it to climb, hah!)

PS:
The thing about synergies is that some people seem to think that orb types are separate builds or something, but that's just holding you back. Like, what if that multicast you ramped with ice cream and turbo to one-shot the champ before he hills you because act 2 sorta beat you up to low hp can now be used to stall against darklings with frost because you picked up calipers and bird-faced urn so you wanna wait until you've echo formed every single power in your deck which you absolutely didn't have to do to win this hallway fight?

PPS:
You do wanna eventually start thinking about how your cards interact with each other. I just told you to keep it basic for now so you don't trick yourself into thinking cold snap would never see play in a deck that's hoping to kill bosses with thunder strike (which isn't even really a thing, but just to give you an example).
You didn't know things were gonna develop this way in act 1 when you were just trying not to die, did you?

[Raizemberg]

Thanks. I'm having fun with some Value Power decks. Getting the hang of it. Already at Ascension 4. Keeping up the grind.

[Zu]

Cool. Bump this thread in a bit and maybe someone who plays A15+ regularly replies cuz I ain't doin that shid these days so I'm rusty LUL