What do you think is the worst card in StS?

[Cowsep]

Of course, with the exception of curse, status cards as well as strikes and defends, because these cards are supposed to make your deck suffer.

In my opinion, after beating A20 heart several times, watcher's "Alpha" card is the worst.

I mean, it is basically a "slimed" status card, except it takes away 3 draws and 6 costs. 50 damage per turn may sound nice, but watcher can easily deal more than 50 damage each turn just by taking advantage of wrath and calm stances.

The thing that I don't understand is, why is this not a silent card? Silent has better draw and infinite deck cycle potentials than watcher, and unlike watcher, other than Grand Finale and double Catalyst+, Silent hardly has a card that can deal tons of damage each turn.

So what are your opinions?

[HAWAIIANpikachu]

Slice is a strike. That’s against the rules /s

I’d rather a slightly better strike than a slightly worse shiv. Although I forgot slice existed so I guess that gets a honorable mention because it’s so bad I forgot it.

Severed Soul has somewhat better synergy with exhaust and/or dead branch ironclad. So it’s slightly above it and that kinda gave it the edge in the end.

[fractal9091]

Oprindeligt skrevet af HAWAIIANpikachu:

Slice is a strike. That’s against the rules /s

I’d rather a slightly better strike than a slightly worse shiv. Although I forgot slice existed so I guess that gets a honorable mention because it’s so bad I forgot it.

Severed Soul has somewhat better synergy with exhaust and/or dead branch ironclad. So it’s slightly above it and that kinda gave it the edge in the end.

Fair enough. I've just played way more Endless Agonies and Carnages than Slices and Severed Souls.

I still think calling Endless Agony a bad shiv is unfair - it's 8 damage for 0 mana, 2 attacks for 0 mana, and even a (kind of) 0-mana card draw effect to use with discard effects that need fuel. Yeah, none of those are amazing, but there's also no set-up cost; just add in a cheap attack that exhausts itself so you won't have to see it again.

[HAWAIIANpikachu]

probably a bit of it is personal bias yes. I just always found them to be a worse shiv because its the exact same damage with no accuracy memes to combo them with.

Accuracy is weak but get a few of them and your shivs can turn into free backstabs and just slaughter bosses

[Cowsep]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Berik Xardas:

Alpha is definitely not the worst card to me. I had more than enough succesful runs where this was the main damage source. With this setup, you can always stay in Calm which makes Like Water a stronger Metallicize. If damage must be dealt quickly, Signature Move can be utilized - Pressure Points are also good. Also: You can use Omniscience to play either 2 Betas or 2 Omegas without "waiting" for them to be drawn.

I mean, in Ascension 20, many enemies will not wait for you to set up the late game power spike and do nothing, and just using wrath and calm is more than enough deal out damage consistently, both early game and late game. Like Water may be "stronger" than Metallicize, but it is simply a weaker Mental Fortress, in which you just need to change stances twice to have more value, and you don't have to be in calm mode.

Signature Move is an awkward card in both early and late acts. Early on, there's no guarantee that you will have enough opportunity to remove as many strikes as possible for you to play that card, and in later act, it can create anti-synergies with many cards like Empty Fist, Lesson Learned, Fear No Evil, and so on.

Pressure Point has 0 synergy with any other card, so I see no reason to pick that card as watcher.

[DaBa]

First thing that came to mind is Pressure Points.

- Only card that does the Mark, no support from anything else.

- Does not synergize with any of the other base watcher mechanics like stances.

- It's not even strong on it's own.

- Because of both of the points above, it's even terrible as a "one of" option or tech against other enemies, as soon as you get literally anything going it's a dead card.

- Because it's the only card that does the Mark, it's close to impossible to build a dedicated deck for it (since you would need multiple copies for it to be consistent).

- Even if you somehow manage to build a dedicated deck with multiple copies and proper support that allows to play it a lot, it still feels worse than every other Watcher archetype, especially if you factor how unlikely it is you will ever make such a deck and how hard is it to make it work

- Because of all of those reasons, I think Pressure Points is actually worse than most curses. Because, unlike curses, it can appear in your card choices, does not work with curse synergies, cannot be played if you have blue candle, and just in general does not interact with things as curses would. It's a curse card without curse synergies.

I can't think of any other card that's worse than this from the top of my head.

[Berik Xardas]

Oprindeligt skrevet af A as an Atheist:

Signature Move is an awkward card in both early and late acts. Early on, there's no guarantee that you will have enough opportunity to remove as many strikes as possible for you to play that card, and in later act, it can create anti-synergies with many cards like Empty Fist, Lesson Learned, Fear No Evil, and so on.

That's why, as I said, you pick it if you already decided that this run will be focusing on Pressure Points and/or Alpha. When this is decided, all removals will focus on Strikes (and Eruption), and also (probably) no more other attacks will be chosen. Therefore - why not picking Signature Move in this situation? It gets rid of things which have to die fast, like Exploder or Minions.

And regarding all comments regarding Pressure Points from the gentlemen above it:
Of course Pressure Points build is not eligible at every seed.
However, it isn't "hard" to have a functioning deck centered around it. We are talking about a COMMON card after all.
2 copies are enough for a good part of the run - surely you'll want a third copy by act 3.
If I see a Pressure Points in the first rewards, it is the time for me to make a first decision. Either I ignore all of them for the rest of the run, or I'll take it. And a second copy isn't delivered soon, then I just play around stances - having ONE Pressure Points in a Stance Deck is not duch a big deal IMO.
Also regarding synergy: The Following cards become much better when your main damage source is Pressure Points:
Like Water
Signature Move

[Flysnek]

Blizzard. Because the card has a hidden passive that removes it from existance after picking up a single Frost card.

[HAWAIIANpikachu]

Really? Didn't know that existed. Thanks for the info!

[Burdpal]

Phantasmal Killer, because I hate being offered it instead of Corpse Explosion or Adrenaline when my deck sorely requires AoE or draw consistency.

[Dadam]

Defect's new reprogram is terrible. The last thing you want to do is lose focus as this character. Biased cognition actually gives you tempo and survivability even without an artifact charge whether you're on floor 5 or 45, which is something that can't be said about reprogram. The downsides outweigh anything reprogram is trying to bring to the table.

[GabineteMcPoint]

For Ironclad I would say it's either Fire Breathing or Rupture. They both provide very little value outside niche situations and/or requiere you to pick sub-par cards to make up for their weakness.

For Silent it has to be Setup for me, but with so many situational cards it could be one of many other cards.

For Defect maybe Rainbow or Heatsinks. It's hard to say because while Defect has plenty of situational cards they all (or almost all) have a deck idea they fit really well.

For Watcher I really dislike Simmering Fury, I feel it's a worse version of Crescendo.

And from the many many bad colorless cards Transmutation feels like the least playable. Mainly because most of the time it will take all your energy to give you bad cards that already cost 0.

[Zu]

Oprindeligt skrevet af GabineteMcPoint:

Heatsinks

Hohoho, you haven't seen the mummified hand high roll with storm.

[GabineteMcPoint]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Zu:

Oprindeligt skrevet af GabineteMcPoint:

Heatsinks

Hohoho, you haven't seen the mummified hand high roll with storm. :lunar2019piginablanket:

Yeah, I kinda forgot that Mummifed Hand is a thing. Speaking of, how is a relic that strong not a boss relic?

Anyways, Rainbow for worst defect card.

[Songbird]

A lot of you guys are listing cards that are extremely powerful with the right support or at certain points in a run. Some of them (Carnage) are even amazing in virtually every run for at least a while. Most of the really terrible options are colorless cards:

Dramatic Entrance -- ridiculously low-impact and slows you down by being innate

Forethought -- A whopping -2 draw to discount a card's energy cost once while also making it so it isn't in your deck as it reshuffles most of the time. The upgrade allows you to further reduce your effective draw and redraw the cards you didn't want to play this turn because they weren't as good as what you did play.

Transmutation -- Dump energy to generate a bunch of incredibly crappy cards.

Setup -- Also -2 draw like Forethought, but now it costs you an energy.

Those are the real winners, but going with one for each character:

Ironclad: Reckless Charge. Without support, this is horribly low impact for a -1 draw card. Even if you add support like Evolve, it still does extremely little on the turn it is played. Look for Power Through, Wild Strike, and (obviously) Immolate for stronger cards that do something similar.

Silent: Discounting Setup which made the all-star list, it's gotta be Distraction. Silent has far too many skills that are extremely situational in when they can be played for good effect: Reflex, Tactician, Prepared, and Storm of Steel are all examples of painful low rolls.

Defect: Reprogram. An unbelievably slow card that is usually actively bad to play. The old one was actually a decent card, too.

Watcher: I'd say Wreath of Flame is probably the only Watcher card I'd actually consider bad, but it's still nowhere near as bad as these others.

[NorthernDruid]

Storm of Steel, is just a much worse Blade Dance. Unless your deck is actually filled with Reflexes. Or maybe if you have Tough Bandages.