Watcher deck types?

[allmike]

I've seen quite a few good synergies, but most are heavily reliant on specific rare cards to enable them (deva, wish, devotion, alpha, being the obvious ones, with the first enable a bigger range of builds)

Do you usually remove strikes or blocks?

Whats your map priority, is it different from the other chars?

Any hidden synergies or secret value cards or relics?

[Kris]

Watcher is actually a rare of case of me wanting all my strikes and blocks. she has good cards, but you don't always want the aftereffects of the others, namely empty fist/body which are some of her best cards.
Out of the rares you listed, deva isn't that good since it scales so slowly, watcher's blocking power isn't great, and watcher cards in general aren't that high cost so she really only needs a single energy relic and nothing else normally.
Wish is a nice bonus card, but not worth making a centerpiece in a build.
Alpha is really powerful, but takes a fair amount of time to get active and again watcher's blocking power isn't great. You can get a scry deck since there's a power to gain block when you scry.

the most consistent build is a stance changing build imo since you effectively start with it's core. All you really need to add to improve it are other stance cards and the empty fist/body cards.

[DevHyfes]

I've come close to beating it on numerous ocaisions and beat the heart this afternoon. I don't feel like there is any one dominant combo. Actually, let me rephrase that- while there may be dominant combos out there, it is a fluke if you can get it to come together in a run.

As you note, a good deck can be built around one of multiple rare cards. And you'll get one or two of them in most runs. It is really about trying to keep your deck open. You may get cards leaning towards Stance Change, Divinity (Mantra) Farming, or Scry until you find that rare that you want to build around. There is a guide suggesting a Retain deck, but that one- on several tries- never came together for me.

I have found that stance changes are really fun, if a bit inconsistant. There is nothing cooler than having 3 energy and 5 cards, then using clever plays into wrath and calm to turn that into 10 cards with huge damage. And there are several common cards that help this strategy- Fury of Blows, Halt, Carve Reality. When you get a couple Uncommons, you are off to the races: Tantrum, Talk to the Hand, Wheel Kick, Mental Fortress.

The other good thing about Watcher is that she really gets some nice synergies with relics. Get the Protect card- it is always good.

The important thing is that you shouldn't just decide based on your first cards you are going with a type of deck. Watcher can shift a bit. I ultimately won with a Draw deck that had a decent amount of stance changes, and then an act 3 Deva to set me up for the final win.

[allmike]

For me I only got to a5 in beta, currently a2.

I usually don't remove anything for Watcher but if I do it will be strikes, there's a lot of high value attacks to choose from & can't get enough block.

I tend to go for more enemy rooms until I choose a few cards. Feels like I pass on card choices very often.

My build usually goes off mantra or ends up gravitating towards deva. mantra builds only require a few good attacks and just require block stacking. deva is easily triggered off miracles, madness, or omniscience, then just go for draw.

Stance swapping is fun and gets me far but rarely to the end. I haven't been to make alpha, conjure blade or retain builds work, which is what I feel like I could be missing out on.

[DJDiceZ]

I'll list a few cards and their related synergies

Stance Cards - Flurry of Blows, Mental Fortress
Special Mention: Empty Fist/Mind/Body count for switching stance. Be mindful of that

Scry Cards - Nirvana, Weave
Special Mention: Nirvana + Foresight => Free Block every turns. More nirvanas increases block. More Foresights doesn't.

Fasting - Deva Form, Just Lucky, Bowling Bash, Conclude/Consecrate, Halt, Prostrate, Deceive Reality, Tantrum, Ragnarok, Foreign Influence, Reach Heaven, Flying Sleeves, Conjure Blade, Carve Reality, Flurry of Blows, Weave
Special Mention: Deva Form + Any ammount of Fasting => Drawback is negated

Wreath Of Flame/Wish/Talk To The Hand/Strenght - Bowling Bash, Flying Sleeves, Tantrum, Ragnarok, Conjure Blade, Foreign Influence, Wallop
Special Mention: Carve Reality/Reach Heaven/Flurry Of Blows/Weave with Wish and TTTH. Conclude/Consecrate with Wreath of Flame.

Wave of the Hand - Mental Fortress, Talk To The Hand, Nirvana

Deva Form - Conjure Blade, Fasting, Card Draw

Retain Cards - Establishement, Spirit Shield

Master Reality - Conjure Blade, Alpha, Study, Reach Heaven, Pray, Foreign Influence, Deceive Reality, Carve Reality, Collect, Deus Ex Machina, Battle Hymn, Evaluate, Colorless Cards

Rushdown is a great draw engine, especially with Tantrum. Could be interesting with Meditate aswell.

Swivel - Any attack that costs more than 1, especially 4 energy Sands of Time. Maybe Follow Up.

Brilliance - Anything divinity related except Blasphemy

Battle Hymn - Blasphemy, Worship, Devotion, Establishement
Note: Watch out for your hand being clogged.

Calm Stances - Like Water, Pressure Points, Inner Peace, Judgement

Wrath Stances/Divinity - Wallop, Halt, Fear No Evil, Conclude, Foreign Influence, Indignation, Signature Move, Sands of Time, Reach Heaven, Windmill Strike, anything that hits hard
Note: Obviously Halt is for Wrath.

Pressure Points - Pressure Points, Signature Move, Like Water, Judgement,
Note: Pressure Points can be spread out across enemies to create pseudo-aoe

Omnicience, Scrawl, Vault, Spirit Shield, Lesson learned, Wheel Kick, Sands of Time, Third Eye, Protect, Sash Whip, Crush Joints, etc... These are just good in general

Yeah i listed some very obvious things. I probably forgot a couple.

[Bopple]

Wish and Alpha are worthless rare cards.
Deva Form is bad except for a deck without any energy relic.
Devotion is fine.

The best Watcher rare cards are Deus Ex Machina and Scrawl.
Vault, Brilliance, Judgment, and Spirit Shield are good.

[Jexvrok]

pressure point deck can be decent. pretty much rip through everything.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

The conundrum of the Watcher is that its unlocks pretty much suck. I completely DESTROYED the Spire on my first playthru with her. All I needed was a lot of stance change cards and three of those cards which appear every time you change stance (flurry of blows?). I roflstomped everything and by the end I even got cards from all the other colors. Skipped a lot of those cards and only picked up the best.

And then I got my first unlocks... And all the unlocks I got so far suck so much they dilute the amount of good cards I can randomly get. That's the greatest challenge of the Watcher... Sifting thru the bad.

[Ellye]

My favorite deck so far is Battle Hymn + Establishment + other Retain synergy + a single Wrath trigger (and any number of Calm triggers).

Just play defensively as you build up lethal damage in your hand via retain and explode in a turn of Wrath.

Another one I enjoyed is the Pressure Points deck. Just make the deck as small as possible to quickly cycle your Pressure Points and spam it. Scry helps.

Do you usually remove strikes or blocks?

Always, zero Strikes and as close as zero blocks as possible. Removing them take priority over anything else, for me.

[DJDiceZ]

Originally posted by Ellye:

My favorite deck so far is Battle Hymn + Establishment + other Retain synergy + a single Wrath trigger (and any number of Calm triggers).

Just play defensively as you build up lethal damage in your hand via retain and explode in a turn of Wrath.

Another one I enjoyed is the Pressure Points deck. Just make the deck as small as possible to quickly cycle your Pressure Points and spam it. Scry helps.

Do you usually remove strikes or blocks?

Always, zero Strikes and as close as zero blocks as possible. Removing them take priority over anything else, for me.

I mean, Wrath is fine for EstaBattle, but you know, Divinity is even better.

[x_equals_speed]

In contrast to most of the thread I find myself eliminating my blocks first (Not completely, but my strike-block ratio goes something like 5-5 5-4 5-3 4-3 4-2 3-2...)

So far in the early game being able to go into wrath and drop a pile of strikes wrecks enough stuff that guaranteeing you don't draw into your unleash with a pile of blocks is worth losing a bit of blocking potential.

I'm only up to A6 with the watcher though.

[SpectralShade]

Last time I killed heart with watcher, I had a deck that swapped in and out of calm stance while racking up mantra. Against the heart I ended up simply stopping attacking when I hit the limit of how much damage it could take in a turn (even though I had energy and cards on hand).
Note: I didn't use wrath stance most of the time, but instead just got oodles of mana fra exciting calm stance or entering divinity. add card draw and it was practically an infinity machine.

[Philocarpe]

Blasphemy.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Must have played over 20 runs with the Watcher now... Roflstomped my first game, a fouth of all other games I didn't even survice act 2...

As far as I can tell I'm playing the same way. I'm just not getting the cards to build a strong deck anymore.