Which terrible relic would you choose?

[Imhotep]

Which of these relic choices would you take at the end of Act 1?

Gain one energy, and:

- all non-Boss chests contain a curse
- can no longer gain Gold
- can no longer see enemy intents

[Terratrox]

Act 1? Can no longer gain gold. Cursed Key bloats your deck if you take it in act 1, and dome is dome. ♥♥♥♥ dome lol.

I've actually skipped boss relics before though. It depends on how much you value your gold gain.

[LHGreen]

The key. It's, like, one more curse, and there's ways to mitigate them or turn them to your advantage. Bloat from one more curse is only a problem if your deck is too thin, anyway.

As for Ectoplasm, I'd rather take that than dome, but ideally at the end of Act 2 or as a starter.

[Nibbie]

I mean, first off, none of them are terrible. Second, it matters somewhat what deck you are forming and your situation; something like a Barricade deck might lean towards Dome (intents) since it just wants to gain maximum block every turn anyway, while if you got an early Old Coin you might be fine taking the Ectoplasm (gold) since you have enough banked to still buy the important things.

In general though, I would lean towards the Key (curses). You can choose to not open relic chests and thus not have curses (there are different chest designs which have different chances of good relics, so you can use that for risk assessment), just tank the curses (some of them aren't that bad), or just remove the curses (with the gold you can still gain from not taking Ectoplasm).

[Banzai]

Agree about the key although obviously it depends on what you are playing and what cards you have picked up so far. Any deck with the ability to discard and draw at will (Silent) wont care and neither will something with an exhaust focus or even just a few exhaust cards like true grit and burning pact (Ironclad). Always situational though I guess.

[Imhotep]

In the circumstances, maybe I'll try the Curse one. I have Fire Breathing, which deals damage to all enemies when a Status or Curse card is drawn.

[Zu]

In a vacuum I'd go in order of key dome slimer, mostly because gold is flexible and there are various relics and events that produce gold. I wouldn't be unhappy to see any of these next to black blood and runic cube though.

On the other hand:
If my run is strong, key lowers its ceiling. Also, matrioshka and juzu.
If I have anchor or my run is strong, dome is kinda win-more.
If I already have old coin or used maw bank, ectoplasm gets better.

[Terratrox]

Originally posted by Zu:

In a vacuum I'd go in order of key dome slimer, mostly because gold is flexible and there are various relics and events that produce gold. I wouldn't be unhappy to see any of these next to black blood and runic cube though.

On the other hand:
If my run is strong, key lowers its ceiling. Also, matrioshka and juzu.
If I have anchor or my run is strong, dome is kinda win-more.
If I already have old coin or used maw bank, ectoplasm gets better.

Originally posted by LHGreen:

The key. It's, like, one more curse, and there's ways to mitigate them or turn them to your advantage. Bloat from one more curse is only a problem if your deck is too thin, anyway.

As for Ectoplasm, I'd rather take that than dome, but ideally at the end of Act 2 or as a starter.

Whenever I take curses I tend to get Normality, Regret, or Pain, so I've been traumatized into avoiding as many curses as possible lol.

[mldb88]

Assuming there’s no incentive or upside to taking any one over another (early coin, omomori, etc) I’d personally take dome or key depending on if I was playing A20 or not. It’s more because I’m confident enough in predicting enemy behavior on A20 than anything else though (most of my late chad wins were boss swap hitting dome). I’ve kinda forgotten how they all work on lower difficulty so I’d probably go key there, since I’m usually pretty gold reliant in my runs.

[Gentlest Giant]

Key in over 95% of scenarios. My pickrate for Cursed Key is among the highest of all energy relics and Dome is at the very bottom.
Cursed Key translates to one extra curse and one to three fewer relics.
Ectoplasm translates to roughly 3 less card removes and loss of shop opportunities
Dome translates to a tremendous increase in difficulty for several significant fights - only take this if your deck is already winning. And yes, I have perfect knowledge of enemy patterns.

Key and Ectoplasm both have negatives that takes a long while to actually have any detrimental effect while Dome kicks in full force right away.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

Almost always Cursed Key. Ectoplasm and Dome are two of the worst boss relics in the game, Cursed Key is generally fairly good. You open the next chest, take the Blue Key, remove your curse at a shop, and then just don't open any more chests. Having to skip out on another relic or two may feel bad but it's far more manageable than the alternatives here.

[LHGreen]

Originally posted by Terratrox:

Whenever I take curses I tend to get Normality, Regret, or Pain, so I've been traumatized into avoiding as many curses as possible lol.

Lol, that'll happen, sometimes. Of those three, though, it's normality I fear the most (and the game seems to KNOW this, given the Mind Bloom event), and prioritize for removal. But as for the other 2, you eventually learn to use health as a resource and budget it, even on A20.

Originally posted by Mega Missingno.:

Almost always Cursed Key. Ectoplasm and Dome are two of the worst boss relics in the game, Cursed Key is generally fairly good. You open the next chest, take the Blue Key, remove your curse at a shop, and then just don't open any more chests. Having to skip out on another relic or two may feel bad but it's far more manageable than the alternatives here.

There's a good point here. Ectoplasm and Dome start having a negative effect on your run the moment you take them, and that continues right up until the final act.

[Terratrox]

Originally posted by LHGreen:

Originally posted by Terratrox:

Whenever I take curses I tend to get Normality, Regret, or Pain, so I've been traumatized into avoiding as many curses as possible lol.

Lol, that'll happen, sometimes. Of those three, though, it's normality I fear the most (and the game seems to KNOW this, given the Mind Bloom event), and prioritize for removal. But as for the other 2, you eventually learn to use health as a resource and budget it, even on A20.

I play a lot of Defect. So most of his health is budgeted towards taking tons of damage in early Elite fights lol.

Normality IS the worst one, yes. Unless I'm doing a Snecko eye thing, it chokes me damn near every run. But Pain is second worst because I don't like playing 1 or 2 cards a turn. I'm playing 4 or 5 generally speaking, and taking 4 or 5 damage every third turn is a lot over the course of an act.

[LHGreen]

Originally posted by Terratrox:

taking 4 or 5 damage every third turn is a lot over the course of an act.

Then try to have a deck that's thicker than 15 cards. Imho, that's arguably in the worst range of cards for a deck to have, until you reach, like, 55+. From 2 to 10-ish, or 20+, are far better.

[HAWAIIANpikachu]

Cursed Key like 99% of the time.

It means you draw like 2 curses on average if you still want to get the chest relics. Honestly not the worst trade for 1 relic.

[Terratrox]

Originally posted by LHGreen:

Originally posted by Terratrox:

taking 4 or 5 damage every third turn is a lot over the course of an act.

Then try to have a deck that's thicker than 15 cards. Imho, that's arguably in the worst range of cards for a deck to have, until you reach, like, 55+. From 2 to 10-ish, or 20+, are far better.

I tend to try to keep my decks thin so I can keep drawing what I want to draw instead of relying on the RNG gods to pull things I need. 15 is thick for what I'd want but it's what ends up happening more often than not in my runs. It's why I value draw and hologram so much, because they functionally thin the deck.