Nightmare disappointed me.

[Hedning]

So I was wondering what the point of this card was. I figured it is just a dual wield, but rare, 3 times the cost, and you have to wait until next turn to get your cards. Ok, that's already bad in comparison, but when I finally was able to play it on a 0 cost leg sweep the cards it copied was restored to the original energy cost. For a 3 cost rare I expected them to be the price of the target for the rest of combat, or at least until the end of that turn.

This character is starting to look as bad as defect. Also has a trap with start of turn discard. If you're not paying attention you're discarding the card you are attempting to play. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but it has already happened several times. Not even defect was this user unfriendly.

[LHGreen]

Silent has Well Laid Plans (which I believe Samuel L. Jackson told her she could stick up her well laid ass, at one point) to allow her to retain things so she can use them with Nightmare at just the right time. Usually, you want to Nightmare a Catalyst when the enemy has a bunch of poison on it so that you can just annihilate it. But Nightmare makes one more copy than Duel Wield and it works on ANY card, hence the increased cost, rarity, and required turns. Just imagine the shenanigans of Nightmare-ing Alchemize, Wraith Form, Acrobatics, and so on.

[mldb88]

It’s also hilarious with dash in the right situations. But yea it’s definitely a lot more niche of a card than it lets on to be at first. You can do some stupid things with it but it really needs to be in a deck that has a specific plan in mind for it

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by mldb88:

It’s also hilarious with dash in the right situations. But yea it’s definitely a lot more niche of a card than it lets on to be at first. You can do some stupid things with it but it really needs to be in a deck that has a specific plan in mind for it

Yep, definitely niche, but fun as heck.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2131871908

[Hedning]

It's the opposite of vault. The enemy gets an extra turn, because you spent all your energy doing nothing this turn.

At least they are added to the hand and not the draw pile.

No, I can't see nightmaring acrobatics. You spent 3 energy so that next turn you can spend 3 more drawing cards? ...is what I would have said, but I just unlocked concentrate and setup, so I guess can see some shenanigans. Still seems a bit convoluted compared to just duping some really powerful thing and playing it immediately.

[Hedning]

Also the upgraded starter relic seems to be a side grade rather than upgrade. Watcher gets 3x the energy. Ironclad gets 2x the hp regen. Silent starts behind the base version and doesn't get ahead until turn 3. And it cost a boss relic to do that?

[mldb88]

Originally posted by Hedning:

Also the upgraded starter relic seems to be a side grade rather than upgrade. Watcher gets 3x the energy. Ironclad gets 2x the hp regen. Silent starts behind the base version and doesn't get ahead until turn 3. And it cost a boss relic to do that?

If you think of it in terms of net card advantage it’s an upgrade, though not as blatantly obvious as the other classes. Starter gives you more turn 1 options (which is super helpful with dealing with the shorter combats and potentially bad turn 1 draws in act 1 when your deck is still pretty much nonexistent) while the upgrade already breaks even with the starter relic by turn 2 and surpasses it by turn 3, and provides more consistent fixing later once your deck is more cohesive thanks to having that 6th draw each turn. It’s still not amazing, but then again most of the starter replacement relics aren’t

[Songbird]

Nightmare is situationally one of the most powerful cards in the game. Nightmare on Wraith Form+ or Apparition generally wins immediately. Footwork+, Escape Plan, Acrobatics, or even something like Dodge and Roll (if you already have a bunch of dexterity) can win immediately as well. It is a very flexible card that allows you to either hyperscale or load your deck with whatever it needs to be ridiculously consistent for the rest of a fight.

Nightmare does copy when a card costs 0 or any other number, btw. However, the card needs to actually cost 0 (e.g. Sneko Eye randomized the cost to 0 until it is drawn again, or you set the cost to 0 until played/discarded with Setup, or you hit it with Madness) rather than cost 0 *this turn* (in which case the cost resets when Nightmare gives you the copy).

Learning how to generate energy effectively during fights and set up turns where you can play an expensive card is an essential skill in this game. If nothing else, you can upgrade Nightmare to make it cheaper.

Silent's starter relic upgrade is terrible and pretty much never worth taking, yes. All of the starter relic upgrades other than Watcher's generally suck compared to other boss relics, though.

[Nibbie]

So there are three major things wrong with your comparison.

One, they are in different classes, so automatically have different use cases. Each class had different gameplans, different amounts of card draw and energy generation, and so on. The consistent draw power and ability to retain Silent has makes it much more consistent to hit your Nightmare and the card you want to duplicate in the same hand, for example. Also, Silent has access to Burst, so she can quadruple two different cards (or septuple one), or multicast several of the copied cards, things Ironclad definitely can't do. You also have cards like Wraith Form you can copy, which guarantees a dozen turns of not caring much about what the enemy tries to do to you. Meanwhile, Dual Wield doesn't exhaust, so you can continually duplicate something over the course of a battle. Some comparisons can be made, but you can't simply equate cards in different classes; even similar cards have different strengths with different toolsets.

Two, you say that Nightmare costs three times as much as Dual Wield, but fail to mention it also gives three times as many cards. Even if you consider them both when upgraded, it costs 100% more to give 50% more cards. Getting your cards next turn is also beneficial in a lot of situations, as you may not have the energy that turn to play all of them that turn, or you can Nightmare something specifically because it is good next turn, rather than this turn; a defensive card when you know the enemy is attacking next turn, for example. Also, it will keep any cost reducing effects that are permanent rather than one turn, such as Madness or Snecko.

Three, Nightmare works on skill cards, which Dual Wield does not, and that is a great use case for it. Using Nightmare on cards like Catalyst, Adrenaline, Blur, or in very particular scenarios, even another Nightmare, can cause ridiculous things to happen.

Silent is definitely better than Defect, its pretty equivalent with Ironclad actually, only Watcher is better than it. That's not to say any of them are bad enough that you can't win very consistently with them of course, especially at low difficulties.

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by Hedning:

Also the upgraded starter relic seems to be a side grade rather than upgrade. Watcher gets 3x the energy. Ironclad gets 2x the hp regen. Silent starts behind the base version and doesn't get ahead until turn 3. And it cost a boss relic to do that?

Silent boss relic is not good and niche. If you have something like Bag of Prep or Ninja Scroll it's a thought, but usually the basic version is better.

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by Hedning:

It's the opposite of vault. The enemy gets an extra turn, because you spent all your energy doing nothing this turn.

At least they are added to the hand and not the draw pile.

No, I can't see nightmaring acrobatics. You spent 3 energy so that next turn you can spend 3 more drawing cards? ...is what I would have said, but I just unlocked concentrate and setup, so I guess can see some shenanigans. Still seems a bit convoluted compared to just duping some really powerful thing and playing it immediately.

It has the drawbacks, because it has very high potential when paired with Wraith Form, Footwork or other cards it can make you quite invincible.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Anyone got good non posion examples?

[Hedning]

Originally posted by Nibbie:

Using Nightmare on cards like Catalyst, Adrenaline, Blur, or in very particular scenarios, even another Nightmare, can cause ridiculous things to happen.

Burst can play those catalysts, or whatever skill you want, for no extra cost, and this turn.

That said I have had some success with it, with the help of bullet time and setup: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3126186069

[LHGreen]

Dammit, I meant Blade Dance, not Acrobatics. Sorry, I'm sleepy right now.

As for the starter relic upgrade, well, Silent's basic starter is just the backpack, so if you get that, you can afford to trade in the basic starter. She has a lot of free draw, and there's a lot of strategies with her where you don't want to be drawing 9-10 cards on the first turn, since that makes it harder to create shivs or causes you to waste a draw card when your hand is full. It also pairs well with Snecko Eye, but it's important to remember that Silent has the hardest time of any character with incorporating Snecko Eye into her builds.

[Hedning]

Originally posted by LHGreen:

Dammit, I meant Blade Dance, not Acrobatics. Sorry, I'm sleepy right now.

I tried a shiv deck. It got really powerful with the shuriken. They did 40 damage each at the end, but if the heart had 2 damage beat of death I would have died. Also with double boss the time eater would be really scary, and likely to spawn.

Originally posted by LHGreen:

As for the starter relic upgrade, well, Silent's basic starter is just the backpack, so if you get that, you can afford to trade in the basic starter. She has a lot of free draw, and there's a lot of strategies with her where you don't want to be drawing 9-10 cards on the first turn, since that makes it harder to create shivs or causes you to waste a draw card when your hand is full. It also pairs well with Snecko Eye, but it's important to remember that Silent has the hardest time of any character with incorporating Snecko Eye into her builds.

One thing I noticed is that many cards that draw also has discard. Some cards have only discard and no draw. Running out of cards is definitely a risk, so starting with more is extra good. Not only can I pick the best of 9, but if I get bullet time I can play more cards. If I get the dice card that redraws the hand I get to draw more. If I get setup I have more options for that. If they are cheap I can possibly play all of them, or sacrifice some for more energy and play the rest. If I can draw and play all the powers on turn one that is definitely better than having to wait for them to be drawn.

[Zu]

Since nobody has mentioned them yet: Mummified hand, ritual dagger, malaise, piercing wail. Like, you don't even need to retain those wails. Just having 3 more makes the 4 final fights a lot easier. I hope the other 3 are self-explanatory.

But ye, I don't take it that often, in part because it's usually up against other rares.