Tainted Lost

Flight
Spectral tears

**Tainted Lost** is a character added in The Binding of Isaac: Repentance. It is the alternate version of  The Lost. Tainted Lost is unlocked by reaching Home and using the , , or  to access a special room in one of the walls while playing as the Lost.

Tainted Lost is just like The Lost, but instead of , it starts with a ; it also does not start with the . Like the Lost, Tainted Lost has flight and spectral tears, but no health. Just as the Holy Mantle effect from the Holy Card negates damage taken in the first place, items such as ,  and  will revive Tainted Lost after death. This means that items that normally take effect upon taking damage will affect Tainted Lost upon death and revival. It also starts with a 1.3x damage multiplier, giving it higher starting damage and making most damage ups more powerful. Certain items will be automatically rerolled while playing as Tainted Lost, including most defense-oriented items (see Item Exclusion). To offset the lack of  and limited defensive options, all cards that spawn have roughly a 10% chance of being turned into a .

Beating Delirium with  The Lost is not required for Tainted Lost to obtain the , or for Holy Cards to spawn during the run.

As with The Lost, Devil Room items and Black Market items can be taken for free, but will be presented as a choice. Taking one item as a deal will cause the others in the room to disappear.

## Item Exclusion

Tainted Lost has two mechanics that determine what items it can encounter.

### Offensive items

The first mechanic makes it so that any items that are not tagged "`offensive`" cannot be naturally encountered while playing as Tainted Lost. This disallows items that it can't take advantage of, similar to  The Lost's , but it also prevents many powerful defensive items, such as  and , from naturally spawning. These items will be rerolled, and items that are set drops from mini-bosses (ex. Super Pride dropping ) will never be dropped.

Disallowed items can only appear by using , , as set drops from props (ex.  from a skull), or from .

Not all items tagged "`offensive`" are particularly offense-oriented items. Examples of this include  and .

### Item quality

The second mechanic uses the item quality system. Items with a quality value of 2 or less have a 20% chance of being rerolled when encountered as Tainted Lost. The new item chosen is not guaranteed to have quality over 2.

## Excluded Items

The following items cannot be found while playing as Tainted Lost.

## Strategy

With only a single  for defense, defensive items become just as important as offensive ones, as taking more than a single hit the entire run may prove fatal. However, because all items not marked as "offensive" will automatically be rerolled, defensive options available are less plentiful.

Tainted Lost starts with a Holy Card regardless of whether the Holy Card is unlocked. Tainted Lost can find Holy Cards even if it is not unlocked by defeating Delirium as The Lost.

* A good way to secure a powerful run is to visit as many Boss Challenge Rooms as possible. It is possible for the player to use the alternate floors to their advantage by sticking to the second floor of each chapter. By visiting Downpour II / Dross II, the player can also get an extra boss item from the Mirrored World. This strategy comes with the added risk of having to fight more bosses, but provides the potential to snowball the player's stats and make later floors much easier to survive in.
	+ Remember to fight the boss outside the Mirrored World, which will drop .
* Be careful of any Chests, which could be a Mimic Chest or a Haunted Chest.
* Skulls can be a source of finding cards which in turn can be a .
* Waiting before using the  until after the Shop has been found in case a  is available for sale can prove helpful.
* Be wary of taking items that automatically attack enemies in case they kill exploding enemies nearby. Items like ,  and items that spawn blue flies.

### Good Items

These items provide significant benefits to Tainted Lost.

* : Chance of changing the room drop reward to a card, and chance of getting a card as additional rewards from certain things, indirectly increasing the chance of getting a Holy Card.
* : Grants an extra life, respawning in the same room and damaging nearby enemies.
	+ This extra life item is the only one that can be naturally obtained as Tainted Lost, as all others are rerolled.
	+ Taking a hit and using Birthright counts as taking damage and will affect items accordingly, such as losing .
	+ Summoning Birthright with  will grant infinite lives until the wisp is destroyed.
* : Allows a four charge reuse of the Holy Card.
	+ and  each reduce the charge time required by one bar.
	+ allows storing an extra use of Blank Card, useful in case you take a hit multiple times in a short period.
* : Especially useful against enemies that spawn bullets or other enemies on death, as they will often be instantly blocked or damaged/killed, respectively.
* : Very powerful in combination with  and .
* : The Bone orbitals spawned from this item can block projectiles, greatly increasing survivability.
* / : Rings of wisps can block a lot of projectiles.
	+ Summoning the  wisp with Lemegeton will grant infinite lives until the wisp is destroyed.
* : Has about a 50% chance of spawning a Holy Card.
* : Allows Tainted Lost to be invisible upon entering a room and plan out his first attack.
* : Can be used with protective runes like  or . Similarly,  can be used for a single-use  for the current room.
	+ also provides a short invincibility streak after reviving.
* : Becoming Tainted Lost by using Clicker allows Tainted Lost to keep all previously collected items. This allows many useful defensive items that Tainted Lost normally can't collect.
* : Allows an extra item to be taken from devil deals.
* : The downside of the item is inconsequential due to Tainted Lost's lack of health.
* /  /: Cards duplicated by D1's effect have an increased chance to be Holy Cards.
* : The downside of the item is inconsequential due to Tainted Lost's lack of health.
	+ The item can still kill Tainted Lost if resurrected by  or any other acquired respawn item.
* : Provides a powerful panic button to escape swarms of enemies and/or bullets.
* : Allows more chances for Holy Cards.
* : Tainted Lost can now obtain defensive items, as Death Certificate's item generation ignores Tainted Lost's changes to item availability. This is extremely beneficial, as Tainted Lost can now obtain extra lives such as  and protective items such as .
* : The next three consumables used after Holy Card will grant another mantle.
* : Has a 25% chance to spawn another Holy Card when one is used.
* : Retracts almost all spikes and allows free Curse Room entrance.
* / : On-demand invincibility with contact damage.
* : High damage shots that allow removal of especially dangerous enemies fast. The downside of the item only comes into effect upon use of a reviving item and not from consuming a Holy Mantle.
* : Bombs may drop a Holy Card when exploding.
* : Allows recovery of a Holy Card shield.
* : can increase the amount of Locked Chests found in a run, and thus allows more chances for Holy Cards to appear.
* Homing tears: Allows Tainted Lost to safely position himself almost anywhere in a room while still dealing damage.
* / : can destroy almost all "invulnerable" enemies (e.g. Poky, Stone Grimace) before they can hurt Tainted Lost. However, Ball and Chain are still invulnerable and dangerous.
* : Blocks projectiles.
* : Can be safely used to generate items with no loss of durability or risk of death.
* / : Most rooms can be checked for a safe plan of attack, or bypassed entirely.
* : Allows a one-time revival upon death, respawning Tainted Lost in the previous room.
	+ has a chance to trigger Missing Poster's effect each room.
* : Gets strong Trinkets and doubles their effect.
	+ could be used as , which also allow Tainted Lost to leave Curse Room safely.
* : Could save Tainted Lost from death when combining with suitable active items.
* : Taking a hit and consuming a Holy Mantle effect allows it to stay at maximum level.
* : Can be used with a damaging orbital to get lots of damage on bosses for free.
* : +10 luck with no downside. Tainted Lost's lack of health make losing it during the run less likely as only using a reviving item will consume Perfection. Luck-based tear effects such as , , , and  benefit greatly from this extra luck, while also making sure Tainted Lost has a steady supply of pickups from room clear rewards.
	+ and  are exceptionally powerful combined with high luck: at 10 luck, every tear has a 50% chance to be accompanied by a powerful flame that blocks enemy projectiles. This becomes even more potent when both items are held, as *all* tears will fire one of these two flames at only 7 luck.
* : Protective pills like Power Pill or Feels Like I'm Walking on Sunshine may be helpful.
* : Smaller size makes you harder to hit.
* : Acts as a substitute to Holy Card at the cost of losing Perfection.
* : Allows Tainted Lost to obtain items otherwise hard-coded to not spawn for them.
	+ Some very useful reroll chains for Tainted Lost include:
		- to
		- to
		- to
		- to
		- to
		- to
		- to
		- to  to
		- to
		- to  to
		- to  to
		- to
		- to  to  to
		- to  to  to
		- to  to
* : Increases the chances of finding Holy Cards and allows pill-generating items to spawn Holy Cards.
* Teleporting cards: Allows exiting Curse Rooms safely.
* : Creates a ladder to an Angel Room shop at the start of every floor, with the shop potentially selling powerful Angel Room Item Pool items and Holy Cards.
* : Can be used to block projectiles or enemies.
* : Timed invincibility allows exiting Curse Rooms safely.
* : Frozen enemies will not be able to spawn hazards (tears, explosives, other enemies) on death. Icicles from frozen enemies can also slow other enemies and potentially cause a chain reaction, freezing a whole group of enemies.
* : A single-use Holy Mantle per floor. Note that it does not break before Holy Card, thus it is wise to save them for when the shield from Wooden Cross is broken.

### Bad Items

These items provide significant drawbacks to Tainted Lost.

* Any explosive tear effect, such as  or , greatly increases the chance of fatal self-damage. Since  and  cannot naturally appear as Tainted Lost, there are very few ways to reliably avoid explosive self-damage.
	+ The same risk also applies for explosive familiars like , , and .
	+ , , and  have a chance to shoot  tears.
* Tear effects that destroy rocks (, ) and the Stompy effect make firing from cover impossible – all but removing a safe method for Tainted Lost to attack non-flying enemies.
* : May destroy TNT accidently.
* : Holy Cards will no longer spawn.
* : The effects of poop caused by damaging enemies is completely random, which can lead to an accidental death or mantle loss.
	+ Butt bombs may hurt you if you aren't paying attention, gas clouds from stinky poop could explode in a chain back to you if thrown at fires, and farts generate a gas cloud that will explode if you are next to a fire, leading to an untimely death.

### Neutral Items

These items can provide both benefits and drawbacks to Tainted Lost.

* Although items which provide temporary invincibility such as  and  can allow Tainted Lost to negate damage, their effects are difficult to time, and could result in charging into an enemy and being damaged.
* : The familiar's potential tear effects are the same as , and as such have a small risk of carrying  for a floor.
* : Can cause items such as  to trigger, potentially causing damage, but may also spawn a Holy Card via .
* : HP is not a factor for Tainted Lost, so it may be included as one of the two stats which are reduced. However, it is more likely to be included as a stat increase, which has no effect.
* : Can give Tainted Lost very useful items, such as , allowing him to have infinite lives until the wisp is destroyed, but it can also give run-ending items such as . Because Lemegeton's effect is random, this is completely out of the player's control. If a very bad wisp is gained using Lemegeton, it is recommended to destroy it as soon as possible, but be cautious as this could result in taking damage.
* : Can spawn  or , which may cause unavoidable damage to the player. However, it can spawn many useful familiars too.
* : Decreasing maximum range exposes Tainted Lost to danger, but increasing fire rate may make it easier to defeat enemies.
* / : Can teleport Tainted Lost away from a dangerous room or before a fatal mistake is made. However, the player can teleport to a Curse Room (or to a Secret Room whose only opened exit is a Curse Room) which is inescapable without a Holy Card.

## Unlockable Items

* Kid's Drawing - Defeat Isaac, ???, Satan, and The Lamb as  **Tainted Lost**.

* The Fool - Defeat Ultra Greedier as  **Tainted Lost**.

* Soul of the Lost - Defeat Hush and Boss Rush as  **Tainted Lost**.

* Haunted Chest - Defeat Mega Satan as  **Tainted Lost**.

* Ghost Bombs - Defeat Delirium as  **Tainted Lost**.

* Crystal Key - Defeat Mother as  **Tainted Lost**.

* Sacred Orb - Defeat The Beast as  **Tainted Lost**.

## Trivia

* While items like , , and  are not considered items that the Tainted Lost can find, they will still appear for him if the conditions for finding them are met.
* While Harbingers will still drop  or , C.H.A.D. will not drop .
* If invincibility is used to play Blood Donation Machines, they can still produce a  as a reward.
* The achievement for unlocking Tainted Lost is "The Baleful", a possible title for the character.
	+ "Baleful" means "ominous" or "harmful or malignant in intent or effect", possibly referring to how Tainted Lost has higher base damage than his regular counterpart and can find better items.
	+ A more archaic meaning of "Baleful" is "Something/Someone wretched or miserable", and considering how Tainted Lost is incapable of using defensive heavy builds, being constantly at the mercy of enemies and dying usually at two hits, fit with this use of the word.
	+ "The Baleful" is Tainted Lost's character name in Four Souls.
* Before the 1.7.5 update, it was possible for Tainted Lost to find  and , despite these items being useless for the character.
	+ Additionally,  could be found and utilized to essentially gain 4 extra lives and extra damage, but was removed from the tag list.
* Tainted Lost's unlock drawing could be a reference to a transition nightmare Isaac can have, depicting The Lost talking to Mom from the attic.
* Tainted Lost unlocks ; the character can be linked to both the numeration and meaning of the Fool.
	+ The Fool's numeration can be either 0 the lowest trump or 22 the highest trump, linked to his attributes — better items, no mantle, no health — as Tainted Lost will die in a single hit at any point, but can also build the strongest runs of any character because of those same attributes.
	+ Reverse fool means apathy and nullity; this approach is often recommended to face Tainted Lost's runs because of how demanding the character is and how easy it is to lose these runs despite how powerful the character can become.
	+ In a literal reversal of "the beginning of the journey" which The Fool represents, Tainted Lost represents the complete end of Isaac's existence, after his own mortal remains has vanished and even his own soul erodes into dust and cobwebs along with the house and material objects that hold his last remnant memories.
* Tainted Lost's starting health is listed as "?" on the character selection screen.

## Gallery

* Tainted Lost's transition screen portrait.
* Tainted Lost's locked character icon, depicting a closet doorway full of cobwebs.