Combat Basics

This page covers a more detailed explanation of how combat functions.

# Combat Overview

When combat starts, the player's deck will be shuffled and placed in the Draw Pile and any beginning of combat effects will be applied (For example, starting Buffs will be applied) prior to their first turn starting. The player's health is carried over from fight to fight, while monsters will always start at maximum health. Some monsters will also start with Buffs of their own or some amount of Shield.

During combat, turns alternate between the player and the monsters. After each player turn, each monster will take a turn, starting from the leftmost monster and then going right until all monsters have taken a turn. After all monsters have taken a turn, the player will start their next turn.

The  Frenzy buff can be used by both players and monsters in order to take multiple turns in a row while the  Frozen debuff causes monsters to skip their next turn.

Combat ends upon either the player dying or all monsters dying. If combat ends due to the player dying, the run will immediately end in a loss. If combat ends with the player victorious, their deck will be returned to its pre-battle state, reverting any changes made during combat. For example, s added by cards like  will be removed and cards transformed by  will be return to their original state.

## Player Turn

At the start of the player's turn, they will draw 5 cards and gain mana equal to their current mana per turn (For most characters this is 2 mana). Various effects may result in the player drawing more cards or gaining more mana than normal. For example,  Wits causes the player to draw an additional card at the start of turn, and a level 10 Raodan will draw an additional card every turn.

During the player's turn, they can play any number of cards from their hand provided they can afford to pay the mana cost (if applicable). Cards are placed on the top of the Discard Pile when played or discarded unless Removed.

At end of turn, all cards in the player's hand are placed into the Discard Pile. These cards are not considered as having been discarded for the purposes of activating effects.

## Monster Turn

Each monster has their own 'deck' of possible actions. At the start of the player's turn they will choose an action from their deck to perform on their next turn. Some monsters will choose their actions randomly, while others will follow a specific pattern. The exact deck of actions available to a monster also varies based on the Depth of the current run.

Monsters will display icons that give a general idea of the actions they plan to take on their next turn so that players are able to prepare. On the monster's turn, they will perform all effects that are part of their current action in order until either all effects have been completed or the monster's turn is interrupted (For example due to the monster dying from attacking a player with  Reflect or  Arcane Barrier or becoming  Frozen by attacking a player with  Frost Barrier).

If a monster is planning to deal damage or apply status as part of their action, the numbers shown are a prediction based on the current state of combat. In some cases a monster will do more or less damage than indicated. For example if a monster earlier a round applies  Vulnerable to the player, monsters that take their turn afterwards will deal more damage and apply more status than originally indicated. Likewise if the player has a single stack of  Shocked and multiple monsters are planning to attack, only the first monster to hit the player will deal the full amount of damage listed unless it applies another stack of Shocked as part of its action.

# Card Mechanics

## Card Types

Cards are divided into five different types: Mana Cards, Skills, Strikes, Spells, and Tools.

Some Items and Characters have abilities that provide bonuses to specific card types and some cards (for example ) have conditional effects depending on what type of card was last played.

### Mana Cards

See also: Mana Cards
Mana Cards have some way to generate Mana and usually cost no mana to play. Although there are exceptions, the majority of cards that are capable of creating a net positive amount of mana have the Mana Card type.

### Skills

Main article: Skills
Skills are any card that doesn't generate mana and doesn't directly deal damage. Skills can do a wide variety of things including (but not limited to) drawing cards, applying Buffs, Debuffs, and Status, healing, and creating Shield. Some skills can even cause immediate damage through an indirect method, for example  triggering the  Curse debuff on a monster.

### Strikes

Main article: Strikes
Strikes are one of the two categories of damaging cards. Strikes usually represent physical attacks of some variety and often only hit the first enemy or the first two enemies, although there are exceptions. Strikes are also more likely than spells to deal low amounts of damage and to hit multiple times, although this is more of a guideline than a rule.

Items that increase Strike damage provide a flat bonus to damage dealt in order to take advantage of their multiple hits.

### Spells

Main article: Spells
Spells are the other main category of damaging cards. Spells usually represent magical attacks of some variety and are more likely to be able to target any enemy. Spells tend to only hit once but tend to deal more damage per hit than Strikes, although exceptions such as  exist.

Items that increase Spell Damage provide a percentage increase in order to work well with the often already high damage that spells do.

### Tools

Main article: Tools
Tools are a special card type that doesn't appear on cards that can be put into the player's deck. Tools are a mechanic primarily associated with Inna, whose level 1 passive creates a random tool at the start of each turn.

Tools have a variety of effects that are normally associated with other card types but have the Temporary keyword and thus will be removed from combat whenever they would enter the Discard Pile. It is not currently possible to include Tools as part of your deck.

There are two special Tools that are associated with Silan instead of Inna. These tools are  and . One copy of each is shuffled into Silan's deck at the start of each combat (before drawing the hand for turn one) if his level 4 passive ability is unlocked. Unlike Inna's tools, these tools are not Temporary and can be discarded and then drawn later in combat if the player doesn't use them when first drawn. However, they do have the Removed keyword which means they can only be used once per combat.

Although Silan's tools are shuffled into the deck at the start of each combat, they aren't actually part of his decklist and thus cannot be Upgraded or Removed when out of combat.

## Buffs, Debuffs, and Status

Main articles: Buffs, Debuffs, and Status
## Other Card Keywords

There are a few card keywords that are not buffs or debuffs but have special rules associated with them.

### Lifesteal

Cards with Lifesteal will heal the player for an amount equal to the damage dealt. This means if the damage dealt is increased in some way (for example the  Mighty or  Powerful Buffs) then the healing will also be increased. If the hit is Evaded by the enemy then no damage will be dealt and the player will not be healed.

Only cards such as  with the keyword Lifesteal will work this way. Cards such as  that have 'deal damage' and 'heal' as separate abilities will heal for the listed amount regardless of how much damage is dealt.

### Removed

Cards with the Removed keyword will be removed from combat after being played. Once Removed, cards cannot be retrieved during that combat although if they were in the player's starting deck they will be returned to the deck at end of combat.

### Temporary

Cards with the Temporary keyword will be removed from combat when they are played or would be put into the Discard pile. This normally means that any Temporary cards in the player's hand at end of turn will be removed from combat at end of turn, although Inna's level 10 passive will protect Tools from being discarded and thus allow players to save them for multiple turns.

Temporary cards are not removed if the deck is shuffled. For example, if the player plays  to put  on top of their Draw Pile and then causes their Draw Pile to be shuffled (for example by playing  while they have no strikes in their Draw Pile) the Shrivels will shuffled into the deck along with the other cards.

### Retained

Retained cards stay in the players hand at the end of a turn

### Stasis

Cards with stasis start in the discard pile and cannot leave it.One random stasis card looses stasis and gets put on top of the players deck after a players turn or if the deck gets shuffeled.All Idol reward cards have stasis

# Combat Mechanics

## Mana

Mana is the resource that is used to pay for cards. Players start battles with mana equal to half of their maximum mana, rounded up. At the start of each turn, players will receive mana equal to their current mana per turn value (set by their character and Items) along with extra mana if they have  Mana Boost or enough stacks of  Growth.

In addition to the mana gained at the start of turn, additional mana can be gained by playing cards (specifically Mana Cards will usually generate mana).

In order to play a card, players must spend mana equal to that card's current cost. There are several ways to reduce the cost of cards, for example the  Item, Silan's  card, or Caitan's  Spell Stance.

Effects such as  that care about the amount of mana spent are based on the amount of mana actually spent.

## Drawing Cards

At the start of the player's turn, they will draw their hand for the turn. The default number of cards drawn per turn is 5, although this can be increased by effects such as  Wits or Raodan's level 10 passive.

If the player attempts to draw a card when there are no cards left in their Draw Pile, their Discard Pile will be shuffled and placed into the Draw Pile and then drawing cards will continue as normal.

Cards are not placed into the Discard pile until they are finished resolving, which means it is never possible to use a card to draw itself. For example, if  is the only Strike in the player's deck it will simply fail to draw a Strike when played.

### Drawing Specific Types of Cards

Some effects draw specific types of cards. For example  draws two Spells. Whenever an effect draws cards of a specific type, it will start by attempting to draw them from the Draw Pile beginning with the topmost card that fits the criteria.

If there are not enough cards in the Draw Pile to satisfy the request, the Discard Pile will be shuffled into the Draw Pile and then the remaining draws will happen if possible. This shuffle will not occur if the Discard Pile does not contain any cards that fit the request. For example, if a player with no spells in their Draw Pile or Discard Pile plays a , nothing will happen.

### Maximum Hand Size

The maximum hand size is 10.This can be altered by items and Nayemas level 4 passive.

If the player would attempt to draw a card while they are already at the maximum handsize while drawing their hand at the start of turn, Temporary cards in the player's hand will be Removed (starting with the rightmost Temporary card) in order to make space. For example, if Drofis starts the turn with 6  in hand due to taking damage on the monster turn, the rightmost Blood Burst will be Removed so that she can still draw 5 cards for turn.

If the player attempts to draw a card while they are already at the maximum handsize later in the turn, they will see a warning saying that they are unable to draw due to their hand being full. Temporary cards will not be removed when trying to draw over the maximum handsize when drawing cards after the initial hand for the turn.

## Calculating Damage

There are a number of effects that can modify how much damage a player or monster deals with their attack. These effects are divided into three categories: Percentage-based modifiers such as  Mighty, flat modifiers such as  Powerful, and Critical Damage modifiers such as  Lethal.

All modifiers of the same type are added together to form the total modifier value. For example, a player with  Weak (-25% Damage dealt) using a  (+10% Spell Damage) and attacking a monster with  Vulnerable (+25% damage taken) using a spell will have their damage modified by a total of +10% (-25 + 10 + 25).

There are two formulas for calculating damage dealt by an attack, depending on the % damage modifier is above 0%.

When the modifier percentage is +0% or higher, the formula for damage is:

Non-Critical Damage

=

BaseDamage

×
(
1

Modifier

%
)

FlatModifier

{\displaystyle {\text{Non-Critical Damage}}={\text{BaseDamage}}\times (1+{\text{Modifier}}\%)+{\text{FlatModifier}}}

**Example 1:** A player with  Mighty (+25% damage) and  Powerful (2) (+2 damage) that plays  (15 base damage) will deal

15
×
(
1
0.25
)
# 2
20.75

{\displaystyle 15\times (1+0.25)+2=20.75}

 damage. (Since fractional damage can't be dealt, this will be rounded to 21 damage).

When the modifier percentage is below 0%, the formula for damage is:

Non-Critical Damage

=
(

BaseDamage

FlatModifier

)
×
(
1

Modifier

%
)

{\displaystyle {\text{Non-Critical Damage}}=({\text{BaseDamage}}+{\text{FlatModifier}})\times (1+{\text{Modifier}}\%)}

**Example 2:** a player with  Weak (-25% damage) and  Powerful (2) (+2 damage) that plays  (15 base damage) will deal

(
15
2
)
×
(
1
−
0.25
# )
12
,
75

{\displaystyle (15+2)\times (1-0.25)=12,75}

 damage (Since fractional damage can't be dealt, this will be rounded to 13 damage).

### Critical Hit Damage

By default, critical hits deal 50% more damage. This can be increased through Mirley's level 1 passive, various Items, or the  Lethal buff.

The total damage dealt by a critical hit is equal to:

Critical Damage

=

Non-Critical Damage

×
(
1
0.5

CriticalDamageBonus

%
)

{\displaystyle {\text{Critical Damage}}={\text{Non-Critical Damage}}\times (1+0.5+{\text{CriticalDamageBonus}}\%)}

**Example 3:** If the player making the attack described in Example 2 also had  Lethal (+50% Critical Damage) and dealt a Critical Hit, they would deal

12.75
×
(
1
0.5
0.5
# )
25.5

{\displaystyle 12.75\times (1+0.5+0.5)=25.5}

 damage, which would be rounded to 26. Note that damage is not rounded until after critical damage is calculated.

### Critical Hit Chance

By default, all hits have a 0% chance to become a Critical Hit. This chance can be increased if the attacker has the  Critical or  Hidden buffs or if the target of the attack has the  Ambushed debuff. Players can also gain additional Critical Hit chance by equipping certain Items.

If a player or monster has a Critical Chance of at least 100%, every hit they deal will be critical. This is indicated in the damage preview by an exclamation point after the damage number. Critical Chance exceeding 100% will be converted to Critical Damage.

### Fixed Damage/Status

Some effects deal a fixed amount of damage or apply a fixed amount of a status, such as the  Burn debuff or hits by a player or monster with an Elemental Rune. This means that the damage dealt or status applied is only affected by modifiers that explicitly affect that source (For example, 's "Burn Tick Damage: +3" effect). Other effects such as  Plated or  Vulnerable that would modify damage dealt or status applied will have no impact on fixed damage or status.