Primordium

0

**Buffet 3.**
**Eaten:** Add this unit's  and  to the eater.

**Primordium** is the Exiled Champion  of the Umbra .

Its Starter Card is Plink.

## Lore

*I can feel the end of my days loom near as these visions become more frequent and more confusing. It seems even the Umbra Shroud has origins beyond my prior knowledge. This Primordial shadow rumbles with the weight of the entire Shroud under its cloak. But what happened to this ancient creature?*

### Battle Quotes

* *....sharrrrdtail...*
* *...sooooolgaaaaard...*
* *...wyldennnnntennnnn...*
* *...faaaaaaadeeee...*
* *...taaaaalooooos...*
* *...aaaaaarchusssss...*
* *...we...the...exilessssss...*
* *...protect...sacrifice...failllllll...*
* *...failllll...*
* *...stuck...loop...*
* *...we...are...sssshhhhhhadooooow...*
* *...we...are...oneeee...*
* *...I...am...maaaaanyyy...*
* *...die...*
* *...DIE...*

## Upgrades

**Eaten:** Add this unit's , , and status effects to the eater.

**Damage Shield 2.**
**Eaten:** Add this unit's , , and status effects to the eater.

**Damage Shield 4.**
 Aggressive Edible

## Strategy

When Primordium passes on its stats, it does not include any temporary modifications from buffs such as  **Rage** or debuffs such as  **Sap** (though the status effects themselves can be passed on with the Superfood upgrade). Also, Primordium passes on its maximum  regardless of any damage it has taken.

As Primordium is not a Morsel, Shroud Spike cannot target it. Feast works on Primordium as normal.

If the allied Clan is Melting Remnant, note that Primordium can *not* be Reformed if it dies after being Eaten, only if it dies from other means before its last Buffet is used up; as such, it can be beneficial to intentionally kill Primordium before it runs out of  **Buffet** and is  **Eaten** for good, either through targeted damage spells such as Subsuming Blade (this will scale its damage too!) or through spells that kill your own units, such as Cannibalize or Hallowed Halls.

### Superfood

**Superfood** has by far the highest ceiling of all of Primordium's paths, multiplying the effects of all buffs to create completely ridiculous units. When using **Superfood**, remember to apply buffs to Primordium itself rather than the unit that's eating it, since the same buffs can be applied multiple times. This upgrade path is optimal for builds that make heavy use of  **Rage** or  **Damage Shield**, and when allied with the Melting Remnant, it can even extend  **Burnout**, making Primordium a good target for Wicklash. This can even pass along  **Multistrike** granted by Furnace Tap or Onehorn's Tome, and paired with **Stalwart Snack** and/or a  Stackstone on the spell, this can easily give the eater over 10 **Multistrike**, though keep in mind that their downsides will be passed along as well.

**Be warned**; this will also pass along any debuffs that Primordium has. This can easily end up stacking  **Emberdrain** caused by several of the clan's cards. In particular, this path should be carefully scrutinized and often outright avoided when up against Seraph the Temperant, as the  **Sap** debuff he applies will stack into the near hundreds, utterly debilitating the eater.

Level 2 of **Superfood** is a great take in many lines as the **Damage Shield 2**, along with the 10 of **Superfood**, allows it to survive exactly 3 turns against The Last Divinity's top floor  **Sweep** (only at 100 Pact Shards on high Covenant Ranks) without any help. The **Damage Shield** will also be passed along to the eater, granting them 6 of the buff in most combats, and 3 against the Divinity's top floor. Level 3 is solid as well increasing the amount to 12 (9 against the Divinity's top floor), though the lack of innate damage scaling may spur you to crosspath into **Aggressive Edible** once instead.

### Aggressive Edible

The premise of **Aggressive Edible** is very simple. It is essentially a one-time injection of a massive amount of damage into your main carry unit that you can always play turn 1, often without any support, greatly accelerating the scaling of your floor. With any force multiplier on the unit such as  **Multistrike** or  **Sweep**, this can spiral out of control very quickly, especially if said unit gains benefits off killing enemies with  **Slay** or  **Harvest** triggers. At Level 3, Aggressive Edible will give a total of 120 over 3 turns, which is more than enough to immediately start killing entire waves against any Seraph fight or even The Last Divinity. Even if you decide to pivot into **Superfood** later, the first level or two of **Aggressive Edible** can still help push your carry unit just enough to get them started.

The flaw of **Aggressive Edible** lies in its fragility if you decide to fully invest into it. With only 3, not only will your carry unit's survivability not be increased, but Primordium itself will kill itself attacking into  **Spikes** or itself die to enemies that have **Sweep**. Against most combats, this can be alleviated by setting up on top floor (where Primordium often wants to be anyway), as Primordium will be fully or almost fully eaten by the time enemies with these properties walk up to it. However, if you're going for Divine Victories against The Last Divinity, you must have a plan to deal with the top floor **Sweep** on turn 1, lest your scaling immediately be cut short. Putting  Seekstone on a card that gives health or  **Damage Shield** to Primordium, or that disables the Divinity by applying  **Sap** or  **Dazed** to it, is incredibly important for this line. You may also opt to plan around playing middle or bottom floor for the Divinity combat, although your frontline must be able to survive the additional pressure.

### Stalwart Snack

**Stalwart Snack** is often the least powerful of Primordium's three paths, spreading out stat gain slowly over multiple turns instead of quickly being eaten to scale your carry unit and getting out of the way. It isn't even always a worthwhile tradeoff, either — **Stalwart Snack** is inferior to both **Superfood** and **Aggressive Edible** mathematically, in terms of the raw stats that the eater will gain. Thus, it only makes sense if you have cards in your deck that can pump those missing raw stats into Primordium directly to make the extra  **Buffet** worth it in the long run.

The most fundamental example of a clan that works well with **Stalwart Snack** is Exile **Awoken**, which starts with Rootseeds and has cards available such as Cycle of Life and Razorsharp Edge that give a large volume of  and , respectively. These boosts will be multiplied several times by **Stalwart Snack** and solves the path's fundamental problem. **Wurmkin** works just as well with Echo Infusion, Echo Transfer, and Echoes of the Past. Reforming Primordium with **Melting Remnant** and extending  **Burnout** will also scale this path's stats, and the extra **Buffet** will make it so that Primordium can stick around for the entire fight to be eaten every turn, if Reformed multiple times.

Outside of these synergies, however, **Stalwart Snack** should not be taken as a starter, and should only be considered as a late crosspath for decks that are heavy on buffs.

Keep in mind that without Feast, level 3 is mostly redundant as no battle will last long enough for it to matter, barring a prolonged fight with the boss; it's thus generally a good idea to crosspath 1-2 levels of **Stalwart Snack** as necessary with **Superfood** or **Aggressive Edible** instead.

## History

*See: Version History*

As with all other exiled Champions, Primordium was added with the Friends and Foes Update.

 1.2.6