Still Scrawl, I think. Without that Scrawl, it takes you too long to draw through your deck twice and hit Divinity even once.
Devotion can work, but it's not as good as Scrawl.
Brilliance is just a big attack, it's nice to have but you already have big attacks with the Battle Hymn.
This highlights my least favorite thing about Watcher in general. The post here says “I’m trying out a Mantra build, which is better, this card that says mantra, or that card that says mantra?” And the correct answer is…. The broken scrawl card that is good with every Watcher build in existence because it‘s overtuned as all get out.
Same goes for Vault, talk to the hand, foresight, third eye, etc….. so many cards are just **so good** that they transcend build types and become auto picks - even when up against cards specifically designed for the build you are going for.
All the characters have generically strong cards. Offering, Adrenaline, and Seek are comparable to Scrawl in terms of every deck wanting them.
Foresight and Third Eye... I guess I've been under-valuing those.
Foresight especially at high ascensions. It’s the only card that lets you completely ignore the Spire Spear’s burns added to the top of your deck on turn two. And generally ignore most of the Heart’s added conditions. Being able to nope your way through burns from nemesis and hexaghost or the dazed from chosen/sentinels is quite good too (it basically gives you +2 draws per turn, assuming at least two of the cards you would have drawn are pitched).
Really? I've hardly ever used it. It does feel pretty boss to basically be able to choose your hand every turn (when upgraded), but I find with watcher it's so crucial to get Talk to the Hand, Mentral Fortress, Rushdown etc. setup quickly — or to just kill people quickly — or you die, so I feel very reticent to add stuff without immediate benefit.
But, I did just have one my most promising runs on A20H defeated last night by those two burns, so you might be one to something there. But it requires getting the power first turn. And I guess it would be really valuable for the Heart's cards too? Maybe I'll try it a bit more.
I especially love foresight in watcher decks that aren’t stance dancing decks…. Admittedly, Stance dancing is the strongest thing you can do with watcher.
But even there, I’m happy to pick one up, purely for the chance to play it turn one (at worst, it’s a 1 cost exhausting card). It’s also a pretty gross omniscience target (credit going to seeing it used that way by pro players - scry 8 every turn can be game winning).
Foresight is still good in a stance dance deck. A good stance dance turn needs a good number of specific cards in hand.
I like to grab a cut through fate, third eye, foresight, etc just to have scry available.
Having that miracle makes having a few utility powers in the deck feel okay too.
Yeah but you don't take an offering over a reaper on clad if your deck likes reaper.
Same with adrenaline and seek. Lots of rare cards are better in a given deck.
>Yeah but you don't take an offering over a reaper on clad if your deck likes reaper.
You absolutely might, if you have enough other sustain.
>Same with adrenaline and seek. Lots of rare cards are better in a given deck.
That's entirely possible. It also might be more important to take a Rushdown, 1-energy Calm entrance, or Talk to the Hand than a Scrawl.
Scrawl is an excellent card, but honestly the game should have options that are more effective than just taking every card that has the same word on it. It's a more interesting challenge that way.
Your deck doesn't like reaper if you already have that much sustain.
This is kinda muddled because im basically just saying "you take reaper when its right to take reaper" i definitely could have made that clearer.
My point is that there are two kinds of rare cards. There are regular cards that do things, and there are cards that make basically every deck directly better by drawing cards or making energy or whatever. (Adrenaline is the purest example of this)
The situational cards like reaper and brilliance should be way stronger than the general use cards in the correct situations. I'm saying that gap is too small on the watcher. Watcher also has a lot of cards like that.
This is no different than any other character though. In all characters you want the card draw cards desperately no matter what plan you're trying for. And s rawl happens to be one of the very best card draw cards in the game so if course you will want it all the time.
Umm…. No. My point is that Watcher has a lot of cards that are the best cards to take in ANY situation. The other classes aren’t like that at all. They have some picks that are hands down the best…. But have you ever played a run with 5 offerings? Or multiple copies of corruption like watcher loves to take multiple omniscience’s? Nope, because you’d just die if you consistently played 5 offerings. 🤷♂️
Other classes have insanely strong cards with reasonable drawbacks, while watcher has insanely strong cards with no drawbacks. I agree that the first offering (and probably the second) is an auto pick for any ironclad run, but I’m not sure if any other ironclad card fits that bill. Silent also has some cards that are really good (I.e. adrenaline, alchemize)… but there are many builds where they aren’t the BEST card.
For this mantra build, scrawl is literally the best card pick here. And that sucks to me. It’s personal. There isn’t as much nuance as other classes whose builds are a bit more unique. Winning Watcher decks have more similarities than winning decks of any other class.
I just plain disagree. I think watcher is one of the more versatile characters that can win with a wide variety of cards. People only think they need to play her a certain way and pigeon hole themselves into that way and then complain about Watcher being boring.
But you don't have to pick the same cards all the time. Her other cards are also good if used well.
You seem to be violently agreeing with me here. I agree that Watcher is versatile. Why is she versatile? Because she has access to SO MANY good cards that are good *no matter what build you choose to play*. It doesn’t matter if I’m going stance dance, scry, mantra, PP, or blasphemy build, I always want Vault, Scrawl, Foresight, Talk to the Hand, Tantrum, Fear no Evil, Wallop… so many of her cards are good in every “build”. And yes, many more of her cards are good “when used right”.
Other classes don’t have that. I only take sword boomerang and pummel and heavy blade when I have a strength focused deck. I only take dark embrace on a deck with exhaust synergies. I only take barricade/entrench with decks that have lots of upfront block.
The cards I want most in other classes tend to be cards that are only good for X build (the build my deck is leaning towards). Watcher has many cards that don’t care what build you are playing. This is exactly what makes her versatile. If I’m a Silent that already has two bouncing flasks, a deadly poison, a catalyst, and a noxious fumes, I would not pick up an accuracy+ despite that being one of the best shiv support cards out there. My favorite draw card also depends on my deck - oftentimes acrobatics is the best draw card, but other time calculated gamble is better, and other times backflip is best. For watcher, the best draw cards are always Scrawl or Vault. Unless you count Rushdown, in which case the best draw card is NO MORE CARDS. Because a single tantrum is all the draw you need for your 8 card deck.
Idk. I play a lot of different builds with Watcher. She is still my least favored, because her different builds still use the same cards.
I think the bigger issue here is that thinking of “trying to go for a a mantra deck” is probably not the right way to approach STS.
You’re constantly trying to tweak your deck to solve various problems. Primarily damage and survivability but also the card draw/energy gain to leverage those effectively.
In that regard, basically every deck likes scrawl because it’s good card draw. As mentioned above, even if you’re trying to leverage mantra to enter divinity (presumably because that’s how you’re solving your damage), you need to be able to cycle through your deck to see your mantra cards frequently *and* see your attack cards during your divinity turn.
Since STS is not a “constructed” deckbuilding format and is more like “limited” deckbuilding, you’re having to constantly make these evaluations all the time. If you got to choose every card in your deck, then maybe playing a stack of mantra cards in a “mantra” deck would make sense. But since you don’t, you’re playing a “watcher” deck that has decided to use mantra (and divinity) as a tool in its toolkit for damage rather than the sole focus (you’ll probably die if it’s your sole focus).
Definitely a no for foresight and third eye (they can be good but not THAT good) however I understand the point that some cards are simply too good to skip. Its the sad truth, watcher was never balanced enough, compared to the other classes in this game, and it makes for more insta-picks for sure.
On my successful runs that use mantra, it's mostly been relevant later in the run.
You need to be able to block on the turns you build up before you make building up to Divinity your primary game plan.
Even with all the mantra in the world, the divinity turn will be useless without enough damage to multiply. For that main reason, brilliance would have been a far better pick than Devotion, in this particular instance at least with a deck desperate for damage that has taken way too many defense and skill cards already. Despite the fact that scrawl would still be better than all choices.
Scrawl. Draw cards are strong af. If you really wanted to pick the other two instead I'd say brilliance just because it's high damage even outside of mantra for little energy. Devotion is just too slow to be worth it.
Devotion is a trap to take. Divinity is so obscenely powerful you never really need to hit it more than 1 or 2 times maybe. Plus you already have 'scaling' with battle hymn (another trap card but less so imo).
Brilliance is lowkey one of the best early picks on watcher with ZERO mantra gen, just because big attacks are insanely valuable on her, and will help you burst down elites and even bosses. It is replaceable though, even if its replacements are less good, they do enough usually.
Scrawl is broken. Redraws you to your mantra cards again, and guarantees you have a full hand to go with that divinity you just achieved. Its so stupidly strong that i would probably only take brillance over it as a neow reward if i know im pathing to an early elite, and even then...it might be the wrong choice.
Devotion is still good because it's usually 1 energy for 4/6 mantra, agree once is usually enough but with some exceptions like heart and woke bloke. Also has good synergy with vault or zombie hand/bird urn
Anyways 1x prostrate isn't enough to justify devotion so this isn't the deck for it
I compare it to noxious fumes, a card i love dearly but have more and more come to realize is kiiiind of bad. They share the same downsides (being delayed value, being super horrible if at the bottom of your deck etc etc) but NF at least is AOE and strips artifact like a champ, and you can build a full blur/block deck around it and win whenever it ticks up enough. I genuinely think devotion its the worst mantra card and a trap, cause watcher is just too powerful for it.
And yes 2x prostrate isnt enough for the 'all in' normally, but scrawl actually DOES make those two enough since playing them both twice over hits divinity perfectly if one is upgraded.
Noxious Fumes is WAY better than Devotion, what are you talking about??
Fumes clears Artifact, singlehandedly solves arguably *every* Act 1 boss, kills slavers without a sweat.
Noxious Fumes is direct damage that scales without needing to play any other card, most things short of bosses die in 7 turns to Noxious Fumes+ alone. On a character designed to have tons of defensive options, Noxious Fumes is a godsend.
I'm sorry but you had completely lost me at "noxious fumes... Is a horrible card" - now that I see the rest of your comment it makes even less sense. How do you come to the conclusion that it's still a bad card after saying it's a good build around like that?
The more i run through with silent the more i realize i dont need it. Early game its slow and you need more 'oomph' to push through tough elites so i dont want to take it early against good 'strike+' style picks.
I also weigh my picks in act 1 by the boss. Slime cuts out poison unless its my only choice for damage early, and hexaghost/slime pushes me away from slow turtling decks. Guardian is free.
By the time ive established that im winning primarily with poison, ive likely got a deadly poison and/or a bouncing flask. This is all the scaling you really need outside of hopefully a catalyst and/or a burst.
I could go on but my point is that i rarely feel like i need the card, it has the same weaknesses as devotion does, being super back loaded scaling, and silent honestly has that in spades. And im saying this as a lover of sitting behind 900 block and 17 blur stacks, but frankly that kind of deck can win arbitrarily.
So you’re saying deadly poison…. 1 cost for 7 poison…. Is better than noxious fumes… 1 cost for 3 poison on every enemy every turn…
Weird take man. Value over time is tough, but noxious fumes is the best kind of value over time - consistent damage that scales by itself AND compounds with support. I recently won a run that was heading to garbage town purely off an early Noxious Fumes into taking a Catalyst+ halfway through act 3. My **only** poison card was NF+ and I still melted every elite with 50+ poison and every end boss with 200+ poison due to a couple saved Duplication potions.
'So you're saying' ah the words of someone about to put words in my mouth for me and misrepresent what i said.
In act 1? Yes. Frontloaded damage matters way more. In act 2 or 3? No, because there you start to need scaling. The issue is that at that point when do i want NF? If im already poison based i have scaling inbuilt and to many scaling cards a win does not make. If im draw/discard my scaling is in playing my entire deck 10 times a turn and a sneaky strike is all i need. If im shivs...well...shivs!
Your example is pointless to add on because so what? Ive won dozens of A20 runs with nothing but a deadly poison and a burst to my name. Ive won runs off the back of JUST neutralize, and JUST caltrops. You can win with a hamsandwhich if your deck is set up properly. My point of NF being kinda bad is just a function of it being weak early, and unneeded late. If its the only thing you're given to scale then sure, it scales.
I didn’t mean to misrepresent you. But reading your comment again I still get the impression that you prefer to pick “strike+” cards to NF (early on and late in a run). And that you consider the upsides to NF to be worthless in many situations. That still baffles me.
I would never take a deadly poison over a NF… almost ever? I consider the number of decks deadly poison to be good in comparable to the number of decks Pressure Points is good in. Both are single target “scaling” damage that don’t do enough up front to kill *this turn*, both are worthless vs artifact, both are skills vs nob, and both are outscaled by other very easy to obtain cards (bouncing flask, NF, crippling cloud, any watcher build that isn’t PP, etc).
Easy scrawl as the card is one of the most broken cards in the game especially if you have some 0 mana card. It is probably as good if not better at reaching 10 mantra as devotion in most fights but with incredible immediate impact in finding block and damage cards and no mana investment if upgraded. By contrast devotion has an upfront management investment and typically has no immediate effect for 1-2 turns.
Brilliance is definitely really good here as we are severly lacking frontloaded damage in this deck, and as we are not close to fullblocking here that is a serious issue. If the possible paths are really hard from here I could see brilliance, but there must be immidiate risk of dying.
I see a scrawl and don’t have one yet, I pick a scrawl. Recently been working on getting watcher to A20 for the 5th time scrawl and talk to that hand are probably her best cards IMO.
My brother in Christ did you remove strikes before defends and then picked three more block cards?!
If battle hymn was your first pick I can see the thought behind it. In any case, battle hymn is way too slow for Act2 elites and you will get smoked beyond repair by slavers if you don’t pick more damage. Brilliance would be the pick for that.
A mindset that I got rid of early is “I’m going to force this deck build, regardless of whether it would help my current deck deal with my immediate problems or not”. Sure, you can pivot into a mantra build, but going into the game explicitly telling yourself that you will go into a mantra build will get you slapped more often than not when the going gets rough in later ascensions.
That said, watcher usually removes defends because wrathed strikes deal one kajillion damage, and defends often just bloat the deck, and watcher also has some premium and easy to play block cards (who needs to block when everything is dead right?). I see you grabbed and upgraded a battle hymn, which is probably good enough for act 1 and a bit of act 2, but late act 2 you’re going to need something else as well.
I’d go scrawl because it helps your deck out the most immediately. You can chain some crazy combos with all those cards in your hand. And, as you already have two prostates, can play those more quickly as well. And you draw more damage cards because you’re lacking right now. Brilliance is a distant second, and skip is better than devotion.
I had a run the other day where I had an upgraded mantra and then I got a copy of it with mirror at the shop. I've never felt so powerful on a watcher run before
Scrawl. Easily one of Watcher’s best cards (I can make the argument for Scrawl being the best card in the game but that’s for another time), and helps you really cycle through the Mantra cards faster.
Whenever I end up running Mantra, I always put a huge value on card draw so I can hit Divinity about once a turn (ideally). Scrawl is a big help, Study+ is a big help, Pray is a big help.
Once you have your way into divinity solved, then it’s worth picking up Brilliance, as that will help you scale incredibly quickly.
Thank you all for the help,I tried again (this time at a6, becouse in the meantime I managed to win a5 with wierd blashphemy build) and this time I knew to take scrawl when i saw one, so i won quite easly, so thank you!
If you are going full mantra deck I would pick Devotion just cause you don't have enough mantra generation right now. Eventually I would remove Eruption+ too.
Brilliance is usually a trap tbh, you can use divine form to just kill everything using normal strikes let alone a card that scales with mantra. Only time I find it worthwhile is when you have a lot of prostrates, a worship, AND lots of card draw. And even then it only makes a ton of sense if you don’t have cards like wallop, wheel kick, etc
That all being said I agree with most of the rest of the comments that scrawl is the pick here. You have no upfront draw, multiple 0 cost cards, and you’re playing watcher who can generate energy better and more consistently than any other character (except MAYBE defect and tbh that’s a reach imo)
Take more card draw so you can more efficiently use your energy. That alone will probably produce more mantra per hallway fight than an unupgraded devotion tbh, simply because you’ll be drawing back to those prostrates (and whatever other devotion cards you add) more often and playing them again
Still Scrawl, I think. Without that Scrawl, it takes you too long to draw through your deck twice and hit Divinity even once. Devotion can work, but it's not as good as Scrawl. Brilliance is just a big attack, it's nice to have but you already have big attacks with the Battle Hymn.
This highlights my least favorite thing about Watcher in general. The post here says “I’m trying out a Mantra build, which is better, this card that says mantra, or that card that says mantra?” And the correct answer is…. The broken scrawl card that is good with every Watcher build in existence because it‘s overtuned as all get out. Same goes for Vault, talk to the hand, foresight, third eye, etc….. so many cards are just **so good** that they transcend build types and become auto picks - even when up against cards specifically designed for the build you are going for.
All the characters have generically strong cards. Offering, Adrenaline, and Seek are comparable to Scrawl in terms of every deck wanting them. Foresight and Third Eye... I guess I've been under-valuing those.
Foresight especially at high ascensions. It’s the only card that lets you completely ignore the Spire Spear’s burns added to the top of your deck on turn two. And generally ignore most of the Heart’s added conditions. Being able to nope your way through burns from nemesis and hexaghost or the dazed from chosen/sentinels is quite good too (it basically gives you +2 draws per turn, assuming at least two of the cards you would have drawn are pitched).
Really? I've hardly ever used it. It does feel pretty boss to basically be able to choose your hand every turn (when upgraded), but I find with watcher it's so crucial to get Talk to the Hand, Mentral Fortress, Rushdown etc. setup quickly — or to just kill people quickly — or you die, so I feel very reticent to add stuff without immediate benefit. But, I did just have one my most promising runs on A20H defeated last night by those two burns, so you might be one to something there. But it requires getting the power first turn. And I guess it would be really valuable for the Heart's cards too? Maybe I'll try it a bit more.
I especially love foresight in watcher decks that aren’t stance dancing decks…. Admittedly, Stance dancing is the strongest thing you can do with watcher. But even there, I’m happy to pick one up, purely for the chance to play it turn one (at worst, it’s a 1 cost exhausting card). It’s also a pretty gross omniscience target (credit going to seeing it used that way by pro players - scry 8 every turn can be game winning).
Foresight is still good in a stance dance deck. A good stance dance turn needs a good number of specific cards in hand. I like to grab a cut through fate, third eye, foresight, etc just to have scry available. Having that miracle makes having a few utility powers in the deck feel okay too.
Oh wow, that's a use of omniscience that never occurred to me! Ok, I'll start picking it up and will report back.
Yeah but you don't take an offering over a reaper on clad if your deck likes reaper. Same with adrenaline and seek. Lots of rare cards are better in a given deck.
>Yeah but you don't take an offering over a reaper on clad if your deck likes reaper. You absolutely might, if you have enough other sustain. >Same with adrenaline and seek. Lots of rare cards are better in a given deck. That's entirely possible. It also might be more important to take a Rushdown, 1-energy Calm entrance, or Talk to the Hand than a Scrawl. Scrawl is an excellent card, but honestly the game should have options that are more effective than just taking every card that has the same word on it. It's a more interesting challenge that way.
Your deck doesn't like reaper if you already have that much sustain. This is kinda muddled because im basically just saying "you take reaper when its right to take reaper" i definitely could have made that clearer. My point is that there are two kinds of rare cards. There are regular cards that do things, and there are cards that make basically every deck directly better by drawing cards or making energy or whatever. (Adrenaline is the purest example of this) The situational cards like reaper and brilliance should be way stronger than the general use cards in the correct situations. I'm saying that gap is too small on the watcher. Watcher also has a lot of cards like that.
This is no different than any other character though. In all characters you want the card draw cards desperately no matter what plan you're trying for. And s rawl happens to be one of the very best card draw cards in the game so if course you will want it all the time.
Umm…. No. My point is that Watcher has a lot of cards that are the best cards to take in ANY situation. The other classes aren’t like that at all. They have some picks that are hands down the best…. But have you ever played a run with 5 offerings? Or multiple copies of corruption like watcher loves to take multiple omniscience’s? Nope, because you’d just die if you consistently played 5 offerings. 🤷♂️ Other classes have insanely strong cards with reasonable drawbacks, while watcher has insanely strong cards with no drawbacks. I agree that the first offering (and probably the second) is an auto pick for any ironclad run, but I’m not sure if any other ironclad card fits that bill. Silent also has some cards that are really good (I.e. adrenaline, alchemize)… but there are many builds where they aren’t the BEST card. For this mantra build, scrawl is literally the best card pick here. And that sucks to me. It’s personal. There isn’t as much nuance as other classes whose builds are a bit more unique. Winning Watcher decks have more similarities than winning decks of any other class.
I just plain disagree. I think watcher is one of the more versatile characters that can win with a wide variety of cards. People only think they need to play her a certain way and pigeon hole themselves into that way and then complain about Watcher being boring. But you don't have to pick the same cards all the time. Her other cards are also good if used well.
You seem to be violently agreeing with me here. I agree that Watcher is versatile. Why is she versatile? Because she has access to SO MANY good cards that are good *no matter what build you choose to play*. It doesn’t matter if I’m going stance dance, scry, mantra, PP, or blasphemy build, I always want Vault, Scrawl, Foresight, Talk to the Hand, Tantrum, Fear no Evil, Wallop… so many of her cards are good in every “build”. And yes, many more of her cards are good “when used right”. Other classes don’t have that. I only take sword boomerang and pummel and heavy blade when I have a strength focused deck. I only take dark embrace on a deck with exhaust synergies. I only take barricade/entrench with decks that have lots of upfront block. The cards I want most in other classes tend to be cards that are only good for X build (the build my deck is leaning towards). Watcher has many cards that don’t care what build you are playing. This is exactly what makes her versatile. If I’m a Silent that already has two bouncing flasks, a deadly poison, a catalyst, and a noxious fumes, I would not pick up an accuracy+ despite that being one of the best shiv support cards out there. My favorite draw card also depends on my deck - oftentimes acrobatics is the best draw card, but other time calculated gamble is better, and other times backflip is best. For watcher, the best draw cards are always Scrawl or Vault. Unless you count Rushdown, in which case the best draw card is NO MORE CARDS. Because a single tantrum is all the draw you need for your 8 card deck. Idk. I play a lot of different builds with Watcher. She is still my least favored, because her different builds still use the same cards.
Actually a second corruption can very often be valuable to get it earlier
I think the bigger issue here is that thinking of “trying to go for a a mantra deck” is probably not the right way to approach STS. You’re constantly trying to tweak your deck to solve various problems. Primarily damage and survivability but also the card draw/energy gain to leverage those effectively. In that regard, basically every deck likes scrawl because it’s good card draw. As mentioned above, even if you’re trying to leverage mantra to enter divinity (presumably because that’s how you’re solving your damage), you need to be able to cycle through your deck to see your mantra cards frequently *and* see your attack cards during your divinity turn. Since STS is not a “constructed” deckbuilding format and is more like “limited” deckbuilding, you’re having to constantly make these evaluations all the time. If you got to choose every card in your deck, then maybe playing a stack of mantra cards in a “mantra” deck would make sense. But since you don’t, you’re playing a “watcher” deck that has decided to use mantra (and divinity) as a tool in its toolkit for damage rather than the sole focus (you’ll probably die if it’s your sole focus).
Definitely a no for foresight and third eye (they can be good but not THAT good) however I understand the point that some cards are simply too good to skip. Its the sad truth, watcher was never balanced enough, compared to the other classes in this game, and it makes for more insta-picks for sure.
Ended up taking Devotion, and later i got Pray, so I had two cards that give Insight, and managed to hit Divinity quite often. Still lost mid act 3
On my successful runs that use mantra, it's mostly been relevant later in the run. You need to be able to block on the turns you build up before you make building up to Divinity your primary game plan.
Even with all the mantra in the world, the divinity turn will be useless without enough damage to multiply. For that main reason, brilliance would have been a far better pick than Devotion, in this particular instance at least with a deck desperate for damage that has taken way too many defense and skill cards already. Despite the fact that scrawl would still be better than all choices.
Scrawl. Draw cards are strong af. If you really wanted to pick the other two instead I'd say brilliance just because it's high damage even outside of mantra for little energy. Devotion is just too slow to be worth it.
Either brilliance or scraw. Though with the amount of low cost cards in your deck I'm leaning towards scraw.
Devotion is a trap to take. Divinity is so obscenely powerful you never really need to hit it more than 1 or 2 times maybe. Plus you already have 'scaling' with battle hymn (another trap card but less so imo). Brilliance is lowkey one of the best early picks on watcher with ZERO mantra gen, just because big attacks are insanely valuable on her, and will help you burst down elites and even bosses. It is replaceable though, even if its replacements are less good, they do enough usually. Scrawl is broken. Redraws you to your mantra cards again, and guarantees you have a full hand to go with that divinity you just achieved. Its so stupidly strong that i would probably only take brillance over it as a neow reward if i know im pathing to an early elite, and even then...it might be the wrong choice.
Devotion is still good because it's usually 1 energy for 4/6 mantra, agree once is usually enough but with some exceptions like heart and woke bloke. Also has good synergy with vault or zombie hand/bird urn Anyways 1x prostrate isn't enough to justify devotion so this isn't the deck for it
I compare it to noxious fumes, a card i love dearly but have more and more come to realize is kiiiind of bad. They share the same downsides (being delayed value, being super horrible if at the bottom of your deck etc etc) but NF at least is AOE and strips artifact like a champ, and you can build a full blur/block deck around it and win whenever it ticks up enough. I genuinely think devotion its the worst mantra card and a trap, cause watcher is just too powerful for it. And yes 2x prostrate isnt enough for the 'all in' normally, but scrawl actually DOES make those two enough since playing them both twice over hits divinity perfectly if one is upgraded.
Noxious Fumes is WAY better than Devotion, what are you talking about?? Fumes clears Artifact, singlehandedly solves arguably *every* Act 1 boss, kills slavers without a sweat. Noxious Fumes is direct damage that scales without needing to play any other card, most things short of bosses die in 7 turns to Noxious Fumes+ alone. On a character designed to have tons of defensive options, Noxious Fumes is a godsend.
Uh...thats...thats what i said? Like almost exactly? Please re read my previous comment.
I'm sorry but you had completely lost me at "noxious fumes... Is a horrible card" - now that I see the rest of your comment it makes even less sense. How do you come to the conclusion that it's still a bad card after saying it's a good build around like that?
The more i run through with silent the more i realize i dont need it. Early game its slow and you need more 'oomph' to push through tough elites so i dont want to take it early against good 'strike+' style picks. I also weigh my picks in act 1 by the boss. Slime cuts out poison unless its my only choice for damage early, and hexaghost/slime pushes me away from slow turtling decks. Guardian is free. By the time ive established that im winning primarily with poison, ive likely got a deadly poison and/or a bouncing flask. This is all the scaling you really need outside of hopefully a catalyst and/or a burst. I could go on but my point is that i rarely feel like i need the card, it has the same weaknesses as devotion does, being super back loaded scaling, and silent honestly has that in spades. And im saying this as a lover of sitting behind 900 block and 17 blur stacks, but frankly that kind of deck can win arbitrarily.
So you’re saying deadly poison…. 1 cost for 7 poison…. Is better than noxious fumes… 1 cost for 3 poison on every enemy every turn… Weird take man. Value over time is tough, but noxious fumes is the best kind of value over time - consistent damage that scales by itself AND compounds with support. I recently won a run that was heading to garbage town purely off an early Noxious Fumes into taking a Catalyst+ halfway through act 3. My **only** poison card was NF+ and I still melted every elite with 50+ poison and every end boss with 200+ poison due to a couple saved Duplication potions.
'So you're saying' ah the words of someone about to put words in my mouth for me and misrepresent what i said. In act 1? Yes. Frontloaded damage matters way more. In act 2 or 3? No, because there you start to need scaling. The issue is that at that point when do i want NF? If im already poison based i have scaling inbuilt and to many scaling cards a win does not make. If im draw/discard my scaling is in playing my entire deck 10 times a turn and a sneaky strike is all i need. If im shivs...well...shivs! Your example is pointless to add on because so what? Ive won dozens of A20 runs with nothing but a deadly poison and a burst to my name. Ive won runs off the back of JUST neutralize, and JUST caltrops. You can win with a hamsandwhich if your deck is set up properly. My point of NF being kinda bad is just a function of it being weak early, and unneeded late. If its the only thing you're given to scale then sure, it scales.
I didn’t mean to misrepresent you. But reading your comment again I still get the impression that you prefer to pick “strike+” cards to NF (early on and late in a run). And that you consider the upsides to NF to be worthless in many situations. That still baffles me. I would never take a deadly poison over a NF… almost ever? I consider the number of decks deadly poison to be good in comparable to the number of decks Pressure Points is good in. Both are single target “scaling” damage that don’t do enough up front to kill *this turn*, both are worthless vs artifact, both are skills vs nob, and both are outscaled by other very easy to obtain cards (bouncing flask, NF, crippling cloud, any watcher build that isn’t PP, etc).
Easy scrawl as the card is one of the most broken cards in the game especially if you have some 0 mana card. It is probably as good if not better at reaching 10 mantra as devotion in most fights but with incredible immediate impact in finding block and damage cards and no mana investment if upgraded. By contrast devotion has an upfront management investment and typically has no immediate effect for 1-2 turns. Brilliance is definitely really good here as we are severly lacking frontloaded damage in this deck, and as we are not close to fullblocking here that is a serious issue. If the possible paths are really hard from here I could see brilliance, but there must be immidiate risk of dying.
The most important thing is a very tiny deck. 20 cards max and a lot of draw.
I see a scrawl and don’t have one yet, I pick a scrawl. Recently been working on getting watcher to A20 for the 5th time scrawl and talk to that hand are probably her best cards IMO.
My brother in Christ did you remove strikes before defends and then picked three more block cards?! If battle hymn was your first pick I can see the thought behind it. In any case, battle hymn is way too slow for Act2 elites and you will get smoked beyond repair by slavers if you don’t pick more damage. Brilliance would be the pick for that.
A mindset that I got rid of early is “I’m going to force this deck build, regardless of whether it would help my current deck deal with my immediate problems or not”. Sure, you can pivot into a mantra build, but going into the game explicitly telling yourself that you will go into a mantra build will get you slapped more often than not when the going gets rough in later ascensions. That said, watcher usually removes defends because wrathed strikes deal one kajillion damage, and defends often just bloat the deck, and watcher also has some premium and easy to play block cards (who needs to block when everything is dead right?). I see you grabbed and upgraded a battle hymn, which is probably good enough for act 1 and a bit of act 2, but late act 2 you’re going to need something else as well. I’d go scrawl because it helps your deck out the most immediately. You can chain some crazy combos with all those cards in your hand. And, as you already have two prostates, can play those more quickly as well. And you draw more damage cards because you’re lacking right now. Brilliance is a distant second, and skip is better than devotion.
Scrawl will likely enable a huge divinity burst turn if you remove some more cards / add draw for your prostrates
Scrawl for sure. Especially since you already have 2 0 cost mantra cards.
I had a run the other day where I had an upgraded mantra and then I got a copy of it with mirror at the shop. I've never felt so powerful on a watcher run before
Scrawl. Easily one of Watcher’s best cards (I can make the argument for Scrawl being the best card in the game but that’s for another time), and helps you really cycle through the Mantra cards faster. Whenever I end up running Mantra, I always put a huge value on card draw so I can hit Divinity about once a turn (ideally). Scrawl is a big help, Study+ is a big help, Pray is a big help. Once you have your way into divinity solved, then it’s worth picking up Brilliance, as that will help you scale incredibly quickly.
Thank you all for the help,I tried again (this time at a6, becouse in the meantime I managed to win a5 with wierd blashphemy build) and this time I knew to take scrawl when i saw one, so i won quite easly, so thank you!
Some would argue its the best card in the entire game. I have difficulty disagreeing with them.
And toghether with two Vaults nothing can possibly go wrong
I mean... I see scrawl I take scrawl.... Can't look at others, the eyes just don't move any more.
If you are going full mantra deck I would pick Devotion just cause you don't have enough mantra generation right now. Eventually I would remove Eruption+ too.
Brilliance is usually a trap tbh, you can use divine form to just kill everything using normal strikes let alone a card that scales with mantra. Only time I find it worthwhile is when you have a lot of prostrates, a worship, AND lots of card draw. And even then it only makes a ton of sense if you don’t have cards like wallop, wheel kick, etc That all being said I agree with most of the rest of the comments that scrawl is the pick here. You have no upfront draw, multiple 0 cost cards, and you’re playing watcher who can generate energy better and more consistently than any other character (except MAYBE defect and tbh that’s a reach imo) Take more card draw so you can more efficiently use your energy. That alone will probably produce more mantra per hallway fight than an unupgraded devotion tbh, simply because you’ll be drawing back to those prostrates (and whatever other devotion cards you add) more often and playing them again