Every archetype for all five characters: the game plan, the cards that make it run, the ease of actually assembling it mid-run — and the exact signal that says "pivot here." Bars show assembly ease: more filled = comes together more often.
"How do I know this card means I should switch to X deck?" — here's the doctrine, then the per-character signals below.
The run tells you what it wants to be. Your job in early Act 1 is to listen, not to decide.
Seeing Inflame (enabler) is a whisper. Seeing Whirlwind after you took Inflame is the run shouting. One payoff + one enabler in your deck = committed. An enabler alone is just a good card.
Some cards and relics are so build-warping that finding one is the decision: Dead Branch, Accuracy, Catalyst, Defragment, Electrodynamics, Seeking Edge, Danse Macabre. When one appears in a shop or reward, the question flips from "should I pivot?" to "why wouldn't I?"
Ask: how many cards does this deck need before it functions? Poison works off almost any poison cards; Bloodletting is dead weight without Rupture or Reaper specifically. The more mandatory pieces, the later you should commit.
A shop showing Accuracy, or an Ancient blessing offering rare picks, is the game handing you a fork. Between-act moments are the safest time to redirect — you get a full act to assemble the rest.
Most winning decks are 70% one archetype + 30% another. Ironclad Strength splashes Exhaust; Silent Poison splashes Sly draw. Committing means prioritizing, not purging.
Not sure what your deck is? Look at what you'd upgrade first at a campfire. That card's archetype is your archetype — your instincts already know.
His archetypes blend more freely than anyone else's — Strength splashes Exhaust, Exhaust overlaps Block — so a "wrong" early pick rarely bricks the run. Note for STS1 vets: he now starts with a Burn+ in the discard pile, which nudges you toward Exhaust synergy from turn one.
Trap: strength with only single-hit attacks. Multi-hit cards are what turn +6 Strength from "nice" into a screen wipe.
Trap: Exhausting your win conditions. The engine eats cards — make sure your payoffs are Powers (permanent) or protected.
Trap: full turtle into Corrosion enemies — they melt max HP through your wall. This build needs Body Slam to close fights fast, not just survive them.
Trap: drafting the fuel without the converter. Bloodletting-for-energy and Offering-for-draw read efficient until Act 3 bosses hit for 30 a turn and Burning Blood can't keep up.
Trap: it plateaus. Great Act 1–2 engine, shaky Act 3 solo plan — treat it as a bridge that buys time to find a real scaler.
You called it: Poison, Shivs, and the new Sly discard deck — and each has one keystone card that makes or breaks it (Catalyst, Accuracy, and discard outlets respectively). Footwork is her universal glue: take it in almost every deck.
Trap: Artifact enemies eat poison applications. Strip charges with cheap debuffs (a Weak, a Flask bounce) before spending your real poison cards.
Trap: going wide on generators with zero Accuracy by mid Act 2. One or two shiv cards for chip damage is fine; six is a deck that fires blanks.
Trap: outlets without Sly cards means you're just discarding value. The ratio matters: roughly one outlet per two Sly cards.
Two archetypes that play like two different characters: Star Engine is a tempo mage, Sovereign Blade is a patient assassin. His golden rule: keep Star generators and Star spenders in proportion — spenders without generators is a hand full of cards you can't cast. Stars persist between turns and have no cap, so banking is legal.
Trap: drafting spenders greedily. Every expensive Star card needs generation behind it, or your "powerful" hand does nothing on curve.
Trap: pure Forge with no AoE and no Seeking Edge. It's a magnificent single-target build that gets nibbled to death by mob fights.
Three interlocking systems — Osty, Doom, Souls — plus an Ethereal sub-theme. Key rule: her archetypes share fuel (Souls feed everything) but the payoffs don't mix freely, so pick a lane. Also: Doom wants a wide unlock pool, so climb the Timeline before committing to it.
Trap: half-measures. A neglected Osty is still a decent block battery, but Unleash without Summon investment hits like a wet noodle. Feed him or bench him.
Trap: the timing rule. Doom kills at the end of the enemy's turn — a doomed boss still takes one last swing at you. Budget block for the death rattle, every time.
Trap: velocity without a payoff. Drawing your whole deck feels amazing and does zero damage unless Haunt or Soul Storm is converting the churn.
Trap: drafting Ethereal cards "for the archetype" before the keystone. Without payoffs they're just cards that delete themselves.
One universal truth before any archetype: Defragment is the most important card in his pool — permanent +1 Focus improves every orb's passive and evoke for the whole run. Take it in Act 1 at almost any deck size. And even offensive builds need a Frost source; Lightning generates zero block and chip damage kills more Defects than elites do.
Trap: over-evoking on turn one. Orbs are an investment — let passives tick unless the evoke lands a kill.
Trap: the sequel's anti-turtle tools aim straight at this deck. Corrosion melts your max HP and Pierce ignores the wall — always carry a kill plan, not just a fortress.
Trap: Glass in a slow deck. A decaying orb in a 12-turn Frost fortress fight contributes approximately nothing.
Trap: forcing it because it slapped in 2019. The sequel's meta punishes it; treat CAW-CAW as a treat.
Draft generically good cards until the run shows you a payoff or a keystone (Whirlwind, Catalyst, Accuracy, Seeking Edge, Countdown, Electrodynamics, Dead Branch…) — then commit hard, skip everything off-plan, and spend your removals and upgrades making that one engine purr.