Osty changes the damage calculation
Unlock Necrobinder by playing a Regent run and opening Life and Death. Bound Phylactery Summons at the start of each turn, while Bodyguard adds a larger Summon action. Osty supplies protection that can remain relevant beyond the turn it was generated.
Unleash deals more damage according to Osty’s current HP. When enemy attacks consume that health, the defensive payment also reduces the next Unleash. A plan relying on a large Osty attack must protect its stored HP, not merely keep the character alive.
That does not mean Osty must survive every hit. Letting him absorb damage can be the correct way to survive a turn when the alternative is losing the run. Decide whether the hand needs a shield now or whether an upcoming attack needs the larger damage value.
Early rewards and immediate output
Defy combines Block with Weak. Graveblast attacks while recovering a card from the discard pile. Those cards can solve current hands without requiring a completed Doom or Soul package.
Treat Summon cautiously when planning an early elite. If each enemy turn consumes the new Osty HP, it is functioning as protection rather than accumulating into an enormous Unleash. Add immediate damage when that is what ends the encounter before its scaling becomes dangerous.
Bone Shards uses a living Osty for area damage and Block, then kills him. Compare that immediate result with the stored HP and later attack you give up. A summon engine can recover from that exchange more readily than a hand with no way to rebuild him.
Doom timing
Doom kills when its threshold is met at the end of the enemy turn. Reaching enough Doom does not automatically cancel the attack currently shown. The deck still needs to survive the enemy’s action before the ordinary end-of-turn check.
Direct damage helps by lowering the HP the Doom total must match. If one enemy is almost ready for execution, an attack there can remove a threat sooner than spreading equal damage across the group. Blight Strike combines an attack with Doom based on the damage dealt, making its result sensitive to the actual target.
| Direction | Enable it with | Avoid collecting too early |
|---|---|---|
| Osty attacks | Summon, protection and usable attack access. | Payoffs that assume Osty keeps HP the deck cannot protect. |
| Doom | Application and enough defense for the enemy turn. | More delayed output while immediate attacks remain lethal. |
| Souls | Reliable generation and useful draw/energy conversion. | Haunt or other payoffs before Souls can be supplied. |
Souls and the next hand
A Soul draws cards and Exhausts. Haunt rewards playing Souls; Soul Storm increases with Souls already in the Exhaust pile. Drawing several cards still requires resources to play the resulting hand. Dredge and Graveblast can bring back a specific answer from discard instead of relying entirely on the next random draw.
Read the Osty attack guide, Doom guide and Soul guide for their different dependencies. Boss preparation explains why a defensive deck must still handle revival and growing pressure.
In co-op, Glimpse Beyond adds Souls to every player’s draw pile. Agree on when the party can use the future draw; it does not place those cards immediately into every hand.
