Runic Pyramid’s retention rule
Runic Pyramid stops the normal discard of your hand at the end of a turn. A defensive card drawn during a quiet turn can remain available for a later attack. A payoff can wait for its partner instead of being discarded before the other half arrives. The relic changes timing, not the energy available to play the retained cards.
That creates two different situations. A large hand containing useful responses is control. A large hand full of cards you cannot afford or do not want to play is congestion. Removing every expensive card is not the answer: an expensive Power can be excellent when the relic lets you save it for a safe turn.
Hand congestion
Look at what remains after several turns. If ordinary attacks accumulate because the deck cannot pay for them, more energy or cheaper actions may help. If Status cards or Curses accumulate, spending energy on better attacks will not remove the blockage. The required answer is an eligible discard, Exhaust or transformation effect.
An illustrative hand contains two cards worth saving and several unwanted starters. Drawing another expensive cycling Skill can fail to improve the position because the old cards remain. Playing a controlled Exhaust effect instead removes a specific obstruction and preserves the two important cards for their intended turn. Compare this with the general draw guide, where access rather than hand space may be the original problem.
Discard and Exhaust outlets
Calculated Gamble can discard the accumulated hand and replace it. That is powerful when most of the hand is expendable, but poor when it throws away the precise answer you were holding. Hidden Daggers also discards cards while generating attacks; account for the newly created cards when estimating how much space it frees.
True Grit’s controlled upgraded Exhaust can remove one obstruction while supplying Block. Purity lets the player select several cards to Exhaust. Neither should consume an important finisher simply to make the hand smaller. Card removal addresses permanent deck problems between fights; combat Exhaust handles the current encounter.
Retaining useful cards
Do not spend every useful card merely to restore a small hand. Holding a defensive answer for a multi-hit enemy turn or a damage multiplier for a finishing sequence can be exactly what makes the relic valuable. Ask whether the retained cards are preventing useful draws and whether the cards replacing them would actually improve the next turn.
Sly still needs an actual discard before the turn ends. Runic Pyramid does not trigger it by retaining the card. Ethereal still removes a card left unplayed at end of turn; stopping discard is not a blanket protection from other keyword rules. Use the keyword reference when these effects share a hand.