In this guide I will talk about the upsides and downsides of the various weapons, expound on some general strategy for making the most of your coins, cards and events, and provide a few winning example decks from Veteran/Warlord difficulty as well as describing the central cards that make each build archetype work.
This guide is meant for beginners and those having trouble beating the game, but I have added a section on Hellwalker difficulty near the end.

Before we begin the guide proper, I'd like to say a word about the game's weapons. Each of the weapon types offered are viable choices depending on your build, and all of them have at one time or another been the best strategic choice for a build I've run. That being said, some of them definitely require specialized builds to use, and others are more general-purpose.

My favorite weapons tend to be daggers and fist weapons (which are essentially upgraded daggers.) They tend to have slightly less attack than swords, but they make up for it by stacking bleed on opponents and synergize with builds that expect to attack multiple times in a turn. They do not inflict you with Fatigue and allow for using a shield or crossbow in the other hand.

On the other side of the spectrum, handaxes are a single-handed weapon with the heaviest initial damage bonus of any archetype. They add fatigue after every strike, making them best for one-shot decks.

In the middle are standard swords, which have no special advantages or disadvantages. They are usually stronger than daggers in the early game, especially if you don't have the energy to attack multiple times in a turn. Again, being one-handed weapons, they allow for the use of shields or crossbows in the offhand.

Broadswords are great for crowd control and are second in damage only to handaxes. They are fantastic for Focus decks with Empty Mind, but if you don't yet have damage scaling or Empty Mind, try to avoid them. The fatigue they add will kill a lot of early decks, though fatigue can actually be beneficial for Focus decks. Broadswords tend to have the most potential in builds that can make strategic use of power moves, secondary movement effects, and knockback.

Spears are crossbows for focus decks, but seem to be the weakest weapon type at present. Their main drawbacks are that you can't wield an off-hand, they add fatigue after every strike, and tend to have roughly the same damage buffs as daggers. If you have an Empty Mind card, you can at least use the fatigue statuses to charge your focus.

Crossbows have been buffed heavily since the beginning of EA. They have a three-tile range but can be clunky to use, as they require a combat card of the same color to reload after every shot. Fortunately, reloading now refunds the energy cost spent for it, so crossbow-wielders no longer suffer from energy issues. Crossbows are useful in most builds to apply damage or statuses at range.

Bows are similar to crossbows, but the fact that they are two-handed weapons means they have a noticeable difference in operability. They are easier to use than crossbows in general because they can fire and reload using both colors of combat cards, but they are also less flexible in that they prevent you from using single-handed weapons like hammers or claws during the same turn.

The Katana archetype of weapons is meant to be used with a focus deck, but the focus they add is usually too low to be noticeable and they prevent you from using other weapons in the offhand.

A near-universal truth among deckbuilders is that deck control and cycling are the keys to mitigating bad RNG and maintaining a successful run. This is why smaller, tighter decks and cards that draw other cards tend to perform much better than large decks without sufficient card draw.

Card cycling (draw and discard) will allow you to shuffle difficult statuses back into your deck, redraw your hand to fit the present situation, and can provide additional chances to get that one card you specifically need to kill your opponents or avoid taking damage this turn. Lastly, if your deck includes any kind of scaling element such as Beef Up, Jab or Tough Nut, faster cycling allows you to scale more quickly since you return to the necessary cards faster.

Similarly, this is why you remove cards that are weak to your build. The fewer draws you have to spend pulling cards you don't want, the more of them can be cards you do want and the faster your deck cycles. This is why when you Meditate, you almost always want to remove cards unless you have a build-centric card that is mismatched with your equipment.

New in 0.8.7, Empty Mind is a powerful deck control tool because it allows you to exhaust cards - including status cards - and gain a temporary attack boost from them. Eventually, you can use it pare your deck down to only the best cards you have.

Depending on your luck in the first arena, the shops will either be a useful tool for tightening your deck or a last-ditch chance to mitigate bad RNG. Because crowds drop equipment regularly, you only want to purchase equipment if you have a fantastic Mystery Shop reward or set of cards that necessitates a specific weapon in your arsenal. The majority of your time at shops should be purchasing new cards that will be the engines for your successful build.

Upgrading equipment has improved, but it is still usually a waste of time. Given that the first damage upgrade for a piece of equipment only costs 50 gold, it can be a worthwhile investment on occasion. But unless you need a specific piece of equipment for your build, you are probably better off looking for engine cards. Additionally, upgrading equipment gives your build a BASE BONUS that you start combat with, and finding good cards give you a SCALING BONUS that makes you more powerful as combat continues. Base bonuses are good to keep you alive while you scale upward, but will themselves usually provide just a small percentage of your actual defense or offense values during combat.
The only time I make room for the equipment side of shops is when my build has come together and I'm just looking to spend excess gold on a minor damage increase, or when I can't find a Reinforced Gear card and need to add power moves in the shop for survivability.

All decks in Alina can be sorted based on the following two questions: How do you avoid taking damage (Block or Control), and how do you deal damage (One-shots, Rapid attacks, or burn scaling)

• Decks that avoid damage primarily from block benefit from Tough Nut and a surplus of block cards and block-related attacks.
  
• This is the most powerful and easy-to-use deck until Hellwalker, where it quickly becomes untenable without dipping into Skirmisher gameplay.
  
• Deck engines: Anything that gives Hardy (Tough Nut and certain shields) and a way of converting block into attack power (Shield Charge, The Best Defense, Counter.)
  
• Useful cards or equipment: Multi-strike and AoE weapons, deck control to gain Hardy faster.
  
• Notably, you can wield a crossbow to attack with your block effects from range. It's usually not necessary, but it's an interaction I find amusing.

• Decks that avoid damage primarily through a bevy of movement and knockback mechanics. Usually uses at least one crossbow for kiting.
  
• They are harder to play than block decks, but are the only way to reliably climb Hellwalker levels.
• Not so much a deck in themselves as half of a deck, with the other half being one of the attack options outlined below.
  
• Deck engines: Fireball, Leverage, Roll, Swing.
  
• Useful cards or equipment: Dark Soles, Kick+, any weapon that can knock enemies away (especially from range, like Heavy crossbow.)

• Any deck that relies on building up power for large, high-damage strikes is a one-shot archetype.
• The two most common types are Block decks and Focus decks, but anything with strength scaling can become this eventually.
  
• Deck engines: Flurry, Wind Up, Feint
  
• Useful cards or equipment: Crippling trap, Warcry, Flow state, Issen, Empty Mind, multistrike or AoE weapons.

• Any deck that relies on multiple low-cost attacks to deal high damage in a single turn. It has the most synergies amongst deck archetypes because it scales with strength, bleed, burn, movement/control attacks, Demon Slayer, Fire Baller, and Dark Soles. Does NOT synergize with block or focus builds.
  
• Deck engines: Flurry, Dark Soles, Beef Up, Warcry
  
• Useful cards or equipment: Daggers and especially knuckle daggers or triple fists, Fire Baller.

• Instead of dealing damage through strength or status scaling, this deck applies burn to enemies and lets scaling happen naturally. Can work as an extension of Multistrike.
  
• Most burn archetypes have at least one Brand and use crossbows to attack from a distance.
• Ignite is a 0-cost wondercard that works as both single-target nuke and AoE, and scales
  with the burn stacks on an enemy.
  
• Deck engines: Brand, Ignite, and any way of applying burn - Flaming Weapons (power) is usually a strong option.
  
• Useful cards or equipment: Flaming Weapons, Oil, traps (for use with flaming tiles). Fire Baller if combined with Multistrike.

Some cards and equipment are so powerful that (nearly) every build type can benefit from them, and they deserve their own highlight section.

#1: Fireball
Fireball is your best friend for battlefield control, easily as essential as Roll. It's most useful for stunning enemies, avoiding charge attacks, gaining distance, and knocking enemies into traps. You don't take Fireball for AoE damage, you take it as a control option.

#2: Roll
It goes without saying, but sometimes you won't have the damage, block, or knockback you need to avoid taking damage yourself. Roll retains and decreases in cost, and will end up being invaluable in most runs regardless of your build type.

#3: Knuckle daggers, Triple Fists, Repeating Crossbow, Musashi
These weapons have multistrike as a power move. The knuckle daggers, Repeating Crossbow and Musashi will double the damage and status ticks of a single attack for free, and triple fists will triple it for 1 extra energy cost. These effects quickly lead to broken builds.

#4: Hammers
Any club weapon that can change the enemy's attack direction as a power move. This is a useful ace to have against charging enemies or enemies with wide AoEs, and will help smooth out the RNG troubles in a skirmisher deck.

#5: Swing
Another battlefield control card. Unlike Leverage it doesn't leave you on the back foot, it can stun enemies, and it doesn't require that you drop a card. The stun is its most powerful feature, and can be used from a distance with crossbows.

#6: Reinforced Gear
If you carry extra weapons for their power moves (you should), Reinforced Gear lets you use their power moves additional times. If you can't find any good equipment, it won't be useful to you.

#7: Fire Baller (Multi-strike and Burn decks only)
A DPS tool that scales extremely well with multistrike and burn decks, but shouldn't be taken for block or one-shot decks. Two upgraded Fire Ballers will create a fireball on every instance of damage dealt, which can nearly double your damage and let you spread it out between targets. Fireballs scale with strength and apply burn on hit.

#8: Empty Mind
Not just for Focus decks, Empty Mind will let you pare down your deck into your best cards until you can draw them every turn. It also makes a "Potpourri deck" more viable, in which you forgo removing cards via Meditation and instead use the Create option for more chances to find the cards you need in the early game. Don't be afraid to exhaust the majority of your cards with Empty Mind, only keeping the few that will be most useful to you in each battle - the more you exhaust, the faster it can pare down your deck, and the better burst damage you can deal.

#9: Heavy Crossbow
The ability to apply knockback at a distance, on command, is a lot more valuable than you'd expect until you've kept this weapon in a backup slot. It can often make the difference between eating an artillery shot/charge attack and walking away unscathed.

#10: Crippling/Flaming trap
Traps are fantastic options for slowing Massive enemies or stopping chargers in their tracks. The fact that they can apply Vulnerable (or flames if running a burn deck) make them all the sweeter. Usually just one trap is plenty.

As of this version of the Early Access build, there is only one main boss for each arena and a random selection of a few elites. What separates them from common enemies is not so much their larger health pool and beefier attacks, but the incorporation of certain mechanics or movesets that test your deck's vulnerabilities. Because of this, they tend to be a difficulty spike for new players.

Arena 1: Giga Blade and Spider Queen
Giga Blade is something of a DPS check. You may be able to kite him with enough patience, but low-damage decks will run into the problem of him gaining more block and strength every time his stun wears off, making it harder to avoid hits without multiple movement abilities and making each hit harder to endure. You are supposed to counter this by having enough damage to consistently break his block, damage his health, and kill him with few repeats. You can prevent him from gaining attack range and power entirely by using piercing attacks or attacks that otherwise ignore block, but if your damage is too low to deal with him normally then you still won't survive the next arena.
You can bring strength potions to make this fight easier.

The Spider Queen is different from most bosses in that it doesn't test your ability to scale, but rather your initial power. If you can't fight through its minions and maintain your distance from the outset (or in a short timescale,) you'll end up surrounded and overwhelmed. Fortunately, the deck strength required is still fairly low and most strength or block-scaling decks can defeat it easily. It is primarily a problem for burn decks without a secondary source of damage or strong control cards.
You can bring strength potions to this fight to make it easier.

Arena 2: Cult Lord and Ice Reaper
The Cult Lord and its minion both have AoE attacks, and they'll deal extra damage if you get hit on cursed tiles. They essentially ask you to have a few movement options for sustained fights, and/or enough burst damage to down them in quick succession. It is absolutely possible to defeat this boss without any scaling abilities, but it requires that your moveset be strong enough from the outset to kite around the AoE provided by both enemies.
You can bring strength potions to make this fight easier, but it won't help as much as in other boss fights.

The Ice Reaper tests your battlefield control, though high burst damage can bypass this. The reaper covers the battlefield in ice particles that make it more difficult to move, sapping your energy, while getting hit by her attacks add frostbite into your deck, sapping your options in the long-term. Decks with lots of cards have a natural resistance to status effects because the status cards show up less often, but it is still better to avoid her attacks if possible. If you have good movement cards or lots of ways to apply knockback then she tends to be fairly easy to scale past and burst down, but it's also possible to face-tank her attacks and burst her down without any movement at all if your damage is strong enough.
You can bring grappling hooks and traps to this fight to make it easier.

Arena 3: Sir Knight and Jester Prince
Sir Knight combines heavy-damage AoEs and attacks from long distance to provide a fairly balanced challenge for most decks, but will be hardest for kiting decks with low damage. Its Judgement attack covers the entire arena and can do massive damage, but the damage of this attack is dependent on his block and you can wear it down or break it with decent DPS. You'll want to have movement and control options to avoid his long range attacks or enough block to tank them, and enough damage to break his block when he prepares Judgement. Sufficiently powerful decks can burst him down before he even enters judgement.

The Jester King primarily tests your battlefield control. The battle is balanced around fighting 3-5 enemies at once, most of whom have high-damage AoE attacks and low health. You can either burst down individual threats to kill them while scaling to do the same to the Jester King, or use your control options to avoid their attacks and let them take one another out. Once the Jester King enters his second phase, you'll want to stay clear of his AoE either through knockback or movement cards.
You can bring strength potions to this fight to make dealing burst damage easier.

At the beginning of each run (sans your first), you'll start at the Mystery Shop. This shop will let you buy cards and equipment using points earned from previous runs to make your current run easier.
"Duh," you say. But it is here at the Mystery Shop that you'll usually find the big cards or items that can help you initially define a build. Find a bracer that makes adds 1 to your burn scaling? Looks like the start of a burn deck. Find a Shield Slam? Looks like a block deck.
It's better to take accessories and cards that enable specific playstyles at the Mystery Shop and after the early battles, just so that you have a central theme to build around. Don't take good-but-general-purpose cards if you have a build-enabler present, and don't be afraid to spend a coin or two re-rolling the shop.

You can keep equipment in your "backpack" and swap it out during fights, which is useful when you need that additional AoE from a broadsword or range from a spear or crossbow. You can't switch equipment out on the same turn after you've already used its effect, but switching is a free action and can make you just that bit more effective.

Your early game equipment should usually consist of a sword and shield, with a ranged weapon in your "backpack" as a backup (this obviously changes as you get cards, equipment or accessories that start to form a deck archetype.)

Rocks and other "backpack weapons" don't remove Initiative when used, and are useful for removing Precognition, downing Shadow Clones, or interrupting an enemy from range. They also benefit from strength increases. Pick them up when you find yourself standing over them, but don't sabotage your kiting pattern for them.

The best cards to pick if you only have general-purpose choices are those that give you better deck control (draw, redraw, etc) or movement, but try not to take too many before you have a build figured out - it's better to skip cards and stay underpowered for a little while than to end up with too many block cards in a skirmisher deck, to use a specific example.

The late game is punishing on unfocused decks, especially those that try to kite to avoid damage. It's better to commit to a block or kiting build early, and if you can't find enough movement to kite consistently, you'll want to have some decent block for damage mitigation.

Throughout the entire game, stun is overpowered. You can faceroll bosses by knocking them into a corner and keeping them stunned for the entire battle. Any abilities you take that knock enemies around are as valuable as movement abilities for a playstyle that needs time to get going.

Unless you plan to focus kiting, the first cards you'll want to get rid of will generally be a couple of basic Strike cards. If you do start picking up block cards, start deleting Defends instead, as you want to maintain a good balance until you have your build figured out. It's better to have a build in mind as early as possible, but sometimes that doesn't happen until after the first boss.

Elites give you better rewards than regular fights, but they will also test your ability to handle certain mechanics in the same way that bosses do. It's always better to fight the elites if you have a strong deck, but if you find yourself struggling and low on health, just skip them and see if you can get lucky with the boss.

You should rarely, if ever heal on heal/training options. Crowds will give you healing potions and events often contain options to heal, plus you'll heal after every boss battle. Opportunities for upgrades are much rarer and will also save you health in the future as you become stronger.
Focus your upgrades on cards that give you scaling, because the faster you scale, the quicker you'll finish fights and less damage you'll take. If you have no scaling cards to upgrade, go for deck control and energy conservation.

After defeating the first boss, you'll be presented with a choice of accessory equipment. The energy option is almost always worth its downsides, but if it destroys the build you have going, know that energy relics are absolutely not necessary for winning runs and it's often better to take something else than to destroy a good build.

Arenas 2 and 3:
Occasionally, you'll find that you have only one or two of the "engine" components of the build you were planning for, but you'll see another "engine" card that works in an archetype you've been wanting to play. Just take it and see if you can get your other build running, or plan for a hybrid build. Hybrid builds tend not to be as strong as focused builds, but they can still work and the game is at its most fun when you engage with experimentation.
* If it wasn't obvious, "engine" components are cards that are major factors in making a build work, EG Shield Slam or Tough Nut for defense-focused decks.

Lots of enemies in the second area have AoE attacks. You won't be able to kite them consistently without a build centered around it, so if your defenses aren't up to par yet, it's far more important to focus on staying alive than killing enemies quickly.

If you've built a strong deck, you'll hit a point where you stop taking damage during fights. At this point, if you feel comfortable with your build, you can stop going to the Card option in the Shops and start looking into improving your equipment. Keep trimming down your deck at meditation points, but don't remove too many of your offense and defense cards. In general, you want no more than a third of your deck to be non-damage and non-defense cards, including your powers.

At some point you'll probably have enough excess money that you can start thinking about upgrading your equipment. But if you are already destroying mobs and you feel confident about tackling the boss, consider saving that money for purple coins - your next run might not be so lucky.

Most of these decks were created in early versions of the game, and better and more useful cards have come out to fill out the deck archetypes since then. These decks are still viable, but if you want to know what powerful cards might be missing, check out the sections on The Five Archetypes and S-Tier Cards and Equipment.

The Sword-and-Board is so named because of it's very basic, beginner-friendly nature - using an offensive and defensive tool (AKA your sword and your board) to build an all-around balanced character.

The main scaling elements here are Jab and the two copies of Tough Nut. Beef Up helps keep the rest of the damage scaling, but I was still learning the mechanics at this point and the deck is hardly optimized.

Jab is powerful in that it scales exponentially - every time you cycle your deck, provided you can play every jab, it will gain double the amount of damage that it gained on the previous cycle. Two damage becomes four damage, becomes eight, becomes sixteen - and the number of jabs doubles on every cycle as well.

Two Tough Nuts were used to keep shield values high while scaling with Jab. This deck destroyed every boss without difficulty, and is overall a beginner-friendly deck.

One note here - I on most builds I keep my copy of Wind Up and take a Battle Stance, because they are useful to provide a little additional setup on turns where you have to or want to spend time out of range.

Feint and Breathing Technique were useful to play my scaling cards additional times per cycle, but there are no other special mentions.

Because I felt Jab carried me through my previous wins, Turtle Charge was an attempt to use a defensively-scaling deck. It was overpowered enough that I swore off block-based defense for the next few runs, but that's mostly because of how powerful Shield Charge is and that I was lucky enough to find it three times.

Shield Charge is powerful because not only does it allow you to carry block over, it can push opponents into walls and set them up for major damage. I took very little damage with this build past the first arena, and killed both the final arena elites and boss before they could even get an attack in.

Breathing Technique meant that I could play Shield Charge four times per cycle, which meant my block essentially never reset.

Repel was obviously lethal to most enemies, but it rarely had the chance to deal damage because Shield Charge killed everything first.

Rope Hook was useful in reaching the few enemies who like to kite before I lost my block, but I wouldn't call it a major component.

One thing to note is that I almost made the mistake of taking out all of my regular offensive options, and only realized my error when trying to fight an elite that gained precognition once per turn. A basic attack or thrown rock is necessary to pull down preocognition so that Shield Charge can actually connect, or you'll find yourself in a stalemate where you can't deal damage to the enemy.

After the turtle build slaughtered Sir Knight, I wanted to try the opposite approach and make a build that didn't use normal block cards, instead focusing on a kiting playstyle. I happened to get the Lightning Bracer in the mystery shop, which makes all Fatigue cards cost 0 energy. As a result, this ended up becoming a hybrid skirmisher and Fatigue deck, where most of my defensive ability was focused around staying out of range and most of my block came from attacking directly.

Trooper causes all Fatigue cards to give block when played, and Reflex provides block when playing attack cards. Add to that weapons that provide Fatigue on every attack, and every offense card now works as a non-scaling defense card that helps mitigate damage when you can't avoid it.

Power Through ended up providing as much strength scaling as Beef Up, though in general Beef Up was easier to set up and use.

Multi-attack cards like Flurry are very powerful because their damage increase to Strength is multiplied by their number of attacks and they provide a copy of fatigue for every instance of damage.

The Trap, Hook, and Dirt were there to facilitate the kiting style of play, and all ended up being invaluable components to avoid taking damage. This doesn't mean you can't make the deck work without them, but they are useful "ace-in-the-holes" when you need them.

Echo was primarily used to play multiple copies of Trooper, but found utility with Slam and Throw Dirt as well.

This deck had difficulty with scaling - it was sometimes difficult to get my powers active while also kiting attacks, and even if I could manage that, it put me behind in scaling my offense. I ended up taking a lot of damage during this run, but that's primarily because a deck that uses block to avoid damage needs to focus on block, and a deck that intends to kite needs to focus on kiting. Hybrids don't tend to work as well as focused builds. More movement options would have helped me take less damage.

One important note is that I carried a spear and broadsword. The Spear was used in most of my fights with the broadsword serving as opportunistic AoE, but the broadsword was a necessary component because of the final boss. Sir Knight can very easily kill you if your only weapon deals pierce damage. If I were to play this build again, I would take a more typical spear instead of the stinger, but still keep the broadsword for those occasions I get surrounded.

Similar enough to the Sword-and-Board that I debated leaving it out, but it shows a key synergy that I found important enough to include it.

The Monk is all about offense and deck cycling through Killer Instinct. I should have removed Tough Nut to help demonstrate this build's actual power, but old habits die hard and I tend to be a defensive player.

Jab is used for power scaling, just like in the Sword-and-Board build, but it scales much faster now due to the draws provided by Killer Instinct. Because Jab costs 0 if it connects, and because you can draw two cards with every attack, it's common to cycle your entire deck in a single turn and quickly reach the point where you deal hundreds of damage. Any draw cards you take would allow you to start cycling your deck a second time on the same turn, but to be frank, that's usually unnecessary.

Reflex is used to provide block. Because the number of Jabs in your deck keeps increasing, so will the block you gain from dealing damage, and that's if there's anything left to attack you in the first place. The other block cards I had were just there to provide the setup time needed for Killer Instinct and Jab to get going.

If I were to play this build again, I'd tone down on the non-combat cards (removing either Echo or Unlocked Mind for certain), and remove more of the basic Strikes and Guards. I would also take an additional movement option or a crossbow for range.

The Firestarter actually started as a pure skirmisher deck, but I switched focus in Arena 2 because fire-based cards kept showing up and I'd wanted to try a fire build for a while.

The trouble with fire builds is that they are inherently reliant on specific cards. A good card might only stack an additional three burn on an enemy, which is like providing six damage over a period of three turns if you don't double-down on stacking it.

This isn't as bad as it sounds because fire damage doesn't scale linearly due to the way that it stacks. A 3-burn card will deal 6 damage if left alone, but when you immediately add another 3 burn, it instead deals 21 damage over six turns. Add another one on the same turn, and suddenly it deals 45 damage over 9 turns.

As a result, fire builds are very reliant on Brand to give them faster scaling. A single Brand will turn a low-power flame attack into a deadly weapon with very short turnaround time. Oil is also helpful, as it can quickly turn an enemy into a conflagration of melted flesh - but if you have the choice between the two of them, Brand is the engine that makes this build work.

I did not take Ignite primarily because I was more worried about the arena bosses than the basic enemies, who were easily getting knocked around by Kick and Fireball to prevent damage. However, it is an excellent card for crowd control and useful if your deck struggles with groups of enemies.

You'll notice that I only took Refocus and Breathing Technique as block options here, and in truth I took them only for their deck control potential. (Born in Flames was taken because by the endgame I was setting most of the arena on fire.) Given that my previous skirmisher builds still provided fair to large amounts of block, I thought it might be nice to try a build that was undeniably not dependent on block to survive. But that did necessitate taking Mind's Eye to avoid the final boss's judgement attack, as flame damage does not decrease block.

Two things to note:
1. If you try to play a firestarter deck, it also helps to have a way to force enemies to stay on flaming tiles. They will increase your burn stacks and increase your damage accordingly.
2. Please don't try a firestarter deck as a newcomer, as it's very finicky to get going compared to other, more traditional decks. I took the most damage by using this deck than any other. Fire builds can be a lot of fun and very rewarding, but at least get a win in using a more beginner-friendly method first.


With that said, just for fun and in no way to diminish what I just said about how finicky fire builds can be, have a picture of the final boss about to take 500 damage and perish from Burn.

The Twin-Stick was built around the desire to dance around the arena crossbows akimbo, and that's pretty much what it does. Probably the most fun build I've played, but that's mainly due to the level of tactical depth it opens up. It's difficult to set up and not nearly as powerful as a focused Monk or Turtle Slam deck, and I haven't been able to recreate it fully since this run.

Now that crossbows can be reloaded without taking extra energy, it's a much easier build to create and play, and elements of it are used in most of my decks.

Run and Gun is a powerful card if you want to play a mobile crossbow skirmisher, because it reloads your crossbows after every move and draws new cards for you. Incidentally, it's useful even if you don't use crossbows, because there's seldom a turn when you don't move at least once and more draw is always useful.

Dark Soles virtually guarantees a movement option when you need it, and helps keep combo chains long. Roll and Kick+ help to reposition yourself and enemies, and allow for some fun power stunts and escape options.

The two copies of Follow Up allowed for stringing long combo chains and providing even more damage stacks for Dark Soles. The build was fun, but couldn't always hold its own in damage without them.

Dempsey Roll was useful for piling on more damage, and though I took Mind's Eye to evade Sir Knight's judgement attack, it ended up never being used because the deck's damage was high enough to easily break his block.

Lastly, a note on One More Trick. I always take at least one copy, because it costs no energy and provides a draw with significant deck control. In this case, it also helped me get at least one copy of Follow Up in my discards early on most cycles, or to grab Roll or Kick if i knew I'd need them soon.

Using Empty Mind and Feint to gain focus and Flow State to empower it was an incredibly potent combination, and Issen and Musashi were useful in maintaining focus once gathered. This deck could pretty quickly destroy anything, and the hammer was useful when my required focus cards were left to the back of the deck. Dual crossbows continued to be useful for killing enemies and interrupting artillery even before focus is built.
Zero Zone has a great concept, but it was useful only once or twice. Just given the number of Guards and non-combat draws left in my deck, it seldom showed up at a time where it would have been useful.

If I were to play this deck again, I'd leave out Beef Up and Unlocked Mind, and not upgrade Reinforced Gear as usually everything died by the time I'd used any weapon's two power moves. I'd also leave out Zero Zone if I didn't spend more meditations removing dead draws.

Before we start, let me give my two cents and say I feel like Hellwalker implementation is a bit lacking. It doesn't tighten up enemy AI, give opponents new abilities or limit the player in meaningful ways - it only changes the enemies' stats. Because of this, it also removes some layers of tactical decision-making that were present in earlier difficulties by forcing some very specific strategies. As such, I don't recommend following this part of the guide if you're a new player and playing on a lower difficulty.

The increase in enemies' stats means a few things for Hellwalker difficulties. First and foremost, it means you won't want to build a playstyle around blocking. Even in early levels enemies can break through your block in the first arena, and it only gets worse as Hellwalker levels go up. You will need to learn to play a Skirmisher playstyle focused on kiting, knocking back and stunning your enemies, and you'll often want to go for a couple of good control options (like Fireball) even before deck engines.

Secondly, burst damage becomes much more important. Enemies that can create more enemies or begin the battle by surrounding you force you to burst them down quickly to avoid taking damage. If you can't find a good multi-hit weapon or cards, you'll want to have at least one higher-cost, higher-damage card in your deck to help you take out the "low threat" enemies while scaling to match stronger enemies. Strength bracers and the Bear amulet also become much more valuable options because of this.

Burn decks are simultaneously the most and the least affected by the stat changes. A boss like the Spider Queen or a group that surrounds you will destroy you if you don't have enough burst damage, but otherwise it often plays similarly to Burn decks on lower difficulties. Having two Ignites can massively increase the amount of burst damage you deal, but unfortunately, the fact that certain battles can completely overwhelm it still drops its desirability as a deck type through the floor.

Getting good cards early is more important than in lower difficulties. If you can't find what you need at a shop or via card rewards, it's often best to choose the Create option when meditating to give you an extra chance of getting what you need.

And finally, if you have at least the basics of your deck prepared but are stuck with trash equipment, it's worth looking in shops for equipment with useful power moves even in the early game.

And that's it! Let me know if you liked my guide - comments are the fuel that breathes fire into my writer's heart.