Post-v0.103.2 Build Adjustment Cheat Sheet: What Changed for Every Character

Before v0.103.2, Ironclad players often used Neow to patch survival: Phial Holster for potions, healing-oriented boss relic swaps, or anything that kept HP above the danger line while the deck found its feet. After the patch, Not Yet. and the Colossus rarity downgrade change that calculus. You now have access to in-deck healing and consistent block without relying on Neow or relic RNG.

What this means in practice: you can afford greedier Neow opens. A boss relic swap that used to feel suicidal because it removed your healing safety net is now viable, because Not Yet. covers the gap. Colossus at Uncommon means you will regularly see it in Act 1 rewards, which in turn means you can draft more aggressively for scaling and damage, knowing your defensive floor is higher.

The one habit to drop: do not skip Colossus because it "only gives 5 Block." That 5 Block plus the 50% damage reduction against Vulnerable enemies is often the difference between a comfortable elite fight and a death spiral. Take it when offered in Act 1 unless your deck already has a superior block engine running.

Acrobatics at Uncommon is the single biggest Silent change in this patch. The old pattern — "find Acrobatics in Act 1, build everything else around it" — is no longer reliable. The good news is that Silent's card pool still has draw and tempo options; they just are not as centralized as before.

In Act 1, treat Backflip and Prepared as your primary draw alternatives. Backflip gives block plus draw, which is often more valuable than pure draw in the early game when your deck is weakest. Prepared remains a strong filter-and-draw tool, especially in decks that already have discard synergies. If neither appears, do not panic — a Silent deck with reasonable damage and a few defensive tools can survive Act 1 without a dedicated draw engine.

Blade of Ink is now explicitly a Sly card, not a generic value card. If you are not building around Sly, its value drops significantly. The rework pushes Silent players toward a decision: either commit to Sly tempo and treat Blade of Ink as a core pickup, or ignore it and focus on poison or shiv lines that do not need the Sly package. The worst place to be is in the middle — drafting Blade of Ink without the surrounding Sly support.

The v0.103 revert restored Borrowed Time to its original 0-energy form, which resurrected the Doom archetype overnight. But the surrounding card pool has shifted enough that you cannot simply copy pre-April Doom lists and expect them to work. The core engine is back, but the supporting cast has new priorities.

The most important micro-adjustment: Borrowed Time is once again a 0-cost energy generator, but you should still treat it as a setup piece rather than a free card to slam every turn. The self-Doom it applies stacks over time, and while self-Doom is rarely lethal, it does mean you want to close fights faster than before. This pushes Doom decks slightly toward direct damage — cards that push enemies across the execution threshold sooner — rather than pure Doom stacking.

Capture Spirit was also buffed and reverted during the beta cycle, and its current form rewards Soul cycling more aggressively. In practice, many winning post-patch Doom decks are actually hybrid Soul-Doom builds: they use Borrowed Time and Doom for the boss kill, but rely on Soul cycling and draw engines for hallway consistency. If your deck has Capture Spirit and Grave Warden alongside the Doom package, do not treat them as conflicting — they complement each other when the Doom pieces are slow to assemble.

Regent received the broadest buff package in v0.103.2, and the community consensus is that the character has moved from "high ceiling, low floor" to "high ceiling, acceptable floor." The changes to Arsenal and Regalite — both now caring about created cards more generally — mean that Forge and Star strategies overlap more cleanly than before.

The drafting implication: you no longer need to commit to Forge or Stars in Act 1. Cards that generate Stars and cards that Forge now feed the same payoff structure, which means you can draft for flexibility early and let the Act 2 rewards decide which line you emphasize. This is a huge quality-of-life improvement for a character who previously demanded an early commitment and punished pivots harshly.

Neow choices for Regent should also shift. Because the floor is higher, survival-oriented Neow relics are less mandatory. Hefty Tablet and Neow's Talisman — both of which accelerate card acquisition and relic scaling — are now higher-priority picks than defensive options, because Regent's early game is no longer the liability it used to be.

Defect changed the least in v0.103.2, which is good news for players who already know the character. The nerfs to Hotfix and Voltaic are real but marginal; the buff to Rocket Punch is welcome but not build-defining. The practical impact is that your existing Defect knowledge transfers cleanly to the post-patch environment.

The one strategic note: because other characters are still relearning their identities, Defect benefits from relative stability. In competitive or multiplayer contexts, a player who has mastered Defect's orb math and channel timing has a consistency advantage over opponents who are still adjusting to Ironclad's new healing patterns or Silent's post-Acrobatics world.

Neow and drafting priorities for Defect are essentially unchanged. Frost wall builds remain the safest climbing option, Lightning scaling is still strong against multi-enemy fights, and the Claw meme continues to be a Claw meme. If you are looking for the character least disrupted by the patch, Defect is the answer.

Regardless of character, Ascension 6 Inflation forces one universal adjustment: the first shop visit is now a routing priority, not an optional convenience. At 100 gold for the first removal and 150 for the second, you cannot afford to wander into a shop late in Act 2 and expect to prune your deck affordably.

The practical rule for every character: save 100+ gold by floor 5, route toward the first merchant actively, and decide before entering whether this shop stop is for removal, power, or scaling. Do not enter a shop without a primary goal — on A6+, impulse buys are more punishing than ever because every gold piece not spent on removal is a gold piece that will cost more later.

If you cannot reach a shop early, accept the bloat. A 26-card deck with good cards is better than a 22-card deck where you skipped strong rewards to hold out for a removal that never became affordable. Inflation teaches a harsh but valuable lesson: deck size matters less than deck quality, and quality is built at the reward screen, not just the merchant.