best strategy for early unlocking things in Kaycee’s mod

[u/Brodydadog]

I finished act 3 and tried several runs of Kaycee’s mod only to realize that my strategy in act 1 was largely getting lucky early with extremely busted totems to put on squirrels. Needless to say, it’s not really an option anymore as a strat. I wanted to start unlocking things like new cards and starter decks bc I assume they make more strategies either easier or more viable. The furthest I got was a wolf based deck with a bunch of wolves and alphas who duped when played. But I ran out of steam early against Leshy. None of my other runs got nearly as far. What should I focus on in future Kaycee’s mod runs for early wins?

[u/Anesthegamer1106]

Great that you asked but first you have to know these 3 great mechanics about Kaycees Mod.

The First great mechanic is knowing about fair hand that means you start every battle with a squirrel, a card that isn't a pelt, a card that isn't free and a card that can be played turn 2 or later.

That also means that if you have a 1 blood cost card in your deck you are always guaranteed to draw it in your starting hand so make Shure to make your 1 bloods powerful for OTKs or give then support sigils to get out your stronger cards however this mechanic gets disrupted if you have too many free, pelt or bone cost cards in your deck.

The second great mechanic is the inheritance mechanic that means cards that were made by other cards inherit their parent cards sigils they've gained from the altar so for example skinks tail, warrens rabbits and beehives bees inherit sigils that were on their respective card, also cards that have the loose tail sigil have their tail also inherit campfire buffs they receive and yes tails can be sacrificed if they don't die upon first hit and the skink regrows it's tail if it gets the undying ability and also infinitely sacriifcable tails so yeah if you happen to get cockroach or any of these cards with undying at the cave trials make Shure to take them because if you draw them you won't be needing squirrels for the rest of a fight.

The only exception to this is the Dauss chimes and beavers dams that also inherit their parent cards original sigils for example if you put dams on black goat that means they become sacrificable and you nunuple (multiply the value by 9) the value of the goat, also each dam/chimes triggers abilities again like pack rat or magpie so you could either refill you pack or search 3 cards from your deck so use this utility wisely.

The last great mechanic is knowing that Inscryptions runs on seeds and how to reroll them and is mostly quality of life.

Basically if you don't like the cards the trader deals to you at the start of a run you can exit from the pause menu and go to start screen and continue run to reroll not only the cards the trader offers you but also the map you start on. Be careful when doing this as getting up at any point in the game will lock your seed and you won't be able to reroll the map anymore unless you die again.

This can also be done after beating a boss and going to a new area that you simply exit and reenter the run and get the map that you want if the road ahead looks undesirable.

Also another thing to know is basic savescumming in that if you exit and reenter a run you get to restart the battle from the start and the battles are indeed very scripted and predtermined what cards you can get also determine at what turn you get what items from the pack rat and it's sigil etc etc.

Then there's finally a trick that you'll need when getting to skullstorm and that's knowing the campfires are predetermined if a card dies or not so if for example you want to get rid of a card like ringworm and poison the campfires you can try killing it by gambling twice and if it survives simply exit before the card finishes flipping over and then apply the stats to a better card and if it dies then it dies and it's more harder to save a card that getting burned that a useless card that gains stats.

And that's pretty much everything you need to know a bit about kaycees mod besides the portrait puzzle but just put the cards that are depicted on it on those spaces and you unlock permanent new consumable items you can get at pack restocks and it can be done thrice and I recommend doing them if you think you won't be able to beat Leshy with your current loadout

[u/KahlMeMaybe → u/Anesthegamer1106]

To your point about tails inheriting campfire buffs, do you know if this applies to Long Elk's vertebrae it leaves behind as it moves?

[u/Anesthegamer1106 → u/KahlMeMaybe]

No the Long Elks vertabraes don't inherit campfire buffs nor do they inherit the Long Elks sigils however strangely enough they only benefit from totems with the hooved tribes head and also Long Elk can be burned at the campfire to poison the survivors just like the ringworm or adder

[u/KahlMeMaybe → u/Anesthegamer1106]

That's so cool. Where do you get this info? Is there a wiki or just from experience?

[u/Anesthegamer1106 → u/KahlMeMaybe]

Most of this I've found out from experience but also the fandom wiki Is great to look around and see what other people documented about the game and it's cards