Vytar Cores (lineages)
Before each incursion, you choose your Vytar’s core. The ship, its name and its voice stay the same, but these change:
- your starting deck;
- your starting artifact (the core itself);
- the cards that show up in rewards, at Nexus-7 and in Anomalies;
- some mutations and artifacts, which are exclusive to one core.
Each core has about 60 cards of its own, plus the act cards that work for everyone.
| Core | Style | Unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Solar | Stellar fire: Burn that eats away, Heat that builds up and explodes in Eruption | from the start |
| Cryogenic | The cold doesn’t kill, it waits: Chill that Freezes, Shield that doesn’t melt, and Shatter | level 3 |
| Symbiote | Everything alive grows: Spores that never stop hurting, cards that Grow and a ship that regenerates | level 6 |
The Daily and the Weekly use that period’s core, drawn from the date and the same for everyone. It’s shown before you start.
Cryogenic
Starting deck: 5 Cryo Shot (6 damage + 2 Chill), 4 Carapace and 1 Frost Breath (4 Chill + 4 Shield). Cryogenic Core: at the start of each combat, apply 3 Chill to all enemies.
- Chill builds up on an enemy and doesn’t decrease. The chip shows how far along it is, for example Chill 5/8.
- When it reaches the threshold, the enemy becomes Frozen: its Chill resets, it loses its next action and it stays Frozen for your whole next turn. That turn is your window for Frostbite and Shatter. The threshold is 7 for common enemies, 13 for Sentinels and 16 for bosses.
- With each freeze, that enemy’s threshold rises 50%. Locking down a boss gets more and more expensive.
- Shatter is attack damage that deals +50% against Frozen enemies.
- Frostbite: Chill applied to an already Frozen enemy becomes damage equal to its value, ignoring Shield. When an enemy freezes, the Chill over the threshold also becomes Frostbite. No Chill is wasted.
- Combos: Ulceration adds 50% to Frostbite, Chain Shatter hurts every enemy whenever one freezes and Vital Thaw heals you whenever one freezes. Cryostasis heals right away.
- Retained Shield: Permafrost stops your Shield from resetting. Glacial Impact, Avalanche and Glacier turn your Shield into damage.
Ways to play: Freeze (control), Frostbite (freeze, then pour Chill on as damage), Fortress (build Shield and turn it into damage) and Shatter (heavy hits against Frozen enemies).
Symbiote
Starting deck: 5 Stinger (6 damage), 4 Carapace and 1 Sowing (3 Spores). Symbiote Core: at the start of each combat, apply 1 Spore to all enemies.
- Spores deal, at the end of the enemy’s turn, damage equal to half the stack (rounded up), ignoring Shield. They never decrease: the damage grows slowly and never stops.
- Contagion: when an enemy with Spores dies, half of them pass to another enemy.
- Bloom detonates the Spores at once: the target takes damage equal to the full stack.
- Grow N: the card gets +N stronger every time it’s played, until the end of combat.
- Regenerate heals at the end of your turn and decreases by 1. Biomass: some cards grant max Integrity when they kill.
Three ways to play: Contagion (Spores that scale and spread), Growth (a few cards that become monsters) and Regeneration/Biomass (sustain and max Integrity).