Inscription: Best Benefits

Key Takeaways

• Boons like Bone Lord & Forest are invaluable in Inscryption for strengthening your deck and defeating challenging bosses.
• Sacrificing cards for Boons like Magpie's Eye and Ambidextrous can greatly improve your strategic gameplay.
• Each Boon has its own unique benefits, and some are better suited to certain decks or playstyles in the game.

encryption is a complex and, in some ways, difficult game that fuses the deck-building, board game, and roguelike genres with puzzle and meta elements. To survive in this challenging environment, players must have every tool at their disposal, from cards to teeth to consumables. Everything is precious and nothing is wasted.

Among a player's most prized possessions are Boons, several extremely powerful cards with unique effects that can dramatically change how Act 1's final boss battle plays out. Each Boon is unique, and each Boon can help a floundering deck achieve victory or make an already solid deck even stronger. Considering the variety of builds and paths possible through the game, encryption, It's worth considering which of these Boons is best.

Updated by Ritwik Mitra on November 5, 2024: Inscryption is one of the most unique indie games players can check out. Players will experience an atmospheric and mysterious haunted video game. The first act sets the stage for an unforgettable experience where players must slowly and steadily progress before eventually defeating Leshy and discovering that there is more to this title than meets the eye. Defeating bosses and defeating reshi is a satisfying moment, and players will need to utilize several Boons to achieve this goal with relative ease.

6 Bone Lord's Little Benefits

Gain 1 bone at the start of each round

Allows players to start combat with one bone. A Minor Boon, this card is obtained by sacrificing a standard creature during the Bone Lord event. Bones are a resource used to play certain creatures, and while it's always nice to start a match with an additional resource, Bone Lord's Minor Boon is just that: Minor.

Bone Lord's Minor Boon ranks last in terms of value, as players need multiple copies of this Boon to make much of a strategic difference. Sure, it may be worth using because of the additional benefits it brings to the fight, but it pales in comparison to all the proper Boons in the game. It may leave a lot to be desired, but that doesn't diminish the minor benefits players can enjoy.

It's generally not worth the effort to reach the Bone Lord event and receive the Bone Lord's Minor Boon. However, it may be worthwhile to obtain this benefit if the player can obtain it without giving up visiting more valuable events (such as Campfire or Mycologist). This is especially true if players are running decks that use a lot of cards with high bone costs. Because even a small resource boost is better than nothing.

5 benefits of forests

Takes up empty space at the start of the battle with Ressi

Players can start the battle with Grand Fir in any space they own. Grand Fir is a terrain card with 3 health and a Mighty Leap Sigil. There are distinct pros and cons to having it on the board, which is one of the reasons that makes Forest Boon one of the least useful boons. With 3 health and Mighty Leap, you can block your opponent's air creatures. Grand Fir is great for substance, providing a solid barrier between you and your opponents. This wall gives players time to draw and prepare for sacrifice.

Factor in the challenging battle with Leshy that awaits players after selecting the special boon, and it's easy to see why the forest's boon might be worth it for players who need some breathing room. Leshy's attacks can be brutal, players may take some time to draw cards, and they can potentially enjoy larger defense bonuses if these Grand Firs turn into Gold Nuggets.

4 Boon of the Bone Lord

Gain 8 bones at the start of each battle

Allows players to start battle with 8 bones. A supersized version of its smaller cousin, Boon of the Bone Lord, can make a huge difference in the usefulness of certain decks. Starting a match with eight bones can mean the difference between struggling to play one or two bone-costly creatures later in the game or playing multiple or powerful creatures right away.

It is advantageous to be able to place such a creature as soon as the match begins. The main thing that holds Bone Lord's Boon back from true greatness is its somewhat niche appeal. Some decks only use a few or no bone-costing creatures, making other Boons much more attractive.

Unlike Bone Lord's Minor Boon, this Boon is almost always worth pursuing if a player has a deck that relies on bones. This Boon also has good synergy with the Worthy Sacrifice Sigil, which further increases creature drops by generating three bones instead of one when a creature dies. All of this makes it worthwhile for players to sacrifice any Black Goat they own and make the most of this powerful boon.

3 Benefits of Goat Blood

Deploy the Black Goat at the beginning of the final battle with Ressi.

Players can start the battle by placing a black goat on the board. The Black Goat has 1 Health, 0 Strength, holds the Valuable Sacrificial Seal, and is a member of the Hoof Clan. Although the stats are extremely weak, Black Goat is still a very valuable card due to its valuable Sacrificial Seal. Because a card with that sigil can be sacrificed for 3 blood instead of 1.

This is a special person that the player can access before the final fight with Ressi. With every single advantage important, it becomes clear why players benefit from sacrifice cards that allow them to bring powerful units into this fight from the start. It may seem like a small benefit, but it will do wonders for the player's chances against Act 1's final boss.

2 Advantages of being ambidextrous

Draw twice at start of turn

A player may draw twice at the start of their turn. As simple as it is impactful, Boon of the Ambidextrous serves several important purposes for the player. The first is that getting cards on the board for sacrifice helps out tremendously early in the game by speeding up the draw when it matters most.

The second is to help players find the specific cards or combinations of cards they want. Cuts the time required to progress through the deck in half. By the time players reach the final boss, they will likely have a few cards they particularly rely on, and few things are better than the benefit of ambidexterity in ensuring a player's plans come to fruition.

Boon of the Ambidextrous provides benefits to both small and large decks, allowing players to get through large decks without being hindered by card overload. If players instead limit the addition of new cards and use events like Bone Lord and Mycologists to remove unnecessary cards from their decks, players can use Boon of the Ambidextrous to essentially guarantee that they'll draw a combo card when they need it.

1 magpie-eyed grace

Select cards while drawing from the deck

Instead of players randomly drawing, they can choose which cards they want from the deck when drawing. At the beginning of the game these cards will have little impact, but by the end of the game the player will have a lot of cards in their deck and may rely heavily on one or two of them.Just having the benefit of Magpie Eye is enough to ensure the defeat of the final boss.

Whether a player's deck and strategy focuses on unkillable cockroaches, hive clones, or a player's power focused on Deathcards, Magpie's Eye allows players to take what they want, when they want it. When paired with Boon of the Ambidextrous, this card becomes even more powerful and allows players to dictate the rhythm of the entire match and take out bosses.

The benefit of the magpie eye is, in some ways, a strategic reversal of the benefit of ambidexterity. This is because the former benefit is strongest when the player has a lot of cards, while the latter benefit is strongest when the player has few cards. The combination of these two Boons is one of the most powerful in the game, but even on its own, Magpie-Eyed Boon can turn a mediocre deck into a great one.