Echo Form

Echo Form
Class	Defect
Type	Power
Rarity	Rare
Cost	3
Effect	Ethereal. The first card you play each turn is played twice.
Echo Form+
Cost+	3
Effect+	The first card you play each turn is played twice.

Echo Form is a Power card for The Defect that bestows a powerful card-doubling effect at a high price. As a rare card, Echo Form is generally obtainable only as a Boss reward and at high cost from The Merchant.

Upgrading Echo Form makes it lose Ethereal.

Card Effect

Echo Form's printed text only loosely explains its behavior. The card's full effect is more accurately described as this:

At the beginning of your turn, gain one stack of Echo.

Echo's effect is "The next time you play a card from your hand, after it resolves, create a copy of that card outside of your hand. The copy gains Exhaust. Automatically play the card at no Energy cost. If you chose a target for the original card, the copy has the same target. If that target is now invalid, the copy chooses a different target at random."

One stack of Echo is consumed after a copied card resolves. All Echo stacks expire at the end of your turn.

Interactions

Cards copied by Echo Form count as plays for the purpose of Velvet Choker, Time Eater, and Chosen's Hex effect. Note that if The Time Eater's effect ends your turn immediately after you play your first card, the copy will not resolve and will cease to exist.

Although the copied card is effectively Exhausted, it doesn't appear in the Exhausted pile or trigger effects that activate when a card is Exhausted.

Echo Form doesn't generate a stack of Echo on the turn it's played.

If The Defect gets multiple stacks of Echo, each stack affects a single card played from the hand. For instance, with two stacks of Echo, the first and second plays of each turn would each be copied a single time.

Copied cards have the exact text of the original card, including upgrades and cumulative effects like Claw and Genetic Algorithm. Note that the latter won't increase the strength of the original Genetic Algorithm.

The interaction between Echo Form and Medical Kit is untested.

Synergy

Echo Form combines a big effect with a big cost. Three Energy is generally an entire turn, and the card has literally no effect when played. Before the card is upgraded, the player doesn't even get to pick which turn to sacrifice!

The decision to upgrade Echo Form depends more on whether the card is an integral part of the deck. If so, there's no need to upgrade it as you'll play it as soon as you draw it. If not, deliberately Exhausting Echo Form can be a relevant option in battles that demand efficient plays.

When your deck contains Echo Form, select paths that offer many Rest Sites and Events. The Defect will likely take a beating after each Echo Form, and you'll need to recover some health.

The strongest cards to Echo Form include:

• Powers - Echo Form acts as a free Amplify that The Defect can set up in advance. Copying Static Discharge, Self Repair, Biased Cognition, and even another Echo Form is a powerful play.
• Energy - Doubling Meteor Strike, Fusion, Aggregate, and especially Double Energy generates massive resources. Echo Form also helps activate Sunder's Energy-producing effect.
• Multi-Channel - Cards that generate two or more Orbs, especially Rainbow+ and Chaos+, outperform with an Echo Form. The surplus of Orbs can instantly recover from Fission or Evoke multiple times.

When building around Echo Form, mitigate incoming damage by picking zero-Energy defensive tools like Orichalcum, Anchor, Boot Sequence, Buffer, and Undo, and Energy-granting Relics like Cursed Key.