Like my previous guides, I'm going to assume you have done all the prior receptions, including the General Receptions and have all the key pages and combat pages you need.

The first thing that's on the table is the new passive attribution. It has been upgraded from 8 to 10, so we get to give more passive points, so let's update the important stuff, the builds I actually would use:










If you've seen my previous guides, you'd know that I'm very biased.

Olga has undergone the least amount of changes while still being used. By this point, she isn't really effective unless you're buffing her with abnormality pages. I'll stop using her soon.

Emma, sometimes, has a bit of a problem with pages in hand which will be addressed soon. Otherwise, Emma is doing exceptionally well. In fact, he does so well that he gets nerfed indirectly in SotC by the devs making plenty of characters endure blunt attacks.

Yujin is generally a strong page. I made several builds in my previous guide and I stuck to the slash build for no reason. It wasn't the strongest build on that page either. Regardless, I'll be using Yujin for a bit longer. I enjoy trying to pull off Boundary of Death.

Kim is as strong as ever, but he is waiting to get some better combat pages. SOON™

Oscar is another page that's holding up well and is the only singleton build I made. Soon, we'll stop using him.

Wang is the best of the smoke trio. Smoke is really strong. It's almost overpowered. To challenge myself, I seldom used Wang so far, but now we're in SotC, so I'll be using smoke more.

I didn't really use Rose, Crying Children, Puppets (I used Emma instead), or any key page with ANY weakness. I did make builds for the first three key pages. Why not use them? Regardless of performance, I just don't like them. It really is as simple as that.
With all that out of the way, let's get started.

My previous guide ended after the WARP Cleanup Crew reception as the cut-scenes for SotC kicked in. What was left was the next abnormality battle and three Realizations. I decided to put it here because that guide was already quite long.

If you want, you can come back to all of these later.


Over all, using the members of my main team should allow you to smoothly progress through everything up until you clear the first reception (see ahead).

For this abnormality fight, I went in with Olga, Emma, Kim and Yujin.
You can make this easier by bringing Oscar and Wang along instead of Olga and Yujin. Smoke on a staggered Funeral will increase damage by a lot, allowing you to beat him in one go.

My team going in is Oscar, Emma, Yujin, Kim and Wang. Overall, if you know what you're doing, this should be easy. Yujin is in a bit of danger in the finale with all the mass attacks so if you want to swap her out for someone else, that's totally an option.

I'm going in with Olga, Kim, Emma, Oscar and Wang.
Olga sure is effective when she gets +2 power from Look of the Day and inflicts -1 power on enemies with Alertness. This is generally true when applied to anyone though.
Kim enjoys having Axe, so let's make sure he gets that.

I went in with Yujin, Wang, Emma, Oscar and Kim. Taking Yujin was risky as you'd imagine when mass attacks are involved, but it still worked out fine. You can swap out Yujin for Olga if you want.

This fight is gimmicky and you should set up a build specifically for it. Don't grab any light restore.
Personally, I went with triple Wang. Sooty Thwack is going to put in some serious work.



Just borrowing Sayo for that Battle Ready. Draw power is pretty necessary as well as spending all your light. You can't stop him from culling a tree, so on your first turn, Forceful Gesture him. In fact, I didn't even aim for the trees at all.

At this point in the game, you have four fully powered floors, so it all comes down to preference of the abnormality pages and E.G.O. pages. I tried to summarize them. I know this isn't the guide for it, but I thought it would be better for me to give some thoughts on each floor. This turned out a lot longer than I intended, but oh well. I hope it helps someone. I'll state what floor I use for every reception.

Malkuth's Floor has some good stuff with Vines for pierce, Gluttony for healing and Nostalgic Embrace for added stagger damage. Happy Memories can allow some gimmicky builds which are a lot of fun. There's also the "Pet the Malkuth" challenge where getting hit will penalize the enemy quite a lot. As for the E.G.O., Green Stem, Fourth Match Flame and the Forgotten are some pretty incredible pages. Wingbeat is also really strong in Kim's hands. Hornet is ranged which gives quite a lot of utility.

Yesod's Floor has benefits for dealing extra damage with Request, Recharge, Lament and Eternal Rest. You get benefits for light via restoring it by winning clashes. Musical Addiction is insane for any build that doesn't have any defensive dice. Coffin sounds strong, and it is, no doubt... but Dark Flame can break the game. As for the E.G.O. goes, they're all truly strong. Solemn Lament is nicknamed "Solemn Delete" by the community for a reason. Regret's stagger damage is unmatched as there is no limit; if the enemy has a million stagger resist, that last hit will knock off half of that. Harmony can roll 7 times which is insane and it gives your party 7 strength at the cost of 21 stagger resist. If you have Mind Hauler, the risk drops significantly. Grinder is a strong and effective mass attack and finally, Magic Bullet synchronizes you with a pierce specialist as all attacks are pierce and most of them are mass attacks.

Hod's Floor is the most straightforward for power gain with Look of the Day giving +2 power and Alertness inflicting -1 power to enemies. Axe is a straightforward buff to Slash power and Social Distancing and Shyness are straight power gain for block dice. Also, Cocoon and Gooey Waste are "how to give TONS of status ailments to enemies." As for the E.G.O., Red Eyes is probably the most popular go-to E.G.O. as it has a big roll that inflicts -3 power to the enemy. Today's Expression should be treated as a gigantic block dice for 3 light and it is worth it. The Mass Attacks do exactly what you hope and they're all the better for it.

Netzach's floor comes off as the weakest, but it isn't. It has Laughing Powder which can nearly prevent you from getting staggered entirely and that alone is incredible. Teardrop is an entire +1 power with the only downside happening if the librarian dies. Elation feels like high risk/high reward, but with Laughing Powder, the risk is lowered significantly. Finally, Incomprehensible is one of the best abnormality pages as inflicting -3 power every turn can trivialize encounters; it's akin to giving +3 power to all your own Librarians. As for E.G.O., you get three Mass Individuals with different goals, a ranged attack that specializes in staggering enemies and a pretty effective bleed-inflicting page.

As for me, you'll notice I'll be using Yesod's floor. The main reason is "Request" because it gives me more books. If you saw in my previous guides, you'll know that I've been grinding 5 of every book after I'm done burning them. Why? There is no reason as to why I'm doing this but it is something I'm doing anyway. Seriously, you don't have to go that far. If a book is needed for a reception, have one or two left over; and if a book isn't needed for any reception, then feel free to burn them all.

My intended path is going to be my original one of left to right on the receptions, but there will be a detour ahead.

I'm going in on Yesod's floor with Emma, Wang, Yujin and Kim.

You only get one floor for two acts and only four librarians. You can swap out one librarian for your unused librarian if one of them happens to be low on HP. The main threat of the Thumb is their use of Focus Fire.and Shock Round; because they are ranged, they will always go first. To that end, I changed up Kim just a bit.



Yield My Flesh will roll 10 to 15 thanks to Singular Strike. It should serve you well against the ranged attacks. If you lose a clash with it and get To Claim Their Bones, remember NOT to use it to counter a ranged attack unless absolutely necessary. Melee Counter dice do not hit the enemy upon winning the clash against their ranged attacks. The best use for it is using it against Reload or Bayonet Combat. I got to pull off To Claim Their Bones twice, once in each act.

The only combat page usable in SotC for anyone is "Class and Respect."



This build stands more true to the "singular strike" build for Kim. You can swap out Yield My Flesh for Sharpen Blade if you want.

Thanks to the Thumb's key pages being amazing, it is time to upgrade our Full-Stop team to SotC standards. Again, the purpose of this team is when you're in a situation of "oh no, my first floor lost and the enemies are half dead," you'll bring in this team to kill them in one turn; specifically, the first turn.

We used to use Tamaki's key page, but Tamaki had weaknesses, lacked speed and couldn't do any melee attacks. SotC enemies are strong but we can still make something that works really well here.




You only get 3 of Liwei and Meow key pages, so you can't passive the fourth librarian the same as the first three, hence the second build. What about the fifth Librarian?



Ultimately, use whatever key page you want but make sure to give it "Bzzz Bzzz" and "Oinkie!! Oink!!" as well as Overcharge. You're still aiming for that one-turn kill.

Yeah, I'm still biased.

Feel free to return to this fight when you're stronger.


Ah, a chance to play on as Roland and... well, this fight is a pain. The best key page here would have to be Emma. I changed things up a bit to help deal with the bullying.



An Automated Movement for damage plus that counter dice which should help restore stagger resist; and another light restore for consistency.

That's for Roland. As for the others, I used Kim, Oscar and Wang. Aim to free Wang first, as his attacks are blunt, and Kim last. Kim should be able to handle any ranged attacks, as well as Frigid Gaze.

Well, we can't do the next reception of the Thumb, so let's proceed to the right.

Instead of sticking to Yesod's floor, I'mma move over to Hod's floor. I'll be using Emma, Kim, Wang, Olga and Oscar. If you want, you can give your team Puffy Brume to make the fight easier. Kim's Class and Respect and Yield my Flesh should serve you well when dealing with Vapour, but that isn't guaranteed. Make sure Argalia doesn't land his buffs.
Honestly, grabbing Olga made this much harder than it should've been. She only had success because I gave her all of the abno pages. Bring someone else instead.

With this done, we can now update our smoke build.



Wang was always kinda mediocre because the only way to gain smoke was through Inhale Smoke and Smoking Pipe. Traces of Fumes and Deep Drag don't gain smoke so it was inconsistent to maintain high smoke. Furthermore, any combat page that asks you to consume smoke is just bad. How bad is it? It's so bad that the devs decided to never make those type of combat pages ever again. This new build is effectively a direct improvement

Feel free to return to this later if you want.



I'm taking Emma, Wang, Oscar and Kim. The key thing is to not let it eat its own minions. By all means, let it attack its own minions if you want, but don't let it kill them.

After it dies, you have to clear the left over lumps. I've never seen this be a problem, but if three turns pass after it dies and the lumps aren't gone, it'll revive.

I'm intending to go on a detour up from the last reception. Before we make our way there, throw up either a "Book of the Thumb" or a "Book of a Church of Gears Worshipper" and head in to fight Dong-hwan.

Dong-hwan is a 1v1 that looks a lot more threatening than he actually is. I'm going in with Roland because it's been a while since I heard Keter's battle music, which I really enjoy. Usually, Dong-hwan dies in three or four rounds in, so E.G.O. is irrelevant. I'll be using Emma.




It's like Kim; it's a bit better than Yujin. I intend to improve it later.

Note: I took apart Yujin at this point. Thank you for your hard work and so long Boundary of Death. If I had a nickel for every time Boundary of Death activated and won me the match much earlier than intended, I'd have two nickels; which isn't a lot but it is weird that it actually happened twice.

Moving on to the next General Invite. I'm going in with Dong-hwan, Oscar, Emma, Kim and Wang on Yesod's floor. I'm still grinding 5 of every book, so Request is amazing. Allen is an amazing key page, so I'll be using him instead of Oscar. The funniest thing about this is how everyone but Wang endures piercing attacks. If you want, bring Olga because she endures both HP and Stagger damage from pierce attacks.



The combat page "Stiletto" is not a gimmick worth building around. I tried it and it was bad. That aside, if you look carefully, Allen has a total of +4 to all his pierce attacks.
Malkuth's floor's "Vines" + "Green Stem" for Allen is pretty top tier. Netzach's floor has Tentacles and Thorns which is also good for Allen.




Udjat build is a bit weaker than Emma because Emma gets another blunt power baseline but you do get to use that unique Udjat. You can swap out High-level Acrobatics for Puppet Skeleton. You can use whatever 2 cost blunt attack you want; Creak, Furūsiyya, or even Trace of Fumes.
A team of Udjats on Netzach's floor is one of the most persistent teams. Mirage and Laughing Powder will make getting staggered on you a really tall order and the protection just adds to it.

Also, updating Allen and I'm making a couple of these:

Instead of continuing left to right, this is the detour; head up from the Blue Reverberation reception. It is a low risk but really high reward reception because the only thing you lose if you fail is the Lobotomy Corp book which you can get back if you do any reception, like Finn.

To be clear, I'm going in with Dong-hwan, Allen, Emma, and Wang on Yesod's floor. I have two back-up floors being Netzach's with my Full-Stop team (minus Crying Children) and Binah's floor with an Udjat and two Night Awls.



Let me be perfectly clear here: unless you're going for a gimmick, this is the best build for the Red Mist. In fact, whenever I update this build, it will strictly be because of passives. Don't use Level Slash; it is a trap that doesn't draw pages. Do not put only two copies of Spear or Upstanding Slash because that will harm the consistency of the deck.

Also, since I gave her Yujin's passive, I'm updating Allen.


Allen is still amazing with +3 power to his attacks and on top of that, he's now hard to kill thanks to Unrelenting.
Also, now you can control Binah, so I decommissioned Kim to buff her Degraded Fairy and Degraded Pillar.



Instead of Unrelenting, you can give her Digging Shank to make her inflict bleed and fairy; or give her Noah's passive for +1 damage as everything she does is ranged. Poor Kim; this isn't that great so I'll definitely be updating it later.




What is this? Well, this is something you can make. I won't be using this, but Allen has this passive where he destroys a block dice in a clash if he is at least 3 speed faster than the enemy. This is all sorts of useful as some combat pages have a big block dice which is a reason to use them. An example is the recent "Defense Order." On Yesod's floor, if you give him "Clean" and "Chained Wrath" then you'll always roll double infinity and have +3 power.

There's no way you're not using Red Mist. This guy endures slash and blunt, so make sure you grab Allen. I'm also grabbing Dong-hwan and Wang. Nosferatu starts with 3 strength which makes the first turn a pain. Also, this guy has the worst abnormality pages in the game.

I feel like the devs made him after Red Mist, realized how bad Level Slash is and ended up making his abnormality pages focusing on it to try and make it good. Fun fact: Level Slash was originally Blunt type and Upstanding Slash was originally Slash type. They swapped the two around to nerf Upstanding Slash because a lot more enemies are going to be resistant to Blunt attacks, but it won't work.

As of this moment, using Gebura's floor is a perfectly valid option. Sure, you don't have E.G.O. but you do have Gebura with the power of the Red Mist which is, and let's be reasonable about this: BETTER. lol maybe true maybe not.

I'm going to stick to Yesod's floor for more books via "Request."

Back on track with the left to right path.
At this point, you're thinking between one of the first four floors versus Gebura or Binah's floors. If you're comfortable with the game-play and have been using my decks and completely clearing out every fight without trouble, then do whatever you want. If you're struggling, then I recommend sticking to one of the bottom four floors to make use of their E.G.O. That's what I'll be doing for the guide. I won't be giving Allen back his +4 power by returning Eyes of Death/Enervation to him, but if you want to do that, then feel free to. I also won't return Kim but that's totally an option for you to do as well.

I'll be using Dong-hwan, Allen, Wang, Emma and an Udjat on Yesod's floor. You only get one floor for two acts but the second act is easier as your emotion level will be higher.
If there's any advice to this reception, it would probably be "don't clash against Sturdy Defense." Also, if you're slower, don't one-side someone who used Sturdy Defense as a one-side.
If Sturdy Defense one-sides you, all it can do is hit you with a 3 to 6 pierce attack and inflict two burn but clashing with it will make you face the decent evade dice and a strong block dice.

Fervor is one of my favorite passives. I give it to everyone! At this point, we only get 4 key pages with it, but we'll get more. The only weakness of Emotional Turbulence is that it doesn't draw a game unlike Repressed Flesh.





Allen gets back up to +4 pierce power along with his Night Awl minions, just in case someone reading this needs it. Also, updates to their decks and Dong-hwan's decks. Dong-hwan already has Fervor.




Giving Red Mist and Wang Fervor to get them stronger too.

I'm sticking to Yesod's floor with Dong-hwan, Allen, Wang, Udjat and Emma. Watch out for the exclusive combat pages. You can probably get away with staggering Lowell before he does his mass attack.
A bit more info on Forming Storm: it does nothing on the first turn and it costs 4; you can set up a clash with it where the clash is actually just a one-side. The turn after Forming Storm was used, a 1 cost mass individual is added to hand that must be used this turn, so the total cost is 5 light over two turns.




Lowell is a blank slate of a Keypage. He has Speed 3, the fantastic Fervor. Yes, I just took Wang and upgraded it by putting it into Lowell. Also, I swapped out a Vapour for a Repressed Flesh for the counter dice.
Mei vs Cecil: Same HP and Stagger Resist; Same Resistances; Cecil rolls better on the speed dice, on average; Cecil's passive costs 3 while Mei's costs 2. So yeah, I made Cecil builds instead of Mei.

Binah is too busy drinking tea to join us. I'm going in with my three strongest key pages: Dong-hwan, Allen and Lowell. Be wary of Nip gaining 3 power if you're slower. If you want an easier time, swap out one of them out for this Thumb build:



Fire at the birb and the enchanted person will run into block dice and NOT DIE. Sure, they might get staggered but whatever. Just make sure the Thumb dude doesn't get enchanted.

Continuing left to right; we'll go back for the second Thumb Reception later.

The challenge here is the set up of a 3v3 and only one floor. Just take your strongest trio, on your preferred floor and charge right in. For me, it'll be Allen, Dong-hwan and Lowell on Yesod's floor.




The idea is to gain and spend charge every turn, while never running out of steam. Golden Opportunity winning clashes can help you easily cap out your charge, hence the thought gear passive. I don't really like this build. Good thing we're upgrading soon.




Much better than Nemo's because his unique combat page is pretty good.

I'm going in with Dong-hwan, Lowell, Allen and Cecil. Don't give Chesed the Lowell key page.

Another Detour; this time up above the Red Mist reception.
Feel free to return to this later.

You get three floors to use against Purple Tear with the caveat that one floor is randomly chosen when she hits half health, 350 HP; the exception is if she beats 2 floors before hitting half health but don't expect that to happen. For any floor where I didn't set up with key pages, I instead gave them Overcharge. My goal for an unprepared floor against PT is to deal 5 damage. Low bar, I know, but if you're still using basic combat pages, you'd be surprised how difficult that is to achieve. That's why I gave every Librarian Overcharge on their basic no-key-page-equipped.
My goal is to just send PT back to the initial floor I started at and intend to win there. (Request on Yesod's floor for more books.)
The only thing I fear from PT is her slash stance.

To be more clear: I'm going in with my A team on Yesod's floor; Allen, Dong-hwan, Udjat, Emma and Lowell. Hopefully, PT randomly goes to Malkuth, Hod, Netzach, Gebura or Binah. Not every key page set up is a good one, but as long as it can deal some damage. Gebura is the only geared person on her floor, but I did give her Lone Fixer and Remembrance.

Here are some builds I just threw together. A lot of these are similar builds, so they have the same combat pages but different passives with the mindset of "eh, it helps" because passives are limited.






Anyway, good luck. Once you're done, you get to put together four decks.







Four decks and the passives. I'm not using Gebura at the moment and PT uses all sorts of dice across her four decks so she is served well with Eyes of Death/Enervation giving ALL dice +1 power. Remember that PT has +2 power for her chosen stance; Eyes of Death/Enervation gives another +1 effectively letting PT enjoy a consistent +3 to all dice; and finally Fervor gives all offensive dice +1 power putting you at +4 power to all offensive dice.
Snake Slit rolls 7 - 9 and 8 - 10 with Fervor. If you play both with Fervor, then they are 10 - 12.

What about Guard Stance? Guard Stance is immune to Status Ailments including immobilize. Overcharge rolls like bonkers and PT in Guard stance can use it without any penalty. The deck is designed for you to use Overcharge, which only gets +2 power including Fervor, and keep on chugging by using Leap and Energy Conversion.

Purple Tear's combat pages are really strong, so let's update some decks.






The changes to Allen are also applied to the Night Awl minions. I'm keeping Dong-hwan with Singular Strike because it's going to be useful in the next reception.

Let's finish the bottom row of SotC. If you're skipping Purple Tear, that's perfectly fine. My old builds could've cleared this anyway.
If you're using old builds, take Allen, Dong-hwan, Lowell and your choice between Cecil, Emma or the Udjat. You get two floors, so you can prepare another floor to use or rely on the Full-Stop floor. A second non-full-stop floor would consistent of Cecil, Udjat, Martina and Bada. I don't intend on using my Nemo build until I get to update it later, but it is up to you.

The key pages here are quite incredible; Kalo stands out as the best for obvious reasons.




Yes, exhausting the ammunition in hand does count as discarding and it triggers Hanafuda's passives. Denis's passive helps the deck's consistency. Also, importantly: FIRE YOUR AMMO. If you don't have Shock Round or Focus Fire, just fire the ammo normally. You don't draw if you have 8 pages in hand at the end of the turn, so if they're just sitting in your hand "I'm waiting for Focus Fire" then you'll probably be waiting forever. Besides, one ammo fired one-sided on an enemy is a perfect way to get rid of counter dice.
It is at this point that I am entirely done with Olga. Thank you Olga, you served me well.



A build for Boris that should keep him alive, but I have an alternative build.



An alternative pierce build. This will NOT weaken Discipline as it has power null.



Between Denis and Katriel, they have similar resistances, the same HP and Stagger Resist, but Katriel's passive is more expensive, so I made the build on her key page.

Give your blunt deck users "Steel Knuckle" to replace Creak or whatever 2 cost blunt page they're using. Steel Knuckle costs 2 just like them, rolls well but it also draws a combat page.

You're going to need to set up some builds to deal with the gimmick of the abnormality. It expects you to deflect it until it staggers and then defeat it. The final part even inflicts 10 feeble on your librarians.



This is a 9/10 passive point build. The best passive I can recommend is Skim Prescript for the last point. It helps with consistency.
Also, swap out "Sense Quarry" for "Feint" as you'll need something to play when they are staggered.

+2 defense power and plenty of block dice. Use your economy at the end so you don't lose to counter dice. You have 3 Walters and 3 Udjats, so this should be in the bag. Safe to safe this build won't be helpful after this.
If you have Purple Tear, give her the same build and revert back later. You can kick out "Your Shield" and keep "Eyes of Death/Enervation" though. She has an extra +2 to block dice in her defense stance, so she is very likely to win. Note: Guard Stance prevents feeble.

One more thing: remember, counter dice are first come first serve. The yellow arrows for clashing do not matter.

So uh... Steam is giving me trouble when it comes to uploading pictures. In fact, since the start, I've been expecting this and kinda cutting corners on updating some builds, which also makes it hard for me to play the game because I've committed to only using the builds I uploaded here.

I expected SotC to be really long and I intended for this guide to be put up in two parts. I hope this guide helped you and I'll start working on the next one.