Modifiers and Synergies

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Modifiers and Synergies

Modifiers are the roguelite half of a run: cards drafted mid-flight that change the rules of this run and this run only — more score, more coins, a smaller hitbox, another shield charge, a faster world. Take two that share a tag and a set-bonus synergy fires on top. Everything here disappears when the run ends; the permanent upgrades are on Shop and Upgrades.

Unlocking drafts

Drafts are the Run Modifiers feature (feature:modifiers): it unlocks after 7 runs played, or earlier for 150 coins in Shop › Features. Until then runs have no drafts and the run summary's Build section says "No drafts: Run Modifiers is still locked in the shop". A challenge may switch drafts off for its own run; the daily always has them.

Fourteen of the seventeen cards are in the pool from your first draft. The three legendary cards — Gold Rush, Phoenix and Stormrider — are earned at level 8 or bought in the Shop for 300 coins each.

When a draft opens

Draft	Gate
1	10
2	25
3	45
4	70
5	100
6	140

When you pass one of those gates the next obstacle is pushed out to make a clear window (the breather), and once the air ahead is empty the run freezes and three cards go up. The cards are drawn without replacement from the run's own offers random stream, so however you pick, the obstacles of the run stay the same. A draft never opens on a tick that reported a collision, and never while a boss is pending or active: a schedule gate that falls inside a boss waits until after the clear. After your answer the bird stays frozen through a 3-2-1 countdown and gets 30 invulnerability ticks on resume.

Draft 1 of 6 at gate 10: three cards, the stack each would be, and the synergy a card would complete.

Reading a card

Each card shows its name, its rarity (in its own colour and word), its tags, the effect in words and the same effect in numbers, the stack it would be ("Stack 1 of 2") and — when taking it would complete a set bonus — "Completes Coin Engine" or the like. Arrows compare, Enter takes, Esc skips, exactly as the hint under the cards says; the mouse and touch work on the cards and on the Skip this draft button too. While the cards are up no flap, ability or pause reaches the run.

Rarity, stacks and exclusions

Rarity	Weight	Cards
Common	60	5
Rare	28	4
Epic	10	5
Legendary	2	3

The weights are per draw, so a common is thirty times as likely as a legendary; measured over 5000 sampled drafts, a legendary shows up on 1.5 % of tables.

• Stacks. Each card has a stack cap; taking it again adds a stack up to that cap, and a card at its cap is no longer offered.
• Exclusions. Heavy Air and Stormrider exclude each other, as do Light Frame and Glass Wings: once you hold one, the other leaves the pool.
• Rules. A card whose effect the run's rules would cancel is not offered: Field Shield needs defensive abilities allowed, Second Wind and Phoenix need revives allowed, and the coin cards (Coin Drops, Magnet Burst, Streak Bounty) need coins allowed. A draft with nothing eligible is skipped outright, without freezing the run.

The seventeen modifiers

Id	Name	Rarity	Tags	Effect	Max stacks
tailwind	Tailwind	Common	Speed, Greed	+10% score, and the world scrolls 2% faster.	2
score_plus	Sharper Eye	Common	Greed	+10% score.	3
coin_drops	Coin Drops	Common	Economy	+0.15 coins per gate.	3
slower_obstacles	Heavy Air	Common	Tempo	The world scrolls 8% slower.	2
quick_hands	Quick Hands	Common	Tempo	Ability cooldowns are 15% shorter.	2
light_frame	Light Frame	Rare	Precision	A smaller hitbox: -0.08 scale.	2
streak_bounty	Streak Bounty	Rare	Economy, Precision	+10 coins for every clean-gate streak step.	1
magnet_burst	Magnet Burst	Rare	Economy	Coins are pulled in from 60 px away and pay 15% more.	2
wide_gaps	Wide Gaps	Rare	Precision	Gaps are 8% taller.	2
temp_shield	Field Shield	Epic	Defence	One more shield charge for this run.	1
heavy_wallet	Heavy Wallet	Epic	Economy, Greed	Coins pay 30% more, and the bird falls 8% harder.	1
glass_wings	Glass Wings	Epic	Risk, Greed	Score x1.5, and a hitbox 0.15 larger.	1
second_wind	Second Wind	Epic	Defence	One revive for this run.	1
long_fuse	Long Fuse	Epic	Tempo	Abilities last 30% longer.	1
gold_rush	Gold Rush	Legendary	Economy, Risk	Coins pay double, and the world scrolls 5% faster.	1
phoenix	Phoenix	Legendary	Defence, Risk	Two revives, but coins pay 30% less.	1
stormrider	Stormrider	Legendary	Speed, Risk	Score x1.6 at 5% more speed.	1

Tags are the only thing the synergies read; Greed and Tempo carry no synergy of their own.

Forced cards

Some runs start with cards already taken. They are entries like any other — they show in the HUD, count for synergies and appear in the summary's Build section — and they are taken before the first tick, so they do not use up a draft.

• Daily. Two forced compatible modifiers, drawn deterministically from the content you have unlocked and frozen for the date.
• Challenges. Coin Rush I forces Coin Drops on top of its ×3 coin spawn rate; the other challenges set rules (and, for Corridor Boss, a forced pattern) rather than cards. See Challenges and Goals and Game Modes and Difficulty.

Synergies

A synergy is a set bonus: it activates when two distinct taken cards together cover the tags it requires, so a single card never completes one by itself — two stacks of Coin Drops do not make a Coin Engine; Coin Drops plus Magnet Burst do.

Id	Name	Needs	Effect
coin_engine	Coin Engine	Economy + Economy	Two economy cards: +25% coins.
bulwark	Bulwark	Defence + Defence	Two defence cards: one more shield charge.
needle_threader	Needle Threader	Precision + Precision	Two precision cards: -0.10 hitbox scale.
daredevil	Daredevil	Speed + Risk	Speed and risk together: +35% score.

The draft tells you when a card would complete one, the summary lists the synergies that fired, and "Synergies activated" is a lifetime statistic on the Profile. A bot that reaches its third draft activates a synergy in 69.9 % of runs, so a build that aims for one is not a long shot.

Some pairs to aim for:

Take	Then	Result
Coin Drops	Magnet Burst, Streak Bounty, Heavy Wallet or Gold Rush	Coin Engine
Light Frame	Wide Gaps or Streak Bounty	Needle Threader
Field Shield	Second Wind or Phoenix	Bulwark
Tailwind or Stormrider	Glass Wings, Gold Rush or Phoenix	Daredevil

Stormrider carries both Speed and Risk, but on its own it completes nothing: the two tags have to come from two different cards.

Skipping a draft

Skipping is always allowed: Esc or the Skip this draft button takes nothing, the countdown runs and the run carries on. The draft is consumed — it does not come back later — and the summary simply lists fewer cards. Skip when every card on the table would hurt the build you are flying: Glass Wings on a precision build, or Gold Rush and its extra speed in a world you are barely surviving.

Tip: the card that completes a synergy is usually worth more than a rarer card that does not — Bulwark's extra shield charge or Needle Threader's −0.10 hitbox is a whole card's worth of effect for free.