Fav common is Hologram and fav card is Echo form because it's so fun :D Also if you can combo it with creative AI it can be a so so fun if you get to stack enough focus and/or loops :)
As a new player with this being free on PS+ I appreciate these vids I'm too small brain to play defect, beaten it with ironclad and silent already but defect just goes so bad every time haha
Cold Snap and Barrage are my faves because I always go for high slot Focus builds. Claw is good too but only when I can get several and/or remove other cards from my deck to make the most of its secondary.
I got my first win against the heart period as the defect at ascensión 9 by just getting a ton of 0 cost cards, and getting one for all from yhe holograma back and back again XD
Perhaps you should have precised how Rebound and Sweeping Beam interact since you said that Sweeping Beam is worth playing multiple times. (Rebound -> SB draws you a new card, not the SB that stays on top)
it's especially good late game if one has a larger deck with a lot of defragments and consumes in their deck and having one or more of the following runic capacitor relic, inserter relic (my favorite way to gain extra orb slots) and capacitor card, it can help out in getting set up which can be dangerous in large decks with a lot of focus gain cards and with a larger deck the negative effect of turbo is a lot less bad
Recursion isn’t creating any additional passive damage or passive block, it would be there either way regardless of playing the card. Hope that makes sense!