Ranking Isaac RUNES & SOULSTONES by FUNCTIONALITY 

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My lore for Rune Shard existing is that some players only unlocked the good runes like Jera and Pethro so that this play is no longer viable.

The best part of black rune is that you can still get stats from voiding actives

i loved it when matt said its ranking c̶a̶r̶d̶s runes time and ranked them all over the place

One thing that I like about cracked key and soul of Cain is that carrying them is basically blue map in a card form because you now know exactly where the secret rooms are due to the walls not giving the viable red room outline

For soul of Samson you put it at 0 for non enemy rooms but I've used the rune specifically for the bone swing on pickups a ton.

honorable mention to the one thing soul of laz can do, it helps with tainted lost since its basically an extra life which is a godsend for T. Lost

technically… you can open secret rooms and break tinted rocks with soul of blue baby so it shouldn’t be a 0 for non-combat

Soul pf Laz is basically a Damocles failsafe if you don't have any other revive items. Also it actually allows suicide king to be useful, if you have polydactyl or smth

Soul of Lilith is always such a cool sight when I find it in runs... and nearly every single time it has disappointed me, Bumbo, Forever Alone, BBF... freakin BOB'S BRAIN AS TAINTED LOST. I have yet to receive a Q4 from that Soul, yet I keep using it.

Tiny benefit of rune shard is it does something basically nothing else in the game does - it can reveal the Ultra Secret room if it's within the radius But that's very rarely useful

How they could buff some of the runes: Hagalaz - Open secret and super secret rooms in the same room. Berkano - Permacharms some enemies in the room, like the enemies from PokeGo (Tarot cloth allows all enemies to be affected) Dagaz - Doubles soul heart gain if it does clear a curse. Also disables Cursed eye teleports for the floor. Rune Shard - Show what the shard is going to do. It could be replaced with shard versions of each rune instead of just a generic shard. Tarot card allows the normal rune effect to happen. Soul of Maggy - Also has Hypercoagulation effect for its duration. Soul of Judas - Damage bonus lasts for the floor. Soul of Lazarus - When reviving from this rune, gain red creep for the floor. While holding this rune, items that grant more pickup slots become more common in shops and treasure rooms (unless you have one already). Soul of Eden - Add the D12 effect to be funny. Soul of the Keeper - Increase the minimum to 3 pennies (unless you're the keepers, in which case the minimum is still 1) Soul of Bethany - Create 3 wisps on each wisp ring. The random properties each wisp is limited to the kind of wisps that spawn in that ring only.

Rune shard can spawn crawlspace trapdoors, you just gotta stand on a floor decoration like ethwaz or we need to go deeper

Personally, I’d weigh combat categories lower then usefulness in non-combat scenarios. Most combats are just temporary buffs, but getting something from a non-combat resource usually stays with you. For example, the sacrifice room from soul of the forgotten might spawn items. Those items will be there for the rest of the runs. The stats from black rune will stay with you forever. The pickups that you got from jera will stay with you until you spend them for something else. However, if you use smth like soul of Azazel or soul of Eve for combat for a fight, they’ll expire. You just got temporary help instead of permanent help

amazing video, but also why is berkano so out of place?

I swore the rune shard got me a crawl space a few times on my 2nd dead god file (I only found out about the existence of them on that file cause it's newer, and I ended up using rune shards a lot because I'm holding off on unlocking the mid runes). I have awful memory so maybe I'm mistaking it for a blank rune I used in the past, but I swore I've used a rune shard on an irregular space (normal methods to find crawl space) and it worked. I'll have to retest it --- On another note, I think putting soul of ??? as a 0 in non combat isn't quite true, because having access to bombs is useful in general I think, def agree it's underrated for sure

the reason i always hesitated using soul of J&E is because 60% of the time it out right crashed the game still to this day have the fear it will crash me but always use it as Esau very VERY often drops consumables

Probably a useful note of soul of J+E; if he rolls into any items that drop stuff on getting them (eg squeezy) he'll instantly drop those pickups. Popping the soul when youve got a lot of items usually results in a ton of free pickups; mainly hearts and trinkets. So even if you dont wanna use it for bosses to avoid getting screwed by him getting dr fetus or something, its pretty damn good for that.

Funny suggestion I have but honestly might be useful for newer players would be an active item tier list for the Greed modes, or honestly Greed mode specific tier lists in general, it’s something most Isaac players don’t like playing but it’s very necessary for crucial unlocks like Holy Mantle or some of the reverse tarot cards!

Soul of Magdalene is great for Tainted Bethany, since it means more stored charges for items.

I cant explain how annoyed i am that both soul of the forgotten and soul of jacob and esau are so simular like for jacob and esau makes sence but for the forgotten? Like they could have made it you get the bone club for 7.5 sec or you can leave your body like he does with the soul with ctrl or give him the t forgotten body to throw one time or for one room like its boring that its a copy paste from jacob and esau and on that topic that soul is also kinda boring bc there is an item for that straw man, soul of jacob and esau could be like a one dash of dark esau from your poaition to the furthest part of the room and he cant damage you but does the damage to the enemies

I feel like some runes need a note about how good it is as one specific character, if it's significantly better. Cracked Key and Soul of Laz are two items that are so good on (T.) Lost. Cracked Key for getting Inner Child as an Extra Life, and Soul of Laz for more of the same.

Black Rune can definitely trigger from Blank Rune. At least through using Clear Rune. Because I had a run with 4 items in the secret room, and I was using Clear Rune over and over with Habit, and then all the items got deleted and I got stats and flies :/

What character rune you unlock first? Mine was soul of Apollyon, also the Apollyons are the my first and second all marks.

Ranking enemies could be a cool idea. Ive Been thinking that since it showed up in the poll.

What do you mean it excludes black rune? when i use blank rune it sometimes procs black rune too.

I'm sorry, but is that fucking Kirby's Epic Yarn music at 17:02????? I was just enjoying the video and then I got hit with raw fucking fire, thank you for this.

Something that Ansuz does that the world and sun dont do is reveal the super secret room.

How’d you know this is exactly what I wanted to watch at this very moment which is an hour after upload

I think Soul of ??? Should get a point for non-combat. The bombs can be useful, sort of like a The Tower card you have more control over. That's usually what I use it for. Get a tinted rock or a secret room and save myself a bomb

Love the intro and the *rune* replacements

23:50 ever heard of Tainted Lost?

Rune shard CAN actually spawn crawspaces, its why i actually use it

I ain´t lying when I say you are one of my best discoveries in RU-vid! You make such good quality videos that I though you had a lot more in your channel 😅You deserve many more subscribers man, keep going!

Love to see Soul of Lazarus when you have Damocles

“IM RANKING EVERY SINGLE 😁” “RUNE” 🗣️

The soul of Lazarus placement is actually crazy.

Getting Ehwaz on the rune shard can still make a crawlspace when you're above a floor decoration.

You probably were already told this but blank rune definitely uses black rune. I was going for an R key two items in a super secret room use blank rune uses black rune I'll never forget that.

Soul of laz can be used for damocles or devil deals i think it should be at 4th tier

yo whats the music in the background i like it

I'd say soul of ??? would be at least a 1 in non combat because you could use it destroy rocks, pots, open secret rooms, destroy dono, etc

Btw, berserk melee atack bounces enemy bullets away

mostly good but I believe most of the normal room clear soul stones must be dropped a tier (forgotten apollyon samson especially)

The fact that you put the soul of lillith above soul of isaac eden and dice shard is criminal Oh yea i love getting abel and ??? Only friend or the goddam useless angry fly

one step closer to the item ranking. Surely thats gonna come right ?

Lovin the Kirby's Epic Yarn music :)

these ranking videos are so good

blank rune can become black rune, learned this the hard way when i balled too hard and turned my 4 perthros and 2 soul of isaacs into flies

Soul of ??? technically has use outside combat because you can use it to open secret rooms

That soul heart from dagaz is worth a lot more in repentance. Plus dont get hit.

Good ranking, now how would you rank soul stones based off taste?

you can get crawl spaces with ruin shard

berkano s tier?!?!?

Rune shard can spawn crawl spaces, done it for me many timw

Birthright Rankin next????

classic matt video where matt matts mattingly

Soul of laz is great for the losts, especially tainted lost, because he pretty much can't have more lives

I feel like the only real play with Soul of Lazarus is if you have Damocles

Blank rune CAN do black rune and rune shard CAN creat crawlspaces

For the soul of Lazarus it completely negates Damocles downside

rune shard is for if you have less than like 3 runes unlocked

I got PSYFLY from a soul of lillith yesterday. Best soul rune ever

rune shard can make crawlspaces actually

You sure rune shard can't spawn a crawlspace? I remember spawning crawlspaces with rune shards

Okay, hear me out, hagalaz rune is amazing if you can obtain a cards against humanity card

can you do a music tierlist

they gotta make Hagalaz destroy them stone enemies

Soul of Isaac isn't necessarily better than Perthro or Dice Shard in exactly 2 use cases: As Tainted Isaac or with Glitched Crown/Isaac's birthright, using a standard reroll will reroll all options (so with Tainted Isaac/Isaac's birthright, you get 2 new options, with Glitched Crown, you get 5.) However, with Soul of Isaac, you only get 1 additional item.

no webcam Matt? :sadplum:

I think Berkano was somehow placed early in the vid, but otherwise nice vid

tbh I think ranking soul of lilith over the reroll runes is wrong. I agree it belongs in the top tier but I think getting a reroll is on average better than getting a random familiar. There are just too many familiars like Brother Bobby that are just "meh" for me to rank soul of lilith that Highly. Still, the floor on both types of runes are so high I understand the argument for it being the best rune.

but soul of laz + tlost or lost even

Can u rank tha flin stones

Blank rune does copy black rune effect

You should rank the characters

soul of laz in bottom tier is blasphemy my brother

Not even MENTIONING the freakin’ LOST, and especially T.LOST, when talking about Soul of Laz??? Wut????

That's not how you use those tier colors.

Me when I be Clearning a room

I swear blank rune includes black rune

Soul of ??? Should have one non combat usefulness, it spawns bombs dawg

I like soul of blue baby

You put Soul of Apollyon at a 0 for non combat scenarios, but I gotta disagree. There is a mod that makes the announcer say "Soullyon of Apollyon" upon using it, which makes me giggle every time, so that's at least a 4/5 in a non combat situation.

R U N E S *PS. And soul stones

Soul of samson max 3/5 the mele atack its just bad xp never used it cuz its not worthed

Me waiting for him to rank every item in the game

WHAT. BLANK RUNE NEVER CAN BE BLACK RUNE?!?! there have been like 10 instances in my life where I could have used it and gotten some crazy random item like a sacred heart. Gg edmund

i

RUNE! ._.

Cool video, jera is a 5 though.

you put the best rune in the game - algiz in 4???

ruuen

Soul of laz hater 🗣

yay!

Black rune is hella mid

jera not 5? take your meds

How in the hell is ehwaz better than jera

I am first like

These are some pretty stinky takes ngl, the placements for soul of Lazarus and soul of blue baby are WACK. A free revive on any character? INCLUDING THE TAINTED LOST? And boy howdy, soul of blue baby has been the cause of my demise one too many times for me to consider it a good rune, CERTAINLY not S. This is kind of weird considering that I’ve agreed nearly wholeheartedly with your past lists :/