Claw

Claw is a common Defect attack that costs 0 Energy and deals 3 damage, permanently increasing the damage of ALL Claw cards by 2 for the rest of combat each time any Claw is played. This scaling mechanic means that multiple copies of Claw grow exponentially in power, turning a seemingly weak card into a fearsome damage engine over the course of a fight.

Claw is the centerpiece of the iconic 0-cost Defect archetype. All for One pulls every Claw from your discard pile back to hand for another round of scaling. Scrape draws 4 cards and keeps all 0-cost cards drawn, perfectly complementing Claw. FTL provides additional 0-cost damage with card draw, and Feral returns the first 0-cost Attack each turn to hand for infinite replays.

For the Defect, Claw decks are one of the most entertaining and surprisingly effective strategies. Against long boss fights like Kaiser Crab and Test Subject #C10, Claw's cumulative scaling can reach absurd damage numbers. The archetype shines when you find multiple copies early. Combine with Reprogram to add Strength scaling on top of Claw's native growth, and use Hologram to recover All for One from discard for repeated 0-cost card retrieval.