Soul Strip's Void Element: The Card-Draw Archetype

Soul Strip has five elements. Four of them do exactly what you’d expect — Fire burns, Ice blocks, Shadow poisons, Holy heals. And then there’s Void.

Void doesn’t have a clear damage type, and not one of its cards gives you Block. What it does is draw cards — a lot of cards — and turn hits into Poison through a debuff called Hex.

The Design Problem

I needed a fifth element that wasn’t “another damage type.” Fire already owned direct damage and Burn. Shadow had damage over time through Poison. Adding another damage element would blur the lines between them.

The gap was in action economy. Every turn in Soul Strip you draw 6 cards and get 3 energy. Most elements spend those resources the straightforward way: play your best cards until the energy runs out, end turn, repeat. Nobody was trying to see more cards.

That’s what Void does. It stretches the 6-card, 3-energy turn by drawing extra cards and generating energy mid-turn.

Hex: The Bridge Mechanic

Nine of the 13 Void cards apply Hex. The four that don’t are the pure draw engine: Void Insight, Foresight, Soul Collector and Void Resonance.

Hex is a debuff on the enemy, and its stacks are turns: it loses one each turn. While it lasts, every hit that gets through the enemy’s Block also gives it 1 Poison. More stacks make Hex last longer, not hit harder. Hex deals no damage by itself. It turns every other source of damage into Poison, and since Poison ticks don’t count as hits, it never feeds itself.

This creates a natural bridge between Void and Shadow. A pure Void deck still gets Poison ticking through Hex, without needing Shadow cards. Mix Void with Shadow and both fill the same Poison counter: every hit adds Poison from Hex on top of whatever the Shadow cards apply directly.

One detail matters for sequencing. A card resolves its effects in order, so a card whose hits come before its own Hex gets no Poison from those hits unless the enemy was already hexed.

13 Cards, Three Roles

Card Draw Engine (6 cards)

The core of any Void build. These cards cycle through your deck faster than the game expects:

• Void Insight (1 energy, Common) — Draw 2, gain 1 energy. Innate, so it’s always in your opening hand, and Exhaust, so it’s once per fight. It pays back its own energy and leaves you up a card.
• Void Dancer (1 energy, Common) — Draw 2, apply 1 Hex. The workhorse — card advantage plus debuff in one card.
• Foresight (0 energy, Common) — Draw 1, gain 1 energy. Exhaust. It replaces itself and leaves you an extra energy.
• Void Exchange (0 energy, Common) — Discard 1, gain 1 energy, apply 1 Hex. Exhaust. A zero-cost converter that turns a dead card into energy and a debuff.
• Soul Collector (1 energy, Rare, Power) — For the rest of the fight, draw 1 card every time you Exhaust a card. Eight of the 13 Void cards carry Exhaust, so it has plenty to feed on.
• Void Resonance (2 energy, Epic, Power) — For the rest of the fight, draw 1 card whenever you play a card. Any card, not just Void ones.

Damage Dealers (5 cards)

Void’s damage cards aren’t flashy, but each one works with Hex:

• Void Pulse (1 energy, Common) — 5 damage, 1 Hex. The bread-and-butter attack, with four copies in the Void starter deck. Low damage, but it sets up Hex for every hit after it.
• Spectral Blade (2 energy, Rare) — 13 damage, 1 Hex, plus 4 damage for each card in your Exhaust pile, counting up to 5. Retain keeps it in hand while the pile grows, and it Exhausts after use.
• Chaos Bolt (2 energy, Rare, Cursed) — 2 hits of 10, 1 Hex, then 2 more hits of 8 if you still have at least 1 energy left. Curse penalty: you gain Vulnerable.
• Succubus (2 energy, Epic, Cursed) — 3 hits of 9, 2 Hex. Curse penalty: you take 2 damage.
• Void Strike (2 energy, Common) — 12 damage, 2 Hex, plus 3 more damage if you still have at least 1 energy left.

Finishers (2 cards)

• Void Maelstrom (X energy, Epic) — Spends all your energy and repeats its effect for each point: 5 damage, 1 Vulnerable, 1 Hex. Exhaust. Every hit after the first lands on a Vulnerable, hexed enemy.
• Void Sovereign (3 energy, Legendary) — 22 damage, 3 Hex, and you gain Crown: from then on, the first card you play each turn is free. Exhaust. The element’s finisher, and the one that keeps paying in the turns after it.

Void Storm: The Synergy

Like every element in Soul Strip, Void has an elemental synergy that triggers when you play 2 or more Void cards in a single turn. They don’t have to be played back to back.

Void Storm fires on the second Void card and on every one after it. The second card draws 1, the third draws 2, and from there the bonus stays at 2 per card.

Play 2 Void cards, draw 1. Play 3, draw 3 in total. Play 4, draw 5.

This creates a positive feedback loop. You draw Void cards, play them, trigger Void Storm, draw more Void cards, play those too. The opening turn shows it best: draw 6, play Void Insight for 2 more, then Foresight for 1 more plus 1 from the storm. That’s 10 cards seen, with 4 energy still left to spend.

The ceiling is high, but it depends on deck density. If half your deck is Void, the storm keeps rolling. If you only have 3-4 Void cards mixed into a larger deck, the synergy fires less often.

Cursed Cards: The Risk Layer

Two of Void’s 13 cards are cursed — Chaos Bolt and Succubus. Cursed cards are stronger than their rarity suggests, but come with a penalty every time you play them. They never show up in card rewards or the shop: a run gets them through events, usually as the price of a big reward. Once a cursed heroine is in your collection, you can also pick her as the leader of a run.

Chaos Bolt hits twice for 10, applies Hex, and if you still have energy left, hits twice more for 8: 36 damage for 2 energy. The second pair lands after its own Hex, so it adds up to 2 Poison as well. The catch: you gain 1 Vulnerable, so the enemy’s attacks on its next turn deal 50% more damage to you.

Succubus hits three times for 9 (27 total) and applies 2 Hex. Its hits come before its Hex, so on a fresh enemy they add no Poison. Play it after Void Pulse or Void Dancer and the same three hits add 3 Poison. The catch: you take 2 damage every time you play it.

Neither penalty shrinks over time: card level doesn’t touch it, and both upgrade branches keep it. The way around it is the Blood Vow relic, which plays the first Cursed card each turn without its penalty.

Building a Void Deck

The ideal Void draft priority:

1. Void Insight — guaranteed opening draw that pays for itself
2. Void Exchange — 0-cost enabler that converts dead cards
3. Soul Collector or Void Resonance — sustained draw for longer fights
4. Spectral Blade — damage that grows with every card you Exhaust
5. Void Sovereign — finisher for Act 2-3 bosses, and a free card every turn after it

Chaos Bolt and Succubus aren’t on the list because you can’t draft them. When an event offers one, the multi-hit Hex stacking is worth a look.

Void has no Block of its own. The Void starter deck runs six Void cards and borrows four Frost Barrier cards from Ice for defense. Beyond that, Void pairs best with:

• Shadow — Hex and Shadow’s own Poison fill the same counter, and Shadow’s Exhaust payoffs like Dark Harvest run on the same fuel as Soul Collector.
• Fire — Inferno’s bonus damage is a separate hit, so on a hexed enemy every Inferno trigger adds Poison too.

Avoid heavy Holy splashes — Holy’s Barrier and healing don’t contribute to the draw engine, and the energy is better spent cycling.

Try It

All 13 Void cards across 4 rarity tiers are in the full game. Soul Strip is on Steam.

Soul Strip: Waifu Card Battler

A deckbuilding roguelike where every card is a waifu with her own element and personality. Battle through dark fantasy, craft combos, collect and level up your favorites.

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