The eternal serpent. Death strengthens it forever.
Ouroboros is a rare Reptile Beast card in Act I and Act II of Inscryption.
Every time Ouroboros dies, it returns to your hand with +1 Power and +1 Health. It will keep that stat boost throughout the entire game, even across chapters.
Any death - through any means - of any Ouroboros card will increase the strength of all existing and future copies of the Ouroboros, including Ourobot.
Ouroboros also has an elusive property in that only one is allowed to be added to the deck. Leshy will not offer Ouroboros more than once in a run and Goobert will not copy it.
Kaycee's Mod[]
Ouroboros stat boosts reset when starting a Kaycee's Mod run.
Ourobot[]
Ourobot is a Technology card in Act III of Inscryption. It shares all the same function and ability as Ouroboros, but with an adjusted cost of 6 Energy to play. As said before, all death stat boosts from Act I and II will carry over.
The Ourobot is Hidden inside Leshy's glitched Cuckoo Clock. Inputting a time of 4:00 on the clock will open it, allowing Ourobot to be taken.
Strategy[]
Act I[]
A fancy ring for the ring trial.
As the Ouroboros can be powered up indefinitely, a good strategy when starting out is to use it with cards bearing the Many Lives or Unkillable Sigil (for the two blood sacrifice requirement) to play and sacrifice it multiple times in as few turns as possible. Doing so can raise its stats to whatever values the player wishes, making it an exceptionally powerful card and providing an easy means of winning fights and gaining Teeth through overkill damage. Having Ouroboros in the deck while entering the Ring trial will cause the trial to automatically be passed.
Ouroboros can be obtained in Act I by receiving it from a boss fight or by giving a Golden Pelt to The Trader. If you bring a fused Golden Pelt to The Trader its stats will be doubled, and they will stay that way even when you gain Ouroboros in its normal form.
Act II[]
All strategies from Act I apply in Act II.
If Ouroboros is on the board at the beginning of phase two of the Grimora boss fight, Grimora will destroy it and then return a "corpse" copy of it to the player's hand. The original version of the card will also reappear in the player's hand due to the nature of the Unkillable sigil. The copy has its cost reduced to 0, making it a free card. This free copy can be placed back on the board at no cost, then immediately destroyed using the hammer, which will produce yet another free copy, but with both stats strengthened by 1. The original will be strengthened as well. This can be repeated indefinitely.
Within one turn, the Ouroboros' stats can be upgraded to any value the player wishes. This also fills the player's hand with an infinite number of free Ouroboros copies. Can be combined with the Necromancer card for more efficiency.
If Ouroboros is copied by P03's scanner, its side of the board will be filled with copies of the Ouroboros. If these are killed, a copy of Ouroboros is returned to your hand, upgraded, and all the Ouroboros copies on the board will be upgraded too.
The training dummy in Magnificus's Tower also provides a very easy way of leveling up Ouroboros indefinitely without needing to fight a boss. This method becomes more effective when utilizing cards such as the Pharaoh's Pets and the Necromancer.
Access to the Hammer allows the Ouroboros to be leveled arbitrarily high with minimal setup. The Tomb Robber, for example, can exchange Bones for Skeletons which can be played for free and sacrificed to play Ouroboros and produce 2 bones, the player can then use the hammer on Ouroboros to kill it, returning it to hand and providing another bone. Two of the three bones can then be used to produce Skeletons again and resume the cycle. This can be repeated any number of times netting one increase of Ouroboros and one extra bone per cycle, and can be easily set up against the training dummy who isn't given any attack power until some of his board has been eliminated.
Ouroboros can be obtained in Act II by going to The Trader in Leshy's Cabin and exchanging 8 foils for it.
Ourobot[]
If Ouroboros was previously upgraded to a significant degree, there is likely no reason to continue doing so with Ourobot, as it is a bit trickier to upgrade it in Act III.
One of the few ways to reliably upgrade Ouroboros in Act III is to create a free custom card with the Unkillable and Battery Bearer Sigils. This can allow leveling Ourobot to whatever is desired, albeit tediously.
It would be wise to merge Ourobot during the Mycologists fight. This can be simply done by putting it on the board during Phase 1, and assuming it's leveled enough for this to be worth doing, Phase 2 will start and Ourobot will have its stats and sigil granted to the Mycobot. As long as this card survives the fight (which it should with such high stats) then you'll have a very powerful card, Likely with many extra Sigils and a preferably reduced cost.
Kaycee's Mod[]
Ouroboros does not keep its stats with new Kaycee's Mod runs, meaning in most cases using Ouroboros requires being able to invest in sacrificing it. If Ouroboros is drawn during the endgame of a combat encounter, consider sacrificing cards already on the field and then the Ouroboros so it can start out stronger in future encounters. If Ouroboros is drawn late as the final Rare card choice of Map #3, it may not even be worth adding the card to the deck if sacrificing it isn't viable as an option.
A very nice Ouroboros with the Fledgling sigil.
The strongest cards that complement Ouroboros are the Unkillable Black Goat or Unkillable Warren/Beehive cards. This combination allows Ouroboros to be stat-inflated in one turn to whatever level is desired.
Sigil combinations[]
- Airborne causes Ouroboros to do damage directly onto the Scales. Useful in situations where Ouroboros is drawn during a turn where the next turn will result in fatal damage from Leshy and there are no open lanes to attack directly.
- Bifurcated Strike/Trifurcated Strike/Double Strike allows Ouroboros to do extra damage and gain more overkill with less risk of being blocked by enemy creatures.
- Corpse Eater causes Ouroboros to respawn immediately on its area of death.
- Fecundity is not often the best choice, but with other sigil combos, it allows the opportunity for filling the field with multiple Ouroboroses that can be sacrificed with the other to boost the stats of the others while they're still on the playing field.
- Morsel allows Ouroboros to greatly buff the cards it is sacrificed for.
- Trinket Bearer adds additional boons to sacrifice looping Ouroboros.
- Worthy Sacrifice combined with Fecundity lets Ouroboros upgrade indefinitely.
Trivia[]
- Ouroboros represents the eternal cycle of destruction and rebirth.