Adrenaline
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Contents
Overview
Adrenaline is a tricky card to both use and understand, but like the other alchemy cards, its potential can be devastating. After applying the spell to a creature, Adrenaline will generally allow the creature to attack multiple times in a turn. As one of life's best cards, it can double or even quadruple a creature's damage output if used correctly.
General Use
Quick Facts:
- Creatures with Adrenaline attack multiple times per turn; the number and strengths of subsequent attacks depend on the creature's original ATK.
- Status ailments will wear off faster (Freeze and Delay) or be applied multiple times (Poison and Regeneration) per attack.
- Certain creature abilities may be applied less than the suggested amount of times, depending on the ability in question.
- Creatures with Adrenaline will also be affected by an opponent's shield for the same number of attacks.
Adrenaline is quite a paradoxical card to use. Life is about producing big cards for cheap, yet Adrenaline, according to the card, has its best synergy with small cards. The following table shows how Adrenaline corresponds to attack power, the number of attacks, and damage output.
| ATK Power | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| # of attacks | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| ATK #1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| ATK #2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| ATK #3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | |||||||
| ATK #4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||||||||||
| ATK #5 | 0 | |||||||||||||||
| Total damage | 0 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 9 | 11 | 12 | 15 | 17 | 12 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
The table is separated into bins, which are the areas in the table that get the same number of attacks. While the lowest number in each bin is generally the worst attack power to put Adrenaline on, the top of each bin is a sweet spot. The three sweet spots are at 3, 7 and 8 attack power, as they yield the highest reward. These rules for Adrenaline only change between bins:
- Bin 1: Attack power between 1 and 3. Every attack power gets four attacks. The attack is equal to the attack power.
- Bin 2: Attack power between 4 and 8. Every attack power gets three attacks. The attacks are equal to the original attack power, 2/3s of the attack power, and 1/3 of the attack power, rounded up. For instance, a four attack creature deals 4 damage, then 3 (2 and 2/3rds rounded up), and then 2 damage (1 and 1/3rd rounded up). A 7 attack creature deals 7 damage, 5, then 3, for a total of 15.
- Bin 3: Attack power between 9 and 15. Every attack power gets two attacks. The attacks are equal to the original attack power, and then 1/3 of the attack power, rounded up. So a 12 attack creature deals 16 damage, and a 10 attack creature does 14 damage.
- Bin 4: Attack power above 15. Every attack power gets one attack. The attack is equal to the original attack power. In other words, Adrenaline doesn't add extra attacks to creatures with an attack power of 16 or more.
Again, these are the basics of Adrenaline. Things get more complicated when abilities are added for each attack. These include direct apply-on-attacks such as Venom, the Devourer passive, weapon skills such as Fiery, quanta-emission skills such as Bioluminesence, and even variable-ATK abilities such as Acceleration and Steam. Unfortunately, there isn't a consistent rule for all of them. Venom and Devourer are intense skills that can inflict major damage if brought out early, so their abilities only occur two times. Thus, a Devourer with Adrenaline will only drain two 
quanta, and a Puffer Fish/Scorpion/flying Arsenic will inflict poison twice. These abilities act on the first and last attack.
Quanta emitting creatures, like Ray of Light and Firefly, emit quanta with each attack, as opposed to each turn, so they're also more effective with Adrenaline. A Gnome Gemfinder with Adrenaline played on it will gain 4 
per turn, and a Brimstone Eater will generate 4 
quanta (assuming their ATK doesn't go above 3). A single Adrenaline played on a Damselfly will eventually pay for a Firefly Queen. Malignant Cell also has odd properties with Adrenaline. Instead of summoning one Malignant Cell, four will be summoned. Because Malignant Cells increase exponentially, a single Adrenaline makes the process four times faster. Thus, quanta-generation skills and 'Infest' act on all four attacks.
Weapon skills, such as Fahrenheit's Fiery, will incorporate the bonus damage into its final Adrenaline calculation: with a total of 40 quanta to deal 9 damage with Fahrenheit, it acts like a 9 attack power creature, despite the attack power on the card always remaining 5. Dagger, Dirk, Hammer, Gavel, Short Bow, and Longbow abilities are ignored by the game when it calculates how many attacks the creature should have. They all get the bonus at each attack, however.
The card is most complicated when you use it with Steam Machine or other 'variable attack' creatures. See the bottom 'Misc Tables' section for details.
Adrenaline also affects statuses. Poison, freeze, and stasis may say they affect a creature for a number of turns, but they really mean they poison/freeze/delay the creature based upon its attack. An adrenaline-affected creature unfreezes faster than normal, and takes poison more times than normal.
Synergies
Although the creature may seem bland, the Horned Frog | Giant Frog remains one of the top choices to combine with Adrenaline from the insane quanta-ATK ratio. For 5-6 
quanta, players can spawn a creature capable of dealing 12 (or 11 upgraded) damage, acting as an equivalent (or greater!) powerhouse than the Emerald Dragon. Despite the two-card necessity, the combination is well-known in various Mono-life decks; if the opponent lacks CC, Frogs given Adrenaline can shave off significant health portions within several turns, making them more of a threat than other typical hard hitters or utility creatures.
One of the best exploits of cards that use their ability on attack is Druidic Staff | Jade Staff being affected by Flying Weapon. A flying Druidic Staff, with 2 attack, will attack four times, healing for 20 life. Combined with Momentum, the staff will hit a sweet spot, and it will deal 12 damage and heal for 20 health. Upgraded it only heals for 15, however, as it has an attack value of 4 (thus, dealing damage 3 times and healing only 3 times with Adrenaline). In either case, this combination has invented the 'Adrenastaff' deck, which focuses on flying the staves and placing the alchemy spell on them to recover more health than the opponent can remove in any given turn.
Finally, Deja Vu | Elite Deja Vu is a nasty card to combine with Adrenaline. Although it may seem inferior in terms of its damage output (having only 2 ATK), its ability, Deja Vu, allows it to double its damage with a single 
. Both the ability and the summoning of the creature has a ludicrous cheap cost of 1 quanta, and thus a single Supernova can fuel the quanta required to play the Deja Vu and then use the ability. Thus, an Adrenaline-affected Deja Vu will inflict a whopping 16 damage (24 damage if given momentum).
Other Cards With Synergy
While there are many creatures whose abilities combine well with Adrenaline, Minor Vampire is an impressive pick: with Nightfall, Minor Vampires also have three attack, the same sweet spot as the frogs, but also capable for healing that amount. The combination is harder to pull off, but the healing allows for one of the easier elemental mastery decks in the game. Pufferfish, once upgraded, deals poison damage on attack and has three attack power. Water and Life already have excellent synergy together, because of Purify, Heal, and Forest Spectre. Players can easily have 12 damage hitters afflicting 2 poison per turn, and either enough healing to stall until victory, or growth to clean up the late game.
Although the above are some of the more popular strategies, Adrenaline can also make an excellent synergy with enemy creatures to form a more devious deck. Because creatures can also be affected by shields multiple times with Adrenaline, playing a Thorn Carapace or Fire Shield and putting Adrenaline on an opponent's creature is a risky but innovative way to kill it. Similarly, using Aflatoxin on a creature afflicted with Adrenaline (as well as on its resultant spawn), will quickly reduce it to a cell that can rapidly multiply, and (eventually) fill up one's field with 1|1 creatures that can be easily killed, blocked, or manipulated for various tasks. Antimatter can cause a creature to deliver multiple doses of healing to the caster when combined with Adrenaline. Also, Creatures with an even amount of attacks have also been known to get stuck frozen due to Procrastination, meaning they are never able to use their active ability.
Conclusion
With every creature introduced into the game, Adrenaline somehow finds a way to weave its magic into the arsenal. Because of its diverse range of effects from damage enhancement, indirect CC, or even utility enhancement for special creature abilities, players should carefully read and figure out which abilities and which cards can benefit the most out of a pumped-up monster, as its uses can vary wildly and wonderfully on the battlefield.
Popular Deck
4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 4vj 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bt 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5c7 5lf 5lf 5ok 5ok 5ok 5ok 5ok 5ok 8pr
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Misc Tables
The game uses a four step process to determine how much damage is dealt for a variable-ATK creature (a creature who's ATK changes at the end of the turn/after attacking):
- 1. Deal damage.
- 2. Does the attack power get another attack?
- 3. If so, decrease attack power and repeat.
- 4. Otherwise, decrease attack power and end.
The following tables each provide damage-breakdowns for non-normal ATK totals, involving Steam Machine, Acceleration/Overdrive, and Antimatter, all with Adrenaline.
Another interesting effect is adrenaline and acceleration/overdrive :
For curious people, about negative attack interaction with Adrenaline/Epinephrine (table by Malignant, many thanks):
Tables for Antimatter alongside Acceleration/Overdrive (w/adrenaline) (table by willng3, thanks again):
Adrenaline & Acceleration & Antimatter
Adrenaline & Overdrive & Antimatter
Note: For attacks less than -18 for Overdrive and less than -17 for Acceleration, Adrenaline does not grant any extra attacks. Therefore attack increases as normal for those values and as such are not included on the charts above.
