Shards of Order Items & Cards Catalog

The Shards of Order demo ships a finite but deep equipment and card pool: forty-two base cards, five armors, four amulets, and the injection rules that merge gear into your party’s shared deck. This guide catalogs demo scope, explains how items alter draw probabilities, and links hero-specific usage to Soldier, Scholar, and Exile pages. For construction theory, pair with Deckbuilding and the Deck Calculator.

Full release on Steam PC July 28, 2026 will expand pools; this page reflects demo app 3672010 only. Track additions on Release Date.

Shared deck and injection rules

All three demo heroes draw from one deck in combat. Gear injects cards — equipping armor or amulets adds (or sometimes replaces) cards available in fights until you swap gear at map nodes. Injections persist across encounters until changed.

Key implications:

• Picking up armor is a deck edit, not just armor stat.
• Duplicate effects from multiple amulets may bloat hands — see thinning advice in Deckbuilding.
• Defensive injections help entire party during knockouts (Combat System).
• Scholar and Exile-specific cards still live in shared pool — plan who plays what.

Base card pool: forty-two cards

The demo includes forty-two standalone cards before gear. Categories conceptually include:

Attack and time spenders — damage at varied time costs; backbone of countdown trading.

Setup and enablers — low-time plays chaining toward free draws after three cards.

Defense and mitigation — guard, heal analogs, or countdown delay as design allows.

Revive and knockout support — critical as revive costs rise with repeat knockouts.

Hero-flavored options — rage payoffs, scholar mana spenders, exile arrow spenders.

Exact card names evolve with patches — verify in-game codex and update this wiki after major demos. Compare power on Tier List as community ranks emerge.

Armors: five demo pieces

Demo includes five armors found on Demo Map routes. Armor typically:

• Injects defensive or brawler cards favoring Soldier sequences.
• Adds bulk options reducing knockout risk before Boss Guide fights.
• May alter effective time costs on key plays — test in trash before bosses.

Selection heuristic: If encounters cause double knockouts, prioritize armor injecting stabilize or revive-adjacent cards over raw damage.

Amulets: four demo pieces

Four amulets offer usually lighter stat packages with sharp utility injections:

• Draw smoothing or time-efficient cantrips.
• Countdown manipulation for elite encounters.
• Scholar mana acceleration or Exile arrow recovery analogs.

Amulets excel when a single card fixes a boss pattern gap — swap before second boss attempt per Demo Walkthrough.

Hero-specific card synergies

Soldier — rage and strength

Cards scaling off rage/strength reward front-loaded sequences. Injections adding rage builders or high-strength finishers amplify Soldier without isolating deck — other heroes can still play low-time setup.

Scholar — three mana types

Scholar generates three mana types from ally damage. Injections that add ally-triggered hits or shared damage multiply scholar output. Without them, scholar cards clog hand.

Exile — four arrow slots

Exile manages four arrow slots as combat resource. Injections adding arrow regeneration or low-time shots prevent slot starvation in long boss phases.

Detailed loadouts: Builds guide.

Items versus persistent RPG progression

Because Shards of Order is not a roguelite, gear choices persist along the map until swapped. Revisit nodes to re-equip before tough encounters — no wipe resets inventory. Fracture stacks post-demo may interact with redraw-heavy decks built from item injections — read Laws and Fracture.

Encounter-linked item priorities

Encounter type	Item priority
Trash packs	Low-time enabler injections
Elites	Countdown control amulets
Miniboss	Defensive armor + revive access
Bosses	Pattern-specific injections — Boss Guide

Nine demo encounters across twelve enemy types mean situational sidegrades matter more than best-in-slot fantasy.

Using the deck calculator

Enter base forty-two plus known injections in Deck Calculator to estimate draw rates for:

• Three-card free draw chains
• Revive card availability
• Scholar setup density
• Exile arrow replenishment

Future expansion

Full release should add cards, armors, amulets, and law-modified variants. Follow Wiki for datamined or verified lists post-launch and Review guide for whether demo items represent endgame power level.

Related guides

• Getting Started — first gear pickups
• Combat System — time costs on played cards
• Controls — equip UI
• Guides hub — full index