Tainted Lazarus

What you start with

The mechanics that actually govern this character.

• Two separate characters in one run. Living form: 3 red hearts, range 4.50. Dead form: 2 soul hearts, damage x1.50 multiplier, tears -0.1, speed 0.90, luck -2, range 6.50. Separate items, trinkets, stats, actives and consumables for each.
• Starts with Flip in the pocket slot. On 1.7.9 Flip is a 6-charge item; the reduced 4-charge version for Tainted Lazarus is a Repentance+ change and does NOT apply to you.
• Every room clear swaps forms, including each individual wave of Challenge Rooms, Boss Rush and Greed mode waves. Flip swaps on demand and also swaps the real and ghostly items on pedestals.
• Quest items are shared regardless of who grabbed them: The Polaroid, The Negative, Key Piece 1/2 and Knife Piece 1/2 all count for both forms. Items with the lazarussharedglobal tag (mapping items, deal-chance items, Voodoo Head) are shared too, but their stat bonuses are not.

How to play them

• The gimmick in plain language: you are running two half-built characters that trade places every time you finish a room. The run is won by making BOTH of them functional and by standing in the right body when the important pedestal appears.
• Flip is your scarcest resource at 6 charges. Do not burn it just to change bodies - clear a room for that. Spend it on doubling item pickups.
• Buying a real item in a Shop or Devil Room also buys the ghostly copy for free. Pay once, Flip inside the room, take both. This is the single biggest economic edge the character has.
• Empty pedestals still flip as long as you never leave the room, so grab the real item, Flip, and take the ghost as the other form.
• Active items charge from room clears even while their owner is inactive, which effectively gives you two active item slots on a shared clock.
• Health is a resource you can steer: Flip into the healthier body before a nasty room, and Flip to a soul-heart-only body to preserve devil deal chance. If a form is reduced to zero during Flip's transition animation it survives as the other form but dies the moment you flip back, and nothing can prevent that.
• Micromanagement traps: enemies inside a Treasure or Curse Room mean clearing it flips you, potentially putting the item on the wrong body. Check for enemies before you commit.

Items to hunt for

Strong on this character specifically, not just strong.

• Birthright: the inactive form becomes an invulnerable ghost that walks with you and shoots. Both forms get the effect from one pickup, and actives gain double charge per room clear. It is the best item in the game for this character.
• Diplopia or Crooked Penny: duplicate a strong item so both forms can hold it. Set it up by clearing rooms until Flip is charged AND the form NOT holding the duplicator is active, then kill the boss - the automatic flip puts the duplicator holder in place for the Devil or Angel item.
• The Battery: Flip charges beyond full are kept across form swaps, letting you bank a second Flip.
• Binge Eater: in a Devil Room, taking a food item removes a heart container and instantly gives it back, so the deal is effectively free and the mirrored Devil pedestals stay available for a Flip grab.
• Esau Jr.: turns a form into Esau with higher damage, extra health and flight, and the change is permanent even if the item is dropped. Take it as early as possible, because it randomises your items and a late randomisation can hand you something like Ipecac with no mitigation.
• Old Capacitor makes Flip behave like a 12-charge item on 1.7.9 (it is 8 in Repentance+, which you do not have) but floods the run with Lil Batteries you can spend to micromanage at the end of a floor. Watch Battery pairs with it on the other form.
• Sharp Straw and Glass Cannon are timer-charged offensive actives that let a lagging form still contribute in an endgame boss fight. Red Stew's damage bonus does not decay while its holder is inactive.

Traps to refuse

Picks that are neutral or good elsewhere and bad here.

• 4.5 Volt: it only charges actives when its holder deals damage AND it blocks room-clear charging, which destroys the free dual-active charging that makes the character work.
• Death's List on 1.7.9: the bonus reward never fires unless you hold Birthright or both forms have their own copy. The one-copy-is-enough behaviour is Repentance+ only.
• Extra lives (Dead Cat, 1up!, Lazarus' Rags) only revive whichever form picked them up. Put them on the form with more heart containers, and be aware the other form is still one bad room from ending the run.
• Blood Puppy: its rage state carries across a flip and it can materialise on top of you as you swap.
• D4, D8 and D100 only reroll the holder, and Steam Sale is not shared. Sacred Orb, Glitched Crown and TMTRAINER only act when their holder is the one who sees the item first.

Cheese and techniques

Verified against 1.7.9 on console — anything patched, PC-only or Repentance+ only is called out rather than listed.

• Ghost-buy: buying a shop or devil item pays for the ghost too. Flip in-room and walk out with two items for one price.
• Eternal D6: if the reroll makes the item vanish, the pedestal stays, so you can still Flip in the ghost item. That works on shop and devil pedestals, which is effectively a free steal.
• Genesis resets both forms and spawns items scaled to the combined inventory, and Flip can be used without limit inside the Genesis room.
• No Flip charge in an Angel Room? Bomb the Angel Statue and beat the angel - completing the fight flips you (though it does not flip the pedestal, so you only get the body swap).
• Bug you can abuse on 1.7.9: teleporting exactly as the room clears (Mausoleum and Gehenna teleporters, or Stitches) prevents the forced flip. Clearing a room under Paralysis also keeps your current form.

Getting the marks

• 7 secrets. One secret covers Isaac, ???, Satan and The Lamb together (Torn Pocket). Mega Satan gives Wooden Chest, Boss Rush OR Hush gives Soul of Lazarus, Greedier gives the XX - Judgement? card, Delirium gives Flip, Mother gives Torn Card, The Beast gives Salvation.
• The Beast run needs both bodies healthy: flips happen between each boss including the Ultra Harbingers, and Dogma's healing and Holy Mantle land on whichever form was NOT active for the kill, because the flip happens before the item is granted.
• With Birthright, Boss Challenge Rooms require BOTH forms to be at 1 heart or less, not just the active one - relevant if you are farming them for Boss items.
• Mom's Heart and normal Greed give no secret but still have to be filled for the note; hard-mode marks fill both versions and carry no extra reward for tainted characters.