With over 300 relics cluttering the loot pool, blindly grabbing shiny objects in Billiontail’s post-Journey to the West deckbuilder is a guaranteed ticket back to the lobby. You don't need another generic guide; you need the exact best artifacts tier list Relief veterans use to snap the game’s difficulty in half. Whether you're stacking armor with the Chechi Rocket Team or manipulating status cards with Lu Wei, these are the run-defining items that turn a struggling Green Bull Demon into an unstoppable force.
Why You Need a Best Artifacts Tier List for Relief
Relief is not your standard card battler. Set in a bizarre, cyberpunk-infused mythological world of corrupted deities and urban legends, the game forces you to survive a grueling 14-day cycle spread across five Acts. With over 1,000 cards and 300+ artifacts available, the mathematical combinations are staggering.
However, the margin for error is razor-thin. If you reach Act 4 with a deck full of disjointed mechanics, bosses like the Illusory Mirage will mathematically out-scale you. You cannot afford to draft artifacts that simply look cool; you must draft for compounding synergy. The game features over 50 random events inspired by Chinese folklore, and choosing the wrong artifact can turn a beneficial shrine encounter into a run-ending disaster.
A proper tier list doesn't just rank items by raw damage. It evaluates how an artifact interacts with the game's five distinct spirit companions, how it mitigates dead draws like the "Indecision" card, and how it scales into the brutal Hell Mode difficulties. The artifacts ranked below are evaluated on their consistency, their ceiling when combined with custom card affixes, and their ability to salvage a bad draft when RNG turns against you.
S-Tier: The Best Artifacts Tier List Relief Speedrunners Use
S-Tier artifacts are the undisputed kings of the loot pool. Finding just one of these early in your run virtually guarantees a deep push into Act 5. Data from the recent Next Fest demo shows staggering win-rate impacts when these are found before Act 2: the "Abacus +45% / Peach +32% / Ring +23%". If you see these, take them immediately.
| Artifact Name | Best Companion | Effect Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Celestial Abacus | Universal | Reduces energy cost of drawn cards after playing 3 Skills. |
| Corrupted Peach of Immortality | Lu Wei | Converts Burn and Exhaustion status cards into damage multipliers. |
| Ox-King’s Iron Nose Ring | Chechi Rocket Team | Grants Multi-Layer Armor upon deck shuffle. |
Celestial Abacus
Energy cheating is the most powerful mechanic in any deckbuilder, and the "Celestial Abacus" is the pinnacle of this concept in Relief. Whenever you play three Skill cards in a single turn, the energy cost of all currently drawn cards is reduced by 1. When paired with the "Cunning" card (which already reduces a card's cost to 1) and "Upcycle" (which pulls from the discard pile for 0 cost), the Abacus allows you to go infinite almost effortlessly. In a game where high-impact attacks cost upwards of 3 energy, reducing your entire hand to zero turns the Green Bull Demon into a machine gun of mythological tech.
Corrupted Peach of Immortality
Lu Wei thrives on transforming troublesome status cards into beneficial modifiers, but the "Corrupted Peach of Immortality" takes this to a broken extreme. Instead of just removing "Burn" cards from your hand, the Peach consumes them to grant a permanent 5% damage multiplier for the rest of the combat. In long boss fights against corrupted deities, your deck will inevitably fill with junk cards. This artifact turns your deck's worst liabilities into your primary win condition, completely neutralizing the penalty of exhaustion mechanics.
Ox-King’s Iron Nose Ring
Defense in Hell Mode is notoriously difficult because standard block numbers simply cannot keep up with boss attack patterns. The "Ox-King's Iron Nose Ring" solves this by granting two stacks of Multi-Layer Armor every time you shuffle your discard pile back into your draw pile. If you draft a hyper-thin deck with plenty of card draw, you can trigger this shuffle multiple times a turn, making your character entirely invincible to multi-hit attacks.
A-Tier: Core Staples of the Best Artifacts Tier List Relief Rankings
A-Tier artifacts are exceptionally strong but usually require a specific companion or deck archetype to reach their full potential. They are the engine blocks of mid-run scaling, providing the necessary momentum to survive the mid-game slump.
| Artifact Name | Best Companion | Effect Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Feline Jade Idol | Cui Beibei | Generates energy upon feline spirit summons. |
| Auto Egg Roller | Universal | Deals damage upon discarding non-Skill cards. |
| Nine-Ring Khakkhara | Universal | Triggers elemental explosions on debuff stacking. |
For example, the "Feline Jade Idol" is the undisputed best-in-slot item for a summoner build. It triggers whenever "Cui Beibei Summons" a spirit, allowing you to "Gain 1 Energy" once per turn. This perfectly solves the energy drought that usually plagues summon-heavy decks in Act 2, allowing you to flood the board with spectral cats while maintaining enough energy to play defensive cards.
Meanwhile, if you build around hand manipulation and "Discard Non-Skill" cards, the "Auto Egg Roller" will automatically "Deal 5 Damage" to random enemies for every card tossed. It sounds small, but when discarding hands of five or six cards using specific companion abilities, it clears out elite minions for free without spending a single point of energy.
Finally, the "Nine-Ring Khakkhara" is your primary engine for an "Elemental Chain Reaction". Relief features a complex elemental system where applying water, fire, and lightning debuffs in sequence causes massive area-of-effect wipes. The Khakkhara lowers the threshold for these explosions, making it a mandatory pick for status-heavy decks.
B-Tier & Niche Synergies
B-Tier items are highly situational. They often come with significant drawbacks that require specific pathing, precise card removal, or heavy reliance on the town upgrade system to mitigate.
The "Lotus Lantern Shard" is the perfect example of a high-risk, high-reward B-Tier item. When picked up, it immediately "reduces max HP by 15 percent", making you incredibly vulnerable to burst damage from Act 3 elites. However, in exchange, it "increases Shrine Blessing effects by a massive 50 percent".
Because the game features 14 different Blessings that can alter card costs and trigger extra value, that 50% boost can create game-breaking combos by Act 4. It is best paired when "removing the Indecision card" from your draw pile, ensuring you don't draw dead hands when your health pool is compromised. However, taking this artifact requires careful pathing to avoid "early boss execute ranges", making it a strictly veteran-only pick.
Another notable B-Tier mention is the Corrupted Tech-Scroll. This artifact upgrades every card in your deck permanently, but curses you to take 1 unblockable damage every time you play a card. Unless you have the Multi-Layer Armor from the Ox-King's Iron Nose Ring to absorb the chip damage, the Tech-Scroll will kill you faster than the bosses will.
How Roc's Aid Shifts the Best Artifacts Tier List Relief Meta
You cannot discuss the best artifacts tier list Relief offers without mentioning the Roc's Aid system. This mechanic introduces massive variance into every run and forces you to adapt your strategy on the fly.
By the time you reach the "Act 3 Midpoint", you will have encountered several massive avian shrines offering one of the "24 Aid Powers". These powers fundamentally alter the rules of your run and can instantly promote a C-Tier artifact into S-Tier.
For instance, one specific Aid Power causes all discarded cards to deal their energy cost as direct damage. Suddenly, heavy, unplayable cards become lethal ammunition, and discard-based artifacts become the most valuable items in the game. Choosing a high-risk power is all about "Pushing the deck to absurdity", resulting in a state where "High-Risk Synergy Achieved" flashes across your screen as you melt corrupted deities in a single turn.
Always review your current artifact loadout before selecting an Aid Power. A defensive artifact loadout might allow you to take a deeply greedy, health-draining Aid Power, while an aggressive artifact list might require a defensive Aid Power to survive the Act 5 difficulty spike.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the single best artifact for Cui Beibei? The Feline Jade Idol is unparalleled for Cui Beibei. Because her playstyle relies heavily on summoning lovely feline spirits to clutter the board, gaining free energy every time a summon occurs allows you to play your heavier, high-impact spells much earlier in the fight.
How many artifacts are currently in Relief? As of the June 2026 launch, there are officially over 300 artifacts in the game. This massive pool is why targeted drafting and understanding artifact tiers is so critical—relying on RNG to give you the perfect item is mathematically improbable.
Do Hell Mode modifiers change artifact viability? Absolutely. In Hell Mode, bosses like the Illusory Mirage deal significantly more damage and shuffle junk cards into your deck faster. Defensive artifacts like the Ox-King's Iron Nose Ring jump in value, while slow-scaling offensive artifacts drop off precipitously because you simply don't have the time to set them up.
Can I upgrade artifacts at Shrines? Artifacts themselves are static and cannot be upgraded. However, the game's Shrine system allows you to acquire up to 14 different Blessings, which enchant your cards. Many artifacts have direct synergies with these Blessings, effectively multiplying their power.
What is the best artifact for the base Green Bull Demon deck? If you aren't leaning heavily into a specific spirit companion, the Celestial Abacus is the best generic artifact. The Green Bull Demon's base deck has a high concentration of cheap Skill cards, making it incredibly easy to trigger the Abacus's cost-reduction engine on turn one.
Sources
- Billiontail Developer Updates & Patch Notes (Steam Community Hub)
- Relief Official Press Release & Next Fest Demo Data via 2P Games
- r/adeptless Reddit Community Playtest Analytics
- Relief Official Steam Store Page (June 23, 2026 Launch Build)