Difficulty: Normal
Offense: Very High
Defense: Low
Complexity: Low to Moderate
Viability for Endgame: Moderate
Viability for Endless: Moderate

Overall: This is a solid and fun character that requires solid play choices to be viable in late game and beyond.

The use of gold gathered during a run as a modifier to offensive and defensive key cards is an interesting mechanic, requiring the savvy Blackbeard player to try to maximize gold generation while contending against few defensive options. While Resistance as a mechanic provides some defensive buffer, the simple truth is that this character is more glass cannon than iron cannon; you'll spend much of your first act simply trying to amass sufficient defense to survive.

The balance really shines in Act 2, where I'm often left feeling like i'm on the teetering point between maximizing my gold earning and keeping myself alive, all while smashing opponents with high-damage attacks.

I feel like the mod designer really missed a more interesting mechanic; if the gold-ramping cards were based on total -current- gold than total -run- gold, the decision as to whether or not to spend gold on a key item would become much more important. My suggestion is to buff those gold-ramping cards but change them to run on current gold; then we could see real sweat-browed decisions between buying that key item or keeping a powerful set of cards.

While variability in the game in unavoidable, I feel like the current set-up means that even one or two lucky gold-generating random events in Act 1 will make a run quite effortless.

I also feel as if the weapons mechanic used, while interesting, provides too much of a fork-split in the character path.

Playing a successful Blackbeard really requires you to commit, hard, to one or two key mechanics. Trying to sustain all of them in your deck will lead to mediocrity and inevitable demise.